West side of Schadenhold Fortress, Anti-Aircraft Position Three.
Sergeant Hansen stared at the augur radar. A huge red blip was bearing down on them.
It wasn't especially fast, but nothing stood in its way. It drove through like a red-hot knife through butter.
"All units, alert! High-speed target to the southwest! Range, three thousand! Over three times the size of a Land Raider!"
"Basilisk battery! Full-charge armor-piercing shells! Fire a salvo!"
Twelve Basilisk Self-Propelled Guns roared in unison.
High-explosive armor-piercing shells streaked across the sky on orange-red trails, precisely blanketing the target area.
Then nothing happened.
Every shell vanished into thin air ten meters from the black shape. No explosions, no flames, not even a wisp of smoke.
The pale blue Void Shield flickered in the darkness, swallowing every shell like a gaping maw without so much as a burp.
"A Void Shield? How do they have a vehicle-grade Void Shield?!" Cold sweat poured off Hansen.
"Another salvo! High-explosive shells! Fire everything!"
A second volley. A third. A fourth.
Dozens of shells vanished without a trace.
The black shape didn't even slow down. Like a moving mountain of steel, it crushed everything in its path.
Trenches, sandbags, barbed wire, and several hybrid Genestealers who hadn't escaped in time were ground into the mud beneath its broad tracks. Even their screams were cut short.
Hansen finally made out its shape.
A Mastodon heavy assault transport.
It dwarfed a Land Raider, its thick plasteel armor completely unmarked. The Heavy Flamers on either side were already primed, and the turret-mounted Skyreaper Autocannon was slowly turning.
Most despair-inducing of all was that pale blue Void Shield, an insurmountable wall.
Hybrid Genestealers charged out of the ruins on both sides, carrying lances tipped with Melta Bombs and howling as they lunged at it.
This was