Whoosh!
Boom!
Heavy bodies tore through the air, slamming into the ground one after another like black meteors.
A drop of dozens of metres was a fatal abyss to Mortals. To the Astartes of the Iron Hands, it was merely a "descent" that required a little cushioning.
With a synchronised series of dull impacts, the earth trembled slightly, and dust burst outward in rings around the landing points.
More than a hundred warriors of the 29th Company assembled instantly in the open ground surrounded by ruins, like reapers descending from a steel nest.
They bent their knees to absorb the impact, then rose without pausing, their movements as precise as a single machine replicated over a hundred times.
Their black power armour absorbed every trace of light beneath the dim sky. Only the open iron hand Insignia on their pauldrons gleamed with a cold metallic sheen.
"All squads, deploy in the designated tactical formations. Sensors scan across all bands. Prepare for contact with unknown threats." Company Captain Aerion's voice sounded over the encrypted channel, steady and dry, with a mechanical cadence.
He moved first, his heavy armoured boots treading over shattered alloy plates and crystallised grit as he approached the deep, dark entrance ahead, like the gullet of some enormous beast.
The head of the power hammer in his hand hung low, occasionally scraping the ground with a faint hiss.
On either side of him, four servo-skulls painted matte black rose silently into the air.
Cold red lights flickered in their eye sockets, while the scanning arrays and miniature weapons platforms beneath them rotated soundlessly.
They were extensions of Aerion's senses and instruments of his will. Now, like a cautious swarm of bees, they flew into the passage first, streaming optical images, heat signatures, acoustic feedback, and basic material analysis