Lorgar's light footsteps abruptly quickened in the corridor leading to the bridge, but he veered slightly, turning into a dedicated communications room equipped with the highest-grade encryption and isolation systems.
He wasted no time, heading straight for the intricately constructed cylindrical communications terminal at the center of the room, its surface shimmering with a faint blue glow.
This was an internal encrypted network node custom-built by Archmagos Tovalkyrie specifically for direct communication between Primarchs. Its access privileges were exceptionally high, and it was normally used only for the most urgent coordination—or some rather less formal "chats between brothers."
After a quick identity verification, a pale gold holographic interface unfolded before Lorgar, displaying a simple list of online users.
A glance revealed faint lights beside several familiar names, indicating "available" or "accepting emergency communications."
Good. Quite a few people online.
Rather than calling anyone individually, Lorgar activated group broadcast mode. His fingers flew over the virtual keyboard, sending out a brief message with something of the flavor of an urgent battlefield transmission:
"Can anyone come help? I'm surrounded by Orks. Urgent support needed."
Send.
The message became an encrypted data pulse, instantly reaching the terminal associated with every illuminated name on the list.
There was a brief, almost simultaneous delay.
Then a string of "message read" and "typing" indicators began flashing wildly across the list.
Immediately afterward, extremely brief replies from different Primarchs exploded across the communications interface, appearing almost simultaneously:
Angron: ?
Curze: ?
Perturabo: ?
Lion El'Jonson: ?
Mortarion: ?
Glittering golden old man: ?
A perfectly uniform string of question marks.
Lorgar stared at the question marks instantly flooding his screen, particularly the conspicuous "?" beside "Glittering golden old man," along with the voice-call request notifications popping up almost simultaneously from Angron's and Curze's private channels, accompanied by