Evan stretched. Next, it was time for them to get moving.
After years out of sight, the only Crimson Tide rebels left in the public eye were those in Segmentum Pacificus, displaying ambitions to use Nova Terra as their base and divide the realm along a great river of the Warp.
That was the overt diversion.
As for the flagship the Inquisitors had been guarding against all this time, it would make a show of attacking Ultramar.
That was the covert advance.
But nobody said they could only make one covert advance.
Evan reckoned the Iron Hands were nearly done repairing the two Gloriana-class Battleships. Aside from guarding against them hacking his ships or Chaos stealing them, the work should have reached the stage of blessing the machine spirits of assorted equipment.
After all, they had already repaired most of the damage before handing the ships over.
Once those two ships flew out, they would definitely be used to ram something up the enemy's ass. But whose ass... Evan had not decided.
A scheme within a scheme. Two covert advances.
The current situation was entirely outside Evan's expectations. There was indeed fighting all across the galaxy, but every battle report that came in seemed small in scale, scattered clashes that looked more like pirates wrestling with fragmented Imperial forces.
On one hand, the Imperial expeditions had effectively swept away vast numbers of enemies, and both sides were in a phase of "rest and recovery." On the other, after the Imperium concentrated its forces, troops were sparse throughout its vast interior. Stragglers whose homes had been destroyed were fighting their "evenly matched" Imperial opponents with gusto.
Evan counted off the years on his fingers. 42K877. Wasn't it about time for Nurgle to pull something?
So he ordered the flagship underway, ready