"Creed, do not play me for a fool!" A thunderous roar suddenly erupted within the subterranean command sanctum of Kasr Kraf.
"I am not lying, Inquisitor!" Creed stood up abruptly, his eyes locked onto the elderly, iron-willed woman before him. In this dark age, he was perhaps the only man on Cadia with the sheer grit to defy a member of the Holy Ordos.
"Sit down!" the Grand Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus warned the Lord Castellan. Her voice was a low, dangerous rasp. "I said, sit down."
The command room fell into a deathly silence. Every Cadian officer turned to look at Creed, whose fists were clenched so tightly his knuckles had turned white. Jarran Kell, standing like a statue at his side, had a single bead of cold sweat rolling down his forehead.
After a long, agonizing silence, Creed finally lowered himself back into his chair, his head bowed as he raised his hands to cover the lower half of his face.
"Creed, do not think me ignorant of the strategic difference between a civilian starport and an orbital-intercept airbase," the Inquisitor said, tapping the tactical hololith with a sharp click. "Cadia cannot be lost. You will not retreat. If I discover you are entertaining any notions of evacuation, I will not hesitate to sign the Exterminatus mandate myself."
"Even if Cadia has already given everything?" Creed asked after a moment of hollow silence.
"Even if Cadia has given everything," the Inquisitor reaffirmed. Without a second glance, she turned and marched toward the exit, ignoring the suffocating silence she left in her wake.
Outside the observation window, Alexei turned to Diana. "Is this the typical temperament of your colleagues in the Inquisition?"
Diana awkwardly looked away, her mind drifting to the fact that she had conducted herself in a similar fashion not so long ago. The command room remained silent, save for the rhythmic, echoing thud of the Inquisitor's boots approaching the heavy blast doors.
The moment the doors hissed open and the Inquisitor saw Alexei, her eyes narrowed into predatory slits. She stared at him for a long moment, her expression one of cold suspicion. "I remember you, Governor of Aiur. Those massive quantities of unregistered equipment—gear that has bypassed Imperial tithe inspection—will be investigated by the Administratum immediately. If the provenance of your technology is found to be tainted, you will face the Emperor's judgment."
Alexei remained utterly expressionless. He offered a small, polite chuckle and bowed his head slightly. "Of course, Your Excellency. I shall submit to the Emperor's will."
The Inquisitor did not respond; she simply turned her back on him and continued her departure.
Alexei watched her retreating figure, his smile fading as his eyes narrowed to thin lines. He was a loyal subject of the Throne, but that did not mean he would allow himself to be trampled upon by any zealot with a badge of office. He glanced toward the shadows at his side and tilted his chin. A subtle, chilling breeze seemed to follow the Grand Inquisitor's footsteps.
"I salute you, Inquisitor—the brave martyr who sacrificed herself for Cadia," Alexei murmured to himself, his gaze drifting toward the horizon. He then gestured for Diana to follow him into the command sanctum.
Creed remained slumped in his chair, looking uncharacteristically defeated. This indomitable High Lord, who had survived a thousand desperate campaigns, looked as though the Inquisitor's words had finally snapped his sturdy spine.
"Ahem," Alexei coughed softly as he approached the strategic table.
Creed snapped out of his trance, instantly regaining his iron composure. "Governor Alexei. What brings you back? I thought you were with Archmagos Cawl, inspecting the pylon architecture."
Alexei didn't answer directly. Instead, he asked, "What happened here just now?"
Creed remained silent for a moment, then offered a weary, bitter smile. "It was nothing. I simply wished to ensure a path for the civilians of Cadia to survive."
He clenched his fists, his voice rising with suppressed fury. "Those damned, stubborn zealots..." His adjutant, Kell, cleared his throat loudly. Creed stopped abruptly, looking awkwardly at Diana behind Alexei. Seeing that she remained stoic and unresponsive to his outburst, he exhaled a breath of relief.
"It is of no consequence. Why are you here?" Creed asked, shifting the subject.
Alexei found the transition somewhat amusing. "The Grand Inquisitor will eventually understand the weight of your burden. I am here to inform you that I am redeploying the Aiur Guard to the Spire Plains defensive line."
"But your primary strength is committed to the Beta Curtain in the east," Creed said hesitantly. "The fighting there is already intense."
"It is managed. As a citizen of the Imperium, I must offer my all to the Emperor," Alexei replied with a practiced tone. He glanced at his mental interface, noting the rapidly accumulating soul fragments on his board. He wasn't worried about his 'main force'—wherever he stood, his true strength followed.
Lord Creed stood up and clapped a heavy hand on Alexei's shoulder. "Cadia is with you, son." He turned to Kell. "Prepare my command transport. I will accompany the Governor to the front lines."
"But sir, your health... the tranquilizers..." Kell began to protest, but the Lord Castellan silenced him with a sharp look. With a sigh, Kell turned to make the final preparations.
Alexei watched Creed's retreating back and sighed inwardly. In the original history, this hero's fate was to become a trophy in Trazyn the Infinite's collection. Not this time, Alexei thought. He would not allow the heroes of Cadia to be spirited away by xenos thieves.
Did my intervention accelerate the endgame? Alexei wondered as he sat in the vibrating cabin of a heavy transport.
With the Imperial Fists, the Living Saint, and other reinforcements yet to make their grand entrance, he was leading the Aiur Legion to the final theater of war. Joining them were the elements of the Dark Angels and Space Wolves who had successfully withdrawn, alongside the Black Templars, the Emperor's Scythes, and the elite survivors of the Cadian interior.
They did not know exactly when the Black Legion would breach the horizon, but there was no time left to waste. Alexei knew that Abaddon the Despoiler would now commit every resource at his disposal to shatter this world.
However, Alexei looked up toward the skylight. The destruction of the Blackstone Fortress had prevented the Black Fleet from overwhelming the Imperial Navy and the Phalanx. Consequently, the heavy battlecruisers finally had an opportunity to punch through the atmosphere and challenge the Legio Vulcanum directly. As for the daemon tide... Alexei didn't even consider it a threat. The Protoss technology within his arsenal would show the Warp what the true wrath of the stars felt like.
Until the very end, the eastern sector of the Spire Plains would be an unbreakable wall.
The transport began its steep descent. Amidst the obsidian pylons that rose like jagged teeth from the earth, Alexei and a vast wave of Aiur Guards disembarked. Massive SCVs immediately lumbered toward the ruins of a nearby fortress, their mechanical arms already beginning the work of fortification.
Under the baleful, swirling gaze of the Eye of Terror, a defensive line of cold steel was rapidly rising to the east of the ancient spires.
"Come then," Alexei whispered, standing upon the ramparts of the nascent fortress and staring into the depths of the plains, where he could feel a massive, approaching malice. "Let us see the true face of the Black Legion."