Chapter 240: The Infiltration Module (Patreon)

Ten minutes later.

Grey and his strike team descended deeper into the Celestial Engine-satellite through piston-like lifts that thudded and groaned with each cycle. The labyrinthine machinery around them heaved like a living beast, conduits pulsing with eerie blue-white energy. Steam hissed from venting valves, and the air stank of ozone and scorched metal. They were close now, the data-feeds confirmed proximity to the primary control nexus, the very heart of the construct.

Inside his Thunderborn-pattern power armour, Grey’s helm display continued to track the movements of Abaddon the Despoiler and his warband. They, too, were closing in on the same central control nexus. Another corridor turn or two, and the two sides would collide.

Grey halted. With a flick of his gauntlet, the image feed from his visor projected against a bulkhead, letting the rest of the squad view it.

Captain Gaius raised a hand in a crisp tactical gesture. His warriors immediately froze and slipped into the shadows with uncanny silence, their massive frames somehow making no more noise than ghosts as they pressed into cover. Their discipline was honed over centuries of war; even their gene-forged hearts slowed to silence in anticipation.

Greyfax drew her rapier and one-handed crossbow, slotting a bolt-shell into place. She did not intend to use simple quarrels, every shaft was a micro-explosive payload designed to punch through ceramite and detonate within.

Grot and his squad of warriors activated rapid auto-diagnostic routines, ensuring their power armour and weapons would not fail them in the coming fight. Runes flared green across their HUDs, one by one, a symphony of readiness.

Grey suddenly handed Grot the Graviton Scepter.

Grot frowned. “Why give this to me?”

“Just take it,” Grey insisted, shoving the weapon into his arms before drawing a roaring chainsword.

This was no ordinary weapon. It was the same chainsword Qin Mo had once wielded in the Underhive. Originally, it had passed to Yoan during the Talon II landings, but finding it oddly ineffective in his hands, so he asked Qin Mo if he could pass it on to Grey. With permission, Grey became the new owner of the chainsword.

Over time, Grey discovered its true peculiarity, not in combat efficacy, but in the subtle aura it projected. Wielding it made others more inclined to trust him, as if the weapon itself carried some fragment of charisma.

“We ambush them here,” Grey whispered. “Pin them down, and I’ll make a rush straight for their warlord’s head.”

Both Gaius and Greyfax recalled Grey’s earlier displays of daring and precision. They judged his boast not impossible, and gave their assent.

“Hold on,” Grot raised the Gravitic Staff. “Doesn’t this thing generate crushing gravity fields? Why not just crush their commander where he stands?”

“This isn’t the time to explain,” Grey cut him short. He simply knew it wouldn’t work as cleanly as Grot imagined.

The staff didn’t unleash instant, all-consuming gravitational annihilation. Instead, it ramped up gravity in the target area over fractions of a second, fast, but not imperceptible. Anyone with experience facing such weapons could sense the shift and evade before the field peaked.

“Activate infiltration modules. Prepare for engagement,” Grot ordered his squad.

At once, his warriors shimmered and faded from sight, their armor’s systems bending light and vox.

Grey’s eyes widened. “Infiltration modules? I didn’t know your suits carried that tech.”

From the void ahead came the hushed reply: “They were developed while you were still stationed on Agripinaa.”

“I haven’t returned in years,” Grey muttered, scaling the wall with mag-boots, climbing silently until he crouched a hundred meters above, hidden among the steel ribs of the vault.

....

Elsewhere, deep in the Celestial Engine-satellite.

“I swear, I don’t want to spend another second in this damned place. This iron planet is too vast, too twisted. I feel like an insect scurrying through a fortress with no sense of direction.”

Kossolax muttered complaint after complaint as the warband advanced, each word testing Abaddon’s patience. The Despoiler’s clawed gauntlet, the Talon of Horus clenched and flexed, its ancient power claws chittering.

But Abaddon held his tongue. He knew Kossolax baited him, hoping for dismissal, for then he could storm off without dishonor.

“Keep complaining,” Abaddon finally growled, turning his gaze upon him. “For the sake of your service in battle, I’ll indulge your whining.”

Kossolax gave only a smirk, falling silent at last.

Their force pressed on, two hundred Chaos Space Marines, marched ahead or behind Abaddon, a significantly smaller force than before, as some had been dispatched to scout and search for more direct routes to their destination.

“Your forward scouts are overdue,” Typhus rumbled, his voice like rotting iron.

“Likely lost contact,” Abaddon replied, glancing toward a lieutenant fiddling with corrupted vox equipment. “This place is a maze. The electromagnetic interference is strong enough to choke our vox.”

The officer worked his comms array, cycling frequencies. A brief burst of static clarity gave him hope, but the connection died again. He shook his head.

“They may already be dead,” Abaddon said flatly. He gestured for a Terminator squad to advance point.

Six warriors of the Black Legion, clad in Cataphractii Terminator plate, stomped ahead. Their task: absorb the first blow of any ambush and retaliate with overwhelming force.

Abaddon’s mind was already on the withdrawal after destroying the Celestial Engine. "I found only two Vortex Torpedoes. One I gave you,” he said to Typhus. “When the time comes to retreat, the other must be used. It will cover our escape.”

Typhus gave a solemn nod. Both knew their fleet could not stand toe-to-toe against the Talon System’s void navy. Survival meant surgical devastation and retreat.

Abaddon opened his mouth to speak further, but the sound of distinct dull impacts interrupted him. Two faint thuds, like cautious footsteps echoing in the dark, audible only to their transhuman hearing. Yet nothing stirred in their field of vision.

Ten thousand years of experience, gained through countless battles, had taught every veteran the high probability of a cloaked enemy ambush nearby.

Regardless of whether or not an invisible enemy truly existed, they had to respond, lest they regret it once attacked.

The Terminators immediately opened fire into the darkness, bolters thundering. The rest of the warband spread for cover, ready for battle.

From the empty air ahead, sparks flared against the void, followed by a gush of blood. A figure in power armor, carrying a scepter, shimmered into visibility, his armour torn by bolter fire. Before further shots could finish him, he triggered a teleport and vanished.

Abaddon turned, ready to order pursuit, but the horrible groaning of armour drowned his words. The armour of every Terminator screeched under crushing pressure.

“Gravitic weaponry—!” he snarled, but too late. The entire Terminator squad was pulverized into twisted wreckage, armour and flesh reduced to slurry.

Then, from the far end of the passage, eighteen blue Space Marines emerged and opened fire in disciplined volleys.

Abaddon’s eyes widened. Typhus froze. Even Kossolax was struck silent, not at the ambush itself, but at the sight of their attackers.

For these warriors wore not the ceramite of the modern era, but the heavy, archaic bulk of Mark III Iron Armor, relics of the Great Crusade that had not been fielded for ten thousand years. In the forty-first millennium, such relics were thought to exist only in vaults and museums. Yet here they strode, weapons blazing, like revenants of the Great Crusade.