Chaotic Battle

Moran easily guessed where these Plague Marines had come from.

After all, apart from a Hive City belonging to the Adeptus Mechanicus, this planet had only a single surface spaceport.

The spaceport had not been captured during the earlier battle in low planetary orbit. Otherwise, large numbers of ground troops would already have been deployed on the surface.

The only possible explanation for these Plague Marines appearing now was that the Cruiser had just deployed them in landing pods.

The timing was obvious: during its exchange of fire with this turret, it had slipped the landing pods among the Macro-cannon shells and other ordnance raining down from the sky.

Clearly, though, that massive beam had vaporized a large portion of them along its firing path.

Moran did not consider these few Plague Marines much of a threat.

Even without the Skitarii Skimmer Transport, the nearby Skitarii squad and Armed Servitors would have been enough to handle them. The losses might have been somewhat heavy, but a handful of Plague Marines was hardly a major problem.

"Everything is the will of the Omnissiah. Praise the emissary of the Machine God."

Moran even silently performed the Imperium's Aquila Salute before settling comfortably back into his seat in the passenger compartment.

The Armed Servitor whose console he had occupied immediately began operating the weapons on the Skitarii Skimmer Transport.

Light flashed at the muzzle of the Mauler Bolt Cannon, and a thick beam characteristic of heavy weaponry easily blasted a Plague Marine in two.

This weapon was far more powerful than a conventional infantry Melta Cannon.

Its residual energy even hurled another Plague Marine standing behind and to one side of the first through the air.

There was nothing particularly exceptional about these Plague Marines, but every one of them was a veteran of countless battles.

Their bodies might have become bloated and their movements slow, but that was only in comparison to other Space Marines.

Against Skitarii and Combat Servitors, most of whom had undergone only basic modifications, these foul-smelling, hideous warriors—some even sprouting bizarre organic tentacles—were almost invincible.

Standard-issue Adeptus Mechanicus Lasguns could barely leave a mark on them.

The only units capable of inflicting effective damage were the few towering Armed Servitors scattered throughout the formation.

Although their bolters could penetrate the ceramite armor, which contamination had rendered brittle, the diminished force of the rounds could do little harm to Plague Marines who no longer possessed conventional weak points.

Besides, those towering, bloated Plague Marines were not nearly as slow or sluggish as most people imagined. Even though the Armed Servitors' Heavy Bolters fired without pause, their hit rate was hardly impressive.

The occasional burst or two of black blood from their bodies did nothing worth mentioning.

Even the Plague Marine the Mauler Bolt Cannon had blasted in half was still dragging his severed body along the ground, firing his bolter wildly.

As the distance between the two sides closed, the Combat Servitors, with their simple response protocols, were the first to react.

Once they determined that conventional gunfire could not inflict damage, the dozens of surviving Servitors immediately lunged at the approaching Plague Marines.

These terrifying warriors radiated the blessings of the dark god Nurgle. Flesh and machinery became infected by that strange plague the moment they touched their bodies. Flesh broke down and machinery decayed, but their actions still served a purpose.

Entangled in flesh and metal, the Plague Marines lost their previous agility.

"Hah... lowly creatures! Your resistance is futile. We shall bring the blessings of the loving father and grant you eternal mercy." The lead Plague Marine roared in a strange cadence, his thick arms swinging constantly. One hand fired in every direction while the other tore apart the Combat Servitors charging up beside him and tossed them aside.

But a nearby Armed Servitor did not miss the opportunity. It swiftly changed direction on its tracks, rotated its torso, then blasted both the Servitors and the trapped Plague Marine into fragments with bolter fire.

Meanwhile, the Raven flying high overhead faithfully relayed the entire unexpected battle to Iax.

Watching those amalgams of flesh and machinery rush toward the towering, dark-green, grotesque warriors, Iax felt rather bewildered.

"What are these things? They seem completely different from the Adeptus Mechanicus in my database. These flesh hybrids look somewhat like a kind of Xenos organism capable of ranged fire. What are those strange hulking things? They don't look like combat machines. Biosynthetic soldiers?"

As one of the abandoned Men of Iron, Iax had been activated by accident, and his database was extremely outdated. Most of its records dated to before the twenty-second millennium.

From the data and surviving information currently available, Iax judged that it was now at least past the thirty-sixth millennium. As for what had happened during the intervening period, he had no idea.

The interstellar data transfer centers and devices capable of connecting to the network had all disappeared, leaving Iax with no way to go online and update his database.

Still, Iax had no intention of letting the two sides keep fighting like this. He needed information.

The simplest approach was to seize control of the scene by force and let firepower do the talking.

The Shatterer Cannon emplacement was more than just a gun platform. Besides its deflection-field shield, it was also equipped with defensive machines.

The most numerous of these were Automated Sentries.

These were small humanoid combat units, less than two meters tall and equipped with only two simple weapons: a Light Neutron Beam Emitter and a Light Rapid-Fire Gravitic Machine Gun.

Dozens of these former cannon-fodder units stood in a concealed storage bay beside the emplacement.

Though they had weathered an unknown number of years, one or two better-built survivors remained among the heap of scrap.

As mechanical bodies that had lain dormant for ages activated once more, some of the fragile units began moving again after a brief charging period.

Their bodies allowed for rapid disassembly and reassembly. Working together, two Automated Sentries soon scavenged enough replacement parts for each other from their brethren lying on the floor.

After replacing several components with ones in slightly better condition, the two sentries ran out through an entrance on one side of the turret's base.

Facing the technology of this new era for the first time, Iax was somewhat concerned about whether his weapons would be powerful enough. Yet analysis of the data transmitted by the Raven showed that the weapons on both sides had absurdly low energy levels. Apart from that oddly shaped vehicle, which appeared to mount a somewhat more powerful but very crude energy weapon, everything else seemed exceedingly fragile.