Julius Kaesoron had betrayed the Emperor.
Marius Vairosean stood at his desk, staring at the data-slates belatedly tracking the former First Captain's escape, unbelieving.
Kaesoron - Julius Kaesoron. He had not been Vairosean's greatest friend, ever, constantly devoting more energy to the written word than to the roaring gun. But he had been the First Captain of the Legion.
It was unbelievable, unimaginable, unfathomable. Fulgrim, for all his pride, had not been able to keep his First Captain - his First Captain - in line! Perhaps Fabius had engineered Kaesoron's implants to allow this betrayal, the third Lord Commander playing some hidden game. Perhaps it was a more complicated plot, one involving Slaanesh.
Either way, the Legion's incompetence was stunning indeed, though Vairosean knew he shouldn't be surprised. This was, after all, the way of Fabius.
Marius Vairosean, Third Captain of the Emperor's Children, picked up his helmet. Unknowingly, Julius Kaesoron had created the perfect distraction for his own escape. The Emperor needed to know what had happened here.
But who could one trust to help in such an endeavor? Vairosean wasn't sure even about himself, but Isitan Loisekuas - still his second-in-command - was as close as possible to an ally.
"Address to: Isitan Loisekuas only," Vairosean addressed his helmet. "Loisekuas? Come to my office."
"Executing," came the reply, and the feed cut off.
Vairosean stared into the machine-eyes of the helm. His focus was weak now, at the moment where it mattered most. So he concentrated on the dead visor, mentally demanding answers from the metal.
"What are you, really?"
It was a bucket-shaped chunk of ceramite, with some wiring on the inside. It was a tool for Marius Vairosean to use in achieving the aims of the Emperor, beloved by all. It was a defensive measure against weapons aimed at its owner's head. It was an Astarte helmet. It was a thing.
Things were more reliable than people. Flesh could tear, or indeed be perverted into betraying its owner. Machinery could be hacked. Everything was flawed; no matter how hard Vairosean looked, he could not see perfection, the true perfection that Fulgrim the Phoenician had once believed in, in anything but inanimate objects. Perhaps that was what attracted his brothers to art?
But art, too, could break. Perfection could not be found in physical objects. Perfection was thoughtful action and active thought; creative destruction and deadly life. Perfection was the plan and the battle. There were simply no other terms in which Marius Vairosean could think of it.
"I'm not much of a philosopher, though," the Third Captain said to no one in particular.
"That you are not, Brother-Captain," Isitan Loisekuas said as he entered, "but I find it hard to believe you want to be one."
Putting down the helmet, Marius Vairosean turned around to face his second-in-command. As always, Loisekuas was impeccably groomed, almost serpentine in his features, and seemingly satisfied with life.
"What is it?"
Vairosean let out a tired sigh. This was almost over, but "almost" was intangible.
"The Phoenician has betrayed the Emperor."
"Really? I thought that was Kaesoron."
Loisekuas could really be difficult sometimes. Vairosean had specifically picked him out for his difference, and they made a great team; but sometimes….
"Kaesoron too," Vairosean stated, "but Kaesoron went over to the Warmaster's side directly. Fulgrim… Fulgrim has been corrupted. Slaanesh and Fabius Bile have changed the Legion, with the Primarch's cooperation, to make it incapable of following the divine mission the Emperor has set out for it."
"You lie," Loisekuas said with a grin.
"Are you joking? Can you not see?"
"Yes, I can see! I can see a fossil in front of me, a man who has failed to keep up with changing times. A man who can no longer keep up his Captaincy. A traitor. I will take your place, Marius Vairosean; and you - you will die today."
And with a grunt that somewhat resembled a battle-roar, Isitan Loisekuas lunged at his Captain.
Him, too.
Vairosean took the impact on his chest, knocked back by his second's momentum. Breathing was uncomfortable; raising his arms, Loisekuas grasped at Vairosean's neck; Vairosean saw the maneuver coming, thrusting an arm to bat aside the attack. The rest of the room, the rest of the galaxy, the maelstrom of treachery and corruption that had led to this - all of that didn't matter right now. Right now, Marius Vairosean was in a fight for his life.
The Third Captain drove a punch into Loisekuas' stomach as the Astartes' heads collided. Roaring, Loisekuas responded by copying the maneuver, then pushing Vairosean away. The elder Marine scrambled back onto his feet, glaring at the man he had once trusted with everything.
"Thank you," Loisekuas said as he did likewise, beginning to circle against Vairosean, "for giving me the perfect route to promotion."
"Was there a reason for your betrayal besides ascending in rank and favor with the Phoenician?"
"Progress, Vairosean. Why in the galaxy would I back a - "
Loisekuas ceased talking as he realized Vairosean was barreling down on his position. Blows rang on ceramite. Vairosean grappled the younger Astarte's side, shoving the two of them onto the floor.
They clattered along the floor, weaponless but still superhuman. The Third Captain rolled the duo towards his table; as they went, the room rang with impacts. Vairosean calculated dozens of possibilities, tilting his arms and body to avoid the worst of the punishment. Loisekuas was faster, but less focused. In skill, they were comparable.
Vairosean drove his gauntlet at Loisekuas' face; the other, knowing he could well be crushed, ducked. The Third Captain took the chance to grab his helm, tossing it into the air.
"Are you like Demeter?" Vairosean inquired. "Did you devote yourself to Slaanesh when you looked into the insanity of its home?"
"Demeter wasn't converted when he looked into that viewport, but earlier, when he realized he was disobeying the Phoenician. Then again, not even that recognition is likely to save you."
The Third Captain caught the helmet onto his head, the defense rolling into place within seconds; a moment later, its clasps were tightened. Loisekuas swatted aside Vairosean's attack from his left arm, which slid helplessly down Loisekuas' ceramite. Vairosean's follow-up punch with his right fist was similarly rebuffed, but the Captain responded with a headbutt up the center.
A metallic helmet met a face of flesh. Moments later, the back of the latter head met the floor, as Loisekuas tipped backwards.
Shaking his head, Marius Vairosean flung brain matter off his helmet. Then he took it off, and took in the sight and smell of his closest comrade- his closest brother- lying, head crushed, on the floor of his office.
Vairosean breathed in the smell of death, knowing he had created it.
Time was running out, now. Turning around, Vairosean noted that most of six Companies had already escaped with Kaesoron. Over seven thousand Astartes, betraying the Legion and - far more importantly - the Emperor.
The Captain stumbled away from Loisekuas' body as the battle-haze receded. It was done; and there was a definitive answer to whom he could trust - no one.
"Honor," he said nevertheless. This had been a weaponless duel; yet Loisekuas had seemingly expected fighting to break out. Perhaps there had been some semblance of a just mind left within the second's brain; now, though, any such imprint was spread on the floor. Marius Vairosean had killed it.
It had been the right thing to do. And there was no time to hesitate, not even as much as Vairosean already had. After a moment of scrubbing, the Third Captain put his headgear back on while running out the door.
Doors and bulkheads marched past as Marius Vairosean headed through the innards of the Pride of the Emperor, nose turned towards his personal escort vessel, the Eidolon. Vairosean had named it after the Lord Commander upon Eidolon's ascension according to an odd Legion tradition, rather unwillingly.
The tradition in question was now dead; after Verona's execution, Vairosean had approached Lucius with the concept of naming a ship after Fabius; the Thirteenth Captain had laughed. Custom had toppled, as had all of the Legion.
Vairosean cut into the armory, grabbing his best powersword and clipping a few grenades onto his belt. Then he was dashing once more, now on a straight path for the hangar where the frigate Eidolon, and escape, awaited.
Vairosean came out on the deck on an uplift, a catwalk that slashed across the expanse. It was a slick black path, from which a plane of brightly colored - even garish - spaceships presented itself. The Eidolon was at the path's far end, and as Vairosean passed the other ships he noted which were missing. Some were escaping with Julius Kaesoron; it did not appear many were chasing the renegade First Captain.
But as the Captain turned right to descend to the hangar's main level near the tube leading to the frigate, which hung docked at the side of the Pride of the Emperor, he was shocked to find ten violet-armored figures surrounding the entrance.
"Brother-Sergeant Terogil?"
Terogil turned his helmet - Vairosean had recognized it by the inscriptions - to his Captain. "So you are coming!" the Sergeant said.
"What - what are you here for?"
Now it was Terogil's turn to stumble. "Um, whatever you're here for. The others are coming - the ones who will follow you no matter what. We know you're planning something; we don't know what, but you're in the right."
"You're here to go with me?"
Terogil nodded.
"Then I should inform you where I'm going. Though he is unaware of it, Fulgrim has betrayed the Emperor. The implants of Fabius Bile are ruining our Legion's ability to serve the Imperium. The Phoenician is helping to disassemble the Emperor's Children."
Again, Terogil nodded. "And you're going to warn the Emperor?"
"Precisely."
And as Terogil climbed into the umbilical tube, Vairosean saw the others come up. Duasnian, Iridius, Quesetlio; ten Sergeants, though less than ten Squads.
"At your command," Assault Sergeant Quesetlio noted.
"We are fleeing the Legion in the service of the Imperium," Vairosean began, and once again detailed the mad situation the III Legion now found itself in. It should have been tiring to explain himself yet again, but the news that some of the Third Company would indeed follow him was far more heartening than it was exhausting.
"So be it," the unhelmeted Duasnian replied, catching a look around the assembled Astartes, daring anyone to defy him. "Terogil is coming too; he's late."
"As always," Tactical Sergeant Pirolecpio interjected.
"Actually, he's already on the Eidolon," Vairosean stated. "He's the reason I haven't left yet."
Duasnian's eyes bulged.
"Let's go," the Third Captain stated. "Before they come after us."
And the band - seventy or so Space Marines - marched through the connecting cord. They marched for Terra and for the lost glory of Chemos; they went to warn the Emperor of news so dire it could scarcely be believed, but news that was undoubtedly true.
They entered the Eidolon and took their spots; Iridius took the pilot's seat. The cords fell away, aged ropes fading into the belly of the Phoenician's flagship. The Eidolon was free.
The violet wedge veered away from the Pride of the Emperor, heading perpendicularly, straight for the system's jump point. There was a bit of fire, but nothing that even came close to hitting the frigate. And then the decks and towers of Fulgrim's flagship were all no more than a dark lilac dot in the vastness of the void.
Stars and nebulae hung overhead, dots and splotches of light signaling in a language few understood but all required. Carenn - a slightly larger dot than the rest - wavered far to Vairosean's right. The Warp jump point itself was an tiny, unclear blotch on the distant lights, one which was pain to look at (but not insanity - there was something special about the Demeter incident; perhaps it was just a rumor).
"Escape successful, Brother-Captain," Iridius stated when it became clear no one was pursuing. "Navigator Orfesius is ready. Heading?"
Marius Vairosean smiled, though it was a tragic smirk. "Terra."