Welcome! It’s the first instalment of the Grotmas calendar! And today Da Red Gobbo has found some Warhammer 40,000 fiction. It looks like even news of Captain Titus and the Ultramarines can make a huge difference to a battle zone's morale…
The planet of Idarus was dying. General Strayk felt it with the intuition shared by all cornered prey. The ferrocrete shuddered under his feet, as though the arable tower knew it too and was made tremulous by fear, rather than by the stampeding of colossal Tyranid swarms. The dense crop-beds it had been built to nurture hissed like surf upon shingle as the tectonic vibration set their tendrils shivering.
Strayk’s temporary command post was fifteen stories above ground level, insulated near the tower’s core from the horrors without, yet still Strayk could hear the Tyranids. Their alien cries carried even into this shielded sanctum with such clarity that he wondered whether they were actually in his head. Had his soldiers not flinched at each bestial howl and distant shriek, he would have been inclined to believe he was going mad.
‘Time for that yet, one suspects,’ he muttered to himself as he massaged his temples.
‘Beg pardon, sir?’ asked Osper. The depressingly familiar note of concern was back in her voice. It made Strayk wince.
‘Nothing of note, adjutant. Just an old man’s mutterings,’ he replied. He forced himself to square his shoulders and set his jaw. He was painfully conscious that Osper – and all the other soldiers under his command – were looking to him for hope.
‘Very good, sir,’ she replied, then braced herself against the map table as the arable tower shook. Lumens swung on their cords, light and shadow wheeling drunkenly and adding to Strayk’s nauseating sense of dislocation. Imperial Guardsmen clung to their vox sets, to the tower’s aqua-flow units, or to one another. Strayk felt their wide-eyed stares. He heard their unvoiced questions. What had hit the tower? Had the Tyranids reached them? Were they all about to die?
As the shaking subsided, he pasted on a confident smile. In his youth, he knew, it would have looked handsome and roguish, the sort of conspirator’s grin that invited others to share in his effortless confidence. Now old, exhausted and full of fear, he hoped it had at least the ghost of its former impact.
‘If that’s the best the filthy xenos can do, then this tower will still be standing long after they’re ashes. And so shall we!’ he barked. ‘The Emperor protects!’
‘The Emperor protects,’ came the chorused reply, trained instinct as much as genuine conviction. Still, the familiarity of the utterance steadied the troops a little, even if some of them clearly struggled to believe the sentiment.
‘He does – and we can all lend Him a hand in that regard, so let’s be about our duties,’ said Strayk with forced geniality. ‘Gospard, get me an update on 18th Company. Renwick, contact Lieutenant Urson and establish the status of the evacuation from the Northweald Macropaddocks. Borthlen, find out how soon we can expect armour reinforcements from Harrow Valley. The rest of you, full weapons check and prayers. Let’s be ready if we’re needed.’
Activity is the ally of courage, Strayk told himself as his soldiers hastened to obey. He had to hope he had reassured them that they were still fighting a war they could win. Now, if he could just make himself believe it too…
‘Sir?’ prompted Osper. Strayk realised with a guilty start that his mind had wandered again. If he could just get five minutes of quiet – or better yet, a few hours’ untroubled sleep. But then, if wishes were warships, there wouldn’t be an alien or heretic left to trouble the Imperium.
‘Yes, adjutant, let’s go through the – ’
‘Sir! Urgent report from the Astropathic sanctum!’
The voxman’s voice was just south of a shout. It carried a note of something so unfamiliar that it took Strayk’s tired mind a moment to parse it. Was that optimism? Excitement, even?
He shared a quizzical look with Osper.
‘Let’s have it then, lad,’ he prompted. Yes, he thought, excitement, no doubt. The voxman’s eyes were bright with it.
‘Sir, Senior Astropath Quatembe reports a response from offworld to their choir’s distress calls.’
‘Throne alive…’ breathed Osper.
‘Who?’ asked Strayk.
‘Senior Astropath asked that I convey their apologies, sir. They report a shadow upon the Empyrean, severe adverse psy-static hampering their comprehension, and casualties amongst the choir. They deciphered only a handful of concepts from a Senior Astropath Kornelius.’
Strayk stared expectantly at the voxman. The name meant nothing to him, so why was the young soldier so excited?
‘Sir, the concepts were parsed into immediate, reinforcement, Titus and… Ultramarines.’
The charge that ran through the command post was electric. The name ‘Titus’ meant no more to them than did ‘Kornelius’, but the mere mention of the Ultramarines did more to bolster morale than any speech General Strayk could have delivered. Throne, he thought. This was far better than all the sleep he could ever wish for.
‘The Ultramarines are – ’
‘ – going to be saved, we – ’
‘Emperor be praised, Emperor be – ’
‘Quiet!’ ordered Strayk, though this time his smile didn’t feel forced at all. To their credit, his exhausted, desperate soldiers fell silent as one.
‘This is exceptional news, better than we could have hoped. But it’ll be a poor show if the God-Emperor’s own Space Marines race all the way to Idarus to save our backsides only to find we all got eaten before they got here! So stay calm and proceed as ordered. Let’s make sure that when this Titus arrives with his Ultramarines, he’s damned well impressed!’
This time, when they shouted their assent, there was real force behind it.
‘The Emperor protects!’
‘The Emperor protects,’ replied General Strayk, feeling hope light a fire in his belly. ‘And so do his Ultramarines!’
You can find out even more about Demetrian Titus by checking out a dedicated Loremasters episode on Warhammer TV. You can also read up on how Titus went from Lieutenant to Captain.
Tomorrow we’re swinging by the Mortal Realms to make sure those who are owed a bounty from Ghyran are given what is rightfully theirs.
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