The capture of the six Jaeger commandos and the neutralization of their demolition charges threw Baron Korgan Rask into a fury of unrestrained malice.
At 08:30 hours, realizing that neither his 240mm siege howitzers nor his elite infiltrators could break the defenses of Dugout Seven, Rask committed his most illegal, total weapon.
From the northern ridge, Battery Charlie—a hidden battery of four heavy air-powered chemical projectors—discharged four high-pressure salvos into the morning sky.
FWOOMP! FWOOMP! FWOOMP! FWOOMP!
Unlike the screaming flight path of explosive artillery, these canisters flew with a low, heavy hiss, tumbling end-over-end through the rain before exploding three hundred yards upwind of the Iron Trench outer edge.
PFFFFFFFFT!
The canisters burst in mid-air, releasing a huge, rolling cloud of dense, yellowish-green chemical fog.
It was man-made phosgene-copper gas. An abhorrent potion-made fine mist blended by Chief Splicer Krause in the lower laboratories of Facility Fourteen. The gas was three times heavier than air, clinging to the ground like a choking blanket as it rolled down the gentle ravine directly into the trench depressions.
