Sid Lanko, captain of the Lernaean Terminators, reviewed the Tactical Network's data.
In the nineteen standard hours since the 12th Chapter of the Shadow of Order had charged into the Haldalan Foothills, Alpha and the Lernaean Terminators had launched wave after wave of attacks from their outposts.
Even now, the Shadow of Order remained held at the perimeter of the lead-gray mountain range, unable to gain a foothold.
But the cost had been immense: 419 Alpha warriors had been confirmed dead.
Even five entire squads of Lernaean Terminators under his command had lost contact, while another thirty-six men had been killed.
He recalled the intelligence sent back by Alpha agents who had infiltrated the Shadow of Order. Like them, Nimrod had abandoned the Nikaea Edict.
The Shadow of Order's combat strength is indeed formidable.
Twenty-five standard days earlier, Lanko had received an encrypted document: the Omega Codex compiled by Leman Russ.
The Alphas had seized the time before the Shadow of Order's landing to train intensely, drawing upon the wolf pack's methods of fighting Thousand Sons Librarians to deal with the Shadow of Order's Psykers.
The Lernaean Terminators trained entirely according to the tactics of the Space Wolves' 1st Great Company, wearing Cataphractii Terminator armor just as the wolf pack's elite guards did.
The only difference was that Power Axes had replaced the wolf pack's Frost Axes.
The Lernaean Terminators unleashed their savagery to the fullest, completely abandoning Alpha's conventional methods of covert warfare.
Even so, he had lost eighty-six Lernaean Terminators.
Lanko recalled the blood he had drunk before accepting his father's orders, and the fragments of Alpharius's memories he had tasted.
They had fought side by side before Omega, another Primarch, had been rescued by Nimrod.
Time and again, he had completed Alpharius's missions. This time, he would