Inside the factory, out on the firing range, the veteran crew and defense force soldiers following Andrallo grew more excited by the minute, their plasma rifles in hand, expressions sliding steadily toward outright glee.
Weapons like this, they’d never even dared to dream of using before, and now here they were, practically as common as mass-produced junk.
As battle-hardened elites of the galaxy, the crew handled these weapons with ease, and before long they’d left the mutants completely in the dust.
Out at the artillery training ground, soldiers pounded suspicious-looking terrain in the distance with brand-new truck-mounted guns and self-propelled artillery, round after round.
Andrallo looked over the completely transformed force and spoke with genuine feeling.
“Kaides, you really are our treasure.
This much weaponry, out of practically nothing.”
“That’s only because this nation’s production efficiency is so terrible.
Most of its resources were just going to waste.”
Kaides picked up a pistol and handed it over to Andrallo with a smile.
“Chief, I built this one specifically for you.
It runs on psychic power directly, you don’t need to shape a discipline yourself to use it.
Just feed it your power, and it fires instantly.”
“I also pushed its load limit as high as I could, to make the most of whatever power you put into it.”
Andrallo took it, a little surprised.
The shape was similar to the plasma pistol he’d used before, but it had none of the crudeness typical of Imperium weapons.
If anything, it carried a sleek, almost elegant sense of technology.
The whole body was smooth and minimal, every part fitted together with perfect precision, and yet every piece could be broken down and swapped out with ease.
Andrallo closed his hand around it, and felt the psychic power inside him tug gently toward it, like a single beam of light in the dark, drawing him to let go.
Even so, the pistol’s capacity was still far too small.
Andrallo’s own power was, to this gun, what a reservoir was to a single spillway gate on a dam.
Following the weapon’s own guidance, Andrallo poured his power into it, and in just three seconds, the whole pistol was fully charged.
Under Kaides’ encouraging gaze, Andrallo raised the pistol and fired at one of the fortified targets downrange.
The gun shuddered faintly in his grip, and a sphere of violet light burst from the muzzle, striking the target at a speed even Andrallo couldn’t quite track.
An earth-shaking explosion swallowed the entire range a heartbeat later.
An area the size of a full basketball court around the target vanished under blue-violet flame, the fortifications there wiped out entirely, the very soil torn apart and thrown skyward by the psychic fire.
“Lord Andrallo!
What happened?!”
Once they confirmed Andrallo was unharmed, both let out a breath of relief, only to catch sight of the fire still burning in the distance.
“That’s, that’s an enormous amount of psychic power!
Lord Andrallo, when did you learn an offensive discipline?”
Charlotte stared at the psychic flames still licking across the range, her mouth wide enough to fit an egg inside it, while Maen looked at the weapon in Andrallo’s hand with obvious suspicion.
“That pistol, that kind of power, is that from something Mr.
Kaides gave you?”
“Sharp as ever, Maen.
It really is one of Kaides’ creations.
But how were you so sure?”
Maen laughed softly.
“Because your control over psychic power is honestly pretty bad, my lord.
All that raw strength, and you can barely make use of it.
It’s obvious at a glance this wasn’t something you managed on your own.”
“You really don’t spare my feelings at all, do you.” Andrallo pulled a face, though he didn’t much care either way.
As long as Kaides was helping him, that was good enough.
Once she was done laughing, Maen pulled out a stack of reports on the Governor’s recent troop movements.
“My lord, it looks like the Governor’s sent his personal guard after us.
Nothing on their route has managed to stop them so far, not even Chaos Astartes have been able to hold them back.”
Charlotte cut in beside her, indignant.
“He’s lying to us!
He never needed any outside help at all.
Our scouts couldn’t even find a single intact Chaos Astartes body on the battlefield.
That man is definitely up to something!”
Andrallo and Kaides exchanged a glance.
Things were getting interesting now.
Seeing the two of them still smiling, Maen couldn’t help growing a little anxious.
Charlotte and I have been gathering intelligence on them, and they’re no bunch of drunks and idlers, they’re stronger than the ordinary crew, even.
We absolutely cannot underestimate them!”
Andrallo patted the pale-haired girl’s shoulder, telling her to ease off a little.
He and Kaides had already gone over the Governor’s odd behavior together; they had a plan ready.
The group made their way to the open ground outside the factory, where a plaza that had once stood empty was now filled with mutant troops in perfect formation, alongside mechanized artillery.
Veteran crew members served as squad leaders, while Kaides pulled the strongest and most capable soldiers out of the defense force and folded them into combat units, sending the elderly, the weak, and the wounded back to work in production instead.
As for what Kaides and Andrallo’s actual plan was?
A direct, full-force assault, obviously.
With a war machine this size behind them now, and Andrallo himself anchoring the front to suppress every daemon in their path, what was there left to be afraid of?
For the mutants and the soldiers and civilians following Andrallo, they’d already rebelled against the Governor because there was no other way to survive in the first place.
With Kaides’ technology behind them now, and solid logistics to back it up, there was even less reason left to hesitate.
At Andrallo’s command, the army moved out at once, driving straight for the Governor’s defensive lines.
The Governor, for his part, had already set up an unbroken chain of defensive positions.
His personal guard had dug trench after trench around the city’s perimeter, heavy artillery and fortifications choking off every key approach.
To deal with this uprising, the Governor had even pulled out every weapon he’d been hoarding away.
Sitting inside their infantry fighting vehicles, the crew couldn’t help glancing out the windows, still a little dazed by it all.
Ever since the army had set out, they hadn’t once had to leave the safety of an armored vehicle.
Their job wasn’t hunkering down in one spot digging trenches for a war of attrition anymore.
Now they were the spearhead of an armored assault, clearing enemy forces from a target area alongside the rest of the army, then screening the mobile artillery behind them as it deployed.
Once the artillery in the rear finished its work, they moved out again, on to the next location, repeating the whole process over.
Compared to the meat-grinder battles they’d fought through before, this practically felt like a vacation, and yet the footage streaming back from stealth drones showed the enemy genuinely being reduced to ash under their own heavy guns.
“Wars can actually be fought like this?”
One veteran crew member let the thought slip out loud.
They’d ridden plenty of Imperium-issued armored vehicles before, but whatever Kaides had built for them was completely different in layout, firepower, and tactics alike.
None of them had ever seen combat like this before, missions completed without hardly laying eyes on the enemy at all, and one by one the veterans felt a restless itch under their skin, like the door to an entirely new world had just cracked open in front of them.
Far away, the Governor wasn’t having nearly as good a time.
He watched position after position slip out of his hands, his own territory eaten away piece by piece, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
The Governor’s fingers found the pendant tucked in his pocket, his mind caught in a tangle over whether to accept a god’s offer, in exchange for the terms of victory.