Epilogue I

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Fondor was won. Saved, even. Over the course of a day, the remnants of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet came about in good order, recovered a handful of yorik -trema and –troka from the surface and peeled away to climb from the gravity well. Admiral Brand elected to watch them go. Lord Admiral Regil concurred and as the Vong fleet powered away from the storm-choked world to vanish into hyperspace the reinforced Republic fleet came to order at high anchor. The famous shipyards were gone, spread into a slick of debris that was its own glinting ring. Every few hours a trace of amber would crease the atmosphere of Fondor, ending all too quickly in a flash of flame and ripple of blue. The planetary shields remained active even as technicians worked around the clock to ensure the integrity of the projectors.

Magos Orichi-Mu oversaw the recovery of the sacred Titan, clucking and muttering under his breath at the rips of damage, the shining adamantium burnished mirror bright by the scouring of plasma and exotic particles, the mangled and deformed claw, the juddering and sparking Belicosa mount. Its cape, a mark of rakish honor, hung ragged and reduced to the adamantium mesh with but few scraps of fabric remaining. Beneath the careful guidance of its weary princeps the Titan slowly trudged back into its coffin-ship; projecting bone-deep weariness only a veteran could recognize. Anchors and cabling linked to its battered form as the barge descended above, howling gravitics and screaming retrojets holding the massive craft in place.

Throughout it all Optarch was sanguine. He watched the screeds of data scrolling through the holotanks and hastily prepared projectors of the Kadyin Memorial command center. It was already being disassembled, in parts, with local guild workers breaking down machines and securing datacubes away in locked cases for later review. His vox was constantly active, relaying endless details of the Iax Tertius and First Eboracum forming up and preparing to embark back to orbit. His demicompany was reeling in, stamping out some of the last clear and desperate strongholds of the invaders alongside Guilder conscripts and levies.

He was aware of the strategic loss before him. Fondor was operating at below forty-six percent of its pre-battle output. The orbital yards were obliterated. Its defense structures were at thirteen percent efficacy. Electrical storms and ash clouds continued to cause rolling blackouts and disruption.

That, however, was not his problem. Under his guidance Optarch was confident he had accrued a significant amount of both theoretical and practical data on the vong xenoform. Not just in terms of combat prowess and capabilities but in psychology as well. According to the peoples of this galaxy, the Yuuzhan Vong were fanatical to the point of self-destruction. Suicidal, even. He had heard at length the tale of Shedao Shai and the Jedi Master Corran Horn. Enough for it to become tedious. The battle of Ithor, according to reports, had been a serious loss to the Yuuzhan Vong, yet they had pursued it simply out of spite. Surely with the life-eaters at their disposal, a more practical solution would have been to briefly establish orbital superiority and murder the world?

Optarch saw little evidence of that here. Whomever commanded the alien fleet in this theatre was canny and cautious. In discussions with Regil, Optarch recognized how close this fleet action came to loss. Perhaps the Vow might have lived but it was likely all three cruisers would have been lost. The vong could have broken the Republic fleet entirely and, despite suffering truly savage losses, even harmed the Imperial fleet. While three cruisers lost would be but a minor action normally, here in this unknown galaxy, so infinitely far from Ultramar, it represented a significant loss of tonnage.

But the vong commander had not chosen to. He had been careful, willing to disengage when the price grew too steep. He had pursued alternate methods; he had attempted to move laterally around the problem instead of battering himself to death against it.

That was interesting. Optarch regretted that the commander likely survived.

Such a foe would have been better off dead.

He grimaced and flipped past another few pages of reports on his dataslate. Of the Astartes brought to Fondor, there had been a single fatality, though a dozen injuries of varying severity would require time in the apothecarion. At least one brother awaited an augmetic. While Optarch did not commit any to direct strikes, instead deploying Astartes individually and in squad strength to shore up weak points with advice and guidance, it seemed the vong had recognized the threat of these new foes and responded accordingly. Barrages of plasma and bugs seemed to prejudicially focus on Astartes whenever they showed themselves and while Macraggian forged ceramite proved doughty enough to weather most, nothing is flawless.

If only he had a handful of Suzerain. Twenty-three remained within a hundred meters of his primarch at all times, much to his lord's frustration. Drakus Gorod himself was unbudging on the attention. But a squad – even half a squad! Optarch paused for a moment, indulging himself by selecting and enlarging the sensorium and auspex scans of the enemy flagship, supplemented by sensor data from the Republican fleet. It was a helical, uninspiring monster of craggy faces and sprouting coral forests. Not as rough and brutal as an ork creation, but utterly lacking in aesthetic.

A half a squad of Suzerain and he would have gone for the throat. The Vow had a functioning teleportarium. Five Suzerain and two boarding squads. Optarch would have even led them himself and damn the theoreticals. Go for the throat, rip it out.

Like Horus would have.

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Noriomi ached. Every bone felt battered, every muscle pushed to limits and beyond. Her tendons felt like drawn bowstrings, neck like an iron-injected vice. But she held herself ramrod straight, biting back tears.

It was one thing to live it, to feel it intimately, personally.

It was quite another to see the hurt.

Her love was brutalized. Mortarch was dark save for the flying arcs and sparks as tech-adepts crawled about its body, stripping off ruined armor plates and peeling back others to access fused and mutilated conduits. Its head hung limp, chin down. Noriomi took in the void where the right arm should be and shivered, rubbing her own shoulder in sympathy.

Her love was brutalized and she had been its architect.

On some level she knew it was unavoidable. On some level she knew it had been a glorious, glorious mêlée. These bio-titans of the vong were as brutal as any foe she had faced before. Only – her lips twisted in a grimace, just the memory lighting a fire in her belly, a curdling flame that made her want to strike something. Strike something until it broke or she did.

Only the traitor engines at Calth were deadlier.

These biotitans. Four at once. She had ridden Mortarch against four and won the field. Unsupported. Unaided. This would be a battle that she should be shouting about. Celebrating with Lacassex and preparing to record it in the annals of the Legion. Perhaps even beginning to dictate a glory banner to carry. Though her glory drape was scorched and half lost, it would be rewoven by the joyous helots of the Legio. This triumph would be added to the endless list.

But she could only look at her wounded love and feel no grand victory. Never had Mortarch been so wounded. At Komesh when the Word Bearers turned – even then Mortarch's famous canniness had kept her safe through the day. Even when other titans were cut down like mortal soldiery, even when she wept to see an entire maniple of Lacassex walkers surrounded and slaughtered, still Mortarch had emerged unscathed.

Her great Arioch, her strong right hand was crushed. It sat off to the far right along with the twisted and scorched mechanisms of the entire arm. Careful had been the magi to excise the entire limb, entreating and calming the great spirit of the Titan all the while. But it was beyond repair, beyond salvage. It was a lump of fused ceramics and adamantium, rendered worthless by bombardment of exotic energies. Certainly, its sacrifice had saved her. Had saved the Titan. But she couldn't look away from the blackened wreck. She'd slain Eldar titans with that. She'd crushed a many-tentacled mechanical horror on a world without a star in its atomizing grasp. Served the judgment and wrath of the Emperor in the evisceration of a Legio Indemptius Reaver at Calth. She could still remember the feel of the still-live reactor as she wrenched it from the chest of the traitor engine and cast it aside like refuse.

Without the Arioch, Mortarch was incomplete. In its hanging head she felt her own dismay and emptiness. Mortarch did not know who it was anymore, without it. It was a wound that could not heal. Would not heal.

Across the vast bay she saw her moderati approaching. Noriomi span on her heel and vanished into the darkness in the corners and edges, undesiring company. The only company she could stomach watched her go with lightless eyes.

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One by one, hololiths flickered to life. Each described a grand impossibility. Aeonid Thiel, Brevet Captain, 'Trainee' Jedi joined from hundreds of parsecs Rimward. He inclined his head, realtime, making sign of the aquila. From the galactic south, near the opposite side of the Core, Lieutenant Optarch stood beside Lord Admiral Regil. Guilliman peered at both of his sons, unable to contain the slightest unbelieving shake to his head.

'Sire, intoned Thiel.

'My lord,' Optarch greeted.

'This is entirely uncanny,' Regil announced, bereft of decorum. Guilliman allowed it with a rare twitch of his lips.

'It is, Cornelius. I fear that it will take some time to remember we have this capacity now.'

'And it is trustworthy?'

A familiar fear, that. Voiced by many throats: human, posthuman and transhuman. Suspicion rightly fell on the varied artifices offered by the New Republic. Placing aside their origins in human or alien hands, the greater concern was that of security. Claims that holonet hyperspace communications were impossible to breach were all well and good - but the Republicans held a position of greater power and knowledge there. Public records were not enough to allay doubt, as no reasonable government would openly declare any particular means of listening in on their citizenry.

Magi tore to shreds examples of holonet transceivers, ripping the exotic technology apart to its barest fundamentals before rebuilding only to tear it down again. These were entirely newfound fields of study, new boundaries of science, which held both great allure and great mistrust among the Martian priesthood, who now debated hotly more than just allowances of use, but rather deeper orthodoxy about the nature of discovery and innovation itself.

For Guilliman, there was a razor. He took it up and clove through paranoia and mistrust. Simply: every extant political, economic, social and surveillance apparatus within the known galaxy utilized hyperspace holonet communications. Every one.

Sometimes the simplest answer bore the truth. What might be more likely: that there existed a concerted, galactic conspiracy concocted on the fly to subvert only the 4711th, that was perfectly impregnable to investigations, that had all answers to all questions?

Or that, perhaps, the Republicans could be taken at their word.

Some might call it a leap of faith - Guilliman preferred the phrase 'logical deduction.'

The holonet was secure. Therefore, with a practical of instantaneous, galactic-scale communications, there was never a scenario in which he did not make use of the technology.

At his shoulder, Codicier Rubio cleared his throat.

'Greater even than astropathic dreams. Magos?'

Another hologram shifted. Orichi-mu, from his own barque, pulled low over the Republican world of Fondor.

'There are only so many formulations of 'affirmative' that I am able to construct. My speciality is not of lingua, but biologia.'

'Then: let us debrief,' Guilliman proclaimed. Together on Macragge's Honour, in the small chamber set aside for the holonet transceiver, he was joined by Gage to his right, Rubio to his left. Additionally, Captain Paston from the Redoubt on the world below. Shipmistress Vaul, from crippled Mantallikes. Lieutenant Maglios, on-site still in the bilges of the Honour was the only holo-presence in full battle plate, helm and all.

The last went first, as Maglios detailed the ongoing removal of vong combatants that went to ground. No warriors appeared to have attempted to vanish into the labyrinthine networks of the lower decks - something that Optarch spoke up to note would be quite unlikely, given their psychological dispositions. Entire platoons of the reptoid slave-caste were being rooted out by Cyber-altered Tasks, servitors, armsmen and killteams of two to three Ultramarines. They posed little enough threat - often unable to even overcome a simple sailor with a stubber in a one-on-one situation, but the little creatures liked the swarm.

Other hazards were biots that were set loose. From study of slain warriors and the expired biots they carried, scanning protocols were being developed but, most problematically, Macragge's Honour was a warship, and thus was built to deny attempts at scrying her interior. Existing surveillance networks were being upgraded and adjusted, but the vong's shaped creatures were infuriatingly canny.

For instance, Maglios described tiny, swarming midges that did not bite nor harass anything living, but sought out concentrations of high energetic output. As best as could be determined, they did not seem to cause any impedance - they did not chew on conduits nor output contrary wave-patterns. The current theory was they were some manner of organic markers, that might be sensed by external biots. A way of highlighting critical systems, or areas most beneficial to target.

Or they might simply be seeking heat and electrical fields to sustain themselves, and were nothing more than a red herring.

Orichi-mu expressed great interest in returning, to sink his many mechadendrites into the work of dissecting and cataloging the wealth of xenobiological technology that the assault on Eboracum had yielded.

'We already see cladistic similarities in the weapon-biots of the Yuuzhan Vong,' the Magos Dominus declared. 'If we map the genomic inheritances of each biot, we might be able to greater predict what hidden purpose they serve.'

'And countermeasures?' asked Optarch, interest clear even on his blue-tinted, insubstantial expression.

'And countermeasures.' Orichi-mu confirmed. 'The first concern will be confounding the living armor of the Yuuzhan Vong. Should the 'terminator' breed, as so termed by Lieutenant Maglios, be refined and become more common, we will require refinement of bolt-penetration.'

'They proved doughty, but ill-formed. None I saw carried weapons and they were slow and unwieldy. Durable, I admit, but blades proved their greater, as did volkite and plasma.'

Thiel gestured in negation.

'These were not seen on Obroa-skai, nor were their portable plasma launchers. Hellspitters, I believe armsmen have called them?'

Maglios nodded.

'And my brothers under Lieutenant Optarch's command have encountered refined forms of the 'grutchin' breed that run counter to the mindlessness the Republicans claim for them. The vong iterate, and they iterate swiftly.'

'It was Brothers Zalthis and Solidian, yes, along with Third Squad. The grutchin swarms were not released above ground, but rather used within close-quarters spaces. Interiors and the underground.' Optarch glanced away, nodding his head, before returning his attention. 'Coral growths, like as to those reported on the brows of controlled thralls, now direct those beasts.'

'Those are a priority for my magi. The means of communication eludes us, for now, but methodology and sacred experimentation will reveal, I am certain.'

'Redouble those efforts, Dominus,' Roboute murmured. Orichi-mu bowed. 'Republican intelligence posits that the crux of all vong communications are their 'yammosk' war-minds. If we might learn to listen in, and then disrupt, not only will the vong crumble, but we will hold a key asset over the rest of the Galaxy. I want this, Dominus. I want this advantage.'

'Your word is law, son-of-the-Omnissiah.'

The control of a Primarch was legendary, but the acuity of the senses of the transhuman were as well, and Gage did not miss the momentary shadow that passed his father's face at the title.

The discussion spun away then, from Maglios' reports on the 'infestation' of Macragge's Honour as he concluded that within a week, most chazrach nests would be rooted out and a fortnite from then, he was confident that means to trace biots would be in place. Mu recommended several Magi whose skills he considered complementary, and then it was in turn Paston's moment to address the status of Eboracum.

'In a word: complex. The destruction of the moon has already influenced weather patterns, though the degree is yet hidden by the fall of debris. We are not crippled, but we are not unscathed. The void shield over Eboracum Civitas holds and will continue to hold, save in the most extreme and unfortunate of events. Shipmistress Vaul and I continue to coordinate counterfire against the most dangerous of Yadraig's ruin.'

From Mantallikes, Katryna Vaul looked exhausted, but strangely enervated for the dark circles around her eyes. She had been assigned battlespace control by the Primarch, elevated past Hommed aboard Macragge's Honour as the coordinating officer for the interception of the moon's debris. It suited - her command would ride out the days, weeks, months of coming danger, unable to move from its anchor, unable to maneuver. Only capable of bearing the constant, incessant barrage of rock.

'The worst of the potential impactors have been handled, my Lord Primarch. All that might fall within the week are tagged and are being systematically broken up. My savants are tracking the rest and assembling targeting plans sprawling outwards until no rock larger than a Thunderhawk remains.'

'You've done well, Shipmistress,' the primarch praised. She beamed.

'My ship has done well. Six hundred and seventy-four hits to our armor plate so far, and not a single breach. Mantallikes will hold the center. Captain Paston and I have organized our focus so that the Pharisen Redoubt will take priority for the lowest orbits, before redirecting requests should they become overwhelmed. Tentatively, my lords, I am confident in this plan. I believe we can minimize any more damage to Eboracum.'

Any more. The world was already smudged, bruised, stormclouds and smoke plumes and hundreds of thousands of acres of swirling wildfires staining the orb of the planet. Waves had savaged the coast, sweeping sometimes kilometers inland - a blessing that Eboracum Civitas was situated well inland. Had Eboracum been an old world, one where habitation followed more the ancient ways of life to cluster along coasts and rivers, the infrequent but continuing tsunamis might have been far more devastating.

Evacuations of fringe villages and townships were ongoing. The 4711th had been willing to leave them be, providing an outlet for the most intransigent natives a place to pretend they were beyond the Imperium's focus, but that time was up. Stubborn or not, all on Eboracum were Imperial citizens, by law and by fact, and it was not in the nature of Guilliman to abandon Imperial citizens to their deaths, even if such would result from their own mulishness.

Thus: Eboracum Civitas swelled yet more, empty apartment blocks filling beneath the crackling, ozone shimmer of its voids.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Rubio spoke up next, bringing to the fore his sense of the moon itself, in its stricken, final moments. Of the sensation of stilling, of pulling, that echoed through both materium and immaterium, and the implications that he meditated long on. The faces, physically present and ephemerally projected, grew grim.

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Yald, joined by her siblings and flanked by the eventually-arrived elements of Third, Fourth and First Battlegroups. Wedge-shaped Star Destroyers cut dramatic, hard-edged daggers in the sky, brushing shoulders with gentle Mon Calamari cruisers and hulking Corellian Engineering warships. Now that the Yuuzhan Vong fleet was gone, ironically, the combined fleet of the 'Corellian' gambit was united. Fighting continued, sporadic and flighty, down on the surface, but the Guilds could handle it. The main force of the invaders was snapped in two over that Imperial Titan's knee and the walkers, juggernauts and war-droid mobs swept the stragglers up. Now it was warriors, handfuls of chazrach, occasional lingering gunships that lashed out in fitful, pointless clashes for some alien sense of honor and a righteous death.

More innocent lives would be claimed. More soldiers dead. More heroes buried.

Guildmistress Naa, sitting across from him in his sumptuous admiral's suite looked to be forged of pure durasteel. Every concern he bandied, she blocked. Every point he prodded, she countered. Every plea - she brushed away.

"Guildmistress, you know how irregular this is going to be."

"Obviously. We're not stupid, Admiral."

"The Senate…" his arguments were half-hearted. He didn't really have it in him to push back. It wasn't his job, for one, and for two: she wasn't in the wrong. He'd failed. He'd failed spectacularly. Some might have said it was a long time coming, that failure was a part of life, that no one could have a perfect career, but it smarted. ILC-905, the rest of the Black Fleet Crisis…stars on his uniform. High points in his career. Moments when he'd made the difference.

Then he argued for this. This. It made sense. It made perfect, logical, tactical and strategic sense. The shipyards were the most important assets the New Republic held. The Yuuzhan Vong were outsiders, invaders - they didn't have territory, they didn't have a production base, hell - they didn't even have worlds yet. Not really.

The New Republic was like the Old Republic, in more than just continuity of name. It was an engine and one with a long crank. It took time to get the leviathan moving. It took time to wake the beast. As long as the shipyards held, the Yuuzhan Vong's days were numbered. Given time, they could bury the invaders under all the men and material that the galaxy could make.

His choice. His arguments. His position.

Fondor's shipyards were a memory. He wasn't ignoring the Guildmistress, but he spared a glance through the broad transparisteel of his office. A memory and a field of glinting dust.

From his failure.

A fat lot of good the implacable engine of the New Republic would be, if every damned world fell before it could turn over even once.

So he listened to Eeshu Naa and he was halfhearted, just enough that when he filed his report, when he was investigated as he was sure he would, he could say he tried.

He could say he tried to keep the Tapani Sector from turning their backs.

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Wrath tumbled gently, end-over-end, with just enough speed that to stand on the outside of the vessel, one could watch the stars move in gentle, gentle arcs. About her sprawled an asteroid field painted in all the colors beloved of the gods. Coralskippers darted about on combat patrol, pilots guided by the swelling genius of yammosk-touch. True asteroids, monsters of iron and nickel and basic elements, gathered in loose agglomeration like a handful of pebbles. Pebbles as large as mountains, and chewed, gnawed at by muscular appendages disgorged by warships.

As in smallest form, so in largest, and as the bacteria devours the nutrient, a starship suckles at the leavings of the grandest celestial table. Wrath was already sated, new minerals flushing through the circulatory capillaries and plasma-guts burning replete with fresh reactants.

Malik Carr reclined in his own personal grotto, attended by three bare-faced servants who waited, motionless, silent, and stitch-lipped in the shadows. Emberflies lazed in the air, citrine light winking and gentle. In one corner a miniature mon duul thumped out a low, vibrational tune, accompanied by gentle hums of avians through many-slotted beaks. Incense crackled in sparkbee braziers, sweet and sour.

Qesud Qesh's nimble fingers prised and prodded at the meat of his conjoined forearm.

"Queer," she murmured, in her flat, emotionless tone. Now with months under his service, he knew the genius' tells well. In the depths of her focus, all emotion fell away until she was as calm and direct as the Shaper herself. In those times, he saw fit to overlook her occasional impropriety or lack of reverence for his position - different castes though they may be - as while his gut lit with anger at her rudeness, his lips smiled at her acuity. "The Protocol of S'uan continues and I see no deviation. Neurons bind appropriately - quite expeditiously - and the taking is easy." Her eyes, myriad-hued and bloodshot, flicked to his.

Ah, such impropriety. He cocked his head.

"Have you followed my most explicit instructions?"

"Cautious exercise, Master Shaper, and I have refrained from sparring with it."

She returned her focus to his forearm and the conjoined fang.

"There is errant transmitter activity. The taste is too alkaline. I will need to enact the Subduance of the Spasm. That may calm the tics you speak of. And there is no other symptom?"

"None at all. In all other ways, it is as my birth-flesh."

Qesh ticked a finger, a Shaper's shrug.

"Such things are not unknown. Though blessed by His Eminence Harrar, I have enjoined protocols in ways not done in many, many passings. The realms of the Cortex I plumbed reeked of dust. I am not perfect. This is why you engage me."

"You are not. None are, save Yun-Yuuzhan."

She mumbled something 'to His Glory' under her breath, by rote. Malik Carr watched as she folded his tendons back into his arm, as careful clips of forefinger and thumb closed flesh, bloodless, until only a mild ache like a bruise remained.

"Half a turning, Warleader, and you need not fear splitting the skin."

"Quick work. My gratitude."

She produced a living flask that waved hair-thin, vestigial legs.

"Apply the secretions along the joining, as if oil. If you are able, apply when you notice the tic return. That is mostly likely when receptor activity is impaired, and the Subduance sputum will instruct the neurons."

She cleansed her fingers with sonics and brief heat, stepping back to allow Malik Carr to climb from his throne-chair. The creature, at a jab of his heel, pulled up suction-tipped limbs and scuttled away. The Master Shaper brought with her only a smattering of her tools, squirming and chittering in clamshell case. She brushed fingertips across them, quieting her pets down, calming their indignation at being ignored, at not tasting flesh for the day. She had needed none.

"I was perusing memories," Malik Carr began, as a way to broach the topic.

"From the Impeerialz," she quessed, emotion coming back into her voice. Her Shaper's robe squirmed and readjusted itself as she straightened, still a full head-and-a-half shorter than he.

"The very same. I am pleased, Master Shaper. Your vonduun tagh and yaret sak proved worthy. I watched with mine own eyes as the armor-piercing guns of the infidels were humiliated by the designs of the Gods."

"The tagh are incomplete. They are a genus that has lingered long and forgotten, and it will be some time until I have refined their pattern. The Protocols of Ulin, Voraq and Kurind should not be hurried."

He inclined his head. He asked much and she delivered more, but his role was that of Warrior, and in ways of Shaping, her correction was to be heeded.

"You will have further time. I do not mean to strain your holy means, Master Shaper."

She eyed him, still daring to meet his eyes. Many of his warriors could not.

"I believe that, Warleader. Your timetables stressed the Protocols, but did not snap. More time - I will be grateful. We do the work of the Shaper, but She reveals at her pace, not ours."

Malik Carr snapped his fingers, mute servant approaching with twin bulbs of sweet ethanol. He offered one to Qesh, who was not fool enough to reject the generosity of a Warleader in his own grotto. She hid her distaste very well, the Master Shaper's mislike of imbibing such things known. A little expression of power.

"Time, samples, resources, facilities…you will have them all. A tidbit, before all else know. The Warmaster has arrived, and he has taken notice of what we do."

Malik Carr grinned, squeezing out a mouthful of the stinging amber to his tongue. It was sweet, warm, but he hungered for a different flavor altogether. Salt-sweet and rounded iron, rich and red. The blood of Aistarteez. Domain Shai's honor was returned, though he hated - hated - that it was their dishonored host that he had cast into the fire. The zealot Yus Shai, he knew, had claimed trophies on that infidel warship. Malik Carr sent them all to the Gods covered in glory, covered in it, and yet, still, his own hands had not yet taken the life of one of the infidel creatures.

Ah, but he would. He too would crack their shell, he too would rip out the flesh within, he too would watch their stalwart and dour and heathen certainty drain away to terror and understanding. Tak tak tak, his claw scratched at the stony floor of his grotto. He did not notice Qesh's pointed glance toward his implant.

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The other attendees flickered out, one after another, until only Aeonid remained. Marius had other duties to attend to and so took his own leave. Rubio rubbed at his neck, beneath the cowl of his psychic hood, looking thin and drawn after so long channeling the immaterium. Days of it.

Two new guests arrived, both faces he knew. The familial similarity was clear, though youth still clung visibly to one. The other bore a youthfulness not of biology, but of mentality. A surprising earnestness and clarity of thought, one that had been, in truth, a mild pleasure to dance with.

'Master Skywalker,' Roboute Guilliman greeted. 'Knight Solo.'

Though the former had no reaction upon meeting Guilliman, he remembered the dumbstruck reactions of the Republican envoys during the summit, Anakin included, and thus was glad to be properly re-acquainted with the Solo youth over holocom. For one as young as he, stories abounded of significant achievements and influence that spanned half the galaxy. This one was one to watch, even more than his uncle.

'Primarch Guilliman, it's good to see you're alright. When we heard about the attack - I was worried.'

Anakin Solo nodded in agreement.

'The Yuuzhan Vong were repulsed. We mourn our losses, but your concern is gratifying. I believe that we have a greater topic to discuss, do we not, Captain Thiel?'

His wayward son inclined his head, visibly shifting his weight. Thiel was uncomfortable. Interesting.

'The Sith 'spirit', yes.'

'And you, Knight Solo, encountered it directly?'

'I did.'

His reply was firm and strong, meeting Guilliman's eyes across many parsecs and a full meter. Even as a hologram, he gave the youth credit for his spine.

'I understand Captain Thiel's report, but I would hear from your own recollection…'

The Solo youth spun a deeply concerning tale. He was not remiss nor reticent to speak, openly describing things that would condemn men to death and worse in the world Guilliman knew better. That his first reaction to a disembodied intelligence he believed to be a 'spirit' was to engage in conversation raised the Guilliman's hackles, though he held his expression neutral. He and his partner, the Jedi Veila, engaged this 'Sith' in discussion, and Solo truly appeared to believe he had the capacity to extract useful information from an entity like that.

'Sith spirits aren't unheard of, after all,' Skywalker offered, cutting in during a lull in Solo's story. 'If anything, it's sort of a classic of the Sith. They always look to escape death, and one of the most potent ways is to bind their essence into some point of power. I'm not clear on the exact nature of it - and I don't think I want to be - but this has been seen with Exar Kun, Marka Ragnos, Palpatine and plenty of others. They lose a lot of their power, but they can last millenia like this.'

And then possess other beings. Possession. The word was bile and battery acid on his tongue and before him he saw Lorgar mutate into a clicking, carapaced, hairy and chitinous thing - Guilliman focused on the two Jedi.

'-I really didn't sense anything from Melin-Bralam-'

He spoke the name openly. Whispers of Magnus' idle commentary, in the few times they ever had to spend together, came to mind. The power of names, the cyclops had spoken of. The Seventeenth on Calth swore by it. Rubio, beside him, clearly thought similarly.

'I would implore you not to speak the name of the entity. Call it 'the Sith' or 'the being', but names are not to be freely invoked.'

Skywalker and Solo paused, glancing to each other, before Anakin just nodded and continued.

'Right. Tahiri was acting strange, and we realized it later - later, back at the Praxeum - we realized that whatever Mel- I mean, whatever the Sith was doing, it was keeping us separated. I was seeing a fake Tahiri, she saw a fake Anakin.'

Then the daemon. Thiel named it as such and Rubio was not to argue. Everything about the chamber reeked of ritual. A fane. A perversion. The things etched into the flesh of Macragge's Honour, the things that polluted the sterility of Zetsun Verid Yard, the cancers that wormed into the flesh of Calth. Kilometers away, a particular stone-knapped knife waited in silent, frozen time within a stasis cask. Missing soldiers with bodies never found. An empty farmhouse, but for dried blood.

Guilliman listened to the tale of Anakin Solo and his heart ached, for no matter where, no matter how far, there seemed to be no escape.

His bastard brother followed him.

Fetid breath whispered at his ear, whispering of Horus, of the deaths of loyal brothers, of Terra toppled and the galaxy on fire. Grave-stench seared at his nose.

He would never be free of it.

'I would like to see this place for myself,' Rubio declared.

'No.'

It took Guilliman, for all his prodigious awareness, a moment to realize he had made the denial.

'No, Tylos, your worth is too great here. Send another - Alebmos, perhaps.'

His son's eyes narrowed, his expression searching, but the Codicier nodded.

'Alebmos is second to me in ritual understanding. He's spent some time with the Scars, during the Pelagean Rift campaign. It's a good choice.'

'If I might make another request, sire?'

Guilliman gestured for Thiel to go on.

'The Yavin system is, for all intents and purposes, behind the primary advance of the vong. With this scouting biot Solo and Veila discovered, it might only be a matter of time until the Praxeum is noticed.'

Skywalker grimaced.

'That's part of why I'm at Coruscant. I've been working with some of the other Masters to set up a new place for the Praxeum to move to, and this has moved up my timetable. We need transportation though, to take as much from the Great Temple as we can.'

'If Lexicanium Alebmos is being sent to examine the…spoor of the 'Sith', perhaps we could combine these objectives? Practical: a single destroyer would not impact operations at Eboracum or Fondor, sire.'

'And would be small enough to evade notice, perhaps.' Guilliman nodded, calculations spilling out and turning clear. Fondor, for the moment, was where Cornelius would remain while their Senator Kvarm Jia brought forward proposal to the Senate. At Eboracum, while the Redoubt and Civitas were reinforced, the remainder of the 4711th was to remain on station. His son's estimation was correct. One destroyer would make little difference, while still being potent enough to match any inhabitant of this galaxy five-to-one.

'I am recalling Lieutenant Optarch and your company, Captain. Select a squad, or demisquad, to escort Alebmos.'

'Zalthis and Solidian,' Thiel answered instantly. 'They're young, but they have had the most experience with Jedi.'

'And three others,' Guilliman chastened. 'But I don't disagree. Knight Solo, they have spoken highly of you - I daresay you would not mind hosting them?'

Solo flushed, face darkening indigo.

'Zalthis and I had a chance to talk and spar. He's a friend, that's for sure.'

Skywalker was nodding along.

'I still have business of Coruscant, and I'm waiting on when Mara and the twins come back.'

Guilliman's time was pressing. He rose from his seat, to his full height, brushing hands down his tunic.

'I would not depart for another week,' Guilliman advised. Skywalker's brow rose. 'It would be beneficial, I think, if Master Luke Skywalker was present when I addressed the Senate.'

'Ah,' Luke said. 'I see. I'll-' His brow furrowed and Skywalker glanced to the side. Then stood, leaning out of frame. Muffled words could be heard, but they were beyond the receivers for the hololith. Solo frowned as well, eyes narrowing - before widening, nearly bulging.

'Jacen!' he whispered.

Skywalker came back into frame, slumping down into his seat - collapsing, rather, as if boneless and unstrung.

'Duro. Duro's fallen.' His hands scrubbed his face as Guilliman rocked back, mentally reviewing the Galaxy has he knew it - south, along the Corellian Trade Spine, a branch of the Corellian Run hyperlane that ran clear across the galaxy, Duro sat just before the junction of the two primary trade lanes, Duro was -

'That is the Core,' Guilliman breathed. 'The Core is breached.'

'And Mara and the twins are there,' Luke groaned, in horror.