Terra's shadow fell behind them as Lion El'Jonson's expedition fleet tore open the veil of reality and plunged headlong into the boiling currents of the Warp.
On the bridge of the fleet flagship, the Indomitable Truth, Lion stood before the tactical star map, upright as an ancient glacier.
His crimson lenses swept across the bizarre Warp turbulence, filled with mad whispers and blasphemous visions.
One hand gripped the hilt of his sword at his side, every nerve in his body drawn tight as a bowstring as he awaited the Chaos Gods' anticipated storm of a "welcome."
Yet...
The expected ambushes and interference never came.
The Warp storms remained violent, and the energy currents remained deadly, but the daemon fleets that should have clung to them like maggots to bone, the carefully woven psychic traps... all had vanished without a trace.
Guided by the Emperor's beacon and through the Navigators' arduous efforts, the fleet's journey was unexpectedly... smooth.
Rather than easing Lion's vigilance, that "smoothness" cast a deeper shadow over his heart.
This calm was unnatural. It was the suffocating stillness before a storm.
Chaos would never willingly pass up a chance to strike at the Imperium's core forces within the Warp.
Unless... they had a greater scheme that required this fleet to arrive somewhere "on time."
"All vessels, maintain maximum alert. Navigators, continue locking onto the coordinates at the edge of Ultramar. Full speed ahead." Lion's command was forged from steel, beyond question.
Whatever lay ahead, his duty allowed no retreat.
When the fleet tore through reality once more and leapt into the cold void at Ultramar's edge, the sight before them instantly dragged Lion's mind from wary anticipation back to reality.
It was not the Ork fleet they had expected, but a surging green tide!
Tens of thousands of