Undercurrents

Endurance, Space Marine personal quarters.

Now.

.

In the dark room, faint red lights flickered. On the clock beyond the door, the time ticked over to "3:48."

Hades lay on his bed, yet he had not fallen asleep. The scenes from earlier still lingered in his mind.

That enormous scythe brought by the Custodian Guard and the Silent Sister.

What Hades could be certain of was that the scythe was absolutely connected to Blanks.

His Null Field had flowed into that massive scythe so effortlessly.

This was probably a weapon made specifically for Blanks?

The scythe was huge and heavy. Even Hades, who counted as a large build among the Space Marines, found it somewhat strenuous to wield in a slash.

Not to mention the Silent Sisters. Though each of them was a warrior in her own right, that enormous scythe was clearly not something a person of ordinary stature could use.

Hades was also somewhat puzzled by his encounter with the Silent Sister. His Null Field did not seem to be anything like the "silent field" they generated.

But if he was not a Blank, how else could his constitution be explained?

Yet the Emperor had already bestowed upon Hades a scythe clearly intended for his particular constitution. He obviously understood Hades's nature.

So he was probably some mutant variant of a Blank!

That was right! It had to be!

Unable to come up with a reasonable explanation, Hades was in the midst of giving up entirely—

If he could not figure something out, then he would stop thinking about it.

And the enormous scythe bestowed by the Emperor had, in truth, also given Hades a measure of reassurance. It let him know that he was not dangerous, and that Chaos had not done something to him.

He could use his Null Field without worrying that it was some scheme of Chaos.

As for the scythe, Hades thought that although his Null Field currently could not extend beyond the surface of his body, with this scythe's aid, he could project it outward and achieve the effect of suppressing Psykers or even the Warp.

In fact, when Hades had first realized that his Null Field could not break past his skin, a bizarre image had flashed through his mind: expanding it across his body's surface, then grappling with an enemy Psyker in close combat to suppress their Psychic Power.

Too bizarre.

Hades felt goosebumps rise across his skin.

It was four o'clock. The room lights came on automatically, and Hades set aside his thoughts, rose, and put on his standard combat uniform, ready to begin the first day of training.

Though he had not slept all night, his enhanced body was not tired in the slightest. If anything, he felt brimming with energy.

Hades stepped outside. Someone in Mk II Power Armor stood at his door.

The white-and-green Power Armor was crisscrossed with strips of later-added ceramic powder. Though they had fused into the armor, they occasionally flashed with a sheen distinct from the armor's overall luster as he moved.

The veteran standing before Hades was clearly a head taller than the others passing them in the corridor, though he was still slightly shorter than Hades.

"Follow me. I'll take you to receive your armor."

The veteran's muffled voice came from within his helmet. Hades froze for a moment, then realized the helmet's built-in translator had converted the other man's speech into Barbaran.

With that, the veteran led Hades along with the flow of people.

Hey, you still haven't told me your name.

Hades kept pace with the veteran and looked around. He discovered that everyone on this deck wore Power Armor similar to this veteran's.

In other words, Hades was the only recruit on this deck?!

What exactly was going on?

Hades thought silently.

Endurance, Space Marine armory.

Now.

.

The once brightly lit armory was now dim as night. Only the speckled candlelight lit by Servitors illuminated the hazy chamber.

Servitors busied themselves crossing the room, arranging candles around a circular low platform at its center.

Before long, that recruit would arrive to receive his armor.

In the darkest corner of the room, Garo, captain of the Seventh Company, stood motionless in his Power Armor.

He hoped the recruit he had chosen would not disappoint him.

Before their primarch had been recovered, the Dusk Raiders had their numbers deliberately reduced during the middle and later stages of the Great Crusade, until their primarch's return.

When Mortarion took command of the Dusk Raiders, they numbered just over seventy thousand in total.

The augmentation of Barbaran recruits was also proceeding in full swing. Relying on the Gene-seed accumulated beforehand, a total of thirty thousand Barbarans had been successfully transformed.

Judging by the numbers alone, each company had roughly two veterans for every recruit.

But reality was not so simple. Setting aside special warriors unable to train recruits, such as Dreadnoughts, Tech-Sergeants, Librarians, and Apothecaries, the number of recruits each company was willing to accept also varied greatly.

Following Mortarion's reorganization, the Death Guard currently had seven major companies. Each major company consisted of several battalions, each battalion numbering seven hundred men, and each battalion was further divided into seven companies.

The numbers of each major company also differed considerably. The seventy thousand men had not simply been divided equally among the companies.

The First Company, led by Barasyn, was numerous, exceeding twenty thousand men.

The Second Company, on the other hand, had relatively few, numbering only a little over seven thousand.

The following Companies likewise all differed in size.

But the Seventh Company battle company led by Garo was the smallest company.

It had only two battalions, a little over fourteen hundred men.

When assigning recruits to training Companies, Mortarion had handed all authority to Barasyn.

The recruits being trained would not necessarily serve directly in that company afterward. Once they had passed their recruit period, they would have one opportunity to choose their own company anew.

Though in all likelihood, recruits would remain in the company that had trained them.

Mortarion's move was meant to observe the attitudes of the various Companies.

Every company captain understood this perfectly well.

Barasyn, captain of the First Company, was the first to take fifteen thousand recruits. The Second Company took only five hundred.

After that,

The Third Company took four thousand five hundred.

The Fourth Company took four thousand five hundred.

The Fifth Company took two thousand five hundred.

The Sixth Company took three thousand.

By the time the recruitment roster reached Garo, the recruits had already all been allocated.

Naturally, Garo understood his comrades' good intentions.

The Seventh Company had originally been the most distinctive force among the Dusk Raiders. Only veterans hardened by countless battles, who had crawled from heaps of corpses time and again and were most loyal to the Emperor, could receive approval from their original Companies to join the Seventh.

Thus, some veterans of the Seventh Company had reacted even more strongly to the primarch's return. Garo had received applications for death missions more than once already.

In the eyes of the other captains, such a company could not possibly accept recruits. So they had snapped up the available recruit slots in advance, then offered Garo apologetic smiles.

But Garo was not, as they imagined, resentful of the primarch's return.

He was the Emperor's sword. If the primarch could bring his power to its fullest potential, then Garo would naturally offer the primarch his loyalty.

They all fought for the Emperor. They should hold no other distracting thoughts.

For the Emperor.

Garo silently repeated it once more by reflex.

For the Emperor, he needed to lead the Seventh Company so that it could still fulfill its greatest purpose after the primarch's return.

If he rashly introduced recruits who lacked combat strength and respect for veterans, the Seventh Company would surely become dissatisfied. But if no recruits entered, future recruitment would become difficult. A tree without roots could not endure for long.

During the recruits' augmentation surgeries, Garo had continuously tracked the records of every recruit with promising numbers on Barbarus.

"Seventh Company, two."

Garo spoke.

The other company captains looked at Garo in surprise.

When Barasyn reported the number of recruits in each company to Mortarion, Mortarion, who was rebuilding and analyzing war records, seemed rather inattentive.

The recruit numbers for each company were more or less what he had expected.

Until—

"Seventh Company, two."

Mortarion raised a brow.

A brief note:

The Death Guard's strength in the early period before the Horus Heresy should have been around ninety-five thousand, which made them one of the smaller Legions. This was also related to how often they fought wars of attrition.

Then, in the later Great Crusade, Legions that had not yet found their primarchs would have their numbers appropriately reduced while retaining Gene-seed.

So I estimated that the Death Guard currently had around seventy thousand veterans, then rapidly raised another thirty thousand recruits, averaging two veterans per recruit.

But since there were warriors who could not train newcomers, such as Dreadnoughts, company captains, Tech-Sergeants, Apothecaries, and Librarians, in reality a recruit would not be assigned two veterans.

Also, in my personal setting, each company receives a different number of Barbarans. In fact, this is also the case in the original work. It is fine; they can be reassigned to Companies later.

Before the Great Rebellion, the First Company had the most Barbarans in the Death Guard, while the Second, Fifth, and Seventh Companies had the fewest.

Among them, the Seventh Company basically had no Barbarans. Its battle company was filled entirely with the fiercest Terran hardcases, and it was also one of the more exclusionary groups.

And the Death Guard's organizational structure was:

Legion—company—Battalion—company—Squad.

(I really could not find the Death Guard's organizational structure before the Horus Heresy, so I worked backward from the Plague Company structure after the Death Guard fell to Nurgle.)

Other Legions use Legion—Chapter—Battalion—company—Platoon—Squad.

Mortarion directly cut out the top two levels and set the full strength of each company at seventy thousand, though that number was never reached.

Sorry, but regarding the exact size of Death Guard Companies, I am going to start making things up freely.

I am bad at math, so just enjoy it for what it is.

The Death Guard's numbers were always low. For comparison, the Ultramarines and Word Bearers of the same period both had over two hundred thousand, while the Death Guard had only ninety-five thousand.

(No helping it—they were always fighting grinding wars of attrition, and their recruitment world was not much help either.)

And now I am going to start adding original Legion characters. My apologies.

Enjoy reading (_)