The hunt had proven to be problematic, for the fleet clearly did not want to be found. Eventually, however, the origin of the mysterious fleet was revealed when the battle-barge Iron Will had chanced upon an unidentified cluster of vessels and intercepted them before they could flee.

To the surprise and delight of the expedition's sizeable Mechanicum contingent, the vessels had turned out to be of human origin, and interrogation of the surviving crew had been undertaken immediately. This revealed that the ships were part of a larger conglomeration of vessels the captured crewmen had called the Diasporex, and belonged to an age of Terra long since passed.

Balhaan was a keen student of the history of ancient Earth, and had read extensively of the golden age of exploration, thousands of years before the darkness of Old Night had descended upon the galaxy, when humanity had travelled from Earth in vast colonisation fleets. The very purpose of the Great Crusade was to reclaim what had been won by the early pioneers and then lost in the anarchy of the Age of Strife. Such ancient fleets were the stuff of legend, for the ships of the earliest starfarers had taken the children of Terra to the furthest corners of the galaxy.

To stumble upon their descendants was declared providential by Ferrus Manus himself.

With information gleaned from the captured crew, contact was established with these brothers of antiquity, but much to the 52nd Expedition's disgust, the Diasporex had incorporated many incongruent elements in its makeup over the long millennia. Ancient human vessels flew alongside starships belonging to a wide variety of alien races, and instead of rejecting such contamination, as the Emperor had dictated, the fleet masters of the Diasporex had welcomed them into their ranks, forming a co-operative armada that plied the darkness of space together.

In the spirit of forgiving brotherhood, Ferrus Manus had generously offered to repatriate the thousands of humans that made up the Diasporex to compliant worlds, if they would submit to the rule of the Emperor of Mankind.

The primarch's offer had been rejected out of hand and all communication broken off.

Faced with such an insult to the Emperor's will, Ferrus Manus had no choice but to lead the 52nd Expedition into a legitimate war against the Diasporex.

Balhaan and the Ferrum were the forward vanguard of the primarch's war, and now he had the honour of striking back at the humans who dared turn their back on the Emperor and the emergent Imperium. Like the vessel he commanded, Balhaan was stark and unforgiving, as befitted a warrior of the Kaargul Clan. He had commanded a fleet of ships on the icy seas of Medusa by his fifteenth winter and knew the shifting temperaments of the sea better than any man. No man who served under him had ever dared question his orders and no man had ever failed him. His Mark IV armour was polished a lustrous black, and a white, wool cloak embroidered with silver thread hung to his knees. A greenskin cleaver had taken his left arm three decades ago and a Deuthrite flenser his right barely a year later. Now both his arms were heavy augmetics of burnished iron, but Balhaan welcomed his new mechanised limbs, for flesh, even Astartes flesh, was weak and would eventually fail.

To receive the Blessing of Iron was a boon, not a curse.

An industrious hubbub filled the bridge with an excited hum, and Balhaan permitted the crew their excitement, for the Ferrum was to have the honour of the first kill. The main viewing bay was filled with the dark void of space, lit up by the brilliant yellow glow of the Carollis Star. A multitude of flickering lines looped across the display: flight trajectories, torpedo tracks, ranges and intercept vectors, each one designed to bring an end to the two vessels that lay a few thousand kilometres off his prow.

The irony of this hunt was not lost on Balhaan, for despite his rank as captain of a ship of war, he was not a man without sensibilities beyond his duties. These were human vessels and to attack them was to destroy a piece of history that fascinated him.

'Come about to new heading, zero two three,' he ordered, gripping the lectern tightly with his iron fingers. Fie did not dare betray any emotion as they closed on the two wallowing cruisers they had managed to shear from the Diasporex fleet, but he could not help a small smile of triumph as he watched his gunnery officer come towards him with a data-slate clutched in his eager hands.

'You have a solution for the forward batteries, Axarden?' demanded Balhaan.

'I do, sir.'

'Inform the ordnance decks,' said Balhaan, 'but close to optimum range before unmasking the guns.'

'Aye, sir,' replied Axarden, 'and the containers they ejected?'

Balhaan pulled up the feed from the starboard picters, watching as the enormous cargo containers that the cruisers had abandoned drifted away. In an attempt to gain more speed, the enemy cruisers had ditched whatever cargo they were hauling, but it hadn't been enough to prevent the Imperial ships from catching them.

'Ignore them,' ordered Balhaan. 'Concentrate on the cruisers. 'We will return for them later and examine what they were carrying.'

'Very good, sir.'

Balhaan watched the range to the two cruisers close with a practiced eye. They were following a curving trajectory around the star's corona, hoping to lose themselves in the electromagnetic clutter that spurted and foamed around its edges, but the Ferrum was too close to be thrown off by such a clumsy subterfuge.

Clumsy…

Balhaan frowned as he wondered at his prey's apparent foolishness. Everything he had learned of the Diasporex suggested that its captains were highly skilled, and for them to believe that such an obvious stratagem would throw him from their scent was inherently suspicious.

'Ordnance decks report all guns ready to fire,' reported Axarden.

'Very good,' nodded Balhaan, worried that there was something he wasn't seeing.

The two ships followed a divergent course, peeling away from one another, and Balhaan knew he should order his ship to all ahead full to pull into the gap and give both of them a good broadside, but he kept his counsel, knowing there was something wrong.

His worst fears were suddenly realised when his surveyor officer shouted, 'New contacts! Multiple signals!'

'Where in the name of Medusa did they come from?' shouted Balhaan, swinging his heavy body around to face the wide, waterfall displays of surveyor command. Red lights were winking into life on the display, and without asking Balhaan knew that they were behind his ships.

'I'm not sure,' said the surveyor officer, but even as he spoke, Balhaan knew where they had come from, and returned his gaze to the command lectern. He called up the external picters and watched in horror as the vast cargo containers abandoned by their quarry split open and disgorged scores of gleaming darts: bombers and fighters no doubt.

'All ahead full!' ordered Balhaan, though he knew it was already too late. 'Come to new heading, nine seven zero and launch interceptors. Activate close-in defence turrets. All escorts to perimeter protection duties.'

'What about the cruisers?' asked Axarden.

'Damn the cruisers!' shouted Balhaan, watching as they ceased their flight and began turning to face the Ferrum. 'They were nothing more than decoys, and like a fool I fell for it.'

He could hear the groaning metal of the deck shifting beneath his feet as the Ferrum desperately sought to turn to face this new foe.

'Torpedoes launched!' warned the defence officer. 'Impact in thirty seconds!'

Balhaan shouted, 'Countermeasures!' though he knew that any torpedo launched from such close range was practically guaranteed to hit. The Ferrum continued to turn, and Balhaan could feel the juddering fire of the defence turrets as they opened fire on the incoming ordnance. Some of the enemy torpedoes would be shot down, exploding soundlessly in the void, but not all of them.