Chapter Master Thane turned around, presenting his armoured back to the High Lords. The powered movement drew a gasp from several members of the Council, who couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Vangorich tensed. If one of the High Lords did something stupid — like call for the Adeptus Custodes and decry Thane and his Space Marines as traitors — then things could escalate quickly. The Grand Master wouldn’t allow such a thing. Thane must be given time to speak.
Vangorich watched as the Chapter Master addressed the plaza. His voice boomed about the Space Marines, High Lords and underlings alike, relayed from his suit to vox-casters situated about the precinct.
‘Brothers,’ Thane said, ‘lords and citizens of mighty Terra. Listen to me now — as you would to the Master of Mankind and his ministers of fate. For through our veins runs the blood of Rogal Dorn, as through his, the blood of the Emperor flowed. Before we were favoured with the Emperor’s blessing — before we were shielded with angel’s wings — we were as you are now. Of common flesh. Of uncertainty and questions eternal. I tell you this to remind us all that we are all interconnected. That we rely one upon the other. That we achieve nothing alone.’
The Grand Master watched Thane begin to pace up and down the plaza, his armoured boots sending quakes through the thrones of the High Lords of Terra.
‘Earlier,’ Thane said, his words carrying far and wide across the plaza, ‘I spoke at length to select High Lords. We talked of matters of Imperium and state. Of the vanquished ork attack moon and our challenges on the Beast’s monstrous home world, where heroes fight to bring an end to this vast and terrible conflict.’
Vangorich watched High Lords scowl and whisper amongst themselves, ignorant of such a meeting. As the Chapter Master went on, he drowned the Council members’ protests in thunderous proclamations of his own.
‘It was a long meeting,’ Thane told his audience, ‘as meetings concerning matters of consequence tend to be. While listening to the High Lords’ counsel, I noticed a spider crafting a web across the casing of an arch. Every time a scribe or servitor passed beneath, the web was damaged and torn. As I listened to the wisdom of our High Lords, I watched this tiny creature repair the structure it had created. Time and again, forces beyond its control, or even understanding, tore the web to shreds. Time and again, the spider crafted its home anew. Our lives are like the threads in that spider’s web. Each one connected to hundreds more, relying upon each other for strength and stability. Our Imperium is like the spider’s web. Myriad worlds connected by an intricate network of shipping lanes, interstellar trade routes and Navy patrols.
‘But when something crashes through that web, like the xenos invaders — this Beast we have come to know as our deadly foe — strands snap, structures collapse and the web hangs in disarray. The spider, however, knows nothing of fatigue. He has no indulgence for the loss of hope. The futility of his efforts is an alien concept — as it is with us. The Imperium of Man has stood for more than a thousand years because of such resolution and industry. Billions live within our web of protection. Worlds might be lost to the mutant. Subsectors fall silent at the arrival of alien invaders. Routes fall prey to warp storms and pirates. The Imperium endures. It will always endure while there are loyal subjects of the Emperor to sustain its majesty. From ages of darkness and strife we have returned. We lived the dread days of Heresy and loss. We shall survive this green plague.
‘Our victory over the alien shall be marked in statues on the Palace arcades, in monuments of commemoration crafted from the ruin of a thousand worlds and in memories passed from Terran father to Terran son. We shall never forget the rising of this Beast, the destruction he has wrought and the unbreakable will it took to defeat him — but first, we must defeat him. We must strike at the heart of his empire, as he has done to us. We must return to Ullanor, a planet infested with the alien, at the heart of a system swarming with the foe. The surrounding sectors are decimation and barbarity, awash with attack moons and monstrous fleets of greenskin craft.
‘We have stood in the blood and dust of Ullanor and failed. But during the Emperor’s Great Crusade, we raised the battle standards and banners of victory over Ullanor. The difference then was that we were united under the Emperor’s gaze. We were humanity resplendent, fighting together for a common cause. The vessels of the Imperial Armada, the god-machines of the Mechanicum — the Space Marine Legions, and the millions of the Imperial Army. We were as one, with the indomitable will of the Imperium behind us. We have proved that nothing can stand before such a collective will — and nothing ever shall. That is why we return to Ullanor — glorious in our unity, assured of our victory and ready to reassert our dominance in the galaxy once more.
‘Let me hear you, now. Let my Imperial Fists — who go to war in your name — hear your brotherly love. Let the Master of Mankind in His Palace hear your pride in His dominion. Let the Beast across the void hear your fury and defiance.’
Drakan Vangorich felt the plaza tremble with the wild roars of desiccated adepts and soulless scribes. Dust fell from servile robes as blood thumped once again through withered hearts. An army of petty bureaucrats found themselves and what it meant to be human with Thane’s words echoing about them. His rallying call had awoken them, as if from some smothering nightmare of crumpled vellum, data-streams and meetings eternal. They were men and women once more, not just augmented collators, servants senseless to impending doom. The orks seared into reality for the Palace clerks, administrators and scriveners. They were not merely digits on a data-slate or the subjects of dictated scrolls. They became creatures of alien flesh and blood. A living, breathing menace. A reality in which they found their deepest fears. A monstrous vision upon which to project their hatred.
In those moments of bellowing affirmation, the Grand Master watched the Palace servants forget the petty jealousies of their masters, the politics and game-playing. It all became so simple. The Imperial Fists — with the Astra Militarum, the Imperial Navy and the Adeptus Mechanicus at their side — would destroy the green plague at its source. They would emerge victorious upon Ullanor and deliver Holy Terra from alien destruction because they had to — because every war ever fought by the forces of humanity had allowed for a moment like this. A moment in which those that were left pledged their all to a future unknown. A moment in which survivors found their voice in the silence of empires all but conquered, and declared with one voice that they were forever.
Vangorich looked to Thane. The Chapter Master stood tall amongst the triumphant cacophony. Adepts shook their staffs of office while scribes flapped scrolls in the air. Beyond, the Grand Master saw that the ramparts of the Boenician Wall were crowded with silhouettes, similarly waving. Whole sections of the Palace had ground to a halt as serfs and servants of the Administratum stopped to listen to the Master of the Imperial Fists — a Chapter whose glorious plate, like the rising of a new dawn, had once again appeared on their hallowed plazas and precincts. Members of the Adeptus Custodes looked on as the bells of the Ascension Tower and the Campanilius Cursus rang out, all but drowned in the earth-shaking horns of the Warhound Titans. For a moment, the setting sun broke through the rust-stained clouds of the capital, bathing the Imperial Fists in a golden light.
With the announcements of Canis Romula and Rema booming across the plaza, Vangorich left his throne, and Kubik followed him. The High Lords were out of their seats and in uproar but their carping remonstrations and threats made little impression upon the crowd — most of whom could not hear their masters. None spoke to the Grand Master of Assassins. None tugged at his robes or unleashed their bluster upon him. None asked him to join them in their outrage. While Kubik was courted, the Fabricator General gave them the impassive blankness of the machine.