Warhammer 40k - Horus Heresy Short Story - Lost Sons by James Swallow

Five years have passed since Sanguinius and the majority of the Blood Angels Legion departed for the Signus Cluster, on the Warmaster's order. Since then, the Horus Heresy has been revealed and is sweeping across the galaxy.

Twenty Blood Angels stand guard on Baal, desperate for news of their brothers, but all travel and communication with the Signus system has been blocked by the malignant ruinstorm between the two systems.

Warden Arkad is surprised by the arrival of Tylos Rubio, an agent of the Sigillite, bearing an unfortunate message: with their Primarch and the majority of their Legion lost and presumed dead, the Sigillite has ordered the Blood Angels disbanded, and their fleet and armoury distributed to other loyalist factions. Arkad and his brothers are outraged, protesting that the Legion can be rebuilt as long as a single Battle-brother lives. Rubio says the Imperium does not have the time; in these times of civil war, they cannot risk the Legion's assets being seized by the Traitors.

Rubio, empathizing with the Blood Angels' pain over his own exile from the Ultramarines, explains that a new organization is being formed to counter the powers that Horus Lupercal has allied with, and that it will need the support of a new Legion. Rubio offers them a new role as Malcador's agents, but the Blood Angels decline. Instead, Arkad and the others prepare to depart Baal, on a suicidal mission to either find their primarch or carry the fight directly to Horus. When Rubio tries to stop them, Arkad is fully prepared to strike him down - then the Legion's master of Astropaths rushes out to the landing pad, bearing a scrap of a message sent by Raldoron from the Signus system: Sanguinius still lives, and the Legion is wounded, but not destroyed. Arkad orders Rubio to depart Baal and return to Malcador empty-handed. Rubio is only too happy to do so.