Alpharius braced for impact, holding the Emperor's Sword behind his waist. The Adeptus Custodes stood before him. They were the Retributors, and they had only one task: kill every enemy they saw, leaving none alive.
The Custodians did not seem to regard this as an assassination mission.
It was like the Officio Assassinorum refusing to speak to you and sending an Eversor Assassin instead, ready to slaughter everything here.
The Retributors had clearance to use most heavy weapons. Now, standing at the door of the shuttle doubling as a boarding craft was an Aquila-pattern Terminator. His Cataphractii-pattern armor had been personally improved by the Emperor, becoming incredibly tough with the addition of auramite. Compared with it, even Adamantium Armor was merely cheap, shoddy junk.
Behind him were two Achilles-pattern Terminators. Their offense, defense, and speed were among the finest in the galaxy. A single suit of their armor could buy a planet.
The other Custodians' equipment was harder to assess. Every suit was custom-made, engraved with symbols only those within the Adeptus Custodes could recognize.
Another exceedingly rare sight was that the Custodians had chosen not to work with the Sisters, instead using a Pariah Halo. Yes, it was the complete version of that thing in the Dark Angels' vault-or rather, the original version. It was xenos technology that could seal off the surrounding warp power, taking the place of the anti-psyker Sisters.
These things had considerable side effects. Otherwise, they would long since have been issued to the troops for an assault into the Webway. Equipping a small force with them, however, posed no problem.
Clearly, the Custodian Marshal had issued absolute orders this time.
The shuttle shook violently. Even Astartes neophytes could not have endured an impact of this intensity. The Bunker-Breaching Melta kept burning with extraordinary persistence,