Although the King of Explorators had suffered severe damage, Cawl had no intention of returning to Mars for a major overhaul.
The ship's cultivation chambers still held a large batch of Greyshield Astartes who would soon awaken. Transporting these warriors separately would only waste more time.
The Imperium's situation was dire. Although Guilliman constantly deployed personnel and supplies, the lack of enough troops to fight every battle remained an unavoidable problem.
Otherwise, given the problems in the Ultima Segmentum, Guilliman would not have asked Cawl to assemble the Hephaestos Battle Group to bolster their fighting strength.
The Departmento Munitorum no longer had enough troops to commit to the Nephilim Sector.
Large numbers of Ultramarines were rushing from crisis to crisis across the Milky Way.
The Orks were locked in a massive brawl. Bonecruncha Sarakka, currently the most famous Ork Warboss in the Milky Way, was being hunted by the Black Templars' Crusade Chapter and High Marshal Helbrecht.
A briefing of unknown origin had once claimed that the legendary Commissar Yarrick had been ambushed by Chaos Traitors while pursuing Skullkrak and that his soul had returned to the Throne. But even the Orks did not believe that report for a moment.
I reckon that red-eyed, one-eyed Steel Claw Daemon ain't that easy to kill.
That was the view shared by many Orks.
Although the Imperium likewise could not verify the report's exact source and did not know precisely where this force—which had vanished into the Milky Way with only occasional sightings—was, the casualty reports the Departmento Munitorum occasionally received from it had indeed never mentioned Yarrick's name.
Unless the Chaos Traitors could instantly annihilate an entire pursuit fleet and defeat the Crusade Chapter at the same time, the Imperium would receive definitive information sooner or later.
Once the leaderless Orks finished