One solar week later.
The fleet Guilliman had promised and the Custodes led by Achalo had joined the Alliance's original fleet.
More than three hundred warships were about to set sail for Manros. They would use the Custodes to bring the Imperial Navy forces scattered around Manros into line, and the Alliance would have even more ships by then.
But unlike every previous departure, this one was exceptionally hectic. There was far too much to do.
And it wasn't just because the fleet had grown—
Kao and his sister Carly came to the Ragefang's Hall of Honor, carrying a mountain of business to discuss with the Chapter Master.
Lu Jin was in the Hall of Honor receiving new recruits. Seeing this, Kao set the matters aside for now and went over to join the ceremony.
Counting the recruits transformed before they went to support Guilliman and those whose transformations were completed during the campaign, the Fierce Angels now had six hundred and twenty new recruits.
After a series of battles, only seven of the original twenty-one Fierce Angels veterans remained, not counting Lu Jin.
The Blood Brotherhood had twice as many veterans as they did. They stood behind Lu Jin alongside Kais.
Kao, Jenos, Kampa, Varros, Grak, Thor, and Nox stood before Lu Jin, facing the recruits.
Aside from the most unusual of the seven, Kao, the rest were all somewhat withdrawn.
Jenos spent every day shut away in the armory, studying weapons.
Kampa liked to hole up in a little dark room and repeatedly watch the hololithic footage of the battle in the void. The crew called the command deck's battle chamber the "little dark room."
The other four were exactly the sort of Space Marines Lu Jin had come to expect.
They followed the Chapter's rules: resting, training,