She was still looking at me, and I wondered if she had more to say. But instead she turned away, back to the console.

Hephaestus limped home towards the château and I breathed again. We had bested the Green Storm, and I had been there to capture it.

But it did not feel like a glorious victory.

Ahead of us the sun was setting, but its light was already obscured by the storm front gathering beneath the shining light of Orbital Station Salus.

Chapter eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Our return flight was undertaken in near silence. Shard and the surviving crew managed the occasional monosyllabic exchange concerning airspeed or distance. Ironically, I occupied the navigator’s chair, my very presence adding an additional challenge to our return. But they found the way, perhaps using the glimmer of Orbital Station Salus as a beacon.

I was cold in the cockpit, despite my borrowed flight suit. My hands were still shaking, and I clasped them together. But it made little difference.

I had felt this once before, during the Gigerian Cleansing, where the squad I accompanied stumbled across the bodies of those slaughtered by the heretics. The perpetrators did not differentiate between the young or old, and the victims’ flesh had been desecrated, carved with foul runes that stung the eyes. I had not been able to look at it for long, turning from the sight, my stomach heaving. I took solace that even some of the hardened soldiers had a similar reaction.

Little of that footage survives, my superiors deeming it too disturbing for the Imperial citizenry. I wondered then how they would view my latest escapade, opening with Imperial aircraft soaring majestically to war, and concluding with a solitary bomber limping home.

We were lucky to survive. I suppose we were lucky to have blundered into the ork base, though it did not feel that way at the time. Even its destruction could not really be celebrated, because it left me wondering how many similar edifices lurked in the endless swamps.

I sighed, glancing to the cockpit’s window. The sun had almost set, its dying light bleeding Bacchus’ sky a deep purple. It mirrored our outward journey, except now I felt despair, not hope. So much had changed. Then, my fear had been an uneventful flight, our mission having no assigned objective or target, that we might be wasting time and resources.

I frowned, my fingers drumming the armrest. Ahead of me Shard was occupied with the controls, bearing us towards the comparative sanctuary of the governor’s château.