The Imperium is a terrifying thing — particularly for the xenos scattered across the galaxy.
Many people harbour a persistent misconception about this. Auxilia die in droves on the battlefield. Sometimes even the Astartes fall in great numbers against particularly formidable enemies. Add to that the corruption of the human upper classes, their contempt for ordinary lives, and the crushing weight of Imperial taxation — on some worlds, open rebellion wasn't even a consideration. If a worker still had the strength to twitch a finger after a day of labour that could only be described as the systematic destruction of human dignity, the planetary governor was considered merciful.
This gives people the wrong impression — that the Imperium is, at the end of the day, nothing special. Doesn't it suffer catastrophic losses against serious enemies? Doesn't it get run in circles?
The most obvious examples are the Orks and the Eldar. One is an inexhaustible tide of evolving brute force that operates on no discernible logic. The other is a glass cannon of the highest order — extraordinary technology, maximum mobility, catastrophic firepower, and almost no ability to absorb punishment in return.
Then there are the Necrons — the physical universe's technological apex, long since shed of flesh. They remain largely unknown to the Imperium for now, though Perturabo had excavated plenty of their tombs. Unfortunately, their technology remained beyond his comprehension — for the moment.
And throughout the Great Crusade, there were always pocket empires — xenos or human — that could tax even an entire Astartes Legion.
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Randan was the mightiest of them.
Every time such enemies appeared, they dealt the Imperium serious blows. Yet the Imperium always managed to grind out a bloody victory on the back of sheer scale.
The administrative bloat and inefficiency only made it worse. No one could quite understand how an interstellar empire still relying on such primitive methods of communication had survived this long.
And so the misconception took root: the Imperium was always tottering on the edge of collapse. Every time a powerful enemy emerged, everyone assumed this time the Imperium was finished.
Yet in practice, these enemies were dismantled utterly — by the Astartes Legions and the Imperial Navy. Right up until their final moments, most of them probably couldn't comprehend how the Imperium kept pulling off reversals from seemingly impossible positions.
Perturabo didn't entirely understand it either.
But that was no longer something he spent much time thinking about.
"My star-fortresses and fleet will shatter every enemy that stands before me."
"My Titan Legions and my sons will grind xenos and heretics to dust — without even giving them time to repent."
"And within the Imperium itself, no one will dare contradict me."
Perturabo sat with Jaghatai and Dorn, making absolutely no effort to conceal the scale of his current influence in the Imperium.
"Even the Emperor?"
Jaghatai was still unfamiliar with the Imperium. When he had first met the Emperor, he would admit — a perfect man radiating absolute conviction has a way of making every human instinctively want to give everything for him, in that first meeting.
So Jaghatai had come back with him.
Aboard the Vengeful Spirit he had learned the broad strokes of his Legion's situation and the state of the Imperium.
In truth, he had felt something was off even then — but standing before the Emperor, he had kept his doubts to himself.
After the welcome feast, he had come to the Iron Blood at this brother's invitation.
"Even the Emperor."
Perturabo's voice was steady. The mare's milk in his cup was not to his liking — too gamey — but out of consideration for Jaghatai, he swallowed his distaste.
"And if someone objects?"
Jaghatai actually believed some of what this brother was saying. Everything he had heard about this brother's actions on Terra seemed to corroborate it.
"Then they can take it up with my volcano cannon. We'll see whether their mouth is harder, or my Titans' guns."
Dorn — being the straightforward sort — instinctively moved to push back against Perturabo's barely-concealed words.
But Jaghatai — Chagatai, First Ancestor Khan of Chogoris — was faster.
"Isn't this just dictatorship? The Imperium isn't even yours, brother. Do you really intend to act this overbearing even in front of the Emperor? What exactly is the difference between you and a slaveholder running a hegemony?"
Jaghatai said it without a trace of reservation. Behind the three Primarchs, the escorting Imperial Fists and White Scars felt their spines stiffen involuntarily.
Yesugei and Jubal Khan's backs were already damp. Father is this bold?
But Perturabo only gave a dismissive smile.
"A slaveholder? That's how little you think of your brother?"
"Let me tell you something, Khan. Inside the human Imperium — if I have a dream tonight, I can make it reality by morning."
"Today I could point at a mutant, or even a pointy-eared white-stalk Eldar, and declare it an 'Imperially-recognised psyker-adapted abhuman' — and by tomorrow, its citizenship papers would be filed without a single flaw."
"By the same logic, if I were to stand before everyone right now and accuse a senior Administratum official of treason against the Imperium — even if he were innocent — within two Terran hours, evidence of his crimes would be delivered to my desk. Every single item on that list would be airtight under any investigation you care to run."
"Aside from the Emperor, there is not a voice in the entire Imperium that will say 'two' after I say 'one.' If I say go east and someone takes so much as a wrong step today, they'll be handing in their resignation and clearing out their desk by nightfall."
Perturabo didn't bother softening it. He displayed the full extent of his current position in the Imperium without a shred of restraint — the naked exercise of a power minister's authority, blatant overreach at every turn. The assembled Astartes around them went very quiet.
"Does that make you proud? Does bullying the weak make you feel strong?"
This time Dorn was faster than Jaghatai.
"I gave them food and shelter, Dorn. I gave them homes to live in. I gave them clean water and bread. I gave them work — work that lets them support themselves and their families. I even gave their children the right to an education."
"Is it so wrong for me to enjoy the feeling of that control?"
"That is not a justification for doing whatever you please."
Dorn held firm.
"Fair enough — a dictator beautifying himself like this is certainly shameless. Ideological control is what it is. No need to dress it up in grand language and make everyone think you're somehow virtuous."
Father, please stop.
Jubal Khan and Yesugei desperately wanted to kneel. They were White Scars — junior figures with no standing here. They could not afford to antagonise this man.
"Don't forget — whose fleet are you all flying right now? Did you think the Imperium and the Mechanicus could have provided this much materiel on their own?"
"It was me. I consolidated those resources. I made the production possible. Without my technology and my raw materials — without me physically hauling those resource worlds in from beyond the Halo Stars — you'd all still be relying on outdated tactics to fight your wars."
"Even your flagships were improved by me. The armour on your bodies, the power plate on your Astartes — all improved by me."
"Without me, getting a cup of clean water on Terra would have required requisitioning from across the Imperium. I enjoy the fruits of my work. Is that a problem?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
The immovable stone and the untamed Khan of Chogoris answered in perfect unison.
Elsewhere — the front lines.
"OPEN FIRE! These filthy xenos need to be wiped out to the last!"
"Second Company Commander — where are those nova electromagnetic cannons?! Get them up here and blast that fortress open! I want every one of these dregs ground into paste!"
A three-point-six metre Warsmith was bellowing at his brothers.
"If we haven't broken through in two hours, pack up and go back to Olympia for basic training with the recruits!"
Aboard modified super-heavy main battle tanks, the Iron Warriors of the Fifth Warband were engaged in what was, for them, a perfectly routine assault.
Behind them, twenty-two artillery pieces — each barrel over three hundred metres in diameter — were being pushed into position by Engineering Titans.
This one was a bit tricky. The enemy's shielding system was noticeably more advanced than anything the Imperium typically deployed — their shield technology was approaching Iron Warrior-tier.
Faced with xenos who refused to bare their necks and be cut down like sensible opponents, the Iron Warriors didn't negotiate.
Taciturn by nature but volcanic in temper, their answer was to resurface the entire terrain with artillery fire — then go in personally in power armour and Tyrant Terminator plate to finish the job by hand.
These xenos — not even worth a name or a nickname — had actually entertained the notion of matching wits with the Iron Warriors in a contest of tactics and strategy.
Against an invincible fleet and a ground armour force of this magnitude, everything they did was pointless.
What kind of sensible force strips weapon arrays from their warships to deploy on the ground?
Watching those dozens of guns with their absurdly oversized barrels, the xenos commander had sunk into absolute despair. These tin cans hadn't announced themselves — they'd just arrived with star-fortress-scale firepower point-blank in their faces.
No warning. No preamble. Half their space navy had ceased to exist before they'd even registered what was happening.
Not even a meaningful counterattack was possible. This was a one-sided slaughter, total and complete, over the entire pocket empire.
The Iron Warriors had demonstrated absolute dominance from the moment they made planetfall.
The xenos' weapons couldn't punch through the Iron Warriors' void shields. They couldn't even leave a mark on their armour.
The enemy commanders had given up trying to understand the tactical calculus. There is no calculus. There are no levels here. This is not a contest.
Main battle tanks that had been superior to anything they'd faced before were destroyed in a single exchange against an armoured force that outnumbered and outclassed them in every metric. Their ground-based heavy units were barely out before the Eldar Titans — moving at speeds that defied their size — carved them apart.
Even the psyker-adapted abhumans had already punched through to the xenos command and control nodes, killing their way through the leadership clusters, working to paralyse their command structure.
They had already succeeded. Orders on the battlefield were dissolving into static.
There wasn't even a token resistance left to offer.
They know our tactics better than we do. They're stronger than us in every engagement. They outnumber us. How are we supposed to fight this?
Surrender — but they won't accept it!
No wait — they responded.
"The Imperium does not accept the surrender of xenos. Wash your necks and save us the effort. Better yet — just drop your shields now, and I'll let my armoured column roll over you. I think we'll enjoy the sensation. It's the only service you can provide us."
Then the channel went dead.
The plasma macro-cannons, nova electromagnetic guns, and heavy volcano cannons had finished charging.
"Blow them apart. Do not stop firing until I say so — even if the barrels melt!"
The Warsmith's gaze was ice-cold, fixed on the thick shimmer of the shield wall ahead. Today, these xenos would learn: not every force gets to provoke the Imperium and walk away.
They thought they could colonise and expand into Imperial space? Enslave humans?
Your death was always coming.
Their only misfortune was running into the Imperium's guns and blades in their current state — specifically, the Iron Warriors, Shredder-Grinder Division. Catastrophically bad luck.
Because the Iron Warriors did not leave xenos to slip through the net. They didn't leave any illusion of a chance, any gap through which survival might be imagined.
Absolute suppression meant watching your own people be massacred. Soldiers compressed into scrap by tank treads. Children burned alive by melta fire. The elderly, women, all of them torn apart by bolter rounds — a pound of flesh yielding ten pounds of bolt fragments.
The shield eventually overloaded. Nothing withstands sustained bombardment from hundreds of Titans and twenty-two Grand Cannons indefinitely.
The entire mega-hive became rubble.
The xenos commanders were vaporised. The remaining xenos attempted to use urban warfare and civilian populations as cover — hoping to bleed the Iron Warriors out, or perhaps drag them down into mutual annihilation.
What greeted them was the Castellax Battle-Automata and Thanatar Siege-Automata's heavy bolters, the sacred Dreadnoughts' melta fire and charges, and siege-hammers the size of vehicles sending bodies airborne in every direction.
Upgraded Centurions and Tyrant Terminators poured in — tank-equivalents in human form, running rampant through the hive interior.
The sounds of anguish and screaming never stopped across the thirteen hours of the Iron Warriors' offensive. The entire star system burned. Even the atmosphere was blotted out by rolling black smoke, a shroud of haze hanging over everything.
The Warsmith personally caved in the skull of the xenos overlord — a psyker — with his fist. The war was declared over.
He surveyed the aftermath. Even for someone as coldly detached as he was, he felt a flicker of genuine regret. They didn't have time to linger — otherwise he'd have had every surviving xenos rounded up and run decimation games. Watching them fight each other was genuinely entertaining, particularly when they were pitted against siblings or family members and had to gang up against them just to survive. The Iron Warriors never quite got enough of that.
But leisure was short. Their mission load was heavy. Most of the time they barely had a chance to personally design the infrastructure projects — a genuine shame.
After all, civil engineering and sculpture were among the few things they truly loved.
Throughout the Ghoul Stars, the fires of war burned across every system. Even a number of Necron tomb worlds had been excavated by the Iron Warriors — substantial hauls of forbidden technology, brought to light.
The Necrons were formidable. But without bodies of flesh, facing the rapid response of Space Marines left them hamstrung. Without functioning higher cognition, most of them simply couldn't comprehend what it meant when their Overlords and Phaerons were decapitated and their resurrection protocols were destroyed.
The Necrons were a dying civilisation. When Perturabo had first learned that his sons had dismantled several Necron dynasties, he had felt something almost approaching wistfulness.
They couldn't even muster their former strength anymore. A civilisation of madmen, now reduced to something more like sleepwalkers — still haunting the dreams of an empire that no longer existed, their very minds decaying with every passing age.
The extinction of the Necrons was only a matter of time. They had no future.
Ferrix had personally beheaded an unnamed Necron Phaeron — the creature had only just roused from its sleep when the Iron Warriors had already destroyed its resurrection protocols. When it died, it died permanently.
Was a Phaeron formidable? Yes. But also, not quite.
At least when facing Ferrix, it couldn't mount anything resembling resistance. Its gauss rays were deflected by his repulsor field. Its phase great-blade couldn't keep pace with an Iron Warrior's speed. Even its Lychguard couldn't deal them any real harm. The only genuine threats were the Phaeron's retinue and its Deathmarks — but against equally elite Iron Warriors, their meagre numbers bought almost no time before being annihilated.
And none of them would be coming back.
Ferrix sent the Phaeron's skull to Perturabo. Perturabo examined it briefly, then returned it to Ferrix. It now hung in the command centre of the Will of Iron.
Xenos trophies worth keeping were rare for the Iron Warriors — but a Phaeron's skull made the cut.
What actually interested Perturabo more than anything was Necron technology — specifically the Blackstone Fortresses and the World Engines. He hadn't found a single example of either yet. If he ever did, he fully intended to see whether they could be reverse-engineered.
There was no reason the Necrons and the Eldar could develop these things and he, the holder of the Malevolent Craft, couldn't figure them out.
But the Necrons were a secondary concern for now. The xenos of the Eastern Fringe and the Maelstrom were having a considerably worse time.
Nobody quite knew how those xenos were coping with their current existence.
Imperial fleets were campaigning everywhere. More than six Astartes Legions were waging war across the region simultaneously — engaging anything they encountered. The most terrifying of all — the Iron Warriors — had already brought a full thirty percent of the Eastern Fringe under their control.
Operating out of the webway, they had issued countless Exterminatus orders across the region.
No fewer than millions of xenos species and mutant strains had been erased by their hands — too many to even count, let alone name.
The Indomitable Fleet occasionally ran into brother fleets — and the encounters left those brothers genuinely stunned.
The Iron Warriors' operational scale had actually led several brother Legions to conclude that they were preparing to unify the Eastern Fringe and declare independence.
The Iron Warriors did not bother explaining themselves. The martial intensity they radiated left the xenos of the Ghoul Stars and the eastern reaches of the Veiled Region unable to articulate their suffering.
Then there was the Maelstrom. The Warp taint and storms that permeated the region held absolutely no fear for the Iron Warriors.
Their relentless advance and overwhelming firepower had xenos across the area scrambling to flee.
But Perturabo's iron fist had no concern for xenos survival rates.
The Maelstrom was a critical long-term target. Perturabo had already earmarked it as a second Olympia — and he had no intention of tolerating a region riddled with abstract, sanity-broken, psyker-saturated creatures that barely had a recognisable form anymore.
When the Iron Warriors' spearhead reached the Maelstrom, the xenos there actually organised something resembling a counteroffensive.
Then they saw the Iron Warriors' fleet.
The counteroffensive evaporated. This entire region — traditionally a haven for space pirates — was being run through at speed by an unstoppable force.
The Dark Eldar were the most numerous enemy they encountered — not in raw numbers, but in terms of factional presence.
These raiders, who used the webway to burn and pillage across the galaxy, found themselves facing Iron Warriors who advanced methodically, never overextended, and had absolutely no mobility problem.
They were driven to ruin, screaming.
Against storm shields and Tyrant Terminators, Dark Eldar ranged attacks were a joke.
The firepower of the Thanatar and Castellax automata made everything the Dark Eldar prided themselves on — their mobility — look pathetic.
The Dark Eldar had assumed, with characteristic arrogance, that an Iron Warriors fleet couldn't possibly keep up with them.
Then they saw the fleet. They were unable to speak.
And then — when the Iron Warriors demonstrated that they could pursue them into the webway, and showed no sign of getting lost — the Dark Eldar reached complete despair.
One powered gauntlet later: no more pleasure to pursue, no more pain to deal, no more fear of Slaanesh to dodge.
Dark Eldar fell to their knees, begging the Iron Warriors not to kill them.
What awaited them was melta fire hot enough to make even the Unclean One uncomfortable, and the powered gauntlets of Tyrant Terminators.
Dark Eldar just ask to be turned to scrap by a powered fist.
This was Iron Warriors consensus. They also wanted to know empirically — given that Dark Eldar had almost no body fat and extremely dense bone structures — exactly how many fully-charged powered gauntlet strikes they could absorb.
A kind of powered gauntlet enthusiasm swept through the Iron Warriors campaigning in the Maelstrom. Pure research interest.
In short: the Maelstrom was in absolute chaos because of Perturabo's overwhelming intervention.
Most xenos had been beaten into a state of functional helplessness. Virus bombs and orbital bombardment — the mild end of exterminatus — had not stopped for a single day.
In the Maelstrom alone, the Iron Warriors had driven at least a million xenos species to extinction. Some of the creatures were strange enough to genuinely surprise even Ferrix.
How does something even evolve into that? Something that twisted, that abstract, that grotesque?
Didn't matter. The Iron Warriors' Exterminatus did not discriminate by species.
The Iron Warriors pressed forward, step by step, completely unafraid of Warp corruption — and the xenos had no vocabulary left for what was happening to them.
During this campaign, the Iron Warriors made contact with a new kind of Imperial abhuman.
The Squats.
These creatures — most of whom lived near the Galactic Core — drove themselves to the brink of death exploring every corner of the galaxy in pursuit of mineral wealth and personal property. Deeply proud. Deeply grudge-holding. And when they first encountered the Iron Warriors, they didn't even bother sending a signal first.
Ferrix — already mid-campaign in the Maelstrom — was incandescent.
You see an Imperial fleet and you don't get down and pay respect? These xenos are asking for it.
ENGAGE.
The Squats were beaten to the point where they were nearly prepared to go before their Ancestor Cores and make decisions that betrayed everything their ancestors stood for.
Squats who already struggled to reproduce due to their reliance on cloning technology were in genuine danger of total extinction at this rate.
Squats were indeed grudge-holders, and indeed fearless. But in the face of absolute superiority, courage is not a currency.
The Imperial Guns, Swords and Cannons didn't earn that title for nothing.
Would Perturabo be this audacious without the firepower to back it up? Would the Iron Warriors and Olympia field expedition forces to campaign across the galaxy if they didn't have the capacity to sustain it?
In short: the Squats roaming the Maelstrom had their pride ground off. They sued for terms — requesting that the Iron Warriors' fleet grant them the privileges of honourable prisoners.
They then attached an enormous list of conditions and stipulations that read nothing like a surrender document from a defeated party, and demanded that the Iron Warriors' commanding officer come in person to apologise and formally receive their surrender.
Ferrix did not get angry.
He read the document calmly — a document that could generously be described as a hegemon's ultimatum — and a very strange smile crossed his face.
He had developed a genuine fondness for this particular kind of arrogant enemy.
"Father — I've encountered Squats."
He filed a report to Perturabo, covering the relevant facts about the Squats he had encountered.
"I request that the Imperium officially decline to recognise this species as Imperial abhumans. Begin issuing Imperial edicts now — initiate hunting and offensive operations against the Squats. After I finish taking the Maelstrom, I'll leave a garrison to begin construction there, then press on toward the Galactic Core."
"That means I'll need additional fleet assets. I hope Father can approve this when the time comes. These short ones — I intend to finish the job. Their Ancestor Cores, I will recover and deliver to you."
Perturabo, mid-conversation with his brothers, approved his son's request on the spot — and, in front of those same brothers, immediately issued orders to the new Terran Administratum.
From this point forward, the entire galaxy would be hunting Squats. Permanently. No trade, no communication, no engagement of any kind — unless the Squats swore of their own free will to serve humanity as slaves. Otherwise, the Kill Order would remain in effect until the Squats were completely extinct.
"You truly are a unilateral tyrant, brother."
Jaghatai's mouth was quick.
"A species that may well qualify as abhumans, and you've condemned them to extinction because your son had a moment of irritation. Don't you think you've become completely unreasonable, brother?"
Dorn added from the side.
"I've told you both — if I say they're xenos, they're xenos. They struck my people. You expect me to treat them as kin after that?"
"Have you two lost your minds? You want me to tolerate something like that?"
Perturabo — equally volcanic in temper — would have been a disgrace as Iron Lord if he could swallow something like this.
"They're famously good at holding grudges, these short ones. Let's see — when my fleet is parked over their homeworld, do they get on their knees like dogs, or do they die defiant?"
"Mistakes have consequences. And frankly, I've had my eye on the mineral wealth near the Galactic Core for a long time. Better in my hands than occupied by xenos. Under my development, I can provide your expedition fleets with at least three times the materiel output."
"Unless you're both going to tell me you don't want a fleet and weapons that would dramatically reduce your sons' casualties. If you're that stupid, you might as well hand your sons over to me to command."
The two who had been about to argue fell silent.
Jaghatai had, at this point, lost any warmth he might have had toward the Imperium he'd just returned to.
He had once been a ruler himself. He understood the nature of power at a fundamental level. It was nothing good — more corrosive to the human mind than any poison in existence.
This brother was clearly beyond saving.
"On that note — I raised this with the Emperor as well. I wanted to requisition some of the Legions from under Horus. The Emperor refused, naturally. I think he's gone senile."
The assembled Astartes within earshot quietly switched off the audio channels in their helmets. These were not words they should be hearing.
"Better off with me than being sent to the front as cannon fodder under Horus. At least with me they'd be treated equally — proper equipment, proper roles, each according to his ability."
"But the Emperor had some kind of fit and wouldn't give me even that much authority. Always going on about the Warmaster, Horus, beloved firstborn."
"How is it that half the Imperium's current fleet strength came from me? That I'm the one who carved out the Eastern Fringe? And I can't requisition a few brother Legions? Is my efficiency somehow beneath his? Does the Emperor genuinely think I'm not as capable as Horus?"
You are, in fact, not Horus.
Dorn and Jaghatai each thought this, silently, at the same moment.
Horus was their finest brother. That was beyond dispute. Even the Angel — the most perfect of all the Primarchs by most reckonings — was close to Horus. That proximity was itself a form of validation.
And the Warmaster's loyalty to the Emperor, his contributions to the Crusade — these were visible to everyone. At the very least, Horus didn't absorb every world he reclaimed into his own personal domain.
But this brother standing before them?
Setting aside his capabilities and his generosity — both of which were genuinely beyond reproach — he looked like a traitor from every conceivable angle. He embodied the concept perfectly, from the inside out.
Meanwhile, Dantioch had run into a problem of his own.
Newly promoted to Supreme Commander, he now carried responsibilities heavier than anything he'd shouldered before. That meant the mercy and the hesitation he'd allowed himself in the past — those had to go.
Otherwise, they might cost the Fourth Legion dearly.
A commander cannot afford softness. But right now, Dantioch was hesitating again.
"Commander — we need to issue the Exterminatus immediately. This planet has no value worth preserving. It's barren and undeveloped. The humans living there aren't worth the ammunition it would take to save them."
"The xenos remnants have fled to this planet — it's an ideal opportunity to finish them off in one sweep. Otherwise they might use that strange technology again to slip through our cordon."
Cassius stood beside him, pressing the case.
They had been pursuing a xenos force across the outer Eastern Fringe — a species with extraordinary mobility and some kind of instantaneous displacement technology. It had initially given the Fourth Warband's fleet serious difficulty adapting.
But within moments of assessment, Dantioch had directed the fleet into an encirclement.
Unusual capabilities were just parlour tricks, in the end. Against the Iron Warriors — barring something genuinely absurd like a god-tier psyker or technology operating on a completely different tier of physics — their fleet had no equal in the current galaxy.
You can teleport? You're fast?
Then I'll seal every possible exit with lances and macro-cannons. I'd like to see where you teleport to.
And so, at the cost of several times the usual expenditure in both firepower and time, Dantioch resolved the engagement. Boarding parties were specifically instructed to capture the technology intact.
Then the Iron Warriors were caught off-guard. Before they'd even reached the enemy's core installation, a column of fire erupted — and the entire core was reduced to ash in an instant.
One ship — moving at speeds and through methods Dantioch couldn't immediately account for — executed a multi-stage displacement. It didn't just escape the net Dantioch had constructed. It used its extraordinary transit velocity to outrun the Iron Warriors' pursuit entirely.
After considerable effort, it was cornered on a wilderness planet.
Which, naturally, had humans living on it. Medieval humans. Regressed completely.
The xenos remnants had taken them hostage.
The Imperium as an institution would not waver from its objective over a threat like this. But Dantioch was not the Imperium.
He still remembered what his father had said — years ago — about protecting humanity.
The journey to Terra had only deepened his understanding of what that meant, and what his father truly was.
Perturabo talked tough. But the one who cared most deeply about humanity — actually cared, underneath everything — was him.
After seeing the humans on Holy Terra — the state in which they lived — Dantioch had genuinely lost faith in the Emperor and the Imperium as institutions.
What was the point of slogans that shook the heavens if the ones shouting them couldn't provide real order to the people standing right in front of them? A man who preaches salvation for humanity while failing to deliver basic security to the humans within his sight has forfeited the right to speak of salvation at all.
That was why Dantioch was hesitating. This was not weakness. And this wasn't a special case or an exceptional circumstance.
These humans can be saved. And saving them wouldn't even put his brothers in danger.
These people were worth saving. Every population brought under Olympia's protection had its purpose. Olympia's subject worlds never reached population saturation — in wartime, even marginal population growth was a testament to Perturabo's administrative skill. Genuine growth was a fantasy. These people would matter.
"Cassius — I need you to remember. In any circumstances, humans are worth saving. Because we were made for war and for the protection of humanity."
"Whatever the Emperor's underlying intentions were — I don't need to know them. What Father wanted us to be is what matters. And Father loves us more than he loves humanity — which is why, in situations like this, he always tilts the outcome toward whatever is most favourable for us."
"I can't know exactly what decisions my brothers are making on their own campaigns across the galaxy. I'm not going to second-guess them when they face something like this."
"But we, Cassius — we cannot do this."
"If spending some ammunition is all it costs to save these humans, I don't think Father would consider that a bad trade."
"Because human lives have never had a hierarchy. We are no different from these mortals. Humanity should never be placed on a scale and weighed for value."
"Father's pride is real. But his willingness to sacrifice for humanity — that's real too, Cassius."
Dantioch placed a hand on his old friend's shoulder.
"Alright. I understand. I'll lead the ground team personally. Not one of these xenos walks away — and we bring the mortals out."
Cassius didn't understand Dantioch's thinking. But if his oldest friend had this kind of conviction, and it wasn't causing any real strategic problems, then he trusted Dantioch wouldn't let it compromise his judgment when it truly mattered.
The advance was fast. The xenos' close-combat capability was poor. The Eldar psykers — deployed first, teleporting without beacons and landing precisely on target regardless — tore through the defences ahead.
The Eldar under Perturabo's banner had nearly doubled their population in just a few short years. And the Hungering Lady seemed to have retreated entirely from their proximity — which only confirmed to them that they had chosen correctly.
And the treatment was excellent. Death benefits included!
Just imagining spending the afterlife as an overseer in a production facility — cracking the whip over daemons and Dark Eldar — filled them with inexplicable enthusiasm.
The xenos fell quickly. Even in his heavy Tyrant Terminator plate, Cassius's agility was completely undiminished — his swordsmanship borderline transcendent, sending enemies tumbling in every direction.
The xenos overlord — which bore a passing resemblance to an ancient Terran creature called a bat, and was also a psyker — attempted one last stand on the strength of its abilities. Cassius walked straight through a Beta-level psychic assault and took its head off in a single stroke.
Looking at the humans cowering before him, Cassius felt nothing in particular stir. The pride of a Space Marine had grown a toxic vine of contempt in his heart.
He wasn't alone. Across the entire Fourth Legion — and across virtually every Astartes Legion save the Salamanders — the same weed had taken root.
Astartes as selfless as Dantioch and the Salamanders were vanishingly rare. Truly exceptional.
Reviewing the data recovered from the xenos vessel, Dantioch decided this hadn't been a wasted effort after all. The technology, at least, had genuine utility.
He uploaded the data to the logic engines, dispatched the ship to Olympia, and returned to the campaign.
The Eastern Fringe was vast — a region almost comparable in scale to the rest of the Imperium combined. This was the best time to be breaking new ground. After all, his father had said he intended to take half the Eastern Fringe within a century. Dantioch had no intention of letting him down.
And just as the entire Ghoul Stars were being thrown into chaos by Iron Warriors striking in every direction simultaneously — Perturabo started another argument with the Emperor on Terra.
He had been in the middle of discussing future Great Crusade logistics with his brothers when an Imperial edict arrived from Terra, issued jointly by the Emperor and the Sigillite.
The moment Perturabo read it, his temper ignited instantly.
Ignoring the bewildered looks from Dorn and Jaghatai, he vanished from the Iron Blood. His silhouette appeared outside the gates of the Imperial Palace on Terra.
The Custodians snapped their Guardian Spears toward the newcomer.
When they identified who it was, they activated the force fields on their spear-tips and called for reinforcements immediately.
"My lord — what brings you here?"
"GET OUT HERE!"
Perturabo suppressed his fury with visible effort. His voice was low. And deeply threatening.
"What do you want now? Perturabo — you already have the Custodian enhancement surgeries and the Star Torch fabrication schematics. What is it this time?"
Malcador appeared beside Perturabo. What does this overbearing Primarch want now?
Perturabo raised the edict.
"Did you authorise this?"
His hand was trembling slightly. The muscles in his face twitched in ways he wasn't fully controlling. He was fighting very hard to keep a lid on himself.
Malcador glanced at it. Then nodded.
"Yes."
"And where's the bastard? Where's he hiding? Call him out."
"You should show some respect for your father, Perturabo."
Malcador had no intention of indulging this.
"And what do you want this time? Are you here to extract more technology from me? Is there anything left here you haven't already taken?"
The Emperor emerged from a subterranean access point, having been interrupted mid-work on the webway — a rare moment of genuine inspiration, now broken. He was not pleased.
"This edict — you issued it?"
"Yes."
Perturabo could no longer contain himself.
He hurled the vellum document at the Emperor. His three-metre legs launched him into the air in a flying kick aimed squarely at his father's torso.
"I'LL—"