None of the Emperor's Children were in the mood to offer mercy and within minutes it was all over. As the last of the alien warriors was slain by the overwhelming force of Vairosean's veterans, the atonal howling of the rearing coral towers finally ceased and a blessed silence fell over the battlefield.

Cries of welcome passed between the Astartes who had survived as Solomon sheathed his sword and bent to retrieve his bolter from the carnage of the plaza. His limbs were stiff and aching from numerous wounds he didn't remember receiving.

'You went up the centre again, didn't you?' asked a familiar voice as he straightened.

'I did, Marius,' replied Solomon without turning around. 'Are you going to tell me that was wrong?'

'Maybe, I don't know yet.'

Solomon turned as Marius Vairosean removed his helmet and shook his head to clear the momentary disorientation of returning to the employment of his own senses as opposed to those of his Mark IV plate. His friend wore a stern expression, but then he always did, and his salt and pepper hair was slick with oily sweat.

Unlike many of the Astartes, Marius Vairosean had a narrow face, its features sharp and inquisitive, his skin dark and lined like old wood.

'Well met, brother,' said Solomon, reaching out and gripping his battle-brother's hand.

Marius nodded and said, 'A hard fight by the looks of it.'

'Aye, it was that,' agreed Solomon, wiping some blood from the fascia plates of his bolter. 'They're tough bastards, these Laer.'

'Indeed they are,' said Marius. 'Maybe you should have thought of that before you went up the centre.'

'If there was another way to have done it, I would have tried it, Marius. Don't think I wouldn't have. They plugged the middle and I sent men around the flanks. I couldn't have let someone else lead the attack up the centre, it had to be me.'

'Luckily for you Sergeant Caphen seems to agree with your assessment of the battle.'

'He's got a good eye on him, that one,' said Solomon. 'He'll go far, maybe even make captain someday.'

'Maybe, though he has the look of a line officer about him.'

'We need good line officers,' noted Solomon.

'Maybe so, but a line officer does not seek to better himself. He will never attain perfection by simply doing his job and no more.'

'Not everyone can be captain, Marius,' said Solomon. 'We need warriors as well as leaders. Men like you, Julius and I will lead this Legion to greatness. We take our strength and honour from the primarch and the lord commanders, and it is up to us to pass on what we learn from them to those below us. Line officers are part of that, they take their lead from us and communicate our will to the men.'

Marius stopped and placed his hand on Solomon's shoulder guard. 'Even though I have known you for decades, you still have the power to surprise me, my friend. Just when I think I need to reprimand you for cavalier tactics, you give me a lesson on how it behoves us to lead our warriors.'

'What can I say? Julius and his books must be having an effect on me.'

'Speaking of Julius,' said Marius, pointing into the sky. 'It looks as if he has secured the order to commence the campaign.'

Solomon looked up into the crystal sky and saw hundreds of gunships descending from the upper atmosphere.

With the capture of Atoll 19, the opening stage of the campaign had been won, though the ferocity of the fighting and the brittle knife-edge upon which it had been won would never be known except by those whose words would one day be reviled.

Interceptors descended alongside the gunships and circled in figure of eight patrol circuits above Atoll 19 in case the Laer counter-attacked, while fat army transporters brought anti-aircraft guns and detachments of Lord Commander Fayle's Archite Palatines, who spread through the atoll in their crimson tunics and silver breastplates.

Wide bodied Mechanicum loaders landed in screaming clouds of grit, disgorging silent, red-robed adepts who hurried to study the blazing energy plumes that kept the atoll aloft. Massive earth moving machines and teams of cutters and drillers rumbled onto the atoll, their sole purpose to level entire swathes of it before laying honeycombed sheets of metal to serve as runways for assault and supply craft.

Atoll 19 would be the first of many bridgeheads established before the Emperor's Children were finished with Laeran.

Serena had returned to her quarters, claiming tiredness, but Ostian had decided to remain on the observation deck to watch the planet below. The beauty of Laeran was enhancing and Serena's talk of the landscapes of alien worlds had kindled a desire in him he had not known existed. To stand on the surface of an alien world beneath a strange sun and feel the wind blown from far-off continents, never before seen by man, would be an intoxicating thrill, and he longed, ached even, to see the surface of Laeran.

He tried to imagine the sweep of its horizon, a featureless curve of endless blue that swelled with enormous tides and clung to the surface of the world by the slenderest of margins. What manner of life might thrive in the depths of its oceans? What calamity had befallen its lost civilisation that had seen it submerged beneath thousands of metres of dark water?

As a native of Terra, a world whose oceans had long since boiled away in ancient wars or environmental catastrophes, Ostian found the idea of a world without land hard to picture.

'What are you looking at?' asked a voice at his ear.

Ostian hid his surprise and turned to see Bequa Kynska standing behind him, her blue hair pulled tight in an elaborate weave on the top of her head that Ostian guessed must have taken many hours to achieve.

She smiled at him with a predator's grin. Ostian guessed that her scarlet corset gown was supposed to be more casual than her recital dress, but the overall effect suggested that she had just stepped from one of the Merican ballrooms.

'Hello Ms Kynska,' he said as neutrally as he could.

'Oh please, call me Beq, all my dear friends do,' said Bequa, linking her arm through his and turning him back to face the thick glass of the observation deck. The fragrance of her scent was overpowering and the cloying aroma of apples caught in the back of his throat. The front of her dress was scandalously low, and Ostian found himself sweating as he felt his eyes drawn to the barely contained curve of her breasts.

He looked up and saw Bequa staring right at him, and a fierce heat built in his cheeks as he knew she must have noticed exactly where he was looking.

'I'm… uh, sorry, I was…'

'Hush, my dear, it's quite all right,' soothed Bequa, with a playful grin that reassured him not at all. 'No harm in it, is there? We're all grown ups.'

He fixed his gaze on the gently spinning world below, trying to keep his mind on the swirls of ocean and atmospheric storms as she leaned close to him and said, 'I must admit that I find the prospect of war quite stirring, don't you? Gets the blood pounding and sets the loins afire with the sheer "maleness" of it all. Don't you find that, Ostian?'

'Um… I can't say I'd thought of it that way.'

'Nonsense, of course you have,' scolded Bequa. 'You're not a man if the thought of war doesn't wake the animal within you. What kind of person doesn't feel the blood fill their extremities at the thought of such things? I'm not ashamed to admit that the thought of the thunder of guns and the crash of fighting gets me all hot and bothered, if you know what I mean.'

'I'm not sure I do,' whispered Ostian, though he had a very good idea of exactly what she meant.

Bequa playfully punched his arm with her free hand and said, 'Don't be obtuse, Ostian, I shan't stand for it. You're a dreadful boy to tease me so.'