Citadel of Lead

Be´Lakor`s body had been taken from him as a punishment by the gods he had pretended to serve. It had thrown him into bouts of despair and his attempts to gather enough energy to regain one were long, complicated and legendary saga.

Yet for all of this he had to compensate for his disability just like a blind man learns to use sound and touch to a degree inaccessible to those with normal sight. Be`lakor had learned to amass information, to look into mortal and immortal souls, to find their needs and the weaknesses and to use them subtly yet without the slightest trace of mercy.
Many lesser beings of the warp did his bidding, the number of cults who worshiped him in his many guises hard to count and all of them were sure to further their own interest while doing the demon's work.

So he was quite well informed about the size of the disaster that had happened at the portal, knew very well that an attack on his fortress was about to commence and yet for all of his abilities he could do nothing to curb it, weaken it or point it at another target. His warriors could not step outside of the fortress without being killed from afar, the fortress itself refused to do his bidding beyond basic defense and tried to cook its denizens whenever the thrice-damned Germans attacked his chosen domain.

Martel had failed to do his bidding again, no matter how many sacrifices he slaughtered on the altar of the Old Ones, no matter what words of power his abused vocal apparatus voiced nor which glowing points he touched in what sequence, the Citadel refused to smite his enemies. No subtle stratagem offered itself, no aspiring power wanted to fight his enemies in his stead all that remained was to wait for the enemy to make the first move and try as he might he had no inkling what that might be.

There was one thing left to do and it was so unlike him that he still hesitated to do it . While Gerard the Enchanted had failed to channel all the energies in the Paths of the Old Ones into him he had managed to give him access for a few glorious moments. These paths were powered by energies that were beyond comprehension. They handled energies that were the equivalent of wanderers' of the paths mass and that was a lot indeed. He had seen visions of himself where he had availed himself of these energies and he had seen himself no longer aspiring to be the Champion of the Gods. He would have been a God himself and still could be if he managed to thwart the plans of the new humans that so brazenly meddled in his plans.

Yet even the morsel of power he had received would allow him to do great things and he had decided what to do with them now that the hour of need was at hand. He would do them to his useless servant, he who knelt before him in a supplication that had never reached his soul.

"Martel, first of my servants, let me reward you for your works in the way you have earned." The mortal was quick for somebody of his size and on his feet with a grace that belied his bulk. Even when his mind was still trying to understand the why and therefore the warrior in him reacted and the great hammer descended on the crystal that held the demon`s essence. It shattered into many colorful shards that evaporated before they ever reached the ground.
Just as planned.

Martel saw the white-glowing ball that emerged from this destruction where it would have blinded lesser mortals. He saw the creeping lightning that covered his weapon, covered his glove and crawled up his arm. He felt the searing pain that burned every nerve and neuron where normal men would have collapsed from pain. It just allowed him a final moment of insight that showed him the amount of arrogance that had led him to believe he knew so much more than his fellow priests of Sigmar. Insight into the stupidity that had led him to believe the words of the demon and his own misguided thoughts that had brought him to this day and place.

Insight into the fact that his mortal life would end here and now and insight into the ghastly fate that awaited his soul. An insight that quenched his will to fight the demon that was about to take over his body and dropped his mental defenses in shame. Just as planned.

When the discharges reached Martel`s torso and head the original owner of the body was no longer present and a demon took what he never wanted to have, the body of a mortal. He would improve upon it, yet while he had plenty of energy for this task the time was short and the mortal clay he had to work with was severely limited. What he could make in the time he had would be weak compared to his body of old and laughable against what he had planned to become, yet against the enemy approaching it would be more than enough.

The time for manipulating weak mortals was over, no complicated plan presented itself. It would be like the days of old, the days of glorious slaughter and bloody reward. While Be`lakor grew, while his armor glowed red and flowed into a new configuration, while he roared his pleasure to feel and move again the Citadel sounded the warbling alarm that its denizens had learned to hate. They had learned that it meant that the Citadel would defend them but having to huddle like frightened children with no control over their fate while being baked in ever-increasing temperatures did not suit them at all.

A few dozen meters from the demon the Central Processing Unit that ran the Citadel`s network would have been annoyed at the latest attack on it. The attack was very much like the last three that had commenced during the last days. It consisted of numerous projectiles aimed at the citadels vulnerable roof and of several smaller and bigger aerial vehicles that circled the fortress at various distances. Given that the distributed network governed by the CPU was neither self-aware nor a true AI it was neither frustrated by the repeated attempts not curious why it was fed pretty precisely the amount of shells it could handle with the limited energy at hand. Instead the CPU prioritized, engaged the molecular binding amplifier in the walls that could be hit and shot down those projectiles that would impact on the fortress top. There were a lot of other airborne targets around it, yet none were heading towards the Citadel so they were ignored for the moment.

A few kilometers from the Citadel of Lead

The steel ramp in front of Joakim dropped down, revealing a growing strip of brightly blue sky and allowing a bitterly cold wind into the Airbus interior. Being in the Paladin`s front rank he was granted a grand view of the green and brown fens, the black clouds with a red heart of the artillery and the explosions of intercepts. The red lights on both sides of the ramp started to blink at increasing speed until they switched to a green glow.
"gogogo" went through his helmet and his legs moved before his brain had really parsed the intent. He went off the ramp at a full run and assumed a position like jumping into a pool with straight legs. A satisfying click and the return of the weight that had been absent for an eternal moment announced that his wings had deployed and his right glove moved by its own. His thumb was now placed on a virtual "coolie hat" and any movement he made with it adjusted wings and together with his legs guided his descent. A funnel-shaped wireframe appeared in his visor, indicating the space he had to steer. The end of the funnel was aimed at a spot a few hundred meters besides the Citadel.
He looked to the left and right, adjusting the distance to the other member of the command squad. A scream that managed to combine a falcon`s cry with female gratification indicated that Ulrika had made her jump. These days she had her own Power Armor, yet some of her habits were still decidedly feral. She was one of the last to jump and by that time the sky was filled with a stream of power armor that glided towards their target.
They were the best equipped infantry in two worlds, encased in a power armor that was designed to stop all attacks that could be reasonably expected, yet compared to Citadel`s defenses this seemed to be as useful as a T-shirt.

And while he was surrounded by his comrades, while he shared the airspace with shells, drones and death for a few moments he was alone with the sound of his breathing and the slipstream filling his ears. The time seemed far too short before the spot in space he had been aiming for had been reached and a new one was superimposed into his view to his left. It was centered directly over the Citadel of Lead and this was when the real danger began. The bombardments of the last weeks had established that the Citadel would ignore any target that was at least 300 meters from it and had no direct course on it as long as it was under fire. So the Paladins were using an indirect approach to reduce the time they posed a threat to the fortress to an absolute minimum. And while the shells were still incoming the laser system was focused on them, but the artillery fire had to lift soon. Actually the last salvos were not fused to explode to keep fragments from hitting the Paladins. The last salvos would be timed to explode two kilometers from target and it was anybody`s guess how long the fortress would need to wise up to that trick.
Joakim knew that every breath he took could be his last one and he could not do a single thing to avoid that, it was in other hands now. He was experiencing the glide in incredible clarity, felt the cold air rush by his suit, the buffeting of his helmet and the sun that shone on him. Every moment was to be savored as it might be..and then there was the flash of light and an explosion that threatened to upend him. He barely managed to regain stability when the next flash and the next explosion challenged him again.

He was tossed about so badly that he could see the next strike when it happened. One second there was Emil of Pfeilstadt, one of the heavy weapons specialists doing his best to keep course, then a bright flash and a shockwave that shook the Paladins close enough like rats. The laser defense vaporized its victims with such force that they literally exploded.
The next hits were farther back in the group and with terrible regularity one Paladin died every three seconds. It was horrible to watch, it was paralyzing to know that one might be the next and there was a small, powerful pulse of guilt when the thought "thank you God, this was not me" flashed unbidden through the brain.
Joakim nearly missed the next waypoint in his efforts to keep his course and pulled the cord a bit later than he should have. The next second he was ripped upright by his parachute, hammered into his suit by the deceleration and hung in the sky in what seemed like no motion at all. Joakim waited for the explosion that would take him, the flash that would end his life as it had with so many others already, held his breath-and nothing came.
The AI had been right, the laser defense would not fire at anything too close to the fortress roof. He managed to hit the ground and roll without mishap, the parachute and wing assembly detached without mishap and he ended behind a small boxy structure with his rifle in his hands trying to get a picture.

The roof above the Citadel was full of parachutes, many more than he had feared. One Paladin disappeared in a final explosion when he opened too early to avoid other parachutists but the rest made safe landings. The Power Armor proved its worth again when there were no serious injuries even when some landed on pipes and protrusions. A red arrow appeared in his visor, showing the way to the assembly point of the command squad. Jogging the 50 meters or so he was more than a bit relieved when he saw the hammer in Valten`s hands.
He slowed down to a walk and triggered the suit`s computers voice command function.
"Computer-show status list by platoon. He tried to read the list that appeared before him without stumbling and managed to do so before he was in front of Valten. Neither could see the face of the other as their visors were down, yet from the movements of Valten`s head it was easy to see that he tried to take in the situation. The immense roof was studded with pipes, protrusions and openings of all kind while the four corners held the laser defense systems` cones that had claimed so many.

"Good to see you made it Joakim. How bad is it?"
"Nine Sir, we lost nine spread pretty evenly over all platoons. Lieutenant Meister has lost three, so I suggest we give him one from Hartmann."
"Make it so. Good job Joakim, you did it."
"Nine dead Sir and we have not seen the enemy yet."
"We will mourn them later, but it could have been far worse. Get Jens` people into gear, we need the info. Tell Steinmetz I want the demo charges on the lasers now."
"Will do Sir."

It took about five minutes, then a couple of muffled bangs could be heard all over the roof. All of them were caused by shaped charges which concentrated the power into a lance of plasma that cut through alien electronics and ancient roof. The bigger explosions hopefully damaged the lasers beyond repair, the smaller ones perforated roofs and venting ducts enough so that drones could be inserted. There were a lot of them-spider-like ones, others that looked like remote-control cars and tanks and more than a few quadcopters.
Many were confined to the first closed room they were inserted to, others smashed into pieces by a powerful air-conditioning system and its currents, chopped into pieces by the defenders or ran out of fiber-optic cable to transmit their data. Yet their electronic "lives" paid for what commanders usually paid with lives and limbs, information.
Filtered through the small team of specialists around Jens Neugebauer a rough floor plan appeared in the suits memory, together with areas where no heavy weaponry was allowed and red sports of enemy concentrations. Valten and Joakim stood before a wall they used to project the data on.

"Speak to me Joakim, you have been in Skavenblight ten times longer than I was."
"I tried my best to forget about that hellhole Sir. Seriously-we have no time to be cute. I suggest we cut ourselves in here and here. Here we should simply cut another entrance and drop some grenades in, might distract that bunch. We spilt-2nd Platoon goes down this ramp and tries to secure the command center. The rest goes down here and we use this shaft to evade those guys. We either take this door or we blast another one here and secure the tanks. If Witzig can take command center and the connection to Nathan stays stable he can shut down the rest of the defense and the laser systems, then we wait for reinforcements. If that does not happen we leave the heavy weapons platoon with the tanks and hunt the assholes down."
"Sounds like a plan, we do this. I break the news to Witzig, you brief the rest. Start with the engineers."
"They are already preparing the blasting Sir."
"Well done."

A few minutes later Joakim huddled behind a pipe while a much bigger charge went off with a bang. The hole it produced was testimony to the fact that well-applied explosives solve many problems, including breaching construction that had been old when men were still figuring out how to make good Flintstone axes. "Up and at them" went through earphones and heads and the Paladins went forward. A couple of grenades went into the hole and Joakim made a point to be first through the hole. The darkness around him was lit by his infrared lamp, yet the monochrome picture in his visor displayed only scraps and parts of things that had probably been here before modern history. When the first team had formed up including Valten then pushed forward, preceded by a spider drone. It revealed the small group of warriors that ran up a ramp before they could become a nuisance and they were cut down by several short bursts. The Paladins found themselves in front of a large cylinder with doors, probably an elevator shaft. More explosives forced an entry when pushing buttons would not work and a series of ladders allowed the group to descent into the depths of the fortress. Several bursts from the squad that guarded the entrance and the wireless told Joakim that the enemy tried to follow them. As the team he had left behind had good firing lines into all avenues of approach Joakim was not very concerned about them.

He was among the first to reach the level that gave access to the objective. He got an idea while Looking at the sliding door that sealed the shaft when he waited for the engineers. Locking his right foot against the doorframe and his right hand against the door itself he made sure that he was anchored well before he triggered the "ramming" function in his suit. Moving his right arm with a force and speed he would have never been able to generate himself he applied far more force to the door than its latches were meant to take. With a metallic screech the door ripped loose and telescoped into itself. Joakim was about to smile when a spear missed his arm by a few centimeters and an ax followed a moment later.
Pulling himself back into cover he extended the underarm brace on his Mauser, fixed the weapon to his left arm and triggered the camera.

A small picture opened up in his visor, showing the ground at the moment. Fixing himself to the doorframe Joakim pushed his left arm into the opening and saw several naked warriors getting ready to hurl more projectiles at him. He pulled the trigger and left the actuators of his suit handle the recoil that would otherwise have ripped the rifle out of his hand. Instead he walked the fire all over the small group of warriors. Looking at three other members of the platoon he used his squad link.
"Herm, Peter-I give them one more burst, then you go left. Michael, you with me to the left." Three acknowledgements later he pushed his gun-laden arm into the opening again, found two warriors which had not gotten the message yet and wasted them with two pulls of the trigger. Pivoting around his right hand which still clutched the ladder he swung himself into the room beyond the shaft. An indirect reddish light revealed a whole lot of nothing on his side while the fire in his back told a story of somebody hiding there.
All four of them covered the room while 1st Platoon emerged from the shaft securing all entrances. Joakim pulled the command squad around Valten before they shared the latest intel they received from their armored nerds.

"Looks like Witzig will not make it into command Sir, they closed the doors before he was there. He could try to blast his way in, but that might damage the equipment there. I suggest he reinforces us."
"Seems about right. See this?" The picture before Joakim`s eyes changed to a room that housed two enormous cylinders surrounded by a mass of organic-looking pipes.
"Neugebauer got a glimpse of this before they destroyed his drone. Looks like what that AI described doesn`t it?"
"That is it Sir. I see two approaches: This ramp to here, through that door, cross this room and through that wall. The other is down that staircase and through the ceiling. I`d recommend that we use option one and Witzig goes the other route."
"Generally good, but I`d take the doors to the room, if needed blast them in. They are more sturdy than the walls but will probably not disintegrate if we use a linear charge. Less potential damage to the target and all that."
"Yes, but the door will be better defended."
"We just have to take it Joakim, we need to take this intact. Let`s do it."
"Yes Sir."

Everybody watched when the engineers placed a flexible tube against the door leading from the room they were in. Glued down well it should have blasted itself of as soon as the fuse fired, yet instead the white-hot flame of thermite burned itself through the ancient door. It dropped outward without prompting and revealed a mass of Warriors and Chaos Knights who charged the very second their way was clear. They stepped into the fire of a Platoon full of assault rifles and machine guns and dropped like ninepins. That is-the warriors did so, being "protected" by their woad lines and naked skin. They died in droves amid splattering blood and splinters of bone while they charged forward, barely gaining a foothold in the room before their numbers had dwindled to nothing. They did their job by allowing the Knights that followed a few precious seconds to close with the Paladins.
Their heavy armor deflected more than a few rounds and even those that penetrated met a flesh far removed from mortal bounds. The Knights went down as well but too slowly and the survivors received what they craved, the chance to rend their enemies apart in melee combat.

Joakim had to watch helplessly when one of their number cut the head and an arm of a member of his squad. When the Paladin dropped he cleared the field of fire for him and he landed two bursts in the Knight so that he dropped before him. The armored figure still moved so Joakim put his rifle before an eyeslit and filled the helmet with fire and steel. Behind him something made a sound that reminded the Oberleutnant of a traffic accident. When he turned he found Valten confronting three Chaos Knights, the sole survivors of the assault. The first one was already on the ground with a chest armor that had been dented to the point where front and back were probably less than 20 cm from each other. The two that were still on their feet desperately tried to block that strikes that rained down on them.
Valten had been dangerous when he was an untrained village smith wielding his tools of trade. Well-trained, clad in power armor and wielding the Warhammer he was a force to be reckoned with. He managed to sidestep the assault by one of the Knights and smashed the hammer into his opponents arm with such force that it bend at an angle that neither arm nor armor were designed to take. The rebound managed to hit the helmet which compressed itself to half-size before tearing off with the head still attached.
Joakim managed to get a burst into the third which made him stumble back a step. Whether it would have downed him was of academic interest as the last swing by the hammer showed why it was called head splitter.

"Now that was not too bad, but we should avoid repeats."
"Yes, maybe by taking a few steps back next time Sir."
"A bit hard to do with an open shaft in my back Joakim."
"Next time there won`t be"
"Yes mommy"
Thank god for privacy channel.
The Paladins pushed down a spiraling ramp that might have allowed vehicles to handle cargo from one level to another. It was reasonably graded and was double-wide with occasional double doors at the sides. Several times these doors opened to reveal more attackers, yet none got closer than the first group. The attempts to assault them through the ramp itself were pure massacres as the comparatively long approaches allowed the Paladins to use their copious firepower to the max. Between charging machine guns and being bombarded with 40 mm grenades the worst resistance the Warriors offered was their corpses getting underfoot. And then they finally reached the set of doors that they were looking for. They seemed innocuous, like all the others they had passed and still they barred the way for the hopes of a world.

They had not opened upon pushing the buttons of course, so the engineers had used their thermite passe-partout key made of Thermite and a glowing rim surrounded a hole that led into darkness. A team from 1st Platoon went through first, sounded an all-clear and kept Joakim from protesting when Valten and the command squad went next. The darkness around them was broken up by the lamps each Paladin had on his shoulder and revealed the room to be full of crates of some hind. Some of them were in stacks distributed on orderly piles on the floor and one wall was made up by them. Joakim saw a machine that was probably meant to handle them and reminded him of a partially melted fork lift. How that machine would have reached for the top rank of crates on the wall was beyond the Paladin`s XO which…

"Paladins, this might be a trap…" had barely been sent when the crates went tumbling down. Something huge pushed a big heap of them into the entrance while a howling mass of armored Chaos Knights assaulted the few Paladin`s already in the old storage room. Joakim managed to put a burst through a chestplate, had to repeat the performance so the target would stay down and shot another Knight in the back.
He looked for more targets when the scream stopped all fighting for a second. The big "thing" that had moved the crates stepped forward and resolved itself into a huge figure. Combining the features of an armored knight with the ancient pictures of the devil it dwarfed the already huge Chaos Knights. Partial armor covered some of him, while grey skin seemed to be hard to pierce anyway. Joakim gave it a try anyway and fired what was left in his magazine. He was not the only one and numerous glowing sport appeared all over the demon. The demon did not screech, flinch or shout-he laughed while he made lazy-seeming steps forward that took him to the Paladins in seconds.
One hand held a huge hammer like an adult might hold a pencil, the other had claws the length of daggers.

The hammer swung low and caught a Paladin in the chest, sending him flying over most of the room and dropped him lifelessly on the ground. The empty hand scoped another, banging the soldier against a pillar again and again until parts of the armor detached. Joakim was grabbing for a Rocket Grenade when his nightmare became true. Stepping forward as coolly as if entering the bus Valten had gotten under the demon`s swing and hit at the leg before him with incredible force. The pieces of armor glowed at the point of impact and the leg immediately collapsed, dropping the huge demon forward among a scream that attacked ears and minds both.
Valten raised his hammer for an overhead swing that would end the fight when the huge hand closed on his arms and pinned them together. Ghal Maraz dropped from Valten`s hands. Strength far past anything available to humans forced the Paladin`s commander on the ground and the demon`s hammer rose for a strike that would end his life.

The few Paladins not engaged in a life-and death struggle of their own fired on the demon for all they were worth, yet the result was no different than before. Joakim froze for a second before stepping forward. He clutched his rifle even though the magazine was as empty as any hopes that a fresh one could help. He approached the Demon from the side, resolved himself not to look how Valten was doing and locked the legs of his suit into a rigid stance. Still clutching the rifle he triggered the "ram" function of his suit. The small bar that would protect his right hand jutted uselessly besides his rifle while the suit took over and rammed the right arm forward with superhuman strength.
The bayonet at the Mauser`s muzzle had been forged by Kargan Ironbeard, a Dawi who fought together with Joakim in Skavenblight. Arranged into a single iron crystal by the Dwarf it had a Rune of Fire on it. Joakim Vos punched the Bayonet and the first 20 cm of rifle deep into the demons sides.

The effect was immediate-a huge surge went through the demon, throwing Valten clear for a dozen meters. The scream was different this time, full of pain and fury and by the end of it flames shot from Be`lakor`s mouth. The rifle was ripped from Joakim`s hands and when he last saw it the weapon was melting as if placed into a forge. He staggered backwards and tried to get his bearings. The Paladins were still fighting for their lives, nobody had yet managed to remove the crates that block the entrance and Valten laid motionlessly, yet a small icon at the lower edge of his visor indicated that he was alive. He looked around for another rifle to get into the fight when he saw something moving. His heart seemed to skip a beat when he saw that it was the Demon who had somehow started to move again. His rifle was now a glowing patch of metal that started to close the wound and the smoke coming for the demon`s visage became less with every second. He need to stop this now before it became far too much to handle.

He saw the solution before him, it was obvious and would most likely kill him. He stepped forward and did what he had been warned several times never to do: He grabbed Ghal Maraz. For a Dawi or an initiate into the Cult of Sigmar this was nearly safe, yet for a simple soldier it was supposed to be death, sooner or later. He was about to find out of later was late enough.
He grabbed the hammers haft, wondering if his gloves would protect him and managed a "sorry Sophie" before the visions overwhelmed him. He was in a mountain pass, surrounded by warriors clad in leathers and mail and before him was the biggest Ork he had ever sees. The Ork`s warcry shook the ground he stood on and the sheer stench from the rotting teeth took his breath away. He felt himself jumping up a nearly impossible distance before his hammer descended on the Orks head, mimicking the hammer`s movement in the real world. And then he was somewhere else, on another battlefield confronting an undead construct of bones and rotting flesh while something send thoughts of ice through his head. And then he was in the black of night, barely lit by fires. This time he had no great armor and the arms he could see were thinner. This time the hammer fell on Goblins and Orks, no great warlords but ordinary ones, and the many blows he dealt were death, inside his head and in the darkness of the warehouse.
In the next vision there was no hammer in his hand but a flower and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen was before him. Raven haired where his Sophie was red she looked at him in obvious love. He saw himself in her eyes when he closed for the kiss, saw a face that was not his and a woman he should not take.
And then there was only darkness.

Joakim Vos, formerly a Corporal of the Netherlands army, Reiksbund Paladin dropped to the ground, finally releasing the hammer that had claimed Be`lakor`s life. The last thing he heard was "Keep him alive Sir Joakim….."

Citadel of Lead, Bezahltag 18. Kaldezeit

Stefan Strich was probably the best protected person on the Warhammer World at that very moment, even if neither the Paladins that surrounded him nor the Saurus Warriors that made up a second perimeter were there for him. Everybody wanted to protect what was inside the case that the scientist was carrying. He was led through the huge Citadel, could barely glance at the alien architecture, the remains of the Chaos occupation or the battle that had been waged inside so few days ago.
The walk seemed endless and when it finally ended it was before two huge cylinders connected by many pipes. His Siemens Glasses ™ were taking a medium resolution video of what he saw and transmitted it via Bluetooth. Suddenly a couple of amber glowing lines overlaid themselves on the machinery before him while headset started to sound off.
"Thank you Doctor Stefan Strich. Kindly open this cover there to the right and insert my data probe into the receptacle that you find there." Dr. Stich did and made sure that Nathan did not slide off the console for the next 3.5 minutes before pulling the probe back upon command and making his way back to the waiting helicopter.

Otary base, the Wash, Albion, Markttag 24. Kaldezeit

Hell was filled with hammers that worked directly in his head, it was a place bereft of water so his mouth was perpetually parched and the devils in it were blonde and handsome. It was the latter observation that made Joakim Vos realize that something was off. The devil resolved himself into Valten`s face who bent forward when Joakim tried to grab for a glass of water that was on the table besides his bed.
"Welcome back to the living Sir Joakim, I hope you had pleasant dreams." The Oberleutnant`s voice needed a couple of tries before it worked properly, for whatever values of properly could be expected of a throat that had not been watered for days on end.
"I saw…you in there."
The only answer he got was an index finger that was placed before Valten`s lips and an enigmatic smile.
"How..how did I survive this?"
"You had help, let`s leave it at that. You did good Sir Joakim, better than anybody had a right to expect and you saved my life. Moreover you saved far more than just that."
"Did it work, the operation I mean?"
"Yes, for all we know. I will give you the condensed version before Frau Wagenknecht tears down the door behind me-Nathan tells us that we captured two tanks full of "production Nanites", some 5000 tons of them. If I understood things right, then they are able to produce anything we can think of atom by atom, including themselves we provide energy and raw materials. And they can certainly made the replacement parts needed to mend the Portal, even if it will take a couple of years. And after that they can make whatever we desire-if we know what we want and are a little patient."
"So it worked."
"Yes, thanks to you it did. Don`t do this again, you make a good XO and you will make a better commander of the Paladins one day."