'Here!' Himmlik unslung his satchel, emptied it and tossed melta devices to his brothers. Enrir kept a lookout from the door as the others locked the charges in place.

'How's your shoulder?' asked Bror.

'I'll live.' Enrir touched the wound. Sealant foam mixed with blood scabbed over the rent in his body glove, but the hole was too large to be closed. He had lost the whole outer plate and the nested layers beneath.

'Don't get any of this skjitna muck on it,' Bror warned. 'Morkai's breath!' He swore as an eye opened in the flesh covering half a shell stack. It followed him as he moved through the flesh web to plant the final charge. He put a bolt-round into it. Yellow pus fountained from the impact site. Something living shrieked within mechanisms. 'Doner Ragner railed.

'Me too,' Raid Gren. The auspex chimed loudly. Gren swore and plucked it from his belt. 'We've got company,' growled Gren. 'Multiple inbound targets.'

'The Sons of Horus?' said Enrir. His teeth were gritted against the pain of his wound, but his words were glad. 'I want to shoot something more challenging than deck thralls.'

'No such luck,' said Gren. He looked up from the auspex. 'Mechanicum combat cyborgs. Hundreds of them.'

'Is there another way out than the bridge?' asked Enrir.

'Not that I know of,' said Bror.

'There isn't one on the auspex. Not on the plans either,' said Gren, twisting dials on the side of his device.

'Apart from down,' said Enrir. 'I wouldn't recommend that way.'

'Fine then,' said Ragner. 'We fight our way out.'

The tramp of metallic feet sounded down the corridor leading to the magazine.

'We go blade to blade,' said Bror. 'They'll outshoot us if we stay here. But no half-man can outfight us close in. Charge on my word.'