The Rudense was a small ship of a class designed specifically for the Indomitus Crusade. Its Adeptus Astartes complement was set at fifty – not even a full company. But the warriors aboard had an important role, one never seen in the armies of the Space Marines before the Ultima Founding. Slender as a dart, seven hundred metres long and as fast as its shape suggested, the Rudense was heavily armed for its size class, and strengthened to withstand brushes with planetary atmospheres. It was a rapid insertion craft, intended to fight its way through the maelstrom of close-range orbital combat and deliver its payload to the surface directly from the edge of a planet’s atmosphere.

It only had small hangars and no drop pod tubes. The Rudense was something new, and it had taken the enemy by surprise many times.

Explosions burst around the Rudense, and Justinian’s helm lenses darkened against the dazzle. Lasbeams stabbed from the ship’s side out to infinity. The wide rays of defence lasers slammed up from the planet below, but the Rudense was artful at deception, and it was never where the lasers fired.

A massive explosion ahead sent shivers along the ship. The Space Marines swung below their drop arms. Flaming debris span past, wreathed in dying sparks and glittering ices. An escort of interdiction fighters accelerated and fell in alongside the Rudense, weaving through the turmoil and then off ahead, guns blazing. Justinian’s view of the battle was limited by the projecting shields sheltering the Primaris Space Marines from the deadly impacts of micro shrapnel and direct attack. Behind, the ship’s iron immensity blocked off everything. Somewhere beyond that great metal cliff, larger ships would be fighting.

For all the fury of the anti-ship fire streaking up from the surface, beneath Justinian’s feet the world floated peacefully by, its ochre surface hazed by the blue of a thin atmosphere mottled with clouds and their shadows. He had seen many worlds from this vantage point. He had thought he would grow jaded at the sight eventually, but he never had. Every world was different, and when viewed from this height, every world – whether hell or paradise – had been beautiful in its own way.

‘The calm before the storm, brother,’ said Solus, as if reading his thoughts.

‘These places we fight for,’ said Kalael, his armour the green of the Dark Angels. ‘How small they are. We hold that to ourselves as a secret truth. From space, every world is but a fragile glass ornament against the infinite black.’

‘Ten seconds. Nine seconds. Eight seconds…’ The machine counted down.