The Cold Equation

[Grandfather's Watch and Love] + [Heretical Leader].

For the first time, at Alexander's will, the two passive abilities actively unleashed their power.

For the first time, a flicker of genuine, grave alarm crossed Inquisitor Valerius's hawklike eyes!

He could sense the nature of that power. It was not psychic power, nor any known form of Chaos corruption.

It was something... more fundamental, purer-a strange power beyond his understanding that acted directly upon the human heart and faith itself!

"I'll go with you, Lord Inquisitor."

Alexander spoke. His face was sickly pale, but his gaze was as calm as a bottomless well.

He slowly rose from the bed, his steel left hand giving a faint hiss of hydraulic actuation.

"But before I leave, I want a guarantee."

"You have no right to bargain with me, suspected heretic," Valerius said coldly. Yet his hand unconsciously tightened around his sword hilt.

"They are heroes of the Imperium." Alexander ignored his words and pointed with his intact right hand toward the more than three hundred soldiers behind him, their faces burning with fervor. "They shed their blood, lost their limbs, and burned through everything they had to defend the Emperor's domain. They deserve the honors and treatment due to heroes, not to be treated like a pack of lunatics who need watching in a cold hospital ward."

"I demand that the best follow-up treatment and recuperation be arranged for them immediately. I demand that their deeds be reported to Terra without a single word omitted! I demand that the Imperium give them everything they are owed!"

His voice grew louder and firmer. The commanding presence radiating from him exerted an inexplicable pressure even on the battle-hardened Inquisitor Valerius.

"They paid for this with their lives. If anyone dares withhold so much as a fraction, if anyone dares forget a single name, I, Alexander von Lawrence, will chase him to the ends of the Warp, twist his head off, and use it as a chamber pot!"

"Are you... threatening an Inquisitor?" Valerius's single eye narrowed to a dangerous slit.

"No, I'm merely stating a fact." Alexander smiled, showing his white teeth. "And passing along a small request from these three hundred-odd members of my family."

Valerius fell silent.

He looked at the young man before him, who had only one arm left, then at the more than three hundred maimed soldiers behind him, staring him down like rabid wolves protecting their young.

He knew that if he refused those terms today, he might still be able to use the authority of the Inquisition to take the young man away by force.

But the price would be an immense scandal: more than three hundred decorated combat heroes of the Imperium openly attacking and killing an Inquisitor here.

And he, Valerius, would certainly never leave this ward alive.

"...Fine."

After a long while, he forced the word through clenched teeth.

"I will personally oversee the matter. Now, will you come with me, Lord... Commissar?"

Alexander smiled in satisfaction.

He turned and spread his arms toward the more than three hundred members of his "family," their faces filled with worry and reluctance to see him go.

"Brothers, I'm going on a long journey. When I return, I'll bring you the Emperor's commendations and a brand-new mission."

"Until I return, there's only one thing you need to do."

"Heal your wounds. Stay alive."

"Then wait for me to lead you to light... a bigger fireplace."

With that, under the "escort" of Inquisitor Valerius and the two statue-like Stormtroopers, he walked steadily out of the ward, step by step, and disappeared at the end of the corridor.

Only the more than three hundred surviving soldiers remained in the ward, gazing for a long time in the direction he had gone, their eyes burning with a fanatic fire fierce enough to consume the entire universe.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of light-years away, on Holy Terra-the cradle and heart of human civilization.

Deep within the magnificent Imperial Palace, that continent-spanning edifice, the greatest architectural marvel in human history, stood a vast hall large enough to accommodate several Titan Legions, yet now empty of everything but silence and solemnity.

A godlike figure, towering far beyond mortal proportions, sat upon an immense throne fashioned from star adamantium and wraithbone.

He wore azure power armor engraved with white "U" insignia. He had short golden hair and a face as perfect and resolute as a sculpture from ancient Terra. His eyes held no trace of emotion, only pure reason and logic, as fathomless as the stars.

He was the Imperial Regent, the Lord of Ultramar, the father of the Astartes, and the Primarch of the Thirteenth Legion-Roboute Guilliman.

This legendary demigod, who had awakened from ten thousand years of slumber and single-handedly pulled the Imperium back from the brink of collapse, was now quietly reading a battle report with the highest encryption clearance, newly arrived from the distant Gothic Subsector.

The report was titled "Summary Report on the Defense of Viridia Prime."

Guilliman read with incredible speed. Like the most sophisticated biological computer, his brain processed the report's vast quantities of data and tactical analysis in mere seconds.

His face remained expressionless.

But his fingers tapped lightly and unconsciously against the throne's armrest.

"...With a depleted Astra Militarum regiment scheduled for disbandment, at only seventy percent of full strength and without any heavy weapons support, they faced the main force of an Ork Waaagh! estimated at over seven hundred thousand head-on, held for more than thirty-six hours, and ultimately, at the cost of a ninety-percent fatality rate, annihilated the Ork warlord and his core command staff along with at least five hundred thousand ground troops in a single stroke..."

"...The tactical foundation was an extreme, highly inflammatory wartime ideology named the 'Fireplace Theory' by their Commissar..."

"...The central tactic involved using grain dust within an industrial facility to create a deliberate, mutually destructive strategic-scale explosion with a yield equivalent to a minor Exterminatus event..."

For the first time, a ripple stirred the sea of reason in Guilliman's eyes, as fathomless as the stars.