Marlena watched as the Catachan elites, following the plan, launched missiles, creating breaches in the bio-engineering laboratory complex. She then turned to the rats she was commanding.
The "Biologist" pointed towards the laboratory complex. The rats surged forward on all fours, scurrying towards the structure.
The laboratory tower stood one hundred and thirty metres tall, fifteen metres wide, protected by four defensive turrets encircling its perimeter. These turrets were studded with firing ports, their gleaming gun mounts unleashing a torrent of ammunition upon the Catachan warriors.
The missile had only punched a fist-sized hole in the adamantium-armored ferrocrete structure. IImpossible for an ordinary person to squeeze through such a gap, no matter how hard they tried. Yet for the driven rats, it was sufficient.
They entered the laboratory, crawled into ventilation ducts, dropped the seeds they carried, then scurried elsewhere.
Seeds from Catachan vines stubbornly began to grow. Though not spreading as rapidly as on their homeworld, growth was still visible to the naked eye.
While guards, with turret support, repelled the Catachan warriors, the "Biologist" released a second batch of pets: various venomous snakes from Catachan.
Swamp mambas soared through the air, the first to plunge into the laboratory complex.
They landed upon the guards, their fangs piercing ballistic armour, venom injecting into their bodies.
The guards' bodies convulsed violently, dark green blood trickling from their mouths.
After twenty-nine heartbeats, the guards stopped twitching.
In Marlena's tea-brown eyes, seeing the outer guards fall one by one, it was time to launch the assault.
She would strike with lightning speed, seizing the entire laboratory before the guards realised their position was indefensible and activated the self-destruct sequence.
Marlena opened her communicator, issuing orders to the Catachan Banshees.
"Attack!"
The Catachan Banshees had expanded from the initial two experimental regiments to five. Marlena brought four of them.
Banshees wearing spectral masks, hair dyed red, emerged from four directions.
They tilted their heads back in unison, emitting piercing shrieks amplified by their masks. Spiraling, invisible screams echoed within the turrets.
Seizing the opportunity, the Catachan Banshees swiftly breached the fire perimeter. Leading demolitionists drew Telavar-pattern melta bombs, setting them for three-second detonation.
They accelerated from the formation, slapping the melta bombs onto the adamantium-alloy outer walls.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions thundered. Outer walls collapsed.
Marlena charged into the laboratory first. Where she passed, plants spreading through the corridors rapidly grew, covering the entire first level in moments.
Plants proliferated swiftly. The entire laboratory seemed overgrown as if long abandoned.
While Marlena stormed the Pap caste's bio-engineering laboratory, Tierney led several "Marauders" in action against the over-five-thousand-year-old ancient structure.
Tierney and Maria Kurnikova faced the same choice when selecting the type. Unlike the "Assassins'" choice, he selected the Yeld-pattern Dominum Armor as the base for the "Marauders."
Forge Lord Rosicky made targeted modifications to the Yeld-pattern based on Tierney's requirements.
The original Yeld-pattern only provided chameleonic camouflage when the wearer remained motionless, concealing their presence.
The "Artisan" incorporated Aeldari camo-cloak materials into the Dominum Armor's lightweight yet resilient metal composite.
By embedding Warp-circuitry from Grimnyr COG drones at key nodes, he linked the entire suit.
Tierney and the "Marauders" pressed crystals at their waists. As the runes illuminated one by one, the Warp circuits energised the camouflage array, maintaining their concealed state even during slow movement.
Tierney led the "Marauders" stealthily towards the mechanical sentries.Their electronic eyes scanned the surroundings, just as they had done for the past five thousand years.
Tierney and the others slowed their pace, preventing any signals detectable by sensor arrays.
They didn't fear attacks from the mechanical sentries. Conductive filaments linked to their neural cortices could activate in sync with their consciousness, deflecting enemy attacks.
Tierney was the first to slip between two mechanical sentries. The metallic constructs showed no reaction.
The "Marauders" followed, reaching the metal tower.
The tower stood dozens of meters tall. Its base was circular, over ten meters in diameter.
The "Cryptologist" silently circled the tower's base, eyes examining runes distinctly different from those on Vostroya or in the Imperium.
Combining Gardinaal runes provided by Arsena, the "Cryptologist" swiftly analyzed the runes before him.
After a full circuit, he stopped before one rune.
During his circuit, the "Cryptologist" observed that the tower's base level contained elements from one to eleven.
Among them... one sun... four claws... eleven stars.
The "Cryptologist" recalled that when this structure was built, the Gardinaal hadn't controlled eleven planets. Their initial colonization was the third planet, Gardinaal Prime.
He thus moved to the position corresponding to three. This rune comprised two symbols: three feet, one above, two below, encircled by intricate rings.
Tierney pressed his hand against it. With a rumbling vibration, a grey door slowly opened.
The "Marauders" filed in. Tierney entered last, pressing an internal rune to close the door.
"Search separately," Tierney ordered over the sealed comm-channel after glancing at the massive grey statues on the ground level.
In the stealth provided by their Yeld-pattern Dominum Armor, the "Marauders" skirted past mechanical guards as tall as Dreadnoughts, beginning their search.
One "Marauder" ascended to the fourth level. He removed his gauntlet, extending his "Agile Hands" to brush along the wall. Suddenly, his fingers retracted.
He tapped lightly and a hidden door opened.
The "Marauder" entered the concealed chamber, scanning over a hundred artistic statues.
"Superior Observation" allowed him to identify the most valuable among them: a statue clad in grey armor, raising a greatsword, remarkably lifelike.
When the timer in Tierney's black armor completed two cycles, all "Marauders" reported their findings. They discovered artworks from different periods but no traces related to the High Lords.
The "Cryptologist" spent an hour cross-checking the peculiarities reported by the "Marauders."
He found two more concealed chambers but still no information related to the High Lords.
The "Cryptologist" frowned, thinking to himself.
'Could this tower merely house artefacts recording Gardinaal's historical development?'
'But why would such a place requires so many mechanical guards?'
'Why, with the capital now in chaos and reinforcements from other strongholds unable to reach in time, have these mechanical guards not been deployed?'
The "Cryptologist's" gaze swept his surroundings. His eyes fell to his feet. A thought suddenly struck him.
'If not inside the tower, what about underground?'
Tierney crept down to the lowest level, skirting past a mechanical guard wielding a great axe before scaling a colossal granite statue.
Behind the statue, the "Cryptologist" discovered a horizontally arranged eleven-star pattern.
He pressed the third planet. A beep-beep alarm sounded overhead. Amid mechanical whirring, dark gun barrels emerged.
The "Cryptologist" focused. Hundreds of independent metal plates attached via micro-fiber strands to an articulated frame shifted.
Wings propelled Tierney backwards through the air as dazzling particle beams erupted from the ground, punching dense clusters of craters into the surface.
Tierney's expression remained unchanged. As a full-fledged "Marauder" who had infiltrated countless defensive facilities, he recognized that had those particle weapons struck him, even if his suit deflected most beams, the remainder would have been lethal.
Even the Shadow of Order power armor would have been pierced.
Hearing heavy footsteps, Tierney quickly snapped out of his shock.
He knew the mechanical guards were alerted. More would arrive soon.
"Hold it off!"
The "Marauders" spread their wing-blades, flying towards the axe-wielding mechanical guard from all directions.
Multi-laser emitters poured barrage onto the grey metallic form.
Lasers struck adamantium alloy armor, blackening the grey plates, but the mechanical guard's movements didn't cease. Its electronic eyes flashed red, raising the great axe.
The targeted "Marauder" strained to flap his wings, drawing the mechanical guard's attention.
Another "Marauder" seized the opportunity, flying behind to the mechanical guard's neck. The sharp wing-blades of the Yeld-pattern Dominum Armor swiftly closed.
The metal wings weren't just for flight; they could attack.
A black flash. Dozens of metal plates from the wing tips pierced the mechanical guard's head, eyes, cheeks, and shoulders.
The wings spread. The mechanical guard's head was torn apart.
At the same moment, the "Cryptologist" swiftly tapped the third and eleventh planets.
'Three for the beginning; the Gardinaal started here.'
'Eleven for the end; their goal was to occupy all eleven planets.'
Runic arrays across the granite statue lit up. Amid vibrations, a passage was revealed.
Tierney leapt down first. The "Marauders" spun and flew, evading fire from mechanical guards, descending.
The "Cryptologist" flew along a narrow passage for over ten kilometers. Suddenly, the space opened into a seemingly endless platform.
Above the platform lay a metallic wreck. The portion he could see was as large as a frigate.
The "Cryptologist" controlled his wing-blades to slow, thinking to himself.
'A starship wreck? The vessel the early Gardinaal colonists arrived in?'
'Hence, the art gallery built above.'
'The High Lords used consciousness matrix technology for life extension from the start, possibly brought to Gardinaal. Perhaps the colonial vessel contains it.'
.....
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