Tiberius Solarian stood motionless inside the strategium of the Phalanx. He was a silhouette of matte black ceramite against the shifting blue white glow of the hololithic display. His armor bore no ornamentation, only the polished, blunt edges of a warrior's tools. The battle plate of a Chapter Master, worn, but serviceable.
The chamber was dim, lit only by the dull red glow of imperial insignia and the rhythmic pulse of the central display. Star charts shimmered across the table before him. Data scrolled. Enemy projections calculated and recalculated. And still, the galaxy bled.
It had been Eight days since his ship's transition.
The warp had spat them out at the edge of the Peripheries. Clean emergence. No daemonic incursions. No Geller field bleed. Lucky, if such things still meant anything. And in those eight days, Tiberius had received 476 astropathic fragments, three full communiqués, one desperate call for aid from Orar, and a half-burned message that mentioned the Word Bearers. Nothing else. Nothing intelligible.
He didn't need more.
Behind him, a serf approached. Silently and carefully. The mortal handed him a dataslate and bowed without words.
Tiberius took it. Read. One hand only. The other rested on the table's edge, massive fingers curled like iron pylons. His eyes scanned the slate, seeing how the sector itself was faring. And as he expected it was not doing good.
He handed the slate back without comment.
The serf hesitated.
"Speak."
"My lord… communication from Admiral Spire. He awaits confirmation of joint action."
Tiberius nodded once. "Tell him I will respond in two hours."
Behind him, one of the serfs shifted, stepping lightly as if to not disturb his Lord. Tiberius allowed the sound, but did not move. Stillness was discipline. Observation was the weapon of the patient. Astartes were not men. They were stone sharpened to spearpoint. The humans who fought this war would bleed and burn with desperation. That was their burden.
His was to endure.
But still somewhere in the cold fortress of his gene wrought mind he understood what they feared. He remembered fire. He remembered pain. He remembered a name he no longer spoke. The boy he had once been, that child torn from a nameless hive on Inwit, who had screamed in silence under the surgeon's blade… still lingered, deep beneath the surface.
And that boy pitied these mortals.
Not with softness. Not with kindness. But with recognition.
But for now, there was no room for doubt. No place for mercy.
Only results.
Tiberius's gauntleted hand rested on the table. His grip was steady, controlled. The universe was vast, brutal. And he was its instrument.
The hololith pulsed. New reports arrived: losses, advances, the shifting tides of war.
He processed them all without hesitation.
There was no glory here. No victory yet.
Only the endless grind.
He was not a man.
He was an Astartes.
And he would stand where others fell.
---
The command chamber aboard the Lord Solstice was stripped of comfort cold steel walls, buzzing lumen strips, and the faint thrum of distant void engines. Function defined it. Not form.
Admiral Spire stood alone beneath the glow of a vox-holo. Static hissed briefly before resolving into two flickering images one of Admiral Ravensburg, the other of a towering figure clad in gold trimmed ceramite, motionless as a statue.
Captain Tiberius Solarian. Imperial Fists. 3rd Company. A living relic of the VII Legion. Even through grainy vox-distortion, the pressure of his presence was unmistakable.
Spire saluted instinctively. "My Lord."
Ravensburg followed a second later, slower. "Lord Captain."
Tiberius did not return the gesture. He did not need to.
"You may begin," he said.
Spire cleared his throat. "Enemy activity across the Gothic Sector has intensified. Traitor warbands have pierced the Belis Corona flank. Interdiction around Orar has failed. Segmentum Command has not confirmed reinforcements."
"There will be no reinforcements," Ravensburg said flatly. "Port Maw is buckling. Civilian traffic is clogging the lanes. Discipline is eroding. Half the local battlefleet is on limited rations or broken at dock."
Tiberius tilted his head slightly. A servitor chirped in the background of his feed, relaying data to his helm. His voice was stone.
"My Chapter has received the distress beacon. Three strike cruisers and two escort frigates are already in transit. I will arrive in system within thirty standard hours. Reinforcements to follow once the route is secured."
Ravensburg leaned forward in his projection. "And your objective, Lord?"
"Reclamation and fortification," Tiberius said. "You will stabilize the void lanes. We will purge the heretic footholds on Urath and along the northern corridor. We will hold until reinforcements are irrelevant."
Spire nodded. "Your presence alone will turn the tide, Lord."
"No," Tiberius said. "Only fire and steel turn tides. Presence means nothing without death dealt."
A brief silence. Then Ravensburg spoke, voice quiet.
"There are billions on those worlds, Lord. Many of them beyond saving."
"Then they are already dead," Tiberius replied. "And we are not here to mourn."
Spire shifted uncomfortably. "Will you require coordination with the Inquisition, Lord? There are rumors, splinter cults, daemonic incursion—"
"I will coordinate with the Inquisition if they present themselves on the field of battle," Tiberius said. "Not before."
His eyes cold, augmetic, and burning with faint gold light lingered on each admiral in turn.
"You are not to withhold data. You are not to divert resources. You are not to retreat without cause. The Chapter does not bleed for cowardice."
"We understand, Lord," both admirals said in near unison.
"Good." Tiberius leaned back. "Then prepare your fleets. The stone has been set. We must start our own."
The vox-feed crackled. Tiberius's projection vanished.
Only static remained.
Ravensburg exhaled slowly, rubbing a gloved hand across his face. "Emperor preserve us."
Spire didn't answer. He was already issuing fleet-wide orders. His hologram winking out in next second.
---
Admiral Ravensburg sat in silence.
The vox holo had long since gone dark, yet the chill in the air lingered. It clung to him like oil. He stared at the blank screen, as if Tiberius Solarian's image might re-emerge golden and absolute to command the stars themselves back into order.
But it didn't.
And the stars didn't obey.
His private office aboard the Divine Right was buried deep in the vessel's armored belly. No windows. No ornamentation. Just ferrocrete, brass rimmed dataslates, and the sour smell of recycled air. The glow from the lumen strips above flickered intermittently, reacting to another power routing shift somewhere on Deck Nine.
A minor fault. Nothing critical.
It still made his stomach twist.
He pulled a report from the stack on his desk and read the header aloud. "Orar. Primary void corridors compromised. Estimated loss: thirty percent of supply convoys. Civilian panic widespread. Local PDF cohesion breaking.'"
He tossed it aside.
Another: 'Urath confirmed Word Bearer cult activity in nine hive-spires. Entire regiments missing. Psyker casualties in the thousands. Astropathic relay compromised.'
Another: 'Port Maw the outer ring flooded with refugees. Shipmasters refused to unload supplies. Dock fights becoming a daily occurrence. Arbites killed. Adeptus Ministorum demanding priority for pilgrims.'
Another.
Another.
Each one heavier than the last. Each one screaming in bureaucratic restraint, this is fine, we have control, remain calm while beneath the ink, the fires spread.
He stood slowly, shoulders tight. Removed his cap. Ran a hand through thinning grey hair and approached the recessed hololith table in the center of the room. With a tired gesture, he activated it.
The Gothic Sector appeared in flickering blue its stars, trade lanes, fortified bastions and watch-stations.
The map pulsed with red warning runes.
Dozens of them.
A third of the sector was under direct threat. Half of it contested. Whole subsectors like Vandis, Kulth, and Orar were functionally lost. On paper, they were holding. In reality, they were either dead or dying.
One flashing icon caught his eye: Margoval.
He tapped it. The world flared.
"Margoval. Forge world. Data integrity at 17%. No vox contact for eight days. Last known status: cult infiltration suspected. Firebreak protocol pending."
He knew what that meant.
Pending meant a junior officer hadn't signed the order yet. Because doing so would mean deploying virus bombs. Because Margoval had once produced tanks for the Cadian Gate.
Not anymore.
He shut the file.
His eyes burned. Not from emotion those had been cauterized years ago but from sheer fatigue. He had barely slept. Barely ate. His mind ran on caff-stims and raw duty. The same as every other ranking officer in Segmentum Command.
Except Tiberius Solarian, of course.
The Space Marine had looked utterly untouched by strain. Clad in centuries of war and sanctified armor, as if the galaxy had to ask his permission before it bled.
"'We are not here to mourn,'" Ravensburg muttered, repeating the Captain's words under his breath.
Easy to say, when you were Astartes.
Harder when your orders condemned billions to death in silence.
He returned to his desk. Opened another report.
'Vandis Subsector. Planetary Governor executed by Ecclesiarchy. Rebellion spreading. Penal regiments deployed, five percent survival. Sisters of Battle en route to contain schismatics.'
He highlighted the last line. Made a note.
Request confirmation: do they need support? Or extermination?
He paused, then added: "Both, if necessary."
He sat back. Closed his eyes. Let the quiet of the chamber press in. He had been born in this sector. Had spent most of his life defending it. And now it was unraveling, thread by thread, faster than he could patch.
The war was not even at full tilt. The Black Fleet had not yet arrived in force. Abaddon had not yet committed his vanguard.
And already, it felt like they were losing.
The Inquisition whispered of "Sleeper agents" traitors who had waited centuries to awaken. Of warp borne data ghosts infecting noospheric networks. Of spontaneous combustion among psykers in Port Maw's transit halls. The Astra Militarum was stretched to the bone. Naval squadrons refused to sail without Mechanicus support. And Mechanicus support now came with a price.
The sector was dying. And not cleanly.
Ravensburg opened a private channel. No servitors. No scribes. Just his voice.
"Command," he said.
A short buzz. Then a tinny voice replied. "Command receiving, Admiral."
"Begin preparations to close the Orar corridor. Divert remaining convoys to the trade route. Abandon Ornsworld. Pull the garrison."
A pause.
"Sir, that would mean—"
"I know what it means," Ravensburg snapped. Then, quieter. "Send the order. And… light the beacon."
"Which beacon, Admiral?"
He hesitated.
Then spoke the words with bitterness.
"Praefortis Ultima."
There was no reply. Just confirmation beeps. The line went dead.
That was it then. Praefortis Ultima the beacon that called for the ancient blackstone forts. The last line defenses. Ships with names older than the Segmentum itself. Most had not stirred in millennia.
They would now.
He stood again, shoulders aching. Moved to the small wall alcove beside his desk. A shrine to the Emperor sat there, dusty and unloved. He hadn't prayed in years. But he lit a candle. Just in case the God Emperor was still listening.
Just in case they weren't already too late.
---
Word Count: 1856
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