Legation
By author Redcoat777
Here was the War Council. Envisage it in your mind's eye if it please you.
Here were sat the storied soldiers and suchlike. There was the great throne of the Emperor, empty and unoccupied and yet filled with presence from the shadow of him. Next to it, at the Emperor's right hand, was the seat of the Regent of Terra. Malcador the Sigillite rested there, his staff with flaming Aquila leaning upon his armrest. A seat emblazoned with two crossed swords lay at the Emperor's left hand; this was for the First Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Army, senior-most officer of that sprawling force. And then around and around, the seats of hundreds more: retired Imperial Army officers of high honour and high rank, proven in valour and trusted by their liege, and social, political and economic advisers. Each and every one of them had been chosen by either the Emperor or the Lord Sigillite on the Emperor's behalf to add their expertise to the governance of the galaxy. Interspersed throughout all of these were twenty-six high-backed chairs of superhuman proportions. These were the Primarchical thrones, and next to those empty spaces were seated their legations.
The door opened. The murmuring ever constant did not cease, yet it quietened. In the doorway loomed a bear's shadow, a rough-cloaked form with a snarling masque and furs. Clanking, limping, loping steps, noisy, unclean. The I Legion's legation had arrived. This was not just any Thunder Warrior, as the snarling visage unveiled itself to the War Council, no mere emissary as was typical of this council. It was the Thunder Warrior. The red right hand of the throneslayer, the Lord Solar's Evocatus, his mentor and companion and servant, his voice upon Terra. It was Arik Taranis.
The living legend unfurled into the room, a myth breathed into existence like words from a bard's lips, inked words from a great epic spilling from the page. He stalked forwards, animalistic, predatory, a hunter in full throe, each step measured and weighted with restrained violence. His hands, more raptor-talons, were divided, one resting on a club-headed walking stave. The other held a dataslate, which, once close enough to the table, was slid forth across the surface to come to a halt before the Sigillite.
"Lord Sigillite. We must speak of this."
Malcador did not take the dataslate, did not even look up from checking his own nails at the speaker or the slate closer to him. His voice was matter-of-fact. He did not have time for drama this day. He had higher matters to attend to after this meeting.
"Hail and well met, Evocatus of the First. Docket accepted; we shall add it to the end of today's agenda—"
"Sir, I invoke the right as legation of the First to declare an Omega-class event. We must speak of this. Now."
The room fell silent at the thrumming words. A Thunder Warrior had spoken; lightning had struck and the thunder of the aftermath was reverberating across the chamber. Eyes turned and rose to the Sigillite and the Evocatus and the crackling aether between them. Such urgency, such directness… it gave pause to the Sigillite, who raised his eyes to the Evocatus. The Regent of Terra studied the Thunder Warrior for a moment and considered the weight of the words Taranis was holding behind his eyes, before nodding.
"Council to order."
At those words, the hafts of Guardian Spears rose and fell, rhythmically striking the adamantine floors of the War Council, a drumbeat, a beat to quarters. A score of Custodes circled the cloisters of the chamber. They were the Council Lictors. They gave force to the words of the Sigillite in the absence of the Emperor. By the Regent's command, any who trespassed against the Emperor's will were subject to the blades of those same Guardian Spears that rang out the council summons. Feet were swift in making progress at this sound. Within moments, the chamber was silent, all seats were filled, and the crisp tone of the Regent of Terra called out into the echoing air.
"Evocatus Taranis. You have the floor."
The Thunder Warrior inclined his head in thanks, before standing tall to his full height, which towered over all except the Custodes in this chamber. One hand rested, curled, upon his stave. The other adopted the traditional stance of address from Ancient Italica: thumb rested in the curled crook of his index finger with the rest of his hand also curled, but into a fist and thus closer to the palm. His voice was a semi-civilised growl, a reminder, a hearkening back to the techno-barbarians of old Terra, the world from which Arik had sprung and which he had remained tied to ever since his near mortal wounding at Ararat, brought to life once more before the now-uniformed Imperial mass before him. This is more a shaman before the fire orating an epic myth to his tribe than a soldier briefing a political convention. His address was this:
"My fellow Imperials,
"Lend me your ears. I would not be here stood so if the need were not great.
"Darkness abounds our Imperium. As we bring illumination to the shadows and seek to build a better cosmos and light forth the way to a greater future, in uncovering the dark we find some things within that dark which threaten to draw back the cloak of night over mankind.
"These enemies can only be met with flame and fury. The Orks of Ullanor are one of these foes that demand such annihilation, for their barbarous horde if unchoked shall sweep like a tsunami over our Imperium and choke our righteous grand design. In the abyss evil stirs and gazes back upon us as we peer into its depths and seek its eradication. A twisted mirror image of our righteous purpose for their own malevolent designs. For we are in the right, for our Emperor knows the true path: mankind alone in the cosmos as its lord and master and none other to ever threaten us again with extinction.
"A new abomination has arisen from this long line of enemies. We must now look to the west, not just the east. Would that it were so easy, to face our enemies in column. Alas, our attention must split, against Ullanor in the east and to the Rangdan in the west.
"The Rangdan.
"That is the name of this new horror that assails us so. I have a report from a force in the field, Aurelian-Brigadier Fenser Darriwyn, a Thunder Warrior in body and not just name. His name is honour-bound in the remembrances of the beheading of Narthan Dume. This, I am sure you all know, and this is the reason why I raise this warning not as doom-sayer but as truth-teller.
"Fenser met this enemy west of the old Eldar Empire whilst reconnoitring the veiled region. At the edges of the light of the Astronomican, so close to being beyond its sight, upon a dead space station, amid the bones and crumbling ruins of a Terran Federation colonia, he was assailed by this despicable menace.
"He overcame it, for how could so mighty a man not do so? With his great hammer in arms, he moved and obliterated, the thunder of his blows shaking that world so and roaring his defiance against this new evil. He emerged victorious, but pyrrhic was this victory. These Rangdan stand two and half metres tall. Black-scaled armour is their skin, no head to be found, only two legs and four arms with claws and maws upon their hands. And they are indomitable.
"Only one way to kill them was found: in the melee, in the crushing of their chest. Not to crack their hearts, no, but to pulverise their brains. Costly was this lesson. A thousand Thunder Warriors lie dead upon that now atomised Star Fort, exterminated by Fenser's decree as is his right as a Brother-Brigadier of the I Legion, doubly so as Aurelia and thus immortal-gloried companion of the Lord Solar.
"If the nightmare were thought done, it was not. Fenser preserved in his exploration of this graveyard world. Uncovering the ancient records of the colonists, he discovered the tale of their demise, and realised the encroaching doom upon our western front.
"These Rangdan are cerebravores. They breed with each other, and spread their young through the dissemination of their eggs into the brains of their prey. From the skulls of these unfortunates, cracked open from the inside, a boned womb breached forth in twisted birth, emerges a Rangdan.
"Of the soldiers of the Solar Auxilia who were with us, such a fate was visited upon near enough half their number—twenty-thousand souls lost. A hundred Thunder Warriors were lost also by this fate. The newborn is killable. It is a babe without armour. But it is fast, and slips into the dark crevices to grow with a skittering run that only an Astartes has the speed to react against. If not killed during or straight after its emergence, it will surely grow into an adult, and the cycle begins anew.
"This is not just war; this is extermination. The ancient Terran colonists—those who remained besieged within the last canton of this Star Fort, free from Rangdan in their day—wrote of this horror in the ancient Latinate upon ceramite plates and buried them into the walls of their habitat before committing mass suicide through void ejection. Even their Abominable Intelligences fell to the Rangdan, the few they had dying in the first battle against these cerebravores.
"One Rangdan ship was enough to fell four ancient battlecruisers and overcome the defences of a Terran Federation Star Fort. Aye—contemplate that, those of you who know your history.
"And contemplate this as well.
"Thirteen ships we sent into the dark. Only one remains: the Eisenstein, its every inch and crevice scoured and quarantined under the glare of a blue sun for a full two months before Fenser would even dare allow it to dock within the confines of Hydraphur. The rest were sun-scuttled with all hands as Rangdan infestations took root within their holds. The message he sent burnt dead a score of Astropaths in the urgency he demanded, even as he made for the system's star to bathe in its purifying radiation for a full rotation, lest any infection remain clutching to the hold of the Eisenstein.
"They are coming. They are coming. The Rangdan. Woe unto us if we do not heed this warning now."
The room fell silent. The oration was over, and, bowing his head, Arik Taranis awaited the verdict of the Regent of Terra.
For his part, Malcador listened to the speech, inscrutable as ever, dark robes cloistering his face in a half shadow, hiding his eyes from whatever gaze might try and look upon them and discern some kind of reaction to any words or acts put against him. One hand lay across his stomach. The other was resting on the arm of his chair, hand curled up in front of his mouth. When all was finished, lowering this hand, he uncovered his mouth.
"This news is concerning," said the Sigillite. "If its veracity can be established then an immediate response may be required by this council. Tell me, Evocatus, how come so much was learnt from only a single contact?"
"Much was learned from the plates. Their models are contained within that dataslate there for dissemination to this council. But not all. Much still was learnt, bloodily so, from the battles with these Rangdan Cerebravores. They are Blanks, invisible to the Warp, but thankfully not Pariahs. Such was learnt from one instance utilising a Thunder Warriors Librarian. All combat lessons learnt have been contextualised upon the dataslate as well."
Malcador nodded, though he did not move towards the said information before him.
"And, if such a report can be verified, by right of first contact, what response would you propose, Evocatus?"
"I demand the right of retaliation. We must recall the First Legion entirely, to dive into to the dark and extinguish this foe entirely as our honour requires us to do so. With the losses suffered, it is anathema that our Legion be denied the right of retaliation."
Arik made his proposal without a flicker of an eyebrow, without a moment's hesitation. To recall the I Legion. To break from the Grand Fleet against a Decree Absolute from upon high. The Emperor himself, and he only, had the power to do this thing; for only he could issue a Decree Absolute to overturn his prior commands.
The War Council stirred and broke out into shouting. Fists hammered upon tables demanding to speak, until at last, Malcador raised his hand, signalled the Custodes to rattle their sabres, and brought order to the room. His head turned and looked past Taranis to another face—to the First Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Army, the primus inter pares of that ponderous structure and thus the most prestigious military office to be held outside of any Primarchical rank, and indeed, some would argue, behind closed doors and out of earshot, even higher than some Primarchs, given their foibles and small Legion sizes.
Haldane Ma'lon was perhaps the only military voice on Terra who could reply with any kind of authority in this matter. Of all them in this room save Arik himself, and perhaps the Custodes circling the chamber, only he and he alone had fought in the Unification Wars. A lowly footsoldier, Haldane had climbed each rank of the Imperial Army step-by-step over the course of the Unification Wars since their earliest days to rise to the dizzying height he had by now achieved. Even so, his voice was a low rasp, his eyes sunken and his skin wrinkled. His juvenat treatments had begun to fail. But he had a part left to play in the story of the Imperium yet, however short that part might become.
"Such a reaction is perhaps an overreaction, Evocatus Taranis. Certainly, a large response must be considered, I agree. But the entire First Legion? And to weaken the Grand Fleet so? Such a vast scale of a threat would be known to us by now and not just from a single Thunder Warrior's report alone. I know Fenser. Though not of the Old Hundred, I was a merely a lieutenant seconded to his brigade for a year, as I'm sure you well know, Evocatus. And I hope you will not be… aggrieved, when I suggest that perhaps he is mistaken in his judgement on this threat."
The first Thunder Warrior shook his head. He replied:
"Fenser Darriwyn is blood-brother and battle-kin to me. To the Lord Solar as well. We are all Aurelia, our oaths sworn to each other at the dawn after Ararat in blood. We are the last of the old and true Thunder Warriors, fewer and fewer, only a handful of us left. We do not waste our words. If Fenser has chosen to speak of these Rangdan as an existential threat, then that is what they are. He is not mistaken. If my lord Ozymandias were here, he would say the same. He would say so, and do more than say. He would move even against the commands of the Emperor—"
There was a sharp intake of breath. Malcador's hand snapped up to silence Arik against the backdrop of an already stilled chamber, one holding in a breath they did not realise they were holding.
"You may be his voice this day, Taranis, but you are not the Lord Solar's true voice. Choose your own words carefully. It would not be the first meeting of this War Council to end in summary execution for sedition."
Taranis bowed his head at Malcador's words, but raised it again as he spoke, unrepentant, to meet the eyes of his old comrade.
"Sedition is the crime of falsity and disloyalty, Lord Sigillite, with respect. This is truth and duty. I urge you—all of you—do not dismiss this as the fears of old soldiers long in the tooth. This is an approaching tsunami. Let us not be swept away by it because we thought it just another wave against the shore. Let us Thunder Warriors, the vanguard of the Emperor, the First Legion… let us be the ones to xenocide these Rangdan for the crime of intolerable existence."
The Sigillite pursed his lips, rapped the fingers of a single hand upon the council chamber, considering his options, before deciding. Now was the time to speak. His shoulders seemed heavier with each word, for revealing secrets was more of a weight than keeping them for Malcador. Such was his purpose in the Imperium, as Bureacrat, as spymaster, as Regent of Terra.
"This is not the first report I have received of such a species as this, yet something is amiss. I would have the councils' thoughts on this matter. By privilege of regency I must reorganise our agenda for this council. I will hear the report of the Twenty-Third Legation, Emissary Samira Agali, your Legion's report of auxiliary contact in the Charosian system. Specifically docket number thirty-two of thirty-two agendum submitted by your Legion for this meeting."
This was unexpected, that the Regent of Terra should so overtly invoke his ordained rights. Malcador the Sigillite was known for his subterfuge, his diplomacy. He chaired the War Council of the Imperium of Man; but it was rare indeed for him to intervene as bluntly as this.
The War Council was silent as Emissary Agali stood from her seat and cleared her throat. Her first words were directed to a floating servo-skull, one of a number that are ever bobbing and floating throughout the room, though always subtly as they had been commanded to do so.
"Might I have the Cosmograph activated, please?"
The servo-skull nodded, its red unblinking eye turning to a dull orange as it floated away and enacts the command. It took a few moments, but eventually a three-dimensional map of the galaxy winked into existence before the War Council. The Cosmograph was the hidden function of the War Council chamber, a functional counter to the baroque form that the War Council attempted to espouse. Connected to the War Council's databanks, the Cosmograph was the central repository of the Great Crusade's knowledge, running on databanks buried miles and miles beneath the Imperial Palace, great shafts that reached down to Terra's core itself to draw power from therein to ensure their constant function without any threat of power outages or data losses.
For her part, while she waited, Emissary Agali idly brushed a stray strand of greying hair behind an ear. None of the Astartes of the legations could be said to be young. The Legions' legations consisted of elder Space Marines trusted implicitly by their Primarchs. These legations were effectively the Primarchs' ambassadors to the Imperial central government on Terra. Like the Primarchs themselves, they were not members of the War Council, but they had the right (if and only if invited) to observe the council's meetings, though not to vote. A Legion's legation could run into scores of Astartes for some of the Legions, maintaining alliances with Navigator Houses and individual forge-cities of Mars, entreating with Imperial Army High Command for further auxiliary forces, and more. Some called this mass of Space Marines maintained upon Terra the Crusader Host. Others more derogatorily referred to them as the Primarchs' Pets.
"Cogitator, enter Evocatus Taranis's report into the record, display capture-picts of the Rangdan, and then visually plot the first contact please."
Malcador's voice rang out, his hand holds up the dataslate, which is promptly secured by a servo-skull, it purrs in binaric, scanning the slate and doing as bidden, before returning the slate to the hand of the Sigillite. A single pinprick of red light erupted into existence, along with captured pictures of the Rangdan. Satisfied, Malcador gestured for Emissary Agali to continue. She nodded her head in thanks to the Regent of Terra. She spoke as her turquoise-armoured hand motioned towards a point on the Cosmograph.
"Highlight the Charosian system."
Two pinpricks of red blinked onto the map. The War Council paused, taking in not the fact that there were two contacts of the same species but the distance between each pinprick. The Charosian system was sixty-thousand light-years south of Fenser Darriwyn's first contact.
"Our report," Agali said, "concerning contact with a xenobreed we termed Skullcrackers, was of a lesser scale than that of Aurelian-Brigadier Darriwyn. A single cell of Chainbreakers encountered a single human-inhabited world under xenos domination, a single Skullcracker ship in orbit over the world, which had arrived and conquered the world five months prior to Chainbreaker arrival. Infiltration revealed a military occupation centred around slave labour and xenos reproduction and consumption. Our holograms of the Skullcrackers are identical to those of the Rangdan. If the Rangdan and Skullcracker forms could be contrasted at all life stages, please? From young to aged."
The room hummed. The Cosmograph shifted, producing two scans of the xenos in infant form, before overlapping the two, to confirm they were identical. Further statistics were produced, juvenile, then adult. Identical—identical each time. Data were compared, scrutinised and the Cosmograph pinged an alert before the War Council, though the evidence was already there before their eyes. Another voice rises into the air: Tabor Ludovicia, Second Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Army.
"Perhaps it is a migratory species? A single species coincidentally scattered across the galaxy in two separate locations by blind jumps into the Warp? Is it not true that the Hrud can also be found like a mottled mycelium throughout the galaxy—"
"Would that it were, Lord Commander Ludovicia."
Malcador interrupted Tabor's musings, his hopings. The Sigillite was shaking his head sadly, his own hope for the situation now gone.
"Something is unveiling itself to us, crawling into the light, emboldened that we have perceived it not in its full form, too vast for us to comprehend at first. I have heard reports from ears and eyes in the lower parts of the Imperium—whispers, rumours, of skittering creatures in the dark holds of underhives and Space Hulks. More and more, though, the threads converge: mouths upon hands, skulls splitting asunder and headless shapes terrifying in strength and speed. I was unaware of Darriwyn's report, and I had thought these reports to be simply rumour-mongering among Rogue Traders, spice-addled spacers and hive gangers."
The Sigillite raised his left hand, the signet ring upon it glimmering in the half-dark shadow of his throne throughout the meeting. A servo-skull bearing his own personal insignia answered this summons. Data streamed into the Cosmograph, silent psy-commands by the Sigillite, unspoken before the War Council as was his right as Imperial spymaster, until, at last, silent commands gave way to vocal briefing.
"Here, these are all of the points plotted from those reports. We thought it a simple first contact as well, albeit a shadowy one. But given all that has been said, I think this is something more."
The Cosmograph was now a long smear of points and plots and attached holographic pictures and more. It was a growing flow of red bleeding against the Imperium, bleeding into the Imperium. And then, now seeing the breaking dam against them, so too did the dam of silence holding the War Council in spell erupt and burst a cacophony of shouting, demands and a hundred separate questions and more. Directed to the room, to each other, to themselves. It was anarchy, it was chaos. It built into a feverous pitch, a rising panicked fervour and near-screaming—
"Fulminata!"
The wet leopard growl of Arik Taranis erupted over the chorus of shouting, the I Legion's battle-cry, the lightning bolt that brings the thunder stunning the War Council into silence. The Evocatus stepped forwards once more, raised his free hand in oratory, mauled fingers gesturing towards the great crimson tide pouring against them.
"This is first contact on a front sixty-thousand light-years across, not just sixty-thousand light-years apart. This is no mere constellation of xenos a few hundred sectors at best. This is an empire of xenos a few thousand sectors and growing. Beyond the sight of the Emperor—aye, he is only a man as he has decreed—beyond his sight something has bred and multiplied in shadow and now comes against us as our attention is elsewhere. We must act now! Here and today in this room we have the power to forestall the oncoming storm!
"We must recall the Grand Fleet. Only he can direct the Imperium on the righteous path to victory against this capricious enemy. A dark reflection of our Imperium is breaking stride across the west, even as the barbarians howl at the gates in the east. Do none of you see? Aye, you look, but do you see? See the threads that are connecting, webs woven and connecting and what must be done to set us to victory against it? Cease your apish screeching now and let us unite as one swell roar."
A crack of wood against skin, an eruption of fire around an Aquila. Malcador the Sigillite stood. The Custodes around the room adopted a battle-ready stance. The War Council turned, gazed at the sight, glamour-struck by the eruption of psychic might from the Regent of Terra. His voice boomed forth and echoed across the room, deafening them into submission.
"If it please this council, we will make decrees of mobilisation to the west. All ongoing Compliances, once completed, to redeploy west with all due haste. All available forces unmarked for Ullanor to be deployed now westwards as a holding force until an offensive can be coordinated into the veiled region. Any available Primarchs to make haste for Terra with their Legions to attend our next council meeting as we coordinate a response to these Rangdan."
None dared vote against this motion. They were shocked by the suddenness of it, by the speed with which the Sigillite had deliberated and come out in favour of the Evocatus. And nodding, uncrowned head heavy with the weight of the words he had spoken, the Sigillite sighed and began to turn and leave the room.
"This council is dissolved. I must make communion with the Emperor himself, corroborate this report against others with his opinions. One lunar turn from now, we will reconvene on this matter."
Arik called out to him, one last time as the Sigillite left the room, staff in hand striking the floor and leaving echoing drumbeats reverberating through the chamber.
"Time is against us until then."
And the call came back:
"Then let us hope fate is on our side until then."