Several days earlier.
The vast Imperial Great Crusade fleet, like a pod of whales forged from steel, broke free of the Warp's turbulent currents under Vice Admiral Vietnas's command and glided into Realspace in orderly formation.
Twenty Battleships formed the fleet's core, supported by over a hundred Cruisers and formations of Destroyers and escort frigates as agile as hunting hounds.
They represented the supreme military might with which the Imperium of Man expanded its frontiers. Their current mission was to investigate an Imperial Task Force that had gone missing in this star cluster.
"All units, countdown to Warp exit. Maintain formation, shields at full power, weapons on standby. Arrival at the last known coordinates in five minutes." Vice Admiral Vietnas's steady voice carried throughout the command network.
He stood on the bridge of his flagship, the Battleship Unyielding, his gaze sweeping across the tactical star chart as a faint unease lingered in his mind.
How could an entire Imperial Task Force vanish without a trace along such a routine Shipping Routes?
Five minutes later, amid a slight disturbance in the fabric of space and a dazzling flash, the vast Imperial Fleet emerged together at the designated Realspace coordinates in the Dawn Star System.
What greeted them was neither a starry sky nor a distress signal.
It was a graveyard.
An immense graveyard of metal and despair, floating in the cold Void.
The first thing they saw was an uncountable mass of metal fragments of every size, twisted into all manner of grotesque shapes.
They tumbled and collided slowly, glimmering in the distant light of the Stars with a dim glow like a dying sigh.
Some wrecks were chillingly enormous: the spines and ribs left behind after Battleship hulls had been torn apart by some unimaginable force.
Armor plating that had