+This is not optimal,+ he blurted through the noosphere. Archmagos Theta-Rho had dispatched Skitarii Hunter Cohort 428-Sigma to guard the army of servitors that were even now excavating mass amounts of blackstone and transporting the hasty harvest into loader cargo-ships that would take them to the Ark Mechanicus floating in orbit above. Though normally assigned to elimination missions, 44-Kariya had to switch to protector doctrina imperatives as he processed his master's orders to defend the excavation processes by any means necessary.
"We'll be fine," Sir Kanda assured him as he piloted his Cerastus Knight Lancer forward. Already, the Lokhust heavy destroyers were opening fire, the searing atomizing beams of verdant light splashing against the bionic forcefields generated by the Sydonian Dragoon squad led by Delta Yari. The lean walkers continued to sprint forward, their taser lances crackling with exotic energies.
+I don't believe so,+ Skitarii Ranger Alpha Beta-2 retorted in binharic, cursing in technolingua when he found his squad under attack by an ambushing unit of Skorpekh Destroyers. The virus-maddened Necrons scythed down cyborg soldiers like thresher electro-flails through wheat. His last burst of data-stream informed Sigma 44-Kariya - and Archmagos Theta-Rho - that the demise of Ranger squad Beta-2 took approximately twenty point eight-four seconds. And that the Skorpekh Destroyers were accompanied by a Skorpekh Lord, who had relished in massacring the augmented soldiers.
This certainly was not optimal at all.
Fortunately, the one bright spot was that Delta Yari's Dragoon unit crashed straight into the Lokhust Destroyers, their taser lances unleashing destructive bursts that sizzled and blew apart two of the xenos constructs. The third hovered away, keeping his heavy gauss cannon trained on the lumbering Knight Lancer, but he...missed somehow. Sir Kanda ignored the sole Destroyer for now, instead blasting the twenty warrior platoon with lightning, but despite taking out a couple of them, they simply stood back up, their necrodermis knitting back together and the charred surface slowly fading away.
44-Kariya directed his personal Alpha-1 Skitarii Ranger squad to aim a precise volley of galvanic fire, plasma, arc lightning and transuranic rounds at the approaching Skorpekh Destroyers, who were soaking their gleaming blades in blood, oil and lubricant. A couple of them went down, especially when the salvo of firepower was accompanied b a devastating hail from their escorting Onager Dunecrawler, but the Skorpekh Lord and his remaining Destroyer continued undaunted. To 44-Kariya's lack of surprise, one of the Skorpekh Destroyers simply rose back, its damaged body gradually repairing itself.
Sir Kanda was about to charge right into the brick of Warriors when they simply disappeared, teleporting through ancient technologies and vanishing into thin air. He cursed under his breath.
"Cowardly xenos!"
+They are simply seeking the path that offers them the highest probability of survival,+ 44-Kariya observed calmly, even as his Skitarii Rangers were hacked down all around him. The Sydonian Dragoons of Delta Yari found themselves surrounded by Immortals and Warriors, the latter having teleported from Sir Kanda's location and marching from a translocation beacon that ruptured the space right next to them. Gauss and tesla bombarded them, and even the resilient walkers weren't able to withstand such ferocious volleys. One of them fell, his Ironstrider engine twitching as it disintegrated from the atomizing energies that flayed it layer by adamantium layer.
The leading Overlord led the charge, the Warriors mobbing the surviving Sydnonian Dragoons and guarding him as he laid into them with his staff. The Technomancer kept up with his staff of light, but his first round of attacks missed spectacularly. The two Sydonian Dragoons retaliated, but they only took out two Warriors, the rest enduring the violent eruptions of taser energy from their lancers without any clear reaction. Blinding flares of phosphor from their serpentas, fired at pointblank range, incinerated another two of them.
The Scarabs scuttled toward the Cerastus Knight Lancer, distracting Sir Kanda with their suicidal charges that blew several servos in the Knight armor's foot, but he swatted the remaining Scarabs away, the surge from his cerastus shock lance frying them into oblivion. While his attention was occupied, the Lokhust Destroyer Lord emerged from a rift, his cannon barking and failing to do anything to the Onager Dunecrawler. Instead, it was the Skorpekh Destroyers and their Lord that descended upon the hapless Skitarii and hacked them apart with their scythes.
44-Kariya watched in dismay as Ranger squad Alpha-1 was taken apart at the monomolecular level with astonishing ease. He limped, his shoulder sliced deeply by one of the phase blades, but he had managed to just barely survive by the metallic skin of his augmetic teeth. He lashed out with his control stave and gouged a chunk out of a Destroyer, but it simply repaired the damage.
The Onager Dunecrawler tried to fire at the approaching Lokhust Destroyer Lord and completely missed, while Sir Kanda crunched through the Skorpekh Destroyers with his adamantium steed, the shock lance spearing through two Skorpekh Destroyers before he stabbed the Lord. The Skorpekh Lord twisted around to confront this new threat, but even its ancient necrodermal body and its self-repair system were no match for the sheer destructive force of an enraged Knight suit. It simply ceased to exist, the damage overwhelming its preservation systems, and came apart in a brilliant light.
The Overlord and his Warriors continued to harry the Sydonian Dragoons, taking the second one down and leaving just Delta Yari as the sole survivor of his squadron. He fought back with a defiant sweep of his taser lance, even as his companion's Ironstrider engine detonated and consumed several surrounding Necrons in an expanding fireball. Even so, the Technomancer continued to restore the fallen warriors with arcane xenos sorcery. Or ancient xenos technology. 44-Kariya couldn't tell them apart.
The Immortals, ordered by their Overlord to phase away and teleport elsewhere, took central stage to snipe the now vulnerable 44-Kariya. With his entire Skitarii Ranger squad annihilated, he could do nothing but wilt under the horrific tesla volleys of the implacable xenos. Meanwhile, the Lokhust Destroyer Lord had attacked the Onager Dunecrawler, but his attacks were deflected by the shimmering emanatus forcefield that enveloped the venerable vehicle.
That protection, dating back to the Mechanicum of ancient Mars, bought the driver some time before Sir Kanda arrived, vengeance filling his vision. The Lokhust Destroyer Lord was obliterated in an instant, its figure ripped apart by the glowing spear.
As if incensed, the last remaining Lokhust Destroyer let off a vengeful volley that seared through the ion gauntlet shield, striking the unprotected rear of the turned Knight Lancer, and disassembling cabling. Though wounded, the Knight Lancer was far from destroyed, and Sir Kanda harnessed its rage, spinning it around to face the remaining foes.
"You little..." He swore. "By the Omnissiah, you'll pay for that!"
Urged by the voices in his Throne Mechanicum, he accelerated his suit into a sprinting stride that saw it crash into the Immortals with calamitous consequences. The so-called Immortals were trampled underfoot so thoroughly that they would never rise again. At least not in those mangled heaps. Meanwhile, the Onager Dunecrawler had adjusted its aim, its driver taking aim at the sole surviving Lokhust Destroyer. A single, accurate beam from the neutron laser wiped it out of existence.
+Phew,+ the driver muttered, wiping the perspiration off his occular augmetics and nodding toward his Ranger gunner. +Nice work. That was a perfect angle, staying within a vector deviation of 22.46 degrees.+
+It is my honor to serve the Omnissiah and aid in His great works,+ the gunner responded, his bionic hands gleaming as he adjusted and swiveled the neutron laser about to target the phalanx of Warriors. By now, the final Sydnonian Dragoon had fallen, and despite Delta Yari having endured the Overlord's onslaught, the sheer numbers of the platoon of Warriors had finally dragged him down from his broken mount.
Realizing that the remaining Necron forces could do little against the formidable might of a Knight, the Overlord had instructed his Warriors into a hasty retreat, beaming them out of the area in an eldritch flash that left simmering ozone in the air. The creepy emerald glows from mutilated Necron constructs faded away, even as their necrodermal bodies decomposed right before their very eyes. Sir Kanda watched them, snorting in derision.
"Cowards."
+Easy for you to say, when you're safely ensconced within a Titanic Knight suit,+ the Onager Dunecrawler Alpha-1 driver blurted matter-of-factly.
"True," Sir Kanda conceded. He glanced down at 44-Kariya's severely damaged frame through his visual holo-screens in his Throne Mechanicum. "We've got to get the Marshal back to Archmagos Theta-Rho."
+Compliance. The Archmagos is already sending a medical-enginseer team down to recover the bodies and salvage whatever bionics they can.+
Shouldn't they be more concerned with saving the lives of the organic components of the Skitarii than the augmetics? Sir Kanda wondered, but he shook his head when he realized how niave he sounded. Of course the cold, unfeeling priesthood of the Adeptus Mechanicus valued their machines and metal more than their men of flesh and blood. His hands tightened within his haptic gloves, but he stayed his tongue. Instead, he shifted his attention to the monotonously laboring servitors, who continued to harvest the blackstone uncomplainingly throughout the entire conflict.
"Looks like we might meet our quota and even have some excess leftover for our own use," he remarked. Though, despite his words, he was certain it was for Theta-Rho's personal use, rather than for the Skitarii Hunter Cohort as a whole.
That said, he was aware that Archmagos Theta-Rho was a generous master, and he was more than willing to upgrade his military subordinates with all manner of archeotech and exotic weaponry. For such lethal improvements furthered the quest bestowed upon the Mechanicus by the Omnissiah, and further aided the tech-priest's own chances of survival.
For now, Sir Kanda decided to exercise his right to remain silent and see how the Noctilith harvest in the Vertigus system would proceed. They were assisting Archmagos Belisarius Cawl, the Prime Conduit himself. There was no nobler purpose, no greater work than this.
The Imperium would drive the Necrons out of the Nephilim Sector...and then they would close the Great Rift forever.
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