The Thunderhawk banked sharply as it made for the landing zone adjacent to the loft-city of Nimbaros, breaking the tension between the two sergeants. The exterior armour plate shrieked in protest with the sudden exertion, the sound transmitting internally as a dull metal moan.

‘A portent of the storm to come?’ offered Ba’ken in a bellow.

The bald-headed Astartes was Dak’ir’s heavy weapons trooper, his broad shoulders and thick neck making him ideally equipped for the task. Ba’ken, like many of his Chapter, was also a gifted artisan and craftsman. The heavy flamer he had slung on his back was unique amongst Tactical squads, and he had manufactured the weapon himself in the blazing forges of Nocturne.

‘According to the Stratosan’s reports, the traitors are dug in and have numbers. It will not be–’

‘We are the storm, brother,’ Tsu’gan interjected, shouting loudly above the engine din before Dak’ir could finish. ‘We’ll cleanse this place with fire and flame,’ he snarled zealously, ‘and purge the impure.’

Ba’ken nodded solemnly to the other sergeant, but Dak’ir felt his skin flush with anger at such blatant disrespect for his command.

An amber warning light winked into existence above them and Brother-Captain Kadai’s voice rang out, preventing any reprisal.

‘Helmets on, brothers!’

There was a collective clank of metal on metal as the Astartes donned battle-helms.

Dak’ir and Tsu’gan fitted theirs last of all, unwilling to break eye contact for even a moment. In the end Tsu’gan relented, smiling darkly as he mouthed a phrase.

‘Purge the impure.’

‘Cumulon in the east and Nimbaros in the south are still contested, but my troops are taking more ground by the hour and have managed to secure the sky-bridges that link the three cities,’ explained a sweating Colonel Tonnhauser over the crackling pict-link of Kadai’s Land Raider Redeemer, Fire Anvil. ‘We’re using them to siphon out civilian survivors. There are still thousands trapped behind enemy lines though, my men amongst them.’

‘You have done the Emperor’s work here, and have my oath as a Salamander of Vulkan that if those men can be saved, I will save them,’ Kadai replied, standing inside the hold of his war machine as it shuddered over the sky-bridge to Cirrion. Four armoured Rhinos rumbled behind it in convoy, transporting the rest of the battlegroup.

Once the Salamanders had made planetfall outside Nimbaros, Kadai had ordered Brother Argos, Master of the Forge, to make a structural assessment of the approach road to Cirrion. Using building schematics from the Stratosan cities inloaded to the Vulkan’s Wrath’s cogitators and then exloaded back to a display screen on the Fire-wyvern, the Techmarine had determined the sky-bridges were unfeasible locations for the gunships to land and redeploy the Astartes.

Less than twenty minutes later, three Thunderhawk transporters had descended from orbit and deployed the Salamanders’ dedicated transport vehicles.

Kadai had held his Salamanders at the landing zone in squad formation, ready for the arrival of the transports. There had been no time for a tactical appraisal with the Stratosan natives. That would have to be conducted en route to Cirrion.