The interior of the super-heavy Baneblade, Mars Triumphant, tasted of burnt copper, sacred machine-oil, and human sweat; a rolling iron cathedral that Tech-Priest Quintus-9 regarded as a holy sanctuary, but which the human crew knew as a death trap.

‘They’ve gone… I can’t hear them,’ Trooper Crest whispered through the internal comms, ignorant to the dozens of tonnes of armour surrounding them that blocked noise both ways. Distant explosions rocked the Baneblade, momentarily shaking the pict-screen back to life.

The few seconds of vision tore away that thought. The skeletal legions of the Necrons were advancing, slowly and uniformly, their odd gait betraying the horror moving towards the stricken vehicle. Emerald beams cracked through the sky, vaporising the fleeing Guardsmen and passing through them into the tank, unmaking the armour layer by layer.

‘They haven’t gone, you fugging idiot!’ screamed Lieutenant Varley, his hands white-knuckled on the steering tethers in the command station above Crest.

The beams intensified, concentrating on the half-exposed flank. The pict-screen flickered back to life, ensuring Crest was wholly aware of what was approaching them. Then, a Gauss beam struck the right sponson’s lascannon. For a heartbeat, there was true silence. Then the right side of the hull disappeared in a catastrophic bloom of exploding power cells. Superheated ozone and melting insulation vented directly into the cabin. Shrapnel tore through the interior plating, shredding Varley’s back and face.

Quintus-9’s monotone voice droned through the intercom, bored by the rising panic of the crew around him. ‘The turret is not aligned. It cannot fire.’ His spider-like mechanical limbs clicked against the metal deck plates, dragging his heavy, robed frame directly over the bleeding body of Varley without a second glance.

‘A variance of 0.004 milliradians has been detected in the primary targeting sub-routine,’ Quintus continued, his green optic lens whirring as it locked onto the flickering tactical slate. ‘The parameters are unacceptable. Firing the weapon in this state is a direct insult to the Omnissiah.’

The Tech-Priest extended a silver mechadendrite, unscrewing the brass cap of a sacred flask containing the Holy Ointment. It was a thick, viscous, resin-based oil, designed to soothe overheating logic gates. Through the flickering pict-screen, the green glare of the Necrons’ soulless eye-lenses was already closing to less than twenty metres.

Binary static shrieked across the intercom. Crest ripped off his headset and seized Quintus-9’s robes, desperately trying to pull him towards the escape hatch. Pathetic, Quintus-9 thought. The irrational survival impulses of organic minds invariably superseded proper devotion to the Machine God. Neither priest nor Guardsman saw the next emerald volley until it struck.

The Mars Triumphant lurched so violently that every soul aboard was thrown from their feet. Crest slammed into Quintus-9, sending the Tech-Priest’s mechadendrite skittering across the targeting cogitator. The sacred flask slipped from its mechanical grip. Thick Holy Ointment spilt across the exposed brass contacts. Then the cogitator screamed.

Blue-white lightning raced through the command console, dancing across sacred circuitry before the machine erupted in a shower of sparks. Darkness swallowed the fighting compartment.

‘Warning…’ croaked the automated vox-announcer. ‘Core-e-e overload… imminent…’

Somewhere above them, the turret servos screamed awake. The battle cannon lurched from one firing arc to another as the damaged servos fought corrupted commands.

Quintus-9 did not look down. He stared instead at the blackened targeting cogitator, his optic lens narrowing in mechanical grief. ‘Forgive this desecration,’ he murmured to the machine-spirit.

Crest lunged towards his primary gunner station, wiping a layer of soot from the thick, armoured glass of the manual observation slit.

Less than ten metres.

A Necron face filled the narrow view, green lenses burning through the smoke outside. The automated turret fired blindly, hurling its shell uselessly into the sky. The whole tank rang like a struck bell.

A segmented silver hand settled against the vision block, each finger tapping once upon the armoured glass.

Crest’s eyes darted through the smoke-filled compartment. The targeting cogitator was nothing more than a scorched mass of twisted brass and blackened circuitry. Quintus-9 remained kneeling before it, his mechadendrites delicately tracing ruined wires as binaric prayers crackled softly. Behind him, Lieutenant Varley’s laboured breathing had become little more than a wet rattle.

‘We’re finished,’ Crest whispered.

A fresh scrape reverberated through the hull.

His eyes settled upon a rusted iron lever, almost hidden behind a curtain of hanging cables. A tarnished brass plaque beneath it read: MANUAL TURRET OVERRIDE.

He wrapped both hands around the lever and hauled.

It was stuck firmly in place.

Another scrape. Closer this time.

Crest tore the heavy maintenance wrench from its mounting bracket and brought it down onto the seized mechanism.

CLANG.

The lever refused to yield.

He struck it again.

CLANG.

The mounting bolts sheared away.

With a final blow, the rusted housing split apart. Somewhere deep within the Mars Triumphant, gears groaned into motion. Hydraulic pistons roared to life as the great turret shuddered beneath mechanical control.

Crest pressed his face back to the armoured glass slit.

A Necron warrior stood almost flush against the outer hull, its emerald eye-lenses fixed directly upon the tank’s viewport.

Crest seized the firing lever.

The cannon answered. The detonation engulfed the advancing Necrons in a wall of fire scarcely metres away. The blast shattered the remaining glass layers and hammered against the hull before silence settled over the compartment.

Only the hiss of escaping steam remained.

The emergency strobes continued their slow rotation through the drifting smoke. The warning vox had fallen silent.

Quintus-9 regarded the shattered override mechanism, the ruined cogitator, and the dented wrench hanging loosely in Crest’s hand. His optic lens rotated once before settling upon the Guardsman.

‘The Machine Spirit rejected electronic mediation,’ he said evenly. ‘It accepted corrective percussion.’

Crest looked down at the wrench.

Quintus-9 inclined his head in solemn acknowledgement. ‘The Omnissiah often chooses simple instruments.’

Without another word, the Tech-Priest connected a data-spike to the Baneblade’s memory core.

‘Maintenance Log: Targeting deviation corrected. Emergency rites performed. Machine-spirit appeased. Operational success.’