Advex–Mors System, Planet VI.
After returning to the 5th Chapter, Santiago Borgkamp was promoted to lieutenant. Leading fifty Shadows of Order, he advanced deep into the frozen caverns beneath the planet's surface.
Unlike those of the 4th Chapter, they were not as adapted to the extreme cold, but with the life-support systems in their powered armor, they pressed forward steadily.
The squad moved cautiously through the labyrinthine tunnels carved out by the Rangdan xenos. Slave-soldiers could appear from any direction at any time to attack.
As they advanced, Santiago kept scanning.
He knew that to end this battle quickly, they had to eliminate the Rangdan overlords who controlled the slaves.
"Santiago, my squad's down to one magazine of ammunition," reported the rearguard captain, who had been enduring repeated slave attacks.
"My unit's got two left," said the forward captain. "I suggest we fall back from the ice caverns and resupply."
"I've found them."
Santiago's gaze deepened; his Warp Insight had pierced the ice wall, detecting a powerful life signature.
Compared to the other lifeforms around, this one was clearly far stronger.
He placed his hand on the ice wall, and the other Shadows of Order immediately understood his signal.
"Damn it! The xenos were hiding this close, commanding their slaves to attack us from cover!"
"Should we use a melta charge?"
The two captains spoke one after another.
Santiago shook his head firmly.
"No. That might cause a cave-in and bury us alive."
"Can your door take us through?"
He shook his head again.
"I can only move five people at once; we'd risk being surrounded."
"Then we'll just have to use power swords and cut through the ice wall."
Santiago rejected that too.
"Too slow. The xenos reinforced this maze when they built it with some kind of alien tech."
"The overlords don't want a direct fight. The moment they sense movement, they'll flee and send more slaves to wear us down."
Then the Apprentice suddenly brightened.
"I have a better idea. I'll open a door."
"Prepare for a focused volley!"
He pressed his hand to the ice wall, his psychic energy spreading outward, activating his beyonder ability: "Open Door."
Before the squad's eyes, a hazy blue spectral gate appeared on the surface of the ice wall, shimmering like a curtain of water.
"Fire!"
All forty-nine Shadows of Order pulled their triggers at once, unleashing a concentrated storm of bullets through the gate.
The Rangdan overlord, who had been toying with his prey, was caught completely off guard. His personal energy shield shattered instantly.
Santiago lowered his left arm and drew his ancient sidearm, firing a searing beam powered by the planet's radiation belt.
The overlord's body was vaporized in an instant. The spectral blue gate faded away.
The Rangdan warriors' counterattack struck only solid ice, sending shards scattering.
Santiago quickly led his team onward. He placed his hand against another section of wall and opened another "door."
The Shadows of Order slipped through and launched a surprise assault from behind the enemy.
Before his psychic reserves ran dry, the Apprentice dashed through the blue gate, drawing his power sword to join the fight.
Meanwhile, in orbit above, another ambush was taking place.
The Rangdan fleet launched a surprise attack against the expeditionary forces around Planet VI.
Their spiked, flail-adorned ships had disguised their energy signatures to mimic Imperial vessels. Like a pack of wolves, they lunged forward, hurling dense white lightning into the void.
An Imperial cruiser and twelve escort ships exploded in eerie silence, turning into drifting shadows.
A shrill alarm echoed across the bridge of the Black Mercy.
Captain Keon, commander of the 5th Company aboard the Gloriana-class battleship, issued calm orders:
"Identify all ships in orbit."
He strode into the Simulus Chamber and seated himself in the web of neural cables.
The moment he connected to the data ocean, Keon saw it: the fleet had identified thirty-eight enemy ships, including thirteen capital vessels.
The void behemoths had awakened. Their black hulls loomed out of the darkness like monsters bursting through a curtain.
The Black Mercy's batteries opened their maws, its Punisher-class reactor feeding boiling plasma capacitors.
It should have been blind and deaf, fooled by the enemy's false readings, but it wasn't.
Targeting systems locked on. Weapons aligned. Ammunition was requested.
The Gloriana-class battleship's vast magazines rumbled to life as shells and missiles were raised by cranes and magnetic lifts through the decks.
Fire filled the void, sweeping the enemy like a blizzard.
The main prow-mounted lance beam fired, releasing a blinding bolt of energy that struck a xeno warship and tore it apart in an incandescent flare.
On the Rangdan flagship, the wolf-headed overlord stared in disbelief as thousands of missiles rained down like steel needles upon one of his cruisers.
Without void shields, the ship was riddled with hundreds of holes; flames ripped through its inner decks.
Then the core detonated, splitting the ship apart like a blooming flower, beautiful and brief.
'Impossible!'
'Even if the humans have cracked part of our reading masking secret, every ship was refitted to re-randomize its readings every three seconds! They shouldn't have been able to identify us in time!''
"Call the war-moons! Launch drones for cover! Retreat!" the overlord shouted bitterly.
This ambush, planned for so long, had failed completely.
He had hoped that their newly modified ships could slaughter the Imperial fleet before being identified, gaining a numerical advantage, and crushing them.
But he hadn't anticipated the sheer computational power of the enemy ships.
"Fall back to satellite range," he ordered grimly. "We'll have to rely on the war-moon for defense."
The battleships of the 4th and 5th Chapters, centered around Black Mercy, launched a full pursuit.
Using the collective computing power of their Simulus Chambers, they identified each Rangdan vessel before it could re-mask its signal and struck with pinpoint precision.
The Imperial ships, outnumbering their prey, tore through the retreating fleet like blood-hungry sharks, unleashing devastating light.
Capital ships rammed through wreckage, their lance beams spearing into enemy hulls.
Only when the Rangdan drones swarmed in like locusts and destroyed one advancing battleship did Keon give the cautious order to halt pursuit.
Without the Ramilies-class fortress's endless torpedo reserves, continuing the chase would risk heavy losses.
As the assaults on the other three planets pressed on, Nareth himself set foot upon the core world of the Rangdan outer defenses, Advex-Mors Extremis.
.....
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