‘Nobody is sure, captain. Three days ago we started getting word that there was unrest on Orestes III – the planet we’re orbiting. There’s not a lot down there. It’s an agri world. A few hundred thousand labourers and Adeptus Mechanicus personnel. I don’t know why anyone would attack us.’

With the Ithraca’s Vengeance still half-blind, it was vital to get as much intelligence as possible from the system inhabitants. Aeschelus needed to confirm that the apparition they had seen in the astropath’s vision really was responsible.

If it was the necrons, it cast a new, terrible light on the crusade. Until now the traitors had been the focus of the lord pri­march’s wrath, but if the mysterious necrons were starting to cut off whole star systems, that would halt the progress of the battle groups more surely than any number of enemy fleets. It made sense that the xenos acted now, when the Imperium seemed to be at its weakest point, but they had miscalculated. With the lord pri­march to lead them, the Emperor’s servants were on the attack, not vulnerable. As soon as Roboute Guilliman learnt of this nascent threat he would take steps to extinguish it, and Aeschelus had the fortune to be at the forefront of that new battle.

‘Who attacked? Are they still here? Describe the enemy to me.’

‘Oh, they’re here all right.’ Gusser could be heard choking back a sob. ‘It’s awful, captain, absolutely awful. Everyone started losing focus. Just wandering off from their tasks, getting confused, not recognising people. There were fights breaking out, and several megatractors crashed because their drivers simply lost interest in what they were doing. We got word from the Navigators on the ships at the outer stations, Leshk and Konova. The warp was closing, they said. Closing? What did closing mean? The ship captains put out from dock without permission and jumped. The Invigorous remained, bless Commander Illyuin, may his soul find grace.’

‘Focus, Gusser! Tell me, who is attacking?’ Aeschelus was losing patience with the nobleman and was forced to wonder what had happened to the proper vox personnel and why Gusser had not succumbed to the warp effect.

‘We don’t know!’ Gusser sobbed the reply, the vox-link crackling and breaking as something brushed against the pickup. ‘They’re not here yet but they’ve sent raiders down to the planet. Our weapons are useless. They’re killing everything down there. Nobody can resist them.’

‘We can,’ Aeschelus assured the Orestean. He muted the pick-up and turned to Praxa­medes and the tech-priest. ‘I want every system on this station slaved to the Ithraca’s Vengeance. We will use its vox and scanners while we can. We are going to find the enemy and we are going to attack them.’