In the heart of the Grand Borealis Strategium in the Bhab Bastion within the Imperial Palace, Admiral Su-Kassen felt the silence crawl into the moments as she watched holo-projections of scrolling data. This was the primary command for the entire system, its view like that of a god looking down on a realm held in the light of the glowing displays. Primary fleet concentrations stood out as green runes, each a war command of tens of thousands of warships, monitor craft and others that had been pressed into service.

‘Update display – primary fleet force readiness,’ she said. She had repeated the command every fifteen minutes for the last six hours.

‘Compliance,’ droned a servitor, and the display stripped itself down to a few markers haloed with green data. The largest fleets held station beside Pluto, Uranus, Jupiter, Mars and Terra. These were the five Sphere commands. Signals took hours to pass from the Throneworld to the system edge, too long for the second-by-second control of battle. A lord castellan of the Imperial Fists commanded each layer of defence: Sigismund, Halbract, Effried, Camba Diaz. Rogal Dorn commanded the fifth, final sphere around Terra. Other commands deferred to the lord of the closest Sphere. Troop concentrations were marked with coloured dots. The size of a force and its strength flickered around them in abbreviated code. The few Legion units beyond the bounds of Terra glowed like hot coals, the other forces cold motes of fire. Amber specks marked fixed defences around planets or hanging in the gulfs between them. These were everything from void-fortresses to shoals of gun platforms and space stations. Clouds of tiny blue spots folded through the spaces between the larger defences, indicating the vast clouds of mines, deadfall torpedoes and proximity drones that had been cast amongst the dark like dust from a hand. Once the battle was done, the approaches to the inner system would be laced with death until the star itself died.

Once the battle was done… If there was anything left besides ashes.

Su-Kassen shook herself. The first wall of any fortress was the mind, and doubt could burn it from within before the enemy had even raised a blade.

She scanned the data again. It had not changed, of course. Out there in the heavens above, the fires of battle were already burning, but here the reality of that truth had yet to arrive.

‘Report update,’ called a signal officer, from behind a bank of machines.

‘Show me,’ she said.

‘By your will,’ said the officer, and she could hear the forced control in the man’s voice.