In the words of Valeran Mortoc, Captain, Shatter Corps

With three million men and eight hundred Marines, we have plunged the blade of our wrath deep into the Ixaniad Sector. Not all of them will return, but those that do will be hardened and strengthened for their journey. Already, my field commanders report immediate success in the destruction of Imperial defenses on the Sector’s border worlds, though it is worth remembering that my information is likely outdated by at least several months. Alas, time and space work against the pursuit of staying current as events unfold.

And yet, despite these early victories, I have received reports that troubled me. A squad of our brothers were felled in a town square on New Cealis. There were no apparent defenses that could have so thoroughly exterminated their advance. Moreover, our quarry for the planet, its Governor, was also found dead before we got to him. Head blown off. Bolter munition. However, our invasion did not find Imperial Astartes anywhere on the world. There was an Inquisitor present. A capable one. An intelligent one, one who could recognize our desire for the Governor and work to stifle our ability to meet all of our goals. The world may be ours now, yes, but for lack of the intelligence we had sought, one may find it a Pyrrhic victory in nature.

Ouranos eludes us yet, hiding behind our ignorant foes. As is ever his wont.

I find myself perturbed by the development on New Cealis. If one Inquisitor is capable of felling our brothers and emerging unscathed—which they have; we have not been able to find trace of them and not for lack of trying—one must wonder what further casualties we will face. Some casualties are anticipated, especially so from the Inquisition as a whole. But this war we wage against Ixaniad is not the final war. We must have survivors yet to take the fight to Ouranos. We could in one reality subjugate all of Ixaniad, but need centuries to rebuild our fighting strength. Ouranos would leave in that time, fleeing behind some other unwitting meatshields. Such an outcome, while valuable in the greater war against the Imperium, is intolerable where it concerns the extermination of this dreadful cur.

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I do not intend to spend my eons chasing Ouranos from one sacrificial lamb to another. No, there are worthier uses of my time than he. So whichever Inquisitor troubled us on New Cealis, I will lay low. And whichever may yet get in our way before Ouranos, I will lay them low. And when, finally, my hands grasp the deranged skull of the cowardly runt himself, I will show the stars the expulsion of his gore, and paint my heels in the color of the bastard’s blood, whatever it may be.

This is inevitable. And if it is not, then I was without Iron in my veins. But were that so, I would not have found myself a Captain of the Corps, and one would be foolish to question that appointment of my superiors. Hence, then, inevitability. Ouranos will die. The only question is how much blood is shed in the process, and from whom it flows. As I dictate this log, the Inquisition starfort over Quintus is besieged by our forces, and when it is reduced to a smoldering corpse of its former self, we will use it—and the world below—as a staging point from which to propel ourselves against the true enemy.

Such is our design, such is our fate, and so it shall be. Ouranos, and Ixaniad before him, shall know the might of Iron and the weakness of cowardice.

Iron Within, Iron Without!