The rebel psyker hit the ground and stayed there, chest open, blood running freely. The remaining rebel soldiers saw him fall and broke from their trenches in a rush — screaming his title, desperate to retrieve him.
Their Marshal was down. They charged with the particular ferocity of people who have nothing left to calculate.
It made no difference. Leaving the trenches against prepared positions with armoured vehicle support was simply a faster way to die. Lasfire and solid rounds swept the open ground. The charge dissolved into scattered bodies before it reached the halfway point.
Within minutes the battle was over. The survivors ran for the camp behind them. Panic spread through the non-combatant population there, and the camp began emptying itself.
Little Joel reported in: "Sir — main force has broken. The camp is in chaos. Do we pursue?"
Kian was already climbing out of the command Chira, walking toward Silentium.
"No. Killing all of them costs ammunition and ti. Let them run. We move into the camp in thirty minutes."
Silentium stood over the downed rebel psyker, looking at the man's laboured breathing.
Kian ca up beside him and put an arm around his shoulder.
"My man. How does victory taste~"
Silentium removed his helt. His expression was genuinely puzzled.
"Actually — I want to think about this. You said since ancient tis the left side loses a beam clash. But from whose perspective? The attacker's left? The defender's? If we're facing each other, my left is your right—"
"That's completely irrelevant."
Kian pointed at the man bleeding on the ground.
"What matters is you won. Best performance of the engagent. Undisputed MVP."
The real reason Silentium had won was simpler: the rebel psyker had been burning through ability after ability without soul-shielding or sanctification, and the warp was responding accordingly. Kian had been watching his biotrics on screen — a man fighting a two-front battle, directing his powers outward while simultaneously trying to hold back whatever had its attention on him from inside. By the second beam clash, he was exhausted in ways that didn't show on his face.
Kian had just told Silentium to push harder and let the situation resolve itself.
He drew the Power Sword to finish it.
Silentium's hand stopped him.
"Don't. He's useful. He's old — that ans he knows things. Techniques I haven't seen. I want to learn them."
Kian frowned. "He's dangerous. An old psyker who survived in the wild is not a simple problem."
Every organisation in the Imperium hunted psykers. Young ones without guidance either got taken by the authorities or were overwheld by what reached through the warp for them. The ones who survived to old age in an unsanctioned state had developed sothing — in their minds, in their thods — that the ordinary ones hadn't.
Which made them valuable. It also made them unpredictable.
"You promised," Silentium said. "After this engagent, you'd support the research. The immaterium study. Are you going back on that?"
Kian stared at him. The boy had learned to negotiate. Irritating developnt.
"Fine. Fine. Keep your trophy. But we take precautions first. You don't introduce an invasive species without precautionary asures."
He activated the Power Sword's disruption field — the blue energy crackling along the blade — and made four efficient cuts.
Both arms. Both legs. Removed.
The rebel psyker, already deeply unconscious from the chest wound, didn't stir. The disruption field cauterised as it cut — minimal bleeding, clean separation.
Kian produced a Regen-Bolt and administered it, then picked up what remained and held it out to Silentium.
"Your new research subject. Thirty kilograms, fully portable. Enjoy yourself."
While Kian had been managing the post-battle conversation, his soldiers had finished clearing the field. Little Joel's report ca through:
"Sir — battlefield cleared. Recovered: approximately fifteen hundred weapons in poor-to-unusable condition; five hundred and eighty serviceable weapons including so PDF-pattern manufacture; forty-seven single-use rocket launchers; approximately eighty rockets of mixed type."
The general weapons were unremarkable. The rocket launchers were worth keeping — forty-seven single-use anti-armour weapons represented real capability against light armour at close range.
"Joel — distribute the rocket launchers to the troops. Load the serviceable weapons and ammunition on the vehicles. Burn everything else."
Several soldiers arrived with fuel containers and set the junk weapons alight. The pile burned with impressive completeness.
The rebel camp had cleared by the ti the column moved in. Doors open, shelves stripped, families gone. The auspex showed no contacts.
The column drove through to the back of the camp, where the marble hill rose directly behind the last row of structures.
Set into the rock face: a door.
It was enormous. The surface was black with blast scoring — repeated attempts to force it, burn it, cut through it, spanning what appeared to be years. The rebel psyker's lightning lance had left circular impact craters in the tal, each barely ten centitres deep, the edges slightly lted.
A weapon that could punch through a Chira's frontal armour had dented this door less than a centitre per shot.
Kian and Antonius stood in front of it and looked up.
[End of Chapter 232]
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