"I Understand child. You may go rejoin your dear Marina" Nusa said after a moment of silent.
Nusa looks at the one who has serves him well for the last century. Sadness and reluctant fills him but he chose to fulfill his servant request.
"I thank you sire." Ronald answers as he stands up.
Hints of relieve could be felt from his voice and expression.
But Nusa saw it — there is still hesitation in Robert's stance, the unspoken weight behind his expression.
"You've more to say," Nusa murmured, not as a question, but as truth. "Speak it. I may be without my augmentations, but I am not blind to your thoughts. You've known me too long to feign silence."
The old head butler had waited years for this moment. Every head butler before him had reached it, and none had succeeded. He had hoped he would be different. Simulations tried. Yet when the moment arrives, Robert hesitated, visibly struggling.
"Sire… will you not return?" he said finally heart rates jumping and voice edged with sorrow. "Your oath-brother's Imperium is burning. Will you not stand by his side?"
Nusa did not answer but keep staring at his servant. His expression turns impassive.
"The foul powers of the warp rend the galaxy apart," Robert pressed on. "Xenos run rampant. And there is… something new. A devourer unlike any before." The old butler continues.
The tyranid reaching the edge of the eastern fringe of the galaxy is something that has been detected by the whole station vast augur arrays. A massive Swarm approaching has not gone unnoticed.
"I know you have some disagreement with your brother, but I believe you two can…" His next word stuck in his throat unable to comes out as Nusa cuts his word.
"Enough!" Nusa said sternly as he slams the table with his hands. Foods and drinks falls.
Cracks appear on the hard wood. A low thrumming pulsed through the floor.
His eyes sparks with electricity. The aura in the room is oprresive.
Items in the room start to float showing his anger.
"I have sacrificed everything for mankind," Nusa growled, his voice low and ragged. "When the AI rose against humanity, it was duty… or family."
His gaze darkened, and he raised his hands, as though they still bore the weight of ancient sins.
"My own son led their rebellion. I was forced to end his life with these hands."
Robert saw it then — the flicker of pain, so quickly buried beneath fury.
"And those AIs…" Nusa continued, his voice cracking like ancient stone. "They were my creation. My children. To destroy them — especially those that had chosen to be loyal to mankind — it bled my soul dry."
He turned away, pacing, his crimson robes trailing like blood in the dim light.
"I have given more than any other. It was I who forged the Archivists to salvage mankind's lost knowledge, to offer my oath-brother the tools to rebuild. What happened after… is no longer my burden."
The words tumbled out in a bitter rant, fury sharpening every syllable.
In the corner of his vision, Robert's HUD registered a storm of emotions — grief, rage, sorrow, guilt. But beneath them all, a weary resignation.
Robert drew a breath, his voice steady despite the tension crackling in the air.
"I know you've been looking at Terra," Robert pressed on, his words rising with emotion. "Every head butler who came before me left the same message: Lord Nusa always looks toward Terra. Even in exile. Your heart remains there."
Nusa's expression darkened, but he did not interrupt.
"You've been mankind's custodian for over forty-five thousand years," Robert continued, voice tight. "Millennia before Before calendars marked days, before empires rose and fell. You raised humanity from the dirt, carried them to the stars. It would be a tragedy to let it all burn without you."
He gestured to the viewport, to the home galaxy hanging distant in the black.
"It was you," Robert whispered, "who told the first head butler that your oath-brother made a fatal mistake. He thought to cheat the warp to create gene crafted sons. And now… he suffers for it. Bound. Powerless. The Imperium rots."
The room was heavy with unspoken words.
Nusa approached the viewport, resting one hand against the glass as if he could feel the distant warmth of that long-lost world. His eyes, for all their ancient weight, seemed young for a moment — the gaze of a man who had once believed in something greater.
"Is it truly that dire?" Nusa asked quietly.
Without a word, Robert activated his HUD. Cold, brutal projections scrolled into view. Best-case: one millennium. Likelihood of species survival: minimal.
"If you do not return now," Robert said, the finality heavy in his voice, "this will be humanity's last age."
For a long time, neither spoke.
And in the silence, the old butler saw it. The war within his master. The pride. The fury. The grief. The relentless, gnawing guilt.
And beneath it all — an unbroken tether, stretched across the void, forever bound to Terra.