When a group of "giants" leaped onto the ship before their eyes, the ground crew and logistics personnel present were utterly stunned, frozen in disbelief.
However, the ten or so Blood Angel Guards who had disembarked from the Thunderhawk gunship and completed their boarding maneuvers showed no visible emotion.
Of course, their finely crafted helmets concealed their facial expressions, leaving the onlookers no way to discern their current moods.
Next.
The Blood Angel Guards raised the twin-linked bolters mounted on their left-arm armor and began unloading "rubber" bolter rounds at the ground crew and logistics personnel present.
Bang—Bang Bang—!
The sound of gunfire erupted in the hangar.
Thud~!
"Ah!"
"Ugh!"
Those hit by the rubber bolter rounds either let out cries of pain and collapsed in struggle or were knocked unconscious outright.
When dealing with Federation combat units, there was no need for the Blood Angels to resort to standard explosive rounds or venomous bolter ammunition, which could be devastating to carbon-based life forms.
After all, excessive killing would pose significant obstacles to future negotiations.
For this reason, Sanguinius had specifically requested a sufficient supply of "Astartes training gear" from the "One-Four" forward base on New Hope's surface. Among these were the .75 and 1.0 caliber rubber bolter rounds.
The Blood Angels assigned to board the expedition fleet were thus equipped with ample supplies of these non-lethal rounds.
As for the personnel hit by the rubber rounds, unless struck fatally by sheer bad luck, they would only suffer minor bruises of "little consequence."
Even if the rubber rounds were exhausted, the Blood Angels had no cause for concern.
They could always "greet" their adversaries with their fists instead.
However, the Blood Angels had to control their strength carefully. A casual punch from them could be far deadlier than any rubber bolter round if they weren't mindful.
"Oh my God, look at those giants!"
"Enemies spotted!"
"Prepare to repel them!"
"Open fire! Open fire!!"
At this point, fully armed security teams and mobile infantry, who had been on standby within the Roger Young, arrived in the hangar.
These soldiers, equipped with gear reminiscent of late 20th-century main-universe technology, were momentarily stunned by the sight of Blood Angel Guards. Each wore distinctive power armor that boosted their height to approximately 2.7 meters, not to mention the Primarch Sanguinius himself, who stood over five meters tall.
However, the officers commanding these units only hesitated briefly before issuing the order to open fire. They themselves raised their conventional ballistic weapons and began shooting.
Rat-tat-tat!
The hangar echoed with the sharp bursts of Morita rifles.
Clink, clatter!
Spent casings fell to the deck like rain.
But—
Hum—Hum!
The projectiles from these conventional weapons failed to penetrate the energy shields of the Blood Angel Guards, let alone those of Sanguinius.
Meanwhile, after neutralizing the ground crew and logistics personnel, the Blood Angels turned the muzzles of their bolters on the surrounding security teams and mobile infantry.
In mere moments, over a hundred security personnel and infantrymen were incapacitated, rendered unable to fight or even stand.
Once it was confirmed that no one but the Guards and their Primarch remained standing in the hangar, the Blood Angel Guards split up to complete their takeover of the Roger Young in the shortest possible time.
Sanguinius, however, remained in the hangar.
He could have participated in the purge, but doing so would have been somewhat "awkward."
This was because the average deck height aboard Federation vessels in the Starship Troopers universe was about three meters.
While the Blood Angel Guards could just barely maneuver through the ship, for Sanguinius, the corridors were extremely cramped.
In narrower areas where the height or width fell below two meters, he might inadvertently break through the structure, potentially causing depressurization and other damage to the Federation vessel.
Besides, he had donned his distinctive power armor to "soar" through near-Earth orbit space in plain view, delivering a psychological message: the human Imperium was the "righteous" side.
His angelic appearance was undeniably more effective at instilling awe than that of any other gene-primarch.
While Sanguinius waited patiently in the hangar:
Thud, thud!
One of the Blood Angel Guards was sprinting rapidly through the Roger Young's midsection, heading straight for the ship's forward bridge.
Bang—Bang!
Along the way, anyone who dared to block his path was swiftly taken down or knocked unconscious by a rubber bolter round.
Before long, this Blood Angel Guard arrived at the junction area where Rico, Carmen Ibanez, and others had previously met.
The junction was significantly more spacious than the narrow corridors.
And here, the Blood Angel Guard encountered Carmen Ibanez once again.
However, this time, she wasn't alone. Alongside her were Della Tiel, Xander Barrows, other bridge crew members, and the security team stationed near the bridge.
The bridge crew were equipped with basic helmets and body armor, wielding small-caliber Morita submachine guns.
Seeing the Blood Angel Guard up close, the crew couldn't help but display shock and astonishment.
However, they quickly regained their composure, fixing their gazes with determination and raising their weapons to target the Blood Angel Guard.
"All units, open fire! Kill the intruder!"
"Yes, Captain!"
Rat-tat-tat!
As Della Tiel barked her orders, the junction filled with deafening gunfire.
This time, the bullets didn't bounce off energy shields but instead struck the Blood Angel Guard's power armor, forged from a combination of mithril and dwarven steel.
The impacts caused metallic clinks and scrapes, chipping away at the gold paint but failing to penetrate the armor.
The Blood Angel Guard had deliberately disabled his energy shields to avoid ricochets or stray bullets unintentionally killing the brave soldiers before him.
Next.
To honor the courage of these fearless warriors, the Blood Angel Guard chose to knock them out with his bare hands.
He first charged toward the outermost members of the security team, raising his right fist and controlling his strength to knock them unconscious.
Then, using the magnetic soles of his boots, he kicked up one of their dropped Morita rifles.
Deactivating the magnetism at the right moment, he sent the rifle spinning toward another group of security personnel like a soccer ball.
Thud—Thud!
The soldiers hit by the improvised weapon fell to the ground, and the Blood Angel Guard took the opportunity to close the distance and deliver follow-up punches.
In less than two seconds, the security team, the most combat-capable group, was completely incapacitated.
As for the remaining bridge crew, their small-caliber submachine guns and pistols posed minimal threat. Even ricochets wouldn't cause serious harm, barring extremely unlucky hits to the face or eyes.
After neutralizing all the armed security personnel, the Blood Angel Guard casually approached the bridge crew.
Under the disbelieving stares of Della Tiel, Carmen, and Xander, he continued to carefully pull his punches, incapacitating each crew member in moments.
The junction's deck was soon littered with unconscious personnel, and the Blood Angel Guard resumed his march toward the bridge of the Roger Young.
Upon reaching the bridge, he had to stoop and crouch to squeeze through the narrow entrance.
Once inside, he raised his right hand to the back of his helmet and retrieved a cube-shaped device, placing it on the captain's console.
The device activated, projecting the holographic form of a "female officer" dressed in an Imperial uniform.
This "female officer," however, was a dumb AI designed to assist the Blood Angels. The cube itself contained the AI's data and served as a projector for its hard-light hologram.
Once the hologram fully materialized, the AI extended its right hand to physically interface with the captain's console, initiating a direct "physical hack" of the Roger Young's entire control system.
Meanwhile, the entire Federation expedition fleet subjected to the Blood Angels' boarding assaults was also being hacked by these low-cost, basic dumb AIs.
In a matter of moments, the United Citizen Federation's expedition fleet to the New Hope system would become assets of the human Imperium.
At the same time, a massive "bio-fleet" was rapidly approaching New Hope's orbit. The scale of this fleet, accompanied by numerous meteors, was immense.
The main forces of this bio-fleet consisted of space-faring transport bugs, an evolution of the Arachnid race's alternative adaptation path, forming a vast interstellar armada.
These transport bugs, resembling glowing cicadas, averaged about 500 meters in length, with some growing over a kilometer. They could carry tens of thousands of mature warrior bugs while generating their own magnetic fields with their wings and blood to easily ascend into planetary orbit.
By leveraging the dense network of wormholes in the Starship Troopers universe, the Arachnids didn't even need warp engines to wage interstellar wars across hundreds or thousands of light-years.
Their aim was clear: to exploit the conflict between the Imperium and the Federation and act as the "yellow bird behind the mantis."
But... the Arachnids had severely underestimated the power of their adversaries.
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