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'Speak to me in such a tone again and I will rip your still beating twin-hearts from your chest and devour them before your eyes,' said Jarulek softly.

Jarulek held Marduk's gaze until the First Acolyte could look no longer and dropped to his knees, his head down.

'Forgive me, Dark Apostle.'

'Of course I forgive you, dear Marduk,' said Jarulek softly, placing his hand upon the First Acolyte's head.

Marduk felt a sudden lurch. By the way that the Dark Apostle withdrew his hand, he knew that he had felt it too. He had felt that same feeling countless times, though much stronger in intensity, as the Infidus Diabolus dropped out of warp space. Jarulek stepped away, and Marduk stood.

'The great enemy,' said the Dark Apostle, 'has arrived.'

CHAPTER SEVEN

Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn of the 133rd Elysians crossed his arms over his chest as he surveyed the flickering pict-screen. The image was hazy at best-at worst, nothing could be made out at all. He shook his head.

'Your pict-viewer is of inferior quality, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn,' said the techno-magos. His voice was monotone, and barely sounded human at all. 'The level 5.43 background radiation of the planet c6.7.32 and Type 3 winds disrupt its capabilities.'

'Thank you, that is most helpful, Magos Darioq.' Havorn replied.

'You are welcome, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn,' said the techno-magos, clearly not registering the sarcasm in the middle-aged general's tone. The large form of Colonel Boerl, the commander of the Elysian 72nd and Havorn's second in command smirked.

The techno-magos, one of the pre-eminent members of the Adeptus Mechanicus of far distant Mars, was a massive, augmented being. It was hard to know where the human ended and the machine began. No features could be discerned underneath the low hood, just an unblinking red light where an eye had once been.

From the back of his red robe, two huge, mechanical arms extended over his shoulders like a pair of vicious, stinging tails of some poisonous insect. Another pair of servo-arms extended around his sides. Formidable arrays of weaponry, heavy-duty machinery, power lifters and hissing claws were constructed into them. The staff of office of the techno-magos was incorporated into one of the servo-arms, a long-hafted, double-bladed power axe topped with a large, brass, twelve-toothed cog, the symbol of the Machine-God. Dozens of mechadendrites hovered around him: long, metallic tentacles fused to the nerve endings of his spine. They were tipped with dangerous looking, needle-like protrusions and surprisingly dextrous grasping claws.

The man's organic arms were wasted, useless things that he held crossed over his chest. It looked like they lacked the strength to grasp anything any longer, and they were held immobile. Clearly they had been made redundant by the hovering mechadendrites and servo-arms.

A diminutive, robed figure the size of a child stood before the magos, though nothing could be seen of its form within its deep hood. It appeared to be connected to the Mechanicus priest by cables and wiring. A floating servo-skull hung above the techno-magos, mechanics covering the right-hand side of its cranium. Its unblinking, red eye watched the goings on within the command centre unerringly.

With a slight shake of his head, Havorn squinted at the pict-screen again. Bleary images flickered across the viewer of massed bulk carriers sinking slowly through the atmosphere of Tanakreg, with escorts of gunships flying in figure-of-eight patterns around them. It was hard to make out, but Havorn had seen scores of similar landings, and he could see exactly what was occurring in his mind's eye.

Imperial Navy attack craft, a variety of interceptors, fighters and assault boats, would have swarmed from their launch bays aboard the twin Dictator Cruisers, the Vigilance and the Fortitude, like a cloud of angry insects. As the first of the mass transports detached from the cruisers and began sinking slowly through the atmosphere, it was these Imperial Navy craft that were its first line of defence.

As the atmosphere was broken, vast bay doors on the descending transports would retract, and flights of Valkyries would emerge like circling buzzards, descending towards the surface of the planet in advance of the wallowing mass transport ship. Thunderbolts and Lightning fighters would scream from the still-descending transport to ensure air superiority. The Valkyries would sweep low over the ground and the first Elysians to step foot on the world would rappel swiftly from the gunships to secure the landing zone.

A wide perimeter would be quickly secured, the rapidly deployed Elysians establishing strong points along their line with quickly dug-in heavy weapons.