Cato Sicarius

Cato Sicarius is a Captain of the Ultramarines and commander of the Victrix Guard, the honour guard of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman. His titles include Knight Champion of Macragge, Grand Duke of Talassar and High Suzerain of Ultramar, and he formerly held the office of Master of the Watch. He is regarded within the Chapter’s command as the most suitable successor to Marneus Calgar as Chapter Master, since the First Captain, Severus Agemman, who would ordinarily be next in line, is judged too valuable at the head of the 1st Company.

Born into one of the ascendant noble houses of Talassar, a storm-swept ocean world of Ultramar, Sicarius trained from his coming of age in the martial arts of the Talassi nobility, and his prowess in combat was a major factor in his recruitment. As an Assault Sergeant of the 8th Company he fought in the Damocles Crusade beside Jorus Numitor, executing Imperial Guardsmen who fled before the T’au; the two sergeants came close to killing Commander Farsight, who swore revenge on them. He was later named honorary Knight Champion of Macragge. He became Captain of the 2nd Company after Captain Demetrian Titus was taken by the Inquisitor Gerome Thrax following the invasion of Graia, although an older account has him rise from command of the 5th Company after the Battle for Macragge.

His early actions as Captain included the Masali campaign, in which he directed his forces from a Land Raider Prometheus and destroyed an Eldar raiding force that had been massacring the agri-world’s people; one account names his first campaign as Captain as the Dantaro campaign. His honours include the Imperial Laurel for the Crusat Minor planetstrike, the Honorifica Valorum for the Battle of Dyzanyr, and the Valour Crest, won for a near-suicidal charge into the breach at the end of the nine-day Siege of Fort Telrendar. In 849.M41 he was named Suzerain of Ultramar. Called upon by the Inquisition to defend Medusa V, he deployed his forces across the planet, recovered the remains of Chaplain Aggripus from the Emperor’s Children at Mithras Breach, and at the end of a long campaign issued an Exterminatus order for the dying world, earning the title Hero of Medusa. In 855.M41 he led the 2nd Company against Waaagh! Zanzag on Black Reach, relieving Ghospora and Sulphora Hives and killing the Warboss in his cavern lair. In 878.M41 he confronted the daemon prince M’kar in the Halamar Rift, where Valin’s Revenge destroyed most of the Chaos fleet, but M’kar escaped him aboard the Chaos flagship. In 946.M41, at the Battle of Eagle Gate on the shrine world of Eydolim, he held the Gate of Martyrs against the Word Bearers; overpowered by the Daemon Prince Kor Megron, he struck the daemon down when a lone Guardsman distracted it, and Kor Megron was dragged into the Warp.

In 969.M41 he brought the 2nd Company to the Invasion of Taladorn, where Darnath Lysander twice refused his help before Tor Garadon accepted it and the Ultramarines turned the battle against the Iron Warriors. In 971.M41, at the Fall of Malodrax, his Ultramarines boarded Warsmith Shon’tu’s war barque Tamunash alongside the Blood Angels of Erasmus Tycho. In 974.M41 he led the 2nd Company to Damnos against the awakened Necrons, dividing his drop-pod assault three ways; leading the strike at Kellenport’s outer walls, he was gravely wounded by a Necron Lord’s war scythe and evacuated, and Damnos was abandoned. Brought back to Macragge in a revivification casket, he helped destroy Necron remains that began to self-repair in the Chapter armorium. He fought on Ichar IV with his command squad, the Lions of Macragge, from the Land Raider Daelus, and in 994.M41 summoned Garadon’s Imperial Fists to help him defend the shrine world Victorix from the remnants of Hive Fleet Kraken. When the Ultramarines returned to Damnos in 999.M41, he fought with the Lions of Macragge, slew a Flayed One lord and destroyed the C’tan Shard of Yggra’nya with a vortex grenade. In the Zeist Campaign he struck at the forge world Praetonis V, rallied other Chapters to his banner and drove back the T’au advance, before reluctantly returning the defence to the planetary governors.

During the Bloodborn invasion of Ultramar he was sent to Espandor rather than Talassar. There he hunted the Bloodborn leader Kaarja Salombar, and in the city of Corinth, though stabbed through the heart, he held her while Sergeant Scipio Vorolanus struck her down, then beheaded her. He then sailed for Talassar with Uriel Ventris and the 4th Company and joined the battle against M’kar, although another account has him accompany Calgar to Talassar from the start. Afterwards he fought the last of the Bloodborn in Espandor’s forests and, with Agemman, destroyed the space hulk Final Absolution near Talassar.

When Guilliman returned, Sicarius commanded the warriors of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Companies who accompanied the Primarch on the Terran Crusade. He fought Red Corsairs boarders on the bridge of Macragge’s Honour beside Guilliman, Inquisitor Greyfax and Saint Celestine, surrendered with the others to save Guilliman’s life before Kairos Fateweaver, was freed from a Blackstone Fortress by Cypher and Sylandri Veilwalker, rallied the Space Marines on Luna and waited outside the Throne Room on Terra. Sent from Terra at the start of the Indomitus Crusade to safeguard Ultramar with the first Primaris Space Marines of the Chapter, his strike cruiser Emperor’s Will was lost in the Warp and he was declared missing, Sevastus Acheran succeeding him in command of the 2nd Company. After nearly five years of daemonic incursions and Chaos raids he brought the ship back to realspace over a feudal world, where he and his warriors, calling themselves knights of Macragge, fought feral Orks and destroyed a Necron tomb complex and its C’tan Shard.

Returning to Imperial space, he joined the Indomitus Crusade, and Guilliman, who saw in him something of Aeonid Thiel, took him under his guidance and placed him in command of the Victrix Guard despite his survivor’s guilt and the trauma of his time in the Warp. He was among the crusade forces at the Devastation of Baal, briefed Guilliman before the Battle of Raukos, and came with the Primarch to Ultramar during the Plague Wars, attending the conclave in the Fortress of Hera. In the Pariah Crusade he destroyed a Necron Lord aboard the stricken battleship Dawn of Fire to clear Guilliman’s escape, and was wounded. He has since crossed the Rubicon Primaris. He bears the Talassarian Tempest Blade and a plasma pistol, and his armour carries the pauldron of the Heresy-era Captain Orar together with the gold aquila of the Grand Duke of Talassar.