Alarm rang throughout Calth's Orbital Defense Platform. Their piercing shrieks echoed through metal corridors, penetrated every hatch, and bored into everyone's ears, tearing the once-peaceful watch to shreds.
Red warning lights flashed frantically overhead, bathing the entire space in an unnerving blood-red glow.
All the off-duty Mortals soldiers rushed out of the lounges. Some were still fastening their armor, some still had unfinished rations between their teeth, and some had not even had time to put on their Helmet.
Their footsteps merged into a ragged, urgent drumbeat in the corridors, punctuated by officers' rebukes and orders.
Hatches opened one after another, indicator lights came on, and gun after gun powered up.
Within mere minutes, the entire Orbital Defense Platform awoke from its slumber and entered full combat readiness.
Looking at the glaring red alarms, everyone present understood one thing: Calth was under attack.
But who would attack Calth?
The question circled in everyone's mind, yet no one could find an answer.
With both the Iron Hands Legion and the Ultramarines Legion present, who would dare attack Calth?
Had the remnants of those exterminated xenos empires returned for revenge?
Had some reckless band of xenos pirates seized an opening?
Or was it some unknown third-party force?
No one knew.
Some even thought it was merely a false alarm triggered by the system—perhaps too many people had gathered on the surface, pushing the sensor readings past their thresholds.
After all, today was the Triumph Ceremony. Tens of billions of people were cheering on the surface at once. Abnormal sensor readings were hardly impossible.
Some people breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to return to their posts and resume their watch.
But when one soldier happened to glance at a surface-monitoring screen, he froze.
He saw everything.
He saw the domes of