26: Chapter 26 The Defense of Vulcan-IV (1)

Sixteen rounds of magnetized plasma struck "Da Kill-Ship" but failed to penetrate its void shields; the subsequent sixteen rounds fired in succession proved equally futile.

At that moment, Icarus fell into a cognitive conflict.

Immediately after, from Vulcan-IV's Mandeville Point, 8 Battleships, 24 Cruisers, 48 Destroyers, and 166 Transport ships squeezed through.

They did not maintain a neat formation like a regular army; instead, they were incredibly chaotic, yet within this chaos, there existed a strange sense of order—

Transport ships were squeezed into the center, Battleships and Cruisers were scattered irregularly, and Destroyers scurried around the periphery like mad dogs.

The entire fleet moved in orbit like a rusty, spiked dark cloud, enveloping the entire planet.

Being attacked by magnetized plasma cannons completely enraged the Ork Warboss, Skullcrusher Mogg.

Subsequently, the bridge of the flagship "Da Kill-Ship" lit up, and a five-hundred-meter-tall holographic projection slowly manifested in the void.

The Ork in the projection stood 3.8 meters tall, clad in power armor fashioned from tank plating. His left arm was a custom Power Klaw with viscous liquid dripping from its tips; his right arm carried a Chainaxe, its teeth spinning incessantly and emitting a piercing screech of metal on metal.

His face was covered in crisscrossing scars, and he was missing one eye. A piece of scrap iron was welded over the empty socket, while the other eye was as red as blood, radiating violence and fanaticism.

He opened his mouth, and his voice, carried by the WAAAGH! field, directly penetrated hulls and the atmosphere, exploding in the mind of every living thing: "Dis iron lump world down dere, I'm gonna krump it!"

"First wave: 500,000 boyz! All of ya, land! Charge straight at dem iron towers!"

"Second wave: Warbeasts! Ram 'em! Smash dem broken towers, stomp dem trenches flat!"

"Third wave: Mekboyz, scrap everythin' dat can be scrapped! By da end of today, I wanna see dis world turned into scrap metal!"

The projection paused briefly, his lone eye sweeping across the void as if it could pierce the atmosphere to look directly at every soldier holding their ground. "By da end of today, I wanna see dis world turned into scrap metal!"

Next came a deafening roar, carrying the violent energy of the WAAAGH! field, echoing repeatedly between the orbit, the clouds, and the ground, making the earth tremble slightly: "WAAAGH!!!"

Before the echoes of the roar had faded, the belly hatches of all Transport ships opened simultaneously. Tens of thousands of drop pods were pushed out by high-pressure air currents, as dense as a rainstorm, hurtling toward the surface of Vulcan-IV, blotting out the sun and dyeing the sky a dismal gray.

At that moment, Icarus's cognitive conflict was temporarily resolved.

It immediately attempted to relink with the orbital fleet, only to find that during its downtime, the fleet had automatically jumped back to the Space Hangar according to preset safety protocols due to the loss of master control commands. Although single-ship jumps through secure channels were still possible, a lone ship entering the Ork fleet's encirclement would be no different from delivering a snack.

Vulcan-IV had temporarily lost its mobile orbital defense capabilities.

The first wave of landing Orks numbered a full 500,000.

Gluck looked up at the sky. The sky was no longer the sky; it was a rain-swept field of falling drop pods. The earth had become a firing range, and they were the targets waiting to be slaughtered.

"Sir," the young Skitarii's voice carried an irrepressible tremor, his breathing under the helmet rapid and panicked, "We... we have no orbital support. Can we hold out?"

"Shut up." Gluck's tone held no emotion, cold and resolute. "Back to your positions. Get ready to receive guests."

He turned and walked toward Chimera #0037. The hatch opened automatically, and the datapad on his wrist synchronized and popped up, its cold blue light reflecting on his face, displaying Icarus's latest assessment:

[WAAAGH! field Intensity Detection]

======================================

Current Intensity: Level 8 (Max 10)

Effect Prediction:

- Ork combat effectiveness +40%

- Random enhancement of equipment performance (Paint it red to go faster, etc.)

- Logic confusion +60% (May produce contradictory effects)

- Reality distortion radius: Planetary level

======================================

Note: It’s fine. Let them come. The more, the better. — Icarus

By the time the first drop pod hit the ground, Gluck had already reached the observation post. A dull thud traveled through the earth, causing dust in the post to fall in flurries, making people cough uncontrollably. The impact came from the north, thirty kilometers away. The moment of impact converted kinetic energy into light and thermal radiation, lighting up the horizon with a brief incandescent flash that vanished in an instant.

The second. The third. The fourth.

The impact points connected into lines, and the lines into planes. Over the next ten minutes, the plains of the northern hemisphere completely transformed into an Ork landing zone. Drop pods rained down like hailstones; every impact triggered a minor earthquake, ground fissures spread continuously, and dust filled the air.

Behind him, the Skitarii's fixed autocannons fired incessantly at the sky, muzzles spitting tongues of fire as they tried their best to destroy the drop pods before they landed. However, the number of drop pods was too great, so dense that the autocannon fire was like trying to put out a bonfire with a cup of water, barely managing to intercept a few.

"Impact distribution," Gluck said deeply into the communicator, "Report."

The datapad immediately updated with Icarus's real-time heat map. Impact points were marked with red circles, each with clear numbers: impact time, estimated hull size, and internal life signal count. Three main landing zones were clearly discernible:

1. Northern Hemisphere Plains: Main assault. 300 kilometers from Icarus's industrial city core, flat terrain. Countless hulls landed, life signals approximately 190,000 (and increasing).

2. Hive City Peripheral Ruins: Probing. Abandoned industrial area on the edge of the Hive City, complex terrain. A small number of hulls landed, life signals approximately 35,000.

3. Mining Zone Periphery: Harassment. Attempting to cut off raw material supply lines. 17 hulls landed, life signals approximately 25,000.

Total landed: nearly 250,000.

"Once they land," Gluck asked into the communicator, "what are they doing?"

Images from afar were transmitted in real-time through Icarus's combat drones. In the Northern Hemisphere Plains, at the center of a fifty-meter-diameter impact crater, a drop pod shaped like a haphazardly riveted iron barrel had cracked open upon landing due to the violent impact. The iron plating peeled outward, revealing the dim space inside.

Ork Boyz crawled out from the cracks in the hulls, staggering. Some had broken arms, others broken legs, but they were immediately stabilized with crude splints by Mekboyz or had their mangled limbs chopped off and replaced with rudimentary mechanical prosthetics. They coughed, spitting out blood and mud, and then—they began to laugh.

Because they didn't die dropping from orbit, and even if they had, they wouldn't have cared. To the Orks, this near-death experience was thrilling, fun, and very WAAAGH!

"WAAAGH!!!" the Ork Boyz roared to the sky, their voices crude and fanatical, echoing across the entire wasteland.

The impact crater was instantly filled with shouting, chest-beating, head-butting, and brawling—chaotic, yet filled with a bizarre vitality and joy. This was the Orks' carnival, and the prelude to the coming disaster.