The squad's Apothecary, Lion El'Jonson, saw it through his eyepieces and let out a scream so terrified that his voice cracked. He scrambled forward, heedless of the plasma bolts flying around him, and planted himself firmly in front of Malakai, shielding him with his own body.
"Hold on! By the Emperor, hold on!" Lion El'Jonson roared. Like a pile driver, his Medical Gun slammed a dose of potent Coagulant and Combat Stimulant-enough to burst a mortal's heart-into Malakai's mangled neck.
"I... cough... I'm all right..." Malakai struggled, trying to stand again with the help of his Power Armour's servo-muscles, but his body convulsed uncontrollably. Through his shattered faceplate, his once-resolute eyes were now filled with profound confusion and bewilderment.
"My gun... why... my luck..." he murmured, his voice as faint as a candle flickering in the wind. "It... left me."
This strange, horrifying phenomenon was no isolated incident. Like an invisible plague, it infected the entire Lamenters battle line in an instant.
Two hundred metres away, beside another ruined wall, a Lamenters assault trooper activated his Jump Pack, preparing to launch a devastating strike against the enemy position. Yet at the very instant he leapt, an inconspicuous length of exposed, rust-covered rebar somehow snagged the hydraulic line in his leg armour.
What should have been a perfect parabolic leap became an uncontrolled tumble. He hit the ground hard and skidded several metres. And waiting exactly where his slide ended was a superbly camouflaged antipersonnel bounding mine the enemy had planted.
Boom! The explosion blasted both his legs to dust.
Farther ahead, on open ground, a Lamenters Dreadnought was exchanging fire with a T'au XV88 Broadside Battlesuit.
Yet its Assault Cannon, normally unfailingly accurate and devastating, fired three consecutive bursts that all went wide because of minute deformations caused by its