Caul’s edge
The birthplace of wolves
Mars crowned by fire

Freighter ship Antius, Jovian Caul

The Antius sped on through the night towards the growing orb of Jupiter. Behind it, in the dark gulf it had crossed from Uranus, the pinprick flares of battle glittered like mica dust cast into a ray of sunlight. Before it lay the Jovian Caul, glimmering like a reflection of the distant battle-light.

Since days long past, Jupiter had been the seat of the Jovian Void Clans and home to shipyards that made spacecraft unlike any other in the light of Sol or beyond. Ancient mysteries went into the design of those ships, some unknown even to the priests of Mars. The blood-bound clans had been allowed to keep much of their power and many of their secrets in exchange for their fealty to Terra. The xenos breed that had dominated their moons had been destroyed in the early months of the Great Crusade. In spite of that liberation, some amongst the Consanguinities left unspoken the belief that they had exchanged inhuman tyrants for a single human one. That strain of doubt had not stopped Jupiter’s shipyards becoming a nursery from which many of the fleets of the Great Crusade were born, first into a war of conquest and then a war for survival.

The Caul was the sphere of micro debris that surrounded Jupiter’s shipyards and manufactoria. It extended deep into space in every direction. There, new ships were born, refitted or torn apart in the mazes of the equatorial breakers yards. On the edge of the great planet’s gravity lived the low-caste reclaimers, who pulled scrap from the dark of the inner system gulf. In the polar Shoal city-stations, the high clans ruled populations bound to them by blood, marriage and oath. The void was in them all, it was said – a coldness in their blood that the illumination of the Imperial Truth could not banish. Now, as the enemies of that Imperium came, the void-born of Jupiter swarmed into the dark to defend their home.

Amongst the gun-sloops and brigantines of the Jovian clans moved the ships of the Third Sphere fleet. These were warships of the Imperial Army, and the VII and IX Legions. All stood ready for battle. Signals had arrived from Uranus and from Terra. They knew that coming for them was the power that had broken the Elysian Gate. They knew that, this side of Luna, Jupiter and its sphere of dominance was the greatest force that the invaders would have to overcome. No commander hoping to take Terra could leave the void might of Jupiter uncontested.

On the bridge of the Antius, hurtling towards Jupiter, Mersadie Oliton could see neither what waited, nor what lay behind them.

Red lights blinked on consoles. The light reflected from the blood and oil running from the tech-priest that lay at her feet. Chi-32-Beta was dying.