"Based on the clues my mentor and I collected."
"The ancient relic is located here."
Emagran stood before the star map and pointed to a place 1,200 light-years from Manros. There was a star system there called Hera.
That was 1,200 light-years north of Manros, in a direction that took one farther from the Maelstrom.
In the past, humanity had designated the birthplace of the species—Earth—as its center, and divided the directions into north, south, east, and west with Terra as the central point.
This had been the custom since the Human Species entered the space age, and had continued through the 42nd millennium.
But after the Great Rift opened, Terra's coordinates on the original galactic star charts were no longer even fixed in holographic projections. So the Chaos Alliance's various Chapters had chosen to make Manros their center and divide the directions accordingly, giving people a sense of orientation and making things easier to understand.
On the star map before the Inquisitor, the Maelstrom lay southwest of Manros, with the Great Rift extending out from both sides of it.
"It's possible to travel there by making short Warp jumps."
"We heard the Carcharodons Chapter was collecting its red tithe in the Hera system, but that was half a year ago. We don't know if they're still there."
Besides Lu Jin and the acting First Company Captain, there was another person gathered around the star map: a Space Marine in black armor, with a Mechanical Arm attached to his back.
He was a Techmarine from the Soul Forgers Chapter.
After the Soul Forgers Chapter acquired a homeworld and began expanding its forces, it dispatched Techmarines to its allied Chapters throughout the alliance.
The one on the command deck was the sergeant in charge of all the Soul Forger Techmarines among