Endurance, Space Marine armor chamber.
Now.
The dim room was lit by hazy candlelight gathered at its center.
Blanca led Hades inside, his towering frame somewhat conspicuous in the room.
The veteran guided Hades onto the low platform surrounded by candles.
Just before this, Hades had been ordered to put on the black undersuit of thick bionic polymer armor and memorize a sentence.
Yet Hades had no idea what that High Gothic sentence meant. He had only been told to say it at the end.
Couldn't they at least explain what it meant?
This felt like signing away his life!
From the shadows of the room, Garo watched Hades. He could smell the faint scent of nervousness in the recruit's sweat.
Tsk.
Garo still held certain expectations for this recruit, the last one to fight alongside the primarch.
He hoped he had not misjudged him.
Enrique, the Forge Master of Seventh Company, entered, followed by a Tech-Sergeant.
He wore MK3 Power Armor. Countless servo-arms mounted on the power pack behind him trembled slightly as the Forge Master walked.
The Tech-Sergeant went to stand beside Blanca. Soon, he would lead Hades in reciting the Oath of Loyalty.
Normally, a recruit's armor-bestowal ceremony would have a Tech-priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus lead the oath. But this was a transitional period for the Legion, with large numbers of recruits entering the ranks. The Tech-priests still had to oversee the Legion's equipment supply, so the task had been simplified and handed over to each company's Tech-Sergeant.
Enrique walked straight over to Garo. The two stopped in the shadows and waited for Hades's armor-bestowal ceremony.
A burst of crackling static sounded over Garo's personal channel inside his helmet.
Enrique's voice came through, Low Gothic deep and clear.
"Blanca didn't explain the oath to this recruit again."
Garo's gaze remained on Hades at the center of the room. Points of candlelight flickered across his black armored undersuit.
"You've taken a liking to him."
It was a statement, not a question. Garo's calm, steady voice rang out.
Enrique would not offer what sounded like an explanation for the sake of an ordinary recruit.
The voice on the channel hesitated for a moment before speaking again.
"My colleagues from the other Companies and I went to Barbarus to collect their technology."
"This recruit was not only the last man to accompany the primarch to the summit. He also designed the armor they wore."
The technical standard was commendable. Not only was the armor's construction sound, but a special process had mixed appropriately proportioned fibers from a local fern into the ceramite, increasing the armor's overall toughness.
Enrique still remembered seeing the prototype of that armor, as well as the remarkably detailed and precise design drafts. The expressions exchanged by the Forge Masters had been unforgettable.
They had assumed it was technology left behind on the planet. Though the design lagged far behind the Imperium's current technology, Barbarus's economic structure made it clear that the local people could not possibly have developed such equipment themselves.
But later, they discovered that it had been designed by a local Death Guard resistance fighter.
What surprised Enrique even more was that the armor's designer was one of the only two recruits in his company.
He had not known Garo would give him such a gift.
In truth, the doctrine followed by the Adeptus Mechanicus was to follow the wisdom of the Omnissiah and reproduce the "original forms of machines" that already existed in the universe.
They were not creating anything. They had merely been enlightened by the Omnissiah and restored those devices to their original forms.
Bold innovation and modification were forbidden. They were evil acts of blasphemy.
But there was always a small gap between ideals and reality.
Compared to the Tech-priests chanting hymns in the forge chambers, the battlefield, roaring with artillery fire, held an absurd number of accidents and variables.
Suppose you had a Predator Tank at hand, along with another Predator Tank whose tracks were ruined and completely unusable.
Then your squadron was ordered to seize a bastion situated in a narrow pass.
As the squadron's Tech-Sergeant, would you remove the turret from the nearly scrapped tank and mount it on the other one, or would you not?
Of course you would mount it on the other tank.
But that fell within the scope of "blasphemy."
As a result, Tech-Sergeants in the Legion did not enjoy a very good reputation among the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Moreover, Enrique had recently been analyzing Primarch Mortarion's strategic preferences.
The Death Guard's Forge Masters and Tech-Sergeants had discovered that, compared to the extensive use of armored and transport vehicles, Mortarion preferred to deploy infantry.
That meant the Tech-Sergeants, already marginalized within the Death Guard Legion because of their faith in the Adeptus Mechanicus, would see their standing diminished even further.
And now, Forge Master Enrique had before him a recruit with great talent for mechanical research, one rumored to have a good relationship with Mortarion.
Even if he had the minor flaw of wanting to create, it was entirely harmless.
Garo's voice interrupted Enrique's thoughts.
"Don't disturb him during recruit training."
Red points of light flickered across Enrique's various devices.
"I know."
The Tech-Sergeant's deep, forceful words broke the silence in the room.
Hades stood atop the low platform embraced by candles as Servitors manipulated the heavy armor, assembling it piece by piece onto his body.
"Hades of Barbarus."
The Tech-Sergeant spoke in elaborate, ornate High Gothic.
"In the names of Mortarion and the Emperor."
"Do you swear to become his silent warrior?"
"Do you swear to become his unbreakable blade?"
"Do you swear to give everything of yourself for the Imperium?"
As those final words fell, the last plate was fitted into place. Two Servitors entered slowly, each carrying a bolter.
From the shadows, Garo and Enrique watched the figure on the low platform.
"For the Emperor."
A muffled voice, carrying the accent of Barbarus, spoke his oath.
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