The next movement came from everywhere around the crater.
Hans’s Virtual Radar filled as concentrations inside Ironford changed direction. Groups that had been moving between warehouses turned toward the First Mobile Company, while more contacts left the surrounding industrial blocks and entered the roads leading toward the formation.
The underground markers joined them.
Several thousand reached the surface through the surviving breaches. Others emerged through structures already damaged by the bombardment, using collapsed walls and loading yards to enter the adjoining streets.
Matilda watched the movement spread.
"They’re committing toward the company."
Hans kept the crater inside the center of his display.
"Keep the strike on the Hive."
"Understood."
She changed to the ground channel.
"First Mobile Company, hold the current advance. Destroy anything entering your sectors."
Anton and Sabine answered first. The other platoon leaders followed.
The formation stopped several blocks short of the freight complex.
South One occupied two adjoining intersections. Vanguards settled across the wider roads while the Guardian APCs filled the spaces between them, leaving enough room for infantry to fire from behind the armored line.
The first concentration appeared beyond the western intersection. Thousands filled the road, with more entering behind them.
Anton waited until the first concentration filled the western road.
"South One, engage."
Big Rhino fired first.
The main gun struck the center of the approaching mass and opened a hole through the formation. The infected behind it continued forward, climbing over bodies and damaged vehicles before the other Vanguards joined the engagement. Their shells landed farther back.
Guardian APC autocannons followed. Thirty-millimeter fire swept the road from opposite sides, breaking apart the infected that survived between the tank impacts.
The standard squads spread through the protected spaces behind them.
Five Guardian GIs deployed across South One’s firing sectors. Their shields settled against the pavement before the MK19s began sending grenades beyond the armored line.
Seven Machine Gunners divided the closer approaches.
The mechanized squad contributed two of them from beside its Guardian APC, while the other five worked with their standard squads across the intersection.
The Army Soldiers filled the gaps between the heavier weapons.
Four from each standard squad kept their M16A4s toward the middle ranges, shifting between targets that escaped the explosions. The Conscripts stayed closer to the vehicles where their MP5s could be used once anything reached the inner part of the road.
Scouts watched the side streets instead of adding their fire to the main concentration.
Their Attack Dogs stayed beside them. One dog stopped near the corner of a damaged machine shop. Its head turned toward the doorway. The Scout beside it reacted at once.
"Contact right structure."
A Runner came through the broken entrance. The dog reached it before the infected cleared the sidewalk.
Its jaws locked around the Runner’s forearm and pulled the body sideways. Two Army Soldiers fired almost together, putting the infected down before the dog released it.
The Scout returned his attention to the building.
"Clear."
The main road continued filling.
Missile Infantry had already switched away from the HEAT rounds used against the Hive.
HE missiles left South One in pairs and landed beyond the Guardian APC lanes, striking concentrations that had not yet spread between the buildings.
The explosions opened spaces through the advancing mass.
The infected filled them again.
Anton watched the distance.
"Maintain sectors."
No other instruction was needed.
The Machine Gunners continued firing.
One of the newer gunners had already emptied most of his available feed during the advance through Ironford. His weapon stayed on the road until another System notification crossed Hans’s interface.
------
[ Machine Gunner promoted to 1-Star. ]
------
Hans barely looked at it.
The ammunition count attached to the soldier changed and refreshed with the promotion. The gunner noticed it as well.
"Still feeding."
The M249 never stopped.
More promotion notifications accumulated at the side of Hans’s vision as fresh units began reaching the requirements that the veteran squads had already passed months earlier.
An Army Soldier.
Two Conscripts.
Another Machine Gunner from Third Platoon.
Hans left the notifications unopened. The results were already visible in their unit counters.
The Hive sent another psychic pulse across Ironford. This time Hans paid attention only to what happened on the Radar.
The attacking concentrations changed.
Several groups left South One’s main approach and entered side roads toward Third Platoon. Another concentration turned south toward Sabine’s formation, while the infected farther back divided between the artillery route and the central advance.
Matilda had already seen it.
"Third Platoon, reinforce your inner side. Fourth, cover the artillery approach."
The platoon leaders handled the movement.
South Two met its own concentration several seconds later.
Sabine’s Vanguards fired from the wider avenue while Guardian APCs covered the adjoining roads. Her standard squads established their sectors behind them, with Guardian GIs placing grenades deeper into the formation and Machine Gunners taking everything that continued forward.
A Missile Infantry unit near the eastern side fired its last available HE missile.
The warhead struck between two abandoned trucks and removed most of the concentration passing through them.
Another System notice reached Hans.
------
[ Missile Infantry promoted to 1-Star. ]
------
The soldier’s missile allowance changed and refreshed.
"Additional rounds available."
Sabine heard him.
"Use it."
The next missile left several seconds later.
Hans watched the promotions accumulate across the company.
That was why the newer squads were here.
The veterans could have destroyed the same infected faster, but they had already reached the end of their progression. Every fresh unit that survived Ironford came out of the operation stronger than when it entered.
The mechanized squad beside South One’s lead Guardian APC shifted farther forward.
Its six Army Soldiers dismounted along the protected side of the vehicle. Two Conscripts stayed near the rear quarter, while both Machine Gunners established separate firing angles across the road.
The Engineer remained behind the APC.
He carried no rifle into the line.
His attention stayed on the vehicles and the route they would need if the formation moved again.
The squad’s Missile Infantry raised his launcher over the APC.
"HE ready."
Anton checked the approaching concentration.
"Take the rear mass."
The missile crossed above the Vanguards.
It struck several hundred meters beyond the line, where another group was entering through a freight road. The explosion scattered the front ranks and forced the infected behind them through a narrower opening. The Machine Gunners took the rest.
Another Hellhammer salvo passed overhead. Six shells landed inside the destroyed freight complex. The ground shook several seconds later.
Hans returned his attention to the crater.
The biological mass became smaller, yet remained alive. The company continued holding the roads while the artillery crews loaded the next salvo.
The next firing solutions concentrated inside the crater.
The Hellhammer crews no longer needed to spread their shells across warehouses or freight yards. Most of those structures were already gone.
"Battery ready."
Matilda watched the marked area shrink across the operational display.
"Continue the fire mission."
Six guns answered.
The shells crossed Ironford while South One and South Two held their intersections. Vanguards continued breaking the larger concentrations before they reached the infantry, while Guardian APCs and the squads behind them dealt with everything that continued forward.
Hans kept his attention on the crater. The first shell landed near its western side.
Torn biological mass disappeared beneath concrete and soil. The second struck farther inside, followed by two more impacts that threw sections of black tissue out of the crater and across the remains of the freight yard.
The Hive contracted around the damage.
Raptor One caught it from above.
"One. Large movement inside the center."
Raptor Two crossed from the south.
"I see it."
The surviving flesh pulled toward the deepest part of the crater. Sections attached to the surrounding foundations tightened, then tore loose as the next artillery shell landed among them.
Hans’s Radar showed the biological concentration compressing with it.
Another psychic pulse spread from the site.
Hans felt none of it, though the infected did.
Groups already attacking South One and South Two shifted almost together. Several concentrations approaching Third Platoon changed roads, while more markers deeper inside Ironford began turning toward the freight complex.
"They’re pulling inward," Matilda observed.
Hans watched thousands change direction.
The Hive was gathering everything it still controlled around itself, but that only made the answer easier.
"Keep pounding it."
The next Hellhammer salvo was already being loaded.
Behind South One’s armored line, another Machine Gunner reached promotion. A short System notification entered Hans’s interface before disappearing under other reports.
Big Rhino fired again.
Its shell entered a concentration crossing the northern freight road, while Guardian GI grenades landed farther behind it. Machine-gun fire continued between the heavier impacts, keeping the road in front of the company covered in bodies.
The Hive sent another command through Ironford.
Hans saw the movement change across his Radar.
The Hellhammers kept up their barrage. The first shell dropped into the crater. The explosion threw the remaining freight tracks apart.
The second followed into the opening created by the first. A large section of tissue disappeared from the biological picture, followed by another cluster when the third shell landed farther east.
Raptor One crossed the smoke.
"Still moving."
The fourth shell struck.
His camera shook slightly from the blast below.
Pieces of biological tissue rose through the dust before falling back into the crater.
Raptor Two passed through the southern side.
"Movement weakening."
The fifth shell landed near the deepest visible section. The crater expanded again.
Concrete slipped inward from both sides, burying what remained of the lower warehouse foundation.
The biological concentration underneath it shrank.
Only one mass remained.
Hans watched it pulse on the Radar.
The sixth Hellhammer shell descended and struck the center.
The entire freight yard lifted.
For a moment, Raptor One’s camera showed nothing except dirt, concrete, and smoke spreading across the ruins. Then the ground fell back down.
A biological marker still remained at the center.
Raptor One circled wider.
"You stubborn piece of shit."
Raptor Two laughed over the channel.
"Careful. It might hear you."
"I hope it does."
The Hellhammer crews loaded again. South One’s road filled with another concentration.
Anton kept the formation where it was.
"Rear group, three o’clock."
Two standard squads adjusted toward the adjoining street. Guardian GIs shifted their MK19s several degrees while the Machine Gunners beside them divided the approach without waiting for another order.
The infected entered the intersection. Grenades landed first. Rifle fire followed through the gaps.
Another group appeared behind it, and then another.
Hans looked at the number of hostile markers surrounding the company. Hundreds of thousands still remained inside his five-kilometer radius alone.
The Hive could afford to keep feeding them into the roads. His army did not need to kill all of them before reaching the target.
Only the big one mattered.
"Battery ready."
Matilda checked the crater.
"Fire."
The six Hellhammers fired again. This salvo landed closer together.
The first two shells struck opposite sides of the remaining biological mass. The third followed into the center while the fourth tore through the collapsed foundation around it.
Hans watched the marker deform.
The Hive sent another pulse. Several concentrations across Ironford stopped. Their directions started changing.
The fifth shell landed. The pulse finally broke apart.
Hans stared at the Radar.
The concentrations that had begun turning did not finish.
Some continued along their previous streets. Others stopped against buildings or shifted toward whatever movement was nearest. A group approaching Third Platoon split at an intersection, half continuing toward the soldiers while the rest followed the sound of gunfire farther south.
The sixth shell struck the crater.
The remaining biological marker disappeared.
No new pulse followed.
The Hellhammers began loading again.
"Hold fire," Matilda ordered.
Their crews stopped the next cycle.
Raptor One descended enough for his camera to inspect the crater.
Nothing recognizable remained of the freight complex.
The central warehouses were gone. Most of the freight yard had become a broad field of overlapping craters, broken steel, concrete, and scattered pieces of black tissue.
Raptor Two crossed the opposite side.
"No visible movement."
Hans waited.
His Radar stayed unchanged.
No biological concentration reappeared inside the crater.
The infected around Ironford continued moving, though the synchronized changes were gone.
Inside Bastion One, Kimmy slowly lifted her head.
Hans heard her breathing through the open channel.
Then she spoke.
"Hans."
"What?"
"The pressure stopped."
He looked at the ruined freight complex.
"Completely?"
Kimmy remained quiet for several seconds.
"Yes."
Hans leaned back inside the Armored Command Truck.
"Good."
Matilda changed to the company channel.
"Confirmed. Hive destroyed. Maintain sectors."
Anton answered first.
"South One receives."
"South Two receives," Sabine followed.
The other platoons reported afterward.
Nobody lowered their weapons.
The Hive was dead. Hundreds of thousands of infected still occupied Ironford, many moving toward the nearest gunfire while others wandered through the industrial blocks without the synchronized turns that had defined the morning’s scenario.
South One kept firing, and South Two did the same. The outer platoons held their roads while the Hellhammers remained silent behind them.
Then Hans’s System erupted with another notification.
------
[ Daily ammunition replenishment complete. ]
------
Hans glanced at the time. It was now twelve noon.
Ammunition counters refreshed across the ground formation. The company kept its sectors and continued firing.
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