"Shall we activate them now, my lord?" Belisca asked.
Lion El'Jonson did not answer immediately. His back was turned to the Archmagos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, his broad shoulders casting deep shadows in the dim light.
Outside the window loomed the enemy's immense silhouette, like a star of death, once more sealed within a blue shield. Inside that shield, he could faintly sense the fading signals of his sons, fighting bloody battles and dying one after another.
Every second, another loyal warrior might fall, trapped in that xenos prison.
He had to make a choice.
"I must save my sons."
Lion El'Jonson did not answer with a simple yes or no, but his words, and the unreserved responsibility and resolve behind them, were answer enough.
Activating those "things" meant breaking a taboo.
But now, weighed against the lives of thousands of his finest warriors, the entire campaign, and even the honor of the Imperium of Man here, personal misgivings and Legion secrets had to give way.
"Understood, my lord Primarch." Bescari's enormous body, built from gears, pistons, an adamantium skeleton, and a humming psychic energy core, inclined slightly with a heavy grinding of metal.
His metal face, converted into a complex sensor array that retained only a few human features, showed neither joy nor sorrow.
To him, carrying out the Primarch's will was the endpoint of logic.
His mountain-like mechanical body began to move. Multiple anti-gravity units and hydraulic limbs worked in concert, carrying him through a heavily guarded, concealed corridor behind the Bridge, accessible only to a handful of senior officers.
Lion El'Jonson walked silently beside him, his stride firm.
Guards stood motionless along both sides of the corridor, special inscriptions engraved into their armor. Their eyes glimmered in the shadows, like statues guarding a tomb.
At last, they