65: Chapter 65 The Decapitation Plan

Xia Xingchen breathed a sigh of relief when he received word that the ground facilities of the Space Elevator had been fully captured.

Excellent. Now the entire Space Elevator is completely under our control.

Now, troops and supplies can be continuously deployed onto the surface of Vanad Planet.

Over the next month, the rebels on Vanad Planet and Xia Xingchen's army fell into a strange state of peace.

Both sides began to reinforce their defensive lines in the surrounding areas. Meanwhile, Xia Xingchen frantically transported the First Division, Second Division, and Third Division—totaling fifty thousand men—to the surface via the Space Elevator, while massive amounts of supplies were continuously shipped down from space.

Governor Vanad, Governor Waka Thomas, had been desperate to destroy the Space Elevator; he was even willing to let the Space Elevator crash onto the surface.

As long as the Space Elevator existed, the Imperial punishment force could continuously transport massive amounts of troops and supplies from space.

Without the space freight elevator, they would have to rely on transport boats and shuttles to move supplies, which would severely limit the punishment force's deployment capabilities.

Waka Thomas had already mistaken the forces in space for an Imperial punishment force; he was certain this was an army sent by the Empire to deal with him, a rebellious governor.

Waka Thomas had slaughtered all Ecclesiarchy personnel, Adeptus Arbites, and Inquisition members on the planet, clutching all power firmly in his own hands.

Initially, Waka Thomas had been terrified, believing his rebellion would surely draw the wrath of the legendary Imperial punishment forces, but nothing happened for an entire year.

Waka Thomas gradually grew bolder, coming to believe that the legendary Empire was nothing more than an ethereal myth.

But now, when a punishment fleet appeared before him for the first time, Waka Thomas truly panicked, and those legendary fears gripped his heart.

However, what Waka Thomas didn't realize was that he was completely wrong; the force above his head wasn't a punishment fleet at all, but Xia Xingchen's troops.

In fact, Imperial forces wouldn't even notice Waka Thomas's rebellion; it might take a hundred or two hundred years, or even longer, to organize a fleet for suppression, purely because Waka Thomas's territory was located in the Ultima Segmentum.

One must understand that there are many places in the Ultima Segmentum where even the Emperor's Astronomican cannot shine, making Warp travel extremely difficult.

Therefore, unless it was a very important planet or a crucial Warp transit point, the Empire's administrative efficiency meant they wouldn't arrive for several centuries.

"When will you be able to destroy that entire space freight elevator for me?"

Governor Waka Thomas's fleshy face was greasy, betraying an uncontrollable fatigue.

The mental pressure he had endured over the past few days was greater than what he had faced in his half-century as governor.

Listening to Waka Thomas's almost insane demands, Frankie shook his head helplessly.

Frankie would not do that. If the entire Space Elevator were destroyed, the 100,000-kilometer-long cable would crash directly onto the surface, causing consequences sufficient to destroy most of the Vanad System's ecosystem and half of the Hive City worlds.

Moreover, the reality facing Frankie was that he simply didn't have the capability to destroy the Space Elevator.

Air superiority in space was completely held by Xia Xingchen. Furthermore, if any fighter jets left the protection of the Hive City's Void Shield, they would be immediately shot down by Xia Xingchen's space fleet.

Thus, Frankie had no way to destroy the space freight elevator.

Waka Thomas slammed his hand onto the sand table in front of him in anger, then roared at Frankie:

"What should I do? Just wait to die? Wait for the punishment force to fight their way to the Governors Palace bit by bit and then hang me from the highest floor?"

Faced with the governor's furious words, Frankie could only respond with silence.

Although they had over two hundred thousand troops, they lacked air superiority. As soon as these troops left the protection of the Void Shield, an Orbital Strike would rain down directly on their heads.

Therefore, they had to fight urban warfare, they had to fight trench warfare, and they had to fight within the Hive City worlds; they absolutely could not leave the protection of the Void Shield.

In this sense, it was merely a slow death. Even if the incoming force only numbered tens of thousands, as long as they maintained the space freight elevator, they could continuously bring in more troops from other worlds. In the end, Vanad would be left with nothing but the path of a slow demise.

The Governors Palace fell into a silence like stagnant water.

Meanwhile,

At the Spaceport, Xia Xingchen had no intention of fighting a war of attrition; he had only brought seventy thousand troops.

Assuming Governor Vanad only had Planetary Defense Forces, his standard complement of conscripts would be between 150,000 and 200,000. If Governor Vanad could mobilize all the civilians on Vanad Planet, he could muster at least four million troops.

If that happened, Xia Xingchen would have to fight for a hundred years to achieve victory.

Xia Xingchen had only one tactic in mind, and it was the favorite tactic of the Space Marines: decapitation.

In the Spaceport, fifteen modified transport ships were already prepared. These ships' armor had been reinforced and they were equipped with autocannons.

At the same time, on the tactical screen, the First, Second, and Third Divisions had been fully deployed to the surface.

The Fourth Division remained to guard the orbital defense platforms and the Spaceport, while the Fifth Division served as a reserve, staying on the warships for now.

Xia Xingchen had now finished donning his full suit of power armor.

"Lord Archon, the Star Guard is ready for you."

The Star Guard was a crucial part of Xia Xingchen's military restructuring project.

In this project, Xia Xingchen planned to establish three special legions: the Death Assault Army, the Ironclad Heavy Army, and the Star Guard.

These three units would become the most elite combat forces in Xia Xingchen's army, deployed to the most dangerous and difficult battlefields to tip the scales of victory in his favor.

However, of the three, only the Star Guard had been partially formed.

After all, time was too short, and other units needed to be established as well; Xia Xingchen had prioritized building the regular troops.

Hearing this, Xia Xingchen immediately donned his dragon shield power armor and put on his helmet.

When he arrived at the Spaceport's elevator platform, a hundred veterans in power armor were already waiting for him.

They were the absolute elite, having followed Xia Xingchen from his very first battle in the Warhammer 40k world to the present.

They had personally experienced every battle, charging ahead of Xia Xingchen every time, using their bodies to block fatal blow after fatal blow for him.

"Soldiers, you have followed me through countless battles, and I have brought victory after victory to us and to the entire army. And now, we shall bring victory in the next battle.

Glory to the Emperor, glory to the army, glory to us all."

After Xia Xingchen finished speaking, the entire Star Guard erupted in soul-stirring cheers.

Inside the Spaceport platform hangar, ten transport planes launched, diving rapidly toward the surface.

Nuwa simultaneously issued orders to the three surface units. According to the pre-arranged battle plan, they were to launch a full-scale offensive to draw the attention of the rebels on Vanad Planet.

The First, Second, and Third Divisions attacked Vanad Hive City from three different directions.

Vanad Planet had only one continent, which occupied about sixty percent of the entire planet's surface.

There were a total of three Hive Cities on this continent.

Each Hive City had a population of over one hundred million.

In other words, the total population of Vanad Planet exceeded three hundred million, and since many people in the Underhive were likely uncounted, it was probably around 300 to 400 million.

Among them, Vanad Hive 1 was where Waka Thomas was located, while Hive City No. 2 was an important food production and light industrial region.

Hive City No. 3 was a vital promethium mining and heavy industrial region, serving as the main energy supplier for Vanad Planet, with large quantities of high-quality promethium mines.

However, Xia Xingchen did not launch any attacks on Hive City No. 2 or Hive City No. 3; instead, he concentrated his forces, sending all three divisions to attack Hive 1.

This was the most populous location in the Vanad System and the political center of the planet; most importantly, the governor was here.

Waka Thomas had just woken up; for the past ten days or so, he had only slept two hours a day.

This time, Waka Thomas's sleep was even shorter; he had slept for less than an hour before being awakened by Frankie.