Chapter 316 05.0315: "White Hell"

"Oh, it's damn cold. Hans, the coffee you make is terrible. Next time you add those ingredients, I will throw you out and you will not be allowed to come into the house unless you use your tongue to lick the frozen barrel of the gun to melt it."

"You have something to drink and you dare to complain. The false emperor's lackeys have surrounded the planet's orbit. In a while, you won't even have coffee grounds to drink."

"The Corpse King's servants arrived really quickly. Yesterday, a flying object passed through the divination radar, and the higher-ups ordered us to fire a barrage of shells. What do you think it was?"

"Who knows, maybe they are Alicia airborne soldiers, or maybe they are Harakoni. I heard before I learned the truth that these guys were airdropped on Valkyries."

"Then they are doomed. No one can survive in the wilderness where the heart is as cold as the false emperor's."

"You deserved it. After you finish your coffee, go clear the ice off the gun mount. It's a request from the higher-ups. The weather has frozen the swivel gun mount."

"What are you afraid of? Do the servants of this false weather emperor dare to land? Even if they do, they will be frozen to death by the time they rush here from tens of thousands of kilometers away."

"That's true. After clearing the ice, it will freeze again after a while."

"Ah, cut! Ah, I'm freezing, let's go in and warm up."

Two rebel soldiers stood on the air defense tower and looked out at the endless snowfield for a while, and soon they were ready to return to the warm room.

Just as a rebel soldier turned around, he saw a few small black dots running fast on the snow field out of the corner of his eye.

When he tried to see more clearly, a gust of snow blew over again, making him shiver with cold.

"What are you still doing there? Come in and close the door. If you don't want to come in, close the door. Ah, I'm freezing."

"It's snowing so hard that I suspect I have snow blindness." After observing again in the snowstorm and finding nothing, the rebel soldier hurried into the house with a gun on his back, and the door slammed shut behind him.

On the snowy plain, the Hell's Vanguard, dressed in blue to black, was speeding through the snow in a Taurus assault vehicle painted white.

The reason they didn't paint their armor white was because they would not choose to encounter the enemy in open snow.

The dark and deep interior of the fortress was their designated battlefield.

Collingwood stepped on the accelerator in the driver's seat and took charge of the boring journey.

Horatio sat in the passenger seat, fiddling with the data pad in the snow, while Louise stood on the twin laser cannon mount in the back seat, using the vehicle-mounted auspex to keep watch on the surroundings.

The Taurus assault vehicle has no windows and is windy on all sides.

Fortunately, the temperature positioning device of the power armor is constantly conducting the waste heat emitted from the power backpack into the internal circulation system, maintaining a body temperature of about 23 degrees inside the power armor.

Horatio was very busy as he was issuing orders to teams in various war zones. Almost all teams in each war zone adopted the same combat strategy - paralyzing the heavy anti-aircraft fortress - especially the giant cannon that would pose a fatal threat to orbital landing.

Relying on the advanced detection equipment carried by the Hell's Vanguard.

The convoy bypassed the scattered enemy tracked vehicle patrols on the road.

The blizzard provided an excellent shielding effect. A mobile patrol consisting of a Leman Russ tank and two Chimeras operated by the rebels once drove past them through a layer of wind and snow. The two were only fifty meters apart at their closest point on the auspex.

Horatio had already issued the order to only shoot in self-defense, and not to easily reveal their whereabouts unless there was a threat to themselves. Otherwise, once the enemy soldiers became alert and assembled, the entire mission would most likely be ruined.

Even if it was him, he would not allow the Cobra-class destroyer to carry out a suicide bombing on the fortress at the risk of being hit by two 180-meter-caliber cannon shells.

Exchanging battleships for ground-based anti-aircraft fortresses 1 for 1 is a huge loss no matter how you look at it.

According to the intelligence gathered by Horatio, the exposed small and medium caliber anti-aircraft guns have basically been frozen, and the large caliber cannons are not a big threat to the high-speed fighters. The speed of these void fighters is several times that of the Valkyrie.

As long as they could shut down the weather control system, once the storm stopped and the pilots could effectively visually sight the target, the Hell's Blades could call for air-to-ground fire support.

He had already sent back the coordinates of all the small and medium-sized anti-aircraft batteries he had observed along the way to the Aviation Department, and his lieutenants were busy arranging the support sequence on the ship.

As long as the weather returns to normal, Horatio will give the order, and the Starhawk bombers and Fury interceptors will be able to carpet bomb the frozen small and medium-sized anti-aircraft artillery emplacements, using the wrath of the God-Emperor to "thaw" them.

If the orbital bombardment cannon is disabled, the Cobra-class destroyer can use its bombardment lance to carry out a devastating bombardment of the ground coordinates.

Therefore, whether it is shutting down the weather control device first or paralyzing the orbital bombardment cannon first, the Hell's Vanguards can get more support, just of different types.

"Archie, report the relative position."

"We are at position 097.335, only four kilometers away from our destination, Fort 'Codename A'."

"Everyone, get ready. When you are 1.2 kilometers away from the target, get off the vehicle and move forward on foot." "Yes, sir."
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Horatio and Louise lay on a snow-covered slope, conducting forward reconnaissance using the tactical scopes on their helmets and handheld advanced optical reconnaissance eyepieces.

In front of the two was a huge fortress covered with snow. This fortress was a city built around the mountains, with the empire's iconic Gothic buildings standing tall in the city.

The main body adopts a bastion structure, and the anti-aircraft defense turning point platform protruding outside the city wall is equipped with twin 210mm dual-purpose artillery that shot them down before.

Behind the city wall was a group of buildings with spires piercing the sky. If Horatio guessed correctly, it should be barracks, logistics warehouses, garrisons, etc., which were living areas for people.

Innermost, even taller walls protect a huge building and a 'mountain'.

The building is a towering spire built behind the mountain.

That should be the climate control device on the intelligence.

As long as the switch is destroyed after adjustments are made, the climate within a thousand or two thousand kilometers around will become clear and sunny, and the enemy will not be able to change this fact in a short time.

The other "mountain" was enormous, stretching for kilometers, like a series of mountains, and was a giant orbital bombardment cannon guarded by clusters of black spires.

Its style looks quite old, perhaps a technological product left over from the Age of Strife, obtained by the Iron Warriors and then reproduced.

A dark iron skull is engraved on the barrel. Even though it has not been fired at this moment, the mere existence of the cannon exudes a majestic aura that captivates the mind.

Its recoil is so huge that there are no extra buildings behind the inner wall, only the giant cannon itself and the Gothic spire matrix above it.

This sturdy, simple and magnificent appearance is the authentic and brave style in Horatio's mind.

A combination of roughness and sheer violence.

“The action team is divided into three groups, with one group reserved as a reserve.

A team of me, Louise, Collingwood, and... that robot servant.

The rest of the group was divided into teams of four, with the remaining two people and the Valkyrie pilot as a reserve team.

In the remaining time, each group will conduct reconnaissance of the fortress without exposing themselves, and the operation will officially begin when night falls."

"Yes, Captain."

Several teams dispersed and conducted reconnaissance in all directions. They used three-dimensional imaging devices to draw the general outline of the fortress and the information of the sentry towers, and uploaded them to the mobile local area network.

Immediately afterwards, the investigators released the CAT drone and servo skull for close reconnaissance.

These unmanned devices quietly infiltrated the fortress through sewers, ventilation ducts, and maintenance passages.

Horatio looked at the layout of the fortress, which was originally filled with darkness and fog. As the puzzle pieces were put together one by one and gradually lit up, the approximate division of the uses of the blocks became initially clear.

The barracks was located inside the first city wall. It was a particularly tall Gothic building. The glorious double-headed eagle emblem on it had long disappeared, and was replaced by a distorted and blasphemous eight-pointed star symbol.

Although there are many sentry posts, most of them are either empty or have only one or two people looking around absentmindedly.

The snow had severely blocked the roads in this "military city", although the rebels had tried to clear the snow using a Leman Russ with a shovel installed on the front.

But before long, the drive shafts of these Leman Russ froze due to lack of thawing lubricating oil.

The streets of the entire city are now unmaintained and there are almost no vehicles on the road. At first glance, it looks like a dead city.

In an environment of minus 40 or 50 degrees Celsius, changing shifts for sentries is an extremely risky task.

According to the images sent by the servo skull, some rebel sentinels were crushed to death by large chunks of snow that fell from the upper floors, and others died of hypothermia while walking on the road.

The heavy firepower weapons deployed on the sentry tower platform were hung with sharp icicles. Even if there were people stationed there, the sentries would not dare to step out of the relatively warm interior of the sentry box.

The original disadvantage has now been transformed into an advantage for the actions of the Hell Vanguards.

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(End of this chapter)