Chapter 317 05.0316: "Sneak Blast"

As night fell, the snow on the fortress's streets was thick enough to cover an ordinary person's thighs.

The snow was still falling heavily, and no one could patrol on foot in such deep snow.

Some watchtowers turned on their searchlights, but they were just keeping them on; no sentry was willing to operate the searchlight outside in the severe cold.

After all, the enemy is still on the track, so there is no need to suffer in vain for an impossible invasion.

In the silent darkness, the Hell's Soldier sped across the snow on pulleys.

They don't need to run laboriously in the snow, taking one deep step and one shallow step, like clumsy penguins.

The powered pulleys under their feet, specially adapted for the snowfield, can carry them forward.

What was left on the snow were not footprints, but long and thin unknown tracks that were covered by the wind. Even if someone saw them, it would be difficult to recognize what left these tracks.

The Hell's vanguards took advantage of the night to get close to the wall, used power weapons to remove the drainage grilles on the bastion wall, and carefully sneaked in one by one.

The internal circulation breathing system isolated the stench in the sewer, which even ice could not suppress. The only thing to be thankful for was that there was no serious blockage in the pipe. This was the result of the early investigation.

No one used tactical flashlights, the thermal imaging and night vision goggles on the helmets were enough to help them detect the enemy and observe the environment.

The team infiltrated as planned, and after walking through an unspeakable section of the sewers, they officially entered the fortress through a hidden manhole cover.

Horatio never puts all his eggs in one basket. Since completing any task can bring fire support, it is obviously most effective to act separately and place more bets.

A small team will head to the climate control facility, and once they have completed their conditioning and disruption missions, the Imperial Navy's carrier-based aircraft will saturate the entire area.

Horatio led another team to orbit to bombard the macrocannon. He planned to place melta bombs on the gun mount to melt the transmission gears and turret ring.

This will avoid excessive damage to the artillery itself and prevent it from rotating for aiming.

After the Astra Militarum lands and occupies this place, they can send Mechanical Priests down to repair it and use it for subsequent planetary defense.

The three teams walked through the dimly lit streets, keeping low and hiding in the wind and snow.

Because of the heavy snow and howling gales, many outdoor cables were broken due to heavy ice or collapsed supports.

Many infrastructure facilities in the city have lost their power supply. The most obvious one is that only a few lighting systems are still stubbornly emitting flickering lights, and most of the city is in invisible darkness.

This is like a powerful addition to the Hell's Vanguard who are friends with the night.

Louise stood at the front, rolling forward with a gun in hand, and Horatio followed closely behind, his shooting range filling in the blind spots of her firepower.

The 12 people were all clinging to the wall, like ghosts, silently flashing through the street.

This fortress is very large. The main roads inside are several kilometers long, and there are countless winding paths.

The cautious and extremely lengthy snow infiltration lasted for several hours.

Late at night, 1am in Terra’s time.

The rebel soldier in the inner wall outpost yawned, stretched out his arms and legs on a recliner made of military equipment boxes, wondering whether he should catch up on some sleep or reminisce about last night's bloody duel.

No one would have thought that any Imperial troops could reach the inner walls of this heavily defended fortress on such a snowy night.

The Hell Sniper passed through the shadows near the watchtower. Heavy snow covered the surveillance camera, and a thick layer of frost had already formed on the mirror glass, but no one noticed.

After approaching the towering building with heavy internal defenses and the super cannon, the team dispersed according to the predetermined plan.

Horatio stepped into the belly of the steel mountain.

CAT drones and servoskulls scout the road ahead.

The internal routes of the entire huge launch site are complicated, and enemy patrols start from here on a regular basis.

but.

Because the interior of this giant cannon is too spacious and complex, and it is not in a state of combat readiness, only patrol teams maintaining daily service levels are present inside.

Several six-man patrol teams were conducting routine inspections inside, passing by the scouts hiding in the shadows without noticing.

The ugly gas mask was sewn on his flesh, and a laser gun with a double-headed golden eagle engraved on it was lazily slung over his shoulder, looking both blasphemous and sinful.

"The principle of firing in self-defense." Horatio emphasized the combat instructions again.

The information obtained after spending an entire day investigating inside the house in the freezing snow came in handy at this moment.

They used drones to follow the artillery crew on shift change and figured out a way to get directly to the battery, eliminating the need for them to tinker with it themselves and spend months or even years circling around in steel structures hundreds of stories high.

They also calculated the defenders' patrol schedule and front and rear intervals based on the patrol waves and frequency bands captured by the CAT drone hidden in the ventilation duct.

Horatio led the task force hiding in a dark corner, with a pocket watch on his hand.

Sure enough, within a few minutes, a six-man patrol passed by them.

As they passed, the eight stealthy men quickly moved through the passage and arrived at another hidden spot.

This cycle repeated itself over and over again, during the boring stealth. Dawn broke, but the sky outside was still dark in the pitch-black snow.

Of course, Horatio would not be so foolish as to take the enemy's elevator.

A replacement guard could suddenly come in from any floor, and if he encountered one in the elevator, he would have to face them head-on and expose himself. So he planned to go up through the maintenance passage.

It was a vertical shaft.

The Hell's Vanguards would first fly to the corresponding height of the maintenance passage within the one-minute limit of the backpack's lift limit, and then continue to climb up by grabbing the handles.

It would take a long time, but they would be able to appear unnoticed on the periphery of the turret ring and place the bombs at calculated points.

After confirming it was safe, Louise took the lead and was the first to fly up to 170 meters, then grabbed the ladder and began to climb up.

Horatio followed closely behind, operating the servoskull to scout from a higher altitude than Louise.

The only sound in the shaft was the collision of metal armor and iron ladders.

8:00 a.m.

"Damn it, I'm so sleepy. I have to ask the old doctor for some more medicine. Unfortunately, I don't have enough skulls. Alas." A rebel sentry who was changing shifts walked out of the camp cabin just below the turret.

As he passed the inspection passage, he seemed to hear some sound in the shaft next to it.

The confused rebel soldiers walked to the side of the shaft and moved the heavy baffle away.

He walked to the black hole-like wellhead and looked down. All he saw was darkness. He listened carefully and found that the shaft was silent except for the whistling sound of wind and snow pouring into the wellhead.

Thinking that it didn't matter what he hit, the rebel soldier suddenly picked up the laser gun and pointed it downwards, wanting to start firing to vent his frustration of not being able to go out during the blizzard.

An iron hand suddenly grabbed his ankle from the darkness, pulled him hard, and took him into the darkness without warning.

The baffle of the shaft closed, covering up the darkness and the increasingly ethereal screams echoing in the shaft.

After another climb, Horatio pushed open the cover at the top of the inspection shaft, which was located on the outer periphery of the raised "back of the head" armor at the rear of the turret.

The entire turret is huge, covering an area of ​​hundreds of square kilometers.

They climbed out one after another and were on the inspection passage. There was a thick steel structure of the seat ring between them, and the transmission gear of the turret was not far below.

Although it was created by traitors, the entire turret structure exudes a solemn simplicity.

Apart from the necessary facilities, there are no unnecessary features or decorations.

The scouts stepped lightly on the suspended corridor paved with steel plates, with bottomless abysses of the pedestal on both sides.

Rather than saying this thing is a man-made building, it would be more accurate to say that it is a high-altitude metal mountain.

Like a sharp sword piercing the sky, it stands tall in the center of the city, looking down on all living beings coldly.

The huge secret alloy transmission gear exudes the luster of brass, driving the continuous bearings, and a rumbling sound can be faintly heard from deep inside.

Horatio found a transmission gear, which was the transmission component between the turret's weighing base and the gun ring. As long as he blew down this key transmission gear and blew a large deformed gap in the gun ring, the rebels would have to spend several months to repair it.

But based on the landing site planned by the Astra Militarum hundreds of kilometers away and the expected speed of advancement, even if the rebels repaired it, they would just be giving it away to the Imperial Army for free.

However, how to place the shells on this huge and dangerous remote mechanical structure became a problem.

"Does anyone have enough energy for the gravity parachute?"

"Although I can jump over, it's difficult to fly back." Louise calculated the flight distance and came to a not-so-good conclusion.

"Our gravity parachute can only fly for a minute at most. We've already used it to climb up, so we don't have much energy left. It's very risky to fly back and forth now. If we fall, we'll die."

Horatio thought, looking around, analyzing the route around him.

Generally, the Mechanical Sage would give the work of repairing these giant structures to the Cherubim. If there was a problem, they would find a way to use a large floating vehicle to fly over.

"Hey, Servitor, how do the guys from the Adeptus Mechanicus usually approach this thing?"

"My Lord, what is your will?" the maid asked in a beautiful and pleasant girlish voice without any emotion.

"I'm going to plant melta bombs on it, and I need you to get us there using the Mechanicus' methods."

"I understand, my Lord. I can complete this task for you."

"Finish?"

"Please deliver the melta bombs that meet the standards of Guilliman's Codex to your servants."

Horatio signaled a vanguard wearing a 'Strike' type heavy force feedback power armor to hand the heavy melta bomb loaded on the mechanical exoskeleton to the servitor.

The robot loaded the bomb behind it and lay on the ground, with its limbs immediately spread out, forming an angle of nearly 90 degrees with the ground in an inhuman posture.

then……

It actually used its hands and feet to crawl like a spider, and by using the magnetic devices on its limbs to firmly adhere to the wall, it climbed up the cliff that was too difficult for the hell's pioneers.

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(End of this chapter)