Tank

The Eversor bounded towards her, laughing, and at the last moment he leapt into the air. Time seemed to thicken and slow, the hazy man-shape falling down towards her; then she was distantly aware of a heavy report and suddenly the Garantine’s fall was deflected.
He jerked away at a right angle, as if pulled on an invisible cord.
Iota saw the steaming wound in the rage-killer’s chest as he stumbled back to his clawed feet, shaking off the strike. Her head swimming, the Culexus searched and then found the source of the attack. A shimmering white figure stood up atop one of the nearby blockhouses, a longrifle in his grip…
The Eversor charged again, and the rifle shouted. The first shot had been a kinetic impact round, the kind of bullet that could shatter the engine block of a hover track or reduce an unarmoured man to meat; that had been enough to attract the Garantine’s attention. The next shot whistled through the frigid air, blurring as it impacted the Eversor’s chest. The round was a heavy dart, fashioned from high-density glassaic. It contained a reservoir of gel within, pressure-injected into the target’s flesh on impact; but it was not a drug or philtre. An Eversor’s body was a chemical hell of dozens of interacting combat medicines, and no poison, no sedative could have been enough to slow it. The gel-matter in the rounds was a myofluid with a very different function; when exposed to oxygen it created a powerful bioelectric charge, a single hit strong enough to stun an ogryn.
It was a non-lethal attack, and the Garantine seemed incensed by that, as if he were insulted that so trivial a weapon was being used on him. He tore out the dart and came on. Kell fired again, flawlessly striking the same spot, and then again, and then a third time. The Eversor did not falter, even as crackles of blue sparks erupted from the weeping wound in his chest.
For one moment, Iota felt a rare stab of fear. How many rounds did the Vindicare have in the magazine of his longrifle? Would it be enough? She ignored the Vanus shouting in her ear and watched, as the crash of shot after shot was swallowed up by the hush of the falling snows.
The Eversor leapt up to where the Vindicare stood and swung a taloned hand at him, but his balance faltered, the warshot of a dozen darts pinning his flesh.

Chapter Five