Forge World "Shina"
Pascal Hive City
Towering into the clouds, the city walls stood silently at the outermost edge of Pascal Hive City, like dark iron ramparts hammered into shape by a titanic god.
Their surfaces were far from smooth. Gun emplacements, missile silos, laser arrays, and intricate reinforcement structures covered them like a honeycomb, casting vast, oppressive shadows beneath the gloomy sky.
The air carried the acrid smell unique to a Forge World, a mixture of metal dust, industrial exhaust, and Ozone, along with a deeper odor of stale sweat and grease that could never quite dissipate from such an immense concentration of people.
At that moment, a vast, silent, tragic tide flowed "against the current" along the twelve-lane arterial road leading into the hive.
The order to retreat had been carried out to the letter.
Millions of Mortals of the Imperialis Militia, drawn from units defeated, scattered, and forced to abandon their positions across Shina, converged from every direction like countless muddy streams, pouring toward Pascal Hive City, the greatest fortress of them all.
Their vehicles came in every variety, from Chimera armored personnel carriers with chipped paint and battered hulls to Leman Russ main battle tanks.
There were also enormous Titans freight trains, moving like long steel dragons, every open freight car packed with ashen-faced soldiers clutching their weapons.
Far more soldiers had only their feet to rely on. Carrying battered packs and weapons, they formed long streams of humanity and marched silently along either side of the vehicle columns, their dragging footsteps stirring up industrial dust that had lingered for years.
The streams of people and vehicles passed slowly but steadily through the enormous arched gates, like the throat of a steel behemoth, and flowed into the hive.
Major Leki's Chimera followed the remnants of an