Hadrian ultimately deferred to Calanthus's will, dismissing the massed warriors gathered on the deck. He retained only twenty-four battle-brothers, divided into two strike teams, who boarded the standard-pattern drop pods.
As the sole veteran adjutant at Calanthus's side, Hadrian could not accompany him on the drop. Someone had to remain behind to manage these "raw recruits", the Primaris marines, lest their lack of experience lead to further "reckless" incidents, a lesson reinforced by their recent trials aboard the Indomitable.
The clattering release of the magnetic gantry echoed through the hangar.
Six pods, two large and four standard, plunged into the void. To account for the unknown, the ship's Tech-Priests had thoughtfully provisioned three additional support pods: one containing a cache of heavy weaponry, and two rigged with automated cannons. Their mission was clear: purge any xenos or predatory lifeforms at the landing zone.
Yet, an orbital drop onto a world with zero intelligence data was, by its very nature, a dance with death.
The pods accelerated rapidly, caught in the planet's gravity well. Lateral thrusters hissed, constantly adjusting the trajectory. Then, with a violent shudder and a piercing shriek of displaced air, the pods slammed into the atmosphere.
Simultaneously, all vox-comms went dead.
The atmospheric interference was absolute, drowning out vox-systems and auspex arrays in a tide of static.
"Hyper-frequency signal interference detected. Frequency analysis complete. Countermeasures engaged," Axion's internal systems droned.
Seated beside Axion, Calanthus felt a surge of heat even through his ceramite plating. A powerful burst of counter-signals erupted from the ancient construct, tearing a jagged hole through the planet's electromagnetic shroud like a blade through silk.
For a fleeting moment, the illusion flickered. The lush, verdant surface of the planet below vanished, replaced by a scorched, yellowish-brown patch of barren earth.
Aboard the fleet in orbit, Hadrian witnessed the anomaly from the bridge. Though the veil restored itself in seconds, that brief glimpse of desolation confirmed the planet's true state. The drop pods, regaining a momentary burst of telemetry, auto-corrected their descent vectors.
As the ground rushed to meet them, retro-thrusters flared from the four support pillars of the pods. The kinetic shells, decelerating from terminal velocity, hammered into the earth.
Thoomp. Thoomp. Thoomp.
The heavy impact of multiple pods shook the ground. Dust billowed as pneumatic hisses announced the deployment. The four-sided hatches of the pods blew outward, the heavy ceramite and metal slabs hitting the ground with a dull, rhythmic thud.
Before the dust could settle, the Ultramarines emerged, weapons leveled.
They were a picture of disciplined lethality: bolt pistols and plasma pistols holstered at the hip, power swords and chainswords sheathed for close-quarters work, and bolt rifles gripped in steady hands. Frag and krak grenades lined their belts; a few of the more aggressive brothers had even secured melta bombs to their plate.
Inside their helmets, auspex displays flickered as they established a short-range tactical data-link.
On Calanthus's HUD, a strange new icon appeared: a status monitor for Axion. This was no setting Calanthus had toggled; Axion had bypassed their tactical encryption and integrated himself.
"Battlefield intelligence is paramount," Axion's voice crackled through their internal vox. "Your tactical link systems are... rudimentary."
Suddenly, every Ultramarine saw their augmented vision shift. The choking dust obscuring the landing zone vanished from their displays, replaced by a crystal-clear render. Every crack in the parched earth was highlighted and magnified.
Axion watched Calanthus, who was staring in bewilderment at his transformed display.
"Data sharing. Multi-directional sight-line compensation. Full visual obstruction removal. I have applied minor modifications," Axion explained with a hint of clinical detachment. "Since we act in concert, I cannot directly enhance your combat prowess, but I can provide these temporary boons."
Axion's scanning arrays and imaging suites dwarfed the standard-issue auspex modules of the Astartes. His quantum-based omni-directional sensors provided a level of detail that, while only slightly exceeding an Astartes' superhuman senses in range, far surpassed them in resolution. He was not a scout-model, but his core design prioritized the preservation of command structures through superior awareness.
Easily neutralizing the electromagnetic barrier, Axion recalculated the landing coordinates of the missing mortal scouts and uploaded them into every warrior's nav-marker. Even if the "network" went down again, their armor would not lose the objective.
Under the planet's crushing interference, Axion had become their mobile data hub. He intercepted their outgoing signals and force-transmitted them to the rest of the unit. For a machine of his caliber, managing two dozen warriors didn't even consume half a percent of his processing power.
Calanthus's voice broke the warriors' wonder, snapping them back to duty.
"Do not dwell on the visual feed. Spread out. Maintain high alert. Forward in search formation. Locate the mortal insertion point. Report all anomalies immediately."
With their commander's order, the squads moved. They split into tactical fireteams, leapfrogging across the terrain in a disciplined advance. Axion followed beside Calanthus, acting as a living beacon of clarity in the fog of war.
"Sir, this planet... it is not what we saw from orbit," one brother voxed. "The ground is dead. Barren. There is no sign of life."
The marine scooped up a handful of earth, rubbing it between his gauntlets; it crumbled into a fine, lifeless silt. No flora could survive here.
Calanthus said nothing. He led the way, driven by a need to find the mortal soldiers and discover the cause of their silence.
As the distance closed, the reality of the planet began to reveal itself.
"By the Throne... what is that?!"
The wreckage of an armed lander lay ahead, twisted into a grotesque knot of scrap.
Mortal remains were strewn across the kill-zone. Every corpse had been systematically butchered; heads had been severed and piled into a neat, macabre mound. The faces were frozen in masks of absolute terror, reflecting the agonizing torture of their final moments.
Painted across the scorched hull of the lander was an eight-pointed star, rendered in drying gore, the mark of the Great Enemy.
"What heresy is this?!"
As the perimeter expanded, more horrors came to light.
"Commander, we have located more skull-piles. They are not all ours."
Calanthus followed a battle-brother to a low mound a short distance from the wreckage. Even for an Astartes, the sight was nauseating.
A massive altar of bone rose from the dust, surrounded by countless thousands of skeletons. Among the debris, the majority were the green-skinned skulls of Orks, but Axion's sensors immediately locked onto several distinct trophies.
They were elegant, elongated skulls adorned with unique red crests.
According to his archival data, unless the species had evolved significantly in his absence, these were the heads of Aeldari Howling Banshees.
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