"Chapter Master, we need to hold out for about fifteen days. By then, if everything goes according to plan, a Wind and Cloud-class Battleship on routine patrol will reach Atris and discover the situation here. I don't believe the enemy can blockade both the Warp and realspace at once."
"Given the current situation, how long do you think the hive can hold?" Evan had no time to read the voluminous, convoluted reports on Atris's construction. He could only trust the Chief Commissar.
"I can guarantee that, for five months, the hive's guns will fire without pause and never run short of ammunition." The Chief Commissar was confident of that.
He had turned all of Atris into an enormous trap.
Or rather, every world of the Crimson Tide was being developed into a trap. Once their experience fighting the IV Legion had been circulated among the worlds, their tactical thinking had opened up further. They had just two core objectives: protect the population, and minimize damage to vital facilities such as the hives so they could be repaired quickly after the war.
As for... nonessential facilities...
Beyond the icons, shopping streets, office buildings... every building unnecessary in wartime could be dismantled for resources, then processed in factories and rapidly turned into weapons and ammunition.
Those empty spaces could then be sacrificed strategically, letting the enemy enter. Within the hive's hollowed-out interior, the enemy could receive no supporting fire from Titans or warships, while the defenders bombarded them with weapons made from those very buildings.
They could keep dismantling and abandoning these areas, even residential buildings, drawing the battle line all the way back to the shelters and factories. They would lose enormous amounts of territory, but relatively little of their population.
Once the Crimson Tide's armies arrived, they could counterattack on