A series of solemn affirmations answered the brother-sergeant but all felt the uneasiness in the atmosphere, like a serpent crawling beneath the skin. Hrydor gave his last of all.

So far, they had encountered no resistance. According to the schemata, the central power room was not much further.

But, even as his halo-lamps strafed the dark, Tsu’gan couldn’t assuage the uneasy feeling in his gut.

At the bulkhead door to the cryo-chamber, Nu’mean waited impatiently.

Emek was slumped against the back wall, still bleeding. He was conscious but not entirely lucid. He’d used whatever medical unguents and salves he had in his narthecium kit to do what he could. His brothers, under his faltering instruction, had done their best to aid him. He was in Vulkan’s hands now. Either he would endure the anvil and emerge reforged or he would break against it. In any event, Nu’mean had taken the vial in its brass partial outer casing and mag-locked it to his vambrace. Though small, the device was not so delicate that he couldn’t apply the serum himself. It would be difficult and better handled by an Apothecary but that option was no longer viable.

‘Sergeant Nu’mean.’ The comm-feed address came from further up the long corridor, where Brothers Mercurion and Gun’dar guarded the junction Praetor and his squad had taken to reach the central power room.

‘Report, brother.’

‘Contacts on my scanners. Closing quickly.’

Nu’mean went to his own bio-scanner, one of the concomitant systems of his Terminator armour.

Several heat traces, distant but very real, were approaching. He deduced their origin from a section of the ship that had previously been sealed.

‘Maintain defensive cordon,’ he said to Brothers Kohlogh and Ve’kyt beside him.

‘Hold position. Fall back only on my order,’ he told the advance line.

Something is wrong, he thought. With the farseer active, he had expected to be assailed with visions and mental tortures by now. He had expected the screams of the dying, to witness the burning faces of the thousands he had condemned to death. But there was nothing, just the nagging sense of something out of kilter.

‘Hold position,’ he repeated and felt his unease growing.

Hrydor whispered something, but not loud enough for Tsu’gan to hear. The Terminators moved in close formation through the final few corridors like the Romani legionnaire formations of old, some of Terra’s battle teachings having permeated Nocturnean culture. Only Hrydor was lagging at the rear.

Several junctions went by, each leading off into another area of the ship, each a darkened recess that needed to be scanned and checked before they could proceed.

Tsu’gan was about to send Praetor a sub-vocal warning about his troubled battle-brother when a moment of revelation struck him. The nagging at the back of his skull, the itch he felt upon his neck and shoulders, the invisible tension that charged the air, he knew it. He’d felt it before. Watchers. Watchers in the shadows.