Chapter 103: Rest?
The days following the Battle of Macragge moved slowly and with evident weight, the surface clearance operations and the first cautious efforts at reconstruction grinding forward through the devastated terrain.
Duvette did not turn his attention to the broad campaign planning. He submitted a written requisition to the Macragge Munitorum sub-office covering replacement personnel and equipment for the 112th.
Under the Imperium's famously rigid and protracted bureaucratic procedures, and given the scale of what the battle had done to every available resource on the planet, he had estimated a minimum of one month before receiving any response at all.
On the morning of the fifth day, he received a formal reply from Macragge's High Command directly.
[Requisition approved. The 112th Regiment is hereby granted highest-priority supply access.]
Duvette sat in his campaign tent with the dataslate in his hands and, without thinking about it, reached up and touched the cold surface of the Macragge Honour Medal.
He already knew what had produced this outcome. In a star system held and defined by the Ultramarines, that medal evidently carried more operational authority than any Administratum official's countersignature.
That same afternoon, he took a contingent with him to Macragge's primary military distribution depot to receive the allocated equipment and replacements.
He had barely set foot inside the cleared expanse of the depot's main receiving area when a familiar figure came into view.
"Our legend arrives."
Elias Hawthorne was standing at the entrance to the receiving area with his surviving Cadian soldiers assembled in a waiting formation.
The moment he caught sight of the distinctive black commissar's greatcoat, the habitually hard-edged Cadian officer stepped forward without ceremony, extended his hand, and gripped Duvette's with a force that communicated rather more than a formal greeting. Both men struck each other solidly on the back.
"What brings you here?" Duvette asked, genuinely surprised.
"Ha. Haven't seen the Munitorum's latest transfer orders yet?" Elias released the grip and shrugged. "I report to you now. Well, we do." He turned and pointed at the Cadians standing behind him, backs straight, eyes carrying the particular quality of soldiers who had been through something real and would not be forgetting it.
Then Duvette's gaze moved past the Cadians, and he registered a second formation.
The company captain from the Ultramar auxiliaries, the officer who had fought alongside him in the underground fortress, was standing at the head of his surviving soldiers, and the entire unit came to attention and saluted in a single clean motion as Duvette's eyes found them.
Ultramar auxiliaries. That gave him a moment's pause. The Ultramar auxiliary forces were designated homeworld defense. Under standard Munitorum doctrine, they could not be redeployed off-world.
The company captain stepped forward and delivered his report.
"Sir! Chapter Master Calgar has personally signed a special dispensation authorizing us to detach from our homeworld designation and continue serving under your command under the title of Macragge Honor Volunteers."
"I have no objection to that whatsoever."
Elias supplied this from the side, his voice settling back into the dry register of a career soldier who has arrived at a workable conclusion. "Fighting under a legend's command is not exactly a hardship posting. You know how many soldiers were looking for any way into the 112th when word went around that you needed replacements?"
"I'm that famous now?" Duvette asked, his expression entirely neutral.
"Are you serious?" Elias's eyes widened. "You took the 112th with the Ultramarines Chapter Master and held the rearguard for the entire fleet, took part in bringing down a Hive Tyrant in the open, and then killed a second one by yourself in the underground tunnels. Do you have any idea what your reputation is worth on this planet right now?"
Elias did not press the subject further. He clapped Duvette hard on the shoulder and pushed him forward. "Go receive your equipment. I would expect the next deployment order before long."
Duvette gave a nod. He moved through the assembled soldiers toward the heavy equipment holding area at the far end of the depot, where a substantial number of Mechanicus adepts were managing the cataloguing and transfer of armoured assets. A senior Tech-Priest scanned his identification and cleared the transfer without hesitation.
The process went with a smoothness that was distinctly unlike anything the Munitorum usually produced. Under the Tech-Priest's direction, the 112th's authorized allocation came through in full: Leman Russ battle tanks, Hydra flak tanks, Chimera armoured personnel carriers, and a full complement of supply vehicles.
Duvette stood back and watched the organized activity of his soldiers taking possession of the equipment. In his field of vision, the System panel updated.
[Current Command: Ash Watchers-Eisenmark 112th Armoured Infantry Regiment]
[Total Personnel: 3,127 (all assigned personnel)]
[Heavy Vehicles: 40 Leman Russ battle tanks, 50 Chimera APCs, 10 Hydra flak tanks, 5 Trojan ammunition carriers, 100 Mars-pattern Sentinel walkers]
[Experience: Elite (63%)]
[Overall Supply: 100%] [Overall Loyalty: 100%] [Overall Morale: 100%] [Overall Sanity: 100%] [Chaos Corruption: 0%]
That night, the wind outside the camp had not softened. Duvette sat in the warmth of the command tent and opened a classified communication from the highest level of the Munitorum.
"Rest?"
He had barely read the heading before he stopped. He leaned toward the screen and read the words a second time, carefully.
The order was unambiguous:
[Ash Watchers 112th Regiment, leave authorization granted. Depart immediately for the rear hub world of Pyrite in the Sabbat Worlds sector for a period of one week's rest, in order to better serve the Emperor in future operations. So ordered, the Munitorum.]
Duvette tilted his head slightly. He pushed aside the tent's entrance and looked out.
In the cleared ground beyond the camp perimeter, the 112th's soldiers were gathered around fires, sitting in the warmth, taking the rare quiet the way soldiers do when they know it will not last. There was a genuine ease to the evening that Duvette had not seen from them in a long time.
He had not expected this. A regiment freshly equipped and restored to strength, he had assumed they would be routed directly to the next combat zone. A week's sanctioned leave had not been the order he was prepared for.
He let the tent flap fall and turned back inside. He settled into the chair and arrived, in the space of a moment's reflection, at the obvious conclusion. One year of continuous front-line service, always at the hardest end of whatever the Imperium had been throwing at the galaxy. His soldiers had been running at the outermost edge of what human physiology could sustain, and Veteran's Frame could carry them only so far. Rest was not an indulgence. It was maintenance.
Then he stopped.
Duvette went rigid. His hand froze in mid-air.
He snatched the dataslate from the desk. His eyes locked onto the text.
He had just, without quite registering it, passed over something that was not minor at all.
Current date: 745.M41.
Sabbat Worlds.
Rear hub world. Pyrite.
Several pieces of information that had seemed unremarkable in sequence now assembled themselves into something that was very much the opposite.
A name surfaced from the depths of his previous life's memory. A name that, twenty years from now, would be known across the length and breadth of the Imperium.
The legendary Commissar. Ibram Gaunt.
So that was where this was going.
They were about to be drawn into the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. A campaign that would run for over a century.
Duvette closed his eyes. He pressed his fingers against the headache beginning to form at his temples and exhaled, slow and deliberate.
The Emperor's blessing would have to be enough.