The Civic Temple soldiers in exoskeletons marched through the smoke with cold, merciless steps, swiftly fired laser beams knocking down the charging Orks one after another as they exchanged fire with the biker force attempting to outflank them.
"Kill 'em!"
A torrent of flame poured from Toofstabber's right arm. The ground erupted in a storm of metal and dirt, enemy remains shooting into the air like fountains as several soldiers were blasted into clouds of shredded flesh and boiling blood.
But immediately afterward, a hurricane of gunfire came roaring at him. He could only retreat—the displays showed that, in the brief exchange of fire, one energy shield had already ceased to exist.
Compared to the enormous Guk Gargant, the Morkanaut possessed only limited energy shields to protect itself. The Gargant's massive reactor could replenish its shields in time, but the Morkanaut could not.
Under normal circumstances, a Morkanaut could effectively withstand individual attacks from most weapons. But the Civic Temple's forces used something called an information network to link their weapons together and fire with extreme precision at the exact same moment.
Orks rarely encountered enemies with such highly networked combat capabilities, and they immediately suffered for it.
Boom! Boom!
Another shield shuddered and vanished. Toofstabber had to turn his war machine toward a new threat: a hunter-killer squad armed with infantry anti-armor rockets.
Through his binoculars, Toofstabber saw that every soldier's helmet bore a silver ring. He memorized those helmets in case he encountered them again.
But he did not know that they were hardware access components for a battlefield network.
What they held were not rockets, but laser designators. They were what clearly marked Toofstabber on the battlefield network.
"Boss!"
Every step of the Morkanaut shook the room. The Mek boss managing the engine room kept yelling, and