The Frozen Reactor is the first sector where the Rift is unmistakably a machine. Its walls are a dense network of coolant pipes, pressure tanks and reactor columns, all of it buried under ice.
# Environment
Something in the reactor still runs. Its columns glow cyan through the frost, and the coolant network still pumps, though most of its lines have burst and frozen solid. Icicles several metres long hang from the pipe galleries. The temperature drops sharply at the sector boundary, and the C-9’s heaters struggle on the deeper floors.
The reactor’s output does not match its size. Instruments read a current far smaller than such a plant should produce, as if most of its power were going somewhere else.
# Machines
Heavy units lead: Tanks open most waves, supported by Crawlers and Runners. The cold slows nothing down.
# Guardian
The Warden, a sealed reactor sentinel with interlocking armour plates, is the machine that gave the Warden system its name. It sheds little heat and opens only brief firing windows.
# Pilot notes
Armour-piercing calibrations and cannons earn their keep here. Light weapons waste ammunition against the Warden’s plates.



