Sacrifice, Not a March to Death

The Emperor had not abandoned you! He let you live so that you could bring the flames of war back to the enemies who had destroyed your homes!

From this day onward, the 99th Regiment of the Cadian Pride would no longer be merely a designation!

It was a Hearth! A home!

He pointed to Sergeant Orik at his side.

Veterans like Sergeant Orik were the hottest, glowing coals in this Hearth!

Then he pointed at the recruit who had been shoved to the ground and had only just climbed back up.

And recruits like you were the newest, driest firewood in our home!

He spread his arms as though he wished to embrace the entire camp.

Every one of us is part of this Hearth! We will ignite its flames with our hatred! We will sustain its warmth with our unity! We will make its flames burn higher and fiercer with our sacrifice!

We will become the Emperor's hottest branding iron! We will sear the Emperor's wrath onto the faces of every xenos and heretic!

Now! Tell me! You forgotten sparks! Are you willing to burn anew in this home?!

His words exploded in every soldier's soul like thunder.

The numbness in their eyes began to melt.

In its place came an emotion that had been suppressed for far too long, one they had nearly forgotten—hope.

A fervent hope born from finding a sense of belonging and purpose.

...We are!

No one knew who in the crowd was the first to roar it.

Then came a second voice, then a third...

At last, the entire camp erupted with an earth-shaking roar, like the howl of wild beasts.

—WE ARE!!!

Alexander looked at the soldiers before him as they began to "burn," at the fanatical worship in their eyes, and smiled in satisfaction.

His "Hearth" had been built.

Now, all it needed was its first war to... feed the fire.

War came far sooner than anyone expected.

In the third week of Alexander's "ideological reorganization" of the 99th Regiment, an emergency order arrived from Sector Command at this godforsaken asteroid.

The order was brief and brutal: an Ork Waaagh! fleet of unknown size had bypassed the outer warning posts and charged straight into the core region of the Taranis System with almost face-to-face savagery. Its target was the most important agri-world in the system.

That planet was the breadbasket of the entire subsector. Billions of Imperial citizens, along with the Astra Militarum stationed there, depended on its vast fields and enormous food-processing plants. If Viridia fell, the chain reaction would be catastrophic.

And the 99th Regiment of the Cadian Pride, being the closest and the only mobile force still capable of drawing breath, was ordered to embark within twelve hours and depart as the first wave of reinforcements for Viridia Prime. They were to hold the vital grain-producing regions at all costs until the main fleet arrived.

For the 99th Regiment before its reorganization, this order would have been no different from a death sentence. Sending a band of battered remnants against an Ork Waaagh! of unknown scale? It was no different from tossing a rusty spoon into a high-speed meat grinder.

But after being baptized by Alexander's "Hearth" theory, the reaction when the order reached every soldier's ears was one of almost ecstatic excitement.

"Orks! Greenies!" An old veteran with a scar across his face, once an enforcer for a Hive City gang, eagerly licked his cracked lips. "I've wanted to kick those green bastards' heads around like balls for a long time!"

"At last, a chance..." The recruit whose collar Orik had once seized now gripped his lasgun tightly, revenge blazing in his eyes. "To avenge my family! For the Emperor! And for... Commissar!"

Despair had been transformed into longing, hatred directed into motivation. They no longer feared death, because the concept of "home" had given them something more important than life—belonging and honor. They yearned to prove to their commissar, Alexander, through a glorious victory that they were not trash, but sparks capable of setting the plains ablaze.

Inside regimental headquarters, however, the mood was nowhere near as optimistic as it was among the soldiers.

Colonel Valeus, the regiment's commander, was a middle-aged man with half-white hair and deeply sunken eyes. He stared fixedly at the blinking red icon representing the Ork fleet on the star map. He was a typical Imperial officer, born into a military family—rigid, methodical, but highly experienced. He instinctively felt a visceral repulsion and wariness toward Alexander's "family theory" among the troops. In his view, an army needed discipline and obedience, not some vague "warmth."

Yet he had to admit that this young commissar's arrival had indeed revived this force on the brink of collapse with... a kind of "vitality" he could not understand.

"Commissar," Colonel Valeus said hoarsely without looking up, "what do you think?"

Alexander stood beside him. His black commissar's uniform appeared especially crisp beneath the dim lights of the command center.

"An opportunity, Colonel. An opportunity for the 99th Regiment to prove its worth to the Imperium once more," Alexander answered calmly.

"Prove its worth?" Colonel Valeus let out a self-mocking laugh. "Our current manpower is only seventy percent of full strength, and we have almost no heavy weapons. Half the engines on our Valkyrie transports are still waiting in line for repairs. We cannot even issue three spare power packs to every soldier. You call this an opportunity? I call it marching to our deaths."

"Marching to one's death and sacrifice are two different things, Colonel." Alexander walked to the star map, his pale golden eyes reflecting the layout of the system. "Marching to one's death is meaningless expenditure. Sacrifice is the glorious price paid to protect something more important."

He extended a finger and tapped the green planet of Viridia Prime.

"On that planet are farmers, workers, their wives, and their children. Like our own families once were, they are unarmed and facing the butcher's blade. If we do not go, they will die. Their home will become a slaughterhouse and latrine for the greenies."

"My people, my 'family,' all understand that."

Colonel Valeus raised his head and, for the first time, studied the young man before him seriously. In Alexander's eyes, he saw not the slightest hesitation or fear, only a conviction like steel—no, hotter than steel.

"...I need a plan, Commissar. A plan that will let us survive and complete the mission. Not a stirring pre-battle speech."