Chapter 67: Sardau Star and Time Race (2)
Assassinating Ork Nob of such power would be considered foolishness by many, especially when taking into consideration the fact that Arcturus was just an Epsilon-Grade Warrior and Delta-Grade Psyker.
The disparity in power between the two parties was big, as the Ork Nob was already standing at the Gamma-Grade, most probably not really that far from reaching another Grade, and it seemed that this one was even having some sort of mutations that would be most probably increasing its power several times over.
His best bet was on the combination of the Sardau Sword Style and empowerment from the Super-High Risk Primal Psyker Ability Dimension Empyrean. Sardau Sword Style had several stances that were practically like heaven-sent for assassinations.
After several seconds of observing the Orks that were all working on the activation of the main weapons of the Space Hulk, Arcturus decided that he couldn't wait anymore and readied his sword and activated the Dimension Empyrean.
Soon enough, the crimson-blackish energy appeared all around the Aetherius, though it wasn't limited to that only, but also spread towards Arcturus's legs as he was using the Empyrean Power to empower power his legs.
The move that he was pulling out from the Sardau Star Sword, required a lot of explosive powers that he was lacking in his basic mode as one could say it; with the addition of the Empyrean Power, he had enough explosive power to perform this move.
Super-High Risk Primal Psyker Ability showed its worth, because when the Empyrean Power entered his body and spread through the rest of his body, he felt far more powerful than ever...
'Here we go...'
He counted to one as he saw that the Ork Nob turned back to his position, giving Arcturus a perfect opportunity to attack the hulking mass of muscles and power in the form of an enormous Ork to attack.
Sardau Sword Style was focusing in attacking in a short and quick attacks, mostly targettign the weakest points in somebody's defense. Now that he readied his sword, he instantly calmed down himself and put his right leg back, with his left leg leaping a bit forward, imitating a bit the art of Iado.
Iaido consists of four main components: the smooth, controlled movements of drawing the sword from its scabbard (or saya), striking or cutting an opponent, shaking blood from the blade, and replacing the sword in the scabbard.
This move was called Sardau Star Assassination, and in an open huge flash, Arcturus appeared behind the Ork Nob and before anyone from the Orks realized what was going on, he had his Power Sword Aetherius stabbed in the Ork Nob's neck and pushed the enormous amount of the Empyrean Power into his body until the Ork Nob's body exploded into the pile of flesh and blood.
In a split of a moment, Arcturus immediately started attacking the Tek Boyz of the Greesnkisn and slaughtering them en masse because they were not really powerful. The real power of the Ork Tek Boyz lay in their technological capabilities, and on the battlefield, they were a rather fearsome force.
Mostly, they were using vast arrays of machinery weapons to obliterate everything from existence, and in many cases, they were piloting Meks and Walker Combat Suits into the battle.
Without the Orkish Teknology in the vicinity, they were rather weak because the Ork Tek Boyz were not really combatants and were not the most physically powerful members of their species.
At the same time, all of the Gretchin that were in the place immediately started escaping from the place, for sure going to report what was happening here to their bertters... In their very fundamental sense, the Gretchin were cowards that would flee immediately when the things went to shit.
They wouldn't be fighting against powerful foes or anything, as they had too much of fear for that...
Once he killed all of the Orks in the place and every single Ork Tek Boy was dead, he let the Red Queen to do her magic, as several of the nanomachines were controlled by her to leave the Neural Extranet Terminal Gene Implants into the control weapon center.
Once the Red Queen got into the internal systems of the weapon activation, she quickly disabled the main weapons of the Space Hulk, which basically saved a lot of lives, considered the firepower of the main weapons of the Space Hulk.
Anything that was created by some High-Level Civilization and designated as "super weapons" that were installed as main weaponry on a spaceship of this size meant that the firepower of the thing was especially disastrous.
Once the main weapon systems of the Space Hulk were disabled, Arcturus could freely continue towards his main target, which was the main Ork Nob in the command of the entire Space Hulk and issuing the commands to the entire sub-fleets of the Orkish WAAAGH!.
'Can you get into the other systems of the Space Hulk from this weapon terminal?'
The best case scenario would be if the Red Queen was able to access the rest of the starship's control systems from this weapon console that was used to control the main weapon systems of the starship.
<Negative. It seems that the weapon control systems are in a closed circuit, completely separated from the rest of the systems of the starship.
Whoever designed this design was rather paranoid, it seems that practically every major circuit of the starship is isolated as much as possible, only being controllable with the main interference, which is destroyed, so practically nobody could access to all of the starship systems from one place.>
Arcturus wanted to frown at hearing this, because this was probably the most problematic scenario and at the same time, he wasn't that much surprised. From what he heard, some of the starship designs of the Eternal Empire of the Asurya, as well as other High-Level Civilisations, were using the same tactics.
It was rather commonly used in the most powerful space vessels in case they were attacked and hacked by some advanced artificial intelligence. Like in the Milky Way Galaxy, the Automaton Nexus could take control of entire star fleets in mere seconds if there were not sufficient cyber protections in place.
To counter situation like that, they were creating starship designs with completely locked in circuits and with zero interconnection between the starship systems. Usually, only the captain of the starship had completely access through his special terminal, that was typically bounded to his very own DNA.
Though it seemed that the captain's terminal was destroyed, there was basically no possible way to take control of the entire spaceship from one place with just one click.
That also explained why this place was heavily protected aside from it being the main control terminal for the main weapon system.
Arcturus predicted that the rest of the places that were used to control the spaceship looked most probably the same, as the Greenskins were not only forced to man those places to control various mechanisms of the starship but also protect them because once the operators were killed, then the entire starship would become inoperable.
'Unfortunate... show me the fastest way to the bridge. Has the response from the Vice Admiral arrived?'
He asked while looking at the holographic projection of the map of this place.
<Yes, he is commending you for stopping the charge; it seemed that in the quadrant C-1, they failed, and several tens of the Imperial Starships were obliterated when the weapon fired. The Orks have several Space Hulks of the same design and appearance, like someone gave them these ships, they were too powerful for average Space Hulks used by the Greenskins en masse.>
If he had to guess, then he would place his money on the Mind Flayers.
Only the Mind Flayers would be able to do something like this because, normally speaking, it was too coincidental that in the face of the Mind Flayer attack, the Greenskin WAAAGH! suddenly got their hands on some really advanced spaceships that were able to destroy the Imperial Starships with ease.
< Nevertheless, the infiltration in the rest of the Space Hulks has been successful, and in other ones, the main weapon systems have been disabled in the rest. According to the warning that you sent to the Command, they were able to coordinate the efforts of the other teams, so for this one, you would certainly get a bonus contribution.>