The temporary headquarters of the Eighth Army is located in an independent building with a total of thirteen floors and a vast area.
The Ultramarines did not let their numbers slow them down, everything was of the highest standard, even the flag of the Eighth Legion was raised on the top of the building. The citizens of Macragge who were coming and going could see it whistling in the wind with just one glance. This was very unusual. After all, Macragge had not had other legions visiting it in the past.
Many newspapers spent a lot of time describing these soldiers from another legion. The descriptions were different, but the photos all invariably showed the gloomy appearance of the Eighth Legion on the tarmac that day.
This is quite interesting. The curiosity of the Macragge people is obvious. Many interview applications have even been sent to the temporary station these days - as for who is responsible for picking up, you may already have the answer.
Besides Siani of Terra, who else can still maintain this vitality in today's situation?
"No, we don't do interviews," Siani said. "Yes, we are soldiers of the First Company of the Eighth Legion, but we do not accept interviews."
He hung up the phone and sighed inevitably - to this day, Siani couldn't figure out why Macragge was able to establish such a relationship between the Astartes and the civilians.
The latter do not regard the former as some kind of superior god, but as an integral part of society. They talked about the Ultramarines with pride, but they didn't seem distant, but rather very close.
"How many times?" someone asked in the darkness.
——If you ask...
Yes.
They don't turn on the lights.
Siani said without looking back: "The tenth time today."
"The Primarch is on top...this gives me a bit of a toothache."
"Come on, your teeth were all replaced with alloy twenty-one years ago."
"I'm talking about phantom pain," the man in the dark said. "Every time I'm in a bad mood, it happens."
"Then haven't you been in pain for twenty-one years, Morets?" Siani grinned and began to instinctively mock the adjutant of the first company. He was punished many times for this, but never learned his lesson.
The latter just snorted in response to his words, and then ignored him. For a moment, the atmosphere in the resident office was almost as silent as a cemetery.
Whenever this happens, it means whoever speaks next will bring the dead back to life - or, rather, they will say something that's enough to make the dead jump out of their coffins.
"Is the company commander dead?" Siani asked suddenly.
"..."
The adjutant said nothing, and there was some kind of breathing sound coming from the darkness.
"Do you know something, Morets?"
"No, I don't know," the adjutant replied stiffly. "But I know another thing. Van Cleef will be quite angry at what you said."
"I'd rather see him angry," Siani muttered. "We haven't seen him in six days."
"Maybe it's official business."
"However, something was wrong when we were still on the transport ship - or in other words, something was wrong with him from the moment we set off. Moreover, what kind of official duties could keep him busy enough to prevent him from returning to the station for six days? He also I’m not an instructor, I never take a break.”
"...The instructor took a break."
"How do you know? Have you seen it?"
"I have seen."
Molec nodded in the darkness - to be precise, he nodded behind Siani - to be more precise, he nodded to another giant who appeared at an unknown time.
"Really?"
"Of course it's true." A third voice sounded, soft and gentle. "How can I not need rest, Siani?"
Siani from Terra turned her head sharply.
"Well--!"
"There is no need to explain, Siani, we all heard clearly." Morets said seriously. "We are not being bombarded to the point of hearing loss."
"I......"
"I just get less rest." Khalil chuckled. "But that doesn't mean I don't need to rest. A person's energy is always limited...such as your company commander."
"What's wrong with him, instructor?" the adjutant asked.
"He's been through a tough war." Khalil answered softly in the darkness. "A fight to the death, and he won."
"So he's...in the hospital now?" Siani asked tentatively.
"Yes."
"Can we go see him?"
"No, Siani, unless you want to disturb his recovery."
"But I have a lot of things I want to ask him."
"Me too," Khalil said. "But I chose to wait until he recovered."
"...Is this an order?" The young man from Terra asked reluctantly.
"Yes."
Then, he heard his instructor reply with a serious tone.
"This is the order of the instructor of the Eighth Legion, Siani, do you obey it?"
"...I obey."
------------------
"How do you feel about talking face to face with such a giant, ma'am?" Robert Guilliman asked, his head lowered. A torrent of numbers flowed across the dataslate, but not a single number slipped away. He caught them all.
"Is this an apology, my lord? For my unauthorized actions?"
"..."
Guilliman didn't answer, just raised his head and glanced at her.
Tarasha Yuton sat on a human-sized chair and waited for his answer. She sat across from the marble table with a very interesting expression. For a moment it seemed to Guilliman that she was still angry. But judging by her raised right eyebrow, she was probably just joking.
For a moment, he was not sure what his housekeeper was thinking.
So he decided to be honest.
"Of course not," said Guilliman. "I'm just worried about you."
"What are you worried about me for? Do you think he will be angry with me?"
"That's not true."
"Then what are you worried about, my lord?"
"...Today is Saturday, ma'am, you don't go to work today, so can you stop calling me sir?"
"No, housekeepers don't have holidays - I've told you a long time ago that I don't like holidays, but you insist on giving me two days of holidays a week. Do you want me to lie in bed and waste time doing nothing? ?」
Robert Guilliman suddenly felt a headache.
He put down the dataslate and inevitably glanced up at the two portraits. His adoptive mother watched the action unfold.
"I'm asking you a question, my lord." She frowned. "Even if you don't plan to answer, you shouldn't complain to your adoptive father."
Guilliman almost laughed - in his impression, Jotun rarely joked, let alone such a childish joke.
He wanted to cover up this emotion with his most common serious expression, but failed. The lady sitting opposite him just wrinkled her face deliberately, and his efforts were in vain.
Robert Guilliman finally laughed.
"I'm sorry." He smiled and apologized sincerely. "But I really can't help it, ma'am."
Tarasha Youton didn't answer, but just smiled. Between the stretched wrinkles, a sense of relief began to spread.
"I hope you're okay, my dear sir." She said softly. "You silly kid, you really think I'm here to challenge you today, don't you?"
"You have done this before, my lady," Guilliman said.
. "I remember every sarcasm you said to me. For example, last time, you said that the clothes I wore when I went to meet Rogge and the others were far less serious and formal than the ceremonial armor."
"Is not it?"
"Yes." Guilliman nodded. "You put me to shame, ma'am."
"I dare not accept such a comment..."
Guilliman did not answer this sentence, but instead picked up the data tablet and handed it to Joden on the other side of the marble table. The latter stretched out his hands to take it, and then placed it on the marble table. on the table.
Her reading lasted for about five minutes, during which time her brows were furrowed. Robert Guilliman did not interrupt him, he just waited patiently.
Patience is always a virtue. thought Guilliman, gazing at the portraits of his fathers.
"...Do you plan to donate a batch of supplies?" After a short silence, the housekeeper asked.
"Yes."
"Ninety tons of fine gold may not sound like much, but it is still extremely valuable. Sir, a batch of supplies may not be enough to show your sincerity. What's more, the Eighth Legion intends to open up a trading route. Come."
"And this will do Macragge no harm at all." Guilliman took up his steward's words.
"My brother Conrad Curze said in a handwritten letter that Nostramo was a planet with sufficient adamantine production. I don't know how he defined sufficient, but... .We will obviously need it. So of course it is not just a batch of supplies, in fact, my sincerity is still behind."
Of course Macragge needs it. Who doesn't need adamantium?
"He wrote you a letter?" the steward asked in surprise.
She didn't care about the fine gold and trading at first, which was quite incomprehensible considering her position and past performance. But Guilliman knew in what capacity she was asking the question, so he was not surprised. He had even known that this would happen.
"Yes, his letter is unbelievable for his age." Guilliman smiled and shook his head. "When I was two years old, I was still busy flipping through newspapers looking for science stories."
Youdun pursed her lips, and after a while, she sighed.
"The universe is so cruel to us," the woman said, with a hint of sadness. "A two-year-old child is forced to learn politics."
"This is just the beginning."
Guilliman said calmly - his tone even sober to the point of being ruthless.
"He's also going to have to learn to accept every bit of the nastiness behind politics, and his intelligence will help him learn that quickly. He's going to be miserable, that's obvious, but he has to accept it because that's what we were born for."
"so?"
"Sacrifice," Guilliman said. "Believe me, ma'am, I don't want to be trapped in this chair. No one wants that. But I have to do it. Ability and responsibility are linked to each other at some point. Even Russ has to do it when he's not fighting. He must restrain his wolves from causing trouble, let alone me and my young brother who I have never met."
"Young." Yudun corrected. "Instead of young."
Guilliman sighed and did not continue on this topic. "I plan to carry out a ten-year aid to Nostramo, from materials to personnel, everything - frankly speaking, ma'am, my plan is to give them whatever they want."
Yudun frowned.
"What about the adamantine trade?" she asked curtly.
"We will pay the money. It doesn't matter if they want us to pay with supplies, either way is fine."
Guilliman saw that his chamberlain's brow began to frown more and more.
"What does this mean?" she asked confused. "Is there something happening to you that I don't understand, Robert? I know you mean well when you do this, but are your brothers really going to accept it? I don't see them that much, and I don't How many, but they are all proud."
"I am also very
pride. "
"But that's not why you did this?" the housekeeper said doubtfully. "By doing this, you are almost putting Macragge's stamp on your brother's homeworld politically, Robert... Is this really good?"
She had something left unsaid, but Guilliman could hear it and see it in her eyes.
Is this allowed?
Of course that's not good, ma'am. But it has been allowed.
Guilliman fell into brief thought. He didn't speak, the lines on his cheeks became tight, and his blue eyes were as calm as the ocean in the evening. Only after a long time for the Primarch had passed did he speak again.
"So I needed permission, a formal permission," he said.
Euton began to wait for his next words.
"So I made an appointment with Khalil Lohars, the instructor of the Eighth Legion, in the afternoon. I wanted to ask him to come and talk to me about this matter. If everything goes well, the Eighth Legion will wait until their company commander recovers from injury. Then set out and return to Nostramo, bringing with me my greetings, my wishes, and my sincerity.”
Youdun sat up straight and quickly entered the state. Her cane rested flat on her knees, quivering quietly. She asked, "Do I want to be there?"
"Of course." Guilliman smiled and nodded. "Ma'am, where else do you think you can go?"
"It's work time now," Ms. Euton said seriously. "So stop talking to me like that. What time do you want to meet?"
"Thirty-three minutes later."
"I'm going to change clothes." She stood up quickly.
Robert Guilliman shook his head in amazement and asked a question quickly before she opened the door: "Does he make you so nervous, madam?"
"You'd better be nervous too!" said his lady.
I've been nervous since last night, but not for this meeting. Guilliman thought. Then watched her leave.
------------------
Generally speaking, a person's emotions are easy to observe.
The simplest way is to observe the other person's expression. People with some experience in this will keep staring at their eyes. If you are a more experienced person, you will choose to analyze body language together.
However, when Khalil Lohars sat on the full-size chair opposite the marble table, Tarasha Yuton found that she could not see any expression on the giant's face.
The emotional reaction he revealed during the conversation that day seemed to be just an illusion. Now, the person sitting here, sitting opposite her master, was an impenetrable piece of ice.
Is this normal? Yudun questioned himself. She looked at her master again and found that Robert Guilliman had also become a piece of ice.
"Good day," Robert Guilliman said. "Or good afternoon. I'm a little unsure of the time now, Instructor Khalil - anyway, I hope everything is well with you."
The visitor smiled.
"You too," he replied softly.
"Is everything all right, Captain Van Cleef?" Guilliman asked again.
"He will be recovering soon. I'm sorry, but we didn't expect his armor to have such a terrible malfunction."
The visitor raised his hand and made a gesture with a depressed expression.
"Cable duct explosion, several component errors... We're sorry for the inconvenience caused to Macragge these days."
"I'm just providing a little help to the best of my ability. There is no such thing as inconvenience, and you don't have to be sorry, Instructor Khalil." Robert Guilliman said seriously but softly. "Macragge never treats our friends badly."
The visitor smiled and nodded, with gratitude on his face.
Perfect gratitude.
Guilliman also smiled slightly, lowered his head, picked up a data tablet from the table and handed it over: "Please take a look at this, Instructor Khalil."
Visitor reaches out
He took it and asked, "What is this?"
"A covenant," Guilliman replied, his manners impeccable, his syllables enunciated to a suspicious degree of perfection, no longer in his usual habit of speaking.
Youdun, who was sitting on the side of the long table, frowned.
"Covenant?" the visitor asked while looking at it. "what type is it?"
"About Macragge's alliance with Nostramo," Guilliman said simply. "Nostramo provides the adamantine, and Macragge provides anything else you need."
Something is even more wrong. Yodon thought. He didn't even say what was needed - could Roboute Guilliman really be that rough?
She looked at her child, stared, and saw that he was forcing himself not to turn around to answer her unasked question.
That gesture of rejection was too obvious for Tarasha Youton, and it could even mean that it seemed a bit unclear how to deal with it.
The next second, Guilliman heard his chamberlain sigh.
"That's enough, that's enough," she said. "Logically speaking, I shouldn't interrupt in such a conversation, but your acting is a bit too poor - you guys discussed this a long time ago, right?"
"No," Guilliman said.
He still didn't look at Yuden.
"Yes, ma'am." The visitor - or rather, Khalil Lohars smiled, and the ice melted completely.
The evidence was conclusive. Tarasha Youton looked at her son. The latter was silent for a moment, coughed, turned around, and said sincerely: "Sometimes, it is necessary to conceal some truth, madam."
"I taught you this." His lady said expressionlessly. "When you were 21 years old, you didn't want to tell the public the true situation about the floods because officials cut corners on construction materials and enriched their own pockets. But you didn't know whether you should lie or not. Ask me and I told you this. A word."
"...I apologize," Robert Guilliman said honestly.
"I don't want an apology from you, my lord, I want an explanation." said the housekeeper. "If you didn't plan to let me attend this meeting, you could have said so from the beginning instead of colluding with our guest and convincing him to let him act with you for me, an old woman."
She said, even laughing: "It's so unusual that it will be enough for me to brag to my old friends when I retire."
"You are only sixty years old," Guilliman tried to answer in a calm tone. "No one will say that you are old and have life-extending surgery."
"I've gone through more than half of my life. Even if I want to use that thing, I won't let it change my appearance!" Yudun said sternly.
"I really doubt that I can actually find a doctor willing to operate on you..." Guilliman muttered, looking away. "You could be chasing them down the hallway with forceps."
Khalil said nothing and watched the interaction between mother and son with a smile. The reason why he didn't speak was very simple and normal - how could an outsider get involved in this obvious conversation between mother and son?
However, one thing that is interesting is that the woman has been observing her adopted son's reaction in between conversations.
It doesn't matter to me, look at him more. Khalil thought. Strictly speaking, this meeting was just held by your son to reassure you. He wanted you to see that he was back to normal...otherwise, why would he go to all this trouble?
"I'm not old enough to lose my mind and hunt down doctors!"
"Who knows if that will happen?"
"Robert Guilliman!"
"...I'm sorry." Guilliman covered his face. "I apologize, ma'am. I'm just having this meeting because I want to put your mind at ease."
"I felt at ease more than forty minutes ago." Yudun said angrily. "Can't I still tell the difference between your worried look and your relieved look?"
She stood up angrily, took her cane and left without hesitation or even another word.
, leaving the office directly to Khalil and Robert Guilliman.
The latter met the former's gaze and let out a long sigh.
"...I can't deal with her." Guilliman said with a wry smile. "There's nothing I can do about it, she can always find my loopholes."
"Zhizi is better than his mother."
"Is this also Terran?"
"Terra has many old sayings, Robert." Khalil smiled. "Such as doing bad things with good intentions."
"...I remember," Guilliman sighed. "So, let's talk about business?"
"sure."
Khalil nodded, pushed the data pad back, and said, "But I'm actually surprised that you actually want me to go with you to participate in the exploration of the extreme star field."
