Marius Gage stood in the Fhemaegi Hall of the Vengeful Spirit, watching demigods argue.

"Roboute," Warmaster Horus Lupercal said, "I have nothing but respect for you. But you can at least wait to divide up power until we've won this war!"

"I'm not trying to grab power, brother. That's the last thing I want to do! I'm merely trying to quantify what we're fighting for."

"We all know what we're fighting for," the Warmaster said with a sigh. "The ideals of the Great Crusade - enlightenment, justice, order. Ever since our father forsook them…."

Guilliman allowed a mirror sigh, perhaps a third wistful and the rest exasparated. "As I said... but we're getting nowhere, Horus. Until another day?"

"Until another day," Horus replied, and it almost sounded like a threat. Guilliman swept the sanctum with his gaze before quickly exiting with Gage.

"Well," he said as they walked towards the shuttle, "that could've gone better."

"What was your goal," Gage asked, suddenly curious, "in reality? Did you just want a constitution to spell out Horus' power, or - "

"A republic," the Ultimate Warrior said.

They were silent until the shuttle, at which point Guilliman continued, "A republic. What right do we have to rule people - humans! - that do not desire it? Conquest is one thing, but we should not act like conquerors on our own soil."

"Not so long ago, you were proposing replacing the governors with Astartes," Gage noted, his curiosity and mild confusion not satisfied with Guilliman's response. "What changed?"

It was a bold question to pose to one's Primarch; but Gage was the First Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, second in command to Guilliman himself, and the Ultimate Warrior was far less choleric than most of his brothers.

"Father changed," Gage's Primarch answered. "When I met him, I had plans to turn Ultramar into a republic; but he said we were more than human and able to rule without the threat of corruption." Guilliman let out a short chuckle, but it was a dark, cynical one. "What was he thinking? Power always corrupts, Marius. There is no way to escape that. And in the absence of planned perfection, one might as well let freedom build its own."

"And Horus - "

"Horus is not corrupted, but he understood my suggestion as a power grab. He wants the new order to be established before he sets in stone what it is. He wants us to represent reform, even though we are on the path of revolution. A Restoration, when we have no choice save Imperium Secundus."

"A dangerous name," the Chapter Master noted. "Some might think of an Imperium Tertius."

"If we continue on this path," Roboute Guilliman said, "an Imperium Tertius might yet become necessary."

This time, the silence continued throughout the shuttle ride and into the Macragge's Honour, up to the Primarch's blinding throne room. It was a sign of pride, which Gage rarely forgave; but this was Guilliman. When Gage had first arrived at Ultramar, he became as good as an equerry to the Primarch, devoted beyond imagination; this was his gene-father! That had passed only when Guilliman had rebuked him for overly focusing himself on the Primarch's person. "You fight for humanity and for Ultramar," he'd said, "not for me."

And he'd been right. And that had been why, when - decades later - Lorgar had been set back for worshipping the Emperor as a god, Gage made no comment except to utterly back his Primarch and Emperor.

And that was in large part why, now, he did not even consider turning his back on the former and following the latter.

"Marius," Guilliman said as he sat down on the throne. "Do you have anything else to say before I depart?"

"I would like to once again request the First through Seventh Companies to keep the defense of Ultramar." Gage made no comment on the unprecedented breaking-up of a Chapter in a whole-Legion campaign; Guilliman defied precedent. Nevertheless, that was the reason for his apprehension: he didn't want his command divided.

"And I will have to once again deny that request. I need them - Ventanus, Cestus, Damocles…. Evexian of the Eighth, Lorchas of the Ninth, and the others will stay with you."

"Then I would again ask the entire First Chapter, including myself, accompany them. You can leave the Fifth and Twelfth behind instead - they haven't rendez-voused with us yet."

"Marius - do you really want to fly with me as I disassemble the Imperium?"

That stung. And it stung even more because Gage knew that his Primarch was right, that he did not want to wage offensive civil war, though he could. He was devoted to Ultramar above all; but to mankind, and thus the Imperium, equally. It already discomfited him that the Ultramarines were helping to pull it apart - was he really asking to kill other Astartes?

"Yes," Gage said. "But if you believe it would not be optimal, I trust your judgment entirely. Permission to leave?"

"Wait," Guilliman said. "This is a long war we will wage; Ultramar will be threatened. You must defend it, reorganize it, command it." He stood up from his throne. "I will take the Perfect Honour. The Macragge's Honour, until my return - if that return comes, for these campaigns will be harder than any that have come before - is yours. Until I come back, you are officially the Regent of Ultramar."

Regent of Ultramar.

It was a massive honor, one Gage had never even contemplated receiving. He was, in effect, the temporary dictator of the Five Hundred Worlds. This was not where he had been born; he had originally hailed from Terra. Yet this, from the gardens of Prandium to the hives of Carenn, from the caverns of Calth to the mountains of Macragge, was his true home, ever since he had taken the first step upon Guillimani soil.

"An honor," the Primarch said, "but also a responsibility."

True, but also a vast understatement.

The next minutes and hours passed in a haze - congratulations and departures, rushes and speeches. It was only the last of those, given by vox-network from the Perfect Honour as it prepared to leave the system, that Marius Gage truly listened to.

"Defenders of Ultramar!" Guilliman exclaimed, determination and respect mixing in his infinitely powerful voice. "You remain now in the core of what should become the greatest empire the galaxy should ever seen. We depart to wage war against our near-equals, against our brothers. You have the more honorable duty; you are the stewards of Ultramar itself.

"I do not need to tell you not to let it fall. Yet perhaps I should remind you that that is not enough. Improve Ultramar. Expand Ultramar. Make it so, on our return, we will be blinded by the brilliance of what you have created.

"You are more than soldiers, my children. You are guardians. For the Warmaster. Courage and honor!"

And the Ultramarines fleet jumped into the Warp.

Marius Gage watched it depart, ships vanishing into nothing via everything. Eyes resisted gazing too long at the Warp - there were things there, creatures that were supposedly beyond logic. That, of course, was false, but it was true that Warp-spawn did not obey the realspace laws of physics. Human emotions affected them, and some scholars said human emotions created them.

The Emperor had supposedly allied himself with these "daemons", though how that was possible Gage didn't know; the beasts certainly didn't look sapient when they lurked outside a ship's Gellar field.

As the last ships disappeared, Gage sat down into Guilliman's throne. It was oversized, of course - Ultramar was never meant to be ruled by a mere mortal, or even a Space Marine. Captains Evexian and Sattolo of the 14th were present, but otherwise the chamber was empty. Guilliman's extensive decorations remained; Gage considered taking them down for a moment, then dismissed the idea as being an insult to the Primarch.

"So what now?" Sattolo asked.

"A brief database search of the regions surrounding Ultramar," Gage noted, remembering Guilliman's words on improvement and expansion, "indicates a number of prominent human and abhuman civilizations. The Outer Sphere and New Draconic Federation are probably the ones that will most readily join us."

"What about the Inner Sphere?" Evexian suggested.

"The Inner Sphere has a close relationship with the Vespid Empire to their galactic southeast. For obvious reasons, that relationship cannot continue once the Inner Sphere joins Ultramar. Emissaries will, however, be sent to several other nations, such as the Conitian Empire to our east-northeast."

Evexian nodded, satisfied. "So who will go where?"

"Sattolo will defend, together with Bosteton of the 16th, the southern extremes of the Five Hundred Worlds; thus I will be joining him as I go to negotiate with the Outer Sphere. Evexian, you will stay with the Tenth in order to fortify Macragge. Lorchas and half of the Ninth Company will negotiate with the New Draconics, while the other half will follow me to the Outer Sphere. The Tetrachs will be sent to negotiate as well, along with their private forces; specific dispositions will be determined later. After this diplomatic phase concludes, I will return to Macragge; for now, Guiliman has more or less optimized Ultramar's output. We will respond to changing factors as they occur."

"And if they occur while you are away?" Evexian inquired.

"Reach me via astropath," the Chapter Master said, before waving away the Captains. They gave deep bows, almost reminiscent of the ones tradition demanded they give the Primarch; Gage, for his part, considered them misplaced. He was the Regent, true, but that was for civilian rule; among the Legion, he was the First Chapter Master, and any honors should have been based on that.

Still, he wasn't particularly offended. And before departing to the Outer Sphere, Gage decided he needed to visit Macragge and oversee construction projects. Perhaps he could even help personally - yes, that was a good idea. The Regent of Ultramar now ruled a realm at war, true, but Ultramar was more than that. It was going to be perfection.

And perfection did not indicate riches, Gage noted as he looked through the illuminators at the blue, green and gray surface of the planet below. Perfection indicated happiness, and happiness was culture, too; and relaxation; and progress; and safety. And in the end, perfection was freedom. Perhaps, in the end, the perfect empire was one that didn't appear to exist. Perhaps a benevolent anarchy-

But as intellectuals had argued over for tens of millennia, without a central authority of some sort, well-being could not be optimized. And moreover, there was the eternal problem of personal evil. Realizing he had turned his gaze up from Macragge to the stars, Marius Gage of the Ultramarine Legion looked down to soil once more, ceased philosophizing, and ordered his shuttle to be prepared.