Countless daemon warships emerged from the star system where the Skull Planet lay. Their twisted, mutated hulls bristled with brass spikes and rams, while terrifying rotten pustules and sores filled onlookers with dread. These menacing enemy vessels were closing in.
"The plan to tempt Sanguinius into falling has failed. They intend to keep us here by force," Lox murmured.
Hill, Gantula, and the others remained on standby aboard the warships in orbit. Just as Lox had promised, the White Scars Space Marines had become the pilots of the Thundercloud planet-class warships.
As the first planet-class warship, the New Caliban became Lion El'Jonson's new flagship. With the arrival of the Dark Angels' and Blood Angels' primarchs, the planet-class warship originally intended for the White Scars had been snatched away by the other side.
Gantula Noyan Khan could only display the grace of a Chogorian over this. They secretly lamented that the Khan was not here; otherwise, the first warship should have belonged to the White Scars.
Given Jaghatai Khan's temperament, there were other matters he could refrain from contesting or fighting over, displaying the virtue of modesty. But for a warship capable of racing through realspace at extreme speed, he would fight even his brothers with drawn blades to claim it.
The commanders aboard the warships immediately consolidated all the expeditionary fleet's strength. As if controlled by an invisible hand, every vessel rapidly shifted formation and turned to meet the enemy.
The computational centers of these warships had all come under the coverage of the Blackstone Array. Under artificial intelligence control, the vessels cast off the appalling inefficiency of relying solely on manpower. Orders and information traveled at light speed, and the warships moved with an agility utterly unfitting for such massive void-forged constructs.
Led by the New Caliban, with three