The planetary microwave's roasting cycle had ended.
But the war around the planet had not.
The surviving Ork fleet was still exchanging fire with the Imperial fleet.
The assault craft that had originally been meant to board the Orks' Attack Moon had now changed course after its destruction, plunging instead through the gaps in this world that had almost entirely been converted into machinery and making their way inside.
Those gaps were like the spaces between clenched teeth.
Some were so large that Imperial cruisers over a dozen kilometers long could pass through sideways.
And openings that large existed because, after biting into the Orks' Attack Moon, this world had still chipped away a few pieces of itself.
Even its "teeth" were no longer perfectly aligned.
At this point, this planet, which had originally been hard to identify as metallic at a glance, had been further melted by that microwave roasting. The surface looked as though it had been burned down into molten iron, exposing the deeper metal layer beneath.
It was like a skull that had been damaged in an injury. Part of the bone had been replaced through surgery with a metal cranium and covered with artificial skin.
Now the skin had been burned away, leaving the metallic skull layer exposed.
"Hm?"
The Salamanders Tactical Squad captain, Eret, frowned as he watched the Orks suddenly begin charging down after them in a frenzy.
With the Attack Moon and most of the enemy fleet destroyed, there was no real problem with the fleet he had brought finishing off the surviving Ork ships.
And because the Attack Moon had been destroyed, their warboss had likely died with it. The remnants of the Ork fleet no longer seemed interested in fighting, and looked ready to scatter like startled beasts.
So why were they suddenly swarming into this planet all at once?
After a moment's thought, Eret more or less understood.
These Orks were probably thinking they still had one chance to turn things around. If they could seize this world, claim it, and make it part of their own arsenal, then perhaps they could make a comeback.
Eret immediately split his force into two groups.
One would head for the planetary core.
The other would stop those greenskins from getting down there and causing trouble.
As they drew closer to the core, many of the sights along the way made Eret frown again.
It seemed that this planet's earlier iron-maiden-like ability to bite down and kill the Orks' Attack Moon had not actually been meant for combat.
That was why using it had caused such severe internal damage.
What was more, from a great many details, Eret was able to determine that this was in fact a human world.
That in itself was not surprising.
The real issue was that this was a human world from a far more ancient age, most likely one that had hidden itself away during mankind's Dark Age of Technology and remained concealed until now.
That meant this planet possessed enormous preservation value. There was almost certainly technology here more advanced than anything currently available to the Imperium.
Just the fact that an entire planet had been transformed into something like this was already beyond what the Imperium could accomplish.
And this world had clearly not merely been hidden. It was not simply concealed with some form of optical camouflage.
It had been made to truly not exist within realspace.
That made Eret think of another possibility.
This planet had most likely employed the same kind of technology as that person's ship.
And then there was the "starry curtain" that had once wrapped around the planet. That was deeply suspicious as well.
Analysis had shown that the curtain possessed no detectable thickness. It had no thickness at all, and more strangely still, nothing could penetrate it.
As for the star map painted across that curtain, comparison showed that those stars had once truly existed. They belonged to the night sky of the Dark Age of Technology, before the founding of the Imperium.
Their disappearance did not seem to have been caused by changes in the star system itself, nor by the Great Rift affecting or devouring a section of it.
It looked more as though that patch of starfield had simply vanished for no reason at all.
Or rather, an utterly absurd possibility rose in Eret's mind.
That starfield might actually be inside the curtain, compressed flat like a photograph.
Enough idle speculation.
They had already reached the core.
Right before them floated a metal sphere wrapped in a silver-mirror sheen, with a breach torn open in one section.
It looked as though the opening had been ripped inward by an external force breaking into it.
His gaze shifted to a strange metallic construct nearby. Its shape made it unmistakably Orkish.
Apparently, when the Attack Moon had been crushed apart, some Orks had still managed to force their way in here.
Judging by the size of the pilot's position in that machine, Eret could roughly estimate the size of the Ork who had ridden it.
That Ork had clearly been larger than an Astartes, nearly twice the size, at least four meters tall.
And an Ork of that scale was no ordinary foe. A normal Astartes would not be enough to handle it. Even an entire Tactical Squad might not be its match.
If there was no mistake, that Ork had been the leader of the Ork fleet.
"All clear, Captain!"
"No lifeforms detected here either!"
The squad had already moved inside and was advancing toward the core control chamber.
With the power apparently exhausted, everything was shrouded in darkness, leaving them to rely on their own illumination.
When they rounded a corridor, light appeared ahead.
The auspex still detected no signs of life.
They moved closer. Reaching the doorway, they saw a figure.
An Ork.
What was strange was that it stood completely motionless, frozen in an attacking posture.
The auspex scan showed no response. Or rather, the result it returned suggested it was nothing more than an Ork statue, one that looked as though it had been burned into black charcoal.
The moment Eret, as captain, stepped inside first, the statue instantly crumbled into ash.
As it collapsed, they saw that part of what looked like the operations console in front of it had been pierced by countless metallic tubes.
"Recover the cargo."
Eret issued the order.
The "cargo" was the rectangular metal container in front of them, three meters long and two meters wide and tall, with several smaller items placed on top of it.
"Captain."
One of the squad members handed him something.
It was a message from that kid, explaining what the large item was for.
If this technology could be realized and integrated with power armor, then there would be no further need for the Black Carapace. Power armor could be controlled far more freely.
In addition, he had also left behind a universal STC data drive.
It contained data he had downloaded before this planet's systems collapsed, and one of the technologies recorded on it was enough to shake even Eret's normally steady expression.
In the void, life-bearing planets were extremely rare.
Dead worlds that could still be turned into mining worlds were not exactly common either.
Far more numerous were barren stone worlds that looked utterly worthless, the kind of rocky planets stripped bare like worlds gnawed clean by the Tyranids, with no remaining value for extraction.
And yet one of the technologies stored on that drive stated that even those apparently worthless rocky planets could be used as fuel.
Besides that, there was also information on some of the engineering and mining machines found on this planet. They had probably not all been destroyed in that great roasting just now.
If they were brought back for study and repair, they should still be usable.
And if the technology could be developed further and subjected to certain… unauthorized modifications, then perhaps those machines could even become the Imperium's newest and strongest war Titans.
"Captain."
There was another discovery.
Something had been found in a portion of the control consoles that were still functioning.
It was surveillance footage from the control chamber.
A recording of what had happened here.
(End of Chapter)
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