Grey and Grot pressed forward with unwavering precision, advancing deeper into the tunnel, their bio-scanners sweeping the passage for any trace of the Psyker Qin Mo required.
The underhive walls oozed with centuries of neglect and industrial decay, encrusted with gri, corrosion, and the bitter tang of spent prothium. Their boots crunched over debris, shattered tal, and the half-liquefied remains of Genestealer hybrids they had already slain.
After covering nearly a kiloter of twisting passageways, Grey’s HUD sputtered to life—a new target blipped into his augur-array, accompanied by the clinical digital pronouncent:
[“Psychic signature detected. Target marked.”]
The cold, synthetic timbre of his armor’s cogitator reverberated within his helt. Grey turned toward the designated location, adjusting his shoulder-mounted plasma cannon, and began searing a passage through the rusted ferrocrete wall.
Behind him, Grot took point against the incoming swarm.
Initially, Grot had planned to dismantle the foe with the raw force of his graviton hamr, but his HUD’s tactical overlay swiftly classified the enemy’s clawed appendages as lethal lee threats, demanding a swift change in tactic.
Without delay, he reholstered his titanic hamr, transitioning to his Heavy scatter-las.
In that instant, the xenos tide surged forth.
A writhing mass of twisted, chittering monstrosities burst from the gloom, their grotesquely malford limbs scraping the tunnel walls as their predatory, luminous slits locked onto their prey.
Grot opened fire, unleashing a storm of las-bolts that burned through the advancing horrors,reducing them to smoldering husks before they could close in. In re monts, the tunnel floor was strewn with charred, twitching corpses, their bodies still steaming in the wake of plasma fire.
“These xeno-bastards just keep coming,” Grot muttered, as his reactor core vented surplus heat, enabling his weapon to cool rapidly between volleys.
Grey smirked. “You could just let the gravity shield pulverize them into oblivion.”
“I could,” Grot chuckled, scattering another salvo of las-fire into the remaining hybrids. “But then why the hell did we mount weapons on this armor?”
Grey fired another plasma blast, clearing a fresh path ahead. Grot followed, laying down suppressive fire to deter any stragglers still crawling after them.
At this point, the battle had beco routine—so much so that they had ti for idle conversation.
“Didn’t the squad try to convince you to ask the Lord Commander to na our armors?” Grot asked.
Grey sighed, “Yes. He simply dubbed it ‘Armor.’”
Grot snorted dismissively. “That’s it? Just Armor? No flair whatsoever.”
“I pressed him for sothing better. He got annoyed and called it Thunderborn Pattern Power Armor.”
Grot gave a grudging nod. “Not bad, indeed.”
....
After a relentless half-hour of traversal, they breached a vast underground cavern.
Grey’s HUD erupted in a flurry of alerts—multiple hostile signatures ahead.
Grey scanned the battlefield—dozens of Cultist forces had entrenched themselves, their lasguns and solid projectile weapons aid at the breach.
Lasguns. Stubbers. Makeshift barricades.
And at the far end, amidst the chaos, stood one solitary soldier.
Grey recognized him imdiately.
Albert.
The man stood against two Cult infantryn, wielding a stolen xeno blade in weak, desperate swings. He was already dood.
This wasn’t a battle. It was an execution in slow motion.
Albert’s arm was severed, his ragged stump oozing blood as testant to grievous wounds.
He wouldn’t last another minute.
Grey’s mission wasn’t to save him. But he wasn’t opposed to the idea.
If he completed his primary objective first.
Behind the entrenched Cult infantry, two Psykers erged, their tattered robes undulating with raw, barely contained warp energies.
Two of them.
Only now did Grey realize—his psychic signature detection had actually overlapped two targets.
Without warning, one of the Psykers shrieked, “Fire!”
A hail of las-bolts and kinetic rounds stord toward them.
Grey and Grot didn’t flinch.
Grot deactivated his gravity shield, drawing his graviton hamr.
Grey raised his scatter-las.
[Tactical calculation complete. Ti to eliminate all hostiles: 2.3 seconds.]
Grey’s weapons roared to life.
Within monts, the entrenched Cult infantry and their makeshift barricades were incinerated into oblivion.
Grot ignited his jump-pack, propelling himself forward in a burst of controlled fury.
Yet one of the Psykers retaliated—a spastic, malignant hand extended as a wall of telekinetic force hurled chunks of twisted tal of the walls toward Grot, battering his armor and halting his montum mid-leap.
Simultaneously, the second Psyker conjured a vortex of raw warp-fire, streaking toward him like a living inferno.
Grot roared in defiance.
“I AM A THUNDERBORN, YOU WARP-SCARRED WHORE!”
With his jump-pack thrusting to maximum output, he shattered the telekinetic bind, hurtling toward his adversary.
With a devastating swing, his graviton hamr pulverized the first Psyker, reducing him to a blood-spattered sar that splattered grotesquely across the cavern walls.
At the sa mont, Grey deployed his grav-field manipulators of his cybernetic arm, yanking the second Psyker across the chaotic battlefield directly into his grasp.
His augtic fingers locked around her throat.
Her eyes widened in sheer terror as she attempted to muster the vestiges of her psychic might—but nothing happened.
The anti-psyker dampeners embedded in Grey’s Thunderborn armor had utterly suppressed her warp abilities.
She thrashed feebly against his grip until her resistance waned with her dwindling air supply.
Then her movents slowed.
The fight was over.
....
Grey perford a bio-scan on Albert’s body.
His HUD soon highlighted the soldier’s silhouette and wounds, followed by a single stark line:
[Exsanguination. Survival Probability: 0%.]
“He’s dead,” Grey stated.
“Yeah,” Grot replied with a resigned sigh, glancing briefly at Albert’s serene, defiant smile—
Even in death, the soldier was smiling—as if his final vision had been the total annihilation of the Cultists insurgents.
Grey silently swept the area with bio-scanners, ensuring that no enemy survivors remained. Any still breathing were put down instantly.
Once confird that the sole remaining hostile was the captured Psyker, Grey turned to Grot.
“We cannot leave his body behind. Secure him for transport.”
....
Their retreat, however, wasn’t unchallenged.
The Genestealer hybrids they had previously bypassed had returned en masse, swarming the tunnel network like a living plague.
This ti, Grot assud point, hoisting Albert’s mutilated corpse with grim determination, while his shoulder-mounted cannon unleashed devastating energy beams that incinerated any xenos within its path.
The searing beams vaporized the abominations with ruthless efficiency—far surpassing the lethality of lee or scatter-las engagents.
Silence reigned in the claustrophobic corridors as Grey and Grot withdrew.
Both were lost in thought.
Grot, despite his usual brashness, found himself uncharacteristically contemplative, his thoughts turning to the standard infantry—those hapless souls clad in "re" Praetorian Pattern wargear, a paltry defense compared to their modified Thunderborn armor.
Was the only difference between them and the other PDF soldiers of this Hive… the fact that they wore Thunderborn Pattern Power Armor?
Had it not been for their Thunderborn Pattern Power Armor, how many tis would they have perished against the relentless horrors of the Hive?
Grey, in contrast, was thinking about sothing else.
He was considering further augntations.
If he enhanced himself enough… he could keep fighting, even without armor.
Erging from the extraction shaft, they boarded the transport and returned to the 47th Regint Fortress.
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