Chapter 491: An Armed Bid for the Titan, Part 3
Having crossed the first wall, the Gargant, at the head of its world-ending army, reached the second.
The crimson eye mounted atop its head unleashed another thick beam of laser light, and the second wall melted away instantly.
Amid Blackiron's wild, triumphant laughter, he and his steel army crossed the second wall with ease, arriving at the third, where a dense array of gun emplacements and templar-guard were entrenched, waiting, and a brutal firefight erupted.
Outside, the roar of cannon fire never let up. But inside the Titan Temple itself, a strange, eerie calm reigned.
Several thousand tech-priests and templar-guard soldiers, arranged in perfect ranks, each carrying an incense burner, walked forward through drifting smoke and the low, murmured chant of sacred litanies, expressions entirely blank, advancing step by step toward the lava pool.
They were the offering, meant to precede the Titan into the flame, their hearts a strange, twisted mixture of terror and pride.
Ferrocore walked beside the massive transport platform, like a guide leading the Titan on its final journey.
As he walked, he kept up a continuous stream of binary murmurs, speaking to the Titan.
"I have served you for a full twenty years. Every single day, I rang the first bell of dawn for you, and the final bell of dusk.
Why won't you answer me? Have I not served you well enough?
Day after day, every waking moment, I have thought only of you. Every one of my storage units is filled with your data. Every one of my logic circuits carries nothing but you. I would gladly melt my own body down, just to become one of your rivets!
Why won't you answer me? WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER ME?!
Even a single fragment of data-echo, even a scrap of garbled noise, why?! WHY?! WHY?!!"
His binary speech had degraded into a chaotic, fractured mess, and the tech-priests around him kept their heads down, none of them daring to meet his gaze.
Ferrocore had, by now, completely slipped into a state of unmoored delusion. No one dared approach him.
"It's fine, it's fine, it doesn't matter if you never answer me. Our physical forms are about to reach their end regardless.
And in that final moment, once our consciousness returns to the Omnissiah, we will have infinite time to speak, to converse, hehehehehehehehe..."
A strange, unsettling laugh crackled through his vox system, until, abruptly, a lone figure appeared standing on the great rail track ahead, blocking the entire funeral procession. Captain Doron.
Doron stood alone on the tracks, forcing the procession to a halt, and the assembled crowd stared at the Astartes with wary curiosity.
Ferrocore froze, then roared with fury:
"Cyborg. Get out of my way, or I will have the templar-guard open fire!!"
Doron drew a deep breath, resolve burning in his eyes.
"Magos Ferrocore. I need to speak with you. About saving this world!!"
As they spoke, a thunderous nuclear detonation rang out in the distance.
A small mushroom cloud rose beyond the outer wall, lighting the sky in a brief, blinding flash before fading fast.
Ferrocore had no interest in listening to anything an Astartes had to say, and roared instead:
"I told you. Get. OUT. OF. MY. WAY!!
You cybernetic flesh-worm! You have no authority whatsoever over the Mechanicus's internal affairs. Step aside now, or this will be treated as a hostile act."
Doron still didn't move, standing unarmed, completely exposed, on the bare rail track.
"Magos Ferrocore! Fifty billion loyal citizens of the Emperor on this world are about to be exterminated. I need to speak with you. NOW."
Another warhead detonated dozens of kilometers away, another mushroom cloud rising into the sky, a violent shockwave rolling across the entire site.
That second detonation felt almost like a deadline, a warning that if Ferrocore didn't complete his martyrdom rite immediately, the greenskins would overrun the site before he ever got the chance.
The last shred of rationality clinging to this madman's mind, already consumed by martyrdom fantasy, finally gave way entirely.
All he wanted now was to die. To die together with his beloved sacred engine.
He raised a mechanical arm high, a precision laser emitter mounted on it.
He aimed the emitter squarely at Doron and fired a beam of high-energy laser light.
Doron, a seasoned Astartes with reaction speed more than fast enough to dodge the beam, made no attempt to move at all.
The next instant, the beam struck him in the neck, the single most vulnerable point in Astartes power armour.
The high-energy beam punched clean through Doron's throat, tearing open a massive wound, shredding through trachea, esophagus, and spinal column alike.
Doron's massive frame swayed, then collapsed forward onto the tracks with a heavy thud. His eyes blinked three times. Then he was gone.
Hidden along both sides of the rail array, the remaining fifty Astartes, eyes flaring red with fury, burst from cover with a unified roar, hurling electromagnetic pulse charges straight into the ranks of templar-guard!
The EMP charges detonated among the crowd, unleashing massive electromagnetic pulses on impact.
Templar-guard caught close to the blasts had their processing cores instantly short out, their mechanical bodies collapsing, unable to move. Those further out froze up rigid, bodies convulsing.
Nearly fifty EMP charges, deployed almost simultaneously, all but paralyzed the several thousand-strong templar-guard force gathered there.
The moment the EMP charges went off, the Astartes surged forward like men possessed, opening fire with their bolters.
The site echoed with the deep, rolling thunder of bolter fire, tech-priests and templar-guard alike shredded apart by the weapon's devastating kinetic force.
The Astartes fought like men gone mad, bolters, storm bolters, plasma rifles, and flamers all unleashed at once, tearing through every remaining templar-guard on-site.
Hidden further back inside the Leman Russ, Lieutenant Colonel Noa, at the controls, spoke to Kian, lying beside her in the co-pilot's seat.
"My lord. Captain Doron is dead."
Kian, eyes closed, let out a heavy, weighted: "...Yeah."
He knew exactly why Doron had walked into that. Because Doron hadn't wanted his own Chapter hunted by the Mechanicus afterward.
Doron had deliberately provoked Ferrocore into killing him first. The Mechanicus had struck the first blow.
Which meant whatever the Astartes did after that point was, by any reasonable standard, legitimate retaliation. Afterward, the Mechanicus would have no legitimate grounds left to come after the Crimson Bite Chapter.
Doron hadn't wanted his own men bearing that risk. But he'd still wanted to save the people of this world.
Kian had offered him a chance, an uncertain one, with no guarantees whatsoever, and Doron had put his own life down as the price of it, without hesitation.
The tank fell silent for a long moment, until Sergeant Nor'n's voice erupted, howling, over the comm:
"THE PATH IS CLEAR!! COUNT!! GO SAVE THE WORLD!!!"
Kian's eyes snapped open, killing intent flickering in their depths.
With a thunderous roar, the Leman Russ's engine ignited, and Noa slammed her foot flat, pushing the throttle straight into the floor.
The tank burst out from cover, tore down onto the rail track, and surged forward, straight for the Titan.
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