V3 Chapter 94: The Storm Fully Scattered, the Road Ahead Made Clear
Once the space had stabilised, Duvette reopened his strategic map.
The markers for the four hive cities had returned to their proper positions, while the icons representing the group's own location stayed fixed deep underground. After a brief search, he quickly located a maintenance passage leading up to the surface.
"The closest exit to us is to the southeast."
Duvette passed the coordinates on to Guilliman.
"There's a heavy lift shaft there. So long as its main structure isn't completely wrecked, the engineers should be able to get it running again."
Guilliman glanced at Duvette, then chose to trust him, and gave the order for the force to prepare to withdraw.
Several Astartes combat squads, Mechanicus technical personnel, and the Badab Guard were left behind at the central hub, to keep burning out the remaining roots and rotted tissue. Ecclesiarchy personnel and further Mechanicus forces would follow later, to consecrate, inspect, and permanently seal the area off.
The main force advanced along the maintenance passage toward the lift shaft.
Guilliman kept his silence the whole way.
The armour of fate's heavy footsteps echoed through the metal passage, his expression held tight throughout. The threat Mortarion had left hanging was clearly not something he was treating as an ordinary provocation.
Duvette could guess what was weighing on him.
The situation across the Ultramar sector hadn't been especially stable to begin with, and in assembling the expeditionary fleet bound for Terra, Guilliman had already pulled a great deal of mobile strength out of it. Each world's basic defences remained intact, but there was little strategic reserve left capable of responding quickly to a Daemon Primarch's invasion.
If Mortarion truly led the Death Guard in an assault, Ultramar could well suffer heavy losses before any reinforcement arrived.
Not to mention, Lady Euten was still on Macragge.
That was the concern most personal to Guilliman, and the hardest for him to set aside entirely.
"Calgar's still on Macragge." Duvette spoke up on his own. "Most of the Ultramarines' strength is still in Ultramar too. With Calgar's ability, Mortarion won't find it that easy."
Guilliman didn't break stride.
"If Mortarion is bold enough to declare war on me, he won't be sending an ordinary fleet."
"I know."
Duvette said. "But we're already close to Terra now. Once we're back on a stable route, pressing on won't require keeping the fleet at its current size."
"We can split it."
"Send the Macragge's Honour and the core battle group on to Terra, and reassign part of the ships and crews back to Ultramar."
Duvette looked ahead into the dim passage.
"Reinforcements won't arrive right away, but at least Calgar will know help is already on the way."
"At the same time, send the highest-level warning to Macragge, ordering every world to tighten quarantine, and check for any unexplained sickness or any region gone silent."
"Once we've made initial headway on the Imperium's core problems at Terra, we deal with Mortarion as fast as we can."
Guilliman glanced over at him.
He turned it over for a long while.
"Terra has to happen."
The Primarch said at last. "I need to see the state of the Imperium's heart with my own eyes. I need to know exactly what's become of the Palace, and the administration."
"Only once that's done can I move the strength of the whole Imperium."
Guilliman paused.
"But Ultramar can't be allowed to fall either."
"Split the fleet the way you suggested. The Macragge's Honour and the core battle group carry on to Terra, and we pull the faster ships still in good condition back to Ultramar."
"Leave a portion of the damaged ships behind as well, to help the Maelstrom Wardens with the post-war cleanup."
Duvette nodded.
"That's the only sound option available right now."
Guilliman went on. "Notify Calgar at once. Put every major world in Ultramar on the highest alert."
"Any disease is to be treated as a Chaos incursion until proven otherwise."
"Tell him Mortarion is preparing for war."
Duvette watched the Primarch resume walking, and said nothing further.
Getting the Guilliman standing in front of him to set Ultramar aside was next to impossible.
That realm, built with his own hands, carried most of what he still hoped for humanity's future. Even with the Imperium having come this far, he wasn't about to let Mortarion casually wipe out the Five Hundred Worlds.
***
The heavy lift shaft came back online under the engineers' emergency repairs.
The massive platform let out a piercing grind and began carrying the force slowly up toward the surface. Several hours later, Duvette and Guilliman were back at the under-hive front line, directing the final cleanup across all four hive cities.
With the central ritual structure destroyed, the remaining plague lost its unified support from the Warp.
The number of Nurgle daemons dropped fast, and the plague's spread slowed under the pressure. What contamination remained could no longer threaten the hive city as a whole, but it was still more than capable of killing any cleanup unit that went in without proper protection.
The operation that followed lasted nearly a month.
Flame units burned their way through the passages level by level, while Mechanicus personnel sealed off the contaminated water lines. Great stretches of permanently mutated ground were simply blown apart, and the shafts leading down to the under-hive's deepest reaches were melted shut.
Whatever couldn't be reached was marked as a permanent dead zone.
The Astral Claws and the Badab Guard would continue garrisoning those areas going forward, checking contamination levels on a regular schedule. Anything that tried to emerge from a sealed zone would be destroyed on sight.
At the same time, the Macragge's Honour underwent emergency repairs of its own.
Every soldier who'd taken part in the under-hive fighting went through rigorous decontamination, and the expeditionary fleet was reorganised. Ships scattered by the storm were gradually recovered, and the Conqueror's core systems remained stable under Mechanicus oversight.
A month later, the plague on Badab Prime had finally lost any large-scale threat.
Duvette sat in the front-line command post, watching a System notification slowly resolve itself before him.
[Total victory achieved in the Battle of Badab, resolving both the threat of Chaos corruption and the Nurgle plague simultaneously.]
[Emperor's Wrath +10000.]
Duvette stared at that final number for a few seconds.
Emperor's Wrath seemed to be handing out larger sums all the time.
The earliest rewards had needed to be built up bit by bit; now, a single large campaign handed over tens of thousands of points outright. Maybe this particular mission had simply been large enough to earn it, or maybe it meant some restriction was gradually loosening.
Duvette still couldn't say for certain which.
On top of that, [King of War] had also granted a new Laurel Mark for the Battle of Badab, a full 8% added to his permanent passive bonus, though still short of the Battle of Balhaut's 10%.
Duvette guessed the thing probably weighted how much a given campaign's outcome mattered to the wider strategic picture.
What genuinely surprised him, though, was [Purification]'s cooldown. He'd expected purifying half a Conqueror, a scale that dwarfed the Men of Iron STC by comparison, to push the cooldown up toward something like fifty years. Instead, it currently sat at under twenty. Well, now. That genuinely exceeded what he'd braced for.
Maybe he really was "awakening" something. Hell, was he actually some minor Warp god, or some human disguise worn by a Star God? Duvette muttered to himself. Genuinely absurd, though the idea that he wasn't quite "human" seemed to have already found acceptance with most people around him by this point...
The command post's door opened.
Evan strode in quickly, handing the latest report over to Duvette.
"Marshal-Commissar."
"Recent observations show the Warp storm covering the Maelstrom region has started to subside."
"We've re-established contact with most of the scattered fleet, and the Navigators have picked up the Astronomican's light again."
Duvette took the report.
"The route can be recalculated now?"
"Yes."
Evan nodded.
"Lord Guilliman has already ordered final preparations underway. Once the fleet finishes splitting, the core battle group heads straight for Terra."
Duvette set the report down on the table.
"Understood."
It seemed Guilliman had no intention of delaying any further.
Whatever chaos remained across the Maelstrom would have to be left to the Astral Claws, the Mantis Warriors, and the Lamenters to keep clearing. Part of the expeditionary fleet would stay behind to help them as well, until Badab Prime was fully stable again.
Duvette, meanwhile, would follow Guilliman straight to the heart of the Imperium of Man.
Holy Terra.
Those High Lords were probably already turning over, in their minds, how to face the sudden return of a son of the Emperor.
Duvette let out a quiet laugh.
There was no Great Rift this time, and no direct threat from the Lion's Gate war either. The High Lords willing to obstruct Guilliman politically would very likely turn out to be far more numerous than they had been in the original timeline.
Still, it hardly mattered.
Duvette leaned back in his seat, looking toward the direction on the strategic map that marked Terra.
"I hope you lot can give me a good show."
He murmured, quietly.
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