The deployment moved with the efficiency of a plan that had been understood rather than merely memorised.
In the base's main hall, the Intelligent Control Corps stood in formation: one hundred Scyllax Guardian-automata, an equal number of automated drones, and at the rear, five that stood at the dimensions of Terminator armour and carried lascannons across their broad metal shoulders like men carry tools. They did not shift or fidget. They waited.
The three Defence Force companies had formed their own square arrays in the adjacent staging area, checking weapons and equipment under their company commanders' direction, the carapace armour clicking and settling as lasguns were inspected, power packs seated, kit confirmed.
The conference room emptied.
Tyberos received the target coordinates from David and moved without delay, leading his assigned detachment of Scyllax Guardian-automata and servo-robots onto a Thunderhawk. The transport lifted before the ramp had fully retracted, a Defence Force pilot at the controls, the engine note climbing fast.
The five Astartes guards exchanged brief nods with Nolan, collected their assigned units, and boarded a second transport in a silence that was entirely professional and entirely characteristic.
Thor had already gone. He had fitted the miniature communication device into his ear, taken one look at the logistics of ground transport, swung Mjolnir twice in a rising arc, and gone up into the sky like a lightning bolt deciding it no longer needed a cloud. David would coordinate his movements from the base, directing him toward the smaller targets as each came into sequence.
The Iron Legion lifted in sequence after that, Tony and Jarvis coordinating the staggered ascent of thirty-odd suits through the base's exit approach, the thruster roar building and fading as each unit cleared the platform and found its assigned flight path. Nolan watched the formation take shape in the sky overhead, then put his helmet on.
Doom fell in beside him, silver armour and dark green cape, his own helmet already sealed. They selected their teams, a mixed column of Intelligent Control Corps and Defence Force personnel, and walked to the last waiting Thunderhawk.
Nolan's assigned target was the farthest of the medium bases, which meant the longest flight, which meant time inside the Thunderhawk's cabin to watch what was happening elsewhere through the miniature screen projected inside his helmet while David managed the feeds.
He pulled up Tyberos first.
The Chapter Master had apparently decided that a conventional assault approach was unnecessarily complex for the situation at hand. The Thunderhawk had come in fast and low, and Tyberos had not waited for it to land. He had dropped from altitude directly onto the base's central yard, ancient Terminator hitting the ground with the kinetic force of something that had been falling for a while and had no particular interest in slowing down before contact. The impact had cleared a substantial radius instantly. What followed was not a battle in any structured sense. It was a demonstration of what the gap between Astartes combat capability and mortal resistance actually looks like when the Astartes in question is Tyberos and is no longer being observed by anyone whose opinion he needs to manage.
The Hydra agents who remained functional long enough to understand what was happening became, fairly rapidly, agents who were no longer functional. The Scyllax Guardian-automata and servo-robots, arriving in the minutes after, had very little to contribute to the engagement itself and a great deal to contribute to containment: the handful of agents whose legs still worked were still trying to reach the perimeter exits, driven by a fear that had apparently overridden their tactical doctrine completely.
Nolan closed that feed after a few seconds.
"Tsk." He exhaled slowly and asked David to switch to Tony's side.
The contrast was considerable.
If Tyberos's approach was a geological event, Tony's was a production. The Iron Legion had divided its heavy and light elements by function with the precision that came from Jarvis running the tactical distribution in real time: seven or eight of the heavier suits moving at ground level through the agent formations like armoured cattle through a fence, the physical impacts producing results that were direct and unmistakeable, while a dozen or more of the lighter, faster configurations worked the airspace above in continuous motion, placing precision energy bursts on any agent who showed signs of establishing an anti-air position before the attempt could develop into anything coherent.
Tony himself in the gold-and-red suit was operating as a fast-moving disruption element, dropping into concentrations, sweeping the red cutting lasers in a broad arc, and immediately climbing before the return fire could organise itself into anything accurate.
It was, by any honest measure, impressively effective. It was also considerably more visually interesting than what Tyberos was doing, which Nolan suspected was not a coincidence.
David switched without being asked to Thor.
The God of Thunder was conducting what appeared to be an airborne duel with a rotating cast of armed helicopters, which the helicopters were losing at a rate that suggested they had not been adequately briefed on who they were engaging.
Thor had found the specific intersection of Mjolnir's flight speed and his own physical tolerance for incoming fire that made him functionally impossible to pin down from a fixed-wing platform, and he was using that intersection repeatedly and with enthusiasm.
Aircraft were coming apart in the sky above the target in brief expanding fireballs, the burning debris settling around the five Astartes guards below who were methodically working through the base's ground armour with the explosive ammunition Nolan had provided, occasionally being hit by the single-person tank fire they were drawing, and occasionally being knocked over by it, and getting back up each time without apparent concern.
"Lord Nolan." The Defence Force pilot's voice came through from the cockpit. "Approaching target coordinates. Please prepare for combat deployment."
Nolan closed the internal screen, stood from the cabin seat, and felt the armour's servos accommodate the movement. The Blood Scythe came off his back and into his left hand, the green light along its blade painting the cabin walls briefly. His right hand closed around the Heart of the Furnace.
The cabin door opened.
The wind hit the blue ceramite first, the cold air of European altitude catching the armour's shoulders and swirling past as the Thunderhawk held its hover above the target. Below, Hydra's medium base was already in motion, alerted by something or simply running standard protocols, the ant-scale figures of agents moving between the structures.
Nolan stepped to the edge and looked down.
"Hydra heretics."
His voice was quiet inside the helmet, directed at no one in particular.
"The angel of death is here."
He dropped.
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