The hall was not built for gatherings of this kind, but it was large enough.
The Lamenters had formed a tight defensive perimeter, their Terminator plate close together, shoulders nearly touching, moving as a unit in slow steady rotations to address pressure from whatever direction it arrived. The Carcharodons coming at them numbered in the dozens, and they hit the defensive line with the sustained aggression of warriors who had been doing nothing else for several centuries. Neither side had drawn a weapon. No bolt pistol had cleared a holster, no chainsword had been thumbed active. The engagement was purely physical: fists and forearms and ceramite frames colliding with enough force to leave impression marks in the wall panels when someone was thrown into them.
Around the perimeter of this, the mortal population of the hall had arranged itself at a careful distance. Ragged servants stood in clusters, watching without expression. The Devourers, the mortal auxiliary fighters attached to the fleet, stood nearby in similar silence. Several Carcharodons veterans who had not joined the fighting watched from the walls with the patient observation of people who had seen things of this category before and were waiting to see how it resolved.
The hall doors opened.
Nolan and Tyberos came through together and did not slow down.
The Ten Rings left their housing above Nolan's power pack and spread outward into the fight at the speed and precision of something that knew exactly where each Lamenters frame was and where to redirect it without causing injury. Every Terminator that had been pushing forward was redirected back into the defensive formation, placed back inside the perimeter with accuracy that suggested the rings were extensions of judgment rather than simple kinetic tools.
Tyberos handled the other half.
The Chapter Master moved through his own Carcharodons without ceremony, picking up the ones pressing hardest against the Lamenters' line and removing them from the equation one at a time. The word that came to mind was not gentle. But no one was seriously injured, because Tyberos knew exactly how much force was enough.
The fight was over in under a minute.
Nolan stood in the cleared center of the hall and let the silence settle.
Then he looked at the Lamenters.
"Tell me what happened." His voice was not raised. It did not need to be. "If you cannot provide a reason that justifies this, none of you are returning with me."
Tyberos had turned to face his own people. He had one Carcharodon lifted by the gorget, the Astartes's boots not quite reaching the floor, and the Chapter Master's expression was the expression of someone who had not decided yet how angry to be, which was, in its own way, more alarming than certainty.
"You will explain to the Primarch what occurred. If that explanation does not satisfy him, I will apply the maximum available punishment without convening a tribunal." The voice came from somewhere deep and flat. "Is that understood."
Everyone in the hall knelt.
It took some time, and some clarifying questions, but the account assembled itself accurately enough.
The Lamenters had arrived on the Nicor and immediately noticed the condition of the mortal servants: malnourished visibly, clothing in states that should have been replaced well before reaching their current condition. Nolan had briefed them on the Carcharodons' customs before departure, so none of them had spoken immediately. But seeing it directly was a different register of information than being told about it, and the Lamenters were what they were. Comments had been made. The tone of those comments had communicated what the words were careful not to say directly.
This alone would not have escalated.
A mortal auxiliary had broken from the group and moved toward the Lamenters. He had been looking for something: not trouble, but contact, the approach of someone who has identified people who might respond differently to a request than the people they live with every day. Before he reached the Lamenters, several Carcharodons had intercepted him. The handling had not been careful. The auxiliary was on the floor in a state of serious injury before anyone had made a decision about what to do next.
The Lamenters had made their decision immediately.
Even with the equipment advantage of Terminator plate on their side, the Carcharodons held the individual capability edge without question. What the engagement had actually been was closer to a controlled test of that gap, both sides aware that the limit was injury and not death, both operating within it. It was still a fight. It was still a problem that required Nolan and Tyberos to physically separate people.
Nolan reached into the storage compartment of his power pack and took out a vial of panacea capsules. He passed them to the nearest Lamenter without looking.
"Treat the injured man first. Then conduct a full assessment of the condition of every mortal servant and Devourerattached to this fleet." He said it as a statement of what was going to happen, not a request for permission. "I assume the Carcharodons will raise no objection."
No objection was raised.
He turned to Tyberos.
"I understand the Chapter's circumstances. I have tried to account for them and I have tried to rationalize the choices that came from them." His voice stayed level. "But the Chapter I first came to did not treat its mortals this way. That is not my memory being selective. Something changed. What happened aboard this fleet while I was not present?"
Tyberos met this directly, the way he met everything.
"The responsibility is ours. The Lamenters' battle-brothers did nothing wrong by intervening." He did not qualify this. "The origin of it: the fleet was under sustained Tyranid engagement, heavy siege conditions, and resource supply had degraded significantly. To maintain the Astartes at operational capacity, the rations allocated to the mortal complement were reduced. The reduction lasted longer than anticipated. When the mortals had been hungry for long enough, a combined group of servants and Devourer auxiliaries attempted a rebellion. It was not a close contest. But the attempt, and the conditions that produced it, left a mark on how the new intakes relate to the mortal complement. The veterans adapted. The newer brothers did not adapt correctly." The dark eyes did not move from Nolan. "This is my failure as Chapter Master. I accept whatever consequence you determine is appropriate."
Nolan looked at him for a long moment.
Then he turned to face the hall.
The Ten Rings drifted back above his power pack and slowed into the halo formation, the purple light settling into its steady rotation. He looked at the Carcharodons assembled across the space, veterans and new blood both, and at the mortal servants standing at the room's edges, and at the Devourers, and he took a breath.
"Terra does not understand what this Chapter contributes to the survival of humanity. The Imperium does not record it correctly and probably never will. I understand it. That understanding is why I will remain the Chapter's most committed supporter." He let that sit for a moment. "I am not your Void Father. But as a Primarch, I carry the responsibility to tell you when you have moved off the correct path. So I am telling you."
The hall was completely still.
"You are Carcharodons. You are warriors of a quality that very few forces in the Imperium can match in sustained void combat. You are also the Emperor's Astartes. Both of those things are true at the same time, and they carry the same obligations." He looked across the faces in the hall. "Some people describe the Astartes as the Emperor's blade. I would say you are something else as well. You are the shield that stands between the Void and the mortal population that cannot stand there in your place. That is why you fight. Not only for the Imperium. Not only for the Void Father. For the people behind you who have no other protection."
The mortal servants went to their knees first. Some of them were already praying, the words coming out quietly, hands pressed together in the gesture that the Emperor's faith produced in people who had encountered something they recognized as larger than themselves. The Devourers followed.
Then, across the hall, the Carcharodons knelt.
It moved from the front of the room to the back in a single slow wave.
"We remember."
The words came from every armored throat in the room, Carcharodons and Lamenters both, at the same moment, without coordination.
"For the Primarch."
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