V3 Chapter 39: The Fanaticism of the Imperium's Senior Officers
A heavy impact cracked across the training platform.
Duvette stepped back several paces with the power sword in hand, his boots scraping a brief sound across the surface. He lowered the blade from guard position and rolled his wrist, feeling the numbness running all the way up his forearm.
The disruption field on the sword was not active. Markus had no power armour on.
Even so, sparring with a veteran Astartes who had been fighting for ten thousand years was not something that came easy.
Duvette looked down at his training vest.
Sweat had soaked through the fabric and was sticking to his skin. He drew a slow breath, then looked across at Markus, bare-chested, steam rising from his skin.
"That will do," Duvette said. "Let's call it here. I still have documents to sort through."
He walked to the edge of the platform, retrieved the scabbard hanging there, and sheathed the power sword.
Markus rolled one shoulder. His joints gave a few quiet pops. His face held the obvious dissatisfaction of someone who had only just found his rhythm.
"I'm barely warmed up," Markus said. "Not nearly enough. I'll go find some of those Ultramarine whelps for another round."
"Go on then," Duvette said with a short laugh. "Just don't wreck their training bay."
Markus showed his teeth in something that was not quite a smile, picked up the training weapon beside him, and headed off toward the other side of the hall.
Duvette waved him off and stepped down from the platform.
Lasting this long under a ten-thousand-year veteran Astartes using only his own reflexes and technique, without activating any skills, was a result he was satisfied with.
He had chosen not to activate the skills for a simple reason.
The moment he activated any area enhancement, Markus would also benefit from the effect. A Shadow Wolf veteran's physical capability and reaction speed would also increase, which meant the time Duvette could actually last might end up shorter than it was now.
He muttered something under his breath and took the dry towel Evan held out to him at the door, pressing it hard against his face and body.
Evan was standing at the edge of the hall with a data-slate in hand, clearly having been waiting for some time. He offered no commentary on what he had just observed. He simply waited until Duvette was done, then held out the data-slate.
"Commissar. The latest batch of Astra Militarum regimental organisation briefs and Chapter profiles have been compiled."
Duvette gave a sound of acknowledgement, handed back the sweat-soaked towel, and took the data-slate.
He walked and read, skimming the rough status of each formation.
He would need to go through the detailed content later in his quarters. What he had now was only the summary, but it was already enough to give him a headache.
Commanding a force exceeding a million personnel was a completely different problem from the fifty thousand he had operated with before.
He knew the fifty thousand of the 112th Combat Cluster by instinct. Who could punch through a line, who could serve as bait, who could anchor a flank, who could hold the formation together in the worst possible conditions. He had all of that mapped out.
What was now in front of him was the ground force of an entire crusade fleet.
Astra Militarum, Ultramar Auxilia, Astartes Chapters, Knight houses, Titan Legions, and a range of locally attached forces and noble armed retinues of varying quality.
Commanding at that scale placed extreme demands on whoever held it.
Before the crusade began, he would need to absorb the organisation, commanding officers, equipment, logistical condition, and operational history of as many of these formations as possible.
Then he looked at the Astra Militarum section of the data-slate and his brow started coming together.
He muttered something considerably less polite under his breath. The Astra Militarum's regimental structure was genuinely maddening.
A single regiment's size was apparently completely unfixed.
Some regiments numbered in the tens of thousands. Others barely reached three thousand. Some called themselves armoured regiments but carried large numbers of mechanised infantry. Some infantry regiments had absorbed the remnants of other units and somehow ended up with an artillery company and half a cavalry squadron attached.
When you built a battle group around the regiment as the basic unit, the sizes could vary by several times between comparable formations.
No wonder the one thing Warmaster Slaydo had most wanted to do with his remaining career was a complete overhaul of the Astra Militarum's entire structure.
Duvette kept scrolling.
Then came the list of commanding officers.
Generals, field officers, commissars, Commissars-General, noble officers, ad hoc battle group commanders, and a collection of auxiliary staff from various sectors who had come along for the crusade.
He would need to get a working knowledge of all of them.
The campaigns ahead required him to assign objectives, coordinate formations that had never worked together, and know in advance which commanders could take pressure and which ones would spend their time making speeches at briefings.
That process would involve the kind of interpersonal management he most disliked.
His expression became noticeably worse at the thought.
The fact that Guilliman had personally appointed him as overall ground commander for all land operations in the coming Terra crusade was currently known in full only to the senior leadership on Macragge.
But word had already spread.
Senior officers had already come to find him, phrasing their approach carefully, expressing the hope that Duvette would assign them and their forces to the most critical operational axis when the time came, preferably as the main assault element.
They wanted the glory of it. They wanted to demonstrate their loyalty on the road to sacred Terra.
Thinking about it made him uncomfortable in a very specific way.
The memory of those officers describing their past battlefield performance in detail while watching him with the eyes of zealous supplicants was enough to make his skin crawl.
And that was only the Astra Militarum's senior officers.
The Knight house nobility would be worse.
They would not talk only about victories. They would talk about family standards, ancestral honour, knightly vows, and their absolute need to be placed in the most dangerous and most visible position available.
Duvette could already picture those rigid and fervent faces clearly.
"I don't understand this at all," he muttered. "Usually, people pulling strings want to stay away from the fighting."
Evan heard this and his expression did not change.
He had long since adjusted to Duvette talking to himself while going through documents.
Duvette finished his rough read of the summary and handed the data-slate back.
"I'll go through this properly later."
Evan gave a nod and put the slate away.
Duvette continued toward his quarters, his mind still working through the tangled organisational picture.
In any case, the most critical axis in any campaign would always be anchored by the 112th Combat Cluster as the primary assault element.
In Duvette's estimation, very few Astra Militarum formations in the Imperium could match their standard of capability. More to the point, the 112th already understood his command style and knew how to move when the skill enhancements came online.
Other formations might not adapt as quickly.
Warriors experiencing that kind of enhancement for the first time would very likely feel disoriented and wrong-footed. Some would assume they had received a divine miracle. Some would push too hard and too fast. Others would lose their sense of tempo when their bodies began to exceed familiar limits.
This would have to be addressed before the crusade began.
He might need to draft a discipline code specifically for enhanced-state operations.
The thought of it made him feel his stack of documents getting taller in real time.
He had only just turned into the residential section when he saw an Ultramarine Honour Guard standing outside his door.
The warrior was in full armour, the blue-gold plating steady in the corridor lights. When he saw Duvette approach, he rendered a salute.
Duvette stopped.
"The Primarch is waiting for you in the strategic council chamber of the Fortress of Hera," the Honour Guard said.
Duvette gave a nod.
"Understood."
The Honour Guard said nothing more and stepped aside.
Duvette looked at his door, then looked at the training gloves still in his hand, which still carried the smell of the session.
He had planned to go in, change, and finish reading the blasted formation list.
That was not happening.
He went into the room, made quick adjustments to his black greatcoat and peaked cap, and came back out.
He expected this was the last significant internal meeting before the crusade departed.
It would be used to lock down the strategic details, and very likely to formally announce his appointment.
Duvette let out a quiet breath and walked toward the depths of the Fortress of Hera.
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