Log of broken Captain
Personal Log of Captain Azrael
Captain, 2nd Company, Lamenters Chapter
Classification: Private – Eyes Only
The casualty report lies before me.
I have read it seven times.
The numbers do not change.
Ninety-six battle-brothers deployed.
Forty-eight returned.
Half a company.
Half.
The tacticians of other Chapters would call the operation a victory. The objective was secured. The enemy was broken. Strategic assets were recovered and the sector remains in Imperial hands.
Victory.
I find the word difficult to stomach.
Tonight, forty-eight places within the strike cruiser stand empty.
Forty-eight voices silenced.
Forty-eight warriors who will never again recite the Litany of Duty, never again stand watch beneath the stars, never again fight beside their brothers.
I knew every one of them.
Brother Malthus, who could recite the names of every fallen hero of our Chapter.
Brother Tiber, whose aim with a bolter bordered upon the miraculous.
Sergeant Corvin, who had survived three centuries of war only to fall within sight of the extraction zone.
Their names join an already endless list.
The curse of the Lamenters endures.
We survive.
But survival is not the same as victory.
As I walked the apothecarion, I saw rows of wounded brothers lying silent beneath flickering lumen lights. Some will recover. Some will be interred within the honoured sarcophagi of the Dreadnoughts.
Others will not see another dawn.
Still they ask only one question:
"Did we hold?"
Not whether they lived.
Not whether they suffered.
Only whether they fulfilled their duty.
And we did.
The line held.
The enemy broke upon us and failed.
The Imperium will never know their names. No grand monument will be raised in their honour. Their sacrifice will become a footnote buried within a forgotten campaign report.
But I will remember.
I must remember.
Because if we forget the fallen, then all that remains is death.
The halls of the company feel larger tonight. Quieter. The silence follows me wherever I walk.
I can almost imagine hearing familiar voices around the next corner.
Old habits of warriors who spent centuries fighting together.
Yet when I turn, there is only emptiness.
Tomorrow I will stand before the survivors and speak of honour, courage, and sacrifice.
I will tell them their brothers died as heroes.
I will tell them their losses were not in vain.
I will speak as a captain should.
Tonight, however, I allow myself a single moment of truth.
I miss them.
Every one of them.
And I would gladly bear their wounds if it meant they still stood beside me.
But such bargains are not granted to men, not even to Space Marines.
So I carry their memory instead.
Half a company remains.
Half a company is gone.
And still we march.
For that is the burden of the Lamenters.
For those we cherish, we die in glory.
— Captain Azrael
2nd Company, Lamenters Chapter
"The Emperor demands duty. The fallen demand remembrance. I shall deny neither."