The troops set out immediately, moving toward the evacuation point.
As this silent, orderly, and extraordinarily efficient unit entered the factory grounds, it inevitably drew the attention of the other defenders. Their demeanor differed from the rugged, battle-hardened wildness of the Raiders, and was entirely distinct from the unmistakable fatigue and tension of the local garrison. Instead, they resembled an entire set of interlocking precision machinery running smoothly.
Standing atop a reinforced perimeter wall, Raynor watched the unit silently file into their designated positions. He said in a low voice to Valerie, who had walked up beside him, "Your corporate boys... certainly have a consistent style."
"Efficiency and discipline are the most reliable guarantees of survival in harsh environments," Valerie replied calmly.
Moments after her words fell, the last vestige of daylight was completely swallowed by the earth. A heavy, almost suffocating darkness descended fully, wrapping the entire ice shelf like a sheet of freezing black velvet.
Immediately after, a bone-chilling shift occurred—from all directions, moving from far to near, layers of warped, inhuman screeches pierced the freezing air. The sounds were chaotic at first, but they quickly converged into an unsettling wave of noise. Like countless grains of sand grinding together, or tides battering reefs, it surged from the edge of the horizon, drawing closer and clearer.
Darkness stained the ice shelf like ink.
Along the perimeter of the evacuation point, several thick searchlight beams suddenly tore through the night. The deathly pale light swept back and forth across the barren, white expanse of the ice shelf, carving out swaying, unsettling fan-shaped zones.
Right at the boundary where the light clashed violently with the darkness, shadowy, distorted silhouettes began to gather. Initially, they were just sluggishly writhing outlines in the dark, but soon they multiplied, resembling foul sludge seeping from a rift in hell, gradually merging into a hair-raising horde.
The eastern defensive line, the sector under Valerie's charge.
Across the three hundred-meter frontage, there had originally been only thirty slightly anxious local militiamen and fifteen grim-faced Raiders running back and forth, reinforcing the fortifications. Now, with the silent integration of the one hundred reinforcing Skitarii and the ten Team B security operators, the temperament of the entire line shifted abruptly.
The defensive density increased significantly, bringing with it a cold, poised sense of order.
The Skitarii soldiers, organized in tactical squads of ten, locked themselves into pre-designated cover like precision gears. Moving in perfect unison, they checked their gear and propped their modified lasguns against sandbags or gaps in the walls. The charged muzzles cast an almost imperceptible dull red glow in the freezing air, resembling the eyes of a crouching beast.
While the instantaneous stopping power of a single las-shot might not match the Terran Dominion's C-14 Impaler, its extremely high rate of fire, nearly limitless energy supply, and virtually non-existent recoil made it an exceptional tool for constructing a continuous, suppressing web of fire.
Meanwhile, Security Team B vanished like ghosts onto two high points deep within the defensive line—the top of a rusted steel water tower and the flat roof of a warehouse. They would serve as the calm eyes and lethal trigger fingers of the line.
Valerie herself was stationed in an observation post reinforced with heavy steel plating and concrete in the middle of the defensive line. The screen of the data pad before her flickered with light, linked to thermal imaging, motion sensors, and the encrypted communication channels of all squads, feeding her the pulse of the entire defensive line in real time.
"All units, report final deployment status," her voice was steady, transmitting clearly to every combat node through the tactical network.
"Squad One, in position. Firing sector locked."
"Squad Two, in position. Ammunition and energy reserves checked."
"Security Team B, in position. High points clear, firing arcs unobstructed."
The defensive line was like a tightening bowstring. A cold, volatile silence hung in the air.
At that moment, Raynor's transmission forced its way in. The background was filled with explosions so intense they distorted the audio, alongside continuous gunfire. His voice carried heavy panting from stress and rapid running: "Valerie! The west and north sides are engaged! The numbers are terrifying, hitting us like a goddamn tsunami! But their formation is completely scattered. Watch your front; thermal readings show a big one moving toward you guys, and it's quite a crowd!"
"Copy that," Valerie replied without a second's delay. Her fingertips swept quickly across the data pad, pulling up the full-spectrum thermal imaging of the eastern front.
The scene that materialized on the screen was enough to make even the most experienced warrior's heart seize. Massive, viscous blotches of scarlet light, representing biological heat signatures, were continuously "precipitating" and "emerging" from the absolute darkness beyond the scanning range.
They converged and fused frantically, like boiling magma that had been suppressed deep within the earth's crust for too long and had finally found a fissure to erupt, rolling and surging toward the defensive line in a slow but unstoppable tide. This was not merely "numbers," but the expansion of a highly invasive and oppressive "presence."
By rough estimates, the vanguard of the first wave alone exceeded eight hundred. Behind that scarlet "magma," at the very edge of the scanning range, even more dense red light writhed and intertwined in the dark, seemingly endless. Within this unsettling scarlet wave, dozens of larger, brighter heat signatures—glowing almost orange—were exceptionally piercing.
They moved slightly slower, but the intensity of the heat they emitted was several times that of ordinary individuals, showing up on the thermal map like red-hot branding irons. These were the ranged spitter mutants capable of corrosive attacks—the "nails" that had to be pried out first.
Almost at the exact second Valerie finished her assessment, the cold, synthesized electronic voice in the observation post chimed without emotion, starting to broadcast the freezing distance data: "Hostile swarm entering five-hundred-meter identification range."
"Four hundred meters. Velocity undiminished."
"Three hundred meters. Ranged mutant units exhibiting characteristic deceleration and gathering postures. Projected to enter firing preparation phase shortly."
Valerie's gaze swept across the data pad, and she immediately issued a cold directive through the command channel: "All units, fire at will, clear your respective sectors. Repeat, priority targets: all identified ranged mutant variants. Skitarii squads, construct interlocking fields of fire to continuously suppress the ordinary melee clusters. Security Team B, eliminate high-value targets with precision."
The moment the order was issued, it was as if a silent switch had been flipped.
The entire eastern defensive line roared to life!
On the Skitarii positions, the previously dim lasgun muzzles suddenly erupted with dense, crimson beams of light! Countless straight lines of light tore through the darkness, emitting a low, continuous hum-pshh-pshh-pshh sound, weaving a devastating web of fire in the freezing night sky.
The beams struck the writhing dark shapes in the distance, instantly vaporizing them in plumes of pungent white smoke, leaving behind rapidly fading red dots on the thermal imaging screen.
Almost in the same millisecond, from the high points behind the defensive line, two distinct, sharper, and brighter blue-white beams flashed and vanished! These were high-energy particle beams fired by Security Team B's snipers. The beams plunged precisely into those exceptionally bright orange-red hot spots in the distance.
In the next second, violent explosions of biomass erupted within the hostile horde. Green acid and shattered carapace splattered in all directions under the searchlights—the corrosive pustules inside the ranged mutants had been detonated prematurely.
The silence was shattered completely, replaced by the shriek of las-fire, the inhuman screeches of agony in the distance, and the heavy, rain-like thudding of footsteps echoing across the ice shelf.
The gates of hell had swung wide open.