He came from Titan by fast ship to Terra's orbit. He rode on the command deck all the way, clad in his armour as if he were heading into battle, standing beside the command throne so motionless and stern he seeded disquiet among the small crew.

The ship cut over the plane of the ecliptic. Mars and Terra were in opposition. The lights of the ships blockading the red planet made it seem that there were a dozen worlds attended by a hundred additional moons.

Constant vox-chatter whispered from the comms stations. Sol's void space was crammed with starships. Activity in the system had reached a fever pitch. Now the warp storms had begun to abate, Dorn anticipated Horus would launch an attack soon, and so the home system of mankind prepared feverishly for battle.

Terra appeared as a star at first, a singular albedo shine that split into dozens then hundreds of lesser lights as Loken's ship approached. Russ' ships were moored at the high anchor halo of resupply stations and dry docks, where the battered remnants of the VI and V Legions' once mighty fleets underwent hurried repairs.

Codes were transmitted and received. Without slowing, the cutter headed directly for the largest ship, a Gloriana-class behemoth swaddled in mending frames, closely overlapped like bandages over its wounds.

The Hrafnkel, Leman Russ' flagship and one of the most powerful vessels in the whole galaxy.

They touched down on the embarkation deck. Loken was away before the engines had finished their cooling cycle.

A clamour of industry roared into the cutter as the gang ramp descended. Clattering metal and machine tool whines and the grinding shrieks of blades cutting into plasteel assaulted Loken's hearing. The stink of burning metal filled the place end to end, vast though it was. Sparks fountained in arcs like geysers of lava. Sheets of plastek as tall as Titan banners wafted in hot breezes blowing from the ship's depths. Menials in the heavy environment suits of the Terran Stevedores and Shipwrights Guilds were at work everywhere, aided by barbarous-looking Fenrisian menials who wore primitive leather masks beneath their visors. Loken halted at the base of the cutter's ramp to avoid a heavy repair rig rumbling down the embarkation deck's central road. The servitor drivers wired into the cab stared blankly ahead. A group of Mechanicum adepts followed, directing the machine by means of a remote control box implanted into the chest of a vast brute who was linked to the cogitators aboard by a long, flexed umbilicus covered in rubberised plastek.

The machine chugged past, and Loken set foot upon oily deck plating. The place was so gloomy he thought there was a malfunction in the lighting circuits, but as he looked into the cathedral spaces of the deck he saw chandeliers with every lumen globe intact. It was purposefully dim.