Chapter 347: The Bait
One of the rocket-toting armoured troopers stepped forward, worked the action on his 150mm launcher, and loaded a shaped-charge anti-armour round.
Pfft, pfft, pfft!
Several rockets streaked out of the tube, flying straight at the row of shield-trucks in the distance.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The shaped-charge rounds slammed into the massive iron shields, the charges collapsing under extreme heat and pressure into focused metal jets that punched through the plating.
They did penetrate, but each jet only bored a small hole through the shield itself, nowhere near enough to cripple the vehicle underneath.
On engineering vehicles like these, the fuel tank and engine sat toward the rear, with the driver's cab in the middle, and the front end held nothing critical.
Worse, there was another layer of heavy armour on the vehicle's main body behind the shield.
After punching through the front shield, the metal jet had to cross a hollow gap before reaching that inner armour, and the effect dispersed along the way.
By the time what was left of the jet reached the actual hull plating, it didn't have enough force left to punch through.
After a few rounds impacted, the truck column ahead just kept rolling forward steadily, barely scratched.
Some of the Stealers even stood behind the shields lobbing molotovs, battery-bombs, taking potshots with lasrifles, or firing steam-pressure nail guns.
With the rockets a bust, Kian had no choice but to bring out the real firepower.
"Plasma! Bring them up!"
A line of troopers carrying plasma rifles stepped forward and readied to fire, thick barrels humming with a building blue glow.
The plasma rifle was an enormous, brutally powerful, and genuinely dangerous weapon.
It ran off a cylindrical fuel canister loaded with hydrogen fuel, each canister good for ten shots.
On firing, the hydrogen inside would be drawn into the weapon and triggered into a violent plasma reaction, spitting out a glowing orb of plasma.
That blue plasma orb burned with something close to solar heat, capable of punching through heavy armour and carving a molten trench through anything in its path.
The orb itself was highly unstable. On impact, the heat would drive it burrowing into the target's interior before triggering a catastrophic detonation.
The blast left nothing behind but molten steel and scorched earth. Devastating firepower.
The catch was that these weapons were extremely dangerous to operate. Fire one that's overheated, and the plasma orb would detonate inside the barrel itself, burning the shooter and everyone nearby down to nothing, not even bones left.
Fortunately, Kian didn't have to worry about that here. Every one of these rifles was brand new, inspected by the Enginseer before deployment, and anointed with sanctified oil. As long as nobody emptied four or five canisters back to back without a break, the weapons were reliable enough.
A dozen or so plasma-armed troopers stepped forward, the rest of the line parting to clear their firing lane.
They raised their rifles, sighted on the slowly advancing shield-trucks, and squeezed the triggers.
Fwoosh!
Massive orbs of blue plasma erupted from the barrels, and the weapons' cooling systems kicked in, venting jets of steam.
A row of glowing spheres, each roughly the size of a child's soccer ball, streaked toward the trucks and struck the iron shields.
Without the slightest resistance, the orbs bored straight through the steel plating, leaving perfectly round, molten-edged holes behind.
The orbs then punched through the vehicles' hull armour and reached the driver's cabs, vaporizing the Stealer drivers instantly.
Finally, the orbs slammed into the heavy engines, and the plasma could no longer hold stable. Every one of them detonated at once.
BOOOOM!!!
The blast lit up the dark like a small sun rising in the void, and anyone who looked straight at it felt their vision swim.
The struck shield-trucks erupted in violent detonations, flinging out shrapnel so superheated it turned molten mid-flight, splattering against nearby walls like lava.
The Stealers clustered around the trucks had the worst luck imaginable, vaporized outright by the blast heat.
Those further out had their skin scorched, the fat and moisture beneath boiling and igniting into raging fire.
"Aaaaaargh!!"
Two volleys from ten plasma gunners, and the Stealer vehicle column looked like it had been plowed under by heavy artillery, metal and flesh alike torn to shreds and set ablaze.
"That's enough. Plasma gunners, fall back, let the weapons cool down."
With the shield-trucks dealt with, Kian pulled the plasma team back. Best to use these sparingly and preserve their reliability. Overuse without proper maintenance risked exactly the kind of failure that got people killed, and it was smarter to save that firepower for when a real high-tier threat showed up.
Kian scanned the battlefield. Wrecked vehicles and shattered buildings everywhere.
Despite the chaos, the Stealers were still shrieking and throwing themselves forward, but it was plain the tide had already turned against them.
The Genestealer itself, though, was still lurking somewhere in the dark, hadn't shown itself yet.
If they didn't kill that thing, it wouldn't take long before it bred out another swarm of hybrids to replace this one.
Kian knew the type well. Genestealers were assassin-tier units, weak in a straight fight, built for ambush.
His own formation was locked up tight as a turtle shell. Even a Space Marine would have to dance through a minefield to get close. A Genestealer would never charge that head-on.
He needed to bait it out.
Kian thought it over, then gave the order for his men to hold position and not advance.
He broke into a run himself, sprinting toward the tangled, close-quarters housing ahead.
He leapt up onto a half-melted shield-truck, raised his flaming greatsword and bolt rifle, and bellowed down at the swarm below.
"Filthy xenos, today is the day you die! I am a Crusader of the Ecclesiarchy, favored of the Emperor, Count of Agri-World Secundus-496b, void-deputy, slayer of Gretchin scum, and as of today, I've earned myself a brand new title: the Bug Crusher!"
Kian slammed his boot down on a first-generation hybrid trying to scramble up onto the truck to reach him, popping it like an overripe fruit.
The Stubber over his head roared without letting up, blowing the hybrids below apart in bursts of gore.
"Kraa! It's the Bug Crusher! Fall back!"
"Get the Angel! Someone get the Angel!"
Kian threw his head back and laughed, savage and triumphant. "Die! Die, you damned insects! Today is your extinction!"
He stood high atop the wrecked truck, tangled streets stretching out on either side, a maze of pipes overhead, and a warren of drainage and maintenance conduits below.
An environment this complicated, Kian was betting the Genestealer wouldn't be able to resist making a move.
Sure enough, off to his left, a narrow, pitch-black alley choked with scrap metal and corpses caught his eye.
Buried in that pile of junk and bodies, the Genestealer lay perfectly still, disguised as just another corpse among the rest.
Its cluster of compound eyes tracked Kian, studying the rhythm of his attacks, the turn of his body.
Kian spun in a full circle atop the truck, the Stubber overhead cutting down every hybrid that closed in.
A few got too close, and a single swing of his flaming blade cut clean through four or five bodies at once.
Then, the moment came.
The Genestealer struck the instant Kian's back was turned, mid-swing, cutting down another wave of hybrids.
It exploded upward, shoving the corpses and scrap off its body like a coiled spring finally releasing.
Its speed was ferocious. In the blink of an eye, it was already behind Kian.
Both monomolecular claws rose high, wreathed in the shimmering glow of its disruption field, and stabbed straight toward the weaker armour plating at Kian's waist.
☆☆☆
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