The Adamantite spall was a philosopher's stone. Fed into the Engineering Bay's forges, it transformed into a river of pristine Advanced Salvage that flowed directly into the Catapult's assembly jigs. The final ribs of the chassis were clad in thick, sloped armor. The massive howitzer barrel was lifted by crane and locked into its housing with a series of heavy, satisfying clunks. The autoloader's mechanisms, a ballet of hydraulics and magnetic rails, were calibrated.
For seventy-two hours, the Bastion vibrated with the song of completion. Then, silence.
The SPG-1 'Catapult' sat in its bay, a creature of a different breed than the Legionnaire. Where the tank was a brawler, this was a surgeon. Its long, boxy hull was all business, its open-topped turret exposing the breech of the monstrous gun. It was painted in the same non-reflective grey, but it bore no scars, no glory. It was a pure instrument of calculation.
Unit: SPG-1 'Catapult' – V-004 'Thunderhead'. Status: ONLINE.
Isaac named it himself. A thunderhead was a cloud that promised a storm. This was its lightning.
He boarded it, the interior more cramped than the Legionnaire's, dominated by the ballistic computer and the fire control station. The Sergeant linked to its systems, becoming its brain. The Catapult didn't just aim; it solved complex artillery equations involving planetary rotation, atmospheric density, and target movement prediction.
They took it out for its baptism, not to Omicron-22, but to a desolate stretch of plain well within sight of the Bastion walls. A target was set up: a stack of Gloom-Forged Alloy scrap salvaged from the ruins, meant to simulate structural integrity.
"Sergeant, input firing solution. Target: designated scrap pile. Round: High-Explosive, Extended-Range (HE-ER)."
"Solution locked. Range: 18 kilometers. Flight time: 41 seconds."
Eighteen kilometers. He could hit Omicron-22 from the safety of FOB Sigma. The concept was dizzying.
"Fire."
The Catapult fired. There was no sharp crack, but a deep, chest-compressing WHOOMF, like the earth itself exhaling. The hull settled back on its suspension. Through the top hatch, Isaac watched the tracer element of the shell—a tiny, burning dot—arc impossibly high into the green-tinged sky, becoming a speck, then vanishing.
He counted down on the ballistic computer's timer.
At forty-one seconds, a pinpoint blossom of fire and dust erupted on the distant plain. A second later, the delayed crump of the explosion reached them.
The sensor feed from an observing Scout drone showed the result. The scrap pile was gone. In its place was a crater three meters deep, the earth around it scorched and vitrified.
"Direct hit. Target destroyed."
It worked. Perfectly.
Now came the real test. The storm would not be a single bolt. It would be a sustained deluge.
Operation Anvil was a campaign, not a battle. The objective: systematically degrade the Omicron-22 defenses from extreme range, using the Catapult's reach to hammer the Colossi and any fixed defenses, creating a path for the Legionnaires to finally assault the carrier wreck.
Phase One: Counter-Battery Sweep. The Catapult, positioned at FOB Sigma, would begin by shelling the mountain flanks, targeting any suspected Gloom artillery analogs—the Spiker Nests' larger cousins, or energy projector nodes. The goal was to establish fire superiority, to ensure nothing could shoot back.
Phase Two: Colossus Culling. Using spotter data from the Scouts and the Ghost, the Catapult would fire guided KEP (Kinetic Energy Penetrator) rounds at the Colossi. They wouldn't aim to kill each behemoth with one shot, but to cripple—shatter legs, blow off weapon-limbs, blind sensory clusters. To break the forest one tree at a time.
Phase Three: Breach. Once the inner cordon was sufficiently weakened, the two Legionnaires and a Pioneer-assisted infantry assault team would advance under the Catapult's continuing fire support to secure the carrier wreck site.
It was a combined-arms operation on a scale he'd only theorized about. Every element had to work.
The Catapult was transported to FOB Sigma, a nerve-wracking journey guarded by both Legionnaires. It was installed in a pre-prepared, fortified firing pit, its barrel pointed northeast, toward the distant, violet-stained mountain.
On the morning of the bombardment, Isaac was in the Bastion's command nexus, but his consciousness was with the Sergeant in the Catapult's fire control. Scouting drones flitted at the edge of Omicron-22's sensor range, painting targets.
"First target: Energy projection node, grid Mike-Seven. HE-ER. Fire for effect."
WHOOMF.
The shell sailed into the sky. Forty-seven seconds later, the scout feed showed a violent eruption on the mountainside. A tower of corrupted crystal and flesh that had been pulsing with energy was simply gone, replaced by a smoking crater. No return fire came.
They continued for hours. Methodically, patiently, they erased the Gloom's fixed defenses from the map. The enemy had no answer to this. Their reach was ground-bound; his was from the heavens.
Then, the Colossi. The first KEP round streaked in, guided by a laser designator from S-001, who clung to a rock face miles away. It struck a Colossus in the knee. The limb vanished in a spray of stone shrapnel. The titan fell, thrashing, blocking a path for two others.
The second round hit another in the cluster of glowing sensory nodules on its "face." The creature stumbled blindly, crashing into a third.
It was slaughter at a distance. Clinical. Merciless. The Gloom's greatest strength—its massive, resilient units—became its greatest weakness. They were slow, visible, and utterly vulnerable to precision artillery.
After six hours of bombardment, the sensor picture of Omicron-22 was transformed. The perimeter defenses were shattered. Four Colossi were down, permanently. Three more were crippled, crawling or blinded. The rest were clustered tightly around the carrier wreck itself, the last line of defense, but their coordinated field was broken.
"Phase Three," Isaac said, his voice hoarse from hours of quiet command. "Armor and assault teams, advance. Catapult, switch to smoke and suppression fire on the carrier approach. Keep their heads down."
The two Legionnaires, V-002 and V-003, rolled out from FOB Sigma, accompanied by the Ghost and a squad of Grenadiers and Lascutter-armed Militia in the Mule. They moved into the shattered foothills, now a wasteland of craters and dissolving Gloom matter.
They met little resistance. What Shredderlings or Phase-Stalkers survived were mopped up by the infantry. They reached the inner cordon, the very edge of the carrier's shadow.
Before them lay the fallen Land Carrier, a cliff of adamantite and broken dreams. And between them and it, the last five Colossi, wounded but furious, formed a final, desperate wall.
The Catapult, far behind, fired a final, targeted volley. Smoke shells erupted, shrouding the advance. High-explosive airbursts detonated over the Colossi's heads, not to kill, but to stun and confuse.
The Legionnaires opened fire at point-blank range. Their main guns roared, the sound now personal, visceral after the distant thunder of the artillery. One Colossus's chest caved in. Another's head vanished.
The infantry surged forward, Lascutters carving into the fallen titans' vulnerable points, Grenadiers firing into joints.
It was brutal, close-quarters work, but the heart had been ripped out of the defense by the long-range bombardment.
Within an hour, the last Colossus fell. The path to the carrier wreck was clear.
Isaac watched from the Catapult's feed as the first Militia, led by the Sergeant who had transferred its core consciousness to the lead Legionnaire for the assault, placed a hand on the cold, scarred hull of the Bastion Land Carrier.
Strategic Objective Updated: Secure Omicron-22 Carrier Wreck.
The Crown of Thunder had spoken. And the mountain had listened.