Editing The Tales of the Emperasque: Part Fourteen (section)

==2-118-001-M42==
Roboute Guilliman closed the small, portable keypad he had been using with a decisive *click*. The serf at his desk lifted it and made off, bowing out of the small office. Severus Agemman, his nominal Regent, replaced the serf, looking expectant. “My Lord Guilliman, Lord Calgar has instructed me to inform you that the Anti-Tyranid Rapid Reaction Force vessels assigned to this region have returned and are requesting orders and supplies.”<br>
“Then supply them,” Guilliman said, glancing up. “And have all recent intelligence gathered on these genestealer beasts sent up to them. Perhaps the Arbites can help with this.”<br>
“As you will, my Lord,” Agemman said. Before he could depart, however, Guilliman held up finger for pause.<br>
“Captain, why are you taking it upon yourself to carry such administrative details to my attention? Surely, one of the small army of serfs out there could do just as well.”<br>
“Perhaps, Lord, but in all honesty, I am hoping for a chance to speak with you on a rather important subject,” the First Company Captain allowed. Guilliman gestured for him to continue. “It has been a matter of grave importance for the Ultramarines to uphold the standards set for us by your own Codex Astartes, ten thousand years ago. And, personally, I think we’ve done a bang-up job. However…there has been a concern of late that the newer Space Marine Chapters formed by the Senate of the High Lords are far too willing to disregard its wisdom in their formation, and infrastructure, and titles,” Agemman said.<br>
Guilliman thought for a moment. “How so?”<br>
“A new Chapter was founded less than six hunded years ago, Lord, in the Northern Fringe,” Agemman said, thinking of an example. “They were founded from our gene-stock.”

“Go on.”<br>
“They call themselves the Blue Daggers, my Lord. They were formed specifically to fight against the threat of extragalactic aliens like the Tyranids, or more specifically, the Glasians,” the dour Marine reported.<br>
“I don’t see a problem with that,” Guilliman said. “If their role is different from that of a normal Chapter, or a Crusading Chapter, then what’s the harm in them using non-standard protocol?”<br>
“The problem, my Lord, is that they make a point of utilizing technologies and sorceries alike, which are not allowed for under the Codex, and they don’t particularly need them to win their battles,” Agemman said, coming to the point. “I am uncomfortable with the idea of our own successors utilizing such techno- and warp-sorcery, when they know full well that we would never have allowed them to do so had they remained within our region of the galaxy.”<br>
Guilliman nodded slowly, thinking that over. After a few moments of silent contemplation, he stood, gesturing for Agemman to follow him out of the room, into the courtyard beyond, opposite the door through which the serf had travelled.<br>
The courtyard beyond was neatly groomed, to the extent that it could have been laid out with a T-square and graph paper. The walls of the Chapter Fortress of Hera rose around them, with the contrails of fighter overflights carving white lines across the sky above. The fortress was abuzz, as recruitment and reconstruction to replace the losses suffered at Cadia carried on, and pilgrims by the million flocked to the site where the Emperor had crashed through the wall of the Temple.

The buildings themselves were a mixture of marble and alloy blocks, arranged so that they seemed to be a part of the mountains behind them, when viewed from below, as the walls’ paint lightened higher up, towards the roof. Guilliman raised his hand and pointed at the distant, gleaming construct in the mountain range beyond. “Can you tell me what that is?”<br>
“The third of three surface-to-space defensive laser cannons, my Lord. The other two are located in the polar fortresses,” Agemman replied instantly. “That gun was disabled by genestealers along with the spaceport defenses here on the surface, during the First Tyrannic War, so we had to focus our defenses at the polar fortresses instead.”<br>
“I see. Did you take part in the battle?”<br>
“Naturally, my Lord. I personally led the Second Company armored units in defense of the Capital, while Lord Calgar commanded the forces not assigned to the polar bases,” Agemman said. “Why do you ask, Lord?”<br>
“I am curious as to how exactly you defended the capital against an enemy so…relentless.”<br>
“Firebreaks and dragon’s teeth in the main streets, tripwires connected to claymores and meltabombs in the narrower roads, caltrop and frag mines on the bridges, spotters for artillery and snipers on the rooftops and top floors of buildings. We also stationed Arbites and PDF forces in sandbagged lascannon emplacements in the front doors of buildings, so the facades of the structures could act as cover,” Agemman replied from memory. “It worked, and the back of the horde was broken.”<br>
“So, at no point at all did you find the enemy adapting to your tactics, forcing you to change them?” Guilliman asked.<br>
“We did. When the Swarmlord took to the field and destroyed our last Baneblade at Cold Steel,” Agemman said with a grimace.

“So you had to react on the fly, embrace non-Codex tactics?” Guilliman asked.<br>
“Please do not patronize me, my Lord,” Agemman said coolly. “I am by no means unprepared to utilize non-Codex tactics when they are truly needed. You yourself said it was wise to do so, when you abandoned Codex tactics to ambush Alpharius.”<br>
“I did indeed. So, if you are willing to embrace non-Codex tactics, why do you object to other Chapters doing so?” Guilliman asked, nodding to acknowledge the point.<br>
“I am not...my objection stems from my discomfort at Ultramarine successors disregarding the Codex at all times, rather than simply when it is truly needed,” Agemman replied. “And while they are not purely of Ultramarine stock, I admit, they are our descendants. Most of our successors embrace the Codex as fully as we do, or near to it, and they have driven onward to glory in the Emperor’s name. Some are amongst our closest allies.”<br>
Guilliman nodded. “I’m glad to hear it.” Further conversation was briefly impossible as a Land Raider rumbled by, on the reinforced bridge between the Fortress and the main highway. As the sound faded, Guilliman continued. “I am not patronizing you, brother. I simply wish to know why you find this objectionable.”<br>
“I am no hypocrite, my Lord. I am concerned that they may be taking unnecessary casualties in their disregard of your instruction,” Agemman said firmly.<br>
“These extragalactic aliens you mentioned, these Glasians. What are they?” Guilliman asked, changing tack.<br>
“We’ve no idea. They’re as bizarre as Hrud and as foreign as Tyranids. They come from another galaxy, perhaps fleeing the Tyranids themselves.”

“Why are they a threat to us?” Guilliman asked, thinking that information over.<br>
“They are susceptible to the depredations of the Warp, my Lord. Very much so. As soon as they fly within the galaxy, they become corrupted, subtly, by Change.”<br>
“Tzeentch, eh? How does that work?” Guilliman asked grimly.<br>
“Well…the Warp does not exist outside this galaxy, as far as we know. We think that these creatures are susceptible to the depredations of the Warp because they truly have no idea it exists. Their ships pass through the Warp storms at the edge of the galaxy when they arrive, and they emerge corrupted. I could go on for days on what we know of their physiology and technology, but they arrive in waves. Every one hundred Terran years, a new wave of colony ships and their warship escorts arrive, and the Blue Daggers mobilize to kill them. The problem is that each wave is bigger than the last, and their Taint spreads…just a little farther. They manage to colonize or destroy one or two more worlds outside the Astronomican’s light, where we can’t reach them, and they can reinforce the next wave,” Agemman spat disgustedly.<br>
“Sounds like something I didn’t know about when I wrote the Codex,” Guilliman said. “If they need to use a tactic I didn’t have in mind merely to overcome these aliens, since we can’t actually defeat them, I can’t really hold it against them, can I?”<br>
“And their embrace of technologies outside the Machine-God’s sanction?” Agemman pressed.<br>
“I would have to know what you mean more specifically,” Guilliman said.<br>
“They turn the weapons of the alien against their owners, KNOWING they are tainted,” Agemman said curtly.

“Now, that IS troubling. I assume they have Chaplains and Librarians as we do?”<br>
“Yes, Lord. Rather a lot, for their size.”<br>
“They are non-Codex in size?”<br>
“They are. Their First through Eighth companies are Codex-sized, but their Ninth and Tenth, Devastators and Scouts, are quite overstrength, and they do not count Specialists and Masters against their count of total warriors,” Agemman said. “Specialists being, of course, Chaplains, Librarians, Techmarines, Apothecaries, etc.”<br>
“I see.” Guilliman considered all he had been told, before clasping his hands over his robe. “Have any of them actually fallen to Chaos?”<br>
“Not as far as we know,” Agemman admitted.<br>
“Then as far as I can see, there’s nothing for me to get upset about,” Guilliman concluded. “I have heard the name of the Blue Daggers before, also. I had no context for the name, but I have now. The Emperor bound Lord Chapter Master Gabriel Angelos of the Blood Ravens to the Deathwatch Killteams assigned to the Blue Daggers’ defensive cordon, after his ‘liberation’ of Bjorn the Fell-handed from the Space Wolves.”<br>
“Yes, I heard about that. What in the world is wrong with them?” Agemman asked contemptuously.<br>
“Envy, I suppose. It’s not important. What is important, Captain, is that the internal workings of the other Chapters of the Astartes are, while important, not under our jurisdiction,” Guilliman said. “Anymore, at least.”

“My Lord, was it not you who first imposed the restraints of the Codex?” Agemman asked in some surprise.<br>
“Of course it was me. I was also the highest-ranking man left in the Imperium capable of independent action. It was my onus, my burden. Now the Emperor has risen again, and he’s quite capable of bringing such matters to their proper conclusion. Should his action be needed,” Guilliman pointed out, “he will take them. He’s already brought the Blood Ravens and Black Templars to heel. If these Daggers need his attention, then I will bring it to him.”<br>
Agemman was prepared to keep pressing his case, but Guilliman’s words had the ring of finality to them. “Very well, my Lord.”<br>
“Nothing wrong with bringing such matters to my view, brother,” Guilliman said. The courtyard darkened as a cloud drifted overhead. “But for now, please focus your energies on rebuilding your Company. Oh, one more thing, Severus.”<br> The First Captain stopped and turned. "Yes, my Lord?" "I love Macragge, it being my adopted home, but I haven't gotten the chance to see Prandium in a long time. Well, ten thousand years. Is is possible that I could take a ship there?"
The Regent of Ultramar froze, and looked long and hard at his Primarch. Finally, with some difficulty, he said "Prandium is a dead world, my Lord. It was destroyed during Behemoth's initial attack. There is nothing left of it now." Guilliman looked like he had taken a power fist to the chest. His face turned into a mask of sorrow. "..That was why you abandoned the codex. Because following it cost you Prandium"

"Yes, my Lord. I...I'm sorry. There was little we could do."

"It's all right Severus. Not your fault. Please leave me. I wish to have some time on my own."  
“Very well. My Lord, thank you for your time,” Agemman said, walking out the door. When Guilliman heard it close, he wept into his open palms, crying for the world he wasn't able to save.