Atop Saar City's twisted spire, the yellow sand patterns on Company Captain Zask's Power Armour had been covered by Smoke and blood.
He looked down at the Rebel Forces surging like a tide beneath the walls, and at the once-familiar command vehicle calmly directing them from behind their lines.
Fury blazed in his chest, almost hot enough to burn through the cold ceramite.
"Gokbuli! You traitor who forsook your oath and defiled your honour!"
His roar thundered through his external speakers, mingling with the shriek of Bolters as it crashed down beneath the walls.
Then two searing white beams from the city's defensive Volkite guns tore through the air, heading straight for the traitor commander.
Yet Gokbuli merely turned slightly, using the superhuman reflexes and speed of an Astartes to let the lethal energy beams skim his shoulder plate, leaving a scorch mark.
He even raised his head, turning his faceplate towards Zask, and gave a cold, mocking nod.
Just as Zask was about to order every heavy weapon to saturate that area, something in the sky caught his attention.
Two blazing fireballs, trailing thick black smoke, were plunging crookedly through the dim sky reddened by artillery fire.
Judging by their struggling movements and relatively intact outlines, they looked more like out-of-control Assault Craft.
"Is that...?"
At that same moment, inside the burning, falling craft.
Violent tumbling, impacts, the shriek of twisting metal, the roar of air compressed and then sucked away in an instant...
Saolis held himself fast in his twisted seat, while data scrolled wildly across his Visor before turning entirely blood-red.
He screamed his final order over the internal channel, drowning out every other sound:
"Everyone! Hold on! Hold on! Hold on—!"
Then came an irresistible force, as though the entire world were crushing inward from