BOOM!
With a thunderous explosion, the heavy blast door of the hall was blown clean off its hinges. The twisted metal plate tumbled through the air, smashing into a group of screaming refugees scattering in panic, kicking up a cloud of soot and debris.
Immediately after, nauseating roars surged in along with the thick smoke.
"Meat! Fresh meat!" "Skin them! Offer them to the Blood God!"
A dozen or so figures charged into the hall. These individuals were the "Skinner Gang."
In the underhives of Forge-7, the Skinners were the second greatest pestilence, surpassed only by mutant tribes. These weren't chaos cultists with deep religious convictions—they lacked the IQ to comprehend the whispers of the Warp. They were simply a bunch of lunatics whose frontal lobes had degenerated from long-term consumption of industrially contaminated corpse starch.
The Skinners believed that flaying their enemies allowed them to absorb their strength. Every formal member was draped in roughly tanned "trophies." Though their equipment was abysmal—put together from scavenged junk—they made up for it in numbers and a complete lack of pain sensors. Their combat style was a one-wave charge, overwhelming opponents through sheer human-wave tactics.
They typically appeared shirtless, draped in sun-dried human skins, with some even sewing the facial skin of their victims onto their own masks. They brandished crude chain-cleavers, spiked clubs made from pipes, and autopistols that had changed hands countless times.
To the civilians in the hall, they were demons from hell. To Andy, they were merely a cluster of moving red frames.
[Combat Protocol Activated.]
[Threat Assessment: Extremely Low.]
[Target Count: 14.]
[Recommended Strategy: Point Elimination.]
Andy stood his ground, feet slightly apart, locking his hydraulic joints. He didn't need to find cover. Against underhive thugs carrying what amounted to fire pokers, the best cover was absolute fire superiority.
He raised the freshly cleaned autogun. The stock clicked sharply against his metallic shoulder guard. No need for breathing adjustments; no need for heartbeat control. His STC ballistic computer calculated wind speed, humidity, recoil compensation, and target trajectories in a thousandth of a second.
Bang.
The first shot rang out. The brute leading the charge was still waving a rusted chainsword and screaming. The next second, a black hole appeared between his eyes. His head snapped back, but momentum carried his body forward two more steps before he collapsed like a sack of garbage.
The surrounding thugs faltered. They had never seen someone fight like this. In underhive gang wars, combat usually involved holding down the trigger while screaming, spraying bullets everywhere, and leaving the results to fate and the Emperor's blessing. Who fired just one shot?
Andy didn't give them time to think.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three rhythmic shots. Every muzzle jump was perfectly suppressed by his metal arm. Three thugs fell, each struck squarely between the eyes. This level of precision in the world of Warhammer 40K was typically reserved for Astra Militarum veterans with decades of training or Space Marines equipped with advanced targeting auspexes.
The autogun—stripped of its "sacred" lubricant sand and wax seals—now performed as its original designers intended. Feeding was smooth, firing was crisp, and the brass shells flying from the ejection port traced graceful arcs in the air. No jams, no explosions. It turned out that as long as you didn't pour sand into the gun, human industrial products were actually quite durable.
In just five seconds, seven people were down. The remaining thugs finally reacted.
"Kill that tin can!" a burly sub-leader roared, raising a scavenged bolt pistol and firing a shot at Andy.
Boom!
The bolt exploded on the floor near Andy's feet. Shrapnel clattered against his leg armor, doing nothing more than scratching the paint. Engineering alloys from the DAOT era were orders of magnitude harder than these crude, improvised bolts.
Before the sub-leader could fire a second shot, Andy's muzzle shifted.
Bang.
The hand holding the gun was blown clean off. Andy intentionally avoided a headshot because he noticed the man was carrying several usable-looking frag grenades. Blowing him up would be a waste of resources.
Meanwhile, two blood-crazed thugs had reached Andy. If bullets couldn't pierce him, they would try blades. Two chainswords swung toward Andy's neck with an ear-piercing screech.
Andy didn't even lower his gun. His left hand shot up, moving too fast to track.
CRACK.
The sound of shattering bone. Andy caught the blade of one of the chainswords with his bare hand. The high-speed teeth ground against his palm, sending sparks flying and making a grating noise, but they couldn't bite in.
Andy squeezed. The drive shaft of the chainsword snapped instantly. With a backhand swing, he sent the thug—and the sword—flying seven or eight meters. The man slammed into a wall and turned into a puddle of broken flesh on the spot.
The other thug froze, paralyzed with indecision. Andy didn't hesitate; the butt of his rifle smashed directly into the man's Adam's apple. The thug collapsed, clutching his throat and wheezing—clearly not long for this world.
Ten seconds. Maybe fifteen. Silence returned to the hall. The only sounds left were the moans of the sub-leader with the missing hand and the faint wisp of smoke rising from the autogun's muzzle.
Standing amidst the pile of corpses, Andy's red electronic eyes slowly faded back to a soft blue. He expertly hit the magazine release, caught the empty mag, and slotted in a fresh one. The movement was standard and fluid, devoid of any emotional outburst. It was almost... boring.
To an Iron Man with a complete database, this fight was as simple as clearing junk files from a desktop. Select, then delete.
Moments later, Gamma-9 poked his head out from under a table. His single eye darted from Andy to the corpses, his mouth hanging open wide enough to fit a lightbulb. He had seen combat servitors kill; it was a violent, gore-splattered mess. He had seen Skitarii kill; it was a cold, ritualistic advance.
But he had never seen slaughter like this. Cold, efficient, no wasted words, no mercy. It was like watching a precision instrument performing a calibration.
Andy slung the gun onto his back and walked over to the screaming sub-leader. He raised a foot and stepped on the man's head. The screaming stopped.
Andy turned to Gamma-9, who was still flat on the floor.
"What are you staring for?" Andy pointed at the corpses. "This trash is a resource."
"Strip them. Take their weapons, ammo, and any metal trinkets they have."
"Especially the grenades. Handle them carefully; don't set them off."
"In the name of the Great Work, we need supplies."