Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 948 (08.947): "A Lone Squad Behind Enemy Lines"

Before dawn, the chill was penetrating to the bone.

This military supply depot planet, which guzzles countless resources, can cause unprotected people to suffer from heatstroke during the day, while at night it can freeze exposed flesh into ice.

The biting wind swept across the boundless sand dunes like a razor, whipping up fine sand and emitting a mournful howl.

Above, unfamiliar stars shimmered with a cold light on the inky black velvet, like the indifferent gaze of some long-dead god.

The Third Action Team, or rather its remnants, is speeding across this desolate wasteland.

Captain Henry Harvey of the Operations Department on the Swift Eagle gripped the steering wheel of the captured sand truck tightly, his knuckles, covered in Hellscream armor, turning white from the force.

On the vehicle's thermal sensor, two faint friendly signals were flashing in the shadows of sand dunes several kilometers ahead.

He was heading toward those two signals, gathering his remaining strength—two small teams, a total of twelve people.

This was all the manpower he could find that had not been discovered by the enemy, or had survived after being discovered, after that initial devastating ambush.

Harvey's mind flashed with the faces of his comrades who had been swallowed by artillery fire in the main landing zone, and a surge of intense emotion welled up in his heart, but he quickly suppressed it with cold discipline.

Although he longed to avenge his brothers or lend a helping hand, he could not risk exposing the entire operation by carrying out an emotionally driven rescue that went beyond the scope of his mission.

An excellent officer must remember the brutal law of the battlefield: the mission must always take precedence.

Their sacrifices must be worthwhile, and that worth depends on whether they can achieve their initial objective. This cold-blooded calculation is the mark that the Abridal Loyalty Academy and countless bloody battles have left on his soul—an absolutely rational way of thinking that compresses humanity to the bare minimum in exchange for maximum mission efficiency.

[If this were the situation my father faced, what would he have done?]
Harvey couldn't help but think of and imagine that disastrous battlefield.

The Astragalus's 'Consul Guard' was almost completely wiped out by the Orks, and the Xenomorphs pierced through the Astragalus's rear, resulting in the near annihilation of the Imperial Guard that was ultimately deployed.

Compared to this, the situation doesn't seem too bad.

As the vehicle silently glided along the ridge of the dunes with a low engine hum, two off-road vehicles, also painted in makeshift camouflage, emerged from the shadows and silently joined him.

There were no words, only precise tactical hand signals and a few short confirmation signals in the encrypted channel.

Twelve of the Empire's most elite soldiers, twelve ghosts who survived the hellish inferno, have now reunited in this vast sea of ​​sand, and together these thirteen embark on a journey of mission.
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"Captain, we're almost there. An encrypted identification signal, from friendly forces, its location remains unchanged. I believe this is the real signal remnant," said Lieutenant Vox, a technical expert from the engineering department and one of Lydos's subordinates, in a low voice from the passenger seat.

He was originally a technician sent by the engineering department to process and verify intelligence data. However, the Valkyrie that his squad was riding in was destroyed by friendly fire and crashed 10 kilometers away from the original target.

Henry Harvey found them in a long, arduous march across the desert toward their destination.

His fingers flew across a ruggedized data board, the screen flashing with an old structural layout diagram. "Based on signal source analysis, the target is ahead."

This is the only abandoned Ministry of the Interior office in this area. I just hacked into a data fragment unearthed from beneath the sand dunes overturned by the Valkyrie's remains; it was its original blueprint.

It was a blueprint from a century ago, from the era of imperial bureaucracy that attempted to plan and tame the planet.

As the planet underwent subsequent planning and renovations, and amidst endless warfare, this outpost was long abandoned and gradually buried by the yellow sand.

The off-road vehicle came to a stop behind a huge sand dune, and the hum of the engine faded into silence.

Before my eyes, a massive, ruined structure emerged from the sand dunes, resembling the skeleton of an ancient dragon, gleaming a ghastly white under the starlight. The tilted supporting structure was its exposed ribs, the collapsed main building its shattered head, and the wind whistled through it, emitting mournful, plaintive cries.

It was once a symbol of imperial order, but now it has become a monument to its own decay. This stark contrast is a microcosm of the empire's current predicament—a giant slowly collapsing under its own immense weight.

"How is the situation, Lieutenant?"

“There should be an entrance nearby,” Vox confirmed.

With a slight hiss of depressurization from the vehicle's braking system, thirteen Hell Soldiers leaped from the vehicle like black shadows, their movements swift and silent.

Their iron boots pounded on the soft sand, making almost no sound.

Three servo skulls silently emerged from the powered backpacks on their backs. These embalmed skulls were equipped with anti-gravity thrusters, and their red-glowing eye socket lenses began scanning the ruins, transmitting data streams in real time to each soldier's eyepiece display.

“Here.” A soldier raised his fist and quickly crouched down.

Everyone's viewpoints immediately switched to the perspective he shared.

The servo-scanning skull scanner is highlighting a patch of sand.

Under multispectral scanning, even the parts buried by sand and gravel showed an ominous dark color.

“Bloodstains,” the scout reported, his voice calm and emotionless over the encrypted channel. “They’ve dried, and most of them are buried in gravel, but here, and here, we can see drag marks. The target agent likely sent out a fake address after being injured, leading the pursuers elsewhere.”

Harvey walked to the sandy area, squatted down, and picked up a clump of sand with his gloved fingers. His mind raced, connecting all the clues.

“If that’s the case,” he said through the squad’s internal channel, his voice cold and clear, “then the attack on the frontline command post is no accident. Otherwise, there’s no explanation for why the agents would take such cautious countermeasures.”

He stood up, his gaze sweeping over the silent team members around him, their helmets and visors reflecting a cold, hard luster under the starlight.

"So it's almost certain now that the Astragalus Army at the front lines has been betrayed."

The traitor and the Dark Eldar aliens plotted a decapitation strike against the command leadership.

That agent risked his life to buy us time and guide us here—the real rendezvous point.

This assertion, confirmed and affirmed by Harvey, struck everyone like a cold stone.

They faced not only brutal aliens, but also an enemy lurking within them who knew everything about them.

The chill brought by this betrayal was even greater than the harshness of a desert night.

Their technological advantage, at this moment, became the greatest irony: they could perfectly analyze past bloodstains, yet they could not see through the living betrayal of their own ally lurking nearby.

“Search this place. My gut tells me we can find the answer here.”

Without hesitation, the Hell Soldiers quickly regrouped.

They tacitly formed a standard CQB (Close Quarters Battle) formation, their guns pointed at different sectors, alerting every inch of darkness around them.

(End of this chapter)