Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Five (section)

===In the Wolf King's Eyes===


Above, Russ settled into his throne in the holotank room, as Redwind and Bjorn bowed low to their King.  “Father Russ, welcome home,” Redwind said.

“Rise, brothers.  Speak to me of your plan,” Leman said, leaning forward as he did.

Bjorn spoke.  “The camps yield your sons, of course…but the problems remain.”

“Of course,” Russ growled.  He leaned back in his seat, sounding disgusted.  “And the deployments?"

“Well enough, Lord,” Redwind replied.  “Two officers of the Army were here a while ago reporting in on their own roles in the deployment.  It seems smooth enough…but we haven’t mobilized on this scale in a very long time.”

“No,” Russ agreed.  “How did First get off?”

“Very fast, fortunately enough,” Bjorn said, again hiding his irritation.  “Sending that many Dreadnoughts off at once…it was a logistical nightmare.  Fortunately, the Iron Priests were prepared.”

“Good.”  Russ peered over at his ancient friend.  “Something else troubles you.”

“It does, King Leman,” Bjorn grumbled.  “We’re wasting time.  It’s been too long since we took the fight TO the green filth.  We can defend against their raids, sure, but then we start losing worlds when we’re not close enough.  We have outposts ninety thousand light years from Terra, but we can’t keep control of a single trade lane in the Ultramarines’ back yard?” he asked coldly.  “Someone is at fault for this.”

Russ let his eyes narrow a bit.  “And at whose feet,” he asked quietly, “do you lay the blame?”

“The Navy,” Bjorn answered instantly, with Redwind nodding in silent assent to his mentor’s words.  “They simply aren’t doing enough to hold and expand the territory we sacrificed four millennia to take.”

The Wolf King regarded his advisors with a sense of surprise stealing through him.  Bjorn’s words so closely echoed his own, to the Emperor a mere month before, that he felt honestly taken aback.

He slowly rose from his throne, pacing around the holotank.  The empty space below filled with light as he approached, showing the colossal web of ‘safe’ Warp routes through which the Chartist Captains and Rogue Traders and Explorators hawked their wares, hauled their goods, wove their deals, and explored the galaxy.  Clearly, from its presence, this had been a topic of some discussion in the Council of late.

“I see,” Russ said slowly.  He looked over at where his two Lords were staring at him, unmoving.  “I do not…disagree…” he said, his voice trailing off a bit.  He looked down into the tank and picked out four small runes around an intersection of two trade lanes: suspected Hrud nests.  A black sphere nearby bespoke the alleged presence of a Webway Gate the Dark Eldar had only recently reactivated.

Threats.  Slowly, the dark places on the map were filling with them.  Once, ancient Terran mariners had filled the blankness of their sea-charts with depictions of horrible beasts, to represent to the ignorant the dangers of exploring the unknown.  How prophetic of them it had been in this instance.
“Brothers, your words are familiar,” Russ finally said, speaking quietly, and standing stock-still.  His eyes – perhaps the best in the human race after his fathers’ – picked over the map, searching for a foe he could reach out and crush.  An enemy neck, to test his blades upon, a target he could break for his father’s will…a danger he could undo to make the world a little bit safer for his beloved wife and beautiful daughter.

“They are my words,” he finally said.  “I said the exact same thing to the All-Father, less than four weeks ago.  Even the bit about the Navy being…inadequate.”

Redwind blinked in surprise.  Bjorn smirked in vindication.

“I told Freya when I arrived that the new Saturnine Fleet vessels would be distributed amongst the Legions, and I spoke the truth,” Russ said.  “What I did not say was that those vessels will be IMMEDIATELY staffed and crewed by Titanian and Martian crewers the Emperor and Horus handpicked, and dispatched to reinforce the Warp lanes around the Legionary homeworlds the instant they are consecrated,” he finished, emphasis raising the tone of his voice.  “And the rest of the Solar shipyards will be doing the same.  We will divert tithes if we must: the shipyards of Segmentum Solar will not fall quiet ever again.”

“What do you mean, Father?” Redwind asked.  Bjorn’s smile turned toothy as comprehension dawned.

“I mean that the Emperor agreed with me.  Horus, Sanguinius, Rogal and I approached the Emperor with a plan to expand the Imperium’s borders…but do so within our existing borders,” Russ said, looking down into the tank once more.  Less than twenty nine percent of the galaxy within the Astronomican’s range was under human control, less than fifty percent of the galaxy total.

“So…you mean, then, to fortify the existing inter-Segmentum trade and transit lines…then push outward from worlds on their course?” Redwind asked, his Astartes mind deriving his master’s intent.

Russ gave him a nod of mixed pride and bloodthirsty approval.  “Very good, Ackur, very good,” he said.

Redwind nodded to acknowledge the compliment.

Bjorn spoke again.  “So Earth and the Legionary homeworlds will be the hubs of this expansion?”

“Not exactly.”  Russ turned to gesture at the map.  “The Segmentum Solar is the physically smallest Segmentum, yet it contains the largest number of Forge Worlds by twenty percent more than Ultima.  Why?  Because the Martians didn’t always have FTL drives as fast as the ones we have now.  The galaxy’s industrial core is there because that’s where Mars is.  So the Forge Worlds of the Segmentum Solar will all be the hubs of this drive inwards…and the Legionary home worlds will be the lynchpins, the points from which the elite troops and intelligence-gathering services muster.”

“Just like the Crusade,” Redwind said, comprehension dawning.

“Bulls-eye,” Russ growled.  “The Solar Expansion will see every dark place on the map explored.  I have no love for the Eldar, but even they see the wisdom of this plan; I’m told the Emperor contacted Ulthwé and Alaitoc with this idea and they gave their enthusiastic approval.”

“What the hell for?” Bjorn asked curtly.

“Apparently, there are many unaccounted-for Webway portals and Exodite worlds within the theoretical boundaries of human space,” Russ said.

Bjorn shook his head.  “No, I mean why do we care what the Eldar think?  All the craftworlds are migrating out to where Ultran’s making his little fortress, out in the Ghoul Stars.”

Russ snorted.  “I couldn’t give a thundering fuck what they think.  But the Emperor flat-out told me that the Eldar want the expanding Hrud and Ork threats inside Imperial space neutralized for the safety of their ancestral cousins, and that so long as we don’t attempt to colonize any of the Maiden Worlds, they may even lend us their starmaps, thus saving us incalculable amounts of money.  They did colonize this galaxy first, after all…and they’ve re-explored less than a hundredth of the colony worlds they lost when they fucked Slaanesh into being.”

Bjorn and Redwind exchanged disgusted looks, but kept silent.  Russ was internally grateful for their lack of further dissent.  No Wolf alive could change Russ’ course when he and the Emperor both had their minds set to a task, after all, and Russ was in no mood for his homecoming to be scarred by an argument with two of his most trusted friends and commanders.

“Any comments to register, my sons?” Russ asked, point-blank, just to be sure.

“None, really,” Redwind said.  “Disregarding that Eldar bit, I think it’s a grand idea.”

“Bjorn?”

The millennia-old Terminator shrugged.  Though he could be described as ‘stoic’ and ‘grumpy’ in a single sentence, he also knew a reasonable argument when he heard one.  “I would lead them myself, if you asked me…but you won’t.  Will you, Leman?” he asked rhetorically.

“I came here for several reasons, old friend…and one of them is to lead the Brothers in person once more,” Russ said, turning his eyes to the holotank again.  Fenris glowed in the maze, all but invisible in the sea of five hundred million stars.  He could find it, though.  He had stared at that star millions of times on thousands of maps, even as more and more worlds appeared on the maps around it, and he could have found it blindfolded by now.  Soon, the empty places around it would fill even more…but he knew he could find it again.

“I have missed running with my brothers in the fields of war, I will not lie,” Russ said, staring down at the artificial galaxy.  “But I will wait.  The campaign will not begin until all assets are constructed and in place.  ‘Expedience in the absence of foresight leads to catastrophe,’” he quoted Hawser.  The Primarch turned to his Wolf Lords.  “The Legions of Mars must be able to keep pace with the Legions of Terra and Fenris and Nocturne and Inwit and Macragge and Medusa, after all.”

“Oh?  What will the Martians be up to?” Redwind asked.

“Beyond the obvious and urgent need for more exploratory and troop-transport ships for this expansion, they will be called upon to transport whatever STC artifacts and useful xenotech we find, obviously,” Russ said.  “But the Collegio Titanica will be our armored spear, here.  We will be fighting xeno empires that not only eluded the Crusade for three thousand seven hundred years, but in some cases ESCAPED it,” he pointed out.  “We will need the War Titans on this quest, you may be entirely certain of it.  And if we are to expand into the galaxy once more…then by the Worldsea of Fenris, we will need our armored companies,” Russ added darkly.

“Of course, Sire,” Redwind said, bowing his head in agreement.

Russ sank back into his throne and gestured once.  The holotank switched off once more.  “The Martians may not be ready to supply us with the ships, Titans, and Skitarii forces we need for twenty years,” Russ said.  “And the eighteen years of peace we have enjoyed have…softened the Army.  Not all of it, of course, but some.  Enough to be a problem.  And the Rogue Traders, who once served alongside the Explorators, have grown fat and complacent,” he added with a tone of unadulterated disgust in his voice.  He HATED Rogue Traders.  Some were little better than privateers and heretek mercenaries, serving the Emperor and Mars in name alone.

Bjorn, whose personal views on Rogue Traders hewed closer to his masters’ than in any other regard, nodded in weary agreement.  “I would not be so quick to discount the Army though, Sire,” he said.  “Was it not you who said that the Astartes often forget the sheer bravery of the mortal man, who is motivated to fight to defend his family and honor?”

“It was,” Russ conceded with the faintest grin of self-reproach.

The ancient one nodded, his point made and received.  Redwind sensed the conversation ending and bowed low.

“How shall I impart your plan to the Brothers?” he asked.

Russ straightened up in his throne.  “You shall not.  Not verbally, at least.  As I said, there could be two uninterrupted decades of hard work ahead of us.  Step up recruitment as much as we can short of provoking battle between the clans outright, see to it that we secure as many designs for fresh hardware from the Mechanicus as we can without stepping on anyone’s mechadendrites…quietly.  We have many foes, with many ears to hear and eyes to see.  I trust the Techpriests here, of course, for they stand to gain as much as we do.  Lost Forge Worlds!  Entire archives of human history and knowledge.  STC relics!  But caution is the preserve of the living victorious, and indiscretion the preserve of the dead vainglorious.”

“Well said, Sire,” Redwind said.  He rose and allowed himself a small, satisfied grin.  “Anything else I should do, before I go to see to this instruction?”