The Bastion's force assembled in the grey pre-dawn light, a false dawn under the eternal haze. Isaac had split them into three elements, a refinement of the Nexus assault.
Element Sledgehammer: The fire support team. M-002 (brought back from garrison duty) and M-003 manned the old, clunky Mark-0 Mortar. They carried all three standard Projected Charges. Their job was suppression and area denial, targeting the Effigy cluster from maximum range.
Element Chisel: The assault team. M-001, M-013, and M-014. They carried the two Disruptor Shells and the Purification Beacon—reconfigured now as an Excavation & Stabilization Node. Their mission: advance under cover of the bombardment, deploy the Disruptor Shells at close range against the Effigies, then breach the subsurface cache.
Element Anvil: Isaac himself, with M-004, M-005, and M-006. The mobile reserve and close fire support. They would advance behind the Chisel, ready to plug gaps, eliminate bypassed threats, and secure the perimeter once the cache was open.
The Armadillo drone, SD-003, would act as a forward observer, its durable body and ground-penetrating radar guiding the mortar fire and monitoring for subterranean surprises.
They moved out in the dead stillness, the only sound the crunch of boots on vitrified earth. The journey to the graveyard was a tense, silent pilgrimage. Every shadowed rock spire felt like an ambush point, but the eastern Gloom Convergence remained quiescent, its attention elsewhere.
They reached the low rise overlooking the crypt field. The Effigies stood among the stones, silent sentinels. The broken watchtower speared the sky, its last blue light a fading heartbeat. The Armadillo, already in position two hundred meters to the south, sent a confirming ping.
Isaac settled behind a spine of rock, his plasma pistol cold in his hand. He opened the command channel. "All elements, final check. Sledgehammer, report."
"Loaded and ranged. Awaiting firing solution," M-002's flat tone replied.
"Chisel, report."
"Ready to advance on your mark,"from M-001.
"Anvil, standing by."
He took a breath,the stale air tasting of ash. "SD-003, paint the primary cluster."
The drone emitted a focused radar pulse. On Isaac's map and, he presumed, in the mortar team's targeting view, four of the six Effigies glowed with a soft red outline as they stood near the central platform.
"Sledgehammer. Fire for effect. Three rounds, rapid fire. Chisel, advance on the first impact."
"Acknowledged."
A tense five seconds passed. Then, the deep, familiar THUMP-WHOOSH of the mortar.
The first shell arced high, a black dot against the gloom. It plummeted down and struck ten meters short of the clustered Effigies, detonating with a ground-shaking BOOM that kicked up a cloud of shattered stone and dust.
The Effigies didn't startle. They turned their blank faces toward the impact as one.
"Chisel, go!"
M-001 and his two units broke from cover, sprinting low and fast down the slope, using the dust cloud as partial cover. They carried the heavy, humping Disruptor Shells like sacred, dangerous relics.
THUMP-WHOOSH… BOOM! The second mortar round landed closer, five meters off. Shrapnel pinged off the stony hide of the nearest Effigy, scoring white marks but not piercing.
The creatures reacted. The one that had been struck raised its arms and brought them down.
THOOM.
A seismic spike erupted from the ground not where the mortar team was, but directly in the path of the advancing Chisel team. M-014 saw it, dove sideways, but the spike grazed his leg. There was a sickening crack of synthetic bone. The unit went down, clutching its leg.
"Anvil! Suppressing fire on that Effigy! Chisel, keep moving!" Isaac barked, rising from his own cover.
M-004, M-005, and M-006 stood and fired a volley. Three musket balls sparked against the Effigy's torso. It staggered, its seismic ritual interrupted.
M-001 and M-013 didn't pause. They leaped over the fallen spike and closed the distance. The Effigies, now fully aware of the ground threat, began to shamblingly advance to meet them, stone fists raising for another slam.
THUMP-WHOOSH… BOOM! The third and final mortar shell landed almost perfectly, right in the midst of three converging Effigies. The explosion blew one off its feet, shattering an arm. The other two were buffeted by the concussive force.
"Now, Chisel! Use the Disruptors!"
M-001 skidded to a halt forty meters from the advancing stone line. He hefted a Disruptor Shell, armed it with a twist of its cap, and hurled it underhand, not at an Effigy, but at the ground between them.
M-013 did the same, targeting the other flank.
The spheres landed with dull thuds. For a second, nothing.
Then, they detonated. But there was no fire, no shrapnel cloud. Instead, a wave of silent, visible distortion erupted from each point of impact—a rippling, violet-black wave of anti-energy. It washed over the Effigies.
The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic to them. The glowing green seams in their faces flickered and died. Their movements, already ponderous, seized up as if the earth itself had turned to glue. The one mid-slam froze, its fists hovering above the ground. The energy that animated them, that let them command the stone, was scrambled.
"They're disrupted! Assault team, close and destroy! Anvil, advance and support!"
Isaac led his reserve team down the slope at a run. The Chisel team was already among the frozen Effigies. M-001 drove his bayonet into the seam of the closest one, levering with all his mechanical strength. The stone cracked open like an egg, revealing a hollow interior filled with fibrous black mold that withered to dust upon exposure. M-013, ignoring his wounded companion, smashed the head of another with his musket butt.
It was brutal, efficient slaughter. The Disruptors hadn't killed them, but they had turned them from terrors into statues. In thirty seconds, four of the six were shattered piles of inert rock.
The two remaining Effigies, on the far edges of the Disruptor blasts, were only partially affected. They moved slowly, clumsily, but they were still a threat. One managed a weak stomp. A small, jagged rock jutted from the earth, tripping M-013.
The other turned its fading glow toward Isaac.
"Focus fire!" Isaac yelled, raising his pistol. He and his three reserve Militia fired. Musket balls and a plasma bolt chipped away at the creature. It took a step, another, raising its arms for a final, feeble slam.
M-002, from the mortar position, shouldered his musket and fired a precision shot. The ball struck the Effigy's seam just as it glowed for its attack. The light snuffed out. The creature teetered, then collapsed into a heap of gravel.
The last Effigy was dispatched by M-001 with a point-blank shot to its core.
Silence, heavy and ringing, returned to the graveyard. The only sounds were the hum of the dying watchtower and the faint, pained whir of M-014's damaged leg actuator.
"Secure the area," Isaac ordered, his chest heaving. "M-004, see to M-014. The rest, defensive perimeter around the platform. M-001, M-013—with me. It's time to dig."
They approached the central platform. The Armadillo drone scuttled up, its radar probe extended. It projected a holographic overlay onto the cracked stone, showing the subsurface chamber and the clearest point of entry—a section of the chamber roof that was thin and fractured.
Isaac placed the Excavation Node—a repurposed version of the Purification Beacon—at the designated spot. He activated it. A cone of focused sonic energy emitted from its base, not to purify, but to pulverize. The stone beneath it began to vibrate, then to powder. Dust plumed. A circular section, two meters across, crumbled away, revealing a dark opening.
M-001 dropped a glow-stick into the hole. It fell three meters and landed with a clatter, illuminating a small, square room.
The cylindrical object was a Bastion Field Generator, portable and intact, its casing only lightly scuffed. The crates were marked with runes for Precision Tools, Advanced Alloy Components, and Emergency Rations (Dehydrated/Century Stable).
But it was the object leaning against the generator that made Isaac's breath catch. It was a weapon. Not a musket or a pistol. It was a long, sleek rifle with an integrated optical scope and a squared-off energy magazine. A Marksman's Rail Rifle.
Artifact Recovered: MMR-7 'Longstrike' Rail Rifle. Status: Dormant. Power Core: Depleted. Compatible with Standard Bastion Energy Packs.
A sniper weapon. A tool for precision, for reach, for eliminating key threats before they ever entered musket range.
He ordered the gear hauled up. The rations were a godsend—real calories that didn't taste of protein-paste. The tools and components were high-grade salvage, worth more than their weight in standard material. The field generator could create a temporary barrier, a game-changer for defending static positions.
But the rifle… the rifle was a paradigm shift.
Back in the Bastion, the wounded M-014 was submerged in the repair slurry. The Excavation Node was converted back to a Purification Beacon and placed by the Core, its energy helping to stabilize the Nexus link. The new components were fed into the Manufactorum's inventory.
And Isaac held the Longstrike. He found a compatible energy pack in one of the tool crates. He slotted it into the rifle's receiver. A low hum filled the chamber as it charged. A targeting reticule, far more sophisticated than his pistol's, glowed to life in the scope.
He had gone to the graveyard looking for salvage to build a hammer. He had returned with a scalpel.
He looked at the map. The Major Gloom Convergence still pulsed to the east, a storm waiting to break. He had his anvil. He had his hammer.
And now, he had a tool to cut out its heart. The calculus of the next move had just changed.