RTS System in the Apocalypse: New World

The pressure reached Bastion One before Kimmy finished speaking.

Her thoughts went chaotic. For one second, she could no longer feel the infected, the soldiers around her, or Yunera sitting beside her. Her body tilted toward the aisle before her senses returned all at once.

"Ah!"

"Sister!"

Yunera caught her around the shoulders and pulled her back against the seat.

Kimmy pressed one hand against her forehead. The sharper connection belonging to the Broodmother was gone, but the pressure left by the Hive continued spreading through Ironford.

"The Hive..." Her breathing shortened. "It’s angry."

The same wave crossed the First Mobile Company.

Veteran squads held their positions, though several soldiers tightened their grips around their weapons when the sensation passed through them.

The newly trained replacements showed it more clearly. Some braced against the Guardian APCs or lowered their heads until the ringing faded, but none abandoned their assigned roads.

Inside the Armored Command Truck, the pressure touched Hans and disappeared almost immediately. The System suppressed it before it could settle.

Matilda’s hand stopped over the operational display. Callum stood beside the rear door, his attention still on the feeds coming from the company.

"Psychic pressure across all platoons," Matilda reported.

"Current condition?"

"All units remain operational. The newer squads are taking longer to recover."

"What do you recommend?"

"Continue. The Broodmother is down, and the Hive has already committed roughly one million infected. Withdrawal gives it time to reorganize the district and hide the important contacts again."

Hans watched the surface and underground markers crowding the five-kilometer display.

"Proceed."

Matilda transmitted the decision.

South One and South Two confirmed their positions. The other platoons answered several seconds later.

The wave reached Specter Squad while they crossed the next road. Chancel’s step shortened, but Warden steadied her without breaking pace.

"Still functional," Chancel reported.

A nearby Guardian APC opened its rear door. The male Medic pair assigned to South One crossed the protected space toward Bastion One after Yunera called for them.

Both reached the vehicle before the next pulse came. The second wave spread farther and struck harder.

One Medic caught the edge of Bastion One’s open door. His partner stopped beside him, pressing a hand against the side of his helmet as the wave cut off whatever he was about to say.

Across the company, several newly trained soldiers dropped onto one knee.

Others struck the sides of their APCs or reached for the nearest wall until their thoughts cleared.

The Medics recovered almost as quickly. They entered Bastion One and moved toward Kimmy without waiting for another instruction. One opened his bio-scanner while the other checked her breathing and pupils.

"She’s conscious."

"My head..." Kimmy pressed both hands against it. "It feels like everything is shouting."

Yunera kept hold of her shoulder.

"Can you block it?"

Kimmy shook her head.

"It isn’t speaking to me."

Another wave crossed Ironford. This time, the infected answered.

Every hostile marker around the Hive changed at once.

Those already on the surface stopped where they stood. Their bodies stiffened, heads turning toward different sections of the district before they broke into motion again.

Some entered the roads. Others crashed through doors, windows, and fences instead of following the open routes. Glass broke across several factory blocks. Metal shutters bent inward as infected threw themselves against them, widening new paths for the masses behind.

Hans watched thousands of underground markers begin to converge.

They did not move directly toward the company. The contacts gathered along narrow lines below the streets, merging around old sewer routes, drainage channels, utility passages, and buried pipelines.

Their depth started changing.

"They’re coming up," Hans said.

Matilda tracked the rising markers.

"Across the whole district?"

"Only inside the ring around the Hive."

The rising markers stopped roughly two kilometers from the Hive.

One of the Striker feeds caught the first rupture.

The center of a service road lifted several centimeters before splitting from one end to the other. Asphalt broke around an old drainage pipe as dark tissue tightened across its outer surface.

Layers of flesh covered the pipe.

Thick strands wrapped around the metal joints and concrete supports, using the buried infrastructure as a frame. When the tissue contracted, it pulled the entire section upward.

The road burst open. Concrete fragments rolled toward the sidewalks while the pipe tore apart along its length. The growth continued rising through the opening, forming a thick, ribbed column covered in folds of wet tissue.

Its upper section split.

The first Runner climbed through before the structure fully opened.

More infected climbed after it.

They used the ridges along its inner walls as footholds, reaching the road in seconds before separating toward the surrounding intersections. Ordinary infected began forcing themselves out behind them.

A second rupture opened under a factory yard.

The concrete floor rose, cracked, then folded outward when another flesh-covered utility line tore through it. A third burst from an abandoned pumping station. Another pushed through the wall of a collapsed warehouse where an underground maintenance route passed close to the surface.

More Striker feeds filled the operational display as other rupture points opened across Ironford.

Nydus worms? Hans scoffed. Different structure, same damned idea.

The third psychic wave reached the company and every newly opened structure at once.

Kimmy cried out again.

The Medics flinched beside her, one losing hold of the scanner before catching it against his chest. Outside Bastion One, the soldiers braced through the pressure while the infected emerging across Ironford changed direction as one.

The first groups rushed toward South One.

Others divided toward South Two and the outer platoons, no longer limited to the prepared firing lanes. The Hive sent each breach toward a different part of the company.

"It’s commanding them through the waves," Kimmy managed. "Every time it sends one, the infected change."

"The growth stops inside that ring," Hans said.

"But the infected do not," Kimmy answered.

"Raptor Three. Pumping-station breach widening. Restricted structures inside the blast area."

The feed showed the service road lifting around the buried pipeline. More roads were starting to rise across Ironford.

"Preservation restrictions lifted," Hans decided. "Destroy every route the Hive uses."

Matilda opened the battlefield channel.

"All elements, preservation restrictions inside Ironford are lifted. Keep the recovery lane intact. Collapse the active breaches and the routes feeding them."

The Raptors acted first.

Raptor Three rolled toward the pumping station. Its pilot marked the point where the rising structure joined the buried pipeline.

The missile struck before the opening fully separated.

Concrete, flesh, and sections of metal pipe disappeared inside the explosion. The road collapsed into the space below, crushing the Runners gathered near the surface and sealing the passage under several meters of debris.

"Three. Breach closed."

Raptor Four descended toward the factory yard.

Its missile entered through the concrete as the second structure pushed upward. The detonation split the growth from its underground route. The center of the yard fell into the damaged maintenance passage beneath it.

Raptors One and Two left the ruined Broodmother position and separated toward the next openings.

"One. Two mouths along the same drainage line. Taking the junction."

Raptor One’s missile struck where the buried route divided beneath an abandoned utility building. The entire structure folded inward, bringing both sections down with it.

Raptor Two crossed another rupture farther south.

The opening released several hundred infected before Raptor Two reached it, but the flesh-covered column stayed exposed above the road. Its missile entered through the side and detonated below the surface, tearing the structure apart before the next group could climb through.

Raptors Five and Six held the higher ring only until their Radars caught two more convergence points near the edge of the Hive’s reach.

Both fighters rolled into separate attacks as the pavement started to rise. Their missiles struck the forming breaches before the structures opened, collapsing the routes while the underground markers were still packed below.

The pair climbed back into their scanning routes.

The ten Strikers split into five sections around the surface groups.

Each Apache pair took the concentrations emerging inside its existing area. Rockets struck the largest gatherings near the breaches, while their cannons swept across the Runners scattering into the adjoining streets.

The six Hellhammer crews received six surface zones above the densest underground markers. Their guns elevated while the crews completed the firing solutions.

"Six solutions complete."

"Battery ready."

The first six shells left almost together.

They struck the roads, factory yards, and buildings above the concentrations. Pavement collapsed into the spaces below, while a warehouse fell across one of the larger marker clusters.

The second salvo landed farther inside Ironford.

Hans watched entire lines of underground markers stop, scatter, or disappear under the impacts.

The next psychic wave crossed the battlefield.

The pilots held their attack routes. At the artillery positions, the Hellhammer crews continued through another loading cycle. The company’s outer positions held through the pressure.

Inside Bastion One, Kimmy folded forward between the Medics.

Both men stiffened with the wave, though they kept their hands on Kimmy and the scanner. They resumed the examination once their thoughts cleared.

Across Ironford, the surviving breaches reacted to the pulse.

The infected pouring through them changed direction. Groups rushing toward the prepared lanes split toward the company’s sides instead, while others turned toward the artillery positions farther behind.

"It is redirecting the surfaced groups toward our support elements."

She shifted the company sectors across the display.

"Third and Fourth Platoons, protect the artillery approaches. South One and South Two, close the sides. Fifth Platoon, hold the recovery lane and Command. Strikers, keep the surfaced concentrations off the support line."

Vanguards left the original firing lanes and occupied the wider intersections leading around the company. Guardian APCs moved through separate streets, carrying the infantry toward positions where they could block the redirected groups.

The Hellhammers did not stop firing.

Their next salvo crossed above the moving platoons and struck another line of underground markers before it reached a rupture point.

Near South One, Specter Squad broke into a full sprint.

Warden released Chancel once her footing settled. The four DASFs cleared two blocks in seconds and entered South One’s forward lane before the first Runner reached the street.

The infected emerging behind them never came close.

"Specter Actual entering the line."

"South One receives."

Anton’s Vanguards left a passage between them. Specter Squad crossed without slowing, then separated behind the armored formation while South One closed the route again.

The breach behind them stayed active for several more seconds.

Raptor Five marked it.

A Striker section reached the opening, firing into the infected crowding it. A Hellhammer shell landed immediately beyond the structure and collapsed the underground path feeding it.

The flesh-covered column folded into the crater, and no further infected emerged.

"Advance behind the bombardment," Hans ordered. "Find the main body and destroy it."

The next Hellhammer salvo crossed Ironford as the First Mobile Company moved toward the Hive.

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