Gerhard was about to say 'fuck this shit, I'm out' and leave this cursed place. What did this have to do with him? Why was he supposed to solve this problem? Had he chosen to come here? Had he been the one to say, 'yes, please send me there and make it as bad as you can, while you're at it.'?
No, he didn't.
So why was he supposed to solve this?
Naturally, Gerhard knew that that was bullshit. It was his problem now, and it would be until he was either dead, turned into a plaything for the Ruinous Powers, tortured endlessly, or the last survivor, standing over everyone's corpses.
The last option pleased Gerhard the most. And sooner or later, they would come for him as well. He had to get to it eventually, but the danger actually increased over time. So, what was he supposed to do?
Support the humans who were in the middle of all this shit? Or Chaos, who was seemingly multiplying as time passed?
Then, after a brief pause, he decided, following his logical thought process.
"Genestealers first."
.
Inside the central stronghold, the situation was worse than it had ever been since the Orks arrived. The noise was deafening here, forcing them to shout if they watned to talk.
Every wall shook with impact constantly. Dust rained from the ceiling, and sometimes parts fell to the ground, hitting someone and doing damage in the most dumb way possible. The air was thick with smoke and heat, making breathing hard and seeing even harder. It was stupid, so stupid that this was still going on, and they refused to surrender.
But what else were they supposed to do? Give up?
HERESY
A ganger slammed a fresh magazine into his autogun, with shaky hands.
"Left flank's gone!" he shouted. "They're coming through the lower access!"
"No shit!" another barked back, firing blindly into a corridor. "Everything's gone!"
A las-bolt cut past them, punching into a Poxwalker that kept moving anyway.
"Why won't they fucking stay down?!"
"They're dead already, you bellend!"
Nearby, a PDF sergeant grabbed a younger trooper by the collar, lifting him and spitting into his face as he shouted.
"Hold your line!" he snapped. "You break, we all die! For the EMPEROR!"
"I know, I know—!" he stammered, mortally terrified. "For the... e--emperor.."
His pants were already full of shit, but he had no time to change them, so he had to go on. Besides, clean pants were the least of their problems.
A screech cut them off as something dropped from above. Claws cut into the PDF's body, slashing through it, making blood taint the ground and walls and then leaving again.
At the command position, things were only marginally more controlled.
A makeshift table, really just a slab of metal, was covered in holo maps. The image it displayed was already outdated the moment it stabilised: shifting lines, blinking markers, entire sections of the defence disappearing and reappearing as reality outpaced their ability to track it.
A gang leader, Karn Vex, leader of the Iron Vultures, slammed his fist down.
"We're getting crushed from all sides!" he snarled, his voice raw from shouting over gunfire. "I say we pick a direction and break through before we're buried under them!"
A sharp, deep voice cut back immediately.
"Break through where?" Enforcer Captain Halbrecht snapped, his black carapace armour scarred and scorched. "Into the plague, or the Xenos? Or perhaps you fancy charging those frothing lunatics?"
He glanced for a moment at the lower access tunnels, where the distant, frenzied screams of Khorne cultists mixed with the relentless roar of the battle outside.
"The Emperor protects."
"He protects those with fucking common sense! We commit in one direction, we get gutted from the other two. That is not a good strategy. That's suicide."
Another explosion nearby shook the entire room violently. Dust and flakes of rust rained down from above, pattering against armour and weapons. A section of wall groaned, metal bending slightly before settling again.
For a moment, no one spoke. They all felt the pressure of the inevitable end approaching. Halbrecht's voice was quieter now, but no less hard.
"We deploy the Automata, and if his 'grace' would step off her throne, we might be able to put the Kastelan to good use as well!"
His sarcastic and provocative words cut through even the noise outside, which seemed to dim for a second. Several heads turned immediately.
"That's our final option," grumbled an older gang member.
His face was scarred, evidence of a past explosion that had left him with a burn on one side and that hadn't yet healed.
"So is dying here," Halbrecht replied flatly. "The Land Raider's crippled. It's holding one corridor and barely that. We're out of time. This is the last resort. It's better than standing here and gathering dust, while we're dying out there!"
A different voice spoke up, more measured than the Halbrecht.
"It is not for us to decide the deployment of a Kastelan Robot, Captain."
The speaker, Lieutenant Sera Vahl, wore the remnants of PDF officer markings, but her gaze had already shifted past Halbrecht.
"To awaken such a machine requires sanction."
All eyes turned toward the figure standing apart from the crowd. The figure stood as a striking blend of man and machine, exuding an industrial aesthetic that initially suggested both power and mystery. Its body was a tapestry of metal, intricately woven with tubes, cables, and pistons, each part pulsating with faint glowing elements that danced across its torso and limbs.
The head resembled a sleek helmet, was compact, and dominated the visage with a single large oval yellow eye that lent it a cyclopean appearance, piercing and watchful. Most of the biological matter had been replaced by machinery.
Its upper body was armoured with layered mechanical plating, marked by circular blue accents that caught the light. One arm was notably oversized, evolving into a set of mechanical appendages currently working on a gamma pistol.
In contrast, the other arm terminated in a claw-like hand, featuring sharp, metallic fingers. Over his shoulders, several additional mechanical arms were mounted, equipped with various tools and gripping appendages, and holding an Omnissian axe.
It was Magos-Datasmith Rho-7 Kaspel.
He stood beside a makeshift workbench, once part of a large manufactorum assembly line, which was now transformed into a field station. Scattered across the surface were tools of varying kinds, some rudimentary, others crafted with a redundancy that would have made the Jackie Chan meme feel too little to express one's emotions. Oil and candles were all around for... whatever reason.
The Gamma Pistol in the Datasmith's hand was a relic entrusted only to those who had earned the favour of the Machine God. Its machine spirit was unpredictable, barely contained within the shell. Gamma Pistols released ionising radiation from its muzzle, and right now, that radiation was seeping from its core, causing the air around it to shimmer in unsettling ways.
Standing silently behind the Datasmith was something else entirely, a Kastelan Robot. Its imposing figure loomed over Magos Kaspel like a sentinel, its red armour protecting its innards. A Kastelan Robot was a huge, ancient robot built ten thousand years ago.
It was a perfect example of the Adeptus Mechanicus' re-purposing of technology. Nearly unstoppable, their only flaw was that of any mere machine; they would follow instructions to the letter, even if this resulted in their own demise.
The Cybernetica Datasmith had to constantly update and reprogram the Kastelan via order dataslates placed in the machine's chest slots, lest this enormous, clanking robot simply stride blindly into a nearby chasm. In rare and extreme cases, the original orders could be changed using a forced 'binaric override' - enhanced static chants of superior Tech-Priests.
The Kastelan Robot was armed to the teeth, including two sets of arm-mounted Power Fists and a carapace-mounted Phosphor Blaster.
Magos Kaspel didn't immediately look up; he was too engrossed in his work. One of his optical lenses flickered as he finished an adjustment, sealing the Gamma Pistol's casing with a careful, reverent touch, saying prayers and thanking the OmnissiahKa in binary. Finally, he spoke.
"Statement: Repair protocols—partially successful."
His voice was distorted, more machine than man.
"Clarification: Sanctioner Pattern Automata, functional status: seventy-two per cent optimal."
Halbrecht stepped closer, his boots grinding against the metal floor.
"Seventy-two is enough," he said. "Can they fight?"
The Magos tilted his head slightly, as if processing a concept that did not quite align with his understanding.
"Correction: They do not 'fight'. The spirit of this machine is to be watched over by me and shall not attend the battle. Our mission is the recovery of invaluable Archeotech by the Omnissiah and therefore higher in importance than the survival of flesh."
A faint whir of internal servos accompanied his words.
"Subroutine integrity—acceptable. Target acquisition—stable. Weapon systems—operational."
"Anything else?" Halbrecht asked through his teeth.
"Warning: Structural degradation remains. Sustained deployment may result in catastrophic failure."
"We're already at catastrophic. What does it matter?"
Magos Kaspel nodded slowly.
"Proceed."
Deep within the stronghold, massive blast doors began to open. The sound was unmistakable and sent a wave of short relief and hope through the ranks of humanity.
Metal scraped against metal as mechanisms that had not been used since the start of the war with the Orks came to life. Dust and dirt poured from the seams as the doors parted, revealing the darkness inside.
Something stepped forward. The first and last remaining Sanctioner Pattern Automaton on the planet emerged into the light, showing itself and its damaged form.
It was massive. Sanctioners were semi-sentient, Ogryn-sized servo-automata dreadnoughts that Necromunda's Palanite Enforcers usually used. They had made their way to this planet the same way the Land Raider had, through the Rogue Trader. They were still here, due to the Rogue Trader having been killed, because he wanted to leave and take all of his equipment with him.
Naturally, such heresy could not stand, and so he had been executed.
Sanctioners were piloted by the psycho-conditioned and transplanted brains of especially fanatical Enforcers. Self-repairing and protected by thick carapace armour, the Sanctioners were also heavily armed with much larger versions of regular Palanite Enforcer weapons. These included Concussion Cannons, heavy shock batons, and no fewer than five types of grenades.
In battle, Sanctioners were not only tough to take down because of their self-repair, but could also become mobile bulwarks to protect their human squadmates.
The weapons came online with a low, rising hum. Integrated heavy-calibre systems mounted along its arms and torso, re-designed by the Tech Priest, no longer for precision, but for death and annihilation. The times had changed, and the Hive was about to truly fall.
Targeting arrays flickered to life, sweeping the area in front of it. There was but one of them. A single Sanctioner Pattern Automata was about to embark on its last witch hunt. If the situation wasn't dire enough, this picture showed just how dire it was. A single Sanctioner was by no means enough, but it had to be done. Magos Kaspel refused to let the Kastelan Robot into the fray.
The automaton's footsteps echoed through the chamber, each impact reverberating through the floor and into the bones of everyone present, promising to kill as many Xenos and Heretics as possible.
The gangers, PDFs and Enforcers fell silent. They had unleashed what was most likely their final trump card. So now it was time to decide where to point the gun. But the answer, as it would soon be revealed, presented itself.
"Captain! Captain, there is movement with the Xenos!" a PDF soldier ran into the command room.
"What happened?"
"They seem to be in disarray for some reason, running around wildly and no longer as controlled. We're making some ground!"
"Then we should send the Sanctioner toward the Xenos. It would be best to wipe them out now that we have a chance," Lieutenant Sera Vahl said.
Captain Halbrecht thought about this for a moment and then turned to the Tech Priest.
"What does the data say? Is there movement on the Xenos front that we can use?"
"Unusual Xenos movement, detected. Suggestion: Calculations show 27.28599% chance to end the Xenos threat and score a minor victory if the machine is sent there," Magos Kaspel said.
Halbrecht thought about it and then shook his head.
"No. We will send them towards the Heretics, together with the Land Raider, as long as it still fires even slightly. Lieutenant, move your troops to the Xenos front and hold them off that way. If they are truly in disarray, that will be enough for now."
"Warning: The data shows insufficient planning and decision-making to be faulty."
"There are things you can't calculate, Magos. Like the gut feeling of a man that should have died young. Now, GET TO IT! For the Emperor!"
"YES, SIR! FOR THE EMPEROR!!"