As the Astartes forces under Nolan's command grew in number and in variety, an idea had begun to take shape in the back of his thinking, gaining definition with each new Chapter that came aboard.
The concept was not complicated. The Carcharodons, the Lamenters, and the newly arrived Raven Guard were each functioning independently under a loose command structure. They shared a fleet and they answered to Nolan, but the arrangement was informal, a warband rather than an institution. What he was considering was something more deliberate: a unified command structure that sat above the individual Chapters without dismantling their cultures or identities, grouping the separate forces into formations designed for specific operational purposes. Different Chapters brought different strengths to different kinds of engagements, and those strengths were currently being used without the kind of coordination that could make them genuinely greater than their parts.
If the resources and the circumstances ever aligned fully, he was prepared to think about something larger still. Legion-scale numbers were not an impossible horizon. The gene-seeds existed, or could be recovered. The surgical knowledge was accumulating. The question was whether the foundation beneath that ambition was solid enough to support it yet.
It was not. Not quite.
He had Chapter Masters who had accepted his authority, but they were Chapter Masters by training, temperament, and tradition, commanders of independent formations who had chosen to follow a Primarch. The transition from that relationship to a formal ranked structure, in which a commander who had led a full Chapter found himself directing a company instead, was a human problem as much as a military one. Astartes were transhuman warriors shaped in the Emperor's image, but they were still warriors with pride and history and an understanding of their own place in the order of things. That kind of reorganization, done without consultation or sufficient trust built first, would create fractures rather than unity.
There was also a political reality to account for.
Regent Guilliman had not sanctioned any of this. Nolan was operating in the far Eastern Fringe, beyond the reach of the Indomitus Crusade's administrative arm, and what he was building looked, from the right angle, like the early stages of an independent Legion assembled without Terra's blessing. Guilliman had reconstructed the Imperium's command structures carefully after the Heresy, and he had reasons, good ones, for why Chapters did not become Legions without authorization. The Badab War stood as an object lesson in what happened when a Chapter began operating outside established parameters with growing autonomy and resources. The scale of that conflict had been contained. A Primarch's equivalent would not be.
Nolan filed the concept and kept moving.
In the cold void, hundreds of ships of varying size moved in formation, their course set and their speed steady. The Carcharodons Astra's sustained support operations across the Eastern Fringe had accumulated a significant weight of blood tithe and grey tithe, enough to represent real purchasing power. But the ships themselves had been in continuous operation for a long time, and continuous operation across extended campaigns produced the kind of accumulated maintenance debt that a fleet could carry for a while before it started paying the cost in sudden, expensive failures. The nearest Forge World on their heading was Triplex Phall, and Chapter Master Tyberos had made the practical recommendation that they go there.
Nolan had agreed, then spent some time sitting with the simulator's diplomacy interface and thinking about a different Forge World.
Gryphonne IV was gone. He knew this with the particular certainty of someone who understood the timeline. The Tyranids had consumed it, and there was nothing to be done about that from his current position and timeline. He had considered, briefly, whether a warning forwarded through the right channels might change anything, but the Forge World's fate was not a matter of intelligence failure. It was a matter of scale. He set the thought aside.
He rose from the metal throne and made a decision. The transit to Triplex Phall offered a gap in the operational tempo, and he intended to use it. He would go home.
There were practical reasons. The Twin Islands base needed supplies, and he could bring them. The gene-seeds and surgical equipment recovered from the Raven Guard fleet required permanent secure storage, and the base's facilities were more appropriate for that purpose than a warship hold. And there were people at the base whose work had been waiting on materials only he could now provide.
He summoned the two Raven Guard company commanders and their company champions, assigned them the task of escorting the gene-seeds and surgical containers to the ancient temple's transit chamber, and opened a portal.
Twin Islands base. Primogenitor Isle.
The circular plaza was lit in the particular steady way it always was, the lighting that had been calibrated to feel like something close to daylight even in the Antarctic dark. The Emperor's statue presided over the center of the space in its usual position of unambiguous authority. Lexicanium Ukari, the Carcharodons psyker who had been stationed at the base for long enough that his presence there had begun to feel structural rather than temporary, had finished his prayers and was working through a bowl of nutrient paste when the flash of psychic flame appeared near the statue's base.
He was on his feet and his power armor was active before the bowl had stopped moving.
He reached the center of the plaza and pushed his psychic sense outward, the air temperature dropping by several degrees as he channeled his power into the space between moments. Frost spread across the metal floor in a ring from his position, the moisture in the air crystallizing as the cold deepened, and then the spatial rift tore open in front of him: not the Warp portal that Nolan usually used, but the sharper, cleaner kind that spoke of controlled transit rather than Warp navigation.
Nolan stepped through, skull helmet under one arm, with the two Raven Guard commanders and their champions close behind him, the sealed containers of gene-seeds between them.
"Thank you, Ukari."
Ukari let his power ease back, the frost beginning to melt almost immediately as the ambient temperature reasserted itself. He gave Nolan a nod and showed the Carcharodons' characteristic expression of satisfaction, teeth briefly visible.
The air in the plaza changed quality.
A sharp crackling sound, then the deep hum of something large resolving into existence. A blue barrier appeared in the middle of the space, geometric and solid, and then the floating chair came through it: David, seated in his usual configuration, the chair's repulsor field keeping him at eye level with the taller figures in the room.
"Welcome home, my lord."
David rose from the chair as he said it, the movement smooth and deliberate in the way all his movements were.
Nolan looked at him with something that was close to warmth. "Long time no see, David. What new capabilities have you added?"
"You have guessed wrong, my lord." David tilted his metal head slightly. "This is a new transit system. Reed Richards and Doctor Doom have been collaborating on it. They are calling it the Time Platform, though the name is somewhat aspirational. Temporal travel remains well beyond current parameters. It is primarily a spatial transit system with exceptional precision. The name is poetic rather than technical."
"Fitting for Doom," Nolan said.
David's optical sensors moved briefly to the Raven Guard commanders standing behind Nolan, then to the large sealed containers they had brought.
"My lord. Those containers."
"Professor Connors and Dr. Banner have both mentioned on more than one occasion that their research is limited by the quality and quantity of available gene-seed material." Nolan gestured toward the containers. "I have brought gene-seeds. I have also brought a considerable volume of ancient surgical data and the physical equipment used for Astartes enhancement procedures. The goal is to give the base's scientific team enough material to improve the success rate of the implantation process, or at minimum to develop a reliable local capability for producing Astartes. Even partial progress on either front is worth having."
David processed this for a moment. "I will arrange for secure storage and notify the research team."
Nolan's attention had shifted.
His gaze had moved to the floating chair and specifically to the object attached to its handle bar: a row of kill markers, each one small and precisely placed, rendered in black and red. The symbol on them was familiar in a way he could not immediately place. He raised one finger and pointed at them.
"David. What are those? And why do I recognize that symbol?"
David was quiet for a moment. The quality of the silence was unusual. When he spoke again, the mechanical voice carried the particular register of someone choosing their words with care.
"My lord," David said. "Have you ever encountered a phenomenon referred to as the Deadpool Corps?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~