The training grounds were dead silent.
The recruiting officer’s half-smoked cigarette and clipboard slipped straight into his lap.
What kind of strength was this?!
Heavy munition crates that usually required eight burly men with block-and-tackle setups to budge—these two monsters had casually hauled them over with one hand?
Aren’t these the ultimate beasts of burden for the Imperium?!
Obedient, insanely strong, and mute to boot!
“Prime stock…
absolute prime stock!” The recruiting officer’s eyes were glazed over.
Leaving his clipboard behind, he leapt out from behind his desk, staring at the two while gulping down spit.
“Perfection!
Obedient, built like brick shithouses!
Put them right on the frontline—what enemy position couldn’t they punch through?” The overseer struck while the iron was hot.
“These three are bound for Cadia.
The leader says they can’t part with those old mining tools of theirs, so…” “Approved!
Approved, all of it!” The recruiter waved a hand, bellowing, “That little guy, named Kaelen, right?
Giving you the rank of Sergeant.
These two big fellas are assigned straight into your personal auxiliary squad!
An independent cargo bay is no problem, and I’ll throw in an extra allocation for two handcarts!” He paused, slapping his thigh.
“Head to the armory and draw two heavy bolters for these two.
Standard-issue lasguns in their hands would look like toothpicks—can’t let heavy-firepower material like this go to waste.” Twenty minutes later.
Kaelen held an identity card marked “Sergeant,” several special transit passes, and two requisition vouchers for heavy bolters.
The enlistment process had gone suspiciously smoothly—so smoothly that even Kaelen felt it was almost surreal.
Outside the starport, the massive recruitment ship *Dauntless* drifted in the void like a colossal black leviathan.
At the boarding gateway, Arbitrators from the Adeptus Arbites were conducting final inspections.
This was the strictest checkpoint and the place where things were most likely to go sideways.
The overseer’s “after-sales service” was top-notch; he had already tipped off the ship’s captain and the accompanying inspector in advance.
When they reached the security gate, fully armed Arbites guards held their hellguns, eyes scanning back and forth across the three.
Behind them parked a cargo cart carrying their “mining equipment”—which was actually the dismantled and packaged power armor components belonging to Horus and Cullen.
“Identity chips,” a guard said, holding out a hand.
Kaelen handed them over.
The scanner flashed green.
Every forged and supplemented registration document appeared clearly on screen.
Clean as a whistle, without a single smudge.
The guard frowned, eyeing Horus and Cullen, who were bundled up tight.
“Remove the face masks for biometric matching.” The surrounding air chilled a degree or two.
If the masks came off—even though Kaelen was confident no one in this era would recognize Horus’s face—logging Cullen’s face would inevitably bring the Unforgiven of the Dark Angels sniffing around.
When that happened, Horus’s identity would crumble as well.
Before Kaelen could speak, an inspector wearing a peaked officer’s cap strolled over and slapped the back of the guard’s head.
“Are you blind?
Didn’t you see the special authorization from the Departmento Munitorum?
These are prime, heavily armored Ogryns!
If you piss them off and they go berserk, they’ll slap your head down into your ribcage.
Are you paying out his death benefits?” The guard shrank his neck back.
Looking again at the two silent giants staring coldly at him through their mask goggles, a cold sweat broke out across his back.
Ogryns going berserk and ripping guards apart was hardly breaking news in the Astra Militarum.
“Then…
the equipment in the back…” “That’s the sergeant’s personal property, approved for exemption by upper management!
Let them through!” The inspector waved his hand impatiently.
The heavy metal gate slowly rose.
No opening crates, no removing masks.
They even skipped the most basic contraband scan.
Carrying the cargo containers and pushing carts with the heavy bolters, the three walked down the dim cargo passage into the belly of the recruitment ship.
Far from the lower holds housing the recruits, this was an abandoned, re-opened, isolated cargo bay.
The hatch clacked shut with a click, and the red airtight indicator light turned on.
It became their absolute safe haven aboard this ship.
After confirming there were no monitoring devices around, Kaelen breathed a long sigh of relief and flopped down onto one of the cargo crates.
“Safely aboard.
It’s half a month’s Warp transit to Cadia—finally, a few days of peace and quiet.” Cullen yanked off the suffocating dust mask from his head, inhaling deeply of the ship’s ozone-tainted recycled air.
“Boarding like this…” The veteran threw the mask onto the floor.
“I don’t want to wear these filthy rags for another day.” Horus methodically unbuckled his overalls.
The heavy canvas slid down, revealing his rock-hard upper torso musculature.
Ignoring Cullen’s complaint, he turned and walked over to the two freshly issued heavy bolters.
The Wolf God picked up one of them, expertly racking the bolt and dropping the magazine.
The movements were fluid and natural, as though handling a long-lost personal item.
“This isn’t like the old days, my Wolf God.
If you still had your Legion, your affiliated Forge Worlds could craft whatever weapons you wanted.
Right now, this is all you’ve got.” Kaelen chuckled.
A heavy bolter seemed a bit underwhelming for a Primarch, didn’t it?
They usually carried plasma pistols or hand cannons.
“My friend, any weapon used at the right time and place will produce its intended effect,” Horus replied.
At the moment, he had no extra arms beyond a ceremonial power dagger at his waist.
Before coming to this era, he had rarely carried heavy weapons personally, relying instead on his Legion to wage war.
Was it time to learn and apply some of Perturabo’s and Ferrus’s wisdom?
*Modifying my Terminator armor to mount standard-issue or las-weapons for emergencies,* the Wolf God thought.
“If I had a forge workbench and weapon fitting tools, I could modify my Terminator armor to provide fire support on the battlefield.” “Lord Lupercal,” Cullen chimed in, “your Cataphractii Terminator armor was custom-built to match your stature.
Modifying it to mount standard and las-weapons would be immensely difficult—you’d have to strip the outer plating and re-integrate the internal servo systems.” “Then do you have a better idea, Cullen?” “You yourself are the sharpest weapon crafted by the Emperor,” Cullen said.
“The same goes for the Astartes.
Clad in power armor, even without ranged weapons, we are terrifying weapons that strike fear into the hearts of our enemies.” At these words, Horus’s brow furrowed visibly.
He thoroughly detested this sentiment.
During the Great Crusade, he had never viewed himself, his brothers, or his sons as mere instruments of slaughter.
In his mind, every warrior who bled for the Imperium had to be, first and foremost, a human being.
“Cullen, your words sound no different from the cold Custodes at my father’s side.” Horus’s voice deepened, bearing an imposing authority that commanded respect without anger.
“I know not how my brother Lion taught you, but I hold to one truth: spark and ember may hide in the dust, but cold iron can never warm a man’s heart.” “In war, we are indeed the blades that cleave the darkness.
But what of after the war?
When the universe no longer requires slaughter, are we to be discarded without remorse like dulled hatchets?” As he spoke, a bloody memory flashed through Horus’s mind.
A secret buried deep within the Terra Imperial Palace.
After the Unification Wars, the Imperium’s first batch of gene-crafted warriors—the Thunder Warriors.
Awaiting them was not glory or flowers, but an unsparing, indiscriminate purge at the hands of the Custodes and the First Legion.