117 Strategic Command Room

Terra

The guard of the Salamanders Legion Second Company's captain hurried into the Imperial Palace.

His forest-green armor bore scorch marks from raging flames, and his armored boots were still stained with alien blood and mud.

Not far behind him, an Underworld Cult zealot clad in a pitch-black protective suit followed closely. The Salamander's stride might have been too fast for an ordinary human, yet the fanatic kept right on the Space Marine's heels without changing expression.

Before them stood a Silent Sister officer. After exchanging coded signals with the zealot, she began leading them onward.

A squad of Silent Sisters stood in formation nearby, making it clear at a glance to anyone with eyes that this was the Underking's command.

The black-helmed warriors maintained strict discipline as they escorted the pair.

The Salamander felt it was somewhat excessive, but Terra and the Imperial Palace truly were crowded now. Countless people of every sort brushed past them in hurried streams.

Among them, the Salamander spotted countless members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, as well as Rogue Traders, commissars and officers from various regiments, Space Marines, Psykers, Soulless... he even saw Custodian Guard.

There were also convoys transporting supplies. The palace swallowed and expelled dense crowds like schools of sardines.

The dark-skinned warrior studied them. From their tightly furrowed brows, the Salamander felt that every one of them seemed to bear a mission upon which lives depended.

If they had come here on their own, perhaps the crowd would have stopped them, or someone might even have bumped into them.

The Salamander thought so, but before a squad of Silent Sisters radiating chill, every problem dissolved. The dense crowd, like a solid wall, naturally parted before them and opened a path.

They walked and walked. The palace was an enormous maze.

The