The battle ended quickly.
As the last Ork was blown to pieces by Avitus’s Heavy Bolter, this patch of jungle returned to a deathly silence once more.
Only that chimera remained awkwardly stuck in the middle of the bridge, its tracks spinning in the air and letting out a piercing grinding sound.
Alex slumped in the turret, staring at the sliver of sky obscured by the canopy above, his heart as cold as dead ashes.
“We’re not dead…
Veteran!
It’s the God-Emperor!
The God-Emperor held up this bridge!!” Tros shouted incoherently from below, beginning to recite prayers at the top of his lungs.
“Shut up, let me have some peace.” Alex covered his face weakly.
What was this?
Was this also luck?
Was this broken bridge targeting me specifically?
Just then, Cyrus’s extremely lowered voice suddenly came through the comms behind his ear, instantly shattering the atmosphere of victory.
“Quiet.” The scout, who had remained cloaked the entire time, did not lower his guard.
He stood on a high point of the ruins across the bridge, his sniper rifle pointed toward the dark, ancient corridors deep within the jungle.
“Interference on the auspex…
It’s not Orks.” Cyrus’s voice was icy, carrying a hint of caution that had never been there before as it filtered into everyone’s ears through the comm channel: “The spore concentration in the air is dropping…
the jungle here is too quiet.
Something has scared off all the creatures in the vicinity.” Alex suddenly sat bolt upright.
For some reason, his Pilot instincts began to sound a frantic alarm.
That feeling was more dangerous than facing dozens of Orks with Big Shootas.
In the shadows of the jungle, it seemed as if countless eyes were opening.
It wasn’t a savage gaze.
It was hunger.
A few minutes later.
Tros crawled out of the chimera’s rear hatch, looking begrimed.
He stared at the broken bridge structure where they were wedged tight, then looked at the despair-filled face of Alex in the turret.
“God-Emperor above…” Tros made an aquila salute across his chest, his tone as fanatical as if he had witnessed a miracle.
“How did you calculate that?
Using the bridge collapse to construct a temporary bunker while simultaneously providing perfect fire cover…” “What tactical vision!
The Emperor’s hand is guiding your tracks!” Alex poked his head out of the turret, looking at that damned Adamantium beam that had saved his life.
He merely waved his hand tiredly.
“…Luck.
It was all luck.” Tarkus walked over from across the bridge.
He looked at the chimera stuck in mid-air, his red eye-lenses flickering.
“Positioning is well chosen.” The tactical sergeant gave a brief evaluation.
“The array entrance has been cleared.
Matellus is preparing to upload the data.” Tarkus looked at Alex and pointed toward the massive silhouette of the ruins ahead.
“Back the vehicle out, if you can.” Alex sighed.
The chassis let out a death-rattle groan.
The tracks scraped a shower of sparks against the stone slabs of the broken bridge, and the entire vehicle wobbled backward as if being dragged forcibly from a grave.
He held onto a final hope, thinking it would get stuck or flip over and fall.
As it turned out—it actually backed out.
Tros and the driver, Gar, let out gasps that sounded somewhere between crying and laughing.
Alex gripped the controls, mentally giving the middle finger to that inscrutable fate.
After crossing that damned broken bridge, the jungle suddenly opened up.
The Astronomic Array was right before them.
Its main body resembled a black pyramid blunted by time, but that was just the shell.
The true array consisted of the broken components extending from its top and sides—rings of guide rails, half-severed antenna spines, and beacon pillars strangled by vines.
The exposed obsidian-like surface could still reflect the star’s light, but the heat-dissipating grilles were cold and silent, and the servo-interfaces were as hollow and dark as a dead man’s eye sockets.
“Power offline.” Matellus stood before the console at the base of the array, his servo-arm extending to insert a contact probe into the port like a surgeon.
The runes jumping onto the data slate were all red, like a string of impatient warnings from the machine spirit.
For the first time, the Techmarine’s voice carried a hint of clear irritation—not emotional anger, but the frustration of a process being interrupted.
“No primary power.
The array is only holding a minimum maintenance circuit…
no, even the maintenance circuit has been drained dry.” “Cannot upload data.
This place is nothing but a rock right now.” “Over there.” Cyrus’s voice came from the shadows.
The Scout Sergeant was crouched atop a collapsed stone pillar like a falcon in the jungle, pointing down toward the river valley.
Alex looked through the chimera’s observation port, and his eyelid twitched violently.
A massive Ork Looted Wagon was racing through the valley, belching black smoke like a crazed pig with an iron shell on its back.
The thing was clearly modified from some unfortunate Imperial Leman Russ Tank.
The turret had been removed and replaced with a massive ram, and serrated scrap metal was nailed to the side armor, clattering in the wind.
And behind the beat-up war machine, several thick iron chains were being dragged.
At the other end of the chains was a cylindrical device over two meters tall.
Its entire body emitted an unstable blue light.
The Imperial Aquila and the Adeptus Mechanicus’s Cog Mechanicum were inscribed on its casing, which had been worn and pitted by the Ork chains.
Blue light leaked from the cracks like blood seeping from a wound.
With every bump, the bottom of the cylinder scraped against the gravel, creating a shower of blinding sparks accompanied by a tooth-aching crackle of electricity.
“These beasts…” The light on Matellus’s eye-lenses flickered, his tone carrying clear fury.
“That is a sacred Plasma Core power column.” “They are treating it as—” “Treating it as a shiny trophy,” Tarkus finished the sentence, racking the slide of his Bolter.
The war machine dragged the core column toward the depths of the jungle, surrounded by cheering Greenskins waving Choppas and Shootas, shouting meaningless cries of “Waaagh!” Alex stared at that constantly bumping, spark-showering cylinder, and several tactical assessments flashed through his mind.
That was plasma.
And it was an oversized plasma bomb being violently dragged along.
If that thing exploded…
Alex glanced at Tros and Gar beside him, then at the Space Marines deploying behind him.
The terrain here was a closed river valley.
Once the core suffered a sympathetic detonation, the shockwave would wipe out every living thing within a two-kilometer radius…
Tsk, it couldn’t be blown up directly.
But he soon found another solution.
Not being able to blow up the battery didn’t mean he couldn’t blow up the vehicle.
That Ork junker had massive spare fuel tanks hanging off the back, and it was piled high with rockets.
As long as he charged close enough to detonate the vehicle, the explosion would be enough to take himself out without triggering a chain reaction in the core column behind it.
A suicidal close-range demolition.
He could die without involving the innocent.
Perfect.