The cramped confines of the sub-deck were ill-suited for such colossal armored units.
To the Executor Heavy Tanks, however, this was a negligible obstacle.
The massive turrets of the Executors began to traverse, cycling the high-explosive ordnance pre-staged within their loading mechanisms. The thick, multi-barreled muzzles canted slightly.
Then, a series of thunderous detonations tore through the side of the cargo bay.
Great swathes of the bulkhead vanished, reduced to a localized storm of jagged shrapnel. Beyond the wall, the overlapping structural struts of integrated ship-wrecks were pulverized into grit.
A substance resembling silver dust, shimmering with a faint internal luminescence, drifted from the seams of the Executor's turret. Almost instantly, a portion of the surrounding debris vanished into nothingness. It looked as though scraps of paper were being consumed by invisible fire, leaving only drifting ash.
This silver dust was the nano-swarm.
The moment a shell was spent, these microscopic automata initiated immediate matter-acquisition, re-sequencing the salvaged scrap to forge a fresh projectile and replenish the magazine. The surplus metal was instantly diverted to seal microscopic abrasions on the tank's hull—scars so fine they were invisible to the naked human eye.
The Ultramarines, drawn by the roar of the explosions, funneled into the breach torn by the Eight-Legs. They stopped dead, frozen in a state of collective shock.
The tanks were monolithic, their silhouettes far exceeding the mass of an Imperial Baneblade. They radiated a cold, absolute sense of lethality. The sheer density of weapons arrays bristling from their hulls was enough to inspire a primal dread.
Axion stood motionless within the protective flicker of his Aegis Protector field, watching these silent titans of war, dormant for uncounted aeons, unleash their ancient fire.
The chaotic geometry of the space-hulk was being systematically deconstructed. Massive craters were punched through the layered hulls of a dozen different vessels as the high-caliber explosive shells tore through ceramite and plasteel with contemptuous ease.
Hiss!
With a violent atmospheric shriek, the final layers of fused wreckage and asteroid rock were punched through. A jagged aperture now offered a direct, unobstructed view of the void.
The internal atmosphere and a cloud of debris were instantly sucked out, venting into the vacuum. Nearby, an Apothecary lunged forward, grabbing the Bladeguard Veteran's discarded helmet and forcing it back onto his head.
While an Astartes can endure a vacuum for a limited time, that resilience assumes a body in peak condition. The Bladeguard was already grievously wounded; exposure to the hard vacuum of space would likely prove fatal, even for a son of Guilliman.
The fleet holding station nearby detected the explosions within the massive wreck immediately. Weapon banks hummed to life as Lance batteries and Macro-cannons were trained on the site of the breach.
Roboute Guilliman, however, was quick to stay their hand. He ordered a Battle Barge laden with Astra Militarum regiments to move in for a close-range reconnaissance. The Bladeguard had sent no recent vox-transmissions, and the Primarch's unease was mounting.
At that moment, the first waves of Automated Sentry-Troopers began to return from their search grids. They moved with mechanical efficiency, even dragging two damaged Thunderhawks back through the newly blasted breach from the exterior of the hulk.
In short order, the thousands of Sentry-Troopers had scoured the interior of the entire multi-kilometer mass. Nearly a thousand Genestealers and several small Orkish warbands were incinerated by neutron beams, reduced to glowing spheres of superheated plasma. The cost to the machine legion was a mere handful of units; in sufficient numbers, even these "expendable" automata possessed a terrifying combat weight.
As the units converged, they fed a comprehensive data-map back to Axion.
The hulk was a conglomerate of at least thirty different vessels, interspersed with hollowed-out asteroids and a chaotic mess of debris. Only two segments belonged to the Iron Man transport ship.
Axion felt a surge of digital excitement. The nature of the debris suggested that this twelve-kilometer wreck was merely a fragment of a much larger structure. The shearing points were unnervingly precise and smooth, as if the sections had been surgically severed by a colossal weapon.
If the main body of the structure existed elsewhere, the rest of his transport ship might be within it. With an army of ten thousand Sentry-Troopers at his command, Axion saw no reason to fear the darkness. While they might lack the heavy support for a planetary-scale frontal war, they were peerless in the claustrophobic corridors of a space-hulk.
Individually, a Sentry-Trooper was marginally superior to a standard Astartes in raw physical performance. In terms of ranged lethality, their neutron-beam rifles were devastating; while different from Necron Gauss flayers, they could punch holes through Astartes-grade ceramite with ease. Their fluid, agile movements were far removed from the stiff, shambling gait of Necron Warriors.
Though they lacked personal energy shields, their vital logic cores were encased in armored central chassis. Their "heads" housed sensor suites, but even the destruction of the cranium did not impede their combat effectiveness so long as they remained linked to the battle-network.
The Iron Men had faced high-tier xenos threats many times in the past. They knew that with sufficient numbers, quantity becomes its own quality, especially when the "quantity" in question was as lethal as a Sentry-Trooper.
Axion looked at the recovered Thunderhawk Transporter and the Gunship, then glanced down at the idle Executor Heavy Tanks. Their dimensions made it impossible; not even a Thunderhawk could carry such a burden.
As the Imperial boarding craft drew near, throngs of Astra Militarum in void-sealed hazard suits began to pour into the breach.
Several terrified recruits reached for their lasguns at the sight of the Sentry-Troopers and the looming Executor tanks. Their more experienced Sergeants, though equally shaken, maintained their discipline, physically restraining the younger soldiers. They saw the Ultramarines standing among the machines and the recovered Thunderhawks.
Though the machines' crimson ocular sensors were nightmarish, they made no hostile movements. The soldiers knew that to fire without orders would likely result in a slaughter beyond imagining. Furthermore, the sleek, advanced alloys of the Sentry-Troopers didn't look like something a Lucius-pattern lasgun could hope to penetrate.
The Astra Militarum did not realize just how close they had come to becoming one with the Golden Throne. Under the combat deployment protocols, any hostile act would have triggered an immediate counter-offensive. These machines, capable of dueling Space Marines, would have liquidated the entire Imperial landing force in minutes.
A General of the Astra Militarum, accompanied by a stiff-backed Commissar, stepped deeper into the wreck under the unblinking gaze of a thousand red eyes. In the shadows of the surrounding corridors, they could see the charred, blackened remains of Orks and the melted husks of Genestealers.
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