Warhammer: Empire Reboot

The construction drones possessed by the Vision Enclave were already considered astonishing within their own system, but compared to the current scale of the Empire's Dark Side, they could only be considered a small engineering team.

Even the total amount of drones in the Tau Empire itself would seem meager compared to Lawson's drone reserves.

Lawson acquired a useful tool and then pushed it to a scale that even the Tau had never imagined.

At this moment, Calhos became the first stage for the Holy Face Empire to witness all of this.

After the drone swarm took off, the sky was quickly covered by blue and white scanning light.

The first batch of reconnaissance drones swept across the wheat field like a school of silver fish, with laser mapping nets falling from their bellies, quickly spreading along the ridges, irrigation ditches, granary roads, the entrance to the underground granary, and the outer walls of the fortress.

Geological drones fly close to the ground, driving shockwave nails into the soil. Within seconds, they mark underground cavities, load-bearing rock layers, old mine tunnels, aquifers, and weak areas that may be exploited by the organisms that the Tyron excavates.

The materials team followed closely behind.

Markan's tactical eyepiece was quickly filled with a large amount of shared data.

He saw the entire planet as a dissected body.

Wheat fields, rivers, cities, mountain ridges, granaries, transportation lines, power plants, elevator towers, and fortified churches were all marked with different colored numbers.

A few seconds later, the first draft of the planetary defense plan was generated.

A dozen seconds later, the second version replaced the first version.

Half a minute later, the third version merged the first two versions, deleted three fortresses with excessive material consumption, and transformed four irrigation canals into a deep defensive line.

Drones began construction.

The irrigation canals were the first to be moved, followed by the granaries.

Markan watched as a barn was transformed into an armored fire tower in forty minutes.

That feeling is absurd.

It's as if someone compressed the decades-long construction period of the Imperial Holy Land into a torrential rain.

The city's orientation is also changing.

Wide avenues were marked as armored passages, narrow streets were sealed off as anti-insect killing bags, folding armor plates were added to the exterior walls of residential buildings, and three layers of buffer doors were placed over the exterior of underground shelters.

Medical tents and purification arrays rose from the school playground, an air raid tower emerged from the center of the municipal square, and the old church bell tower was preserved, but a ring of fire control antennas was added below the bell tower.

The highest density of drones was observed over the Sanctuary Fortress.

The White Church has guarded this place for over a hundred years. They know where the fortress has been cracked, where it has been repaired, where it has been bombed by the Greenskins, and where the backup ventilation system, which the Mechanics promised to repair seventy years ago but has never arrived, is located.

However, after the drone was connected to the structural diagram, it only took a few minutes to mark all these old problems.

Three load-bearing cracks in the east wall were filled with fast-curing material, the ammunition elevator was disassembled and reassembled, the backup ventilation system was reconnected to the main circulation, and the large bell at the top of the clock tower, which was cracked three days ago by the Tyranid scout creature, was also lowered down by several drones to recast its sound chamber.

The White Church applied to the Church of Mechanics for repairs of that ammunition elevator more than forty years ago.

Now, it was conveniently repaired by a group of drones, who also casually criticized the original design.

Something even bigger followed.

Deep within the static force field, several folded industrial nests were pulled out and landed on the outer edge of the city and near the elevator tower.

After landing, they automatically unfold, their support legs pierce the ground, the reactor is ignited, and the material crushing chamber, smelting chamber, parts printing chamber, ammunition loading line, and drone maintenance nest light up in sequence.

The cornerstone sequence throws local waste, scrapped vehicles, agricultural machinery frames, abandoned pipelines, and damaged tank wreckage into the shredder.

A few minutes later, the first batch of standardized ceramic steel components slid out of the printing slot.

Ten minutes later, the automatic turret base was removed from the production line.

Twenty minutes later, the first batch of low-level maintenance drones flew out of the maintenance nest and joined the construction network.

Markan stood there, suddenly feeling that his experience of protecting the world over the past hundred years had been brutally overwritten by something much larger.

He once believed that building a defensive line meant selecting terrain, constructing fortifications, deploying firepower, allocating troops, storing ammunition, and then using flesh and blood to fill every gap that could not be completed in time.

This is how empires have always fought.

The Astral Army used shovels and corpses to build trenches, the Mechanicus used prayers and cranes to erect turrets, and Astartes used their own bodies to stand in the positions that should have been blocked.

Now, Lawson's system offers another answer.

Markan stared at the newly arrived defensive plan in silence for a long time.

There is no doubt that Calhoun will become a battlefield.

The Empire's freezing of the Scorched Earth Treaty does not mean that the planet has been completely wiped off the death list; it simply means that it will no longer be subject to premature execution by the Empire.

Next, it must survive the swarm's clutches.

The Xiongwei leader didn't give Markan much time to think, and simply passed on the next order to him.

"Women, children, the elderly, and the wounded, go first."

"Men stay behind. Those who can move things can move things, those who can drive can drive, those who understand mechanics can join the drone team, and those who understand grain warehouses can go to the underground storage area. The remnants of the Planetary Defense Force will all be incorporated into the logistics front. The Cornerstone Sequence will be responsible for the outer ring, and the White Sanctuary will be responsible for commanding the local defense line."

Then, the great bell of the fortress rang again.

“Citizens of Calhos, I am Markan, the company commander of the Third Company of the White Sanctuary. Lord Lawson, the Sealholder of the Empire, has dispatched reinforcements. Calhos will continue to hold its ground.”

"But the swarm is approaching, and war is inevitable. All children, pregnant women, the elderly, and the seriously wounded, immediately proceed to the nearest evacuation point according to your shelter number. You are not deserters; you are the seeds of Calhos. Survival is your mission."

“All adult males, all those capable of working, stay. You will be deployed to food depots, supply lines, ammunition distribution points, drone resupply areas, and frontline logistics. Calhouz will no longer wait to be rescued; Calhouz will survive on his own.”

After the broadcast ended, no chaos broke out in the underground shelter.

Imperial civilians emerged from the underground passages and lined up in long queues following the blue guiding lights cast by the drones.

A mother leads her child, an elderly person is supported by a young person, and the wounded lie on a makeshift stretcher.

The static force field unfolds sequentially at the city square, the outer ring of the granary, below the sanctuary fortress, and at the exit of the underground shelter.

The blue and white light curtains resembled quiet doors, behind which connected the empire's dark side to the resettlement world and the rear transportation nodes that had been prepared in advance.

A man places his daughter in front of a light screen.

The little girl clung tightly to his sleeve, refusing to let go: "Daddy, aren't you going?"

The man squatted down and pried her fingers apart one by one: "Daddy still has to finish harvesting the wheat."

What should we do if bugs come?

"Then Dad will dig a hole and bury them!"

The little girl cried, but the man smiled and placed a small iron badge from the white sanctuary into her palm.

"Take it, and give it back to me when you return to Calhos."

The drone hovers in mid-air, recording the number of people, their health status, family numbers, and their destination.

Markan stood on the high ground of the square, watching the lines of people disappear into the light curtain.

The men stayed.

Some people had just sent their wives away, some had personally pushed their children into the stillness light curtain, and some had stood there watching their parents disappear before turning around to move the ammunition boxes a few seconds later.

Soon, the grain trucks restarted, the underground grain depots began to be sealed, ammunition boxes were sent to the front lines along temporary tracks, craftsmen and agricultural machinery repairmen were brought into the drone repair area by the Cornerstone Sequence, and the remnants of the Planetary Defense Force took over the newly built turrets.

…………

The camera pulls away from Karljos.

On the star map of the Pacific Starfield, worlds that had been marked as scorched earth are now being marked with new signs one after another.

Hermia-9, Grasse Harvest Belt, San Bartolo Low-Orbit Grain Depot Cluster.

Ranch World Innocent III, twelve secondary agricultural planets on the outer edge of Ogram.

They were already on the countdown to being burned.

In some worlds, the orbital bombs have already been loaded.

Then, a new order was issued.

The scorched earth agreement is frozen.

The elderly, the infirm, women, and children should be given priority for evacuation.

[Adult labor force retained for reorganization.]

The cornerstone sequence takes over the outer perimeter defense.

[Build a swarm of drones for planetary fortification.]

The Empire's dark side of war industry, like a black storm, pounded on the marginal world of the Pacific Sector, which was on the verge of being abandoned.

The drones are first used for mapping, then grouped into teams, and the design team completes the simulation in a swarm network.

The firepower of the No. 1 granary tower can cover the No. 2 underground entrance.

The Void Shield node at the No. 2 underground entrance can protect the No. 3 transport line.

Transport Line 3 connects to the rear ammunition depot.

The anti-Terrestrial trenches outside the ammunition pods can also lure the Tyranid swarms toward the pre-set firing zone.

There is more than one garrison like the White Sanctuary.

In many scorched earth worlds, remnants of the Astral Army, battle nuns, local defense forces, and small squads of chapters have all believed they have received their final orders.

They were ready to evacuate, prepared to personally destroy a living imperial world.

Then they saw another kind of empire!

The swarm of drones covered the sky like a silver storm.

Foldable industrial nests are built on the outskirts of the city. Reactors ignite, material crushing chambers roar, and abandoned farm machinery and old tank wreckage are swallowed up, while new turrets, armor plates, fire control nodes, and drone parts are spat out.

For the first time, the officers of the Imperial Holy Face realized that the so-called "scorched earth list" was not fate, at least not in Lawson's case.

The Tyranid swarm is indeed coming.

But this time, what awaits them is no longer a pile of ashes burned away by the empire itself.

Instead, they are clusters of planetary fortresses that cover and support each other and interlock with one another.

On the star map of the Pacific region, the red markers that originally represented scorched earth began to go out one by one.

Instead, a new black and gold symbol has been adopted.

Hold firm.