Scarface opened his eyes and found himself amid a field of ruins.
He saw the others' lips moving, as if they were shouting something, but all he could hear was a ringing in his ears.
He looked down at the Auspex.
The screen was scrambled.
"Fuck!" With his only working hand, his right, Scarface swung the Auspex down and smashed it against the ground.
Once, twice, three times.
The Machine Spirit seemed to respond. The screen flickered and partially recovered.
But Scarface thought he would have been better off without it.
The Auspex showed enemies packed so tightly they filled the entire screen!
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! How many drones do they have?!" Scarface's voice trembled.
Suddenly, a much heavier explosion rocked the rooftop. A drone slammed into a Las-cannon emplacement and ignited its power cell. The entire gun blew apart into twisted chunks of metal, which rolled off the rooftop and crashed to the ground.
The gunner inside had died peacefully, without even having time to scream.
"Quick! Get the Manticore Tank out!" Scarface grabbed a communicator and roared.
Soon, an engine rumbled through the underground passage, and two gang members drove a Manticore missile tank out into the open.
But the two gang members soon realized they had a serious problem.
"Which one are we supposed to shoot?" one of them asked.
The Manticore missile tank was the gang's trump card. The boss treasured it and would never bring it out unless absolutely necessary.
But it only had four missiles!
How many drones were on the Auspex?!
What good would four missiles do?!
Even with a Heavy Bolter mounted on it, it wouldn't do a damn thing.
The two gang members exchanged a glance and made the wisest decision they could: run!
As for the gang's valuable property... it belonged to the gang. Their lives belonged to them.
Meanwhile, Scarface never saw the Anti-Aircraft Missile he had been anxiously waiting for, nor did he receive any reports.
Just as he was wondering what was going on, his communicator crackled to life.
"Boss! The enemy's in the sky! They're all little planes! There are too many! We can't hold out!"
A moment later, all he could hear through the communicator was harsh static and a succession of explosions. There was no reply.
Scarface was about to curse them out for being so useless when he saw a drab-gray drone dive toward the crowd nearby and crash into them.
All twelve watchtowers had been blown up. The rooftop Las-cannons were scrap metal, and the heavy machine-gun crews were either dead or fleeing.
The underlings who remained were either dazed by the drones' bombs, huddling and trembling behind cover,
or running around like madmen, with no thought of fighting.
Now and then, a few Lasgun shots struck the armored vehicles on the bridge, throwing off a couple of sparks without leaving a mark.
The next moment, more drones swooped down, targeting the remaining gun emplacements and snuffing out the last sparks of resistance.
Scarface slumped to the ground, staring at the drones swarming through the sky, the Armored Vehicle convoy crossing the bridge, and the burning bodies and ruins around him. His eyes were vacant.
"It's over. It's all over..." he murmured, staring blankly.
Suddenly, another drone dived toward him. He didn't move—not even closing his eyes.
The drone crashed beside his feet and exploded violently. The blast hurled him through the air, and then came the searing pain of his shattered leg.
He was still alive, but his fate was worse than death. All he could do was lie there and watch his territory get crushed to pieces.
The fleeing gang members surged past. Some stepped on his hand, others trampled his shin, and not one of them spared him a glance.
At last, a chunk of flying concrete smashed into his back. Scarface's scream cut off, swallowed up completely by the chaos.
In the factory's main control room, Jack Norton, the Iron Hand Gang's boss—"Iron Fist"—slammed his fist into the console.
The metal surface caved in.
Jack Norton looked up at the surveillance screens, his face livid.
He grabbed another communicator and called the Silverthorn House directly.
The call connected, but the only response was a scornful voice: "Useless. You must hold the factory. If you can't, you know what will happen."
The call ended.
"Fuck!" Jack Norton hurled the communicator to the floor.
"Boss, what do we do now?" his deputy asked.
Jack Norton stared at the screen for a long while, then gritted his teeth and gave the order.
"Pull everyone into the factory buildings. There's plenty of room inside for us to fight them again."
"What about the walls...?"
"Forget them." Jack Norton gritted his teeth. "I refuse to believe they won't send people in to mop up!"
"The Promethium Factory is enormous, with wide roads, but the buildings are nowhere near spacious enough for drones to fly around freely."
"If we can drag them into a street fight, those regular troops' Armored Vehicles and drones will be far less effective."
But Jack Norton overlooked one thing: anything he could think of, Fu Haoran could think of too.
At the bridgehead, Wade gripped the steering wheel, staring at the factory ahead in stunned disbelief.
Just moments ago, he had been agonizing over whether to order an attack. Then the factory's watchtowers began exploding one after another. The Las-cannons' blasts lit up the rooftops, and drones swarmed, wheeled, dove, and exploded, their flames coloring half the sky red.
The soldiers exchanged looks. No one spoke, but they all had the same question in their eyes: was this the signal the governor had mentioned?
Wade had also wondered why Fu Haoran hadn't explained what the signal would be. Now he understood why the governor hadn't said more.
Even a blind man could see this signal.
He took a deep breath, pressed the comms button, and shouted, "What are you all standing around for?! Everyone get ready! We're going in!"
Five Bison heavy armored personnel carriers led the way, followed by fifty-two modified Humvees.
Though, strictly speaking, only the Humvees' chassis remained. Fu Haoran had already used the STC to print a whole new set of bodies.
So even though the Humvee was "obsolete" 2K technology, its Plasteel body could easily withstand a direct hit from a low-powered Lasgun.
The bridge was completely clear. There was no machine-gun fire, no Las-cannon bombardment, not even a decent attempt at resistance.
Wade spotted gang members by the roadside trying to raise a man-portable rocket launcher. The moment half a head appeared, two drones swooped down.
One knocked the rocket launcher away, while the other crashed straight into a man. The blast flung the gang members nearby off their feet.
"Melta Cannons ready!" Wade bellowed.
The lead Bison Armored Vehicle was equipped with a Melta Cannon. The instant it neared the gate, it fired.
The scorching Melta beam melted through the Plasteel gate, which was immediately rammed open.
The vehicle didn't slow down as it charged into the factory, its tracks grinding over guns and bodies with a piercing squeal.
Its mounted Bolter opened fire first, punching through the concrete barricade. The gang members hiding behind it were blasted apart along with the wall, spraying blood and flesh across the surface.
The Twin-linked Heavy Bolter swept across the area. Anyone it hit was blown to pieces, leaving no intact corpses behind.
A gang underboss hid behind a heavy iron door, clutching a Lasgun and trembling, convinced he could survive the attack.
Then the Bison smashed right through the door, its tracks rolling over him. The brittle crack of his bones mingled with the rumble of the vehicle, then vanished in an instant.
The factory was in utter chaos. Gang members ran around like headless flies, wailing and screaming. Some tried to organize a counterattack, but as soon as three of them gathered, three or five drones swooped down and saturated them with explosions, blasting them into a bloody mess.
However, Wade soon realized something was wrong.
"Why are there so few of them? Did they all escape?"
Wade soon got his answer.
"Colonel, the Iron Hand Gang's remnants have all taken refuge inside the factory buildings. What do we do?"
Wade's expression darkened instantly.
The factory buildings could easily hold over a hundred thousand people. With their small force, they'd have no advantage going in—and might even be marching to their deaths. What were they supposed to do now?
Before you continue