Meanwhile.
Middle Hive, Sector 9 Forbidden Zone, Area D.
Compared to the thunderous artillery fire outside, it was eerily quiet here.
Andy, leading a thirty-two-man special operations squad, was advancing toward the depths at a staggering speed.
They encountered no resistance to speak of.
When Helios retreated, they had taken most of their troops with them, leaving behind only a few hidden sentries and surveillance probes.
Before Andy's "Full Map Hack," these things were no different from being blind.
Puch.
Andy casually pulled out a memory-alloy arrow embedded in a sentry's neck.
Before the sentry could even fall, a Storm Squad soldier following behind caught the corpse and gently laid it on the ground.
The soldier skillfully pulled a small portable blowtorch from his waist.
Sizzle—
The high-temperature flame licked the slightly bent arrow shaft. Upon being heated, the memory alloy instantly snapped back to its factory-straight state.
The soldier wiped the arrow clean and stuffed it back into the quiver on Andy's back.
They had refined this process to perfection. There was no helping it; they were used to living through lean times.
Even though Andy now had "material freedom," in this battlefield behind enemy lines, every arrow was a non-renewable resource. If it could be recovered, it was recovered; if it could be repaired, it was repaired.
This almost obsessive level of cost control allowed them to clear the entire perimeter of Area D without any supplies, with ammunition consumption remaining virtually zero.
"It's just ahead."
Andy stopped and slotted the newly recovered arrow back into his quiver.
In front of them was a massive blast door, which had already had a large hole blown through it by the previous Helios demolition team.
Passing through that hole, the field of vision suddenly opened up.
Even for Andy, the moment he saw the scene before him, his logic core couldn't help but vibrate slightly.
"Wow..."
It was too big.
This 3-kilometer-long Rogue Trader armed transport ship lay silently across this gargantuan underground hollow.
Though its hull was covered in the marks of ages, with massive scars left from its crash landing hundreds of years ago still visible in places, the sense of grandeur belonging to the interstellar age still hit them like a physical wave.
By comparison, the "Underhive Joyride" vehicle Andy had built previously wouldn't even match the size of a single rivet on this ship.
It was completely different from seeing it in a game; this was the proof that humanity had once conquered the stars and the great sea of the galaxy.
"Holy... this is... what we're here to steal?!"
A member of the Heavy Guard looked up at the mountain-like bow, his mouth agape, even forgetting to lift the high-explosive crossbow in his hand.
"This is only Frigate-class."
Andy tapped the man's helmet.
"If this were a Battleship, this place wouldn't even count as a landing pad."
In the Imperial Navy's hierarchy, the word "Frigate" sounds like a little brother carrying the big boss's shoes, which easily leads to misunderstandings.
But in reality, in the Warhammer universe, even the smallest Cobra-class Destroyer is 1.5 kilometers long, and a Sword-class Frigate pushes toward 1.6 kilometers.
The heavily modified, lengthened, and thickened Rogue Trader armed transport ship before them was a full 3 kilometers long. In a standard sci-fi movie, it would be a "Mothership" class entity. But in front of the Imperial Navy's Retribution-class Battleships (which start at 8 kilometers) or the Gloriana-class (which can be over ten kilometers long), it was essentially a "loli."
Despite his words, Andy's electronic eyes were frantically scanning. He was looking for an entrance.
Ever since crossing that blast door, Andy's prized "Full Map Hack" had actually disconnected. Even the Helios Group's internal network couldn't reach this far. The "Black Spirit" spiders that had performed so well couldn't get in either.
A starship, even one that had been crashed for centuries, retains terrifying levels of residual background radiation and electromagnetic interference from its reactor. Low-intensity electronic devices would have their internal circuits fried just by approaching this area.
Now, Andy could only rely on the "Standard Blueprints" stored in his STC database to make educated guesses about the ship's original structure.
As for whether previous captains had added any "illegal extensions" over the last few hundred years? The STC didn't know, so naturally, Andy didn't either.
"Found it."
The ship's main boarding hatch was not far ahead, marked by an obvious landing ramp.
The problem was, the ramp looked too quiet. Abnormally quiet.
The Helios elite units had been broken near here earlier; logically, it should have been bristling with defensive fire.
"Maintain formation. Front row, shields up."
Andy issued the command.
Six Heavy Guard members wearing the thickest armor stepped to the front, raising heavy riot shields fashioned from armored vehicle door plates.
The squad moved slowly toward the boarding hatch.
One hundred meters, fifty meters, twenty meters.
Nothing happened.
Just as Andy was wondering if the spicy Main Control AI had crashed:
Abrupt change.
There was no warning, no sound of machinery operating.
The very instant the six shield-bearing soldiers stepped onto the landing ramp.
Several metal protrusions on the starship's hull, which had looked like mere decorations, suddenly flipped over.
Point Defense Laser Turrets.
These things were originally designed to intercept high-speed incoming missiles and strike craft outside the atmosphere. Their rate of fire was extreme, their power output immense, and their precision absolute.
SIZZLE—!!!
A slender blue laser beam drew a lethal arc through the air.
It was too fast.
So fast that even Andy's sensors only captured a smear of an afterimage.
The six soldiers at the very front, along with their heavy armored shields and their sturdy T-9000 exoskeletons, were sliced neatly into two halves in a single instant.
The cuts were smooth as a mirror. Due to the laser's high temperature, the blood vessels and nerves at the break were instantly carbonized and sealed shut.
Not a single drop of blood fell.
It wasn't until two seconds later...
Clatter—
Six bodies, now twelve segments, collapsed like toppled building blocks.
"Back! Back to cover!!"
Andy grabbed two soldiers beside him who hadn't yet reacted and, using the strength in his legs, leapt backward into a crater.
A second later.
Sizzle sizzle sizzle!!
Dense laser beams swept through the position they had just occupied like raindrops. The rocks on the ground were scorched red, melting into puddles of magma.
If Andy's reaction had been a fraction slower, or if the laser sweep had been a fraction wider, the special ops squad would have been wiped out right then and there.
"Damn!"
Andy looked at the six sets of remains lying on the ramp, feeling the situation become thorny.
Fine, he admitted he had talked too big earlier.
It wasn't Helios's fault! It really wasn't Helios's fault—this wasn't firepower that infantry could possibly go up against!
It seemed the starship's Main Control AI truly intended to kill anyone who came close.
Just as Andy was considering whether to go home and craft a "reflector mirror" to force his way in:
Static—
Everyone's communication channel was forcibly accessed once again.
That playful, somewhat arrogant female voice rang out again.
"Oh my, broken already?"
"Human toys really aren't durable at all~"
"I haven't even exerted myself and you've already fallen."
Andy didn't speak. He silently loaded a special armor-piercing bolt with the largest possible payload into his high-explosive crossbow.
He had already calculated the rotating blind spot of that turret; as long as he acted fast enough...
"Hey, hey! You in the yellow clothes."
But that one sentence made Andy's movements halt.
"I know you're there, and I know what you are."
"Tell those useless lumps of meat to get lost. It's annoying just looking at them."
"You."
"Come in by yourself."
"I have questions for you."