Chapter 204: Powered Armour (Part Two)
"By the Throne — these prices are insane! You might as well be robbing me at gunpoint!"
Kian's voice echoed off the armoury walls.
He'd just crossed the eleven billion mark and was still basking in it. Now he was looking at a bill that would wipe most of that out for a handful of suits.
Antonius emitted a rapid burst of binary that, translated into plain language, ran approximately as follows:
Strutting in here like he owns the place, turns out he can't afford three suits of armour, absolute penniless wretch, coming in here wasting my time, I'm a busy man, if you can't pay then leave, who does he think he is, some big spender? He's nothing, he's nobody, complaining about prices when I'd charge double if I could—
Kian looked at him sideways.
"What was that?"
Antonius assumed a posture of complete neutrality.
"Binary interference. Background noise. Are you buying or not?"
Kian circled the powered armour displays again. And again.
It's expensive. It hurts. But look at it.
Every man had his weaknesses. Armour — proper armour, in a world where the alternatives included being shot, stabbed, eaten, or corrupted by Chaos — was simply rational. And he wasn't actually poor. The food facility was printing over a hundred million per month. He was, technically, a wealthy man.
"Buying. Obviously buying. But I'm trying it on first."
Antonius called in four Servitors to assist with fitting — former humans, limbs replaced with mechanical substitutes, skin pale as a corpse's, all cognition stripped away. They moved with mechanical precision under Antonius's direction, fitting the power frame to Kian's body section by section, then layering the ceramic-steel plate over it, and finally securing the power pack.
The process took over half an hour.
When the helmet locked into place and the Servitors stepped back, Kian stood in full heavy reactive powered armour.
Each step sent a dull impact through the floor. He flexed his gauntleted hand, felt the servo-musculature engage, and estimated that a full-force strike would be capable of catastrophic damage to an unarmoured target.
He ran. He jumped. Mobility was acceptable — better than the weight suggested.
The System registered the suit's defensive rating: full-body seven-armour. Capable of absorbing a 40mm autocannon high-explosive round. Direct fire from a Lumberer-pattern Heavy Stubber — no penetration.
But the moment Kian focused on executing fast, complex movements, he felt it. Lag. A small but unmistakeable delay between his intent and the suit's response.
Against common opponents it wouldn't matter. Against anything at the higher end of the threat spectrum, it absolutely would. An Astartes in their armour — neural interface fully integrated, power armour an extension of their nervous system, response time in milliseconds — would have put three cuts through Kian before he completed his first swing.
Kian stopped the test.
"There's lag. The force-feedback system can't keep up with my movement."
Antonius paused, something in his optical expression shifting.
"You can actually perceive the lag in the force-feedback system?"
"Clearly. For ranged combat this suit's fine. For close-quarters blade work, it's a liability."
The Enginseer's mechadendrite eyes moved slowly up and down Kian's frame with something that, in a human, would have been called hungry curiosity.
"I would very much like to open your skull and examine your neural architecture. Standard humans cannot perceive force-feedback lag. What exactly are your reflexes operating at?"
Kian asked: "Is there a way to eliminate the lag?"
"Neural interface implantation. Approximately twelve interface points along the spine, sternum, arms, and legs. A suit configured for neural interface runs with zero perceptible delay.
Shall I perform the procedure, Baron? I would do it at no charge."
Kian gave him a flat look.
"You never did give up on the imprisoning-me, tormenting-my-flesh, interrogating-my-soul project, did you. Absolutely not.
Next suit."
The standard reactive powered armour went on faster and moved more freely. System rating: full-body six-armour. Less imposing than the heavy configuration, but the response was noticeably sharper.
Kian decided immediately that this was the right choice for equipping soldiers at scale. No significant weaknesses. Good all-round performance. The heavy armour was a specialist tool — one or two units per force, not a standard kit item. Too slow, too specialised.
The infiltration reactive powered armour was the interesting one.
Defensive values on paper: five-armour across most of the body, dropping to four at the joints. On raw protection metrics, the weakest of the three.
But the lag was almost gone. Kian could barely detect it. The force-feedback system was in a different class from the other two suits.
And the movement speed bonus was immediate and dramatic. Kian took a few steps and felt the ground cover itself effortlessly. The suit moved with him rather than behind him.
The power pack housed a compact auspex unit — described as small-scale, but the specifications were superior to a Chimera's vehicle-mounted auspex in every category. Smaller, lower power draw, longer detection range. Three hundred and sixty degree coverage out to six hundred metres. Focused directional scan reaching three kilometres. Long-range vox capability connecting ground position to near-orbital vessels.
The signature suppression coating on the outer surface meant the suit didn't return a reading on standard detection equipment.
Antonius presented two weapons alongside it.
"The infiltration suit's paired armaments. First — a Death Sentence-pattern sniper lasrifle. Accurate engagement range of ten kilometres. Second — a compact lasrifle carbine for close defence.
Both weapons carry the same signature suppression coating as the suit. The weapons are included with the armour purchase."
A specialist's kit. Not designed for line combat — designed for one person operating alone, deep behind hostile lines, taking high-value targets.
Kian thought it over.
"Right. I'll take one infiltration suit, two heavy suits, and twenty standard suits."
[End of Chapter 204]
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