Chapter 140 - Declaration of War? Or Negotiation?
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The office of the Grand Governor's Palace on Macragge was dominated by a single hololithic projection, the star map of Greater Ultramar, spread across the air like a wound.
Red markers packed the display. Dense, crawling, eating into the Five Hundred Worlds like a plague given form.
Guilliman stood before it, his shoulders set. That face, the one that had always projected calm like a geological feature, finally showed something else. Exhaustion, plain and visible. His eyes were threaded with red. His armor still carried the scorch marks from Parmenio, and he hadn't bothered to have them cleaned.
He had only just returned from the front.
"Ultramar is under attack, my brother."
He spoke without preamble.
"The first phase of the Indomitus Crusade gave us real gains. Tens of thousands of Imperial worlds brought back into the fold. But success has a cost — it drew attention. Now they're coming for us in earnest."
He gestured to the northern cluster of stars. "The Scourge Stars. Mortarion and his daemon hosts are pushing hard. The plague is already spreading across neighboring worlds. Meanwhile, Tyranid hive fleet remnants keep harassing the shipping lanes and hitting whatever systems lack proper defenses." His hand moved south. "And down here — a xenos power called the T'au Empire. They're expanding."
He let his arm drop.
"Those are only the threats I consider serious at the moment. Orks and other Chaos forces haven't even entered the count yet."
The room was quiet. The people Guilliman trusted most were listening, brothers, friends, warriors.
Horus stood at the front of the group, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the star map. He hadn't said a word.
Guilliman's gaze shifted to Kailun, and despite everything, he smiled.
"I have to thank you. The intelligence you gave me before we left for Terra — it mattered." The tiredness in his voice softened. "Mortarion's plague was contained. Because of that information, we had hospitals built, temporary medical stations established across affected worlds. People survived who wouldn't have."
Kailun dipped his head. "A trivial effort, Lord Guilliman."
Guilliman looked back to Horus.
"This will be a hard fight, brother. We have too many enemies and too few soldiers. There's no crushing them with brute force, that option doesn't exist right now."
Horus was quiet for a moment. Then: "How long before the new armies are ready?"
"A long time." Guilliman exhaled. "We have to rebuild the Five Hundred Worlds first, consolidate resources. The war machine needs a foundation before it can run. On top of that, we're reforming the entire institutional structure. Even once we start organizing new forces, the timeline is long."
He picked up a data-slate and held it out.
Horus took it and looked down.
The screen listed everything currently available for deployment across Greater Ultramar.
Adeptus Astartes: the Ultramarines at full strength, the Genesis Chapter, the Novamarines, the Doom Eagles, a dozen other successor chapters, plus a portion of the newer Primaris chapters.
Imperial Guard: several Cadian remnant regiments, and twenty-seven infantry regiments with eleven armored regiments conscripted from the surrounding sectors.
Ultramar Auxilia: local defense forces of the Five Hundred Worlds. Loyal. Reliable. But equipment and training varied badly across units.
A portion of the Indomitus Crusade fleet combined with the Ultramar Defense Fleet. Capital ship numbers were workable. Light vessels were severely under-strength.
The Mechanicus had contributed five Skitarii Legions and three Titan Legions. The Knight houses sent twenty Knight suits. The Ecclesiarchy and the Sororitas had dispatched their own fighters, not many, but their faith ran hot enough to serve as a spiritual anchor.
And from Holy Terra itself: Custodians and Sisters of Silence. Small numbers. But among the sharpest blades on the entire list.
Horus read to the end and handed the slate back.
"Many units. Insufficient strength."
Eight words.
Guilliman nodded.
"Combined, we have enough for one Apocalypse-level engagement. The moment we split across three fronts, every front falls short."
Horus said nothing.
"So," Guilliman said. "What are you thinking, brother?"
The Wolf considered it. When he spoke, it was measured, deliberate.
"Concentrate everything. Hit Mortarion first. Xenos threats from the material universe can wait, Chaos goes to the top of the list. That's my read."
He turned slightly toward the map. "For the Tyranid remnants, detach fast elements, high-speed cruisers and destroyers from two fleets, form a rapid response force. Same group can deal with the Ork problems and the scattered Chaos activity."
He paused.
"As for this T'au Empire..."
He stared at that marker for a long moment. Then he turned, and his eyes found Kailun.
"My friend. How much do you know about them?"
Kailun rubbed his chin and thought it over.
"A young race on the rise. If you want a comparison, they're roughly where the Imperium was at the opening of the Great Crusade. Or Ultramar at its peak. They have momentum, ambition, and they're organized."
He continued. "Their guiding philosophy is called the Greater Good. Think of it as their version of the Imperial Truth, built on reason and unity as the answers to every problem. What really sets them apart is this: like us in those years, they actively reach out to other races and pull them into their system. Their armies aren't just T'au. They have auxiliary forces drawn from dozens of other species."
Something flickered in Kailun's mind as he said it.
The T'au, in his experience, were like fresh university graduates walking into their first job. All that bright-eyed energy, all that sincere conviction that the galaxy was fundamentally a reasonable place and that reasonable people could work things out. Their faces practically announced it: if everyone just talks it through, things will get better.
That was the T'au who hadn't left the Damocles Gulf yet.
Once they crossed it, once they ran headlong into the Imperium at full force, into Chaos, into the Tyranids, they would learn.
This galaxy doesn't negotiate.
It only respects strength.
Still. Relative to the other players on the board? The T'au were almost normal. At least there was something to talk to.
"We can pursue diplomacy with them, Lord Guilliman." Kailun looked at the Primarch. "I imagine you've already considered it."
Guilliman didn't answer immediately. He studied the T'au sphere of influence on the map, letting the silence stretch. Then he nodded slowly.
"In fact," A smile crossed his face. It had some self-mockery in it. "Initially I didn't give them much thought. If I'd rolled the full fleet over them, the T'au Empire would have ceased to exist." He paused. "But Mortarion and the others kept demanding my attention, so I let it slide. By the time I looked up, they were expanding. And now I simply don't have the energy or the forces to deal with them the hard way."
"So yes. Diplomacy. A young civilization, full of ideals, still carrying the same qualities we once believed in." Something genuine moved behind his eyes. "They deserve a seat at the table."
"During the Great Crusade, we opened negotiations with plenty of xenos races," Horus added, smiling. "Folded them into Imperial governance. Semi-legal Imperial citizens. It wasn't unusual."
Behind him, Loken nodded. Kullen and Sevatar said nothing. Curze, seated at Horus's side, let out a low, strange laugh.
It was true. The Imperium of the Great Crusade hadn't been the extermination machine it was now. Speaking broadly: most fleets avoided unnecessary bloodshed, worked diplomatic angles where they could, and absorbed rather than destroyed wherever possible. Speed and efficiency were the priorities, and total war was expensive. Some Legions had their own preferences, Fulgrim's Third rarely bothered with xenos negotiations, the Dark Angels showed no mercy, and the Night Lords were exactly as merciless as their name suggested. And there were always xenos civilizations that genuinely needed to be crushed, the ones that posed existential threats and left no other option.
But for the rest? Incorporation. It worked, most of the time.
It came with problems. Some absorbed xenos became ticking time bombs. Some nominally pacified human worlds were never truly loyal. People knew it. They chose to look the other way because the alternative, constant total war across a million fronts, cost more than the problems it prevented.
That calculus made sense in that era. Most accepted it.
But Sicarius was standing at Guilliman's shoulder, and none of it sat right.
He was a child of the dark times, the generation born into a galaxy that had already become a nightmare. Hating xenos wasn't a policy he'd adopted, it was simply the shape of the world as he understood it. The dominant culture of the Imperium he'd grown up in. And Cato Sicarius was not a man who questioned the shape of the world easily.
Diplomacy with xenos. The words felt wrong in his mouth, like biting down on something rotten.
He couldn't stay quiet.
"My lord." He kept his voice steady, though it came out tight. "Would this not reflect poorly on us in the eyes of our people? It would bring shame to the Ultramarines."
Guilliman looked at him. Not harshly. Just directly.
"Sometimes strict adherence to convention becomes its own obstacle," he said. "I understand why it troubles you, Sicarius. But if it serves us, we do it."
He paused, then added, almost as an aside:
"I'll tell you something. Even the Emperor, once, was a pragmatist."
➤ Next: The Person Who Influenced Guilliman Most in His Life Was
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