Iron-Father Gdolkin approached the Ebolus with measured steps. He bolstered his bolt pistol and hefted his power axe in both hands. His eyes locked on the exposed scabrous metal-flesh underbelly that was leaking gouts of black bile. He was still dwarfed by the monstrous Chaos-construct. A palpable sense of malevolent evil emanated from the blasphemy, that made him stay his hand - but only for a moment.

Gdolkin raised the power axe above his head. 'Ferrus guide my hand.’ he said then brought the crackling blade down into the ruptured mess.

The defiler gave one last metallic scream as Gdolkin felt a jet of hot air vent into his face. The war machine spasmed epileptically, a lashing leg connecting with the Space Marine and kicking him aside. The belly of the metal-beast seemed to swell and then, with a daemonic howl, the defiler was torn apart by an explosion of unleashed warp-energies.

The explosion lifted Gdolkin into the air, sending him hurtling across the battlefield, and as the shock-wave hit him, his conscious mind was hurled into dark oblivion.

SIX

APOCALYPSE ENGINE

The Land-Leviathan Ordinatus Gehenna

'And my orders are to destroy target zero-alpha utterly,' Arch-Magos Schrodinger railed, the two servo-limbs extending from his shoulder blades jerking angrily.

'But we are so close now.’ the other persisted. 'We could liberate the target and study its secrets, to the benefit and greater glory of the Cult Mechanicus.

'Liberate it? Liberate it!’ Schrodinger shrieked, causing the half-human swan-winged familiar fluttering at his shoulder to take flight from its enraged master into the vaulted ceiling space of the command bridge. 'Have you taken leave of your senses?' Schrodinger challenged his rival. 'Gehenna is overrun. Our own tech-guard forces are fighting a losing battle. The heretics almost have us and you are saying that we should liberate their mountain stronghold site? Are you insane?'

His rival appeared to ignore the comment and instead continued in his tirade against the arch-magos's determination to destroy the target. The Omnissiah only knows what the mining teams uncovered there. If it hadn't been for this ill-timed invasion we would know by now. It could be a planetary governor's ransom in lost archeotech, a previously forgotten power source. It could even be a lost STC!'

'I don't believe it! And even if it were the case, as I have tried to tell you, we are in no position to free the site. Our beleaguered forces are barely able to hold this bridge, let alone beat back the enemy's front line and take back the Argentum range. The rebels have breached our hull and even now our adepts are having to fight simply to hold their positions. If we do not charge the cannon and fire now we may be too late to do anything!'

'You know as well as I that there is something... special about the target.' The other wouldn't let it lie. He was like a rad-rat worrying at a scavenged carcass. 'And yet you would still go ahead and destroy it, when Mars only knows the secrets that it could reveal to us, to you?' 'My orders are to destroy it!' Schrodinger roared, physically shaking now.