Some amongst the command hierarchy had wondered if the ships of the V should not have been added to the fleet strength around Luna and Terra, or sent to reinforce the Martian blockade, as had been done with the warships brought by Sanguinius. The Khan had said no. His warriors would stand on the soil of Terra, but his ships were not dogs to be chained to watch a hearth. Their strength was in movement, in swiftness and flight. Rogal Dorn agreed and that put an end to the dispute. The ships of the White Scars were scattered high and low above the circle of the planets, soaring free to watch the dark.

The inner limit at which ships could translate from the warp was, fundamentally, a sphere centred on the sun. Ships not using the navigational gates at Uranus or Pluto could translate at any point on the invisible skin of that sphere. And just because the Elysian and Khthonic Gates were primary beachheads that did not mean the traitors would not come from the plane above or below the system’s orbital disc. In fact, in some form, that seemed a certainty. So, the falcons of the V soared far from the sun’s light and watched and waited.

On the bridge of the Lance of Heaven, Jubal Khan knelt in armour, and let his thoughts circle. His guandao sat on the deck before him. Incense smoke rose from twin bowls set to either side of him. The Lance of Heaven had no command throne, just a raised platform of ebony and yellowed bone. Around it the crew moved, near silent except for when an order was barked.

Through his slowed breathing, Jubal listened to the rise and fall of movements and the hum of machines. Always this moment before battle was the true storm, the building of silence and pressure before the flash and thunder. It was coming. Reports of death in the void had come from Pluto and Uranus, and the ship’s sensors had seen the light of battles burning. Here, looking down on the disc of the system, those lights might seem distant, remote, but Jubal knew that was a false perception. This would be a battle to end all battles, a cyclone that would envelop all and leave nothing untouched by its passing. He could hear the storm’s approach in the quiet.

Memories of the past fell into his thoughts like raindrops. He remembered duels fought for pride, and wars fought for ideals that now seemed like lies told to children. He remembered the faces of all those he had been close to: Sigismund, his soul chained to his oath and his sword; Boethius, frowning as he worked to master the guandao as the White Scars watched and laughed with derision and joy; Abaddon, bending to close the eyes of a dead brother in the red dust. He found himself unable to smile at the fragments of the past.