They seemed to be based upon the Destroyer-class body of the Necrons, but it didn't have a large torso attached to it. Instead, it seemed to have some kind of armoured sarcophagus wired directly into what looked like a Necrontyr controller droid of whatever it was. At the front, a large beam gun was attached. It showed much similarity to the heavy Gauss canon of the Destroyers, but it seemed more massive. The energy in the weapons crackled over the surface of the crystals.

There were at least ten of them, all in all...

"That's the weapon I was talking about before," Tanya said, turning to the Terrans. She turned to her vox-officer, "Send a message to Commissar-colonel Demontfurt. Tell him to open fire upon them with immediate execution."

"But," Johnny interrupted, "don't you want to help the people inside the sarcophagi first?"

Everyone stared aghast at the young Terran. Johnny turned round to look at McKenzie. "The people in the hovercraft, McKenzie, can't you hear them too? You're like me, aren't you?"

McKenzie bit his lip. He had a spooky feeling he knew what Johnny was talking about. Despite this, he focused his mind upon the approaching hovercraft. Johnny was right. McKenzie felt minds, psykers' minds, from the inside of the sarcophagi. And there weren’t only human minds; there was at least one Eldar amongst them. But something was wrong, off... The psykers didn't seem to be in control of their own powers.

McKenzie felt a flash of pain stab into his head and he dropped to the ground. He hadn't shielded himself from it enough. What kind of dark machination was this?

Charleston saw what was happening. When McKenzie acted like that, something was wrong. He turned his gaze out and over the battlefield. He saw the weapons of the new Destroyers charging up. One of them turned round and brought its gun towards them.

"Hit the deck!" Charleston shouted and brought down Masterson and Tanya Yarrick with him without thinking twice, shielding them with his massive, power armoured bulk.

The gun of the approaching Psyker Destroyer fired its gun and the stream of green, crackling energy passed right over where the Terrans and the others had been standing. The other Psyker destroyers had fired too, but many Guardsmen and Battle Sisters weren't quick enough to duck away. As the beam struck them, it passed through them and continued on its path until it struck something like a tank or a Destroyer wreck. However, the people that were struck by it, were nailed to the spot where they were standing, writhing in agony, without any change of getting free until their bodies had boiled away because of the heat generated.

Now McKenzie knew what the pain had been caused by. He had gotten a little taste of the pain to come and had he not retreated as he did, his brain would've been cooked. Literally. He had often seen psyker-weaponry, but they were always employed with the psyker's consent. This was just sick. The Necrons had obviously enslaved psykers' minds to these machines, using them as power batteries to tap the powers of the Warp. He didn't dare to think what happened with them when a psyker's life force had been used up.

McKenzie looked at Johnny. "Remember in your basic training? You can manipulate your surrounding with your will. Now, help me, and focus your mind together with me, Johnny."

Combining their efforts, Johnny and McKenzie reached out into one of the Psyker Destroyers as it was resting the main barrel from the stress. They let their minds wander down the super-conducting circuitry, trying to find a way to release the psyker's will. McKenzie silently gasped, because a new force was palpable. Another psyker mind, perhaps? He wasn't entirely sure. He knew it wasn't Edd's. Not the same signature.

It pointed something out for him and McKenzie took the chance. He overloaded the particular circuit and blocked out another one with Johnny's help. There was a psychic sigh from the trapped mind. McKenzie knew that the psyker's mind was free from its fetters, though its mortal body was bound. He felt a build up of power inside the trapped psyker's mind and drew himself back, together with Johnny.

McKenzie knew what the trapped psyker was trying to cause: an electric overload. It would have the same effect as sending too much power through a television-set. McKenzie was not disappointed. The Psyker Destroyer in question exploded in a flash of psychic energy in all the colours of the rainbow.

Having found how to release the minds and save ammunition in the process, Johnny and McKenzie continued to focus on new targets and free more psykers. As this had to be done in the interval between the shots, casaulities couldn't be avoided. Johnny, and the other Terrans, felt a bit bad over this, but Masterson simply replied that they would save millions of lives. The Terrans were a little shocked over the way that Masterson had put it: very flatly and without compassion. It dawned on them, that in the Imperium, or what had once been the Imperium, the phrase 'acceptable losses' really meant what it said.

It mattered little later, to all of them. McKenzie and Johnny had destroyed the last of the Psyker Destroyers and the Necrontyr started to fall back. The Imperials chased them down and destroyed every last one of them.

As the Imperial force was victorious and not a single Necron had escaped, Tanya remarked it was all very peculiar, and Masterson agreed.

"Why so?" McGranth asked.

"The Necrontyr usually 'phase out' before all of their numbers are destroyed," Masterson replied, "but it seems the admiral did a good job up there, destroying all ships they could escape with."

They walked through the swarms of milling soldiers and got up in a truck that Tanya said would take them to the city Vindaree. She claimed they had to see it, so that all was fine. Masterson got back to his bike and rode it to Vindaree, whilst Demontfurt and, to everyone's surprise, Bastion, rode with the Terrans in the back of the large truck. Tanya said that the wounded would be the first ones to see Vindaree after them as Vindaree had high quality health facilities, and she wanted to assess the damage of the city.

Fortunately, Vindaree had escaped the attack relatively unharmed. Bastion told them that they should go to the High Council's meeting hall. When they got there, an Administratum Clerk handed Bastion a docket and he looked it through.

"Seems I'll have to oversee the repairs of this place..." Bastion muttered to himself.

"This place is a mess," Eddy remarked politely.

"It would have been even worse, if it hadn't been for you," Bastion said and turned to look at the Terrans and smiled, "Thank you all." He turned to McKenzie and Johnny. "I'm not sure what you did out there, but this is the first solid victory we've ever had over the Necrontyr. Maybe this marks the turn of the tide for us humans."

Demontfurt saw Masterson approach the group. "Masterson and I will organise the incoming troops." Demontfurt saluted and left together with Commissar Masterson.

As Bastion saw the two commissars leave, he turned to the other again. "You will have to excuse me. I must prepare for a meeting of the High Council later today." Bastion snapped his fingers and two young men, servants, ran up next to him. "You will be shown to your temporary quarters, where you will live the time you are here."

The group of Terrans followed the two servants whilst Bastion departed together with his mother to prepare the meeting.

Later that day, whilst the meeting of the High Council was under way in the large Administratum building where it was housed, McKenzie, Edd and Johnny were having a private talk elsewhere in the city, in the building where their living quarters where housed. The room they were sitting in had once belonged to a high-ranking official of the Imperial Guard, but he was long dead now and the large study served now as dormitory for the male parts of the Terran entourage.

The three psykers were all alone. Charleston and Ed had gone out to see if they could find any pict-slates with films of their tastes, Kevin and Rolf had decided to ease out in a warm-water pool somewhere in the building and McGranth and Eddy had, strangely enough, found a book each to read.

"So," Edd said thoughtfully as he polished his sword, "there's no doubt? There really were people in those hovercraft?"

"Yes," McKenzie replied, "psykers. However, they seemed to be enslaved somehow. Not only physically, but psychically as well. They were obviously used as a power source for these weapons. I knew since before that the Necrontyr were merciless, but this is just monstrous!"

"Don't they have psykers of their own, then?" Edd asked.

"Apparently not," McKenzie snorted. "They're machines. If they had psychic powers, they would be taking the same risks as we do when we use the powers of the Warp. Now, it seems, not a single one of them has psychic power and that is why they enslave mortals. I believe they recently found out the potentials of psychics as a weapon..." McKenzie turned silent a while. "They must've fought Eldar to realize the potential of psychonic weaponry. They must've."

"But, isn't there any way we can help the people enslaved," Johnny asked. "Without killing them in the process, I mean," he quickly added.

McKenzie gave Johnny a strange look. "You're brave and righteous in your mind, Johnny, but naive," McKenzie sighed. "I can't see any way we can free those poor souls. We were barely able to free them psychically, weren't we? I am afraid there's little hope to free them physically as well."

"Well, something has to be done," Edd said and got up. "The Necrons have to be stopped, now more than ever. And, McKenzie, you of all people should know that all battles aren't won from brute display of physical power, right?"

"You mean we should put to use the powers that Fate has bestowed us with, epistolary?" McKenzie said with a wry smile.

"What else?" Edd replied indignantly. "If we don't hurry, the Necrontyr might find some way to breed psychic humans. Humans, who've never tasted freedom, who won't even have a name of it. They won't want to be freed, as they would've had an entire life in imprisonment! They'd work against us. Now, they're using enslaved minds, but in a few years, they might be using humans, and Eldar, bred for this single purpose. We must find a way to stop it from happening!"

McKenzie nodded silently. He was silent for a long while. "Gather your gear, I have an idea."

The two Terrans did as they were told and followed McKenzie. They went down to the entrance and followed the road to the Vindaree Star Port. They took a Thunderhawk up to Mishkin's Pride and McKenzie requested to talk with Admiral Ourmnoff.

As the powerful Moskvanian admiral saw who had come to visit him, he seemed confused rather than happy.

"What brings the famous Master Lexicanum here, eh?" Ourmnoff asked as he got up to the three psykers.

"Admiral," McKenzie said, "I require the use of a Thunderhawk gunship."

"Why so, sir?"

"For the safety of the Imperium of Man," McKenzie simply replied.

"Might I ask, where you are going, Master Lexicanum?"

"To the bordering space of the nearest Warp-gate."

The admiral looked doubtful. "That is outside the operating distance of a Thunderhawk."

"In that case, I require the help of an escort ship to get me there," McKenzie replied flatly.

Admiral Ourmnoff was not convinced, it seemed. "I cannot risk that. Battle fleet Moskva is already diminished in force."

"Admiral," McKenzie said, interrupting the high ranking officer's thoughts, "Let me put it like this: If you grant me what I want, Battle fleet Moskva might survive this bitter war with the iron men, and grow in force once again."

The admiral nodded. "Well, then. I grant you the use of a fully armed Thunderhawk gunship. However, I want it back. You will board the Sword-class escort Ivanov under the command of Captain Britanova."

"Britanova?" McKenzie said silently. "A female captain?"

"You find something wrong in that, Master Lexicanum?"

"No, not at all." McKenzie was silent a while and then saluted. "Off we go to now to find the roots of Eldar, Humans and Necrons alike!"

With that, McKenzie, Edd and Johnny left for the Thunderhawk to get them to Ivanov. They left Admiral Ourmnoff in deep thought over the meaning of McKenzie's statement.