---o---
Accompanying the orders issued by the Departmento Munitorum, two ships departed the sector.
One vessel carried an enormous stack of documents and set a course for Holy Terra. The other carried a contingent of Krieg soldiers and the cloak of a certain Daemon Primarch, bound for the world of Krieg itself.
No sooner had both ships cleared the Mandeville Point and plunged into the Warp, however, than they ran headlong into a Warp storm. Each was swept toward its respective destination, the document ship most dramatically of all.
According to the subsequent reports of the crew, their ship became haunted.
A tremendous host of flaming Astartes came surging out of the vessel's chapel, tearing through every compartment from top to bottom in search of something. The Administratum officials, the PDF troopers, and the Ecclesiarchy representatives aboard responded to this development by pressing their foreheads to the deck and not daring to produce so much as a single sound.
The flaming skeletal warriors departed as swiftly as they had appeared. In their wake, the ship was spotlessly clean. Not a speck of disorder remained anywhere aboard, save for a pile of badly ruffled documents belonging to a group of thoroughly bewildered Administratum scribes, and one item placed in the most prominent position possible: a report bearing the heading GREAT VICTORY.
"The God-Emperor has manifested?"
They had arrived from nowhere. They had departed to nowhere. They had not threatened a single soul. The assembled crew stared at the empty air where the Astartes had been, united in complete and total bafflement.
For the record, several officially certified psykers later confirmed that the Astronomican had blazed with extraordinary brilliance at precisely that moment.
---o---
The second ship had a rather different experience.
Its complement of one thousand Krieg soldiers spent the voyage feeling roughly as though they were riding inside some manner of aircraft. A journey that should have taken years even through the Warp was accomplished in a matter of days. When they disembarked and compared timestamps, they found that barely a month or two had passed in the outside world.
These soldiers became among the very few Krieg warriors in history to complete a deployment and return to their homeworld alive.
As the ship descended toward that bleak and desolate planet, a long and solemn melody rang out across the surface.
Krieg soldiers locked in their endless slaughter paused, confused to find the killing halted. Those enduring their brutal training stopped mid-motion. Even the youngest cohort of Krieg children, barely emerged from their cultivation vats and spending the rare luxury of a quiet moment, were gathered together.
Then a voice rang out across the entire world of Krieg.
"A great child of the Emperor has said: 'Krieg's sins have long since been redeemed. But the Imperium has need of Krieg....'"
Silence fell across the planet.
Every Krieg soldier with memory and cognition stood frozen, staring at the source of that voice.
Then...
"...huu... huu..."
Someone started it. No one could say who. But the Krieg soldiers wept.
Those who had been locked in mortal combat with one another a moment before now clung to each other and sobbed. That place so saturated in blood and brutality became, for one strange and fleeting moment, something almost human in its warmth. Grief, joy, and emotions that had no name whatsoever flooded the entirety of Krieg.
The Departmento Munitorum conscription officers stationed on the surface stared with expressions of pure incomprehension.
A child of the Emperor?
"The banner of glory is the God's Son's confirmation of us. This is the cloak of the Imperium's ten-thousand-year enemy. This is our pride."
The battle standard, fashioned from Mortarion's cloak, was placed at the most sacred location on all of Krieg.
The Munitorum officers scrambled over to see it for themselves, and one by one they drew sharp, involuntary breaths.
Krieg was the Imperium's most critical source of military manpower, and the Munitorum personnel assigned here had been dispatched directly from the Holy Terra headquarters. They knew considerably more than the average Imperial servant.
They recognized it.
That was the cloak of one of the Imperium's greatest enemies. An ancient, forbidden existence from ten thousand years ago.
And as for the Primarch who had claimed it, that certain lord...
Which lord was this, exactly?
What kind of name was "That Lord" anyway? And it came from the Space Wolves?
The conscription officers exchanged glances. Then fresh intelligence arrived and pushed the question aside entirely. Krieg had voluntarily pledged to double its annual tithe of Astra Militarum soldiers. They would devote themselves to the Imperium and its honor with even greater fervor than before.
The Munitorum officers had no particular objection to raise. If they were being candid, they had long held reservations about Krieg's final selection process, in which qualified candidates were made to slaughter one another until half were dead, the survivors alone contributing to the tithe. Every soldier who reached that final culling was already of full Astra Militarum standard. The waste was considerable.
But as long as the soldiers kept coming, they were content to mind their own business.
Life is the God-Emperor's currency. But please, take care of it. Make it worth more.
---o---
New Tillius, Zhou Ye's temporary base of operations.
He had a reasonably clear idea of how much noise his various antics would produce. So for now, he was keeping an extremely low profile.
His current location was the definition of nowhere. The nearest suitable Mandeville Point was light-years away, placing this world well beyond the Imperium's practical reach. He had been here for a while already, and not a single soul had come to bother him.
It was, by his standards, a genuinely peaceful stretch of time.
He had also taken the opportunity to refit his entire Titan Legion. Every war machine had been converted into mining equipment and dispatched to his former base world to extract raw materials, helping him rapidly replenish his depleted reserves. The Emperor Titan led the effort, accompanied by a Warlord Titan, both of them grinding away steadily on his behalf.
The wreckage of the two Warlord Plague Titans he had gathered up and rebuilt into a single functional unit.
Any Tech-Priest who witnessed what he had done to those machines would probably drop to their knees in reverent worship, and then immediately combust with fury. But when one possessed the Authority of Creation, certain liberties simply presented themselves.
This also meant he was not in a position to move on in the near term.
He had not been entirely idle, however. Take the current moment, for instance.
"Why," Zhou Ye said, regarding the individual standing before him with profound skepticism, "are you named Mario?"
The man in question was the highest-ranking non-commissioned officer among the Lamenters survivors, who had suffered the additional indignity of being physically swallowed by the Warp when their Chapter scattered. He had been among those flung clear of the disaster, subsequently stumbled upon an Administratum tithe collection in progress on some nearby world, and managed to board the vessel.
The tithe process was, as always, a tragedy, though not every world submitted to it with the same degree of catastrophe. Plenty of planets met their tithes on schedule without their economies collapsing entirely. The tithe itself was not genuinely excessive, provided one's sector was not simultaneously engulfed in open warfare.
He had then arrived at Tillius, where the plague zombie tide and the Orks had already been well underway. Being in the middle of a Penitent Crusade, he and his brothers had jumped straight into the fighting without a second thought. The battle had grown, and grown, and grown, until Tillius itself had ceased to exist. Of the twenty-odd Lamenters who had jumped in, fewer than ten had survived.
Now, however, there stood before Zhou Ye a perfectly uniform formation of over a hundred little yellow ones.
Mario had originally assumed he had no right to receive reinforcements, being still under the terms of the Penitent Crusade.
Then the Dreadnought Ancient had shoved him against a wall and given him a thorough Aruba.
And then, while Mario stared in complete bewilderment, Apothecary Beta, one of Zhou Ye's current alter egos now operating as a super-enhanced artificial construct, had produced over a hundred Lamenters Gene-seeds from seemingly nowhere.
When Mario asked how that was possible, he received a single answer.
"When the Emperor was producing Astartes on Terra, he was cranking out hundreds of thousands in next to no time at all. Son, you do not need to know any more than that."
Mario did not ask another question. This was clearly the work of the God-Emperor's power.
And so Zhou Ye forcibly expanded the Lamenters by over a hundred warriors, selecting candidates from the population of refugees and settlers he had accumulated. Not all of them were local. He had also visited two nearby Hive Worlds during this period, bringing back considerable numbers of people, including many young men and women in their early teens.
The underhive dwellers he found there were ragged and barely clothed, breeding with extraordinary productivity, packing six or seven children into a single shanty. Those children were expected to fend for themselves from around age ten onward.
When Zhou Ye came to collect people, he met with essentially no resistance whatsoever. In a matter of years, he had brought several million people to his new world.
The planetary governors of those Hive Worlds raised no objections. Underhive dwellers and scavengers were free for the taking, essentially donated at no cost.
What Zhou Ye gave in exchange was a few dozen kilograms of fruit.
Several million people. For less than half a ton of fruit.
The orchards he had cultivated on this world through his Authority of Creation produced astronomical quantities of fruit each year. The colony's population had been eating fruit until they could no longer look at it without their stomachs turning.
He also noticed, with interest, the diversity of the population he had collected. In sorting through them he turned up a substantial quantity of heretic cultists, Genestealers, mutants, unsanctioned psykers, one Callidus Assassin, and one Alpha Legion operative.
The latter two, at least, had not been targeting him specifically.
The Callidus Assassin had her memory wiped, though not entirely. A trigger condition remained embedded in her mind. Zhou Ye's Authority spotted it immediately. She was simply trying to use her target as a means of getting close to a Rogue Trader.
His solution was straightforward. He knocked her unconscious with a single blow and deposited her in the Rogue Trader's bed.
He watched the results from a comfortable distance. The Rogue Trader opened his door to find a beautiful woman lying in his bed. She woke the instant he stepped through the threshold. As for what happened next, Zhou Ye did not follow developments. It was not his concern.
The poor Rogue Trader died rather badly.
The unfortunate Alpha Legion operative had, by pure instinct, made his way onto Zhou Ye's ship. He was thrown off immediately.
In the end, every last one of them became Zhou Ye's subjects, each of them enjoying a vigorous 996 lifestyle. Zhou Ye concluded that he was, genuinely, a remarkable humanitarian.
The new Lamenters recruits were selected from among the population, put through the twenty-two surgical procedures, and emerged as full Astartes. Psychological conditioning was naturally required, though primarily for those drawn from outside the local world. Zhou Ye had no particular objection to Astartes living alongside ordinary mortals. Those imported from the Hive Worlds needed conditioning. The locals largely did not.
"I have a mission for you," Zhou Ye said, looking at the formation of yellow-armored warriors kneeling before him.
He gave a simple nod, then led Mario into his office. He reached over absently and crushed the mouth that had grown somewhere on the surface of his desk at some point. The desk had been made from timber harvested on a world similar to Catachan, and he had discovered that picking a fight with it when he was stressed from administrative work was genuinely therapeutic.
"Yes, my lord."
Mario's deference was impeccable. Zhou Ye had long since prepared his explanation.
"Are you aware that I am not the Primarch of any Legion you actually belong to."
He considered for a moment and let it stand. There was simply no better way to frame things without creating worse complications, and there were certain insurances already in place that he preferred not to invoke directly.
"Yes, my lord."
"The God-Emperor assigned me a secret mission. I wandered the Warp for ten thousand years specifically to fulfill it."
"My lord... wuhh..."
Mario's expression crumpled with emotion. Alone for ten thousand years. Operating in secret. Concealing his identity. Carrying these ancient Ancients with him through all of it, simply to carry out the Emperor's will.
The loyalty was almost unbearable to contemplate.
"That is enough. Stop crying."
Zhou Ye had limited patience for the Lamenters' tears and continued without pause.
"When Magnus's psychic call destroyed the Emperor's Webway Project, the Emperor, seated upon the Throne, sought an alternative means of transit that could replace the Webway entirely. My ten-thousand-year wandering through the Warp was part of that effort. Which is why the Battle Barge I am giving you has no Gellar Field and no Navigator. You cannot enter the Warp."
"...?"
Mario's expression went completely blank.
"I have installed within it the Star Rail Jump Engine, recovered from a unique location. Every jump leaves a permanent Star Rail track in realspace. Once a track exists between two points, any standard propulsion system can travel along it and arrive at any connected point near-instantaneously, even across an entire sector, within just a few minutes."
Mario drew a sharp breath.
He understood exactly what that meant.
"What I had not anticipated," Zhou Ye continued, "is that the Emperor now sits upon the Golden Throne and his situation is difficult to assess. He can barely issue direct commands anymore. In this context the Imperium itself has become a complication, particularly the high lord Navigator Houses and the Navigator's Court."
Zhou Ye was genuinely frustrated by this. If the Emperor had still been walking and talking, he would have found a way to Terra long ago. But the situation was what it was. Those political factions were more of a headache than any of the Chaos forces he had dealt with. He did not fear them. But a direct confrontation would be costly and pointless.
"So. Do you understand your mission now?"
"Yes, my lord."
Mario was trembling slightly. It made sense. He was thinking of the Penitent Crusade, and of everything that had happened to him during it.
"This is a special communication device. It can reach me at any time. Your task is to continuously push outward and lay the Star Rails. First condition: do not reveal the existence of the Star Rails. The time for that is not yet here. Second condition: clear whatever obstructions threaten the path of the Rails, Chaos primarily. And if you encounter anything beyond your ability to handle, contact me immediately."
He looked at the weeping folk standing before him and muttered to himself.
He had constructed a complete STC production line on this world, a project that had consumed a significant portion of his energy and effort. As a result the Lamenters were now fully self-sufficient, capable of producing their own Power Armor, Boltguns, Terminator plate, and general consumables without any external support. With fewer than a thousand Astartes to supply, even a tenfold expansion would not strain the logistics. A Forge World was entirely unnecessary.
He had also built two additional Battle Barges from the T'au fleet salvage following the Tillius engagement. One of those was being handed to the Lamenters now.
Their luck, of course, remained a concern. He was hesitant for that reason alone.
But this time they had full logistical backing. If ammunition ran short, a single Star Rail jump could bring them back to resupply within half an hour. He could deploy to support them personally at any moment. He was not throwing them away to die on a frontline.
After thinking it through from every angle, he decided to send the weeping folk ahead to lay the Star Rails. He had taken sufficient precautions to ensure they could not expose his existence regardless of circumstances, though he was fairly confident they would take his secrets to their graves without any external enforcement whatsoever.
"My lord. Your mercy is beyond anything we deserve. We will not fail you."
"One more thing. Your brothers are likely not all dead. If you encounter any of them along the way, bring them back. If conditions ever permit it in the future, I may be able to designate a world as your Chapter homeworld. And mark the data on every world you pass through into the database I have established, especially any uninhabited worlds."
"Yes..."
"Right."
Zhou Ye exhaled as the weeping folk filed out.
Almost the entire Lamenters complement, save for a small recruitment cadre left behind, was now boarding the Battle Barge. They would become his vanguard, laying the Star Rails across the galaxy.
Aslot, the Sanguine Dreadnought Ancient, had also been assigned to accompany them. He rested in a Stasis Field aboard the Lamenters' Battle Barge.
If they ever found themselves in a political dispute with another Chapter, waking him would resolve it immediately. Every Chapter in the Imperium would show deference, given his presence. Especially any Chapter within the Sanguine lineage. Anyone who dared claim the Lamenters were not true sons of Sanguinius was welcome to have Aslot pick them up by the ankles personally and give them a proper Aruba.
The Space Wolves and the Lamenters had already identified him as a ten-thousand-year-old Ancient with a single glance. Every other Chapter would be no different.
"What remains now," Zhou Ye muttered, turning toward the newly reborn Phoenix of his forces, "is waking Rylanor."
He paused.
"...He is not going to punch me, is he."
Because that particular Chapter, entirely on account of him, had developed into something that was, by any reasonable measure, genuinely and profoundly strange.