Seraphs of the Emperor’s Judgment

Chapter 151: Ork Dreadnought

"Contact!"

After advancing safely through the maintenance corridor for a distance, the captain of the greenskin warship seemed to have finally discovered the invaders' path and hastily dispatched forces to intercept them.

Thus, combat erupted within the narrow confines.

"Dead ahead, two targets."

Armin fired a staccato burst from his bolter, followed by thunderous roars. In a flash illuminated by muzzle flares, two greenskins wielding heavy shotguns were instantly slain.

"Targets eliminated."

Speaking, he ejected the spent magazine and swiftly slotted a fresh one into the empty mag-well.

"Keep moving."

Soshyan commanded, advancing in a low stance to minimize his target profile.

Sol glanced at his auspex and bellowed a warning precisely as a storm of bullets swept in from the front."Enemy assault."

The next moment, a rain of searing brass enveloped the Space Marines. A bullet grazed Soshyan's pauldron, and just before he could retreat behind the corner of the wall, he felt another round strike his left greave.

The others followed suit, and for a moment, their formation was split into several independent fireteams.

Evidently, the two greenskins Armin had eliminated were merely bait designed to lure the Space Marines into this narrow chokepoint. Unfortunately for the enemy, the greenskins' inherent lack of patience caused their plan to be exposed before it could fully materialize.

Now that the targets were revealed, eliminating them was only a matter of time.

"Armin."

Soshyan spoke over the comms:

"Enemy positions."

Soon, through shared visual feeds, Armin designated the enemies' locations with icons.

Soshyan drew his plasma pistol. Waiting for the charge to complete, he unhooked a flashbang grenade and hurled it into the narrow section occupied by the enemy. The instant the enemies roared in response to the blinding flash, he rapidly fired his plasma pistol upward, striking the pipes and armored plating overhead.

Because of this action, he took a stray round to the upper section of his breastplate. The high-caliber ammunition shattered the aquila etched upon it but failed to penetrate further.

A breath later, a massive chunk of the upper deck, piping, and adamantium reinforcement detached and crashed into the corridor.

The previously open passageway was instantly filled with debris. Using this improvised cover, the other warriors were able to extend their firing line and unleash their full firepower.

Even Logris joined the fray, resting his rifle on a makeshift ledge to fire continuous, focused pulses of electromagnetic radiation.

The firefight concluded swiftly, as the ambushers could not withstand the lethal precision of the Astartes' fire.

Subsequently, Soshyan kicked aside the wreckage they had used as cover to clear a path, the squad following closely behind.

"Check ammunition."

As the Astral Knights stepped over the dozen greenskin corpses, an echo arose within Soshyan's sealed helmet—oddly neutral and utterly devoid of background noise.

Then, he saw an identification rune flashing on his retinal display. He immediately raised a clenched fist, signaling the squad to halt.

"Mission parameters updated."

Boarding the greenskin warship alongside the torpedoes was something else besides the Astartes—a classified asset that had entered only after the servitors departed.

"Advance."

A few seconds later, Soshyan lowered his hand.

"Turn left at the junction ahead,"

he said, leading the squad away from the conflict directly towards the bridge's location.

He glanced down to his left at the auspex in Sol's hand; the murky green biological readings flooded the screen with a massive number of contact signatures.

"Full speed ahead, brothers."

The standard tactic for a raid was to dissect and isolate the ship's defenders, seizing and holding key corridors and bulkheads leading to vulnerable sections of the vessel. From such vantage points, a small squad could inflict vastly disproportionate damage.

This approach would leave the external approaches to the bridge indefensible. Therefore, even creatures as simple-minded as greenskins understood the need to hold this location firmly.

As long as they held here, the endless stream of defenders would eventually eradicate the invaders deep within the ship's bowels.

As long as they held—

Therefore, it was not surprising at all that Soshyan and his men encountered an Ork Dreadnought at this location.

These dreadnoughts were constructed from rusted, dulled metal. Their curved armor panels were adorned with highly polished skulls and fangs, with a crude, red Orkoid smile branded upon their chests. Within those metallic heads buried deep in their barrel-like torsos burned a crimson light.

It was said that greenskins "forcibly" interred living greenskins into their dreadnoughts, keeping them in a perpetual state of frenzy.

Two such frenzied dreadnoughts stood on either side of an iron gate. Their surfaces were marred with pitting and dents, looking as though their armor plating had been formed straight from a cooling forge without any careful polishing.

Engaging a dreadnought in a long-range firefight was, unequivocally, ill-advised.

"Charge!"

Soshyan ran with Heaven's Fall raised high. When he was fifty paces from the iron gate, the first dreadnought opened fire.

A massive shell deflected mere inches from his pauldron, striking Armin squarely on the shield as he advanced to the rear flank.

Following a high-pitched cry of agony, Armin's silhouette was illuminated. His shield was blasted into the air, and his entire body was thrown backward.

The Ork Dreadnought continued to fire. Soshyan focused his mind and engaged the one on the right.

The second dreadnought raised its arms, splayed its metallic palms, and struck Soshyan with a grav-gun.

"Urgh—!"

Soshyan was violently slammed into the ground. He could sense metal twisting, his servo-motors and joints warping.

The very weight of his own armor had begun to crush him.

Grav-weapons were ancient and poorly understood armaments dating back to the Dark Age of Technology.

They were gravity-projecting devices, incredibly sophisticated weapons that were rarely preserved even during the Great Crusade era. These weapons were highly effective in starship boarding actions or zero-gravity environments. A grav-gun operating at maximum output was sufficient to rupture organs and pulverize bones, even through full-plate armor.

However, their primary use was halting enemies and disabling machinery.

By manipulating the nature of gravity itself, grav-weapons turned a target's own mass against it, crushing the victim into a squelching paste under its own weight.

Often, they were deployed against heavy infantry such as Terminators, with staggeringly horrific results. A struck target would be brutally crushed by their own adamantium armor plating until nothing remained but a deep red trickle.

Following the Great Crusade, this type of weaponry gradually vanished from collective knowledge, and it wasn't until the War of the Beast that the Imperium once again recognized the value of such wargear.

Yet, only a scant few Astartes Chapters possessed access to such potent archeotech weapons.

Just as the first dreadnought's grav-gun was about to power up again, an overwhelming hail of bolter fire suddenly struck its flank.

A dense cluster of craters peppered the dreadnought's torso. The sheer impact of the torrential fire made it resemble a staggering drunkard in a gale. Under the relentless barrage, the previously interlocked armor panels shrieked in protest before rupturing violently, spraying a shower of blood and gore.

Torn open and vomiting minced flesh, the Ork Dreadnought collapsed onto the cold floor merely seconds after felling Soshyan with its grav-gun.

Sol lowered the smoking assault cannon and tossed it back to the heavy weapons specialist beside him.

With the crushing pressure gone, Soshyan immediately scrambled up and resumed his sprint.

His muscles ached and his armor showed visible stress fractures, but he didn't stop.

The remaining Ork Dreadnought attempted to halt his charge with its flamer.

Soshyan closed the distance, shattering the flamer's nozzle with a brutal punch, causing the nascent flames to dissipate into nothingness. He then swung Heaven's Fall in a sweeping arc, severing the dreadnought's right knee joint, completely throwing the Ork machine off balance just as it raised a fist to strike Soshyan.

He then reversed his grip and plunged the tip of the blade deep into the Ork Dreadnought's faceplate.

Amidst a massive geyser of blood and filthy oil, accompanied by the grinding screech of steel and gears, the Ork Dreadnought fell.

Soshyan hauled himself upright, gasping heavily.

He then looked up at the iron gate awaiting them, his gaze sweeping over his squad; aside from Armin, who was limping and in poor condition, the rest were completely unharmed.

But their numbers were still too few.

How many enemies were waiting behind the gate?

"Open it."

Upon hearing the command, Logris rushed forward and rapidly bypassed the gate's security.

The greenskin security measures were incredibly rudimentary and easily cracked.

The steel gate was first raised to Soshyan's height. His eyes locked onto the widening fissure, and following a rhythmic hum, the iron gate retracted entirely into the wall.

Soshyan could clearly see inside.

He saw a figure clad in thick, heavy armor seated upon a spiked iron throne. Atop a scarred, massive, boxy green head sat a comical black captain's hat. Its right hand rested casually upon an enormous cutlass, while its left hand grasped an equally oversized pistol.

Surrounding the throne were hundreds of heavily armored, grotesque greenskins wielding an assortment of long guns and short cannons.