Chapter 782: The Skitarii Fight
The battle raged deep into the night.
The eastern defensive line weathered wave after wave of assaults.
The Skitarii soldiers displayed astonishing discipline and endurance. They strictly executed rotation orders, rapidly consuming energy bars and hydrating during lulls in combat, checking their gear, and then silently returning to their posts.
Although the lasguns equipped by the Skitarii were not their standard, everyday weapons, they still fired them with maximum efficiency, minimizing energy battery consumption to sustain combat for as long as possible.
Even so, the six standard batteries carried by each soldier were continuously depleted and successively ran dry. Logistics personnel began methodically distributing spare batteries.
Valerie astutely noted that the Skitarii's combat style differed significantly from that of the local garrison and even the Raiders.
They placed a greater emphasis on squad-level fire coordination and shooting efficiency, rarely relying on individual heroics for risky assaults.
The officers commanded through concise, coded directives, and the troops responded with extreme rapidity. Casualty management was even more cold and efficient—the wounded were swiftly evacuated to the rear, the gear of the fallen was immediately recovered, and the entire process barely impacted the integrity and fire density of the defensive line.
By 0300 hours, the eastern defensive line had successfully repelled seven relatively large-scale assaults, with an estimated kill count exceeding two thousand infected.
The cost paid by their side was: nine Skitarii killed in action, twelve severely wounded and combat ineffective; twenty-three local garrison troops KIA; five Raiders KIA.
Compared to the casualty reports coming from other defensive sectors, this kill-to-loss ratio was already outstanding.
During a rotation break, Tychus crouched behind a barricade, chewing on a bland nutrient bar. His gaze swept over the Skitarii soldiers nearby, who were silently checking their gear and replenishing their energy. He nudged Raynor beside him with his elbow and lowered his voice: "Jimmy, these 'company security' guys... they're freakishly bizarre."
"Fightin' a war is no different from workin' a damn assembly line to them. Guys drop dead, they don't even blink, just pick up their gear and keep shootin'."
"I've been around the block a long time, and I ain't never seen the hardest-core Marines act this cold-blooded."
Raynor didn't reply; he just wiped the bolt of his grenade launcher with more force.
Of course he had noticed the anomaly of this unit. That uniform, almost inhuman aura was absolutely not something an ordinary security company could cultivate.
But right now, holding the line and letting more people survive was the only thing that mattered. All other doubts had to be suppressed for the moment.
Taking advantage of a brief lull in the fighting, Valerie went to the temporary "Equipment Repair Point" established deep within the factory compound.
This was originally a tool warehouse for the mining plant; right now, it was piled high with all sorts of damaged equipment.
Several personnel wearing "Far Star United" technician uniforms were busy inside—they were, in reality, Tech-Priest Apprentices dispatched from the Eternal Seeker, having undergone basic behavioral camouflage training.
The warriors of Security Team B continuously brought in the battle-damaged gear they collected. The haul so far included: four suits of CMC-300 powered armor (two with severe structural damage, two with moderate damage); seven suits of CMC-200 light powered armor (mostly Raider gear); twelve C-14 "Impaler" Gauss rifles; three flamethrowers; and various other supplementary equipment.
The "technicians" were currently performing surface cleaning, in-depth scanning, and what they called "repair feasibility assessments" on this gear.
Valerie walked up to the apprentice in charge.
He was a young man, one mechanical augmetic eye faintly reflecting the dim light of the warehouse, but his demeanor strove to imitate the slightly rushed appearance of an ordinary technician.
"Progress?" Valerie asked directly.
"Preliminary scans have been completed on all equipment; data streams are being encrypted and transmitted back to the mothership in real-time," the apprentice replied in a low voice, his tone adjusted by a vocal synthesizer to sound merely slightly raspy. "The main structures of three CMC-300 suits are relatively intact and possess value for repair and deeper study."
"Reverse-engineering of the complete structural blueprints for the C-14 Gauss rifle is approximately eighty percent complete."
He brought up his data-slate, displaying several complex exploded-view diagrams: "The most valuable discovery came from here—we recovered fragments of technical documentation from a partially intact local storage module in one of the CMC-300s, including basic assembly flowcharts and a bill of materials for major components."
"Although fragmented, it has greatly accelerated the reverse-engineering process."
Valerie nodded slightly. Lord Ryo's objectives were being steadily realized.
"How long to repair these and deploy them back into combat?" she asked. If these powered armors and weapons could re-arm soldiers, it would undoubtedly instantly enhance the resilience of the defensive line.
"Conservative estimate is twelve hours. If we dedicate more specialized resources... we might compress it to eight hours. But we need a reasonable explanation to address potential inquiries," the apprentice answered cautiously.
In reality, with the Adeptus Mechanicus' repair technologies, processing this "primitive equipment" might only take three or four standard hours, but they had to conceal their true technological capabilities.
"Plan for twelve hours for external communications. State the reason is that we brought targeted, specialized repair equipment and core spare parts," Valerie directed. "Prioritize repairing those three CMC-300s and the five C-14s in the best condition."
"Once repaired, hand them over to us for coordination. We can consider using them to enhance the assault and hold capabilities of the elite Raider squads."
"Understood."
Leaving the repair point, Valerie returned to the observation post.
Almost simultaneously, a communication request from Dr. Hanson connected. Her voice carried the exhaustion of prolonged, focused analysis, but beneath it was a much stronger sensation—an astounded excitement from touching upon some horrifying truth: "Miss Valerie, we conducted hyper-speed genetic sequencing on the biological remains of that 'roller' variant."
"The results... point to a direction we previously misunderstood."
"A directional error?" Valerie walked to a relatively quiet corner and signaled for the communication encryption level to be increased.
"Yes. Our initial hypothesis—that the infected are an artificially created biological weapon independent of the Swarm—may need complete revision." Dr. Hanson spoke extremely fast, every word laced with urgency. "Deep within its genetic sequence, we found extremely explicit genetic imprints and regulatory command fragments belonging to the Zerg Hive Mind."
"These are not foreign 'additions,' but 'source code' constituting the foundational logic of its life."
She paused, as if she herself was still digesting this conclusion: "More crucially, the mutated genes that give it its unique form are not entirely 'new'."
"Over thirty-seven percent of its characteristic sequences can be found in the foundational Swarm units (Zerglings, Hydralisks) we acquired from Mar Sara—"
"Your conclusion is?" Valerie's tone was calm, but her eyes sharpened.
"These infected were likely never some independent monsters from the very beginning," Dr. Hanson's voice lowered. "They are the Swarm itself. They are a 'disordered variant' produced in the initial stages after Swarm infection spores act upon human hosts, lacking the precise regulation of the Hive Mind."
"They retain the Swarm's fundamental instincts to devour and evolve, but their forms and behaviors are chaotic."