While it was good to be able to reconnect with his brothers in a clearer state, Angron still rankled at having them act essentially as his gaolers. The World Eaters as a legion had been dispersed throughout various front lines, and Angron’s own fleet was joined by those of stoic Dorn and bellicose Ferrus. Both were polite and accommodating in their own ways, but there was no mistaking that the primarchs were tasked to keep a leash on him.

  It didn’t take a savant either to notice how his sons had been deployed. Every division, squad and legionnaire of the XIIth Legion was shunted as far away from Nexus space as possible. At least the assignments had not been too pointless, and the legion’s might was mostly visited upon uncompromising alien empires and unreasoning human realms.

  At least the Emperor had not immediately forced the legion into asserting ‘compliances’ on more civilized human realms. Ideally, the reformed World Eaters would never again devour worlds that were open to adopting the basic ideals of a free and enlightened humanity, but Angron knew that his sons would carry out the directives of the Great Crusade, however reluctant they might feel about it.

  Still, the primarch of the World Eaters did not wallow in resentment. Operating without the Nails was akin to living a second life. His senses were clearer, and his thoughts free from the unending strain of the murdersong. And with Lhorke still effectively leading the legion as Legion Master, Angron could take things easier so to speak.

  He spent less time on the battlefields and more within his private quarters, reading up on treatises written by his brothers. Guilliman’s waxing about logistics and strategic preparation had merit, but felt overdone. Magnus likewise seemed to delve a bit too much into the importance of preserving ancient esoteric knowledge, as if he were an archivist instead of a primarch.

  And while he respected Lorgar, Angron kept away from the Word Bearer’s writings after an initial skimming through some of his works. The fanaticism in them did not sit well with the primarch of the World Eaters.

  Interestingly, Ferrus and Dorn made for decent conversationalists when they had the time. Dorn was keen on processing questions with stony thoughtfulness before providing his answers, which were often short but deeply insightful in their delivery. He was unyielding in his beliefs, even if he acknowledged the blindspots that Angron brought up to him. With both being exposed to the Nexus, the topic of conversations often revolved around the new power, which Dorn disapproved of but did not outright dismiss.

  “The ideals of the Great Crusade are worth fighting for, even if we have left in our wake results that might seem regrettable in hindsight. The Nexus can talk about being enlightened all they want, but they are content to be confined within their region of space, and have little experience in making the heavy decisions that the Imperium does with every encounter of lost humanity.”

  It was a valid point, but Angron somehow felt that it was one made on a presumption that Sev is truly keeping his empire insur and reclusive. What if other human empires reached out to the Nexus? Would Sev be amenable to working with them in any capacity? What if the xenos sought Nexus aid?

  Those were questions that Angron did not raise to his brother, or to anyone else. The primarch had a feeling that he wouldn’t like the answer to it.

  Surprisingly the primarch of the Iron Hands was eager to espouse his belief of elevating humanity’s pce in the stars with uncompromising will, once Angron got him started on it. Thankfully, it was easy enough to interrupt such speeches by focusing Ferrus’ attention back to the task at hand.

  There was admittedly a primal gratification when it came to purging xenos and devolved humanity.

  *****

  With the tent geneseed corruption removed, the XVth Legion found itself reaching new heights. It had cost Magnus some of the trust of his closest sons, but it was a cost he’d willingly pay twice over. Sev had freed his legion from the predations of the Empyrean, and for that the Thousand Sons would forever owe him and the Nexus.

  Without the cursed strain to worry about, the XVth Legion began to increase its ranks steadily. Magnus followed the advice of his Rehati, his inner council, and increased the recruitment quotas on Prospero, and began to accept prospective recruits from neighboring systems. Even without the tter, retaining a portion of potential aspirants instead of losing them to psychic mutation would itself make for a significant change in numbers. The standards would remain however, to ensure that the new batch of legionnaires would be no less potent than their predecessors.

  The absence of the threat of the Flesh-Change also meant that on the battlefield, the psychically gifted legionnaires could unleash their true potential without the fear of degenerating. With storms of psychic powers bnketing whole battlezones, the Thousand Sons began to accrue victory after victory.

  That all this came with the annoyance of the sanctimonious primarch of the VIth was a pleasant bonus. Russ was open in his contempt at the increased show of psychic might, and Magnus had to admit to himself that he spitefully enjoyed seeing his brother so riled up but incapable to do anything but spit and growl.

  Thankfully, the Lion was far more agreeable with the showing. To the primarch of the First Legion, the results were all that mattered, and the Dark Angels as a whole were far less superstitious than the Vlka Fenryka. Already, several Thousand Sons librarians were scheduled to be seconded to the Dark Angels to exchange knowledge with their Librarius (‘mentor’ would be too insulting a word perhaps), while the techmarines of the Ist Legion were allowed to share some of the deeper secrets of their legion’s technology.

  Magnus also had the rather unique pleasure of having the Lion taking his side during disagreements in the crusade fleet. Then again, with Russ always opting for the reckless, foolhardy approach all the time, perhaps it shouldn’t be too great an achievement…

  *****

  “I don’t fucking believe it,” Edward muttered as he and the others of my inner circle looked at the reports on their desk’s screens.

  “Well, unfortunately it’s true,” I answered dryly. “The Ork intrusion is actually increasing, and from intel we’re leeching off Terra, we’re drawing more and more of the sector’s greenskin towards Shroom Doom.”

  Well, me or not, that name won the vote by a staggering ndslide, so that’s what the system’s going to be beled in our stelr maps.

  “At least the half-built forts have enough guns to help with the incoming load, otherwise things might actually become problematic.”

  Piper looked at me with a puzzled frown. “What about their wrecks? It’s all going to fill up the space, right?”

  I let Madison have the satisfaction of answering that one. “We’ve cobbled together the Orks’ graviton projector technology and installed them on the destroyers, allowing them to drag the wrecks into safer space for harvesting.”

  “So…a tractor beam?” Cait asked.

  Both Curie and I nodded at that, though she was far more annoyed at the dumbing down of the term than I was.

  “Yes, a tractor beam,” the cute synth expined. “The energy efficiency is horrendous, but beyond the obvious improvements to redundancies and streamlining, the system works with sufficient effectiveness to clear out space debris compared to teleportation.”

  Not wanting to hear more logical brains suffering from wailing and gnashing of teeth from Ork tech, I moved on to the next topic.

  “Now, on the next subject, there’s a message from the Eldar representative?”

  Piper nodded, though she looked just as puzzled by it as I was. “Yeah, they went through Lelith, who then cut off all the mystic vague bullshit for our convenience. That Eldrad guy wants our help for something. The way Lelith says it, it sounds like something stupid, or really stupid.” My raven-haired girl paused for a moment to frown. “Our Nexus Eldar don’t hold the Craftworlders in high regard, come to think of it.”

  “Yeah, cultural differences,” I simply said, and then looked back down at the screen. Eldrad wanted an audience to petition for something. I’ve never heard of Eldar requests being any good for those who help them, but I suppose I could at least hear him out, and reject the notion if it truly sounded stupid.

  I was wrong.

  It was beyond stupid.

  “You want Sev to save your goddess?” Cait asked with a raised eyebrow.

  It was the kind of stupid that made you want to keep looking - or worse, join in - to see how the trainwreck unfolded.

  “Her location is known to us,” Eldrad said pinly, knowing by now of our tolerance of circur speeches. Truly the wisest of his race. “We only ck the means to free our dy.” He and a trio of his colleagues stood before us in our office in Commoragh, managing to look smugly graceful even as they remained still.

  I really should just say no and put an end to this meeting, but…

  “So you want Sev and the Nexus to free your goddess,” Piper echoed Cait, “And then what? Leave us to deal with the angry metaphysical captors while you traipse off with your deity?”

  The Eldar representatives stood straighter, keeping calm as they felt insulted. “Representatives from every craftworld, as well as servants of the Laughing God will also partake in the mission. It has been agreed that should you agree to this, you will have…command of our seers and warriors. We as a race are willing to sacrifice our best for this.”

  For a dying race, these Eldar sure like their suicidal missions.

  Also, now it’s gotten too interesting to shoot down, dammit.

  “Say we go through with this,” I slowly said, “What does the Nexus gain from further aiding the Eldar race?”

  Space elf or not, I’ve dealt with enough weird and exotic looking people to notice Eldrad steeling his resolve and overcoming a fsh of apprehension. “We understand that there is little we can provide that you yourself cannot offer to your people.”

  A colleague beside him spoke up. “Therefore…therefore we can only offer our fealty. All craftworld signatories of the Nexus Treaty will be vassals to the Nexus Unity. Your enemies will be our enemies, your ws will be our ws.”

  Huh. They made it sound like a good thing.

  “And if the Goddess Isha of yours says otherwise after we free her?”

  The faces of the Eldar reps scrunched up into ugly grimaces. “We’ve traversed the web of fate, such a disagreement should not come to pass,” Eldrad evaded. Not too bad, but we’ve dealt with our share of simir bullshit promises pacifying our Earth.

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” I replied. “But…” I briefly gnced to my girls, who held mixed reactions to the request. Lelith too, sitting on several seats down, looked wary. “I can only promise that we’ll discuss the matter thoroughly before coming back with an answer.”

  The way the Eldar subtly slumped with relief meant that they were expecting this - probably divining the outcome already, knowing them - and had decided that this was one of the better outcomes in their favor. Which means I’ll have to do another round of upgrades to the metanatural defenses for when shit hits the fan.

  Because when it comes to the Eldar, shit practically always hits the fan with them. Fuckers never really get any clean, sting victories, and if I agreed with this pn, the Nexus could end up being caught as well when things go bad.

  “I suppose it’ll help to further inform our decision if you can provide as much intelligence as you can about the Warp realm we’ll be dealing with.” I knew Nurgle well enough, I think, but considering that most information about the damned gaxy is from an Imperium’s perspective, there might be extra clues that the space elves could offer us.

  *****

  The Imperium reached a new internal equilibrium in just a few years after Pax Nexus was established. Enough Forge Worlds were pacified by the legions that the forces could be diverted back to the Great Crusade again. Of utmost importance was the conquest of the regions around Nexus space, to quickly build a secure cordon around the dangerous realm.

  Several systems were host to only covert outposts to prove Imperial cim, as the Orks’ pilgrimage towards the Nexus’ remained unabated even after the immense casualties the aliens must have surely suffered. With reluctant thanks to the Nexus Unity for entertaining the war hungry greenskins, the Ork presence in Ultima Segmentum was reduced to a significant degree, especially marauding fleets and nascent WAAAGH!s.

  With more and more greenskin fleets from farther and farther away headed towards Nexus space, the Imperium began to evacuate certain systems that y in the way of what would be unofficially known as the ‘Green Pilgrimage’. Initial efforts to reinforce the more strategically important worlds proved an abject waste as the nigh unending stream of commandeered asteroids and brutish warships wore away at the strongest of defenses.

  Most notably, the Forge World of Ryza initially put up a stubborn defense and fleet after fleet of Orks found it worthy prey along their path to the Nexus. Months of grueling attrition and billions of casualties ter, Ryza was abandoned, but not before the cyclonic warheads pnted in optimal locations were set off, destabilizing the pnet’s crust and denying the industries of the forge world to the vile desecrations of the xenos.

  For a brief moment, there was trepidation that the homeworld of the IXth Legion Blood Angels would also suffer the same fate, but most fortuitously, the currents of the Immaterium shifted, rerouting Ork fleets towards a less valuable system which was far less burdensome to evacuate.

  The Imperium adapted to the Nexus Unity as its neighbor, though not all of the changes were negative, as reluctant as it was to admit. The new reformed Mechanicum, now a shackled vassal instead of an equal ally, was getting back on its feet and reestablishing its influence and production lines.

  Now directly overseen by the Imperial War Council, the Cult Mechanicum slowly began its forced march towards securization. With the implementation of the new orthodoxy, many minor rites of production were removed and suppressed, a cumutive culling that saw a significant increase in manufacturing output to no discernable loss of quality.

  Noncompliant forge worlds were given over to more amenable tech-priests to oversee, and a host of new colonies were seeded in resource-rich worlds to be nurtured into Imperium-loyal forge worlds. Mercifully, the Titan Legions and Knight Houses were generally compliant to the changes, mostly thanks to the primarchs’ and even the Emperor’s personal intervention, though the remnants of Legio Mortis and Legio Tempestus had to be culled, and their god-machines awarded to Legio Ignatum to bolster their rebuilding ranks.

  Save for the new branch of Heretek hunters sent to weed out the remains of the old and now heretical teachings of the Cult Mechanicum, the integration of the Mechanicum into the Imperium ultimately was a smoother transition than many had expected, allowing for the Great Crusade to quickly make up for its slowdown.

  With the retive stability and growth of the Imperium barely five years after Sev and his Nexus wrought drastic changes, arm bells rang when sanctioned Imperial seers and Legion Librarians began to report a roiling disturbance in the Immaterium, clearly emanating from Nexus space. Suspicions were raised further when the Nexus embassy refused to provide any details, save for assuring that the incident was an internal matter that would not involve the Imperium in any way.

  Despite suspicions on his sympathies, the primarch Magnus was called by the Emperor to aid in investigating the truth of the matter. Their work would be too te, however, as a great rite was enacted that stilled the roiling currents of the Immaterium throughout known space and caused both the Maelstrom and the Eye of Terror to shrink for a day and a night.

  In its wake, several degenerated human civilizations were reported to have simply died out, as did some alien empires that utilized exotic, Immaterium-based weaponry.

  More worryingly, as the Warp tides began to return to its usual unpredictable self, the Eldar craftworlds, usually conically floating through space, had all begun to steer themselves towards the direction of Nexus space. The Emperor held a meeting with his closest advisors in the Imperial Pace - sans the primarchs who were all campaigning to extend Imperial borders. New orders were given after that, summoning the primarchs Horus, Rogal Dorn and Leman Russ back to Terra, while the other sons of the Emperor were redeployed closer to Nexus Unity borders.

  No more than a month ter, dark news spread. Primarch Angron had turned from the Emperor’s light and was fleeing to Nexus space. Conflicting rumors followed in its wake. Some said it was due to a bribe by Nexus envoys, others said it was out of a grave insult and misunderstanding during a heated meeting with his brothers Leman Russ and Ferrus Manus. Some dared whisper that it was a result of his brother Leman Russ failing to kill him.

  Regardless, Angron and his World Eaters were promptly decred Traitoris Extremis, and all possible resources were utilized to stop the fleeing primarch and return him to Terra to answer for his actions.

  The Nexus were content to remain silent on the matter and watch as events unfolded for the time being.