Chapter 3.8 The Missing Primarch
"So we have confirmation," said John Grammaticus, tapping his tablet, "The probability of the chaos force having exactly eight Primarchs under their sway has crystalized at a stable seventy nine percent."
"This is good news," said Omegon, his voice echoing from his armour's vox unit, "We've avoided the worst outcome of being outnumbered by the enemy."
"Well we're not out of the woods yet," John said, pacing around the small antechamber, "We've avoided the risk of victory being a very low probability due to sheer numbers, but we still have a number of possible futures that are pretty grim. The worst futures are still possible, we just have an equal chance of avoiding them instead of a high chance of them occurring."
"It is still a positive step forward," said the only other figure in the room. John wasn't sure why Omegon only had a single other Astartes of the Alpha Legion with him present, but perhaps this briefing was for high level individuals only. Given the previous presentations having numerous Alpha Legion, John would have thought his information wasn't considered highly classified, but perhaps things had advanced so far now that perhaps it was.
"It puts us at Nine Primachs versus the rebellious Eight," said John, rounding off his presentation, "It's a small advantage, but if the Warmaster stays with us that gives us Ten Legions against Eight, otherwise its closer to a Nine Nine split, but having Nine Primarchs on our side gives us a slight advantage."
"Ten Primarchs, John," said Omegon cooly.
John did a double take, staring at Omegon.
"Sorry, did you say Ten Primarchs?"
"Yes, John. If the enemy forces are confirmed to have Eight Primarchs, we are left with Ten to stand against them."
John's faced twisted in confusion. The Alpha Legion's cryptic games had lessened somewhat since Omegon had introduced himself, but once again they seemed to be playing havoc with his sense of reality. This particular one he was entirely stumped by.
"Forgive me, Omegon, 'Alpharius'," said John, addressing the pair of Astartes before him, "I don't know what your name is so I will just go with that. Forgive me, but surely if we start with twenty Primarchs, two disappear, one dies, we have total remaining of Seventeen. Now, minus Eight from Seventeen gives us…"
John hesitated for dramatic effect, like a school teacher awaiting pupils to answer a posed question.
"NINE! Yes, so we have Nine Primarchs standing against chaos. Not Ten, Nine."
"There is where you are wrong, John," said Omegon, "It is most certainly Ten."
"Alright then, Omegon," said John sardonically, "Who is the Missing Primarch? Where is the Missing Primarch? Of which LEGION is the Missing Primarch?"
"Perhaps," said Omegon, raising his arms to remove his helmet, "It is time for you to learn one last secret of our Legion."
Both Omegon and the other Alpha Legion Astartes removed their helmets. To John, both looked identical, but this was not new. EVERY Alpha Legion Astartes looked almost identical, at the least the ones John had encountered that weren't actively disguised for a mission. But again, like with previous meetings, these 2 individuals had a strange aura that confused John immensely. How they had managed to do this he had no idea. He had ruled out manipulation by psykers earlier. It wasn't impossible, but to get auras this identical was… extremely difficult. To do it so, so consistently and so precisely was beyond even the Astartes. They had to be natural. Both.
"I am Omegon," said the other Astartes, placing his helmet next to him on the empty seat to his right.
"And I am Alpharius," said the Astartes formerly known as Omegon, placing his helmet to his left.
John stared at them both for several moments, the gears of his brain slowly processing everything. Then, with a bolt of lightning like a psychic blast it hit him, and he smacked himself with full force on his head. His tablet clattered to the ground in front of him.
"HOLY THRONES OF SHIT! YOU'RE GODDAMN TWINS!"
"Yes, John," said the twins, nodding in unison, "We are Alpharius and Omegon."
"The Alpha Legion doesn't just have a SINGLE Primarch, it has TWO!" yelled John in excitement and bewilderment, "You are identical twins! Even closer brothers than all the other Primarchs! And your endless twaddlry about 'I Am Alpharius' keeps this a secret from almost everyone bar the Emperor Himself!"
"Well, not entirely for that purpose," said Alpharius, formerly Omegon, "There are operational benefits of keeping our positions confused. Many Primarchs do this, we just happen to be the best at it."
John's excitement cooled and he pointed an accusing finger at Alpharius, formerly Omegon, with a frown on his face.
"You lied to me."
"As I said at the time, John, this is a deep secret held at the highest levels. The fact YOU now know this secret makes you the only non-Astartes other than perhaps Malcador and a few others who knows us. And to be fair, in all but your earliest dealings we were both present in some form or another. The fact we have shown this to you should be considered a high honour."
"I guess you're right," deflated John, "But this better be the bloody end of it."
"We believed now was the time to tell you as the time for decisions on actions is drawing near," said Omegon, "We have agents in position in a handful of our brothers' Legions. We are gathering our Legion together in secret ready to move out when opportunity arises to turn the tide. The question before us now, which we are hoping you can answer… is where and when."
"Well first I can give you a few names on who you will be facing," said John, picking his tablet back up and hitting a few keys, "The numbers have stablised for Fulgrim and Jaghatai. Jaghatai has fallen, we can be certain of that. Also Lorgar has very high numbers. So that gives us two of the eight. Fulgrim, obviously we can count on our side, along with Russ, provided he survives. Dorn on Terra is an obvious one. Plus yourselves obviously."
"So in play are the Warmaster Sanguinius, Roboute, Ferrus, Mortarion, Perturabo, Curze, Angron, Corvus, Vulkan, The Lion, and Magnus," said Alpharius, "There are still several there I would not want to meet in an open field."
"Don't put your hopes in Magnus," said John quickly, "He has the highest likelihood to turn. The rest I don't feel confident putting a guess on yet."
"Still, our relationship with Dorn is… not the best," admitted Omegon, "He doesn't like the way we do things."
"Nor does Roboute," agreed Alpharius, "I suspect it too much to hope he will be against us so we don't have to hear another of his lectures."
"We'll just have to make sure we turn up at a particularly opportune moment to ingratiate ourselves to the Praetorian," concluded Omegon, "Which hopefully you can help us with, John?"
"Well you have thrown my calculations off a bit," admitted John, his head still spinning over the confused inner dialogue the twins seemed to be having, "I had calculated for there to only be ONE Primarch of the Alpha Legion, but I guess that means I can just continue using the same model but just allow for the Primarch of the Alpha Legion to be in two places at once."
"Sounds like our preferred way of operating," said Alpharius, nodding, "What options does that give us?"
"Well there are two pivotal moments where force will be needed to ensure the Emperor's survival," said John, "I had originally thought you could only provide one of the two interventions with perhaps Fulgrim providing the second but this does mean you can do both. The First requires you to stay here and gather the fleet. You will need to position yourself… here."
John transferred the star map to a projector in the middle of the room, pointing with his finger at a small, insignificant star system. A binary star system with 3 planets spun into view.
"If you gather your fleet here and conceal yourselves, hide your ships powered down and your troops in deep hibernation to trigger when THIS ship appears," said John, displaying the vague schematics of a non-standard almost Imperial looking vessel, "You should be in EXACTLY the right place and time to keep the Emperor from being overwhelmed and killed as enemy forces pass through this region. After that moment you will need to find the Praetorian and stand by him until the next phase occurs."
"And what is the next phase?" asked Alpharius.
"I am still generating that part of the model," admitted John with a shade of embarrassment, "It does depend very much how this conflict goes down, it could all very well end here, being the tipping point where the Rebel Legions win. Your intervention though changes the calculus dramatically. Even more if we can get other Loyalist Legions involved. Its not victory for us at that point, but it does stave off a major loss."
"I will take that one," said Alpharius, "Where should my brother go?"
John turned to Omegon and fixed him with a childish grin.
"You need to do this immediately, before the predictions say it will be too late, and you need to be aware you are NOT there to save the day, just ensure the Emperor remains alive. Don't get caught up in any fighting unless it is directly around the Emperor," said John with a cackle of glee, "But you my friend, YOU… are going to Terra."
