The first round of projectiles came at them not long after. The smaller destroyers escorting the larger cruisers and battleships fired anti-munitions weapons in response. A series of pinprick explosions started up and soon became a constant accompaniment to the advance. A handful of torpedoes got through, dangerous for their kinetic energy more than the payloads they carried, but they exploded upon the void shields of the ships, hundreds of metres short of the hulls. The shields blinked and flashed as they shunted destructive energies into the warp.

Guilliman watched without concern. Such long-range exchanges were never decisive, nor particularly damaging. On the main tacticarium, the fingers of Guilliman’s claw formation expanded. He tapped out a few orders on a data-slate to adjust the positioning, but for the moment the most important part of his plan was being performed correctly. The Null Ships were moving between the Pit of Raukos and the planet. Their presence would disrupt any daemonic incursion that might come through, while Sisters of Silence and Grey Knights Adeptus Astartes were stationed across the fleet, ready to deal with any on-board manifestations. There would be no supernatural aid for the enemy.

108/Beta-Kalapus-9.2 grew larger and larger. It was a dull, orange ball of a world with ice caps of frozen water. Miserable patches of green covered its equatorial regions, but in the main it was desert. Another low-grade world too remote to settle.

They were close enough now that the engine flares of the enemy were visible to the naked eye. The Chaos ships were spreading out, attempting to intercept the fingers of the claw head on. Guilliman watched their manoeuvring. There was no one warlord in control; he could see that by the way the ships were operating. They moved in close groups, each warband sticking to its own.

Chaos resisted authority. It was a weakness the primarch had exploited time and again.

Four smaller groups struck out on their own, poorly coordinated with each other and with the fifth, largest group. This last formation made up the majority of the fleet, and its ships moved in good order, fanning out in a standard interception pattern towards the leftmost of the two leading Imperial battlegroups.

The challenge was there, in the Word Bearers fleet. They were behind the construction of many temples to the Dark Gods. Something of the scale of the orbital fane was rarely undertaken by other traitors. The Word Bearers were fanatical in their devotion, raising giant temples on the worlds they conquered, and they would fight to the last to defend them.