Among the aristocracy of certain worlds there exists a certain flexible interpretation of the Emperor's prohibitions on contact with Xenos. I had, therefore, had the dubious pleasure of meeting a number of non humans at various clandestine parties and gatherings. Often those Xenos had felt strange at a psykic level, esspecially the Alderi I had met on Quentus, but none of them had the dry dreadful feeling that this place had. The drone continued on its path, apparently not deigning to notice us. One of the guardsmen beside me lifted his rifle to track the thing but I reached out and pushed the barrel of his rifle down. I had a sense that this place hadn't yet paid us much attention, but something in the pulsing green glow told me I didn't want that to change.

The trail of our adversaries was easy to follow, it seemed they had simply blasted straight down the central passageway, the mark of their passage written on the floors in a faint sheen of prometheum by product. We moved fast, almost at a jog and my legs continued to complain. I ground my teeth determined to keep up.

"They might be hundreds of miles ahead of us," I complained.

"Actually, given the topography, it can only be fifty three kilometers to the other side of the range. Assuming this instalation remains flat without decending, and that their goal is in the center, they can be no more than twenty one point two five..." Lazarus droned on.

"Its still going to take us hours to cover that..."

"Will the pair of you be silent," Hadrian broke in on the argument, "we have transport en route."

The trio of chimera troop transports that arrived ten minutes later were not what I had expected, but we piled into the back and took our seats on the cushionless troop benches. Despite the exceedingly flat terrain they somehow conspired to rattle and bounce along till I felt like the pea in a whistle.

"Auspex contact," one of the troopers realyed nervously.