Asahina was so stunned by what he saw that he forgot to fire.
"Just now... did that woman kick a Fortress-Class down the shaft?"
Chifuyu had only one thing to say: "Keep up."
The First Echelon IS units leaped into the shaft one after another. With full flight capabilities and shields, they could descend straight through the vertical space. Shen Hu and several flying KMFs followed close behind, reducing the Floating System's output in the cramped space to keep their wakes from interfering with one another. The TQ-21s, which lacked Hover Units, drove their Flying Swallow Claws into the shell on either side and descended by alternating between their winches and High-Mobility Walkers. Behind them, several Gao Hai units took turns securing the Engineering Demolition Vehicles as they slowly slid down the heavy cables laid along the shaft.
Dietrich followed but did not descend into the deepest reaches. He stopped at the first platform and personally directed the engineers to continue feeding armored fiber-optic cable down the shaft wall and bolt relay cameras onto the mineralized support structures. The live feed began to flicker in and out, but it never vanished entirely.
He had no intention of missing a single second of humanity's first entry into a Hive's core.
At a depth of sixteen hundred meters, the first life signs absent from the original tactical map suddenly appeared.
They were much smaller than the Assault-class and slimmer than the Tank-class, standing upright on two legs at only around three meters tall. The fronts of their heads had no elaborate mouthparts, only a set of optical organs rapidly building up a high-energy reaction.
For the first time, Tabane's voice truly changed.
"Everyone, scatter! Don't stay in a straight line!"
The first beam shot out of a newly formed chamber in the