‘That cannot be correct…’ croaked Kazzim-Aleph-1 from where he hovered at her shoulder. The magos-emissary had only been attached to the command cadre for a week, and Su-Kassen was still trying to understand him. He seemed logical and emphatic but also hesitant, a combination she had never thought to see in someone who was so much more machine than flesh. His cranium whirred, cogs flipping around in slots that ran the length of his skull as the projection and screens updated. ‘There is an error. This data indicates a warp-reality translation via the Khthonic Path of over a thousand ships…’

‘More,’ she said quietly. ‘A lot more.’

‘That cannot be. It is an error. There is a Falcon fleet that can reach Pluto in five hours. They can–’

‘No,’ she said, dropping her voice under the buzz of the machines. ‘All other forces are to hold position, magos-emissary.’

Even as she spoke she felt the words pull against her instincts.

‘Admiral,’ said the magos, ‘my calculations show that the Plutonic defences can hold if reinforced. If the enemy has committed its main force strength to take Pluto as a bridgehead and then can be held there–’

‘They cannot be held,’ said a voice from across the chamber. ‘Not at a cost we can afford to pay.’

Blast doors withdrew into the walls. Warriors in yellow armour and black cloaks poured in. Light caught the edges of ready weapons and sheened from armour plates. Threat radiated from them, sharper than their blades, roaring from their silence.

And with them came the one who had spoken. Cold illumination struck the burnished gold of Rogal Dorn’s armour and lit fire in jewels clasped in the claws of eagles. Control radiated from him, vibrating through air and through light, the lightning promise at the edge of a storm. To the billions that lived on Terra, he was the wall against which the coming enemy would break, defiance and strength embodied. But in person he was not the idea that the desperate clung to as they thought of what was to come; he was a force of nature that moved and spoke, a lightning bolt pulled from the sky and chained to flesh to fight until the universe broke him.