Chapter 243: Going to Eat
Turns out, stalling your assignments is a really bad idea.
Hades had now transformed into a public-administration machine, face expressionless as he churned through paperwork.
First came Astelan's pleasantry letter—this guy had taken a massive shipment of fuel and munitions from the Death Guard, then promptly slipped away with the Dark Angels in tow. Garro and Mortarion had personally attended the send-off ceremony.
At the ceremony, Mortarion had apparently been itching to mock the Dark Angels, but Garro managed to dissuade him.
Hades quickly penned a return pleasantry letter to Astelan. The general content? "Hearing your words was like… hearing your words."
Next came Rust's reconstruction plan. The Magos there were hoping to be incorporated under the Death Guard's command.
Hades gave the documents a careful once-over—good, no suspicious religious traces—though his suspicion toward these tech-heads remained sky-high.
Approved, approved. The more Forge Worlds the Death Guard has, the better. Besides, Rust was nowhere near Graia's scale and had been half-ruined in the fighting, so this partnership would clearly be Death Guard–led.
In practice, they would be semi-dependent on the Death Guard. Unlike Graia, which had its own independent military forces, Rust clearly didn't have the confidence to bargain much with them.
The Magos of Rust, grateful for Hades's role in breaking them out, even volunteered to build him a starship.
Normally, for a Forge World, producing a good ship required serious technical capacity and equipment.
But the Magos swore by the quality of Rust's World Furnace—first-class, they said—hand the job to them, and there'd be no problem at all.
Hades thought it over. Not bad.
Back when he'd gone to support the World Furnace, he'd already gotten the sense that it was of unusually high spec.
It had struck him as a bit odd at the time—but hey, a good furnace makes good steel… even if the World Furnace wasn't for smelting iron in the first place.
Among the Death Guard's more famous ships were the Gloriana-class Battleship, the Endurance..
And then there was the Fourth Horseman, Terminus Est, and the Reaper's Scythe.
The Death Guard had plenty of ships, and if Hades wanted, he could have easily picked one as his personal flagship.
But until now, he'd never been interested—the Endurance was good enough, and most Death Guard ships felt far too heavy and clumsy in his eyes.
Now, though, the Magos were offering to build him a custom vessel—
Who could possibly turn down a sleek, brand-new spaceship?
Certainly not Hades.
As for his requirements… no rush. Rust was still rebuilding, and production wouldn't be quick. He had time to think it over.
Tentatively, he envisioned a fast, low-profile craft that could house Zero Company—quiet, swift, and efficient.
Yes, that would do. Hades wrote back to the Magos of Rust with due gravity, praising their meticulous work ethic and offering a few constructive suggestions for their future cooperation with the Death Guard.
With the tech-heads sorted, Hades moved on with the approvals.
Galaspar's new recruit surgeries were nearly complete; training could begin soon. He needed to notify the Armoury to start producing armor.
The Barbarus redevelopment reports were in—some politically savvy planetary governors were already trying to make contact with Barbarus's administration.
Drune's construction was proceeding steadily, and the third wave of Galaspar troop transport and stationing operations was now underway.
Galaspar's production was running smoothly. After a period of watchful waiting, nearby planets had begun signing foreign trade agreements with them.
Hades weighed Mint's production capacity alongside Galaspar's growth and began to consider launching another round of Hadeshound recruitment.
Now that output could keep pace, the recruitment of mortal auxiliaries and administrative personnel could be normalized.
Without hesitation, Hades issued new recruitment orders to Galaspar—bring in as many as you can; the Legion can afford it.
This time, the workload assigned to Hades was heavy, though there were no war reports, since those had all been taken over by Vorx and Garro.
When Hades finally wrestled himself free from the back-and-forth with Rust's Mechanicum, he realized he was the last one in the entire Legion to finish his administrative duties.
Vorx was leading the senior staff in analyzing the battle reports approved by the Primarch; Garro was out with the Blank squads sweeping the Rust system once more for possible anomalies; Mortarion had already moved on to his next batch of recruit training plans.
Only Hades had to claw his way out from a tangle of red-robed tech-priests, his expression one of near-death fatigue.
His talks with Rust had mainly been about cooperation agreements, with a side task of triple-checking that they hadn't tinkered with their faith.
Well… fine. If they wanted to pray to the Omnissiah, what was it to him?
As long as they avoided certain keywords, they could never truly reach the real object of worship.
On another front, Hades had fitted Margo with a full suite of surveillance gear, then sent her to root out any disloyal elements in the Hadeshound ranks.
He'd explicitly instructed Margo to forbid proselytizing—if Hades saw or heard anything from the monitors that wasn't supposed to be there…
Korklan and Jin, as usual, had been dumped into the research and forge zones, either building Wraith Knights or tinkering with other Blackstone tech.
That lantern he'd given Ugo last time? It had actually been one of Korklan's earlier tech prototypes.
With another war wrapped up, the Death Guard—having just ticked the latest campaign off their schedule—naturally received no immediate summons from the Imperium for the next one.
In contrast, Mortarion, in his personal capacity as a Primarch, received an invitation to a gathering on a world at the fringes of this grand theatre of war.
Mortarion had little interest in attending.
That didn't mean he wasn't curious—being suddenly told you had a whole slew of brothers, even if you knew they were all bastards, still sparked enough curiosity to take a look, if only to satisfy it.
Hades didn't think much of it. This hadn't happened in the original canon—either it was too minor to be recorded, or it had something to do with Nuceria and had been erased from the records.
Either way, during the Nucerian campaign, the Death Guard hadn't been involved in anything sensitive, so there was nothing to worry about.
To him, this was probably just a Primarch meet-and-greet—put faces to names, so if two Legions ended up fighting together later, things wouldn't be awkward.
Primarchs could bring their honor guard along. This time, the Death Guard was sending Hades and Garro—Garro because, as an old Terran veteran, he had connections with soldiers from other Legions and could smooth communications.
Hades was going because… he wanted to mooch a meal.
Not that he was dissatisfied with Death Guard rations. In fact, the Death Guard ate the same food across the board, and they didn't particularly care what it was.
And since Hades was, in practice, the Legion's supply officer, the menu was, in a sense, his doing anyway.
The Legion's food supply was always a logistical headache—it depended on where the Legion was stationed, how supplies could be transported, and the timing of shipments.
If you wanted to add variety to the menu, that meant they would need to constantly change purchase orders, adjusting coordination channels, and some other bureaucratic nightmares.
And frankly, Hades always found it strange to tack on "a few tens of thousands of tons of onions" right after "several tens of thousands of tons of refined adamantium" on a procurement list.
Of course, senior officers could set their own menus or add personal touches—like the Emperor's Children or the Ultramarines did.
But thanks to having a very unfussy Primarch, none of those habits had taken root in the Death Guard. They maintained a high degree of uniformity, which made Hades' supply manifests blissfully simple to write.
In short: no waste, no luxury. The Death Guard lived a life that could almost be called austere.
How other Legionaries blew off steam, Hades didn't know. What he did know was that his own sleep had been stripped away by work, so he needed to find entertainment somewhere else.
Life needed fun. Hades strongly condemned his own work-induced stress.
So, when he encountered an opportunity to eat a meal that didn't require using Legion resources, such a feast could not go unmooched by any self-respecting man.
With solemn dignity, Hades stepped off the Stormbird in full dress uniform.
He hadn't eaten breakfast—though, to be fair, the Death Guard didn't have breakfast.
This was a gathering of Primarchs.
Hades reminded himself: Astartes and mortals were just spectators here. He had no business butting into Primarch conversations.
It wasn't like he could jump in and say "Whoa, whoa, let's all calm down" if Mortarion started throwing barbed comments at someone.
Hades trusted Mortarion—at least enough to believe he couldn't possibly make his relationships worse than they had been in the original timeline.
After certain experiences, Mortarion had learned when to shut up.
Which made Hades' own task very clear:
Go. Eat.
And if he was lucky, maybe he'd get to watch a live primetime episode of the Primarch Family Drama Show while he was at it.
In the distance, a castle rose tall and regal against a backdrop of forest, its walls catching the sunlight and gleaming with golden edges.
Hades frowned.
He could already see the absurdly overdressed honor guard waiting to welcome them.
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