Dawn broke over Sector Four with unclouded, crystal-clear bright glare.
The crisp morning wind swept across the glass-fused dark rock castle walls of Iron Trench Outpost. He carried the clean scent of high pine forests and cold mountain air. Along the fire-steps, commoner sentries stood watch in clean uniforms, their rifles slung proudly over their shoulders. Meanwhile, the forty-two liberated beasts basked peacefully in the early morning light.
At 07:00 hours, a deep, ringing hum shook through the air.
High in the northern sky, dropping smoothly through the morning mist, appeared a vessel of huge, awe-inspiring majesty: an armored Imperial Vanguard Dreadnought.
The warship was five hundred feet long. Its hull plated in shone white ceramite and trimmed with burnished royal gold. Emblazoned across its broad prow was the twin golden eagles of Federal High Command, flanking the emerald caduceus of the High Medical Arbitrators.
Four massive anti-gravity repulsor nacelles hummed with high-pressure power as the dreadnought settled into a gentle landing hover fifty yards outside the outpost’s main gate. It lowered its heavy high-pressure boarding ramp to the dried mudflats.
A company of eighty elite Federal Vanguard Grenadiers marched down the ramp in flawless parade formation, clad in polished silver composite armor and carrying ritual mag-lances.
