Frigate San Riogran.
With a thought, Nareth gestured toward the steel and other materials that the Chapter serfs had hauled in.
'Use them to weave a force field emiters around this ship! Do not alter the vessel's original structure.'
Nareth remembered how, in the future, the Calixian Conclave Ordo Malleus had pressed the Jokaero into service, building force field emiters to resist daemonic incursions.
He decided to test it on this frigate: if a Jokaero Force Field could overlap with the Geller Field, then warp travel would become far safer.
The Jokaero sprang into action. It ran to a handcart, rummaged through a pile of components, and in moments had fashioned a steel lattice like a woven basket, filled with the raw materials.
"Take him outside the hull," Nareth ordered the Enginseer.
The Tech-Priest's mask flickered with light as he stared for several seconds before looking away. His augmetic eyes, even with their tracking relays, could scarcely follow the orange-furred creature's movements.
A rasping synth-voice ground from the vox-grill: "By your command."
Even he was curious to see what a mute ape could possibly achieve.
The Enginseer escorted the void-ape to the lift, sending a drone to follow. On the hull's outer plating, the ape clambered nimbly and began to move its long, deft fingers in a blur.
The Enginseer's mechadendrites whipped in agitation, his voice breaking with fury: "Blasphemy!"
On Mars, he had helped forge vessels for the Omnissiah Himself. Each shipyard ritual began with chimes and hymns, the holy schemata laid out before a single plate was riveted.
But this? To him, the ape's motions looked like nothing but animal play, sacrilege against the Machine God.
His fingers twitched toward the gun controls, ready to annihilate the beast, yet he stopped, remembering the creature had been brought by a Primarch.
Then a stream of data scrolled across his visor, uplinked from the drone's sensors:
[The ape is not playing. Its modifications are… effective. Impossible // illogical // inconceivable.]
Through his Warp Vision, Nareth followed the Jokaero's work. His gaze pierced the ship's plating and saw it: with every flick of ape's fingers, an unseen barrier spread across the hull like a second skin.
'So the Jokaero Force Field emitters can be constructed. Whether it clashes with the Geller Field, and how effective it is, remains to be tested. If they do not interfere, an extra layer of protection is no bad thing.'
"Provide it with materials," Nareth instructed the serfs. "The moment it stops, notify me."
The bond he had forged with the ape ensured it would no longer flee by instinct.
Before departing, he gave it one more command:
'When the Force Field emitters are complete, return inside. Make no further modifications to the ship.'
For he knew too well the Jokaero's other instinct: to build. Left unchecked, it might transform the entire frigate into one of its own clan's polygonal open-frame starships.
The next day, the 4th Chapter arrived in the Wheel of Fire system.
After confirming through observation and aura-reading that Adams had fully digested the Gravedigger potion, Nareth elevated him to Sequence Seven: Spirit Medium.
He then dispatched the 4th and 8th Chapters against the Ork fortress on the second planet.
Commanders Mikhaeli and Grzegorz, after consultation, decided to commit five experimental hover-tanks to the southeastern front.
Nine companies of the 8th launched assaults from the north, west, and east to draw off the Orks. Then the 3rd Company struck.
Grzegorz noted the fortress walls barely topped ten meters. He sent forward the Vostroyan-pattern Rhinos.
Hundreds of jump troops of the Shadows of Order ignited their packs, streaking like meteors onto the battlements. Their mission was clear: silence the Ork guns.
Watching through the command vehicle's canopy, Grzegorz saw the fire-teams disable the artillery and gave the order:
"Experimental squad, deploy!"
Far behind, inside a black, gear-painted APC, a Tech-Priest answered crisply:
"Understood."
Surrounded by glowing screens, he relayed: "Deploy!"
Five hover-tanks roared skyward, skimming to the walls. Pilots shoved their control levers; beneath each tank, a spherical reactor spun, stirring a vat of silver-white fluid.
Within the fluid, beige parasites, finger-sized, multiplied explosively.
The mixture was piped through brass conduits into waiting shells.
Twin cannons spat a storm of bullets into the Ork ranks.
The hulking greenskins laughed.
"Oi! You call dem puny spitballs weapons? Har har! Me squig farts louder dan dat!"
"Bah! Dat ain't hurtin', just a scratch! Feels like a grot givin' me a cuddle!"
They did not notice the dozen rice-grain parasites gnawing into their flesh.
Bellies swelling, the creatures burst with wet pops. Tiny larval threads wriggled deeper, consuming tissue and spreading at terrible speed.
Seconds later, the Orks howled in panic, clawing at their own skin.
"Dem runts' bullets… Wot da zog?! Wot is this?!"
One brute stared in horror as his body split from within. His voice failed. His vision dimmed.
In moments, their bodies dissolved from the inside out, spores devoured alongside the flesh.
In the command car, Grzegorz's eyes went wide. Orks were melting from the walls, erased in minutes. He switched comms to Mikhailovsky:
"These new tanks are magnificent! The Orks don't burn, they vanish. Even their spores are gone!"
Mikhaeli chuckled: "Then I must see this with my own eyes."
Grzegorz cut the link and bellowed: "Advance!"
The Vostroyan Rhinos thundered forward, rams shattering the weakened wall. Rubble poured down as the breach opened and the armored columns stormed through.
Hover-tanks drifted overhead, saturating the greenskins with fire.
An hour later, their ammunition vats drained, the experimental tanks withdrew. Tech-Sergeants compiled the sensor data, inscribed it into crystal, and transmitted to the Shadow of Dominion.
Thirteen hours after their deployment, Nareth received the report.
"My lord," Arsena presented, "Tech-Priest and 3rd Company's Grzegorz confirm: the hover-tanks performed beyond expectations. Parasites consumed Ork bodies entirely, no spores survived."
Nareth examined the images, nodded in satisfaction, and asked: "Their endurance?"
"The Aeldar's Voidweavers breed parasites eternally within wraithbone. Ours rely on the Chief Apothecary's solution, fixed daily output. Calculations suggest capacity for ninety-four tanks in sustained action."
Nareth considered, then spoke: "For now, they are a scalpel, not a hammer."
"Just so, my lord. Grzegorz concurs, ten tanks in a sector can secure dominance within three kilometers."
"Then they shall be named Beast-Cleaver Hover-Tanks. Begin mass production. Assign them to the Third Chapter. Order continued refinement."
With Apothecaries still aboard, fourteen newly advanced Beast-Tamers, thirty-five Apothecaries, the Legion's resources sufficed.
One by one, the Beast-Cleavers entered service, a dagger thrust into Ork defenses.
Mikhaeli and Grzegorz hurled them at the strongest bastions, smashing node after node.
Progress at the two fortress worlds surged.
And then, the Knight House Vextrix arrived in the Wheel of Fire system.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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