Cato Sicarius

The Captain

Cato Sicarius rose through the Ultramarines at a pace second only to Calgar's. He took the Second Company's captaincy young and has held it through multiple major campaigns: the campaigns against the Black Legion on the Sanctus Wall, the Talassar reclamation, the Damocles Gulf engagement, and the prolonged Damnos campaign against the Necrons.

He is the most decorated Ultramarines captain currently in service, ahead of his peers by several decades of campaign-record. His office in the Fortress of Hera contains personal trophies the chapter's archivists are uncomfortable cataloguing.

The Controversy

Sicarius is also the most controversial of the Ultramarines' senior captains. Critics within and outside the chapter accuse him of self-promotion, of selectively retelling engagements to favour his role, of deploying the Second Company on missions whose strategic priority is, on examination, smaller than Sicarius's preferred personal-glory profile.

His defenders point out that the missions, however chosen, have generally succeeded. The defenders also point out that Ultramarines politics has historically rewarded the captain who can articulate his accomplishments cleanly, and that Sicarius's prose is simply better than his peers'.

I did not reclaim Damnos. I left it. I will return for it.

— Sicarius, attributed 974.M41

Damnos

Sicarius's defining career-wound is the failure of the original 974.M41 Damnos campaign — an engagement against awakened Necrons that he could not break and was forced to withdraw from. The retreat is the only major failed campaign of his career. He spent twenty-five years preparing the second engagement.

In 999.M41 he returned to Damnos at the head of a vastly larger Ultramarines force, partially reclaimed the planet, and forced the Necrons to retreat to deeper tomb levels. The campaign is treated by the chapter's archive as a vindication, by Sicarius's critics as a delayed face-save, and by Sicarius himself as the closure of an old account.

M42

Sicarius crossed the Rubicon Primaris shortly after Calgar. He survived. He has been active across the Indomitus Crusade. He continues to command the Second Company and has not yet been promoted into the Tetrarch-level positions his career-path suggests are appropriate. The reasons for the non-promotion are, depending on the source, either Sicarius's political enemies or Calgar's deliberate retention of him at the company-command level.