Not long after the C'tan were deployed, Saranoga returned with the Void Dragon and those Space Marines, arriving just before the Thunder Warriors who had returned to the fleet when the Iron Ring collapsed.
But when Saranoga entered the bridge, neither Lion, Guilliman, nor Qin Mo questioned why it had come back so quickly.
Because beyond the viewport, the Iron Ring had crumbled until only half a planet remained, and even that last fragment was trembling beneath wave after wave of orbital bombardment from the fleet.
"I bet them you'd destroy the Iron Ring with either a black hole or lightning." Smiling, Qin Mo spoke to Saranoga, who had passed through the wall into the bridge. "But you used a Meme Virus. You made me lose ten Transport Ships to Guilliman."
Guilliman smiled and shook his head. He had indeed guessed that Saranoga would use a Meme Virus, but it had merely been a random guess. He had not expected to be right by chance.
"Without Blackstone, I would probably have had to use lightning. But since we have it, naturally I used the method I prefer. After all, you only told me to destroy the Iron Ring. You never told me how to do it," Saranoga said.
"If there were no Blackstone, I wouldn't have deployed you in the first place," Qin Mo said. "Good work."
Saranoga nodded. It fully acknowledged that not everyone served The Forger solely because their essence was in his grasp. Compared with the Forger of old, the current Forger possessed an additional quality that inspired trust.
And trust had once been almost entirely absent from the relationships among the vast majority of the C'tan.
At least they did not have to worry about The Forger treating them like tools and using them for evil.