The fast-rope test began the following morning.
Matilda selected a warehouse inside the secured industrial sector, three hundred meters east of the Airfield’s outer road. Engineers had already inspected the structure, while Flight Operations planned the route around the surrounding buildings.
Its roof remained broad enough for the test, though the Falcon would not land on it.
Hans watched from the roof of another warehouse farther west. Matilda stood beside him with the operation displayed across her tablet, while the Armored Command Truck remained below and maintained the link between Flight Operations, Falcon One, and Specter Squad.
The four DASF operators waited inside the helicopter.
Matilda enlarged the target structure.
"Falcon One will remain below the surrounding rooftops, climb during the final section, and hold above the insertion point. Specter Squad will descend through two ropes."
"How long will the aircraft remain stationary?"
"Only until the last operator clears the ropes. Flight Operations will record the complete exposure time."
Hans looked toward the target warehouse.
The surrounding sector was secure. Army Soldiers occupied the adjoining streets, while two Sniper Overwatch Teams observed the roofs and upper windows around the test area; nothing below posed a threat.
Hans had watched fast-rope insertions on screens during his previous life. The procedure had always appeared simple once the footage was edited into a few seconds.
This time, the aircraft and operators belonged to him.
"Proceed with one insertion," he said. "We review it before repeating anything."
Matilda relayed the authorization to Flight Operations.
"Falcon One, begin the first run," Flight Operations ordered.
"Falcon One copies."
The helicopter rose from behind the Airfield structures and turned east. It remained low enough that several warehouses concealed most of its flight path from the target roof.
Its rotor noise reached them first.
Hans followed the aircraft through the operational feed. Falcon One crossed the last service road, passed behind a taller factory, then climbed above the warehouse selected for the test.
The helicopter slowed over the roof.
Two ropes dropped from opposite sides.
Specter Squad descended immediately.
The first pair reached the surface and moved away from the ropes, covering separate directions while the remaining operators followed. The third DASF cleared the left side. The fourth reached the roof a moment later and joined the perimeter without crossing anyone else’s firing lane.
Falcon One pulled away.
"Specter Actual, roof secure," the squad leader reported. "Roof stable. Northern access door closed. Southern stairwell clear."
Flight Operations added the timing to Matilda’s display.
"Eleven seconds from hover stabilization to aircraft departure."
Hans replayed the insertion.
The Falcon exposed itself only after clearing the final building. Specter Squad moved around the roof after landing. The insertion itself was clean.
"What happens to the ropes during an actual deployment?" Hans asked.
"They can be released if immediate departure is required," Matilda answered. "Recovery is preferable, though the aircraft will not remain merely to preserve them."
"And extraction?"
"That depends on the position. A Falcon may collect them from another cleared roof, or the squad can withdraw toward a ground formation. Fast-rope deployment solves entry. It does not guarantee the same route back."
Hans looked at the surrounding industrial blocks.
A DASF squad could survive longer than ordinary infantry near the Hive, though that did not make them expendable.
Dropping them onto an isolated roof without an exit would only create another position his army had to rescue.
"Every observation site needs two withdrawal plans."
"Understood. I have already determined two viable paths, Commander. Air and ground."
Matilda added the requirement to her tablet.
Hans returned to the recording. He examined the helicopter’s rise above the final warehouse, the direction of the rotor wash, and the brief period when the aircraft remained almost stationary.
"Repeat the test from the south. Use another roof."
Matilda looked toward him.
"Shall we use the same squad?"
"Yes. They complete the ground movement first."
Specter Squad entered the northern stairwell and moved through the secured warehouse. Several minutes later, they emerged from a side entrance where an Army Soldier directed them toward the second loading area.
Falcon One returned to the Airfield while Flight Operations prepared the next route.
The second insertion used a lower commercial structure beside an enclosed factory yard. A third test followed from the west, with the Falcon moving between two taller buildings before rising over the target.
The final test used a roof with less open space.
Specter Squad completed the remaining three without delay. Their reports changed according to the structure, though the execution remained the same. They cleared the ropes, established separate sectors, confirmed the roof surface, then located whatever access remained into the building.
Falcon One’s crew varied its flight path for every insertion.
Hans approved the procedure after the fourth insertion.
"Continue training the remaining Falcon crews and DASF squads inside secured territory. No operational deployment until you and Flight Operations complete the Ironford observation plan."
"Understood, Commander," Matilda answered.
Specter Squad returned through the warehouse below while Falcon One landed at the Airfield.
Hans remained on the roof.
The Ironford Hive had forced six Raptors to return with most of their missiles. Repeating the same patrols would only teach it how the aircraft behaved.
The fighters would return during the full Ironford operation, but only after the ground formations had fully drawn out the Hive’s main concentration. Until then, they could inspect places his army had not reached.
Hans removed a folded Grefort city map from a protective sleeve inside his backpack and spread it across the low wall.
The paper showed the districts, major roads, utility corridors, and the river as they had existed before the collapse. It could tell him where the structures should be. It could not tell him what remained intact.
That was what the Raptors were for.
The river entered Grefort from the east and curved around the city before continuing west. Farther north, the reservoir and intake systems remained tied to the same water network near the Nuclear Power Plant zone.
Several roads approached the dam and maintenance facilities from the eastern districts, though no military unit had inspected them directly.
Another marker rested beyond the southeastern fringe.
Grefort International Airport.
The airport had remained outside his immediate campaigns. Pandora had drawn his attention toward the southeast, while the western and northern operations consumed most of his mobile forces afterward.
Runways, hangars, fuel storage, maintenance equipment, cargo terminals, and whatever aircraft remained on the ground could no longer be ignored merely because the System Airfield already handled his own planes.
He folded the city map to one side and removed a larger country map from the same sleeve.
The western river route continued beyond Grefort and eventually approached the coastal region surrounding Ashbourne Capital City.
The map showed the highways, settlements, river crossings, and administrative boundaries. The military checkpoints and security installations came from Hans’s own memory.
He had traveled through part of that corridor before. The western bypass connected Grefort to Ashbourne, with military positions guarding several of the more important routes.
The river did not follow the highway exactly, though both crossed the same western region.
Some bridges might still stand. Others could have collapsed into the channel.
A large warship constructed inside Grefort’s northern shipyards would accomplish nothing if damaged bridges trapped it in the river. Sending aircraft close to Ashbourne merely to confirm that problem would be equally foolish.
Hans opened his current roster.
Forty-seven Guardian APCs.
Twenty-eight Vanguard Main Battle Tanks.
Ten HMT-90 Hellhammers.
Eighty-five ground-based armored vehicles.
The requirement for Battalion Commander stood at one hundred.
His ten Strikers and eight Raptors gave him eighteen combat aircraft. Seven more would complete that part. The six Falcons had already passed the five-air-transport requirement.
The naval requirements remained empty.
Ten combat ships.
Five naval transports.
Hans had spent months thinking about Grefort as a city to conquer. The next rank required him to think beyond its roads.
Matilda opened a blank operational layer on her tablet.
Hans indicated the eastern side of the city map.
"Raptor One and Raptor Two will inspect the route toward the reservoir and dam. I want the roads, structural damage, visible personnel, and infected concentrations."
Matilda copied the route onto the operational layer.
Hans moved toward the southeastern fringe.
"Raptor Three and Raptor Four will inspect the airport. Runways, hangars, terminals, and every access road."
He shifted to the country map and traced the river west with one finger.
"Raptor Five and Raptor Six will follow the downstream channel. Record every bridge, obstruction, crossing, and navigable section."
"How far west?"
Hans indicated a boundary well before Ashbourne’s outer perimeter.
"Until this line. They are not to approach the Capital City."
Matilda transferred the boundary onto her tablet. Several old military positions remained between it and Ashbourne.
"And if something detects them?"
"Reconnaissance only. If either aircraft receives radar illumination or a weapons lock, then they should turn away immediately. Do not attempt to investigate the source."
"What about naval access, COmmander?"
"That is all I need from them. I am not losing a Raptor to find out whether a bridge is still standing."
Matilda moved to another part of the country map.
The route toward Saicine separated from the western river corridor.
Hans indicated it without authorizing the flight yet.
"Raptor Seven and Raptor Eight will take this route after Flight Operations confirms the distance, fuel requirement, and return window."
"Saicine City."
"It has coastal facilities. Ashbourne may have better ones, but I am not testing the Capital City’s air defenses with two aircraft."
"So Saicine is the alternative."
"The safer possibility. We still need to see what remains there."
Matilda headed toward the warehouse stairwell to pass the routes to Flight Operations, leaving Hans beside the maps.
Three reconnaissance routes stayed within Grefort and its western river corridor.
A fourth proposed route continued separately toward Saicine.
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