Plans Could Not Keep Up with Changes

What a pity... I had not yet fully studied this antivirus device, and now it was going to be lost here...

Suppressing his intense unwillingness, Rom began entering the disengagement sequence during the brief respite in the scrapcode tsunami. Just before the wave crashed down on the magi, their data-forms detached from the space and returned along the same path to their physical bodies.

The cables shot outward violently. Driven by high-voltage currents, they continued to writhe madly like snakes after leaving the magi's bodies, spitting tongues of lightning.

Their plasma shields, powered by activated nuclear reactors, rose in unison. Lightning struck them, sending ripples across their surfaces.

The magi aimed every manner of weapon at Magos Per-12, who had not yet disengaged from the space, and opened fire. Plasma blasts and thermal radiation beams destroyed Per-12's body, reducing him and the socket beneath him to molten iron reeking of scorched metal.

But it was not over yet. The augurs showed numerous high-energy signals appearing nearby. These were the Intelligent Control Legion led by Per-12, converging on the meeting site.

"What do we do?"

"Fight our way out and send a distress signal to the Imperium!" Rom moved swiftly. His hunched, bloated back unfolded, and several Gauss weapons glowing with a dim green light slowly rose into place.

At a time like this, no one was foolish enough to ask where the xenos weapons on Rom's body had come from. They would need to give everything they had to survive the encirclement of the Intelligent Control Legion, now in extermination mode.

"My avatar has been destroyed." Carl Bohar awoke from the console, with Carlos the Weaver of Fate and Amalaga standing guard beside him.

"That avatar should have been used at a more critical moment." Carl Bohar spoke, though