Bam!
The heavy blast-proof door of the command room was violently kicked open from the outside. A figure covered in mud, with half of his hood scorched, stumbled inside.
Gamma-9 had arrived.
The tech-priest, who usually carried himself with a modicum of dignity, looked utterly wretched. His robes were stained with black oil, his mechanical arm was spitting electrical sparks, and his face was a patchwork of soot and grime.
"Ball! Ball!!"
Gamma-9 rushed over and grabbed Ball by the collar, his single eye wide with terror and the manic relief of a survivor. "Outside... it's raining outside!"
"Raining what?" Ball was a bit dazed from the shaking. "Doesn't it rain acid every day?"
"Not acid rain! It's a rain of fireballs, a rain of aircraft wreckage!" Gamma-9 roared, spraying spittle all over Ball's face. "I had just driven the Magos's vehicle out of the shelter gates, leading a team to support you. We were halfway here when things started falling from the sky!"
"A Valkyrie that big! That big!" Gamma-9 made an exaggerated gesture. "The propellers were even still spinning! It smashed directly into the acid lake in front of me! The splash was twenty meters high—it slapped right onto my car!"
"Do you have any idea? That was pure acid! My tires melted instantly, and the steel plating was burned through! I had to hitch a ride on an apprentice's moped all the way here. I still can't feel my backside!"
Gamma-9 shuddered as he spoke. The scene had been terrifying; if the plane had been just a few meters off, he would be a flat pancake right now. Although Andy's "Underhive Joyrider" had memory alloy armor, that was meant for bullets. Tires, however, were still made of rubber—even specialized rubber couldn't survive being soaked in that concentration of acid.
It was only after Gamma-9 finished his tirade that he noticed something was wrong with Ball's expression. Ball didn't look terrified; he just looked slightly constipated as he pointed at the screen.
"Stop shouting," Ball said, his voice faint and his mind still somewhat in a trance. "I know about the aircraft rain... because I'm the one who shot them down."
"What did you say?" Gamma-9 froze, his hands loosening their grip on Ball's collar. "You shot them down? With what? Did the Magos prepare anti-air missiles for you?"
"No anti-air missiles, but we had those." Ball pulled up the combat playback.
On the screen, fifteen black dots wove through the Valkyrie squadron like ghosts. Every flicker was accompanied by an explosion of a fireball—a pure, efficient massacre.
Gamma-9's mouth slowly fell open, wide enough to fit a lightbulb. As a priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus, he naturally understood the weight of what he was seeing. Such mobility! Such precision! That was the state of "Total Machine Spirit Liberation" mentioned only in the most sacred of mechanical fragments!
"Praise... Praise the Omnissiah..." Gamma-9's legs went weak, and he slumped directly onto the floor. He finally understood why Magos Andy never took Helios seriously. With such divine artifacts in hand, one truly didn't need to look others in the eye.
Beep! Beep!
Red alarm lights flashed again, interrupting their awe.
"It's not over yet." Ball turned back to the radar. Although the aerial threat was neutralized, the trouble on the ground remained. At the edge of the screen, a massive red patch was rapidly approaching. The Helios Group's ground armored forces were numerous and showed no signs of slowing down.
...
Dozens of kilometers away, inside the Helios frontline command vehicle.
Zeman stared fixedly ahead. He had seen the falling fireballs in the sky and had lost contact with the aviation wing. But he didn't order a retreat. It wasn't that he didn't want to—he didn't dare to. Saul's absolute order was hanging over his head. Helios hadn't pursued the failure in Sector 9, but if he failed to take the Underhive this time, his entire family would be turned into servitors.
Furthermore, Zeman had made what he considered a reasonable tactical judgment.
"It looks like an anti-air missile battery or some kind of flak cannon," Zeman encouraged his subordinates over the comms. "The rioters just got lucky and stumbled upon some heavy weapon. But these things certainly can't hit the ground. We charge at full speed! While their AA fire is exposed, the armored units will rush in at full throttle!"
"Motorized units, prepare for breakthrough! Once we get within seven kilometers, even the Leman Russ's secondary guns can wipe them out!"
...
In the underground command room.
Ball watched the red dots still charging forward, oblivious to their fate. He figured that since the planes were dealt with, there was no point in saving the infantry for later.
"I wanted to keep them as a surprise, but since they're in such a hurry, let's give it to them now." Ball's fingers hammered at the keyboard.
"Iron Ostrich, all units stand up!"
Outside the Acid Swamp, behind the newly built high perimeter walls, a large area was covered in camouflage netting. As Ball's command was issued, the netting slid off automatically, revealing twenty extremely bizarre steel creations beneath.
They had no tracks or wheels. Instead, they stood on two thick, hydraulic-driven, inverted-joint mechanical legs. This design made them look top-heavy, unstable, and even a bit comical—like giant, featherless ostriches.
But under the god-tier performance of hydraulic drives, the bipedal walking mechanism completely outclassed tracks. They could step over trenches, climb steep slopes, and even sprint through deep mud. On the backs of these "Ostriches," there were no armor plates; the entire weight allowance was dedicated to one thing:
A six-meter-long, 155mm high-caliber howitzer!
Inside the Iron Ostriches were fire control chips personally written by Andy, capable of facilitating ultra-long-range strikes. Though they were simplified models, they were built to Golden Age standards.
With that, who needs defense? The best defense is me blowing you to smithereens from a place you can't even see!
Hum—
Twenty Iron Ostriches activated simultaneously. Their mechanical legs bent, digging deep into the soil. Hydraulic spades at the rear dropped, locking firmly into the ground to form a stable firing platform. The muzzles rose, pointing straight at the heavens.
Fire control data was transmitted via data link directly from the command center into the ballistic computers of each cannon. No manual loading was required; automatic loaders shoved heavy high-explosive shells into the breeches.
Click. Locked.
Ball looked at the large green "Calibration Complete" message on the screen and pressed the launch button.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The earth trembled. Twenty heavy guns roared in unison. The shockwave from the muzzles instantly blew away the surrounding dust, even causing ripples on the surface of the acid lake. Twenty shells tore through the sky with ear-piercing shrieks, flying toward the armored cluster dozens of kilometers away.
...
Zeman sat in his command vehicle, still hesitating whether to send a final message to his wife. Suddenly, the radar detector in the vehicle let out a piercing scream.
BEEP—!!!
"High-energy ballistic reaction detected!" "Count: twenty! Point of impact... right on top of us!!"
Zeman jerked his head up, looking through the bulletproof glass at the sky. Twenty black dots were rapidly enlarging.
"Impossible..." Zeman screamed into the comms. "Everyone, scatter the formation! Scatter now!"
Goddammit, where did the Underhive get heavy artillery? Where did they get fire control radar? How are they locking onto me through dozens of kilometers of ruins and electromagnetic interference?!
No one could answer him. In the next second, the fire of explosions swallowed his vision.