"You should know the price of obtaining this information."
"As soon as we meet the Adeptus Custodes, we'll join."
To be fair, that was rather difficult.
Because nobody knew where that Tech Mogul Custodian was hiding aboard the flagship. He was completely out of contact.
The Adeptus Custodes answered only to the Emperor.
"What do you mean by 'we'?" William slowly moved his armored forearm.
"Every Hammonk warrior present, and every member of the Iron Council."
"That's too many."
"That is already the minimum. Certain important instruments are stored in the vault, and withdrawing them requires a resolution from the Iron Council."
The important instruments the Patriarch mentioned were actually spare parts for the Gloriana-class Battleship Iron Fist. Although Forge World shipyards usually handled that work, was there any difference between that and handing it directly to the Iron Hands?
Over eleven millennia, the Iron Fist had sortied only a handful of times, and every deployment had been an utterly merciless Exterminatus Operation. All living things were exterminated, ensuring that the Chapter's greatest secret would never be remembered.
They had even done better than the First Legion, whose actions had drawn protests from many other Chapters. They always withdrew from battle at strange moments, suddenly departing or forcibly interfering with other Chapters' objectives.
Wherever the Iron Hands went, entire regions became scorched earth, and every enemy of the Imperium was driven out. Nobody questioned how they had accomplished it.
There was nothing wrong with their reported material expenditure or the worlds they had destroyed.
In some circumstances, deploying a Gloriana-class Battleship cost less than sending numerous warships to bombard a target together.
Those savings were the Iron Hands' primary source of supplies for repairing their flagship.
Any matter involving this secret required every member of the Iron Council to be