The Inquisition and the War Council both understood, in private, that the calculus was simple: one unworked mineral world traded for the temporary collapse of the Tau Third Sphere Expansion. By any objective measure, the deal favored the Imperium. The problem was not the outcome. The problem was the precedent, and the question of who had authority to make that kind of decision without consulting the appropriate structures. When an external threat was present, certain accommodations were made. When the threat was gone, the accommodations became liabilities.
They were also not entirely certain what Nolan was. His beheading record across the Damocles campaign was not the record of an ordinary Astartes officer, and several of the more perceptive figures on the War Council had quietly concluded that the Raven Guard's reverence toward him was not manufactured. Something about the situation pointed toward the word Primarch, even if no one was prepared to say it in a formal session. Without a direct order from Terra granting him institutional standing, they could choose to notice without being required to act on it, and that was the choice they made.
They understood, most of them, that if a Primarch eventually returned to full authority in the Imperium, past choices about how to treat him in his absence would not be forgotten. They made those choices anyway. Bureaucracies operated on the near term, and the near term was what they had.
Nolan did not spend time on them. Regent Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade would reach this sector eventually, and Guilliman had his own opinions about how the Imperial administrative apparatus was functioning, and those opinions came backed by considerably more institutional weight than anything Nolan could apply from the outside. He left the bureaucrats for Guilliman and turned his attention to what needed doing before he left.
The most immediate matter was the Raven Guard's succession.
Chapter Master Severax had made the arrangement in advance. Third Company Captain Kevan Stryker was named to take the position, and Nolan spent a significant block of time in private conversation with him before any ceremony occurred. When that meeting was finished, he convened the gathering in the ancient hall of the Avenger: every Raven Guard in range of the fleet, Kor'sarro Khan and his White Scars present as witnesses, and one Inquisitor who had maintained genuinely respectful relations with the Raven Guard and whom Nolan had specifically invited, partly because his presence was appropriate and partly because it would irritate several people who had no business being irritated.
Before the great statue of Corax the Raven King, with the Primarch Nolan standing witness, Kevan Stryker was confirmed as Master of Shadows of the Raven Guard Chapter.
When the ceremony was concluded, Nolan told Stryker plainly what he required.
He needed Raven Guard warriors for campaigns that would be more demanding than anything currently on offer in this theater. Stryker's response was not to ask how many Nolan needed and work backwards from there.
He pulled from every source available to him. Fifty veterans drawn from the First and Second Companies combined into a supernumerary formation. From the reserve Seventh and Eighth Companies, one hundred and fifty more, including two company champions and two Dreadnoughts in their ancient armored sarcophagi. Two hundred Astartes in total, which for a Chapter fielding fewer than a thousand warriors represented the practical limit of what could be detached without critically weakening the Chapter's ability to function.
Nolan accepted them. He also issued a private order to Stryker that had not been discussed in the ceremony.
The Raven Guard were released from the constraints of the Codex Astartes. With immediate effect. The Chapter was authorized to recruit and expand without reference to the Codex's prescribed limits, and if operational circumstances and resources permitted a return to Legion-scale numbers, Nolan made clear that he considered that outcome desirable rather than irregular. In addition, he transferred a quantity of the Raven Guard fleet's recovered gene-seed stockpile and the associated surgical equipment for Astartes enhancement procedures to the list of materials being loaded for departure.
The day before Nolan left, Kor'sarro Khan came to him.
He brought a small formation: a Stormseer of the Third Company, the Company Champion, and three veteran warriors who had apparently decided on the matter before being formally asked. Kor'sarro Khan delivered them with the White Scars' characteristic absence of lengthy explanation. He said that the Primarch's battlefields were the kind his brothers wanted to fight on. Nolan welcomed all five.
The Warp portals opened inside the Nicor's ancient hall in rapid succession, the air pressure dropping and rising with each tear in the fabric of reality, and the Raven Guard came through in groups, stumbling onto the metal deck plates with the particular gracelessness of forced transit.
Two hundred grey-black warriors sorting themselves upright across a wide area of floor, followed by eighteen Black Templars and twenty Lamenters, and then the White Scars Stormseer detachment moving through last in careful escort of the sealed containers holding the gene-seeds and surgical equipment.
Nolan stepped through and let the skull helmet retract.
He looked around at the assembled warriors and spoke in a voice that reached every corner of the hall without effort.
"This is the Void Fleet of the Carcharodons Astra. This Chapter also calls itself the Forgotten. You Raven Guard will find that distinction fits you better than most." He paused. "Welcome to your new operational home."
The throne coin fell into his palm as the last portal closed.
Footsteps from the far entrance: heavy, deliberate, the particular rhythm of a Carcharodon moving with a destination in mind. Chief Lexicanium Kahurangi came to the hall threshold and stopped, reading the scene with dark eyes that moved across two hundred new Astartes faces before settling on Nolan.
"Congratulations on the Primarch's safe return." His voice carried the flat satisfaction of a warrior who found the situation pleasing. "And on the additional support. Future engagements should carry somewhat better odds."
Nolan activated the armor.
"Good to see you, Kahurangi. Since you're here, you will take charge of settling everyone in. The Raven Guard are your closest cousins by gene-heritage; make them feel it. The White Scars Stormseer should meet with your Lexicaniums as soon as reasonable. The two Dreadnoughts will need panacea and proper stasis field preparation before anything else, and I want them handled correctly this time. I remember that the Carcharodons acquired a supply of stasis field equipment at some point. Use it. Don't put Dreadnoughts in ice and call it maintenance." He turned slightly. "The gene-seeds and surgical equipment come to me directly once they are secured."
Kahurangi's expression shifted by a small amount. He showed his teeth briefly in a way that was technically a smile if one was generous about the definition, the serrated edges visible for a moment before he closed his mouth and turned to begin organizing the two hundred Astartes who were now his logistical responsibility.
Nolan watched him start, then left.
He rested in his private cabin for a time, then went to find Tyberos. The Carcharodons he encountered along the route informed him that the Chapter Master was leading a mid-scale rescue operation and would not be back for some hours.
He redirected.
The eighteen Black Templars were not difficult to find. They had settled into a compact area near the strike cruiser's docking interface, arranged with the purposeful economy of warriors who were accustomed to making effective use of very little space. Nolan raised the matter of the strike cruiser directly, without leading up to it, because these were Black Templars and extended indirection would irritate them.
He did not quite finish explaining before they agreed.
The strike cruiser could go to the Raven Guard. That was straightforward. Their condition for agreeing was also straightforward: they wanted to serve as Nolan's Terminator guard, in permanence, and to continue fighting under his command in whatever capacity his campaigns required.
Nolan accepted.
He found the Carcharodons Techmarines and arranged for the Black Templars to be fitted with Terminator plate drawn from the fleet's reserve supplies. The Lamenters guard had taken losses across the Damocles campaign. The Black Templars' addition brought Nolan's Terminator guard back up to thirty-eight warriors.
He looked at the number and considered it.
It was still not enough. But it was more than it had been this morning.