Lorgar piloted a Storm Eagle Gunship alone out of the Law of Faith's hangar and plunged toward the surface of the planet below, where silver light shimmered and flowed.
The gunship's engines rumbled low in the vacuum, cutting through the silent void.
As the distance rapidly closed, the silver planet swelled in his vision until it filled the entire viewport. Its smooth, seamless silver curvature, seemingly utterly motionless, exerted an unnatural sense of pressure.
The navigation system followed the received coordinates precisely, guiding the gunship toward a specific area near the planet's north pole.
Just as the gunship was about to strike that seemingly indestructible silver "surface"...
The expected collision never came.
The instant the gunship's nose touched the mirror-smooth silver "surface," a circular opening silently "rippled" into existence with flawless precision, like a lake of mercury disturbed by a pebble.
The silver material around the opening flowed and receded like living liquid, revealing a deep passage beneath.
The entire process was utterly seamless. There was no flash of an energy barrier, no grinding of mechanical components, only an unsettlingly fluid phase transition of matter.
That was no natural surface. Lorgar felt it was not even armour or shielding in any conventional sense.
It was more like an intelligently controlled "Shell" with physical properties.
The gunship shot into the open passage.
Once it had slipped completely beneath the silver Shell, the entrance behind it instantly sealed, returning to that flawless silver curve as though it had never opened.
The moment he entered, the view beyond the viewport opened up. The dramatic change in light made Lorgar narrow his eyes slightly.
Beneath the silver "Shell" lay neither the rock, lava, nor cold planetary core structures he had expected.
Instead, there was a vast space illuminated by soft light that seemed to