Chapter 28: Baptism in the Forge
The storm hit just before dawn.
Not rain, not wind—but fire, steel, and a sky aflame with Ork scrap-fighters streaking down from the clouds. The warning came too late. The vox relays screamed only static, drowned in a pulse of green radiation from some new xeno device. Three outposts went dark in minutes.
Lucien stood on the command balcony of Forward Bastion Theta-9, eyes fixed to the chaos rising from the eastern ridge. Below him, his company scrambled into defensive positions, not panicked—but ready. Ready because they had followed him through death before… and lived.
His second, Marell, rushed up behind him. "Sir. The enemy's bypassed the outer kill-zones. They're aiming straight for us. No reinforcements. No air cover."
Lucien didn't blink. He already knew.
"How many?"
"Three thousand, maybe four. Stompas, nobs, boyz. Too many."
He turned to her. "Then we'll break them. Or fate will."
---
They called it The Crucible of Theta-9 in the reports that followed.
What happened there would ripple across the subsector. Whispers spread. Ballads formed. And a new name was born.
But it began with blood.
---
The Orks hit like a green tidal wave, screaming WAAAGH!s that made the steel walls shiver. Their tanks belched oily smoke. Their weirdboyz shrieked lightning. Every logical metric said Lucien's company should have died in the first hour.
But luck doesn't bow to logic.
Shells meant for Lucien misfired. Mines planted by his engineers failed to detonate until after Orks marched over them. A gretchin saboteur's explosives pack exploded backward. One trooper, Marcus Lorne—shot in the chest—landed in a trench seconds before a bomb exploded where he'd stood.
More and more, the uncanny spread. His command squad survived an explosion that vaporized the platoon beside them. Medics reported men with critical injuries healing faster than expected. One man had a bullet lodged near his heart—and somehow, it stopped millimeters short, deflected by a dog tag twisted just the right way.
Soldiers noticed. "The Captain's near—we'll make it."
They fought harder. Shot straighter. Moved faster.
The Orks faltered.
---
At the height of the third hour, a Stompa—a thirty-meter titan of smoke, oil, and iron—trampled into the central compound. Its saw-blade arm screamed. Its megacannon charged.
Lucien didn't retreat.
He charged.
With only a dozen stormtroopers at his side, he led the push, drawing the Stompa's fire.
It missed. Again. And again.
Its foot slipped on the bloodied metal platform, twisted awkwardly. The megacannon backfired, melting the cockpit from within. The warboss inside burned as Lucien's grenadiers climbed its leg and detonated charges.
The beast toppled—and with it, so did the Orks' momentum.
The humans rallied. And when the dust settled, only the dead didn't cheer.
---
That night, after the medicae teams finished, Lucien stood atop the battered rampart, his uniform burned, his skin coated in ash and blood. Dozens gathered beneath, some limping, some missing limbs, others weeping with joy.
They chanted.
Not just "Vale." Not just "Captain."
"Emperor's Blade!"
"The Blade stands!"
"He cuts fate itself!"
Lucien felt the words slice through his chest—not in pain, but in awe. The ring at his soul's core pulsed once, warmer than ever before. It approved.
He wasn't just a survivor anymore. He was a symbol.
---
Later, in a quiet chamber, Marell approached him, wrapping a fresh bandage around her bruised ribs.
"Captain… this name. It's spreading. Even off-world."
Lucien looked up. "I didn't ask for a title."
"No one ever does," she said. "But you earned it. They saw the impossible and lived through it. You made them believe."
He stared at the small aquila on the table. Not the regulation one—his. A scorched metal badge his father gave him, bent, old. It had survived fire, plasma, and time. Just like him.
"I'm afraid of what I might become," he admitted.
"Then let your fear keep you human," Marell replied. "The moment you stop fearing is the moment you become something else."
---
Inquisitor Virella returned days later, escorted by four acolytes. She spoke little. But her eyes scanned Lucien for something deeper. She watched his men salute. Saw the wounded reach out to touch his coat like a relic.
"You are becoming an idea," she warned.
Lucien shrugged. "Better an idea that gives hope than the despair we live in."
"Many heresies begin with hope."
"And yet, so did the Imperium."
She narrowed her eyes. "For now, I let you stand. But there will come a test beyond battle—beyond fate. When it comes, you will stand alone. Without luck. Without title. And I will be watching."
Then she left.
---
Weeks later, High Command relented. Lucien was formally promoted to Captain Vale, seconded to a new regiment formed from survivors of destroyed units—men who had already fought beside him. The name on their newly minted banners?
The Emperor's Blade Company.
They moved to the next front. A hive world teetering on civil war and Chaos infiltration. New trials awaited. New darkness. But now, Lucien no longer walked with doubt at his back.
He had men who trusted him.
He had a title that burned across vox-traffic like a comet.
And deep within, the ring whispered.
More is coming, Tavian Cassian. Much more. The galaxy remembers heroes—but it fears legends.
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