‘Another lost system.’ Tribune Maldovar Colquan of the Adeptus Custodes spoke angrily. Five others of his order stood guard behind the primarch. When he spoke, and it was not often, it was as if every affront to the Imperium he saw compounded his shame. He was well aware that for ten millennia the Emperor’s bodyguard had done nothing. All he had to offer in response was gall.

Guilliman privately agreed with this damning assessment. When he had returned to Terra, he had discovered a warrior brotherhood blinded by grief, uninterested in anything that happened beyond the walls of the Imperial Palace. Crisis after crisis had battered the foundations of the Imperium, and the Adeptus Custodes had retreated further from view with each one.

They had finally come out from behind the palace walls. Small groups of them operated the galaxy over, but the pendulum had swung too far the other way. The golden warriors of Terra were in danger of being blinded by rage.

‘It was not lost, because it never belonged to the Imperium,’ said Guilliman. ‘This target is nevertheless worthy, and we shall claim it as our own. See how the enemy gather around it. Their temple nears completion.’

A hololithic strategic display showed the system and its monstrous parasite as a series of neutral graphics tagged with data signifiers. It looked so bland rendered that way, an innocuous nebula. The Chaos fleet around 108/Beta-Kalapus-9.2 was invisible to the unaided eye, but clear enough to the augurs of the Macragge’s Honour, and bright dots of light tagged with datascreed swarmed at high anchor around a single point: the orbital fane of the Word Bearers.

The primarch’s voice needed no amplification to reach all of his commanders. His words carried into the furthest reaches of the command deck. When he spoke, all stopped to listen.

‘An orbital temple is under construction here. It must be destroyed. This is a staging post for our enemies, but it is for no mundane resupply that they come to the Pit of Raukos.’ He pointed directly at the black eye in the anomaly. ‘They come here to make blood sacrifice, and call upon their diabolical gods to favour them with aid from their servants. From this rift, daemons walk and lend their power to the traitors. Such doorways need closing.

‘The ability to do so eludes us for now, but they will be closed, all of them. I swear this in my father’s name. Until then, the monsters that come from within them will be beaten back, and the thresholds guarded by the mightiest warriors the Imperium can spare. So we shall divide the mortal servants of Chaos from their unnatural allies. The Indomitus Crusade has swept from one end of the galaxy to the other, bringing retribution to our foes. I propose we add one further victory to our tally!’

The crowd cheered loudly. Booming transhuman voices joined with chittering data augmitters.