"Spread out! Crossfire! Don't let them regroup!"
The roared orders cut through the shriek of bolts and the hum of energy weapons.
Behind cover, the Holy Word Army's junior officers shouted themselves hoarse directing their troops.
Their tactical intent was clear. They would never let themselves be drawn into close combat with these fallen giants. Instead, they used their superior numbers and overlapping fire to divide, herd, and hem them in.
Dense plasma beams streaked through the heat-warped air, leaving dazzling blue trails. Wherever they passed, metal melted and rock turned to glass.
The more powerful melta weapons gave off low charging hums, then spat devastating jets of searing heat after a brief buildup. Even a glancing hit along the edge of a traitor Space Marine's twisted armour instantly burned out a huge molten crater trailing smoke.
Bolts and Laser beams poured down like a rainstorm, weaving lethal webs of fire.
This was no indiscriminate shooting.
Every volley was calculated. The barrages landed precisely along the routes the traitors tried to use to advance or scatter, forcing them back and breaking the rhythm of their charges.
The white-armoured soldiers displayed astonishing discipline and coordination. Rather than holding a single position, they flowed like a living white tide, moving nimbly between cover while maintaining effective suppression and a partial encirclement of those dozen or so towering figures.
In just a few breaths, such fierce, precise, seamlessly coordinated fire pinned down the traitor Space Marines—warriors who should have dominated the battlefield—so thoroughly that they could barely return effective fire.
They had to huddle behind burning transport ship wreckage, collapsed metal frameworks, and hastily piled fortifications, only occasionally poking out their weapons to fire blind bursts. Most of their bolts struck the cover in front of the Holy Word Army's soldiers in vain,