When the soldiers of the Death Korps of Krieg stepped like silent ghosts into the colossal crater, still billowing thick smoke and reeking of burning flesh, the sight before them stunned them utterly.
Nothing intact remained.
The earth had burned into black crystals with a glassy sheen. The steel buildings had become twisted metal wreckage, like abstract sculptures. Gray-white ash drifted through the air like snowflakes-the final traces that hundreds of thousands of Orks and thousands of human soldiers had left in this world.
The entire crater resembled an immense fireplace that had burned right through. Everything within it had become fuel, consuming itself and the enemy alike.
"Report! Life signs detected! Very weak! In that direction!" A soldier equipped with a life scanner pointed toward the center of the crater, at the immense, collapsed ruins of the Central Control Room, and shouted his report.
Colonel Grimm and Commissar Friedrich exchanged a glance, each seeing a flicker of disbelief in the other's eyes.
Could anyone have survived in a place like this?
A squad of Krieg soldiers rushed over at once. They cut through the twisted metal with their lasguns and dug through thick ash and concrete rubble with their entrenching tools.
Before long, they found the survivors.
Not one person, but more than a dozen.
They were crammed into a tiny space miraculously held open by the collapsed ceiling and a console. Their uniforms were in tatters, reduced to black strips of cloth. Burns, cuts, and blast injuries covered their bodies. Thick dust and congealed blood coated every face, obscuring their features.
But they were all still alive.
They were the last surviving embers of the 99th Regiment, the Pride of Cadia.
As the Krieg rescuers pulled them from the rubble one by one, not a single survivor groaned in pain or showed any joy at being saved.
Their eyes were hollow and numb, as though the great explosion had drained their souls completely. Yet deep within that emptiness burned a strange fire that made even these Krieg soldiers, so accustomed to death, feel their hearts tremble.
"...The fire...so bright." One surviving soldier spread his lips as though trying to smile, but black blood seeped from the cracks. "Our eldest brother...he...lit the fireplace. We...kept...our promise."
"Fireplace? Eldest brother?" Commissar Friedrich frowned. He could make no sense of the survivors' ramblings. They sounded more like the secret jargon of some sinister cult.
"Where is the commissar?" Another survivor struggled to grasp Colonel Grimm's greatcoat and looked at him with eyes full of hope and fervor. "Our eldest brother...Commissar Alexander...is he still alive?"
Just then, a faint cough came from deeper within the ruins, stifled by pain.
Everyone's heart leaped into their throat.
The soldiers redoubled their digging. When they finally moved aside an enormous, twisted metal plate, they saw the man everyone had been calling for.
Alexander von Lawrence.
He lay amid the wreckage, half his body pinned beneath a collapsed console. His distinctive black commissar's uniform had been reduced to charred rags, fused to the horrific burns covering his body.
A broken, red-hot metal support had severed his left arm at the shoulder. The mangled flesh at the stump had been scorched into charcoal.
He looked as though he might die at any moment.
Yet he was still alive.
His right hand still clutched a flagpole burned down to half its length. The regimental banner of the 99th Regiment, the Pride of Cadia, embroidered with the Aquila and the Cadian Gate, still hung stubbornly from it, tattered and riddled with holes.
He seemed to sense the change in the light around him and struggled to open his pale golden eyes.
His gaze swept over the silent, ghostlike Krieg soldiers around him before finally settling on the surviving soldiers of the 99th Regiment, who were struggling to crawl toward him.
An exceedingly faint smile appeared on his face, filled with quiet relief.
Then his head fell to one side, and he lost consciousness completely.
"Medic!!!" Commissar Friedrich let out the most frantic, least composed roar of his military career. "Hurry! Whatever it takes! Save him!!!"
The postbattle report soon lay before every senior commander at the subsector's provisional high command.
Its contents were concise and clear, but every word carried the suffocating impact of blood and fire.
[Summary Report on the Defense of Viridia Prime] [Results]: 1. Confirmed elimination of the Ork warlord "Ironjaw" Bonecrusher Grak and all clan leaders under his command. 2. Confirmed annihilation of the Ork ground forces invading Viridia Prime, estimated at between 700,000 and 1,000,000. Enemy elimination rate: 99.9 percent. 3. In coordinated operations, the Imperial Navy has confirmed the defeat of the Ork orbital fleet. The Waaagh! threat has been completely eliminated. [Our Losses]: 1. The 99th Regiment, the Pride of Cadia, stood at 70 percent of full strength before the battle, totaling 3,452 personnel. Confirmed postbattle survivors: 351. Severe injury resulting in permanent disability: 100 percent. The regiment has effectively ceased to exist as a formation. 2. The Iron Temple and surrounding facilities in Agricultural Zone 7 on Viridia Prime have been completely destroyed. Preliminary assessments indicate that this loss will reduce food reserves throughout the Taranis Subsector by 20 percent over the next five years. Widespread famine is anticipated. 3. Commissar Alexander von Lawrence of the 99th Regiment is confirmed alive, but has sustained life-threatening injuries and permanently lost his left arm. Emergency treatment remains ongoing. 4. The report concludes with a handwritten addendum from Colonel Grimm, commander of the Death Korps of Krieg's 17th Siege Regiment, and a psychological assessment of all surviving soldiers of the 99th Regiment, recorded by Commissar Friedrich.
Colonel Grimm's addendum contained only one sentence:
[On my personal honor and that of the Death Korps of Krieg, I attest that the 99th Regiment, the Pride of Cadia, fought the most glorious and tragic battle of sacrifice since the founding of the Imperium, one that should put every soldier and officer of the Astra Militarum to shame. Every one of them is a hero in whom the Emperor should take the greatest pride.]
Commissar Friedrich's assessment was much longer, and contained far more disturbing details.
[...All surviving soldiers exhibit an extreme, abnormal collectivist mentality and a tendency toward a cult of personality. They refer to their unit as a "fireplace," a "home." They regard their commissar, Alexander von Lawrence, as their "eldest brother," a sacred spiritual leader whose authority cannot be questioned.] [...In their understanding, the explosion intended to destroy themselves and the enemy alike was not a military operation, but a glorious, voluntary "collective sacrifice." They believe death is not an end, but a return to the "fireplace" as "fuel," providing warmth for their "family." This ideology has gone entirely beyond the bounds of loyalty and sacrifice espoused by the Ecclesiarchy, displaying...deeply alarming characteristics of a heretical cult.] [...In conclusion, I personally consider Commissar Alexander von Lawrence an extraordinarily dangerous yet extraordinarily effective embodiment of contradictions. He possesses a saintlike ability to unite people, yet employs heretical methods to beguile them. Within mere weeks, he can forge a band of battered, defeated soldiers into a fanatical legion of martyrs capable of changing the course of an entire war. But the price is the complete eradication of humanity and the total loss of reason.] [...I recommend that, even as he is commended, the Inquisition subject him to the strictest and most thorough scrutiny of his loyalty. For I cannot determine whether he and his "Fireplace Theory" will ultimately bring the Imperium salvation, or...a greater, more uncontrollable...fire.]
This report, filled with contradictions and devastating revelations, caused an uproar among the Imperium's highest authorities.
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