The Iron Blood gathered speed as it cut towards the glimmer of Jupiter. Beside it and around it, the main force of its daughters and cousins rode in formation. Together they formed a cylinder thousands of kilometres long, stretching behind the flagship like the shaft of an arrow. Its path was direct, a line cut through the Jovian Gulf to cross the space between Uranus and Jupiter in the shortest time. It would pass through the orbit of Saturn, but the ringed planet was on the other side of the Solar disc. It was predictable to the defenders, but it was also swift, and Perturabo and his Legion had greater need of speed than they did subtlety. The timetable of war would bear nothing else.

Watching from above the path of the Iron Warriors fleet, Halbract found little comfort in what he saw. In the cold light of tactical displays there was one question that he found his mind returning to again and again. This force was behaving as Dorn and his senior commanders had predicted. The traitors were bloodied and had suffered great losses in taking Uranus. They had lost days and they would lose more strength and time as they made this passage. Even now the mines and dead-fall munitions strung along their route would be activating. The first ultra-long-range nova cannon shots from Halbract’s fleet were zeroed and ready for his command. They would accelerate down to intersect with the Iron Warriors’ predicted path. Once they had accelerated to maximum velocity, they would cut loose their rocket boosters and fall down towards their detonation points. Almost undetectable, they would strike amongst the enemy like arrows shot by an unseen archer.

Then Halbract’s ships would follow their path and engage the Iron Warriors as they advanced, forcing them to turn and fight or press on and die. But that would not stop the IV Legion. That bitter fact lingered in Halbract’s thoughts.

‘Loose,’ he said, without looking up from the displays. The nova cannons began to fire. He waited, feeling the silence ache under the dome of the Monarch of Fire’s bridge. He waited and watched. The fleet with him would have been enough to break a star kingdom. Hundreds of warships from the remains of the Imperial Fists fleet augmented by ships of the Blood Angels, and more from the fleets of Saturn and Jupiter. Most had been held back from the battle around Uranus, floating silently in the interplanetary gulf, waiting for this battle. But it still would only be enough to wound, not to kill. Not to make an end.

Halbract looked up. The eyes of his command crew gazed down at him from the stacked tiers of platforms circling the command dais.

‘Forwards,’ he said.

And the Second Sphere fleet lit its engines and plunged down towards the traitors.