I actually ran into fifty-one.
The moment the Shadow of the Throne leapt into Origin Space, the warning lights on the bridge began shrieking wildly, and red warning Runes danced madly inside the Simulacrum Sanctum.
The female captain, Diana Pauline, turned her chair toward the command throne and reported to the Primarch.
"My lord, the ship is under siege by fifty-one vessels. Lady Hera's Aether weapons are causing the Simian Field shields to drop rapidly."
"Please dispatch the Space Apes for maintenance at once."
"I know." Nimrod nodded slightly.
Light and shadow flickered in the Primarch's eyes as his consciousness spread outward.
In an instant, his awareness expanded into one maintenance shaft after another. With a flicker of thought, the thousand-plus Space Apes he had "Associated" with sprang into motion.
Their fingers tapped the buttons of the dedicated maintenance elevators, and amid a series of dull activation sounds, they accelerated upward.
The Primarch did not retract his consciousness. As he rose into the third level of Thelema's Mindset, his awareness passed through the hull of the Gloriana-class Battleship and, beyond the Simian Field barrier, surveyed the surroundings.
Fifty-one needle-spikes, slightly smaller than the Shadow of the Throne but still twenty kilometers long, were scattered all around.
From the Hraf Web-ships, streaks of Aether beams shot out, crashing down in a storm against the oval force-field barrier.
Blinding flashes of light stirred up layer after layer of psychic smoke.
The Primarch's eyes narrowed. He looked around and followed the manifested psychic network within Origin Space—the Web of Nests—until he found the Shadow Throne suspended at the hub.
The creature upon the throne was skin and bones, its entire body covered in cracks, like a mummy from ancient Terra's historical records.
Terrifying Warp energy seeped from his cracked skin, and enough power