Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 937 (08.936): 'Betrayal'

click!
With a crisp metallic snapping sound, the shackles, cut open by the high-energy laser, fell onto the sand.

The two Hell Soldiers, like two wolves released from their cages, moved stealthily and swiftly through the forest.

One man drew a tactical combat knife from his waist and moved with ghostly speed, plunging the sharp blade into the back of a shock soldier who was facing away from him, aiming his Hellfire Gun at Harvey and preparing to fire.

The blade pierced precisely through the gaps in the terracotta armor plates, then shredded the heart.

"Ah!!!" A short and shrill scream rang out as the Hellfire Gun slipped from the Shock Soldier's hand.

The second soldier made a swift leap, snatching the still-warm weapon mid-air. After landing, he rolled to dissipate the impact and skillfully switched to full-automatic rapid-fire mode. They had been trained with almost all the mortal weapons in the entire empire, and even the modified weapons used by the Severus traitors were, in essence, standard equipment that had been in service in the human empire for thousands of years.

The rapid, tearing sound of short bursts of fire rang out, accompanied by the thuds of heavy bodies falling to the ground.

The sandy land returned to a deathly silence, with only the crackling of the burning trees around it and the hissing sound of the Hellfire Gun's automatic radiator as it overheated, like the flicking of a viper's tongue.

The bodies of the Severus shock troops lay scattered on the ground, their blood staining the sand a shocking deep red.

"Thank you for your rescue, sir. I'm sorry, we were arrested by traitors who drove up to us as soon as we landed."

A Hell Soldier picked up his helmet from the sand, emptied the sand from it, put it back on, and reported in a deep voice to Harvey, who was walking towards him.

His voice contained no relief at surviving a disaster, only frustration at the setback of his mission.

"They seemed to be searching for something in the vicinity. As soon as we landed, before we even had a chance to draw our weapons, they had already surrounded us."

“This place is still more than ten kilometers away from the last intelligence point sent by the Astronomical Army. Why would Severus’s traitors conduct such a meticulous search here?” Harvey quickly realized the key to the problem.

It's important to understand that due to the engine fire, they and their fellow pilots were flying much slower than the other crews. As a lagging formation, and with their final landing point significantly off-target, they should theoretically be the detachment furthest from the enemy search party.

"Conduct an equipment self-check immediately. You, contact friendly forces. You... go dig a hole." He calmly ordered, his voice devoid of any emotion.

"Yes, sir!" The two Hell Soldiers immediately sprang into action.

Harvey took the still-intact Gravity Umbrella energy backpack and Hellfire Gun from the back of his executed comrade and closed his eyes.

"Sir," the scout responsible for contacting friendly forces reported, "Gamma-03 team has arrived at the designated location."

"Has Gamma-03 found the storage device we need?" Harvey asked as he and another scout moved the bodies of the fallen into the dug sandpit.

"No. The report says... there are no bodies of Tribunal agents there. Not even... any bodies at all."

"What? No bodies? Did they search thoroughly?"

"Gamma-03, please reconfirm the status of the target area."

Amidst the cacophony of electromagnetic interference, the communications officer looked at Harvey and nodded heavily once more.

Harvey's brow furrowed even deeper.

at this time--

"It's aliens! Dark Eldar! It's their jet motorcycles! Missile lock-on, take them down—!!!"

Suddenly, a loud shout came from the communication array carried by the scout responsible for making contact.

Immediately afterwards, the channel was filled with the sounds of intense weapon fire and missile launches.

Harvey looked up sharply and saw long trails of flame left by several starlight missiles launched into the night sky over the designated drop zone, like inverted meteors, as well as bursts of multicolored energy beams shooting into the night sky.

"The squad that has been airdropped to the designated location... (noisy electromagnetic sound) has encountered the enemy. No! It's an ambush! We've been ambushed! Other squads, do not approach! Repeat! Do not approach! There are enemies here!!!" "How could this be..." Harvey stared in disbelief at the battlefield that had instantly turned into a battlefield in the distance, a terrible thought forming in his mind.

But this idea was quickly overturned by the calm and logical analysis of a professional soldier.

[Could it be... that the agent left a false signal before he died? But why would he do that?] Harvey astutely made a reverse deduction.

His judgment was not without reason—if this was all a complete trap and there was no intelligence storage device at all, then why would Severus' elite troops, who had driven here to conduct a thorough search, waste their precious manpower looking for something that did not exist?
With that in mind, he began searching the body of the Severus shock troops officer whose head had been blown apart by a shrapnel.

As expected, he found a 10.5-inch military data board.

Harvey used the tactical servo skull to quickly decrypt and hack into the data panel, obtaining its encrypted contents.

*Opening encrypted content*

"...The First Battalion has proceeded to the target location based on intelligence provided by our supporters, but the object marked in the intelligence is not here."

Your unit is hereby ordered to immediately search all suspicious locations in the surrounding area. The operation must be swift; the puppet emperor's lackeys will arrive soon.

"We must intercept the target before they do. For His Majesty Emperor Severus!" — General Staff of the Severus Empire.

Without a doubt, things have come to this point, which only means one thing—there is a traitor within the Sintira Flintlock Regiment.

They betrayed the Imperial Navy's movements to the Severus traitor. It was through the intelligence provided by the Sintierans that the Severus traitor and their Dark Eldar allies were able to set up a trap at the designated drop zone.

Fortunately, that man, the maverick and extraordinary one who had been independent since military school—Commander Horatio—refused any form of strategic cooperation with the Sintira Fusiliers from the very beginning, insisting on independently taking charge of all military operations of the Imperial Navy.

Aside from keeping a watchful eye on things and instructing the Third Operations Team to destroy a secondary target after completing the main mission, he had no further communication with the Sintira Command.

This also proves that the agent and the intelligence he carried are real.

But definitely not at that coordinate point that has become a death trap.

Harvey sighed with grief and indignation as he looked at his elite comrades in the distance, who had already reached their target location but were now locked in a fierce battle with an ambush force several times their size.

All he could do was pray that they could hold out until reinforcements arrived.

Otherwise, they would eventually be completely wiped out by the enemy's encirclement.

But he had no time to grieve for the fate of his comrades or to be angry at the traitor's schemes.

He had to channel his grief and anger into strength to complete the task assigned to him by his superior.

Harvey and two surviving Hellslingers boarded the captured military off-road vehicle.

They were to immediately travel to the surrounding area to search for any possible surviving, scattered Hell Soldiers, halt their advance on the target location that had become a trap, and resume the search for any possible agent remains and data storage components.

Behind them, a damaged hell gun was deeply embedded in the slightly raised sand, forming a simple but solemn tomb.

Hanging from the muzzle of the gun is a Hellsoldier helmet belonging to a fallen soldier, and on the side of the helmet is a "Loyal and Brave Eagle" medal, slightly dimmed by the flames of war.

This is the honor this sergeant received for his bravery in the "Abyss Harbor Incident" when he participated in preventing the guild alliance's Nest City bailiffs from attacking and occupying the Nest City bailiff security building, which was occupied by civilians from the Central Nest City.

Now, it will rest in peace alongside this veteran on the sand-swept planet Minerva.

After a brief and solemn ceremony, the wheels of the military off-road vehicles began to roll, kicking up clouds of dust as they sped off into the deeper, unknown darkness.

(End of this chapter)