pierced by dozens of pipes and needles, pumping him with biologics and serums. He had no wish for his underlings to realise just how taxing the creation of the Gehemehnet had been on his system, but the last twelve hours in the tank, deep in a trance and communion with the higher powers, had rejuvenated him.
The thick liquid evacuated from the chamber, sucked into gurgling pipes, and he sank to his feet. Chirameks clustered around him, pulling free the tubes and pipes inserted into his veins and muscles, and he flexed his fingers. The time to rejoin the Host had come. It was mere hours until the alignment of planets took place, until the Gehemehnet awoke.
Techno-Magos Darioq stood impassively upon the secondary gantry deck of the Ordinatus as heavy-calibre anti-aircraft batteries directed fire towards the Thunderhawk. The enemy's barrages had been as nothing to the Ordinatus, the incoming ordnance soaked up by flashing void shields, and its return fire darkened the air, overloading the gunship's shielding with ease.
The critically damaged Thunderhawk turned towards the Ordinatus, its pilot clearly fighting with its controls to guide it towards the target. It passed through the giant vehicle's void shields as its left wing tore loose, sending the gunship spinning, and the concentrated, servitor aimed quad-cannons ripped the hull apart, tearing the bulky aircraft in two. The rear half was engulfed in flames and exploded as the fire reached its fuel lines. The front half of the gunship fell from the sky, plummeting towards the Ordinatus, propelled by its velocity and the force of the explosion.
Techno-Magos Darioq calculated the trajectory and velocity of the incoming debris from his position and stood stone still as it slammed into the upper deck above. The metal grid was smashed asunder by the massive incoming weight and it skimmed along the metal, raising a shower of sparks as it ploughed through barricades and crane- structures. It screeched through one of the cannon batteries, instantly crushing a pair of ogryn servitor loaders, before careening off the edge and falling to the secondary gantry where Darioq stood.
The front section of the Thunderhawk screeched across the metal latticework towards him, but he did not move, and it ground to a halt just metres from him, as he had calculated.
Servitors rolled forwards on tracked units, dousing the flames with foam.
'Life signs remain,' said Darioq as he scanned the Thunderhawk, and the servitors retreated from the wreckage instantly. Heavy combat servitors rolled forwards, weapons raised, scanning for the enemy.
Red-armoured Chaos Marines emerged from the flames and the servitors fired upon the survivors. Several of the servitors were ripped apart by bolt fire, but others rolled forwards even as their fallen comrades were dragged aside by tentacled scavenger servitors for re-manufacture.
Darioq's four servo arms unfolded like the legs of a gigantic spider, the weapons systems built into their design humming into activation. Four of the enemy warriors were ripped apart by the fire from his potent weaponry.
With a roar, a bulky shape emerged from the wreckage, smashing through twisted, burning metal. Flaming promethium from this warrior's heavy weapon system engulfed the servitors, turning their flesh to liquid and detonating their ammunition drums.
Bokkar roared as he smashed his way towards the magos. Plasma pierced the reinforced plasteel plating of his Terminator armour and heavy bolt-rounds tore through his chest plate.
He unleashed the fury of his heavy flamer and roaring promethium engulfed the magos, hiding him from view. As the inferno dissipated, Bokkar could see that the flames had washed harmlessly over a bubble of protective energy surrounding the cursed Mechanicus priest, and he powered forwards, intent on smashing the magos apart with the force of his chain-fist.
Bokkar stepped within the boundaries of the tech-priest's protective field and swung his chainfist around in a murderous arc. The blow never landed, as one of the servo-arms, hanging over the magos's shoulder like the barbed tail of a scorpion, snapped out and grabbed his arm, halting it mid-swing.
The servo-arm over the other shoulder grabbed his other arm, and he felt his blessed Terminator armour crack beneath the immense pressure that the whining arms exerted. The servo arms pulled out to each side sharply and both of Bokkar's arms were ripped from his body, spraying blood out in both directions.
He stared down dumbly at his armless torso and was cut in half by the magos's swinging power halberd, the cogged blade hacking through his midsection. He fell to the metal lattice floor.
He had failed his Coryphaus, failed his Legion and only damnation awaited him.
The air turned electric as the massive plasma reactors roared to full power in readiness to fire. Fashioned from the same STC templates from which the grand Ordinatus Mars was constructed, the giant weapon's humming increased to painful decibels as it drew the reactors' energy into its power drums.
The pitch of the weapon rose beyond that of human hearing and the entire colossal structure of the Ordinatus began to shudder.
'Dispose of this in the inferno chambers,' said Darioq as he dropped the severed arms of the traitor Terminator beside the severed torso. The armour had been constructed by Mechanicus Forge Worlds over ten thousand years ago and he was loathe to destroy such a revered piece of artifice, but the enemy had long tainted it with its corruption.
He registered the rising pitch of the sonic destructor cannon, and reran the trajectory algorithms. Satisfied, he waited until the warning beacon began to flash within his inner systems, indicating that the Ordinatus was ready.
'Targeting locked, magos,' said the mechanised voice of one of his Tech-Priest subordinates. 'Initiate firing sequence,' Darioq intoned.
The palace that had stood upon Tanakreg since it was populated two thousand years previously shuddered as the focused sonic beams ripped through it, shattering its structure at a molecular level. Fully three kilometres long from one end of the structure to the other, and rising hundreds of metres above the low-lying salt plains, the structure began to vibrate as its rocky substructure was rent with hundreds of cracking faults and weaknesses.
One section of the palace collapsed with a thundering roar that echoed across the battlefield as the cliff walls beneath it gave way. The fortified battlements atop the sprawling defensive structure were shattered and the anti- aircraft turrets and batteries ripped from their plascrete housings as more of the palace collapsed.
The whole mountainous outcrop from which the palace was carved disappeared beneath a rising cloud, and the thunder of its collapse made the earth beneath the feet of the battling armies shudder. The potent guns of the palace were silenced as the entire structure smashed to the ground.
A subterranean explosion rocked the earth and Darioq's delicate sensors picked up the faint hint of radiation as the plasma reactor buried deep beneath the ground was breached. A secondary subterranean explosion roared as the palace settled, and rock and debris was hurled hundreds of metres into the air.
A shockwave rippled out from the detonating plasma reactor, hurling tanks and men into the air as it whipped across the land before its power was spent.
The enemy's giant tower shook, dried mortar cracking and slipping from between its massive stone bricks, and a shudder ran up its length. Yet, denying the laws of the physical universe, it remained standing.
'What in the Emperor's holy name was that?' asked Havorn as the Chimera ground to a halt. He scrambled out of the command tank, his blinking advisors and adjutant at his side, and the ever-present bulk of his ogryn bodyguard behind him.
Putting his magnoculars to his eyes, he saw the rising dust cloud where a moment before the towering presence of the palace had been located.
'Emperor be praised,' he exclaimed.
He laughed out loud in surprise and astonishment.
'When's our second wave of drop-troopers inbound?'
'Now sir, they should be falling as we speak,' answered his comms officer, who had been staring blankly at his useless machines since his vox communication had been silenced.
'And now they are safe from the wretched fire from those air turrets,' exclaimed Havorn's young adjutant. 'This is a good day for the Imperium indeed! Victory is assured!'
