The Lamenters Chapter

As Huron made friends with his fists and vented his frustration, two visiting fleets were traveling through the Warp.

Perhaps the Emperor had blessed them, or perhaps the God-Chosen Librarians aboard had frightened off the Warp Daemons. In any case, this Warp voyage went exceptionally smoothly.

Not a single daemonic incursion, so common in the past, occurred. Even the usual Warp anomalies—eerie weeping, strange bloodstains, unexplained noises, and the like—never appeared.

The ordinary crew had been organized to pray using passages from the Gospel of Humanity, and there were no mental breakdowns, sudden terror, or similar incidents.

With everything proceeding smoothly, the fleet bound for the Sagan Sector to visit the Lamenters reached its destination after roughly a month of subjective time.

Sagan Sector, aboard the battle barge Stormdaughter.

The battle barge was covered in scars of war and crude repair work. Some repaired sections were not even made from basic plasteel, but ferricrete.

Although ferricrete was one of the materials used in warship construction, it was generally reserved for internal structures. Its maximum strength was insufficient, and it resisted complex environments poorly; exposed to space, its service life dropped drastically.

The marks across the battle barge's hull ranged from fresh to old. Clearly, it had endured battles over a long period and survived every one of them.

Just like the Lamenters Chapter itself.

Malakim Forlorn sat in the warship's command center, awaiting the arrival of his allies.

"Chapter Master, warships are emerging from the Mandeville Point."

"Identify them. Maintain alert status."

"It is a fleet of the Astral Claws."

"They arrived so quickly?" Forlorn was somewhat surprised.

He remembered that Patrick had contacted the Astral Claws only about a week ago. Had their fleet really arrived so soon?

After all, the Sagan Sector and the Badab Sector were separated by hundreds of light-years. At normal Warp-travel speeds, the journey usually took four or five months, or even more than half a year.

And this time, they had arrived in barely a week?

Could the Astral Claws have dispatched their fleet first, then contacted us afterward?

The thought flashed through Forlorn's mind.

As a descendant who carried on the Angel's glory, Forlorn also upheld the Angel's virtues. He was unwilling to view his allies from such a dark perspective.

"Notify the entire ship. Prepare to receive them." Forlorn rose and put on the Chapter's last intact suit of Ceremonial Armour.

Some Chapters might consider Power Armour covered in battle scars a symbol of glory, but the Lamenters clearly did not. They believed welcoming allies in damaged Power Armour was a sign of disrespect.

Well, perhaps that was also because the Lamenters truly did not have many intact suits of Power Armour left.

As the saying went, the more people lacked something, the more they emphasized it. Even Astartes Brothers were no exception.

The Astral Claws' visiting fleet gradually approached the Stormdaughter. Once the two vessels had stabilized relative to each other, the Astral Claws Astartes boarded the Avernus Barge and headed for the Stormdaughter to meet the Lamenters Chapter.

Due to their origins in the Cursed Founding, as well as their renewed conflict with the Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition over the Heart of Profanity incident in 681, the Lamenters Chapter naturally did not possess the luxury of a homeworld.

Thus, Forlorn used the Stormdaughter directly as the reception venue. Aside from the Mother of Tears battle barge, which also served as the Chapter Monastery, it was the finest asset the Lamenters could present.

As they prepared to receive the Astral Claws, Forlorn and all the Lamenters looked at the Strike Cruiser and Gladius-class Frigates stationed nearby, a trace of envy flashing through their eyes.

Their paint schemes were uniform, their armor intact, and there was not a single sign of repair. They looked as though they had just left the shipyard—clearly the finest of warships!

The system Shipyard's standard for "repairing warships" was restoring them to a near-new state, ninety-nine percent as good as fresh from the shipyard. Thus, even five Shipyards repairing one frigate took nearly a year.

Only after receiving reports from the Shipyard repair crews did Huron realize something was wrong, and he promptly divided the Shipyards equally among all the warships.

The three pristine warships that Forlorn considered exceptional had, by the system's standards, been restored to at most around eighty percent. Their damaged internal structures, sealed-off sections, and the various monsters lurking within had yet to be dealt with.

Soon, the Astral Claws Astartes arrived on the bridge. Hans, the company captain leading them, saluted Forlorn. "Greetings, Chapter Master Forlorn. I am Hans, Captain of the 2nd company, and I bring greetings from Chapter Master Huron."

Forlorn returned the salute. "Greetings, Captain Hans. Please convey my greetings to Chapter Master Huron as well."

Hans was indeed the captain of the 2nd Company. As for which Great Company it belonged to, there was no need to explain that in such detail. It would not do if the Lamenters could not accept it all at once.

After the greetings, Hans handed Forlorn the gift list. "Chapter Master Forlorn, Chapter Master Huron knows your circumstances have been difficult lately, so he had us bring you a few small gifts."

The Lamenters were indeed miserable, and their hardship had not begun only after the Badab War. They had suffered before that as well.

According to what Huron had said in his previous life, in 681, in order to destroy the Heart of Profanity Space Hulk and save nearby Imperial Worlds, they had committed more than three hundred Battle-Brothers and four Strike Cruisers at once, suffering a devastating loss of strength.

Yet not only did they receive neither glory nor reward, the Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition that arrived afterward to investigate even accused them of mishandling the matter. Naturally, the Lamenters could not tolerate such accusations. They directly expelled the Ordo Malleus Inquisitor, and the two sides parted on bad terms.

Never mind rewards; because of the Ordo Malleus's interference, even their basic supplies became intermittent.

Not long afterward, in 698, to repay the Ultramarines for a past favor, they sent three Companies and a fleet to join the Corinthian Crusade. They lost another two hundred-plus Battle-Brothers, while only the scarred Stormdaughter escaped with its life.

In less than twenty years, the Lamenters had lost nearly six hundred Battle-Brothers, four or even more Strike Cruisers, and had nearly exhausted their entire foundation.

Now, the entire Lamenters Chapter had only a little over four hundred Battle-Brothers left.

To recover even to this size, the Lamenters had practically sold everything they owned. The entire Chapter was so poor that it had only a single-digit number of Terminator Armor suits remaining.

Never mind a Terminator company—they could barely assemble a Terminator Squad.

Forlorn accepted the gift list and expressed his gratitude. "Thank you for Chapter Master Huron's consideration."

Though he appeared indifferent, Forlorn was actually rather eager to see what gift Huron had sent.

The more valuable, the better. Even if the Lamenters had no use for it, they could trade it for resources.

Such thoughts ran contrary to the Angel's virtues, but Forlorn had truly been frightened by poverty. At a time like this, he could not worry about such things.

He glanced over the list, and his entire body froze in place.