Four days drifted by in the sterile silence of the Honour of Calth. For Thaddeus and Vorn, it was an eternity spent in a cage of polished steel and cold, blue light. The ship moved with a grace that was almost unnerving, a city of war gliding through the void without a single shudder or groan. It was a perfect machine, and they were its flawed, temporary passengers.
Their quarters remained a testament to Ultramarine austerity. Thaddeus had spent most of the time in a deep, meditative trance, his back straight, his breathing controlled. He was wrestling with the echoes in his mind—the whispers that had followed him from Valthrex, the phantom pains of the daemon's psychic assault, and the ever-present simmer of the Red Thirst. He was forging his will into a fortress, brick by painful brick.
Vorn, however, could not be still. He paced the small chamber like a caged predator, his new bionic arm a constant, alien presence. He would flex the perfect, ultramarine-blue fingers, the silent whir of its advanced mechanisms a grating sound in the quiet room. It was a marvel of technology, stronger and more precise than his own flesh had ever been, yet it felt like a brand, a symbol of their hosts' detached and condescending generosity.
"This silence," Vorn growled, the words tearing through the stillness. His voice was a low rumble of stone on stone. "It's louder than a battle."
Thaddeus opened his eyes. The green fire within them had banked to embers, but it had not been extinguished. "It is a different kind of war, brother. A war of patience."
"Patience?" Vorn scoffed, stopping his pacing to glare at the impassive blue lumen. "They watch us like caged beasts. They think our fury is a flaw. They scrubbed Cassian's blood from my old arm before they dismantled it, as if it were a stain on their perfect ship."
"Our fury is a flaw, Vorn," Thaddeus replied, his voice calm, yet carrying a weight that made Vorn turn. "But it is also our strength. Let them watch. Our deeds will be our proof."
The words hung in the air, a quiet vow. Before Vorn could reply, the door to their quarters hissed open with a sound of perfectly calibrated machinery. A Lieutenant of the XIII Legion stood in the doorway, his own Mark IV armor immaculate, his expression impassive. He was flanked by two other Ultramarines, their bolters held at a respectful but ready parade rest.
"Sergeant Valen. Brother Vorn," the Lieutenant said, his voice as measured and devoid of inflection as a cogitator's report. "By order of Captain Cassius, your period of observation is concluded."
The word—observation—was a carefully chosen barb. Not confinement. Not quarantine. Thaddeus and Vorn exchanged a quick, unreadable glance. They rose in unison, their battered crimson armor a stark, visceral contrast to the pristine blue of their keepers.
The Lieutenant, whose nameplate read Valerius, stepped aside, gesturing down the corridor. "The Captain has requested your presence on the bridge. But first, your wargear."
He led them not back to the Apothecarion, but to a small, private armory. Racks of perfectly maintained bolters and gleaming power swords lined the walls. On a central plinth, laid out on a swath of deep blue velvet, were their weapons. But something was different.
"Your wargear has been analyzed," Valerius stated, his tone that of a scholar presenting a theorem. "It is... functional, but heavily battle-worn and shows signs of non-regulation modification." He gestured to Vorn's brutalized plasma pistol and then to Thaddeus's power sword, its hilt worn smooth from years of use. "The Codex Astartes dictates that a warrior should be equipped with the optimal tools for victory. We have taken the liberty of providing replacements."
Beside their old weapons lay new ones. For Thaddeus, there was a master-crafted power sword of Ultramarine design, its crossguard shaped into a golden eagle, its blade humming with a purer, cleaner energy. For Vorn, a brand-new plasma pistol, its coils glowing with a steady, controlled light, its casing unmarred by a single scratch.
It was a test. A gesture of goodwill that was also a subtle assertion of superiority. Our ways are better. Our tools are superior. Let us fix you.
Thaddeus looked at the new sword. It was a magnificent weapon, perfectly balanced, its craftsmanship undeniable. To refuse it would be an act of pride, and pride had no place on the battlefield. "A warrior uses the best weapon available," he said, his voice even. He reached out and took the new sword, its weight feeling solid and foreign in his grasp. "I accept. My thanks to Captain Cassius."
Valerius nodded, a flicker of approval in his eyes. He turned to Vorn.
Vorn stared at the new plasma pistol, then at the chainsword-arm that Cassian had forged for him from scrap and fury. That arm had been dismantled. His own plasma pistol had seen him through seven years of hell. He looked at Valerius, and his lips curled into a faint, grim smile. "This arm," he said, holding up the new blue bionic, "is a gift. But my weapons... they have tasted traitor blood. They remember my brothers. I will keep them." He picked up his old, scarred plasma pistol, its familiar weight a comfort.
The Lieutenant's expression did not change, but he held Vorn's gaze for a long moment. He saw not insubordination, but a warrior's unyielding conviction. It was illogical, but it was also absolute. "As you wish," Valerius said, with a crisp, final nod. "Your original armor has been cleansed. Brother Thaddeus, your helmet was irreparable. A replacement has been provided."
He gestured to the armor stand where Thaddeus's crimson plate now stood, cleaned of blood and soot. Resting beside it was the blue Mark IV helmet he had been given in the Apothecarion.
Thaddeus donned his armor, the familiar weight settling on his shoulders. He picked up the blue helmet and secured it, the world once again resolving into the tactical blue of an Ultramarine's display. With the new sword in his hand, he was a strange chimera—a son of Baal clad in the logic of Macragge.
"The Captain awaits you on the bridge," Valerius said, turning to lead the way.
The journey to the bridge of the Honour of Calth was a stark contrast to their initial escort. The two Ultramarine guards were gone, replaced by the quiet, impassive presence of Lieutenant Valerius. The corridors, once empty and echoing, were now alive with the disciplined hum of a warship preparing for battle. Squads of Ultramarines marched past in perfect formation, their blue armor gleaming. Servitors glided by on silent tracks, carrying crates of ammunition and nutrient paste. The ship was a city of war, and Thaddeus and Vorn were now, it seemed, part of its citizenry.
As they passed one of the vast, spartan holds that now housed the survivors of Gethsemane, a ripple of recognition went through the assembled Guardsmen. A knot of Ironbacks, cleaning their lasguns with grim determination, looked up as the two Blood Angels passed. Their faces, etched with exhaustion and grief, broke into expressions of genuine awe and respect. One by one, they rose to their feet, snapping to a salute, their fists clenched over their hearts in a gesture of battlefield solidarity.
"Sergeant," one of them, a grizzled veteran with a scarred cheek, called out, his voice thick with emotion. "For Gethsemane."
Thaddeus, his new blue helmet hiding his expression, returned the salute with a slow, deliberate nod. Vorn did the same, his bionic arm moving with a silent, powerful grace. The gesture was a small one, but in the cold, logical halls of the Ultramarine vessel, it was a spark of raw, human warmth.
Further on, they saw Colonel Voss. He was overseeing the distribution of fresh uniforms and ration packs, his presence a steadying influence on his broken men. He saw them coming and walked to meet them, his salute crisp and professional, but his eyes held a depth of gratitude that no military protocol could contain.
"Sergeant Valen. Brother Vorn," Voss said, his voice firm. "They... they told me about the purges." He gestured vaguely to the empty spaces in his ranks. "We lost a few. Good men. But the Chaplains said it was necessary. The Emperor's mercy." The words were hollow, the rote justification of a man trying to make sense of senseless tragedy.
"War demands sacrifice, Colonel," Thaddeus replied, his own words feeling inadequate. He saw the survivors who had been 'cleansed'—their eyes were empty, their souls scoured clean of memory and grief, leaving behind only placid, obedient husks. It was a different kind of death. "Your men fought with honor. That will be remembered."
Voss nodded, his throat tight. "And your brother, Cassian... he will be remembered too." The bond forged in the fires of Gethsemane was unbreakable, a thing of blood and desperation that the cold logic of this ship could never comprehend.
They left the Colonel to his duties and continued on. The bridge of the Honour of Calth was the ship's nerve center, a vast, circular chamber where the logic of war was made manifest. A massive hololithic sphere dominated the room, projecting a shimmering, three-dimensional star chart of the Segmentum. Crewmen in crisp blue uniforms moved with quiet efficiency at their stations, their voices a low, steady murmur of tactical reports and system diagnostics.
Captain Ortan Cassius stood at the heart of it all, his back to them, staring into the swirling star-map. He turned as they entered, his gaze sharp and analytical.
"Sergeant Valen. Brother Vorn," he said, his voice calm. "The astropathic returns have... illuminated your history. A Warden of the Crimson Veil. A hero of Gorgona Secundus. Lost for seven years." He gestured for them to approach the hololith. "Your story is… improbable. I would hear it from you."
Thaddeus stepped forward, his new power sword at his hip, the blue helmet a strange, foreign weight. Vorn stood a pace behind, a silent crimson guardian.
"Improbable, Captain?" Thaddeus began, his voice flat. "Or simply outside the parameters of your experience?" The words were not an accusation, but a simple statement of fact. "We answered a distress call on Valthrex Prime. It was a trap laid by the Emperor's Children and the Word Bearers."
He recounted the events with a brutal, dispassionate clarity. The destruction of the Fury of Terra. The betrayal. The daemon. Kael's sacrifice. He spoke of the Necrons, their silent, undying legions rising from the dust to purge the traitors. He described the seven years of hell—a guerrilla war fought in the dark, scavenging to survive, hunted by machines that could not be killed.
"We were three," he said, his voice hardening. "My brother Serek… he was unmade by the Necron Lord's staff. Talos bled out in a sump-chamber. Cassian gave his life to cripple the Night Lords' barge. We are all that is left."
Cassius listened, his face an unreadable mask of stone. He did not interrupt, did not question. He simply absorbed the data, his mind processing the narrative, searching for inconsistencies, for flaws in the logic.
"And the Night Lords," Cassius said finally. "You claim you know their next target."
"I do," Thaddeus confirmed. He would not explain how. He would not speak of the blasphemous rite performed in the mud of Gethsemane. "I saw it. Their fleet, under the command of Malchior Vire, is en route to the Isstvan system. They plan to ambush the Salamanders."
Cassius's gaze sharpened. "Isstvan. A name of no strategic significance. Why there?"
"Because it is a trap, Captain," Thaddeus pressed, his voice rising with an intensity that made the nearby crewmen flinch. "Just like Valthrex. Just like Gethsemane. The traitors are not fighting a war of conquest. They are fighting a war of annihilation. They are isolating loyalist forces, picking us off one by one while the wider Imperium remains blind. They lure them in with false distress calls, then slaughter them."
Cassius turned to the hololith, his fingers dancing across the control panel. He brought up the star charts, overlaying fleet dispositions and known traitor movements. The data was sparse, fragmented.
"Your claim is a significant one, Sergeant," he said, his voice tight with controlled skepticism. "The Honour of Calth is currently en route to Xyphon, to answer a verified distress call from the Iron Hands. To divert a battlecruiser of this magnitude based on the… vision… of a single Sergeant from another Legion is a breach of protocol. It is illogical."
"Logic did not save my brothers on Valthrex, Captain!" Thaddeus retorted, taking a step closer, his fists clenched. The blue helmet did little to hide the burning fire in his eyes. "Logic did not save the men of Gethsemane IV. While you deliberate, the Salamanders are flying into a charnel house. While you follow protocol, the Imperium burns!"
"And you would have me abandon a confirmed call to arms from our brothers in the X Legion to chase a ghost?" Cassius countered, his voice rising to match Thaddeus's intensity. "You, a survivor of an impossible ordeal, wielding a xenos artifact of unknown power, exposed to the warp and who knows what other contagions. Your testimony is compromised, Sergeant. Your perspective is… unreliable."
"My perspective is that of a warrior who has seen the face of this treason!" Thaddeus roared, his voice echoing through the silent bridge. "I have seen Astartes turn on Astartes. I have seen daemons walk among us. The rules of your perfect, logical war are meaningless now. There is only survival. And if we do not stand together, we will fall alone."
The tension on the bridge was a physical thing, a crackling energy between the two Astartes. The cold, unwavering logic of the Ultramarines versus the burning, passionate conviction of the Blood Angels. It was a conflict of philosophies, of Legions, of worlds. And on their decision, the fate of thousands might depend.
The silence on the bridge of the Honour of Calth was as sharp and cold as the void outside. The low hum of the ship's systems seemed to fade into nothingness, leaving only the charged space between the two Sergeants of different Legions. The crew at their stations remained frozen, their disciplined faces turned away, pretending not to witness the clash of wills between their Captain and the crimson-clad warrior. Vorn stood like a statue of barely contained violence, his new bionic hand clenched into a fist, the knuckles white even on the blue ceramite.
Captain Ortan Cassius did not break his gaze. He absorbed Thaddeus's fiery, passionate rebuttal, processing it not as an emotional outburst, but as another piece of tactical data. The fury, the certainty, the raw conviction—these were variables to be weighed. For a long, tense moment, the only sound was the faint, rhythmic pulse of the hololithic star chart.
Finally, Cassius let out a slow, measured breath. It was not a sigh of resignation, but the exhalation of a mind that had completed a complex calculation and arrived at a conclusion.
"The rules of war, Sergeant," Cassius began, his voice once again a calm, level instrument of command, "are what separate us from the beasts we fight and the traitors we purge. Logic is the foundation upon which the Imperium is built. It will not be abandoned."
He paused, letting the weight of his doctrine settle. "The Honour of Calth will proceed to Xyphon. That is my duty, and it is the logical course of action based on verified intelligence."
Thaddeus's jaw tightened, a fresh wave of defiant anger rising in him, but Cassius raised a hand, silencing him before he could speak.
"However," the Captain continued, his sky-blue eyes narrowing slightly, "the potential loss of a loyalist legion, even one based on... compromised and unsubstantiated intelligence... is a tactical risk that cannot be entirely dismissed. A variable that must be accounted for."
He turned from the hololith and faced Thaddeus fully. The moment of decision had passed. The verdict had been reached.
"I will not divert this battlecruiser. But I will not leave the fate of the Salamanders to chance." He gestured to the star chart, where a small, blinking icon represented their current fleet. "You will be given a Thunderhawk gunship, fully fueled and armed. I will also grant you command of a reinforced detachment. Forty warriors—the equivalent of two full tactical squads with attached heavy support. They will be under your command, Sergeant."
Cassius leaned forward, his voice dropping, taking on the edge of a challenge. "You have faced impossible odds and survived. You managed with three men on Gethsemane IV. With forty Astartes at your back, you can do better, can you not? Go to the Isstvan system. Ascertain the situation. If your 'vision' is correct and there is trouble, you will act as you see fit. You will be the Emperor's wrath in that darkness."
It was a brilliant, cold, and calculated move. He was not risking his ship, but he was not ignoring the threat. He was giving Thaddeus the tools to prove himself right or to die trying, containing the entire illogical problem within a single, disposable strike force. It was a gamble, but a logical one.
Thaddeus stared at the Captain, the fire in his eyes banking into a focused, intense coal. Forty men. A ship. A chance. It was more than he had dared to hope for. It was everything.
He snapped to attention, his battered armor creaking. His fist struck his chest in a sharp, resonant salute that echoed across the silent bridge.
"I will, Captain!" His voice was a raw, unbreakable vow.
Cassius nodded, his gaze sweeping over the two Blood Angels. He saw the scars, the patched armor, Vorn's crude but functional bionic still attached to his other arm. He saw the chronicle of a seven-year war written in ceramite and flesh.
"Very well," he said, his tone shifting to one of dismissal. "But you will not go into battle looking like relics from a forgotten war." His eyes lingered on Thaddeus's ruined cloak and Vorn's battered plate. "Go to the Armory. Have your armor fully repaired and serviced. Be ready to depart within the standard rotation. You are dismissed, Warden."
Thaddeus and Vorn turned, their crimson forms a stark contrast to the sea of blue as they marched from the bridge, leaving behind a Captain who had just wagered the lives of forty of his sons on the word of a ghost.