Chapter 286: Into the Strange Facility - II
MDC reinforcements arrived from the north not long afterward.
The shared picture identified the MDC reinforcements long before their first vehicles entered the industrial district. Nobody from the Golden Eagle Army reacted when another armed formation appeared behind them.
The MDC troops slowed anyway once they saw what remained of the battlefield.
Destroyed Hawford armor sat along several roads while smoke continued rising between the warehouses. Golden Eagle Army infantry were collecting weapons, moving prisoners away from the fighting area and checking the buildings left behind by the retreating troops.
Engineers and recovery elements were already working on the damaged System vehicles.
Vanguard Five remained near the workshop where its track was damaged during the battle. Several Engineers worked around the assembly while the crew stayed with the tank.
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Even the armor that took repeated hits looked better than it did earlier.
One MDC soldier stared at it as his vehicle passed.
"How many tank rounds did that thing take?"
The soldier beside him looked at the damaged track, then at the front armor slowly returning to shape.
"I stopped counting. Itβs still alive anyway."
Their vehicle continued toward the rest of the formation.
The MDC officer contacted Southern Command soon afterward.
"MDC reinforcement element to Southern Command under Major Keltz. Colonel Voroltz has placed us under local coordination until the situation is stable."
"Southern Command receiving."
Brandon looked toward the facility.
"Secure the northern and western approaches. Stay out of the inner compound until weβve checked it."
"Understood."
The MDC formation began spreading around the assigned approaches without waiting for Brandon to tell them how to do it.
That finally left him with the reason they came here in the first place: the facility.
After everything that happened outside, his people barely reached anything beyond the outer compound.
Now they could finally get on with it.
Guardian APCs moved through the damaged gates while infantry spread through the warehouses and loading areas. Sniper teams shifted toward positions overlooking the compound, and Engineers followed behind the clearing elements once each section was safe enough to inspect.
Recovery vehicles peeled away toward the wrecks and damaged equipment around the roads.
The outer section turned out to be almost exactly what the surviving MDC records described.
Most of the warehouses supported ammunition storage, vehicle maintenance and military logistics. Crates of conventional ammunition remained inside one structure, although several stacks were damaged or partly exposed after months without maintenance.
Another warehouse contained vehicle components, old tools and equipment racks.
Several sections showed signs of being stripped sometime after the Event. Empty spaces remained where larger equipment probably used to sit, while other storage areas still had sealed containers and locked rooms waiting for inspection.
The rail line entering the compound also made sense.
It split between several warehouses before continuing toward the heavier structures farther inside, allowing ammunition, machinery and vehicles to move through the facility without relying entirely on trucks.
The outer compound told them little they didnβt already expect. The inner fence was where the character of the facility changed.
The buildings inside were heavier than the warehouses surrounding them. Their walls were thicker, the doors were reinforced, and most had little more than narrow windows high along the exterior.
DAEDALUS markings also started appearing around the inner section.
Some were obvious enough: faded lettering beside secured doors, old identification plates fixed to electrical cabinets, and certification markings on equipment that had no reason to be inside an ordinary logistics warehouse.
Others were little more than serial families and access labels the Golden Eagle Army had already encountered around other DAEDALUS-linked hardware.
Large utility conduits disappeared beneath reinforced housings, some of them far too large for the buildings visible above.
A four-man DASF squad crossed the inner fence first and cleared through the nearest building, moving from room to room while Engineer Three and the inspection group followed through the sections behind them.
By the time the Engineers entered the first work areas, the DASF operators were already approaching a service corridor farther inside.
"Inner building clear."
Engineer Three moved in.
The first rooms contained maintenance equipment, electrical panels and several empty work areas.
Much of it looked military, but DAEDALUS identifiers appeared often enough that nobody bothered pretending this was only a conventional support building.
Several of those rooms, access codes and equipment groups were missing entirely from the MDC copy of the facility records.
"We should contact the High Command about this."
The Engineer stopped beside one of the walls.
A scanner passed across it.
Several lines appeared on his display.
He looked down.
"Southern Command, this is Engineer Three."
Brandon answered from the BACV.
"Go ahead."
"Weβve reached the restricted section."
"What do you have?"
"DAEDALUS infrastructure. And something much larger underneath this building."
Brandon enlarged the facility layout.
"How far down?"
"Not sure yet. A DASF squad is already checking."
A heavy service door stood at the end of the corridor. It wasnβt locked, although it took two operators to pull it completely open after dirt and corrosion around the outer frame resisted the movement.
Beyond it was a descending passage. Instead of stairs, a wide concrete ramp led underground.
The DASF operators entered first.
Engineer Three followed after them.
Their lights moved along reinforced walls while thick electrical conduits ran beside the passage. Pipes and cable channels followed the ceiling before disappearing through separate openings farther below.
The ramp continued much farther than anyone expected from the structure above.
Engineer Three checked the scanner again.
"Correction, this is not a basement."
The DASF squad reached the bottom not long after.
The passage opened into a much larger service level.
Several corridors split away from the central area, while another reinforced passage continued deeper into the compound.
Most of the lights were dead.
A few emergency strips still glowed faintly along one wall.
There were no infected markers nearby and nothing moved inside the immediate area.
The DASFs separated and cleared the closest rooms while the Engineers followed through the sections they already passed.
One room contained industrial control equipment.
Another was almost completely empty except for mounting points along the floor and several disconnected utility lines.
The next had a reinforced observation window facing into a chamber on the other side.
Engineer Three stopped.
"What the hell..."
The chamber beyond was much larger than the room he stood in.
Heavy connection points lined the floor.
Thick power cables entered through the walls.
A rail or transfer track continued through one end before disappearing behind another sealed door.
None of it appeared on the MDC plans.
Another Engineer entered behind him and brought up the surviving facility layout.
The underground level wasnβt on the surviving plans at all.
No partial outline. No alternate designation. Nothing.
"Keep going."
The DASF squad continued deeper, with the Engineers behind them.
More rooms opened along the underground corridor, and the farther they went, the clearer the DAEDALUS side of the facility became.
What remained unclear was what exactly had been done here.