Deadly Sniping

"Humans are approaching. They have unleashed their eyes—primitive, backward unmanned machines. We abandoned such things tens of millions of years ago."

"Humans are walking our old path."

Within the shadowy forest, an Aeldari Ranger clad in a stealth cloak hid perfectly among the vegetation. He held a massive long rifle, its scope trained on the advancing Space Marines.

His keen senses quickly detected the tiny objects flitting through the trees. Though their engines operated at the lowest possible volume, the noise still could not escape the specially sharpened ears of the Aeldari.

As a reconnaissance drone swept past, the Ranger drew his cloak over himself. Its powerful camouflage effect immediately evaded the drone’s scan.

The Ranger held his breath. His powerful biological lungs could sustain breath-holding for hours, while under the control of his will, even his heartbeat slowed to its limit. Then his slender finger slowly pulled the trigger of his long rifle.

Ranger long rifles were weapons cultivated through psychic growth. Their firing crystals granted them greater range and more formidable killing power.

In his sight, the heavily armored human warriors advanced in loose formations of three. They moved cautiously; even a Ranger would find it difficult to seize an opportunity to kill all of them at once.

But he was not the only Ranger in this dense forest. The Rangers who had voluntarily followed Illic Nightspear had set their ambush here.

At a single command, several nearly imperceptible psychic laser beams tore through the dark forest and struck the nearest squad of cobalt-blue Space Marines at light speed.

Unlike human lasguns, Ranger rifles fired a tiny needle from their barrels, the needle suspended within a laser beam. Their accuracy far surpassed Imperial laser weapons, and their beams were far more concentrated.

The Space Marines only felt their auspexes suddenly sound alarms as their tactical helmet displays instantly flared red. Before they could react, the enemy’s extreme-range sniping had already struck them.

"Enemy attack!"

The leading Space Marine sergeant roared and turned, angling his shoulder plate toward the direction of the attack while searching for cover. A tiny needle, nearly invisible to the naked eye, was embedded in his helmet. The cobalt-blue paint had melted from the heat; without the protection of his adamantium helmet, his head would likely have burst apart long ago.

"The enemy is in that direction!"

The three-man squad communicated over the vox channel. After processing by their cogitator, they determined that the source of the attack was at least a kilometer away, perhaps farther.

Even in open terrain, sniping from over a kilometer away was no easy feat, much less against Space Marines who could run at speeds of dozens of kilometers per hour even through mountainous wilderness.

That meant the enemy sniper could ignore the vegetation standing as obstacles between them and precisely target their heads.

Even after the first round of ambush had ended, they still had not discovered the enemy’s exact location, and the reconnaissance drones had failed to gain any useful observations.

Though they had known their opponents this time would not be those weak, savage Aeldari, the Ultramarines were still amazed by the enemy’s superb marksmanship. Among them, only a small number of elite snipers possessed such ability.

Similar aggressive actions unfolded throughout every corner of the Pandora Forest. The Craftworld Aeldari had fired the first shots in perfect coordination, but the results fell short of expectations.

"We are having difficulty penetrating their armor. Target their lenses."

"Try the joints. Their joints cannot have the same protection as the rest of their bodies."

A voice echoed through psychic power in the minds of the many Rangers. The legendary Ranger Illic Nightspear was also present on the battlefield.

He raised his Voidbringer. The elegant long rifle rested lightly between his slender fingers, while his entire being entered a state of absolute focus. An aura of utter confidence surrounded him; once he pulled the trigger, an enemy would surely fall.

At last, he fired.

A swift beam passed through layer upon layer of obstacles. Among the countless obstructions, it found the path with the least loss, striking an Ultramarine’s lens from the side at an unbelievable angle.

The pale red crystal shattered instantly. An exceedingly fine needle pierced his eyeball and cleanly penetrated his brain.

The Astartes fell soundlessly, as if half his power had been cut off. His power armor did not even have the chance to activate its life-support systems. With his brain completely destroyed, even a Space Marine’s constitution offered no hope of survival.

In the other Ultramarines’ displays, their battle-brother’s status abruptly changed from healthy pale green to the crimson red of killed in action.

They understood that they had lost a battle-hardened comrade forever.

But there was no time to grieve. Hill immediately locked onto the source of the attack. He did not order his other battle-brothers to charge; to the enemy, that would be nothing more than freely huntable targets.

Other than deploying snipers against snipers, the best way to deal with them was to call in a carpet bombardment.

The coordinates were instantly transmitted to the Iron Hands in the rear. The Iron Father grinned savagely as he communed with the Machine Spirit, swiftly turning Apocalypse’s terrifying gun barrels toward the coordinates.

The devastating bombardment created a thunderous blast wave in the air, with visible ripples spreading from around the barrels.

At the same time, the missile launchers mounted on Apocalypse’s armored plates spewed scorching flames. Within a single second, the ancient forest had already been consumed beneath the fire coverage.

Destruction missiles trailing enormous plumes of flame carved countless streaks through the sky before, guided by their internal chip processing, slamming violently into an entire mountainside.

Furious shockwaves and lethal heat swept outward. The whole mountain seemed to tremble as giant trees were instantly scorched yellow and withered, shedding their dead branches without end.

Yet the enemy sniping showed no sign of stopping. Two more Ultramarines fell cleanly, and they had not even realized the enemy had changed positions.

In just a few seconds, three precious veterans had already been killed. Earlier, when fighting the Pandora behemoths, the Space Marines had suffered not even a scratch; only a dozen or so veteran mortal auxilia had perished.

Hill’s pressure rose sharply. While calling for more artillery support, he also requested aid from the Tengu Mechs circling overhead.

Apocalypse tanks and Knight mechs unleashed their firepower at full force. Large-caliber shells and annihilating plasma beams rained down upon suspected areas like a storm. They had no intention of conserving ammunition, looking entirely prepared to obliterate the whole forest.

Though the human counterattack had been within the Rangers’ expectations, such ferocious firepower still made them realize how troublesome this operation was. Compared with the human Space Marines they had fought before, these enemies utterly overwhelmed them in speed, defense, and firepower.

Several Rangers were immediately swallowed by the barrage. Together with the huge trees they occupied, as well as the rocks and mountainsides around them, they were leveled to the ground. Terrifying craters eliminated every possibility of life, while the high-temperature plasma melted the sand and stones on the surface into glass.

The extreme heat set the forest ablaze, and smoke from the gunfire spread everywhere.

Billowing black smoke blocked the Rangers’ next sniping attempt. At Illic Nightspear’s instruction, they swiftly abandoned their positions and mounted the hidden Raptor jetbikes to retreat at high speed.

Both sides suffered victories and losses in the first exchange, but the war had only just begun. The Rangers formed pairs and began high-speed guerrilla attacks aboard two-seat Raptor jetbikes.

One served as the rider while the other provided the main firepower. The black-and-red jetbikes, astonishingly quiet, flickered through the forest like phantoms.