第16章 跳帮队的外骨骼

Backed by half a year of established credibility and a relatively sufficient workforce, the first underhiver census proceeded quite smoothly.

Naturally, things would not all go swimmingly; soon, a report was forwarded to Huron.

When he received the report, Huron was discussing exoskeleton designs for the breacher team with Chief Techmarine Armenius.

Huron clicked open the report to take a look, discovering to his surprise that it concerned the Ecclesiarchy.

Some Ecclesiarchy zealots believed the local region was their holy site, strictly forbidding anyone else from entering to inspect, let alone register the population.

The census team even clashed with a few fanatics, though fortunately the registrars were veterans of over two gene-seed treatments and carried arms, so they did not come out on the worse end.

However, the census work had thus stalled out; in particular, the territory of these Ecclesiarchy domains was not small, and some locations even blocked subsequent access routes, preventing a fairly large area from being tallied.

Huron's brow furrowed and then relaxed as he directly began drafting a reply: Abandon the census task, blockade the surrounding roads, register the locality as a deep-hive zone, and await subsequent processing.

Since they preferred a toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit, Badab's Ecclesiarchy was merely a minor faction with no major figures backing them from behind—they really thought far too much of themselves.

As for the upper echelons of most Ecclesiarchy factions, even the decimation had left a few slippery fish, but he would let them dance for now.

Once he freed up his hands, he would simply have the Auxilia and Astartes encircle and suppress them, followed by a public trial, and then have the chapter's chaplain remodel the Ecclesiarchy according to the new doctrine he had planned out, and that would be the end of it.

Even with the same level of faith, one without a material foundation struggled to defeat one with a material foundation, let alone the fact that the new Ecclesiarchy Huron intended to establish was far more advanced than the native Ecclesiarchy of Badab.

Coupled with the fact that he was truly the Living Saint watched over by the Emperor, worst comes to worst he could just trigger a resolution for a global manifestation event.

Therefore, Huron's plan was simply: enjoy your little dance for now, everyone gets squared away later.

Having dealt with this minor matter, Huron continued discussing the exoskeleton design with Armenius.

To elevate the overall standards of the breacher team, Huron naturally had to find a way to equip them with superior gear, and the exoskeleton was part of that approach.

Force-feedback armour was too pricey, and other options like the Solar Auxilia's void power armour lacked blueprints, leaving him no choice but to design a barely functional piece of equipment himself.

Fortunately, the technology was mature; he only needed to integrate related technical aspects while keeping an eye on performance metrics.

According to Huron's vision, this exoskeleton only needed to avoid hindering the wearer's mobility, allow for the attachment of plasteel ballistic plates, last over a week on a single charge, and enable the wearer to flexibly wield a bolter.

Everything else could simply be left to numerical superiority and specially designed armor-piercing bolter shells.

The breacher team did not need to wage long-term, large-scale wars; they only needed to burst out with sufficient combat effectiveness over short periods.

With fleet support, logistics were also a non-issue, and bolters were far more useful than lasguns that merely spat water.

Yet Armenius, as a techmarine trained for many years in the Martian Mechanicus, still wanted to maximize the exoskeleton's performance as much as possible.

However, after Huron expounded upon the combat environment of the breacher team, Armenius conceded and began designing the exoskeleton in accordance with Huron's requirements.

This exoskeleton was designated as the MA-1 Sapper Exoskeleton System.

It had a total weight of 32kg, a maximum additional payload of 120kg, and accommodated height adjustments from 160cm to 210cm. It offered 168 hours of continuous combat endurance, provided a maximum auxiliary thrust of approximately 80kg, and required 3 minutes for a practiced user to don, or 8 minutes for a novice.

The skeleton was constructed from plasteel and carbon-silicon composite fibre, with protective capabilities primarily provided by external plasteel plates; standard mounting points were reserved on the skeleton's shoulders, torso, and legs for rapid attachment of plasteel plates. It offered good protection against lasguns and autoguns, and could withstand a single round from a standard bolter.

The skeleton adopted a bionic design, transferring most of the load down to the ground through the framework to alleviate the wearer's burden while also boosting mobility to a certain extent via auxiliary thrust.

Power was supplied by a hydrogen fuel cell, featuring a solid-state hydrogen storage tank (metal hydride) and a fuel cell stack on the back, which stably stored hydrogen gas at normal temperature and pressure, releasing it via electrical heating during operation.

A modular design allowed the power backpack to be replaced rapidly when damaged or depleted of energy, and since the primary combat environment was within fleets, logistical pressure was low.

The waist featured magnetic and fixed ammunition pouch racks capable of carrying 6 magazines totaling 120 bolter shells.

The core technology of this exoskeleton, however, was the recoil cancellation system. Through various methods, Armenius made it possible for mortals to wield a bolter with relative flexibility.

The right shoulder was designed with a retractable stock slot, establishing a rigid connection between the bolter and the exoskeleton so that the recoil was borne primarily by the exoskeleton's frame rather than buffered by the human body.

The hip area was designed with a gyroscope sensor that detected the direction of recoil upon firing, activating the flywheel stabilizer on the opposite side to generate a reverse torque that counteracted muzzle climb. The overall reaction time was 0.02 seconds, vastly reducing the impact of recoil on the wearer.

The arms were designed with auxiliary drives; when firing, the motors in the shoulders and elbows output continuous auxiliary force to mitigate recoil. When not firing, they also relieved arm fatigue for the wearer while holding and raising the weapon, maintaining a combat-ready state.

The control method employed a dual control system utilizing electromyographic signals and an inertial measurement unit, resulting in a total latency of about 50 milliseconds—virtually imperceptible to an ordinary person.

Moreover, the Sapper carried a rudimentary artificial intelligence as a master control system, capable of summarizing the wearer's habits and adapting rapidly. In only about a week, a completely inexperienced recruit could wield this exoskeleton as naturally as an extension of their own arm.

Aside from this exoskeleton, Armenius referenced the Kraken Armor-Piercing Bolter Shell to specifically design an enhanced armor-piercing round for the breacher team.

This bolter shell featured an increased powder charge, a core swapped out for a diamond one, and a modified detonation logic for the propulsion pack.

Only after the diamond warhead shattered upon impact would the propulsion pack detonate, accelerating the internal diamond core to smash through enemy armor.

During this process, the fragmented diamond shards could also inflict severe casualties upon enemy flesh, producing miraculous results against heavily armored infantry and light vehicles alike; even a Space Marine who took a hit would suffer a drastic drop in combat effectiveness.

Most importantly of all, the planet Badab possessed the capacity to manufacture exoskeletons and armor-piercing bolters without relying on the system's military factories.

This meant Huron could equip hundreds of thousands of breacher troops with both of these weapons, allowing them to deal with most enemies through sheer overwhelming numbers even without the aid of Space Marines, particularly in the complex environment of warships.

Furthermore, with slight modifications, this exoskeleton could also double as an auxiliary tool for workers—truly dual-use for military and civilian purposes alike, which was why Huron named it the Sapper.