The plasma tide spread through the passage and consumed the last of the green shimmer. When it faded, nothing remained of the Kryptos in anyone's eyepiece.
Nolan lowered the Heart of the Furnace. The Lamenters moved forward in Terminator plate, bolters raised, and formed a perimeter around the Black Templars still recovering on the deck.
The Black Templars did not attempt to rise and fight. They looked at the Lamenters' chapter markings, and then their eyes found the pale gold power armor not far away, and something in their assessment shifted. Bolters and chainswords went down. They became prisoners without requiring further persuasion.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
Nolan crossed through the assembled crowd on his magnetic boots, skull helmet lowered slightly, and read the faces of the Black Templars in a long sweeping glance. More than thirty of them were present. He selected the one with the steadiest bearing and moved toward him.
The questions and answers that followed gave him a picture of the expeditionary force's history.
These Astartes were a regular expedition deployed into the Ghoul Stars by High Marshal Helbrecht of the Black Templars, tasked with purging xenos and heretics across the frontier in the Emperor's name. The campaign had gone well for a long time. They lost more than half their number to Necron Flayed Ones and Chaos Space Marines over the years, but the Black Templars measured loss in terms of souls returned to the Golden Throne, not casualties. They continued.
The Cadian catastrophe and the opening of the Great Rift cut them off from all contact with the High Marshal while they were resupplying at a remote human colony. Distress calls from dozens of colony worlds began arriving simultaneously. They answered as many as they could, moving from world to world in continuous rescue operations.
"If I understand correctly," the Chaplain said, "one of the colonies we aided had a Kryptos presence we did not detect. They followed us back aboard."
He raised his head and held Nolan's gaze through his visor.
"When our Marshal noticed the behavioral changes aboard the ship, he assessed it as Chaos corruption. His combat experience pointed him in the wrong direction. We conducted internal investigations using standard exorcism procedures. The possessed crew continued to deteriorate. Before we lost command authority entirely, the Marshal made the decision to sail the expeditionary fleet to the most desolate region he could find, then had us kill the Navigators and Astropaths. In his judgment, those most connected to the Warp were most likely to be the source of the problem."
Nolan said nothing.
The Chaplain continued.
"We later learned why so few mortals remain aboard: the Marshal discovered the true nature of his mistake when a Kryptos left a mortal corpse and entered him directly. I was the one who finally identified the alien correctly — I had seen their records during a century of service in the Deathwatch. By then, I could see that nearly every surviving battle-brother had been parasitized. Those of us who remained unaffected had no choice but to fight our own brothers. The Marshal was executed by my hand." He paused. "When I looked back afterward, I found that I could not continue. I could not keep killing my brothers. I chose instead to remain with them in this ship and wait for whatever came next."
The passage held the weight of that for a moment.
"Perhaps the Astropath's dying signal reaching us at all was the Emperor's blessing," Nolan said quietly. He shook the skull helmet once.
The Chaplain tilted his head. The puzzled look was visible even through the visor.
"My lord, forgive me. I can identify the Terminator plate as Lamenter-pattern, but I cannot place you. Power armor of that specification exceeds anything I have encountered in the field. Are you a champion of the Lamenters?"
Nolan took a slow breath.
He looked across the assembled Black Templars, most of whom were now watching him, then back to the Chaplain in front of him.
"I was once a champion of your chapter, the Black Templars."
He let that settle.
"But today I am the Twenty-Second Primarch of the Imperium of Man. And the Emperor's messenger who has come to bring you home."
The skull helmet withdrew. The living metal flowed back in layers, and Nolan's bronze face, resolute and marked with the faint lines the entropy fields had left on it, came into the open air.
The Chaplain dropped to one knee before the helmet had finished retracting. Every Black Templar in the passage turned toward Nolan simultaneously and lowered their helmets without hesitation, the movement spreading through the group in a wave.
The voices that rose were full of the particular fervency that made the Black Templars what they were.
"Black Templar Expeditionary Force — greets the Primarch!"
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