On the Eve of the Expedition (Part 2)
Night over Macragge was vast and silent.
Through towering, reinforced floor-to-ceiling windows, the chill winds of the high plateau were kept at bay, leaving an unobstructed view of the capital's luminous skyline. In the distance, the orbital spaceport blazed like a fallen constellation—ships lifting and descending in streaks of light, the machinery of war in constant motion.
Yet within the office, only a single brass desk lamp burned softly.
Roboute Guilliman sat behind a broad, time-worn desk. He wore no Armor of Fate tonight—only a white linen shirt beneath a dark blue robe. Even so, the massive chair creaked faintly beneath his Primarch frame.
In his hand was a data-slate.
It displayed no fleet deployments. No supply projections. No tactical overlays.
Only names.
A list strategically worthless—yet immeasurably heavy.
Ultramar Auxilia – Confirmed Dead
Civilian Casualties – Parmenio Sector
Expeditionary Forces – Missing in Action
Guilliman possessed a perfect memory. A gift of his gene-forging. A curse.
He could recall ammunition expenditures from battles fought during the Great Crusade ten millennia ago. He could remember the face of a mortal who once brought him water.
Now, he forced himself to memorize these names.
Private Terence, 19 — fatal Nurgle gas exposure.
Corporal Tullery, 34 — killed covering refugee withdrawal.
Auxilia Trooper Martha, 22 — structural collapse during orbital bombardment.
Line after line.
Some entries bore only one word:
Missing.
Behind each was a life cut short.
Guilliman closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temples.
Before he was Lord Commander of the Imperium, before he wielded the Emperor's Sword in blazing wrath, he had been the son of Konor Guilliman and Tarasha Euten—a builder who dreamed of order, prosperity, civilization.
To see Ultramar ravaged.
To watch those who trusted him die like crops under blight—
It wounded deeper than Mortarion's poisoned scythe ever had.
"Father…" he murmured hoarsely. "What am I meant to do? A galaxy that survives only to decay… Is that all we are now?"
The lamp crackled softly.
No answer came.
The office door creaked open.
Guilliman did not look up. His hand rested lightly upon a concealed detonation rune beneath the desk—but he did not press it. No assassin could bypass his senses. And the Victrix Guard would never enter unannounced.
Only one person in the fortress would dare.
"Your guards are really stubborn," came a child's voice. "I told them it was the 'Emperor's Midnight Snack Decree.' They tried to check it in the Codex Astartes. I ran before they finished."
Irene nudged the heavy door closed with her back, carrying a large silver platter. She wore a loose nightgown and soft slippers, her hair slightly messy.
"Robert, are you cultivating immortality again? You didn't eat."
She set the tray down on his paperwork with a loud thud.
Guilliman looked up. The exhaustion in his eyes softened immediately.
"I am working," he said patiently. "And what is 'cultivating immortality'?"
"It means staying up all night like it's some spiritual training," Irene replied matter-of-factly. "Uncle Varo said you needed 'tactical supplies.' I was hungry too."
Guilliman examined the tray.
Two enormous slabs of grox steak. Burned black at the edges. Red at the center.
A bowl of thick, suspicious stew with whole leaves floating in it.
This was certainly not palace cuisine.
"This is…?"
"That cook was hopeless!" Irene crossed her arms. "I said more black pepper and reduce the sauce properly. He refused. So I did it myself."
She hesitated.
"It's a little burnt. But I tasted it. Not poisonous."
Guilliman regarded the charred steak. Then the ash smear on her cheek. Then her hopeful eyes.
A Primarch did not require meals as mortals did. Nutrient paste could sustain him through campaigns.
Food was ritual.
But he lifted the knife.
Cut a piece.
Ate.
Burnt. Bitter. Excess pepper. Nearly inedible.
He swallowed.
And something unfamiliar stirred.
A memory.
Tarasha Euten warming a late-night meal long before the Emperor found him.
The taste of something called home.
"How is it?" Irene leaned forward anxiously.
"…Distinct," Guilliman answered diplomatically.
Then he smiled.
"Better than nutrient paste. Thank you."
"I knew it!" Irene grabbed her own steak triumphantly. "Old Huang said you'd like it. He said you're a secretly pretentious—Ow! Hot!"
Guilliman chose not to comment.
After the meal, Irene refused to leave. Instead of taking the sofa, she dragged a cushion to the floor near the windows and sat cross-legged. Guilliman joined her with a glass of water.
Outside, the engines of departing ships painted streaks across the night sky.
"Robert," she said quietly, "we're going to that moldy planet tomorrow, right?"
"Yes. At dawn."
She turned to him.
"Are you afraid?"
Anyone else asking that would have received a lecture on courage and duty.
But tonight, Guilliman did not answer as a demigod.
"Yes," he said softly. "Not of death. Not of daemons."
He gestured toward the data-slate.
"I fear that my efforts are not enough. That those who trusted me die because I was not strong enough. That I woke too late."
Failure haunted him more than mortality.
The room grew still.
Irene stood and walked over. Her small hand, still faintly greasy, rested atop his massive gauntlet-scarred one.
For a moment, something golden flickered deep within her pupils—not pressure, not overwhelming divinity, but resonance.
"You don't need to carry all of that alone," she said.
Guilliman stiffened slightly.
"Even that old man on the Golden Throne… couldn't fix everything."
She patted his hand gently.
"You're not a god, Robert. You can't save everyone. Just don't let yourself break first."
She tilted her head.
"If you collapse, who's going to pay everyone's salary?"
The absurd practicality of it nearly broke him.
Ten thousand years of prayers. Of demands. Of sacrifice.
No one had ever said:
You've done enough.
Guilliman clasped her hand carefully—as though it were fragile light in endless night.
"…Thank you."
After a long silence, he rose, steadier now.
"I believe I should follow that 'boss's' advice."
He retrieved a bio-locked data-slate and handed it to her.
"Since we depart tomorrow, I prepared something."
Irene eyed it suspiciously.
"If this is Advanced Gothic Grammar, I'll eat it."
Guilliman actually laughed.
"It is a Special Survival Guide."
She activated it.
Large font. Simple diagrams—shockingly competent sketches drawn by the Primarch himself.
1. Plaguebearers (small green daemons) contain corrosive filth. Do not kick them. Burn or crush from range.
2. If a red-armored berserker wielding an axe screams about blood, disengage immediately and locate Sicarius, Varo, or Kargas.
3. Do not step in battlefield puddles. Ever.
4. If I am absent, remain within five meters of your designated guard at all times.
Fifty-two entries.
She reached the last one.
52. If I fall, activate the emergency beacon. An automated recovery vessel will extract you. Survival is not cowardice.
Irene frowned.
"This one's wrong."
Guilliman blinked.
"I don't like it."
She placed the slate aside, resting her hand on her short sword.
"If we were in the Hive together, I wouldn't run."
"If you fall, I'll stab the enemy's toes and drag you back. And if I can't, I'll hide you in junk and wait."
"We don't abandon our own."
Guilliman looked at her—this small, stubborn creature with a heart forged harder than ceramite.
Perhaps that was why she had been chosen.
"Very well," he said, crouching and extending his little finger.
"A pact."
Irene hooked her finger around his.
"Don't leave my sight."
"You must not leave mine either."
…
Dawn.
High orbit above Macragge.
As starlight touched the spires of Hera Fortress, the spaceport thundered.
The Radiance of Macragge, twenty-six kilometers of armored majesty, detached from its moorings. Plasma drives ignited, casting blue suns into the void. Strike cruisers and escorts formed around it like a steel constellation.
On the bridge, Irene stood before a massive viewing port.
Dark blue coat. Rosarius gleaming. Purity seal over her heart.
Macragge shrank behind them—a world that had given her warmth.
"We'll come back, right?" she asked quietly.
"With victory," Sergeant Varo answered.
The fleet accelerated toward the Mandeville point. Reality distorted ahead as the warp translation corridor opened.
Irene gripped the purity seal.
[Hold tight,] Old Huang murmured, unusually serious. [This won't be easy.]
She touched the awakened blade at her waist.
A fearless smile curved her lips.
"Ready."
The Radiance of Macragge plunged into the Immaterium, and the fleet vanished into swirling color and storm.