In the period that followed, quiet settled over the Nicor in a way that rarely happened when the flagship was at anchor.
The corridors had visitors.
They came in twos and threes, moving with the particular deliberateness of people who understood that they were somewhere they had not expected to be. Magi in layered crimson robes, their mechadendrites folded and stilled as a sign of deference, their augmetic joints clicking softly against the deck plating. Titan Legion officers in the dress-uniform equivalent of their station, faces partially encased in interfaces and cranial hardware, their organic components reduced to the minimum required for expression. They came through the passageways of the Carcharodons flagship like penitents approaching a shrine, their movements precise and without waste.
Reditus led them.
The Armiger-class Knight that served as the servo-skull's current chassis had been fitted for the occasion with an oversized red robe, draped and cinched around the war machine's angular hull in an arrangement that was not quite ceremonially correct for any known Mechanicus tradition but was, unmistakably, an attempt. The Armiger moved through the ship's corridors with surprising care for something of its mass, its pilot clearly more interested in presentation than efficiency. From somewhere inside the chassis, Reditus's voice emerged to narrate the journey, managing the guests' expectations and deflecting questions about restricted sections of the ship with smooth, unhurried confidence.
One by one, the Magi and Titan Legion commanders were brought before Nolan.
Whatever they had expected to find, the reality appeared to recalibrate them. The identity question did not arise. The combined honor-guarantee of the Carcharodons, the Lamenters, the Raven Guard, and the Black Templars, together with what the Forge World's auspex arrays had recorded during the transit, left no serious room for doubt. These were not people given to credulity in ordinary circumstances. But they had watched, through their detection equipment, as a single figure standing on a battle barge's outer hull had produced something large enough to slow a Warp storm. The category of being capable of that was not a long list.
Nolan received them with appropriate gravity. He did not perform warmth he did not feel, and he did not perform coldness for effect. He listened when they spoke, answered what could be answered, and allowed the visits to run their natural course. Each departure left the visitor in a slightly different state than arrival: more settled, somehow, as though a question they had carried across the void had been resolved without being explicitly asked.
Reditus, meanwhile, had other work in progress.
The Carcharodons fleet carried a significant accumulation of grey tithe materials: goods and resources gathered across campaign systems, stockpiled in the fleet's holds, not yet converted into anything more useful. Under normal circumstances, exchanging these materials at a Forge World produced serviceable but modest returns. The Magi of Triplex Phall set their own valuations and did not typically negotiate.
Reditus negotiated.
By the time the last of the visiting Magi had concluded their audience with Nolan and were preparing to return to their own ships, the transaction ledgers had been thoroughly revised. The grey tithe stockpiles had been exchanged for a volume of base materials that Tyberos, reviewing the tallies afterward, found difficult to account for. On top of the material yield, the Forge World's technicians had agreed to provide maintenance and repair access to the full Carcharodons fleet for the duration of their stay at Triplex Phall's star port.
Tyberos stood with the ledgers for a long moment.
Then he went to find Reditus.
He located the Armiger in a side chamber, the war machine hovering on its anti-grav repulsors at roughly head height while a pair of mechadendrite-arms worked carefully at some internal component of the chassis. The servo-skull did not turn when the Chapter Master entered.
Tyberos waited.
Reditus spoke first. "Dear Chapter Master. What a pleasant surprise."
"Explain the transaction," Tyberos said.
"Tsk." The mechadendrites continued their work. "The situation here is layered, Lord Chapter Master. I worry that the full analysis might exceed the processing capacity of an Astartes whose cognitive hardware is primarily configured for direct violence."
Tyberos said nothing.
"But since you ask." The Armiger rotated slowly on its repulsors to face him. "First: those Magi were generous because our Lord Primarch was watching. Generosity performed before a Primarch is not generosity. It is display. They wanted to demonstrate that Triplex Phall is a world worthy of his attention. I simply ensured they demonstrated it to the fullest possible extent."
"Second." The eye-lenses of the Armiger shifted to a cooler light. "When your fleet was conducting grey tithe exchanges with Triplex Phall previously, before my involvement, the Magi were deducting approximately forty percent of the assessed value from every transaction. You were trading irreplaceable archeotech relics at corpse-starch prices because none of your Chapter's warriors had the cultural background to recognize the standard Forge World valuation games. I have that background."
Tyberos's grip tightened slightly on the frame of the doorway.
"And third," Reditus continued, as though he had not noticed, "I would encourage you to think about why our Lord Primarch bothered receiving these visits at all, rather than sending intermediaries. He is not a man who gives his time for courtesy alone. Triplex Phall is a significant Forge World. It has a Titan Legion. It has production infrastructure that would take decades to replicate. And our Lord has noticed all of this."
The eye-lenses dimmed slightly, conspiratorially.
"I can say, with considerable confidence, that if circumstances continue along their current trajectory, this Forge World will eventually carry our name. When that day comes, the Carcharodons will have their own dedicated supply world. You will never again need to conduct grey tithe negotiations with people who are actively trying to deceive you."
The mechadendrite-arms resumed their careful work.
"So. Lord Chapter Master. I would strongly suggest you put the lightning claws down. Try not to disrupt the plan with impulsive metallurgy. A supply world is worth considerably more than a satisfying fight."
Tyberos looked at his hands. The Claws of Maelstrom had been rising during the conversation without him consciously directing them to do so. He stilled them.
There was a pause.
"If the Fabricator General of Triplex Phall is not a man of wisdom," Tyberos said, his voice carrying the particular weight of a decision being formed rather than stated, "and does not intend to submit to the Lord Primarch, I will request permission to act."
"Every Carcharodon in this fleet will become a nightmare that Triplex Phall never forgets."
Reditus turned again on the repulsors, eye-lenses cycling to a brighter setting.
"Lord Chapter Master. I have just told you, at some length, not to do that. Did any portion of that instruction land?"
"I am warning you formally: do not ruin a long-term acquisition for the satisfaction of a short-term grievance. And should you somehow manage to do exactly that despite this warning, it will be your name in front of the Lord Primarch afterward. Not mine."
The eye-lenses held steady.
Tyberos held the gaze of the Armiger's sensors for a moment. Then he dipped his helmet forward in a single, slow nod.
He turned and walked back into the depths of the flagship.
The Warp storm surrounding Triplex Phall did not dissipate. It slowed, and its edges pulled back from the inner star zone, and the colour of it shifted from active scarlet to something duller and less purposeful. But it remained, a stain across the outer system that no auspex reading could fully account for.
In its presence, the Carcharodons fleet was guided toward the shipyards.
The Forge World's orbital staff handled the approach vectors, directing each vessel in sequence to the vast dry-dock installations that ringed the star port's operational perimeter. Ancient machinery that had been receiving warships for centuries extended to receive them. Cradles locked. Service umbilicals began their slow approach. The Nicor, largest of the fleet, was given the primary berth.
When the initial logistics were settled, Nolan gathered his Terminator escort, confirmed that Reditus had transferred awareness back into the Armiger's active systems, and descended to the surface.
The world below did not make a good first impression.
The Thunderhawk's descent carried them through cloud layers that had not been natural cloud in living memory. Below the upper atmosphere the sky was the colour of old iron, and the light that came through it had a yellowish cast that suggested several generations of atmospheric chemistry working against the original composition. The urban-industrial sprawl that filled the visible surface in every direction was dense enough that it was difficult to identify where one forge-complex ended and the next began. Exhaust columns rose from processing towers in numbers that made individual plumes meaningless. The entire horizon was a single integrated machinery.
But the air, when the Thunderhawk's ramp descended at the landing zone, was breathable. Not pleasant. But breathable. Evidently the people of Triplex Phall had, over generations, reached some negotiated settlement with their own planet about what the minimum conditions for continued habitation would be.
A reception was waiting.
Several senior Magi stood at the base of the landing apron, their red robes of an obviously finer weave than those Nolan had seen aboard the Nicor. The organic components of each were minimal, their true shapes defined more by mechadendrite clusters and integrated housing units than by any conventional humanoid silhouette. As Nolan descended the ramp, they raised one hand each in the Mechanicus salute, the ritual acknowledgment rendered in precise unison.
Nolan returned the greeting with a measured inclination of his skull helmet.
The procession moved.
Along every route through the forge-complex, the Skitarii halted. Ranging squads and patrol cohorts, mid-cycle through their standard circuits, stopped in place as the group passed and raised the salute in turn. It happened at each intersection, each corridor junction, each elevated gantry where red-robed figures stood watch over the machinery below. The effect was less formal honor guard and more something that had simply happened across the entire garrison at once, without coordination or instruction.
The Magi explained the situation as they walked.
The purpose of the visit, beyond the desire to meet the Primarch directly, was substantive. Nolan intended to understand the Forge World's management structure, its production capacity, and the temperament of the person who actually ran it. More specifically, he intended to open a conversation about Triplex Phall's long-term future.
The Fabricator General would be meeting them. This was not a concession on the Fabricator General's part: it was simply the only available option.
The explanation that followed was delivered by the senior Magos with the careful, slightly apologetic precision of someone communicating a structural constraint rather than a personal failure.
The Fabricator General had not left the central forge-palace in some years.
This was not due to lack of motivation. The difficulty was architectural. The Fabricator General's physical form, which had been augmented and expanded across multiple decades of mechanical integration, had reached a scale at which conventional transit was no longer straightforward. To remove the Fabricator General from the central forge-palace would require, as a preliminary step, the complete disassembly of the building's upper structure. The roof, the supporting columns, several of the upper-floor installation rigs. A project of that scope would take more time than the current visit permitted.
And even assuming the structural work were completed, the Fabricator General's mass exceeded the load-bearing capacity of a Thunderhawk by a considerable margin. Standard atmospheric transit would require a dedicated transport vessel.
The implication was clear.
The Primarch had come to Triplex Phall. And so the Primarch would go to the Fabricator General.
Nolan said nothing to this. He kept walking.
Ahead, through the haze and the machinery and the yellow light, the central forge-palace was beginning to resolve from the general mass of the city.
It was large.