Horatio immediately utilized the Hand of Command to enter a bird's-eye view.
He intended to deploy the remaining Kill-teams onto the field, forming a mini-frontline on the spacious storage deck, and then have the Soldiers advance alternately to clear out the enemies.
"Alternate cover!" Horatio shouted to his Soldiers, and had a Grenadier throw a smoke grenade towards the rear of the field.
Once the smoke cleared, he set up a psychic beacon, and the Soldiers immediately crouched low, running towards their designated positions on the left.
At the same time, Horatio had the Sailors behind cover on the right maintain their suppressive fire, pinning down the enemy gunmen.
The Blood Army fired wildly into the smoke, sweeping down several individuals.
Their comrades dragged them forward by the straps on their back armor, only those with leg injuries were pulled along, continuing to fire their Laser Guns at the opposing side.
Navy Breachers Shield Guard stood in the open, un-covered ground, holding heavy breaching shields; live rounds and lasers hammered against the shields but failed to penetrate.
A Blood Pact heavy assault Soldier raised a plasma gun, preparing to fire at the shield.
Horatio, through the vision of an unknown Soldier, saw the blue glowing, charging plasma from a high-altitude perspective.
He immediately used the Hand of Command to mark a large red arrow above the enemy's head.
The Sailors saw the hovering marker in the sky and immediately concentrated their fire on the large figure.
The large figure staggered under the concentrated laser fire, his arm shaking violently; the plasma had reached a state where it had to be discharged, but he couldn't aim at all.
To save his life, the large figure could only fire wildly in a general direction.
Zing!
The plasma hit the deck, burning a large, steaming hole.
Horatio immediately ordered a Breakers Navy Breachers carrying a twin-linked heavy melta gun to focus fire on that high-threat target.
As the heavy melta gun emitted the terrifying, piercing hum of its charging coils, two thick golden energy beams struck the large figure, directly melting his carapace armor, liquefying his flesh, until the back armor was burned through, and the energy beams passed through his body, shooting behind him and killing another Blood Pact Soldier.
With the high-threat target down, and as Soldiers from both sides exchanged fire, Horatio immediately organized the Navy Breachers for a counterattack.
Three Shield Guard propped their shields together, forming a shield wall, slowly advancing, and firing their heavy twin-linked shotguns at the Blood Pact Soldiers peeking out from behind cover, suppressing them.
Behind the shield wall followed six Voidsmen-at-Arms armed with shotguns, two Grenadier, and an axe-wielder on each side of the shields.
They advanced for over ten meters, the shields stopped, and the Grenadier began throwing high-explosive grenades with pre-fragmented shrapnel towards the enemy's cover.
Because they used impact detonation, those invaders had no chance to escape.
Twisted shrapnel and steel pellets flew everywhere; although these enemy Soldiers wore bulletproof armor, not every part could be protected.
Scattering shrapnel and steel pellets always found many places to penetrate, and if they took even one hit, they would fall to the ground, howling.
Blood Pact Soldiers arriving from a side compartment intended to bypass a towering stack of steel containers, to flank and ambush this advancing Breakers Navy Breachers squad.
But as soon as they made a move, Horatio, through the war fog dispelled by the left-side Soldier's vision, saw the movement of this enemy squad.
"Navy Breachers, someone's coming on your left. Left-side Sailor gunmen, prepare!"
Four Voidsmen-at-Arms, two standing and two kneeling, aimed their shotguns at the flank.
At the same time, the left-side Sailor gunmen pressed against the container cover, turned their faces, held their guns, waiting for Horatio's command.
The Technicians had received extensive operational experience; Servo-skull floated around, dodging enemy gunfire, and simultaneously transmitting all scenes captured by the cameras installed in its hollow eyes from above.
The flanking Blood Pact Soldiers reached the Navy Breachers' ten o'clock position; a Blood Pact Soldier stealthily peeked out, pulling the pin of a grenade with two fingers.
"Prepare…" He didn't know that an Imperial Navy officer, relying on the Servo-skull floating in mid-air, was observing their every move from a high-altitude perspective.
The instant that lackey popped out to throw the grenade behind the shield wall, he saw that where there had been no one, there were now a dozen Laser Guns aimed at him by Voidsmen-at-Arms.
"Fire!"
Naval Laser Guns spewed hot red light, and a dozen lasers struck him, knocking him to the ground.
The grenade fell to the ground, and the other lackeys watched in horror as the egg-shaped grenade rolled towards their feet, their eyes practically bulging out.
Because it had already been held in hand for a while, when a bolder Blood Pact Soldier prepared to step forward and kick the grenade away.
It exploded!
The explosion sent up a shower of severed limbs and blood, the ambush squad was either dead or wounded, and cries of agony filled the air.
The left squad immediately ran towards their designated position ahead. Since there were no enemies directly in front for the time being, Horatio told them not to bother with alternating cover, just to run straight ahead.
Then a similar situation occurred on the right; the Blood Pact Army's flanking maneuver inexplicably ran into the prepared Voidsmen-at-Arms, suffering heavy casualties, and had to retreat.
Then the Imperial Navy's Voidsmen-at-Arms began to advance. The people in the back walked to the front, patted the shoulders of the Sailors who were holding the right flank passage, and then these Soldiers continued to push forward.
After several such movements, the Imperial Navy Voidsmen-at-Arms and the Blood Pact Army controlled half of the deck equally, and Voidsmen-at-Arms reinforcements were arriving from other positions arranged by Horatio, forming a pincer movement; the situation was getting worse and worse for the Blood God lackeys who wanted to seize the demolition charge rack.
"What? Driven back again?! Damn it, you good-for-nothings, if you don't get into the bomb bay within ten minutes, I'll have your heads!"
Even a traitor officer of the Planetary Defense Forces, upon hearing his subordinate's report, was bewildered and gnashed his teeth as he issued a desperate assault order.
"Today the Blood God watches us! Let us offer Him a great gift with the heads of the False Emperor's servants! Warriors, charge! Let these cowards see what true warriors are!!"
"Charge!!"
"Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
Horatio heard the roar and looked at a large number of assembled Blood God servants.
[Damn it, these guys are making a suicidal charge at us. I need to get the crew moving faster.] He frowned, tightening his grip on his saber and pistol, his palms slick with sweat.
"Sir, the Sailors and Voidsmen-at-Arms report to you! We have secured the bomb bay, and now we return to your command!" The Sailor Sergeant Major, whom Horatio had ordered to lead the troops directly to the bomb bay via the maintenance tunnel, crouched down and ran to Horatio to report.
"Good! Very good, fellows!"
Seeing the reinforcements arrive, Horatio finally breathed a sigh of relief, a smile on his lips.
"The enemy is about to launch an assault! Everyone consolidate your positions! Let's beat them back! Let them see the might of the Imperial Navy! They're not the only ones who can fight hand-to-hand! Let's twist off their heads and offer them to the God-Emperor!!!"
"Hoo-hah!!" The crew and Sailors roared in unison, a deafening sound, their fighting spirit high.
As the red and blue tides gathered more and more.
The evenly matched Navy and Blood Army would fight an incredibly bloody positional battle on this wide storage deck.