“Attention residents, in accordance with wartime control regulations, a curfew and blackout are now in effect.
All residents are requested to remain at home, lock doors and windows, do not go out, do not turn on lights, and do not believe any strangers.
Repeating, residents, please take note…”
Armed police, riding in patrol vehicles with welded plates and loudspeakers mounted on the roofs, patrolled the main roads, repeatedly broadcasting the wartime control regulations.
The once brightly lit, sleepless Lower Hive was now shrouded in darkness again, as if returning to the past.
Only a few roads completely controlled by the armed police, with fixed checkpoints, had scattered lights.
These roads mostly led to secret passages belonging to various nobles.
Besides the checkpoints, numerous workers in bright yellow reflective overalls bustled about.
Some drove heavy trucks, transporting large rockcrete blocks to various passages; others drove construction machinery, moving the rockcrete blocks to the entrances of the passages, completely blocking them.
In areas where the roads were too narrow for engineering vehicles to pass, workers wearing the Engineer exoskeletons had to haul the rockcrete blocks in.
Lower Hive, Carter District.
Liam, who had just reported to the “Water Circulation and Purification System Engineering Department” and had only been a recorder for a few days, listened to the broadcast outside the pipe with a look of fear.
He had only been doing some real work for two days, and hadn’t even decided whether to send his children to the orphanage, when suddenly there was a war.
How long would this war last?
Would he be able to go back to work after it was over?
Although as a recorder he received an extra 10 kilograms of starch as pay each day, and with the food and water he had saved, he could last for a while, it wouldn’t last much longer.
He had only been working for less than half a month and hadn’t received much pay at all.
Not to mention the children under his supervision, all of them were at the age of rapid growth, eating more and more.
“Brother Liam, I’m hungry,” one of the children cried out again.
Liam tore a small piece from the compressed starch block and fed it to the hungry child.
The child chewed the starch and asked, “Why can’t we go out to play at night?
Can we go out tomorrow?”
With the improvement in security in the Lower Hive, the children, who had previously been forced to huddle in the darkness of the abandoned passageways until their skin turned pale, could finally go outside for some fresh air.
This naturally made the children very happy, but their joy was short-lived.
Their older brother Liam suddenly forbade them to go out again, and the children were naturally not happy.
Liam sighed, “Maybe, maybe you can.
Go to sleep now, sweetie.”
“Okay,” the child replied, groping his way back to their resting place in the pitch-black passageway.
Thanks to Liam, the previously empty resting area was now covered with some discarded clothes, so the children wouldn’t feel uncomfortable after sleeping.
Hearing the repeated announcements outside, Liam sighed again.
He hoped the Angels would win; even after just a few days of normal life, he didn’t want to go back to his previous existence.
Liam’s thoughts reflected those of most of the Lower Hive residents, which was why the workers responded so enthusiastically.
Thanks to this, the command post at the largest exit of the lower and middle hives was reporting frequent successes.
Old John watched as the various exits marked on the hololithic table were rapidly being blocked by different forces.
No riots or chaos occurred in the Lower Hive.
Even the Badab Ecclesiarchy, with whom he had previously clashed, was now behaving themselves.
No remnants of the nobility were escaping from the various passages of the lower and middle hives.
“The brothers in the Middle Hive are doing a great job,” Old John thought.
The blockade mission was largely complete; all that remained was to fill in any gaps.
Unlike the calm Lower Hive, the Middle Hive was now engulfed in gunfire.
Middle Hive, Becker Machine Factory.
As one of the core assets of the Becker family, most of the machine factory’s employees were extremely loyal to the Becker family.
Therefore, faced with the armed police’s demands, the factory not only did not surrender but also sealed off its core factory area, attempting a last-ditch resistance.
The commander of the 3rd Regiment of the 6th Special Forces Division, peering through his binoculars at the factory where all entrances and exits were sealed off, angrily slammed his fist on his cover.
These bastards not only designed the outer factory area like a maze, preventing the first assault from directly reaching the core area, but now they dare to refuse to surrender and attempt a desperate resistance!
They deserve to die!
“Keep shouting,” the commander yelled to the armed police, then gave the order, “Demolition team, prepare.
Begin preparing the demolition while the shouting continues.”
“Listen up, people inside the factory!
The Becker family has betrayed the God-Emperor and joined the heretics…”
The surrender proclamation quickly resumed.
The five members of the demolition team, carrying thermobaric charges, replaced all their extra weight with ceramite plates, and, with the aid of their exoskeletons, sprinted towards the factory at top speed.
Despite the complex terrain of the factory, the demolition team covered more than a kilometre in just two minutes, reaching the core area’s perimeter wall and installing the thermobaric charges.
Upon receiving the demolition team’s readiness signal, the regimental commander excitedly slammed his fist on the bunker.
“Well done, demolition team!
Order the entire regiment to prepare for the assault!”
A few minutes later, with the deafening roar of a thermobaric charge, a large hole was breached in the thick rockcrete wall.
The regimental commander leaped to his feet and charged towards the breach, leading the charge: “All troops, assault!
Kill these bastards!”
“Bang!
Bang!
Bang!”
“Boom!”
A few automated turrets on the core wall began firing, attempting to halt the special forces division’s advance.
But the already poised Chimera support vehicles also opened fire, their large-calibre autocannons destroying the turrets.
The regimental commander, having reached the breach, looked back and saw shells from automated turrets crashing into the assault team, causing many to fall to the ground, their fates unknown.
“Damn it, even worse!”
He grabbed his bolter and charged directly into the core factory building through the breach.
Some Becker family workers, armed with autoguns, attempted to use the factory’s complex environment to engage in urban warfare with special forces.
But the enhanced armour-piercing bolter rounds not only had attitude control, but the shattered diamond fragments upon detonation were just as deadly as offensive grenades.
Faced with small rounds that could change direction on their own, the workers were essentially riddled with holes after firing only one shot.
The special forces division didn’t need to think about breaching cover; the bolter rounds would find their way to the enemy.
The untrained workers, with their autoguns, struggled to hit the special forces personnel.
Even when they did, the weak bullets only left dents in the ceramite plates, failing to injure the soldiers inside their exoskeletons.
Meanwhile, the highly trained special forces soldiers, having reached Level 3, used their superior equipment to charge and quickly broke through the workers’ fragile defences.
Despite being outnumbered, outgunned, poorly trained, and low on morale, the Becker Machine Factory was completely under control in less than half an hour.