After confirming the details of the mission, Zhang Ge was eager to turn around and head back to the Valkyrie.
However, his concerns soon ca to fruition.
The Imperial Fists officer hesitated for a mont before asking in a low voice:
"Colonel Zhang Ge, that four-ter-tall figure beside you is...?"
"It's... it's the latest prototype from the Adeptus chanicus, I an, an excavated humanoid combat servitor."
Humanoid servitors were not uncommon, neither were combat servitors, but one that stood four ters tall?
It wasn't that it couldn't be done, but the chanicus rarely manufactured unnecessary machines. A four-ter "servitor" was basically a small servitor embedded within a titanic fra. If they were going to go through that effort, why not simply extract the brain and produce so autonomous weapon instead?
The Imperial Fists officer had an unsettling feeling about this.
Moreover, his instincts told him that this "servitor" was extrely dangerous. Though he couldn't quite pinpoint how dangerous, during a life-and-death struggle, he feared he would quickly find himself on the wrong end of things—not even lasting a hundred exchanges. For soone of their caliber, a hundred exchanges was a very brief encounter.
"Can I spar with it? Rest assured, I'll be cautious and won't cause any damage."
"Uh..."
Yes, he knew the officer wouldn't damage her, but he was quite concerned that she might not follow suit.
Piecing together an excuse in his mind, Zhang Ge finally found a reason:
"The Adeptus chanicus has restrictions; she can only act if I'm in danger."
"Fine."
Though still harboring doubts, the officer chose to defer to Zhang Ge's judgnt and said nothing more. He watched as Zhang Ge and his companions boarded the Valkyrie. It wasn't until the hatch sealed shut and the aircraft took off that he turned to walk deeper into the building.
As for Zhang Ge and his entourage, they naturally flew straight to the assembly point of the First chanized Regint after leaving the Military Command Center.
During the flight, Zhang Ge relayed the mission details and assigned tasks to the relevant personnel through the sound array.
By the ti they finally landed, they were greeted with the sight of various units advancing orderly into the transport ships.
However, there was sothing odd about the scene: within the assembly area, not a single foot soldier could be seen... This wasn't due to their absence; rather, because the expected flight ti was short, all the troops had already boarded their respective vehicles.
Indeed, they were preparing for a combined airborne drop.
While they had access to drop pods, those had limited transport capacity. In a well-fortified enemy position, such drop zones inevitably led to exceedingly high casualties, potentially leaving the leading airborne squads utterly destroyed.
Therefore, not long ago after hearing about the mission, the regint's officers had conferred: wasn't the colonel on good terms with the Adeptus chanicus? Perhaps they could obtain additional gear from those red-robed fellows.
The Astra Militarum was naturally quick to act. After they decided on this plan, they imdiately dispatched personnel to negotiate with the chanicus... but the outco was sowhat simpler than expected.
The original plan was as follows:
A portion of the officers was to leverage their good relations to engage those priests, pretending to request items from their stores. Knowing the chanicus's typical stinginess, without the colonel's direct presence, they certainly didn't expect to extract any resources just through verbal negotiations.
This was rely a feigned maneuver.
In reality, while the first group of personnel held the attention of the chanicus's administrative layers—naly the high-tech personnel—another group would be tasked with technicians and equipnt, attempting to quietly pilfer from their warehouses.
They would take whatever they could get, especially equipnt related to the Grav-Chutes that could significantly enhance drop capacities—after all, they were about to depart; by the ti they reacted, they'd already be at their destination. Winning was worth the risk of losing.
If they lost?
If that happened, what remained would be irrelevant.
The success of the first phase of action was unsurprising: a bunch of seasoned veterans maneuvering in the underworld could handle the situation flawlessly, and as expected, they managed to draw out a substantial number of priests.
However, the smoothness of the second phase was a little strange.
As they drew closer to the chanicus facility, the second group of officers abruptly realized that the defensive asures they faced weren't exactly impregnable. While the outer fence could perhaps be explained away due to age and disrepair, the complete absence of any automated turrets or servitors could not be justified by a lack of vigilance. Moreover, the information firewalls they had imagined to be impenetrable were as thin as paper.
But how could it be that there was only a single Skitarii guarding the plaza outside a large warehouse? How does one explain that?
Furthermore, wasn't it said that these Skitarii were extrely perceptive?
Why was it that while moving equipnt, soone didn't notice when a corner of a crate was dropped, creating a loud crash? That Skitarii didn't even turn their head, muttering sothing emotionless like, "Oh, just so bugs passing by"?
What kind of warehouse would have bugs that could steal equipnt? Had they just arrived from Catachan or sothing?
The second phase's smoothness... left the officers responsible for the operation feeling sowhat unnerved.
They felt as though their lips could have been pressed tighter than a plasma gun, and they couldn't help but shed tears of regret—not tears of sorrow but rather of fear—hastily requisitioning a few passing transport vehicles using Throne Gelt. To their surprise, these vehicles happened to contain munitions intended for a local underworld gang.
After shuttling back and forth a dozen tis, they felt they were nearing the designated tiline. When they contacted the first group of officers, they received a more perplexing response than expected:
"Brothers, this isn't right, why is this group of chatty Iron shells suddenly so talkative? I'm stuck here, but don't worry, I'll figure sothing out. You keep going; I'll let you know when I have an update."
Sigh, Adeptus chanicus, you've really caused trouble for the First chanized Regint.
With no other choice, the lone Skitarii stood guard while various enormous insects had to make their return trips. It wasn't until Zhang Ge was almost at the station that the operation finally wrapped up.
In the aftermath, it was tallied that the supplies they had "borrowed" amounted to enough for every soldier to receive a Hellgun, even leaving leftover parts. The originally planned "Grav-Chutes" were now plentiful enough to aerodrop both soldiers and vehicles together.
This culminated in the current spectacle: a total of fifty thousand n, approaching sixty thousand when including other units, all fully chanized, with combat units—including the super-heavy tank segnts and even a Titan—able to effectuate full vehicle airborne drops.
Truly, the Astra Militarum was sothing else; does your planet have such a force?
At least Zhang Ge, having just departed the Valkyrie, believed that no such force existed. He was envisioning the intensity of future battles and a range of potential high-risk scenarios.
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