Alert Star, Antarctic.
When the Orks suddenly united, ending their civil war and launching offensives across the region, the Council of Valor on Alert Star divided the war zones into tiers.
Tantoria Hive, with Tanto Lake, held the fresh water essential for human survival, making it the most important war zone.
Celerus Hive City had the Adepta Sororitas, Titans, and Knights, as well as industrial output that no other hive could match. It ranked just below Tantoria.
Even Nameless Hive, which had been blasted apart by a Deathstrike missile during the Adeptus Mechanicus civil war, ranked as highly as Celerus. It was the spiritual home of the Rebel Armies from across Alert Star's hives and had become part of Lord of Valor's symbolic legacy.
The lowest-ranked of the other war zones was the Antarctic War Zone. It had only one small hive and no special resources.
Lion ordered the ruler of Antarctic Hive to abandon the city and lead its people out of the South Pole.
He wouldn't pull troops from other, already stretched war zones to defend the hive, but he sent a Space Marine company to help with the evacuation. The company belonged to the Silver Skulls Chapter, which had dispatched them to support a friendly world that had once supplied them after Alert Star sent out a call for aid.
The mass migration of more than a million people began within an hour of the Star-Stealer's arrival.
The defense force, a small Rebel Army contingent that had been driven into the Antarctic before the Council of Valor officially declared the rebels allies, and the Space Marines provided armed protection for the migration.
The entire procession trudged through the frozen wastes for a long time.
From time to time, Transport Aircraft sent by the Rebel Army dropped supplies,