"Emperor above, what happened?"
Standing on the Black Ship's bridge, surrounded by Imperial crewmen, Inquisitor Hamm witnessed a sight that stunned him.
The T'au Empire's fleet suddenly regained power, and the ships' weapons resumed operation. But then the guns that had been aimed at the Black Ship and the Guardian-class began turning, one after another, toward the other T'au ships around them.
A torrent of fire erupted in an instant, as though every T'au captain bore a bitter grudge against all the others.
The T'au who had lost control of their ships wailed aboard them, while Earth Caste engineers raced through the vessels. The artificial intelligences that had once served the great cause of the Greater Good were now utterly out of control.
High-powered weapons unleashed their devastating destructive force against unshielded hull armor.
Even two turrets with overlapping fields of fire on the same ship began attacking each other.
Violent explosions played a sonata across every T'au ship.
Hamm almost thought they had suffered a daemonic incursion.
After all, such scenes had occurred aboard Imperial Ships before. When a ship's machine spirit was corrupted by daemons and lost control, the resulting rampage was practically commonplace in the Imperium.
As an inquisitor of the Inquisition, he was no stranger to either alien xenos or daemonic incursions.
"Scan the surrounding area for Warp fluctuations. Detect every potential Warp threat."
Hamm's orders were clear.
But after the Data Priest drove away the servitor and took over the monitoring array's console, he found nothing.
There was not the slightest Warp fluctuation in the surrounding space.
Ignoring the T'au ships still firing wildly at one another, the Guardian-class gradually approached planetary orbit. Swarms of Transport Aircraft carrying Sentinels began descending to the surface.
The agreement required them to ensure the planet continued functioning normally,