V3 Chapter 119: You Brought the Whole Men of Iron STC Back?
Duvette froze for a moment at the name, and the motion of leaving the Tower of Hegemony, already begun, stopped along with it.
Belisarius Cawl returning to Mars, at a moment like this, meant that a plan ten thousand years in the making was about to reach its final delivery.
"Where is he now?" Duvette asked.
"Cawl's already been to Mars. He's currently aboard the Zar-Quaesitor, moored at an outer anchorage of the Moon." Guilliman transferred the message he'd just received to another data panel. "He's extended an invitation for me to come aboard. He wants to speak in person."
Duvette looked over the invitation, only a few short lines long, his brow furrowing slowly. "Just the two of us?"
"That's right." Guilliman answered. "The invitation list has only you and me on it. Cawl specifically noted that everyone else may escort us to the docking area, but no further — no one else is permitted into the exhibition space he's prepared."
This didn't match what Duvette remembered of how things were supposed to go.
In the original timeline, while preparing for the Indomitus Crusade, Cawl would invite a group of High Lords, senior Terran officials, and Astartes representatives aboard the Zar-Quaesitor, and unveil the Primaris Space Marines and the new equipment prepared for them right in front of everyone.
It would have been a carefully staged unveiling, and Cawl clearly relished watching everyone's shock at what he'd achieved.
Now, though, he'd abandoned that approach entirely, inviting only Guilliman and Duvette — which meant whatever he intended to show them probably wasn't something a third party ought to learn about in advance.
"What do you think, Duvette?" Guilliman set the data panel down, and looked to the young commissar, still turning it over.
"I think we should go take a look." Duvette raised his head. "For Archmagos Cawl to make a request like this specifically, he's almost certainly holding something genuinely important."
"Such as the task I once gave him?" Guilliman asked.
Duvette knew he meant the Primaris Project. Cawl had taken on that task nearly ten thousand years ago now, and with Guilliman awake again, it was only right he finally hand the new warriors and their equipment over to the Primarch himself.
"I don't think that's all of it." Duvette shook his head. "If it were only that, he could have gathered Terra's senior leadership through the normal channels. This arrangement's far too secretive for that. Better to see it with our own eyes."
Guilliman was quiet for a moment, then accepted the assessment.
He gave the order directly to the Custodians waiting outside, having them prepare a heavy shuttle capable of the round trip to the Moon, and notified Trajann of his upcoming schedule at the same time.
Not long after, the two of them left the Tower of Hegemony, and boarded the shuttle waiting on the Inner Palace's dedicated platform.
Guilliman's Honour Guard and the Shadow Wolves of Luna at Duvette's side went along as well; they would handle security at the docking area, and only the two of them would go on into the core section Cawl had specified.
As the engines powered up, the shuttle lifted off the ground fast.
The pollution and cloud cover blanketing Terra's atmosphere fell away outside the viewport, and orbital installations and mooring platforms slowly came into view before Duvette.
Once the shuttle entered the transit lane toward the Moon, Duvette caught sight once more of the vast gathering of ships assembled around Terra.
None of these fleets had been summoned by Guilliman. They'd simply come of their own accord upon learning of the Primarch's return, most of them out of the Solar Domain and the surrounding region.
Some hoped for the chance of an audience with the Imperial Regent; others were simply waiting to see how Terra's situation would finally settle.
They'd been assigned by the Solar Battle Fleet to different mooring zones, patrol craft and transport ships shuttling between them, checking identities.
Duvette leaned back in his seat, watching the ships pass, and soon spotted a familiar flagship within a cluster of Rogue Trader vessels.
The ship's hull still bore the Capet family's crest, and the formation of the escort vessels around it matched exactly what he remembered.
The Capet family's flagship? Duvette murmured to himself, puzzled.
He opened his strategic map at once, extending its range to take in that Rogue Trader fleet.
Great numbers of markers representing the personnel aboard sprang up at once, and among them was a cluster carrying his own direct-subordinate force's identification marks.
The First Infantry Regiment, directly under the 112th Combat Cluster.
Duvette had once left them behind on the world where the Men of Iron STC had been discovered, to work alongside the Capet family and Cawl's Skitarii in defending the site.
Now, the Capet family's fleet had returned to the Sol System, and the First Infantry Regiment he'd left behind had come back along with it.
At the same time, Cawl's Skitarii had returned together with the Zar-Quaesitor as well — meaning every major force that had once guarded the STC had now left the site entirely.
But whatever risks Cawl might take in studying forbidden technology, he would never leave an entire, intact STC sitting somewhere unguarded.
If all three forces once responsible for guarding it were here at the same time now... Duvette stared at the markers on the strategic map, his eyes narrowing slightly.
He'd still been guessing, until a moment ago, at exactly what Cawl intended to show them. Now, he already had his answer.
Guilliman noticed his reaction. "What is it?"
Duvette closed the strategic map and turned to the Primarch sitting across from him. "I think I know why Cawl only invited the two of us."
Guilliman didn't press him for more. He only studied Duvette, lost in thought, for a moment, then turned his gaze back to the viewport, content to wait for the Archmagos to give his own answer in person.
After a stretch of travel, the Moon's surface defences began to fill the viewport.
The shuttle changed course after passing through several rounds of identity verification, heading toward the massive vessel moored at a Mechanicus-exclusive outer anchorage.
The Zar-Quaesitor's hull blotted out the distant starlight, its vast expanse of armour and machinery combining to form the entire Ark Mechanicus.
Its sheer bulk looked no less than a Gloriana-class battleship's, several independent docking bays arrayed along its hull, with Skitarii warships standing watch around it.
A tractor beam from the Ark Mechanicus locked onto the shuttle, and its piloting systems ceded partial control at once.
Guided in, the shuttle passed through the opened armoured gate, and eased slowly into the Zar-Quaesitor's docking hangar.
Once the hatch closed, gravity and air supply were restored fast, and ranks of armed Mechanicus personnel already stood guard along both sides of the landing area.
Guilliman and Duvette led their respective escorts down the shuttle's ramp, and saw Belisarius Cawl himself waiting to greet them.
The Archmagos's massive mechanical body filled the centre of the passage, a great many mechanical limbs shifting slowly beneath his red robes, his scanning apparatus turning one by one toward the newcomers.
Behind him stretched a sealed metal corridor; clearly, only those with his express permission would be going any further.
Cawl came before Guilliman, lowering his many-times-modified head, and saluted the Imperial Regent in the Machine Cult's own manner.
Guilliman accepted the greeting calmly, while Duvette studied him the whole time, trying to read an answer out of that half-mechanical face.
Once Cawl raised his head again, Duvette finally spoke the first words of their reunion, after so long apart.
"You brought that whole thing back with you?"
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