Barely half an hour after Warren's Skulls Regiment entered the sprawling industrial ruins of District 28, fighting erupted without warning.
There was no probing artillery barrage, no sign of a massing force.
Dozens of warped, indistinct figures, resembling a blend of molten metal and shadow, silently appeared near several key points along the Skulls Regiment's forward positions.
They did not attack across the ground. Instead, like phantoms, they used some kind of short-range optical distortion and thermal masking devices to Infiltration, flicker into view, and appear directly inside the defensive line!
These were Rangdan Elite Infiltration troops, a blade dedicated to decapitation strikes and internal sabotage.
What greeted them was not the chaos and panic they had expected.
Almost the instant those blurred silhouettes emerged, the Skulls Regiment's firing positions atop the ruins, in the windows of half-collapsed factories, and behind prepared, reinforced cover opened fire in unison!
The deep roar of Heavy Bolter Guns tore through the air. Dense beams from Laser arrays wove a net of death, while the ammunition belts of large-caliber Autocannons unleashed a steel downpour.
Ferocious, precise, unrestrained fire instantly engulfed the Infiltration who had just appeared.
Caught off guard, several Rangdan Elite had no time even to evade effectively before the concentrated fire shredded them and knocked them down. Their mangled bodies and shimmering fragments of psychic shields scattered through the gunsmoke.
Yet the roughly thirty remaining Rangdan Elite demonstrated the strength that made them elite.
With astonishing speed and uncanny movements, they forced their way through the storm of fire, shooting deeper into the Skulls Regiment's positions like poisoned arrows loosed from a bow. Their tactical objective was clear: find the Command Center and decapitate the force.
In countless previous clashes with the Imperium's troops, this tactic—wearing the enemy down with cannon fodder,