Aboard the Iron Blood, the atmosphere on the Bridge was heavy and oppressive.
Perturabo stood before the screen, his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze piercing its blue glow.
Through the screen, he saw Olympia, his homeworld, now reduced to ruins ravaged by Warfire.
His Communications Terminal had just received a battle report from the front.
The last fortress, Dammekos's final stronghold, had been completely surrounded by the Iron Warriors Legion.
After days of bloody fighting, the Fortress Complex stretching across the Mountains had fallen one after another. Now only the last remained, clinging to life like a wounded beast encircled by its attackers.
For that reason, Perturabo decided to go to the front himself.
He slowly turned, sweeping his gaze over the officers on the Bridge. "Prepare a Landing Craft. I am going down to the surface myself."
At the same time, Perturabo ordered every Interstellar Space Marine still in orbit to join the fighting on the ground.
His orders spread throughout the Fleet over the communications network. The warriors who had remained aboard the warships swiftly assembled upon receiving them, boarding Stormbirds and Storm Eagles and pouring toward the surface like a tide.
The Iron Warriors Legion currently numbered two hundred thousand warriors. Apart from the fifty thousand engaged in other Great Crusade missions, all one hundred and fifty thousand Interstellar Space Marines had been deployed to Olympia's surface.
Clad in iron-gray Power Armour, the warriors descended like a storm of steel, densely covering every inch of ground around the last fortress.
Their armour gleamed with a cold metallic sheen in the light of the bombardment, and their weapons glinted in their hands.
All of this served a single purpose: to kill Dammekos and rescue Calliphone.
One hundred and fifty thousand Interstellar Space Marines descended upon Olympia