Matilda spent the next two days finishing the fire mission. The second Phantom pair and the extra launchers finished during that time, along with the Mules and Ammo Depots needed to keep them supplied.
Hans’s armored SUV stopped under one of the surviving office towers in Cinderrow.
The building stood several blocks behind the current defensive line, far enough from the Core that Engineers had cleared it for continued use. Most of the lower floors remained dark, but soldiers occupied the entrances and several upper sections had been converted for observation.
Johannes was waiting near the lobby. Hans stepped out of the SUV.
"Have you been waiting for a whole day?"
Johannes looked at him in silence for a moment, before drawing a sharp breath.
"Commander. I’ve been here longer than you think. It seems... you have had some opportunities."
"Saicine offered me a few. Here to request for a vacation?"
Johannes looked past him toward the road. "I’ll consider that after my squad’s job is done. Where’s Kimmy and the other girl?"
"Resting from our beach trip."
"Probably for the best."
Hans started toward the entrance, and Johannes followed beside him.
"How are the other SAS cells?"
"Still looking into it. It’s a hard nut to crack."
"Or a needle in a haystack." Hans commented.
"It is. Grefort is enormous. These Cells could be hiding anywhere."
Over the last month, Cell 12 has only managed to dug out three more aside from Cell Eleven. The intel were mostly fragmented, and most didn’t offer aside from a few patches of uniform torn apart by their bizzarre mutation.
"The perks of compartmentalization," Hans chuckled. "Do you regret your words now?"
"At the apartment? Not one bit. I heard you’re finally shooting at the thing in the middle."
"Tyrus said I’d run out of shells before I can kill it. Open for a bet?"
"Not my nature to gamble. I don’t know where you got those things but they look like they can pack a punch."
"Well, it happens. You want to watch the fireworks?"
Johannes hesitated before entering. "Does the Command mind if I do?"
Hans looked at him. Johannes had spent enough time around the Core and the things connected to it that another set of eyes wouldn’t hurt.
"Come along."
They took the stairs after the old elevators proved slower than walking. The observation floor occupied most of the upper level.
Engineers had cleared away the broken furniture and damaged partitions, while several shattered windows facing the Core had been replaced.
Communications equipment occupied what used to be an office area farther inside, with radios, field maps and several workstations arranged around the cleared rooms.
Matilda was already there, speaking with the fires sections while several System soldiers worked around her.
Beyond the windows, central Grefort disappeared behind the same pale haze that had covered it for days. Only the tops of several taller buildings remained visible above the layer.
Hans joined Matilda near the windows and brought up his Radar map.
Matilda was already following the same System picture through her own interface.
A huge red marker occupied the center of the Core.
The surrounding roots covered several blocks and disappeared into streets the fixed Radars could only follow so far underground, but the largest biological concentration had stayed in the same place throughout every observation.
Johannes had none of that information in front of him. From where he stood, the center of Grefort was still little more than a wall of pale haze between the surviving towers.
Matilda keyed the fires net.
"All batteries. Central marker. Fire mission begins."
Acknowledgments passed through the channel.
Across Cinderrow, Kingswell, Aldermere and Rushfield, the Hellhammers occupied prepared firing positions behind the defensive belts.
Their long artillery chassis sat almost motionless beneath the elevated guns, each vehicle already oriented toward the Core while the crews worked through the target solution distributed across the fires network.
"Fire when ready."
Inside the first Hellhammer, the gunner watched the final corrections settle while the loading system completed the next round.
"Solution confirmed."
"Round ready."
The vehicle commander gave the order.
"Fire."
The gun recoiled hard against the chassis.
Several seconds later, another Hellhammer fired from a different position, followed by the remaining batteries as each section completed its own firing solution. Heavy shells crossed the inner districts from four directions toward the same central target.
Inside the Core, the haze swallowed everything beyond the outer streets.
The first impact landed somewhere inside it.
A deep explosion rolled outward, followed almost immediately by another, then several more as the opening rounds struck around the same central area.
The pale layer burst apart around each detonation. Dust, fragments and sections of haze were thrown through the surrounding streets while broken windows and loose debris fell from buildings that had survived the earlier bombardment.
Another shell came down directly through the thinning cover and struck the Tree.
A section of its upper growth disappeared behind the explosion. Thick branches broke apart and spun away while darker material scattered through the ruins below.
The next round landed lower.
One of the massive roots wrapped around the center split open, throwing pieces of hardened outer growth across the street.
In Matilda’s Radar view, the central marker contracted slightly.
"Direct hits confirmed."
She kept her attention on the marker while Hans checked the same change through his own Radar.
Despite the rough welcome, it remained in place.
Johannes kept watching the opening in the haze instead.
Several seconds passed before a low sound rolled out of the Core. It was too long and too steady to be another artillery impact.
The hum spread through the ruined streets while, near the center, the Tree began to move.
Branches twisted across one another. Roots pulled against buildings and tore sections of concrete loose as the entire growth thrashed around the damaged center.
The haze around it broke apart even farther. Though the Tree did not move from the marker, it was no longer dormant.
Johannes had moved closer to the windows.
"That thing is moving."
"Yeah," Hans said. "It noticed."
The Hellhammer batteries were already working through the next firing cycle. Loading systems fed fresh rounds into the guns while updated corrections carried across the fires network.
Matilda let them continue. "Keep your sights on the target!"
The order passed across the fires net as the Tree kept thrashing inside the Core. This time, the movement around the Tree began changing.
Several of the largest branches bent toward the center instead of away from it. Others crossed over them, pulling together until much of the damaged upper growth disappeared behind overlapping layers of wood.
The roots followed.
Thick sections rose from the surrounding streets, tearing through pavement and ruined foundations before curling around the lower trunk. Smaller growth packed into the gaps while loose branches twisted across whatever remained exposed.
The second Hellhammer salvo left the batteries. By the time the shells reached the Core, the Tree had almost buried itself inside its own growth.
The first round struck the upper canopy.
The explosion shattered several branches outright, but most of the blast stopped against the mass gathered around the center.
Another shell tore through two layers before detonating deeper inside. Wood erupted across the surrounding buildings.
A third impact landed against the lower growth and broke open several roots, though the main biological marker barely changed.
Matilda watched the aftermath.
The first barrage had struck the Tree almost directly.
The second had spent much of itself destroying everything the Tree put in front of it.
Near the center, broken branches were already shifting, ready to defend again.
"Target is shielding the center," someone reported over the net.
Enough of the haze had opened for Matilda to see the upper mass folding inward from the tower, even if the details around the roots were still too distant to make out.
"Keep the Hellhammers working."
She changed channels.
"Salvo batteries, prepare for fire mission."
"Salvo One copies. Been waiting for that."
Hellhammers across the four approaches continued cycling rounds into the Core, their impacts arriving at irregular intervals around the Tree and forcing its newly formed cover to keep shifting.
Meanwhile, across the four approaches, the MLRS vehicles waited farther behind the defensive belts.
Each was shorter than a Hellhammer, but the rear half of the vehicle was dominated by twelve large 227mm launch tubes grouped together on an elevating launcher assembly behind the armored cab.
Inside Salvo One, the fire-control gunner received the assigned target area through the fires network.
The central marker itself remained the reference point, but the firing solution spread the rockets across the surrounding growth rather than stacking every impact onto one coordinate.
"Target solution received."
The Systems and Loader Operator checked the launcher status. Twelve tubes showed ready.
"Full rack available."
The launcher assembly rose behind the cab and settled at the required elevation.
"Twelve-round salvo selected."
Salvo One’s commander waited for the final authorization.
Another Hellhammer round struck the Tree before Matilda answered.
The shell burst against the upper shield and tore away one of the branches that had only just folded back into place.
A second impact followed farther down. The Tree pulled more growth toward the damaged sections.
Matilda’s voice came over the net.
"Execute."
"Salvo One firing."
The first rocket ignited inside its launch tube.
It cleared the rack in a burst of exhaust and accelerated over Cinderrow.
Another tube fired a moment later, followed by the next as the launcher worked through the rack in sequence. Exhaust rolled behind the vehicle and spread across the prepared position while the twelve rockets left over the course of the salvo.
Another launcher joined from Kingswell before Salvo One had finished, followed by batteries in Aldermere and Rushfield until trails began crossing the sky toward the Core from every direction.
The Hellhammers never stopped.
Their heavier shells crossed the same airspace on separate firing solutions, arriving between the rocket groups rather than waiting for the saturation strike to finish.
From the tower, Hans could see rocket trails passing overhead while distant artillery impacts continued breaking against the Tree below them.
Johannes moved closer to the glass.
Johannes watched the rocket trails cross above the city.
"Those are the launchers I saw coming in?"
"Yeah."
"You really did build all of those in two days."
Hans kept watching the Core. "More or less."
Johannes left the obvious question unasked.
The Tree was still trying to replace the branches torn away by the Hellhammers when the first rockets arrived.
One artillery shell struck the upper shield seconds before the first rocket exploded farther across the canopy. More rockets followed almost immediately, while additional Hellhammer rounds continued landing through the gaps between them.
Branches broke apart under overlapping blasts as rockets landed across the canopy, the surrounding roots and the ruined blocks around them.
The Hellhammers kept punching into the same defensive mass from outside the saturation pattern. Whenever the Tree dragged another heavy branch across an exposed section, another shell or rocket forced it to shift again.
One detonation threw an entire section of hardened growth away from the center, only for two more rockets to explode farther down before the Tree could pull anything into the opening.
The haze began breaking apart across the center of Grefort.
Artillery shells and rockets kept disturbing it from different directions, and the repeated blast pressure carried the pale clouds through the streets faster than they could gather again.
What had once covered most of the inner Core broke into scattered patches between buildings.
For the first time, they could see most of the Tree directly from the tower. It was larger than the earlier openings had suggested.
Matilda changed to the aviation net.
"Raptor flight, haze has cleared enough. Move in."
"Raptor One copies."
"Raptor Three copies."
The two pairs had been holding outside the Core while the artillery stripped away the obstruction. They now turned toward central Grefort, staying well above the surrounding districts while their crews began building a clearer picture of the exposed target.
Matilda kept them outside the immediate center for now. There was no reason to find out how far the Tree could reach by flying directly over it.
Johannes stayed near the window.
"That’s larger than I pictured."
"We knew it wasn’t small."
"There’s a difference between knowing and seeing it."
Its upper branches stretched through several ruined structures while the heaviest roots spread outward beneath them, wrapping streets and buildings around a central trunk thick enough to occupy much of the block.
Another Hellhammer shell struck before anyone had much time to study it.
The blast tore through the exposed upper growth, followed seconds later by another impact against the roots surrounding the trunk.
The Tree thrashed harder. The low hum deepened until loose glass rattled inside buildings along the inner defensive line.
The central marker contracted again in Matilda’s Radar view. This time, she did not need the System to tell her where the movement was coming from.
Branches were already folding back toward the damaged center, but there were fewer intact sections available than before.
Far behind the line, Salvo One’s launcher fell quiet.
Inside the cab, the Systems and Loader Operator watched the ready-tube indicators change after the final rocket left the rack.
One empty tube returned to ready status several seconds later. Another tube followed soon after.
The System reserve was cycling the remaining rockets into the launcher, though only six tubes would refill this time.
"Salvo One. Six rounds available."
Similar status reports followed from the other launchers.
She changed channels.
"Launcher batteries. Central marker."
While the six MLRS reserve rockets cycled into the empty tubes, the Hellhammers kept the Tree under fire.
Matilda changed channels.
"Launcher batteries. Central marker."
The PSML crews acknowledged.
"Prepare for precision strike."
Farther behind the lines, the four-cell launchers began moving into position.
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