Derelict Ship

Eighteen hours later.

The rest period was over.

Mar Sara's low orbit had become a sea of steel.

A combined fleet of more than two hundred warships had assembled there. It was so vast that the nearby planetary shield had to adjust its frequency temporarily to "accommodate" the steel tide.

The Black Templars' fleet stood in a solemn formation. More than ninety black-and-white warships lined up like pieces on a chessboard, with a Sojourner-class Dreadnought at their center. The massive vessel resembled a moving blade, and every gun turret glowed red with readiness.

The Flame Salamanders Third Company's fleet maintained a classic wedge formation.

The flagship Unyielding Holy Flame vented deep-blue plasma exhaust. Four other battlecruisers formed an arrowhead around her, while twelve frigates prowled the perimeter. Their Point-Defense Cannon Arrays were undergoing final calibration, their rotating barrels humming in mechanical unison.

The Lamenters' warships bore their company's distinctive melancholy beauty. Their flagship, Sorrowful Wing, looked new after her refit, and five specially modified medical ships held position at the rear of the formation.

The Carcharodons Company's warships were the most unruly. A huge shark skull hung from the prow of Abyss Hunter, flagship of the Third Assault Platoon.

The cruiser's armor plates were covered in rough weld marks, each one proof of a hasty battlefield repair.

Amid this forest of steel, Hyperion looked almost dainty. At "only" about a kilometer long, she wove deftly between the giants.

But the most striking vessel was another behemoth at the very front of the fleet: the flagship of Athena of the Heretic Inquisition Department—

Nerva.

The twelve-kilometer-long Emperor-class Battleship defied conventional design. The entire ship resembled a flying Greek temple.

Massive Doric-style columns surrounded the bridge, each carved with intricate reliefs.

Instead of a conventional ram, her prow bore a hundred-meter-tall golden