This is the bonus chapter for reaching 500 Powerstones.
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At 6:47 AM, the alloy gates of the Crimson Dawn base slowly ground open amidst the low hum of heavy hydraulic systems.
Cogboy stood just inside the threshold. His mechanical right arm was hardwired into the gate control console, streams of data scrolling rapidly across his visual interface.
Behind him stood Tax Bro, Schrödinger Bro, and Blood Angels' Second Emperor. The three of them wore standard work overalls, their faces bearing exactly the right amount of respectful deference. It was the hard-earned result of rehearsing until two in the morning.
"They're here."
Cogboy's mechanical eye locked onto a line of dust kicking up three kilometers out.
It was a convoy of five vehicles bearing the distinctive Iron Hands livery.
Three Rhino troop transports led the vanguard, flanking a heavily modified Orion reconnaissance vehicle in the center.
"Execute Plan A."
Cogboy issued the command over the local network. "Keep all weapon systems on strict radio silence. Watchtower personnel, keep your backs straight but don't stare directly at them. Residents, just go about your normal business."
A uniform row of "Copy that" instantly flooded the [Regional Channel].
Tax Bro flashed a nervous grin, complaining to White Scars in a private chat. Holy crap, look at this setup. It's like a VP coming down for a surprise inspection.
White Scars shot back immediately. It IS a VP inspecting us. The kind of VP who could smash us into meat patties with a single hammer swing.
At exactly 7:00 AM, the armored convoy halted fifty meters outside the main gates.
The deployment hatch of the lead vehicle flipped open, and ten Iron Hands warriors filed out in perfect unison.
Their silver-gray Mark IV power armor gleamed with a cold metallic luster under the morning sun. The Iron Hands insignia on their left pauldrons flashed with a brilliant silver light.
Their movements were entirely synchronized. Landing, turning, falling into formation—the entire process was executed without a single spoken command, exactly like a squad of unfeeling automatons.
Leading them was Karon Santos.
The Fourth Company Captain wore no helmet, exposing a stern, resolute face.
High cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and an old, ragged scar running down his left cheek from his brow bone all the way to his jawline.
It was the distinct mark of a power sword. The edges of the wound still bore the faint marks of meticulous suturing, making it blatantly obvious just how deep the original cut had been—so deep that not even the extraordinary regenerative abilities of an Astartes could fully repair it.
"I am Karon Santos, Captain of the Iron Hands Fourth Company."
His voice boomed through the external vox-casters of his power armor. It was ice-cold and unyielding, though a careful listener could detect a faint rasp beneath the surface.
It was the result of minor vocal cord damage from the long-term consumption of lho-sticks.
Within the ranks of the Iron Hands, smoking was an incredibly common habit. Many veterans used the harsh tobacco to soothe the phantom pains caused by chronically overloaded neural interfaces.
"By the decree of the Primarch, we have come to receive your technical data and verify whether this base harbors any Warp contamination or other severe violations."
Cogboy stepped forward three paces, his mechanical right hand forming a flawless Imperial salute across his chest.
Palm flat, four fingers pressed tightly together—the universal etiquette for tech-adepts greeting high-ranking military officers.
"Captain, I am Cage Lawrence, the administrator of the Crimson Dawn Sanctuary."
He stepped aside to clear the main path. "The data is fully prepared, and the entire base is completely open for your inspection. Please, conduct your tour as you see fit."
"Would you prefer to take the data first, or begin the comprehensive inspection?"
Karon's gray eyes swept past the open gates.
Through the heavy entrance, he could see the meticulously aligned barracks flanking the central avenue. In the distance, silhouettes were already hard at work in the potato fields, while the rhythmic chants of the youth corps' morning drills drifted over from the training grounds further out.
Spotlessly clean. Perfectly orderly.
That was Karon's immediate first impression.
As a seasoned veteran of hundreds of brutal campaigns, he had seen far too many so-called civilian strongholds.
They were almost always either as utterly chaotic as refugee camps or as suffocatingly oppressive as slave plantations.
But the base standing before him... it possessed a bizarre, thrumming vitality.
"Inspection first."
Karon pulled his gaze back. "My squad will split into three teams. We will independently audit your armory, your personnel archives, and your infrastructure."
"Please assign three guides."
"Understood." Cogboy turned around and gave Tax Bro and the others a curt nod.
Tax Bro was in charge of the armory. They had drawn straws for it last night. In his own words: My skin is thick enough that I won't panic when they start asking tricky questions.
Schrödinger Bro took point on the personnel archives. His natural calmness and highly methodical mind made him the perfect fit for handling endless paperwork.
Blood Angels' Second Emperor was assigned to infrastructure. As their primary ideological worker, he knew exactly how to spin a tale of grueling hardship and perseverance to make it sound deeply moving without coming off as overly deliberate.
The grand inspection commenced immediately.
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The Armory.
Tax Bro led three Iron Hands Astartes down the central avenue toward the newly constructed equipment depot in the western sector.
It was a single-story building covering roughly two thousand square meters. The exterior walls were built from rammed earth mixed with industrial slag. It looked incredibly crude, but the entrance was sealed by a solid, twenty-centimeter-thick alloy blast door.
"Conditions are pretty tight around here, so we just had to cobble things together as best we could."
Tax Bro flashed a sheepish grin as he casually inserted a physical key to unlock the heavy door. The key was a complete prop—the actual security override was entirely controlled remotely by Cogboy's data-link. "Please don't laugh at our meager setup, my Lords."
The massive blast doors slowly ground open.
The interior of the depot was vastly larger than its exterior suggested. They had clearly dug deep into the foundation to expand the subterranean space.
The lighting came from an array of homemade fluorescent tubes, casting an even, glare-free glow across the room.
The weapon racks were neatly divided into three primary rows.
The first row housed lasguns.
There were over five thousand standard-issue pattern rifles. Every single stock was uniformly spray-painted with the Crimson Dawn insignia.
The vast majority were in excellent condition, though roughly three hundred of them bore severe scorch marks on their barrels—the telltale signs of intense overheating from when the players had mindlessly farmed demons.
The second row contained heavy weapons.
Eighty-four heavy stubbers, strictly categorized and organized.
Three hundred and twenty rocket launchers. Two hundred of them were standardized models redeemed straight from the System Shop.
The rest were literal pipe bombs slapped together by the various Mechanicus-playing gamers. They were welded from thick industrial steel pipes and loaded with a volatile mixture of black powder and promethium dust. Their actual explosive yield was entirely up to the whims of fate, but they were dirt cheap to mass-produce.
The third row held the big toys.
Five light tanks, haphazardly frankensteined together from scrap armor plating and salvaged cannon barrels.
Alongside them sat twelve mobile rocket artillery trucks. The chassis were heavily modified transport rovers, and the launch racks were literally just welded scaffolding pipes.
"These..."
The commanding Iron Hands Astartes stopped dead in front of one of the tanks. His armored palm slowly traced the welding seams along the side of the crude turret.
"Did you modify these yourselves?"
"Yeah."
Tax Bro scratched his head, pushing his acting skills into absolute overdrive. "We had a band of raiders try to hit us a while back. So, we just scrounged up some scrap metal from the local junkyard and slapped it all together blindly."
"I mean, it drives fine, but if you push it for three kilometers, you have to let it cool down for half an hour. The heat sinks are total garbage."
The Astartes remained completely silent for several seconds.
The auspex scanners beneath his helmet clearly indicated that the internal transmission structure of this "scrap metal" tank had been highly optimized. Its sheer mechanical efficiency was practically on par with standard-issue models.
The stress distribution along the turret's welding joints was perfectly uniform. This was blatantly the work of a seasoned expert.
But he didn't call the bluff.
Captain Karon had given explicit orders before they deployed: The objective is not to uncover where they sourced their weaponry, but to verify whether those weapons carry the taint of the Warp.
"Scan it."
The warrior raised his left arm. A small auspex probe slid smoothly from beneath his vambrace, emitting a sweeping wave of pale blue light.
The beam washed over every single weapon in the room, transmitting the telemetry data in real-time to the analytics terminal aboard the Orion transport outside.
Ten minutes later.
"Zero trace of Warp contamination." The warrior retracted his scanner. "Source of materials?"
"We scavenged it all from the abandoned mines and the ruins of the old industrial sectors."
Tax Bro had memorized this script a hundred times over. "Aurelian IV might not have much else, but we've got more than enough scrap iron to go around. Whenever we spot parts that still look somewhat functional, we just haul them back, patch them up, and keep using them."
The warrior gave a curt nod and logged the entry on his data-slate.
"Weapon sourcing: Battlefield reclamation and indigenous manufacturing."
"Technological tier: Basic to Intermediate."
"Contamination status: Clean."
Tax Bro let out a massive sigh of relief in his head.
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Next Goal = 250 Powerstones.