"Attention, residents. Under wartime control regulations, a curfew and blackout are now in effect. All residents are to remain indoors, lock their doors and windows, do not go outside, do not turn on any lights, and do not trust anything strangers say. I repeat, attention, residents..."
The Armed Police rode in police vehicles reinforced with welded steel plates, mounting loudspeakers on their roofs as they patrolled and monitored the main roads, repeatedly broadcasting the wartime control regulations.
The Underhive, which had previously been ablaze with lights at night like a city that never slept, had once again become pitch-black, as if it had returned to the old days.
Only a few roads completely controlled by the Armed Police, where fixed inspection posts had been established, showed scattered points of light.
Most of these roads led to the nobles' secret passages. Apart from the inspection posts, large numbers of workers in bright yellow reflective uniforms moved back and forth along them, busier than ever.
Some drove heavy trucks, transporting massive blocks of Plasteel to the passages; others drove engineering machinery, moving the Plasteel blocks to the entrances and sealing the passages completely.
In the few narrow areas where engineering vehicles could not pass, workers wearing Sapper Exoskeletons forcibly carried the Plasteel blocks inside.
Underhive, Carter District.
Liam, who had only reported to the Water Cycle Purification System Engineering Department a few days ago and had just become a records clerk, listened to the broadcast outside the pipes with a terrified expression.
He had only been doing honest work for two days. He had not even decided whether to send the children to the Orphanage, so how had a war suddenly broken out?
How long was this going to last? Would he still be able to go back to work once it was over?
As a records clerk, he received an extra ten kilograms of starch per day as wages. Together with the food and water he had saved before, he could hold out for a while, but not for long.
He had worked for less than half a month and had barely received any wages. Not to mention the children under his care—they were all growing and ate more than the last.
"Brother Liam, I'm hungry." One of the children was crying hunger again.
Liam tore off a small piece from a Compressed Starch Block and fed it to the hungry child.
While chewing the compressed starch, the child asked, "Why can't we go outside to play at night? Can we go out tomorrow?"
As security in the Underhive improved, the children—who had once been able only to curl up in the darkness of abandoned passageways until even their skin had turned deathly pale—had finally been able to go outside and get some air.
Naturally, this had made the children very happy. But after only two days of happiness, Brother Liam had suddenly forbidden them from going out again. Naturally, they could not be happy about it.
Liam sighed. "Maybe. Maybe you can. Go to sleep first, okay?"
"Oh, okay." The child answered, feeling his way through the pitch-black passage back to the sleeping area.
Thanks to Liam's efforts, the resting area, which had once contained nothing at all, had been padded with discarded clothing so the children would not wake up aching all over.
Listening to the repeated broadcasts outside, Liam sighed again.
I hope the Lord Angels win. Even if he had only lived normally for a few days, he did not want to go back to his old life.
Liam's thoughts were also the thoughts of most Underhive residents. That was why the workers had responded so actively.
Thanks to this, reports of victory came in one after another at the command post established at the largest passage exit between the Mid-hive and Underhive.
Old John looked at the passage entrances marked on the holographic sand table as they were rapidly sealed off by the various teams.
No riots or disturbances had broken out in the Underhive. Even the Badab Ecclesiarchy, which had clashed with them before, was now keeping its head down and behaving itself.
No remnants of the nobles were fleeing through the passages between the Mid-hive and Underhive, either.
The brother units in the Mid-hive were doing a damn fine job, Old John thought.
The overall blockade mission had largely been completed. All that remained was to patch the gaps.
Unlike the calm Underhive, the Mid-hive was now engulfed in artillery fire.
Mid-hive, Becker Machine Plant.
As one of the Becker Family's core properties, most of the Machine Plant's employees were fiercely loyal to the Becker Family.
Therefore, when faced with the Armed Police's calls to surrender, the Machine Plant not only refused to surrender, but sealed off its core production area and attempted a stubborn last stand.
The commander of the 3rd Regiment of the 6th Special Operations Division looked through his binoculars at the Machine Plant, whose every entrance and exit had been sealed shut, and angrily slammed his fist into the barricade.
Those bastards had not only designed the outer factory grounds like a maze, preventing the first assault wave from breaking straight into the core area—they still dared to refuse surrender and make a last stand. They fucking deserved to die!
"Keep broadcasting the surrender call," the commander shouted to the Armed Police, then issued another order. "Demolition team, get ready. Start preparing the breach while they're making the announcement."
"People inside the Factory, listen up. The Becker Family has betrayed the God-Emperor and sided with heretics..."
The call for surrender soon rang out again. Meanwhile, the five members of the demolition team carried Melta Bombs, replacing all their extra load with Plasteel Ballistic Plates, then raced toward the factory buildings at a sprint under the Exoskeletons' powered assistance.
Despite the Factory's maze-like roads, the demolition team crossed more than a kilometer in barely two minutes, reached the wall surrounding the core area, and installed the Melta Bombs.
Upon receiving the demolition team's ready signal, the commander excitedly slammed his fist into the barricade again.
"Good work, demolition team. Relay the order to the entire regiment: prepare to assault."
A few minutes later, the deafening blast of the Melta Bombs tore a huge hole directly through the thick Plasteel wall.
The commander leaped up and charged toward the breach at the head of the force. "All units, assault! Kill these bastards!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Boom!
The few automated cannon turrets mounted on the core area's walls began firing, attempting to halt the Special Operations Division's advance.
But the Chimera Support Vehicles, which had long been poised to fire, also opened up. Their large-caliber autocannons blasted the automated cannon turrets apart.
Having already reached the breach, the commander looked back and saw shells from one of the autocannon turrets slam into the assault force, sending many men crashing to the ground, dead or alive unknown.
"Fucking bastards. That adds another charge to your sentence!"
Raising his Bolter, he charged directly through the breach and into the core factory building.
Some Becker Family workers wielded Autoguns, attempting to use the factory's complex environment to fight the Special Operations Division in close-quarters urban combat.
But the Bolter rounds had posture-control systems, and the diamond fragments scattered by their explosions were as deadly as offensive grenades.
Faced with tiny grenade rounds that could turn and change direction on their own, those workers generally had time to fire only one shot before being blown full of holes.
The Special Operations Division did not need to think about how to breach cover. The Bolter rounds and their fragments would find the enemy themselves.
And the untrained workers found it difficult to hit Special Operations Division personnel with the Autoguns in their hands. Even if they did hit, the weak ordinary rounds could only leave shallow dents in the Plasteel Ballistic Plates, unable to harm the soldiers within their Exoskeletons.
The Special Operations Division soldiers, who had already trained to Level 3, Well-Trained, exploited their equipment advantage, charging hard and striking fiercely as they rapidly broke through the fragile defensive line organized by the workers.
With an absolute disadvantage in numbers, equipment, training, and morale, the Becker Machine Plant was completely brought under control in less than half an hour.