'So, what are you trying to tell me?'

‘The heretic forces appear to be committing an inordinately large percentage of their manpower to a target in the Argentum range to the west of the continent, beyond the promethium refineries of District 37.’ Magos Ludd explained, his voice never wavering from its tone of irascible condescension.

'What is in those mountains, I wonder?' Gdolkin murmured, peering at the green-washed holosphere projection. The Iron-Father's servo-callipers seemed to lean over his shoulder as if to have a look too.

The spiking peaks of the three-dimensional map projection were dotted with tiny icon markers like a chemical rash.

'And these denote the heretic forces?'

'Correct.’ Ludd pronounced, sounding bored rather than impressed.

'God-Emperor, how many of them are there?' another of the Iron Hands voiced. Brother Yergen had not long been fully initiated into the Chapter before the Despoiler's armies poured forth from the malevolently pulsating Ocularis Terribus and Gdolkin had selected him to join his special missions force. His gleaming relatively new artificial left hand was virtually unscathed and was, so far, the only part of him that had been replaced by bionics. This was his first real experience of war beyond the training simulations run by the Vurgaan clan company as part of his preparation for being granted full initiate status, and before that the inter-clan skirmishes of the native Medusan tribes.

'Our calculus logi estimate that there are twenty-two thousand eight hundred and sixty-one heretics centred upon the target.’ Ludd said, his tone clipped and mechanical.

'Really.’ Gdolkin muttered, sounding equally unimpressed. 'So what is Magos Thule's appeal with the target?'

'It would appear that he is as interested in the Argentum Mountains as the enemy are.’ Ludd said. 'But do not ask me why; I do not know.’

Where is Thule at this present time?' Gdolkin pressed, scanning the flickering holosphere projection with genetically modified eyes as well as augmetic ocular replacements.

'Aboard the Gehenna, I believe.’

The Gehenna?'

'Let me see if I can find it for you.’ Gdolkin felt that the only reason he was being more amenable with regards to using the holosphere was because the tech-adept enjoyed interacting with the device.

Magos Ludd extended a hand towards the brass-rimmed bowl of the projector unit. As he did so the fingernail of his index finger flicked back and a thin cable extended from inside the finger bone itself, inserting a connector pin into a socket on the control panel.

The image within the sphere blurred and twisted until it gave way to waves of meaningless interference. Then the static resolved itself again.

'What is that?' Brother Ibrus exclaimed.

They all looked. Revealed before their eyes was a monstrous cannon mounted on a carriage formed from three traction units. The weapon seemed huge against the backdrop of the jagged Argentum peaks until Gdolkin realised that the specks crawling around the base of the tracked units and over the holed hull itself were in fact human-sized figures -Death Guard, Imperial soldiers, traitor PDF troopers and the tech-guard of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Then the weapon appeared gargantuan beyond all reason. It was certainly bigger than any Mechanicus creation he had even seen, other than the starships of his Chapter. The monstrous gun was on a par with the land-behemoth fortress-monasteries of the Iron Hands themselves back on Medusa.