After confirming the details of the mission, Zhang Ge was eager to turn around and head back to the Valkyrie.
However, his concerns soon came to fruition.
The Imperial Fists officer hesitated for a moment before asking in a low voice:
"Colonel Zhang Ge, that four-meter-tall figure beside you is...?"
"It's... it's the latest prototype from the Adeptus Mechanicus, I mean, an excavated humanoid combat servitor."
Humanoid servitors were not uncommon, neither were combat servitors, but one that stood four meters tall?
It wasn't that it couldn't be done, but the Mechanicus rarely manufactured unnecessary machines. A four-meter "servitor" was basically a small servitor embedded within a titanic frame. If they were going to go through that effort, why not simply extract the brain and produce some autonomous weapon instead?
The Imperial Fists officer had an unsettling feeling about this.
Moreover, his instincts told him that this "servitor" was extremely 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 someone 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 Mechanicus 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 judgment 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 Mechanized Regiment 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 time they finally landed, they were greeted with the sight of various units advancing orderly into the transport ships.
However, there was something 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 time 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 regiment's officers had conferred: wasn't the colonel on good terms with the Adeptus Mechanicus? 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 immediately dispatched personnel to negotiate with the Mechanicus... but the outcome was somewhat 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 Mechanicus's typical stinginess, without the colonel's direct presence, they certainly didn't expect to extract any resources just through verbal negotiations.
This was merely a feigned maneuver.
In reality, while the first group of personnel held the attention of the Mechanicus's administrative layers—namely the high-tech personnel—another group would be tasked with technicians and equipment, attempting to quietly pilfer from their warehouses.
They would take whatever they could get, especially equipment related to the Grav-Chutes that could significantly enhance drop capacities—after all, they were about to depart; by the time 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 Mechanicus facility, the second group of officers abruptly realized that the defensive measures 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 extremely perceptive?
Why was it that while moving equipment, someone didn't notice when a corner of a crate was dropped, creating a loud crash? That Skitarii didn't even turn their head, muttering something emotionless like, "Oh, just some bugs passing by"?
What kind of warehouse would have bugs that could steal equipment? Had they just arrived from Catachan or something?
The second phase's smoothness... left the officers responsible for the operation feeling somewhat 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 times, they felt they were nearing the designated timeline. 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 something out. You keep going; I'll let you know when I have an update."
Sigh, Adeptus Mechanicus, you've really caused trouble for the First Mechanized Regiment.
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 men, approaching sixty thousand when including other units, all fully mechanized, with combat units—including the super-heavy tank segments and even a Titan—able to effectuate full vehicle airborne drops.
Truly, the Astra Militarum was something 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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