Mechanicum

'Bring us about, Lacus,' cried Cavalerio. 'Volcano cannon on rightmost Warlord. A three-pulse volley if you please.'

'Yes, my princeps,' replied his steersman, and Cavalerio felt the ancient machine respond, its vast and complex manoeuvring systems reacting with the speed of a brand new engine. Cavalerio felt the heat build as the monstrously powerful cannon on his left arm powered up.

He saw the stricken Warlord slow and relished the fear its princeps must be feeling to be so achingly vulnerable. With no shields and his engine burning, his fight was over.

'No, that won't do you any good,' chuckled Cavalerio as the volcano cannon fired and struck the Warlord's shields dead on, battering the last of its protection away. The first blast was immediately followed by two more, and the Warlord's upper carapace vanished in a thermonuclear blast as its reactor detonated.

'Centre Warlord's shields failing!' shouted Palus. 'It was too close to the explosion!'

'All stop,' ordered Cavalerio. 'Reverse left step and bring us back about, Lacus. Divert all shield power to volcano cannon, I want to make this shot count!'

His crew hastened to obey his commands, and Cavalerio felt the groaning strain of metal all around him as he pushed his engine to the limits of its endurance. A moment of doubt flickered across his mind as he remembered doing the same thing to Victorix Magna, but he pushed that thought aside.

canted Cavalerio.

A flurry of impacts struck his torso and carapace, and Cavalerio grunted in pain, his flesh convulsing in sympathy with his wounded engine. He felt the damage to Deus Tempestus, but shook off the pain. If his engine was paying the price for his tactics, then so too would he.

'Gun charged, my princeps,' reported Kuyper. 'Solution locked.'

Cavalerio snatched control of the weapon from his engine's gun-servitor. 'Firing!'

Once again the volcano cannon unleashed its deadly fire, the searing bolt of destruction enhanced with all the power Cavalerio could give it.

The enemy Warlord's shields absorbed the first microsecond of the impact, but collapsed with an explosive detonation that tore the upper tiers of its armour away like paper in a storm. Cavalerio kept his aim steady as the fire built in his arm to a raging, searing sensation, and the enemy Warlord vanished as his fire burned through its hull and sliced it almost in two.

The crew of Deus Tempestus cheered as the Warlord broke in two at the waist, its legs left standing as its torso and upper carapace crashed to the ground in a flaming arc of molten metal.

Cavalerio let out a shudder of release as he watched the Warlord die. It had been a terrible risk altering the shield strength to empower the volcano cannon, but it had paid off and now the odds were more even.

Then the Aquila Ignis opened fire.

Adept Zeth tried to remain standing, but the pain in her chest was too great. Her legs gave way beneath her and she slumped to her knees, blood streaming down her chest and back from where Remiare's projectiles had pierced her armour and body.

She looked down at her breastplate, seeing the void projector still intact on her chest, then looked up in surprise. Remiare smiled and spun the pistols to face her, relishing Zeth's look of confusion.

'I suppose you're wondering why your personal void didn't save you,' said the assassin as she skimmed over the ground, circling the ring of steel columns that surrounded Zeth. 'These rounds are hand-crafted in the null-shielded forges of Adept Prenzlaur, and utilise technology similar to that found in the warp missiles used by Titans.'

'Actually,' said Zeth, coughing a wad of blood into her mask, 'I was wondering how long it would take for the noospheric trip-code I've been broadcasting to affect you.'

Zeth saw Remiare's surprise in her biometrics and laughed. 'You think you are so clever, assassin, but I am a high adept of the Mechanicum! Nobody's cleverer than me.'

Remiare cocked her head to one side, analysing the connection between her and Zeth on the noosphere.

'No!' she cried, seeing the exquisitely elegant code worked into the data packets passing into her augmetics, which was even now silently and secretly shutting them down.

'Too late,' hissed Zeth as Remiare's magno-gravitic thrusters cut out and the assassin dropped to the floor of the chamber with a heavy thump. Remiare's knees buckled as she landed, unused to feeling herself on the ground with such a weight of useless dead metal on the ends of her legs.

'Right now your enhanced metabolism is trying to reboot your systems, but it won't do you any good,' said Zeth, using the extruded mechadendrites that were still hooked into the steel columns to haul herself to her feet. 'It's already too late for you.'