Instead, there were more than three hundred men in clean hospital gowns, their bodies likewise wrapped in bandages, leaning on crutches or sitting in wheelchairs, yet their eyes shone as brightly as burning flames.
They were the last surviving embers of the Pride of Cadia's 99th Regiment.
They were his "family."
When they saw the young Commissar sitting on the hospital bed, his left arm now a fearsome mass of steel, these three hundred hardened men who had never taken a single step back before the Ork tide instantly felt their eyes redden.
"Elder Brother!"
Someone was the first to cry out in a hoarse voice.
Then came a second, a third...
They said nothing more. Silently, they mustered every ounce of strength to straighten their backs and gave the young man on the bed impeccably crisp military salutes.
There was no sympathy in their eyes, no pity.
Only the purest, most fervent adoration and joy.
Their Elder Brother was still alive.
The heart of their "fireplace," its brightest flame, had not gone out.
That was enough.
Alexander looked at the familiar faces before him, at their gruesome scars and missing limbs, and a trace of tenderness surfaced in his pale golden eyes.
He slowly raised his new, cold steel left hand and returned an equally crisp military salute.
"Welcome home, brothers."
His voice was quiet, but it reached every soldier's ears clearly.
"Home... home..."
Hearing that word, a young soldier who had lost a leg and could only lean against a comrade could no longer contain his emotions. Tears poured forth like floodwaters bursting through a dam.
Yes, home.
These orphans abandoned by the world finally had somewhere they could call "home."
And their Elder Brother was the heart of that home.
The atmosphere in the ward was warm and solemn. Yet this brief peace belonging to the survivors was soon mercilessly shattered by synchronized, oppressive footsteps drawing closer from afar.
Tap, tap, tap, tap...
The sound was like the pendulum of death, striking every heart with exact precision.
Outside the ward, all the lights in the corridor seemed to dim in an instant. A cold, suffocating shadow, laden with death and authority, enveloped the entire Medical Monastery.
Two Imperial Stormtroopers wearing black carapace armor, carrying Hellguns, and sporting fearsome skull masks roughly shoved open the ward's door.
Then a man slowly entered, wearing a long black coat embroidered in silver thread with a huge "I" insignia symbolizing judgment.
His face was deeply furrowed, like a dried riverbed. His hawklike eyes, sunken deep in their sockets, gleamed with cold, emotionless scrutiny. An ornate Power Sword hung at his waist, alongside an equally ornate Bolt Pistol that radiated death.
Two attendants followed him, likewise dressed in black coats but with even more sinister demeanors.
Their arrival was like an invisible mountain suddenly pressing down upon the hearts of every soldier of the 99th Regiment.
The joy on their faces froze instantly, replaced by vigilance and hostility.
Instinctively, they stepped forward, forming a wall with their bodies to shield the Elder Brother sitting on the bed behind them.
"Stand aside."
The Inquisitor's voice was just like the man himself: cold, dry, and filled with unquestionable authority.
Yet not a single soldier moved.
They simply stared him down with flame-filled eyes. Without realizing it, they had clenched their fists until their knuckles turned white.
"I said, stand aside."
An impatient chill flashed through the Inquisitor's eyes. The two Stormtroopers behind him immediately stepped forward and raised their Hellguns, dangerous blue arcs flickering at the muzzles.
The ward instantly became a powder keg, as though a bloody clash might erupt at any moment.
"Everyone, stand aside."
Just then, a calm voice sounded from behind the human wall.
It was Alexander.
He had sat upright on the bed, and his steel left hand rested gently on the shoulder of a soldier standing before him.
"Let him through."
Though the soldiers were reluctant, they still obeyed their Elder Brother's command without question. The human wall slowly parted, opening a path to the hospital bed.
The Inquisitor's expression did not change in the slightest. With measured steps, he approached Alexander's bed and looked down at the young Commissar sitting there with only one arm remaining.
"Alexander von Lawrence." The Inquisitor spoke slowly, his voice sounding as though he were reading out a verdict. "I am Inquisitor Valerius of the Inquisition's Ordo Hereticus."
"By order of the Lord Inquisitor, I have come to investigate your suspected use of unauthorized tactics during the battle of Viridia Prime, your incitement of abnormal sentiments among the soldiers, and... the possible dissemination of heretical ideas."
"Now, I order you to get dressed and come with me."
His words reignited the fury of the 99th Regiment's soldiers, which had only just been quelled.
"You can't take him!"
"Elder Brother is a hero! He saved the entire sector!"
"You cowards do nothing but hide behind the lines! What right do you have to judge a hero?!"
The soldiers grew agitated once more. They pressed forward, their three hundred battered, incomplete bodies combining into a presence powerful enough to strike fear into anyone.
"Silence!"
Inquisitor Valerius abruptly raised his voice. An invisible, icy aura, filled with crushing psychic pressure, erupted from him!
It was the psychic aura unique to an Inquisitor, forged through countless interrogations and killings, condensed from the purest, coldest will!
The temperature in the ward seemed to plunge to freezing in an instant. The agitated soldiers felt as though an icy steel needle had stabbed viciously into their brains, leaving their heads splitting with pain and rendering them unable to think.
Yet just as this psychic storm was about to crush every soldier's will completely.
An equally powerful force, utterly different in nature, rose from the hospital bed.
It was a force filled with warmth and affinity, yet possessed of a gentle strength like spring breezes and nourishing rain. Without a sound, it effortlessly dissolved the Inquisitor's bladelike aura of will into nothing.