Leaving the cratered plaza behind, the two began plotting a course through the demolished streets and spires of the ruined hab-blocks. Diocledes strode a few paces behind Ruskvar, the younger marine's smaller profile being better suited to pathfinding. The hulking Terminator plate was a great boon in the cramped corridors of the underhive that the team expected to be drawn into during the course of rooting out the xenos. In such conditions, it was invaluable to have such prodigiously layered protection, able to trudge through virtually any amount of firepower the enemy could hurl at them, providing a mobile hard point for the others to rally around. In the semi open streets and rubble the lowered mobility of such a walking fortress became a minor impediment, though the ability to shrug off damage was undiminished.
Diocledes himself was a testament to the resilience of the revered armor. Nigh on every inch of the suit was sporting damage of some kind. Rends from an ork warboss's ramshackle powerclaw across the left of the chest. The entire right leg covered in scorch marks. Too many dents and holes from high powered solid slug weaponry from countless warzones. A long, shallow valley of a dent carved into the helmet from the axe of a Khornate Berserker. An irregular patch of bubbled ceramite where a Necron gauss cannon had clipped his hip. Not to mention the many scrapes and scratches from buildings that had fallen on him, including the most recent.
To see the carnage wrought upon him, one might wonder how any warrior could still be standing, how the armor itself could still function. This was by design. His chapter, The Excoriators, repaired damage to their armor and vehicles to functionality only, leaving the scars of their combat, even carving the location, enemy, and weapon that caused it in fine filigree by the mark. It functioned as a stark reminder to all who witnessed them. They had survived. They would continue to survive. Their neophytes wore virgin bone white armor, untouched by the rigors of war. The veterans appeared to have just been flung from the bowels of a hellish battlefield. When Diocledes had been sent to the Deathwatch to fulfill his chapter's duty and obligations, he'd solemnly repainted his armor in the customary black but had needed very little to do the job as the accumulated battle damage of his hundred and sixty years in the suit had rendered it nearly as black as the paint.
By contrast, Ruskvar wore a more typical MK VII pattern of power armor, showing only minor scrapes in the paint across his legs and right side from his hasty ejection during the crash landing of their Thunderhawk. The lighter, more mobile suit allowed him to weave his way about the hectic maze of collapsed slab walls and locate openings that would allow them both to pass without Diocledes having to resort to crushing through more walls and slowing them down.
The two made good time and within minutes were presented with the welcome sight of a mostly intact stretch of street-way. Though the spires high above had teetered and collapsed into each other, the lower levels of the structures appeared to be holding firm. The narrow street meandered in a roughly straight path north to the massive byway that bisected the colossal city.
Referred to by locals as the Arterial, it was a five kilometer wide strip of transport tracks, highways, and vacuum tubes that connected all three hive cities on the planet's southern continent. The marines had seen it from the air as they had made planetfall, a perfectly straight line drawn between the ragged patches that were the hives, making it seem as though some gargantuan figure had sliced a razor through the cities where it carved its inevitable path. Through the Arterial the wealth and resources of the continent flowed back and forth like a great tide. Due to being such a vital aspect of the continent, the byway sported impressive void-shielding separate from any of the hives it was connected to. Thus, though the cultists and xenos had been instigating mass uprisings and rioting, even going as far as to infiltrate portions of the Hive's weapon emplacements, they still hadn't managed to secure a hold on the great stretch of infrastructure. The shielding was powerful enough to withstand orbital bombardments.
Now, with those same weapon emplacements having blown the Kill Team's transport out of the sky, the Arterial appeared to be the best place to regroup and re-coordinate their mission. Tarkhan seemed to be of the same mindset; they could see his rune on their map indicating that he was traversing side streets to their east and moving ever closer to the byway. Their path now nearly unhindered, the two began picking up their own pace, looking to cover the nine or so kilometers as swiftly as possible.
As they moved down the street Diocledes took point. The advanced array of auto-senses in the Terminator's helm allowed him to constantly scan ahead as he thundered forward, whilst the more agile Ruskvar could act as rearguard without much risk of the bulkier marine truly outrunning him. In this manner they rapidly gained ground.
The gates leading to the void-shielded byway were within easy sight when the ambush descended, auto-cannon rounds and lasgun fire streaming towards them from multiple vantage points.