"Sir, Orion Company ready to deploy!"
Nelson nodded "Launch!" he ordered.
Down below decks the pilots saw the greenlight flash on, before the whirling sound of the atmosphere being evacuated filled the area, before dissapating.
"Orion Company, you are cleared for launch. Godspeed out there."
"Confirmed control, deploying now."
The dropships left their launch bay, and along with the other strike teams, headed for the Artifact.
The Emperor addressed his squad of elite Juggernauts from the Crimson Angel Chapters first company.
"Brothers! We now deploy against the Xenos! The foul creatures known as the Shadows! Their Evil has no limits and now we bring the light of the Lord Almighty to them! We shall send them in the abyss, as Hell shall not have them and neither will Heaven! This is the curse all Xenos Suffer! Now We go on to purge them for the good of all the Faithful, for the Good of Humanity!" Justinian raised his crackling powerfist into the air as the Juggernaughts gave a shout of exaltation to the Lord.
They Boarded a Drop pod, The Strike Cruiser got in close to the Artifact and fired the pod at high speeds to the Artifact where it would impact and offload its dangerous cargo.
"This is it The chance we have been waiting for!" A MIDAF Alliance representative responded over FleetComm "MIDAF Alliance out! We Will see you on the other side" A Fe'juk finished over Armada communication as pods shot off the sides of every MIDAF Alliance vessel, it switching to auto pilot to auto-pilot, merging with FleetComm allowing the AI's within FleetComm to take command and still enact war upon the Shadow ships in space. Rivera came up on communications "My Fleet is ready to board. I'll see you all on the ground" "Alright, We'll keep you covered up here" Wallace replied "We wont let any shadows time to board the structure. I'll see you when your done." "Noted, Sir" Rivera finished, his entire fleet lighting up in the light of all the pods from the fleet bring sent off into space. All of the Unani Ground Military with it.
Cartax gave a nod. A blue light suddenly turned on inside the pod. "Alright, get ready!"he shouted over a loud buzz that sounded in the pod before it was shot off into space like a bullet towards the Artifact.
This was it, the moment everybody has been waiting for; the united races of the Galaxy would enter the Artifact, kill the Shadows inside it, and capture it to ensure that the Shadows did not use it to destroy them all.
But sadly; it would not be so.
"Emperor! We're nearing the Artifact!" A Juggernaut aboard the pod that held Justinian and his Crusaders stated, looking out of a window on the speeding pod "Impacting in 3...2...1..."
Everybody both inside the pod and outside the pod awaited for the pod to crash into the Artifact; the first of many to come. But what had actually happened was unforeseen by any of the races other than the devious and vile Shadows that had set it up. The pod impacted against the station with a titanic amount of force, but instead of breaking through; it just blew up against the massive weapon, barely even scratching the structure's paint.
"Emperor!" One of the New Covenant captains exclaimed in horror, watching the scene with unbelieving eyes
"It's a trap! The Artifact's mothergently-carressing invincible!" Shibungi shouted, shocked by the sudden turn of events "Tell the Sky King to-"
Shibungi stopped when he noticed that the next to go was the Sky King's spinning supersonic Siegfried; which was far too close to the Artifact to stop now.
"FFFFUUUUUUUU!" Shibungi shouted, as the Siegfried impacted against the Artifact in a similar manner; exploding in a giant pink explosion empowered by the fusioning Sakuradite inside it, this time slightly denting the structure
The same thing happened to Orion company, Isiah, the Shazcoi and the thousands of MIDAF soldiers in pods unleashed by the Unani military; impacting against the structure thinking that they would be able to bypass the indestructible metal plating around it in a similar manner to other space stations. It was unknown who had survived and who didn't at that moment, but Isiah was the first to come out of the giant cloud of debris created by the impacts; who immediately exclaimed 'Chaos Element! Unknown Tormentor Powers! Grigori! Teleportation!' as if trying to justify how he could have possibly survived; his rambling somehow managing to be heard by everybody in the area despite the lack of sound in space.
The Sky King was next to come out, with an intact and still alive Storm King by his side; everybody else in his Siegfried was dead, but they survived because the Sky King, in his own words, is 'goddamn immortal, and Ikki was only person in the pod that I actually gave a excrement about'. After that, a few men of Orion Company was seen floating in space in their suits; managing to survive due to them impacting against the structure in a drop ship; and not in a pod like the rest.
"Why the gently-carress did you just crash the damn thing into the Artifact?!" An SAS trooper shouted through the comms at the pilot
"Everybody else was doing it! How the gently-carress could I know that this would happen?!" The pilot shouted back
"We were in a goddamn dropship! Not a drop pod! Even if that thing wasn't made of gently-carressing adamantium; we wouldn't have gotten through anyway!" The SAS trooper said
"...Arse." The pilot replied, before closing off his comms and doggie-paddling through space away from his comrades
As for the Shazcoi and the Crusaders...