Pascal Hive City
Central command fortress
The heavy adamantium doors closed soundlessly behind him, shutting out the command fortress's constant, low hum of machinery and the bustle of personnel.
Deep within the hive city, beneath thousands of meters of rock and alloy armor, this was the true nerve center of the ground defense of the Forge World Shina.
The air had passed through multiple layers of filtration and carried a cold, metallic scent reminiscent of electronics, utterly unlike the foul, bloody atmosphere at the front.
General Sechter stood before an enormous curved tactical hololith, its surface displaying the real-time battle situation across Pascal Hive City and the surrounding area. Harsh red and sickly green lights interlocked in a fierce, jagged struggle.
His general's uniform was immaculate, but exhaustion weighed heavily on his brow. His eyes were bloodshot, and the cheap cigar from some Agri World clamped between his lips had already burned more than halfway down, a blue-gray column of ash trembling at its tip.
He needed every force capable of lifting morale to serve as the spearhead of his troops.
That was why he had personally received the man before him.
The visitor stood motionless a few paces from the tactical display, straight as a javelin.
He wore the standard mouse-gray wool officer's uniform of the Colchis Auxiliary Army, perfectly fitted and spotless, its gold trim and buttons gleaming under the cold light.
Yet anyone who saw him would never notice his uniform first. Their gaze would fix on his face.
It could scarcely be called a face.
More than a dozen hideous scars of varying depths crisscrossed most of his skin like a spiderweb, as though it had been crudely stitched back together.
The scars took many forms. Some resembled blackened furrows burned by energy weapons, others the