News of Angron’s betrayal spread quickly, but it was almost entirely limited across the privileged lords and administrators in the upper echelons of the Imperium, the primarch brotherhood included. The orders from the Emperor were also equally quick to be delivered throughout every subsector.

Angron was declared a traitor, turned from the enlightenment of the Imperium, and his capture or elimination was deemed an immediate priority. Once more the Great Crusade was slowed down, this time to draw whole legions into forming a hunting force to stop their turncoat counterpart.

Leman led the punitive force with the entirety of his VIth Legion. With him was Ferrus and his Iron Hands, outraged at Angron’s blatant madness and the damage dealt to his forces from the sudden treachery. 

Fulgrim and his Emperor’s Children Legion more than gladly accepted the call to muster, eager to rectify the slight against the Emperor and the Imperium. Mortarion also joined the expedition with the entirety of his Death Guard, while dutiful Roboute drew a sizable force from his Ultramarines that were spread across various theaters of war and sent them on a course that might see them intercept the World Eaters’ battered fleet.

At least Angron’s goal was obvious enough: The Nexus Unity.

Perturabo and Lorgar put the cordon worlds bordering the Nexus Unity on high alert, while their fleets were made ready to intercept their errant brother’s at a moment’s notice.

In the meantime, detainment orders went out for those few World Eaters elements that had been assigned elsewhere. Most protested against the order when their cousins asked them to stand down. Few survived to be dragged into holding cells. Fewer still went along willingly.

On the other hand, Magnus was well aware of the scrutiny he and his sons now faced from the Emperor and his brothers. Having Lion ‘oversee’ him as they continued waging a war of compliance several sectors away was tolerable, but the appearance of several the Emperor’s own Custodes cruisers that spread themselves across the Thousand Sons fleet quietly rankled the primarch. Magnus idly wondered if there were other brothers who received similar treatment.

Konrad would most likely see some form of visitation, though Magnus had to admit some amusement in speculating as to how his reclusive brother might react. 

Might Corax, with his belief in freedom from tyranny, be assigned minders too?

Could Sanguinius’ loyalty ever be doubted, even with whatever deal he had struck with Sev?

Stuck on the other end of the Imperium to wage war against voracious aliens, Magnus could only wildly guess about this new metric of loyalty. Idle thoughts they might be, but it was vastly more preferable than dwelling on the other disturbing fact around the World Eater’s betrayal.

If the reports were accurate, Leman and his Space Wolves had been far from hesitant in seeking out Angron the moment the latter defied his orders. For all of Ferrus’ outrage, for all his bellicosity, it was Leman who had immediately ordered for a planetary invasion to seize Angron without restraint. There had been no hesitation, no uncertainty.

Imperial sanction was, through the Wolf King, delivered with concerning alacrity.

He’d been given permission beforehand, Magnus had realized. The Emperor had expected the possibility of Angron defecting.

It was hard for Magnus not to look for any signs of similar contingencies aimed at him and his legion. Lion El’Jonson was a stark contrast to Leman Russ in many things, but they were alike in their uncompromising loyalty to the Emperor. And Magnus would admit fearing the composed and keen-minded primarch of the First far more than he did reckless and savage Russ. Even with the camaraderie recently built up between their legions, Magnus had no doubt that if the order ever came down, Lion would show little hesitation in enacting said order

For all their collective psychic might, there was little doubt of the Thousand Sons’ fate if the Dark Angels of the Lion was ordered to purge them. Not only was the First Legion more than twice as large, it had access to ancient, practically arcane technology that more than made up for their psychic disadvantage.

It was a good thing then, that Magnus was not so torn between his ideals and the Imperium. And that the foes he currently faced, these torment-feeding monstrosities, were unequivocally deserving of extinction.

Not that the primarch did not feel some resentment at having a brother who might be his executioner judging his every step.

*****

“How many are we expecting?” I asked warily, staring at the report projected holographically for everyone to see, hovering next to a projection of the galactic map.

“Pessimistic projections are at just under 20,000 legionnaires left, with no combat-operable fleet elements,” Eva answered serenely. 

“Hm. Realistic one then?”

“Approximately 50,000 legionnaires, with less than half of their reported fleet size crossing into our borders in any operable form.”

A meeting had been hastily convened after refugees of the hybridized Vhalix people poured through one of our Webway portals in Commorragh, bearing interesting news of an Imperium invasion. They had been one of the human(ish) races we encountered as slaves during our invasion of Commorragh, and our diplomatic relations had barely had time to germinate. The Vhalix Unitary Government was thankful for the liberation of their people, but they chose to keep a distance from establishing anything beyond polite and infrequent correspondence with us.

Fair play to them. The Nexus was happy being its own, single-planet thing until the Imperium came knocking. At least they let us build the Webway gate on their planet as a show of potential friendship.

The important part was that they weren’t dicks to us, so when Cabal pinged me about a desperate request from the Vhalix’s end of the Webway gate, I didn’t think too much before giving him the green light to let them in. Not to say that precautions weren’t taken; Cabal and Legion had protocols for this sort of thing already, with stealth bots screening for any signs of trouble, and the whole Terminus structure ready to be voided into a sun if push came to shove.

Initial reports gathered from those few thousand Vhalix folk that ultimately made it through had painted a surprising picture: Their homeworld had been victim to an Imperium surprise attack, foiled only by the timely warning from other Imperium elements. For some reason or another, Angron and his World Eaters had turned against his brothers and helped buy time for the Vhalix people to barely escape extinction. 

Our embassy station orbiting Terra corroborated the development by relaying back the official - but not fully public - condemnation of Angron and his legion as traitors. Assuming that the Imperium hadn’t noticed or cared that we could intercept their messages at our leisure, which I highly doubted at least for now, we had full access to the new marching orders as they were sent out for a few legions to surround and destroy one of their own.

I stared at the numbers hovering peacefully in the air, and then glanced to the stellar map beside it tracking the estimated location of the World Eaters’ fleet.

“So, the main question,” I finally said, “the question that matters… Do we help them?”

Nora, of all people, was the first person to voice her thoughts on the matter. “You mean intervene directly, leaving Nexus borders, to help them, right?”

I nodded, understanding why she was seeking clarification. As Angron and his legion were not Nexus citizens, this was something that was, strictly speaking, beyond the purview of Nexus Laws. 

Rules As Written is that the Nexus Unity will offer what reasonable aid it can against persecution and oppression to anyone who earnestly seeks it, wherever they might be in this world.

Back when we were expanding and encountering new societies, the hairpulling had been on the words ‘earnestly seeks it’. 

In this case, it’s probably going to be ‘in this world’ for those who would argue from the ‘Read As Intended’ perspective.

I sense another damned round of amendments is coming up for the laws...

Nora let out a sigh that almost echoed in the meeting room. “As much as dealing with jingoistic and genetically tampered soldiers disgust me, I am tentatively for intervention.”

“Does the Emperor remind you of Shaun so much?” I reflexively joked.

Her reply was equally quick and deadpan. “No, he reminds me of you.”

We exchanged wry grins, and everyone else was familiar enough with the cordial dislike between the two of us to comment.

“But yeah, we might not be strictly obligated to help them, but brainwashed and hyper-grown soldiers seeking an escape from a megalomaniacal interstellar regime are deserving of some help. Even more so if they are seeking rehabilitation.”

Curie joined in, frowning with some concern as she spoke. “While I do not care for the Imperium of Man, aiding this primarch will mean we will be breaking Pax Nexus. Thus far, the Nexus has kept to its word, be it to reassure or to threaten, and while we have used loopholes, we have taken very few liberties in actually bending contracts with external parties. Breaking a treaty, especially a treaty we’ve insisted on, would not be good for us.”

“Our treaty with the Imperium is comprehensive,” Kelly agreed with a serious nod. “We’ve been careful to cover as many possible scenarios involving overt and covert hostility with them, which in turns applies to us as well.”

“And we can’t use the Eldar either, as they’d count as our lackeys,” Curie added. 

“The provisions against instigating or supplying third parties…” I held back the urge to groan at the thoroughness of my legal team. “So, intervention is out the window. Is there anything we can do to very indirectly help Angron?”

Cait gave an annoyed grunt. “Most obvious thing is to do something to really draw the gaudy fucks’ attention to redeploy their troops.” 

“In a way that’s at least not clearly provocative,” Piper added. “Besides, the Imperium doesn’t know that we know yet, right? At least the ‘primarch growing a conscience and fleeing towards us’ part.”

“True that,” the redhead replied as the others nodded.

“Hm…” I stared again at the holograms, and then regarded my advisors and confidantes. “Before we get too ahead of ourselves, we have to conclude the poll. How many here are for helping the fleeing legion, whether it’s conditional aid or otherwise, assuming that it’s not an elaborate ploy and we don’t compromise on Pax Nexus while we’re at it?”

There was a unanimous chorus of agreement.

“Just to be thorough, any against?”

I gave the silence a couple of seconds before nodding with satisfaction and turning to the galactic map. “Right then. I think I found a valid distraction, but I’ll need to be sure we’d be completely clean from this. Zoom to Shroom Doom system.”

Many heads perked up at that, realizing the same potential that I had seen.

“Now, assuming the Imperium is in the dark about our decryption capabilities, what happens if we deactivate the ork beacon, vacate the system, and say leave a figurative arrow pointing the horde of green aliens away from our system?”

Sarah chuckled before glancing at Madison. “If I remember right, we’ve more or less cracked the ork language?”

The venerable professor gave a snort of derision. “It’s barely deserving of that definition. Doomgeese have better syntax in their honks. But yes, we have a…reasonable understanding of the aliens’ speech. And thanks to your pointers, Sev, what passes for their culture.”

I couldn’t help smiling at how doable the whole plan was sounding. 

“I’ll need details before I can sic my team to pore over what terms we might be ‘inadvertently’ breaking,” Nora added thoughtfully.

The brainstorming that followed took up pretty much a day and a half…if we weren’t in a time dilated chamber. Which meant we exited the meeting with a fraction of realtime spent, equipped with a comprehensive plan and with minimal catchup required with Angron’s situation. I was also a bit giddy with excitement as Madison went back to Vault Gesserit to procure some samples of ork heads. We’ll be testing out some very rough prototype tech, picking away at alien physiology, helping a not-so-angry primarch, and annoying the Imperium all at the same time.

What’s not to like?