Chapter Eighty-Nine: Iron Man

"There's quite a lot of room in here."

The transmigrator held up his boarding shield and studied the corridor ahead. Just as he had stepped inside, several laser turrets slid out of the walls.

A barrage of beams lanced toward him. The lasers rapidly melted through the ceramite plating of the boarding shield, and the beams that punched through it bored straight through his breastplate.

Whether by chance or by the AI's target-locking system, one of those beams struck true and pierced the transmigrator's heart.

"Shit, there are turrets too."

His second heart kicked in. The transmigrator braced his boltgun atop the boarding shield and loosed a burst at the laser turrets. After one turret was blown apart by bolt fire, several more beams punched straight through his head.

The transmigrators behind him saw his skull perforated by laser fire and quickly dragged the bodies of the men blocking the doorway clear.

Then they hurled an EMP grenade into the blast door. These grenades had been issued in bulk by Wang Ming after learning they would be fighting the AI aboard the Starry Sky. As for whether such an electromagnetic pulse weapon would actually be effective against the ship's systems, that remained to be seen.

The grenade bounced twice on the floor inside the blast door, then emitted only a faint crackle of static. There was none of the blue lightning flicker Wang Ming and the others had expected.

Once the grenade stopped hissing, one transmigrator surged through the blast door, and the others followed close behind him, flooding into the chamber.

Inside, the transmigrators immediately identified their targets and opened fire on the laser turrets, which had been temporarily disabled by the EMP and were beginning to glow with the blue light of rebooting. Bolt rounds shattered them in an instant.

After confirming that there were no other turrets or defensive systems, the transmigrators began moving in en masse.

When they had entered the vast golden corridor beyond the blast door, Wang Xiaofa tossed a teleport beacon to the floor, and then Wu Xuan's enormous Dreadnought form appeared before them.

For this operation, Wang Xiaofa had even borrowed Wu Xuan from the Second Company so he could spearhead the assault. In truth, it was simply because he wanted a meat shield that could smash headfirst into the defensive systems.

"Wu Xuan, you're in front. We'll follow behind you," Wang Xiaofa said.

"Got it." After answering Wang Xiaofa, Wu Xuan moved to the very front of the formation. The transmigrators fell in behind him and began advancing in coordinated formation.

"Watch it, there's movement ahead!" Wu Xuan, leading the way, saw through the Dreadnought's intelligent tactical cameras that five human-shaped figures, each three meters tall, were approaching from a bend in the corridor.

"Shit, security robots!"

The instant Wu Xuan recognized them, he charged. He knew these things. The Imperial Truth had them too.

Every corner of the Imperial Truth's corridors concealed hidden compartments containing these security robots. The tech-priests had even hauled several out for disassembly and study. Afterward, of course, they could never be put back together again.

Each of these security robots carried two weapons: a small laser cannon and a power sword. Their casings were extraordinarily tough. The tech-priests had tested them and found that even boltgun fire could not properly breach their armored shells. Worse still, each of these robots was equipped with a defensive field generator.

Besides the security robots, the Imperial Truth also carried a thousand combat robots intended for actual warfare, a planetary drop force. Wang Ming and the transmigrators had seen those as well. Their colossal four-meter frames and the formidable weapons they bore had left a deep impression on everyone.

Afterward, Wang Ming had worried they might cause trouble, so he simply ordered their power systems stripped out from the central control console.

Wu Xuan rushed toward the security robots at speed. The disintegration field of his power claw was already active, and the melta cannon in his palm stood ready to fire at any moment. The transmigrators behind him also spotted the robots and drew their power swords in unison.

As for these "Golden Age" machines, the transmigrators knew them well enough. When the tech-priests had dismantled the security robots, almost every transmigrator had watched the live broadcast.

They understood how dangerous these things were. Boltguns would not do much against them. If one really tried to attack them with bolt weapons while their defensive field generators were overloaded, one would be surprised to find that the bolts would only deform their shells slightly. To actually punch through them, one would need an entire burst of bolts to strike the exact same point. It would be better to simply hack them apart with power swords and be done with it.

Wang Ming also drew the golden greatsword and charged at the robots in the lead. He reached the three-meter-tall security machine even faster than Wu Xuan, who had already nearly closed the distance.

Wang Ming swung the golden blade in a sweeping arc. The sword struck the robot's defensive field, and the force of his blow, combined with the disintegration field, instantly overloaded the generator.

The golden blade swept toward the robot's body. Wang Ming meant to split it in half, but the machine was fast too.

The moment its defensive field failed, it aimed the arm fitted with the laser cannon at Wang Ming's head. Seeing the red glow flickering in the cannon's muzzle, Wang Ming jerked his head hard to the right.

A red laser skimmed past his helm. Perhaps it was only his imagination, but Wang Ming could almost feel the beam's terrifying heat.

Having dodged the cannon shot, Wang Ming swiftly used the golden greatsword to cleave the security robot in two. Another security robot noticed him as well and fired directly at him with its laser cannon.

The beam struck Wang Ming square in the chest. A large section of his breastplate instantly melted away, but the blast did not knock him back. Instead, he kept lunging at the machine. Though a broad patch of armor had melted on his chest, he had suffered no real injury.

Wang Ming raised the golden greatsword and brought it down against the robot's defensive field. The crackling of the disintegration field rang through the air, and the machine's barrier overloaded at once.

Just as Wang Ming was about to continue his downward strike, another shot hit his right shoulder plate. It had to be said that the material of Wang Ming's power armor was truly excellent. If that had been ordinary Space Marine ceramite, those few laser shots would have been enough to kill them.

But these lasers had only left a melted scar on Wang Ming's power armor; they could not truly harm him.

Wang Ming was momentarily stunned by the sudden hit. In that brief instant, the robot before him activated its power sword and slashed at him. Recovering immediately, Wang Ming raised his own power sword to block the blow, then pressed down with even greater force.

The disintegration field of the power sword crackled across the security robot's hard shell. Under Wang Ming's enormous strength, it was cut apart like butter, split cleanly in two.

The entire fight was over in a flash. Wang Ming's battle with the security robots had lasted barely a minute. By then, Wu Xuan had reached his side. Seeing Wang Ming looking somewhat battered, he planted the huge bulk of his Dreadnought frame in front of him.

As soon as Wu Xuan shielded Wang Ming, the security robot's laser struck the Dreadnought's front armor plate. The adamantine armor absorbed the shot. The beam did no damage to the adamantine plate at all; it merely scratched the silver livery of "Star Wanderer" upon it.

Wu Xuan drove his power claw forward and seized the robot, even snatching up the one beside it in the same motion. The disintegration field on the claws flashed, and the two security robots were shredded into fragments between the twin power claws.

Of the five security robots, Wang Ming and Wu Xuan had already dealt with four. The last one was simply overwhelmed by the transmigrators, who hacked it into a heap of scrap with their power swords.

"Boss, you're really not pulling your weight here. A few iron men and they've got you looking like this. Pathetic," Wang Xiaofa said as he held a security robot's hemispherical head in one hand, studying the various mechanical assemblies inside it while glancing at the damage to Wang Ming's armor. Tiny nanomachines, like grains of flowing sand, were already slowly repairing the damage on Wang Ming's power armor.

"You're awfully bold. And you still have the nerve to talk about me? You don't look any better than I do," Wang Ming said, casting him a sidelong, amused glance.

Wang Xiaofa really was in a miserable state. When they had cut down the last iron man, he had been the one in the very front. He had engaged the machine in a brief duel, and that brief exchange had cost him one arm, which had been severed by the iron man's power sword. The machine's attack speed was even a little faster than that of Wang Xiaofa, a Primaris Space Marine, and even a Primaris would gain little from close combat with it.

"If just these defensive iron men are this strong, how terrifying must the real combat iron men be?" Wang Xiaofa tossed the robot's head aside and continued advancing with the main force into the ship. As he walked, he asked Wang Ming, "System shop's got them, right? Under the name E-013. The description says they're planetary battlefield weapons from the era of the Human Federation, equipped with intelligent AI, capable of slaughtering an entire planet's biosphere at top speed. They're mainly used for extermination campaigns against so-called primitive civilizations. Drop twenty onto a planet and they can wipe out every living thing there in three days."

Hearing Wang Xiaofa's question, Wang Ming searched the shop and actually found it. He read the item's description aloud to him.

"Shit. So humans during the Iron Man Rebellion fought against stuff like this?" As Wang Xiaofa and the transmigrators walked, listening to Wang Ming describe the Golden Age iron men, they were all taken aback. If the iron men were that monstrous, how had humanity during the Iron Man Rebellion ever managed to stand against them? And not only stand against them, but defeat them in the end.

Looking at the item description in the shop, Wang Ming also felt a chill run down his spine. Under no circumstances would he ever take such a thing out of the shop. If this thing ever got out of control, it would be a world-class disaster. They could only throw transmigrators at it with their lives, and even then there was no guarantee they could bring it down.

"Um, boss, didn't we forget something?" Suddenly, Wu Xuan, who had been leading the charge at the front of the formation, stopped and asked Wang Ming.

"What is it?"

Wang Ming looked at the abruptly halted Wu Xuan in confusion and asked him back.

"Security robots are mass-produced. If the Imperial Truth has six thousand of them, then there have to be at least about a thousand on this ship alone."

Wu Xuan suddenly raised the melta cannon mounted in the chest armor of his Dreadnought. He also lifted one of the machine's arms and pointed it toward a huge blast door ahead.

"The scan radar on my gear says there are a hundred human-shaped contacts behind that door. Get ready. They're about to come out."

As he spoke, Wu Xuan also raised the two plasma cannons mounted on his shoulders, waiting for the iron men inside to burst through the door.

"So many?"

After hearing Wu Xuan's words, Wang Ming poked half his head out from behind him and looked at the writing on the door.

"Planetary Drop Force Storage Bay."

The tactical lens in Wang Ming's helm automatically translated it for him. The name sent a shiver through him. He quickly pulled a large number of plasma and melta weapons from the shop and began handing them out on the spot.

One plasma gun or melta gun apiece, and the transmigrators formed a wall-like firing line. The instant that blast door opened, they would bathe those iron men in "warm" plasma and melta fire.

The transmigrators stared at the blast door, and some of them were even a little tense. But that tension was probably a kind of excitement, because they knew they were about to lay eyes on those "Nightmares of Old" that existed only in background lore.

As the blast door slowly opened a crack, the transmigrators had already hooked their fingers over the triggers. They only waited for the door to open fully, and then they would fire at once.

The blast door opened slowly. When the gap widened enough for Wang Ming to pass through, a metal arm suddenly reached out from behind it. As that arm appeared, a four-meter-tall iron man slowly came into view at the threshold. The crimson-lit cameras on its head were staring at Wu Xuan and the line of transmigrators waiting in the corridor.

It slowly raised one arm. Its movement was as deliberate as a person practicing tai chi. The transmigrators watched it, and all at once they squeezed the triggers on their weapons.