For the metallic monstrosity suspended within the storm was beyond anything I could have imagined, a mad fusion of shattered planes and rendered infrastructure, welded into a towering edifice of ork ingenuity. The central tower stood at least twice the height of the governor’s château, four runways extending from it in a crude cross, each ending in a vast turbofan that provided lift, the whole ensemble mounted on a vast brass orb that thrummed with power. At the tower’s apex, a series of exhaust pipes vomited black smog, the fumes drifting towards the upper atmosphere before being syphoned into the spiralling storm clouds.

I had no doubt this was the sky-fortress that had birthed the tempest.

This was the true Green Storm.

It was far from unoccupied. The fleet of fighters was still under construction, but at least half of them looked operational, to my inexpert eye. And even that was a force greater than anything I had seen the Imperium muster on Bacchus. They had yet to attack. I can only assume whatever crude sensors the edifice possessed were directed skywards, intent on intercepting the next batch of reinforcements. But I could make out diminutive figures racing across the runways towards the ork jets. Someone had seen us.

‘Emperor’s blood,’ I heard myself murmur. It sounded like another’s voice, my consciousness caught between my body and the seer-skull. Perhaps this was why I did not faint, or soil the cockpit. Either would have been reasonable, especially when I realised we were on an intercept course.

‘Shard. We need to get out of here!’ I said, my thumb stabbing at the vox-channel. ‘Shard!’

‘There’s no point.’

Her voice was flat, holding no swagger of self-assurance. It was an echo of the young girl who listlessly repeated the drill abbot as he praised her family’s pedigree.

‘Are you mad? They will kill us! We must retreat before–’

‘We cannot escape. We barely made it in. You can see them scrambling. I can’t outrun all of them. It’s over.’

‘I refuse to accept that!’ I thundered, rage repressing my fear. ‘You’re Flight Commander Lucille von Shard! You are the greatest fighter ace in the Imperium. For Emperor’s sake, you have bragged of it often enough! You brought us here. You must do something!’

‘I will.’

We accelerated, angling towards the nearest turbofan. Through Iwazar’s eye I saw a flash of light as the Avenger’s lascannons obliterated one of the nearer ork planes.

‘You’re attacking?’

‘Of course,’ she murmured in that cold, dead voice. ‘How else would Flight Commander Lucille von Shard meet her end?’