Warhammer: Start with a dog

Chapter 498 Master Hongsuo from the "Silver Skull" Chapter-

When the ninth day passed, and then another nine days, a special choir in the Hera Fortress still did not receive the communication that was originally scheduled to be sent.

Although this communication would only be received by Calgar's confidential room, rather than by the Grand Choir serving the Chapter and the entire fortress, and only Grand Lord Macragge and his most trusted advisors could inquire about it, the operation that had been stable for more than half a century* (Note 1) was accompanied by the increasingly deteriorating dream prophecy of Varo Tigris, which was obviously not a good sign.

The Chief Librarian, who had been uneasy about all his recent dreams for a long time, immediately asked the remaining half of the brothers of the Fifth Company to set out again, led by Captain Galenus, to find their brothers on duty on the Indomitable.

When the Lord of the March* (Note 2) led his brothers to the last trace of the psychic jump that the Grand Librarian was able to track with the communication mark - the high-altitude circular orbit of the gas giant Outer Eskari, they initially found nothing. Some people have begun to think that perhaps the frequency of the Inflexible jumping into the warp is too frequent and the number of jumps is too many, so that the unfortunate half of the brothers may have encountered the second worst possible situation in the warp navigation.

That is, either they encountered the warp storm and the monsters in it, and were swept away to the depths of the Soul Ocean, where they were tested and attacked for who knows how many years. In the end, if they are lucky enough, they may be spewed back into the real universe in a place and time without any regularity after piecing together some other debris - this is the fate and source of many suddenly appearing space hulks.

Or they are a little luckier and just encountered a rare warp navigation dislocation. This kind of irresistible navigation accident often causes people to reach the end before the voyage begins, or vice versa. But no matter which one it is, it seems that they cannot find the missing Indomitable and the fifty Ultramarines, six thousand auxiliary troops, Inquisitor Sibia and her guards at this point in time.

It was not until Captain Galenus, who was unwilling to give up half of his brothers, ordered multiple, layered, and most careful scans around the orbit of the planet that they found a very small amount of peeling fragments from the asteroid ring of the gas giant planet - it was because of the reflection of the gold foil facing the star on a gilded statue that originally stood on the top of the fortress that the searcher noticed it.

After careful isolation, salvage, analysis and comparison, this fragment was one of the decorative statues on the top of the Indomitable Church, engraved with the heroes of the Battle of Cold Steel Peak.

"What do you think?" Captain Galenus asked his left and right for advice.

On his left stood Ulfius, the think tank of the Fifth Company. This warrior was older than all the members of the Fifth Company. He had accompanied Galenus and his predecessor for a long time. His short hair, which had almost turned completely white, and the thin skin with scars and wrinkles wrapped around his skull, and his skin color that looked like stone carvings, all revealed how he had fiercely fought and resisted against things that mortals could not look directly at in another dimension.

And on his right stood another old partner, the Salvatore brother. His rust-red paint, gear skull emblem, and mechanical arm behind him all marked his identity as a technical sergeant who had returned from Mars.

Now, Salvatore leaned forward, his multiple eyepiece lenses shrinking and rotating, showing that the old technical sergeant was conducting multi-angle and multi-spectral data analysis. "Hestian is one of my best juniors," he said at last, "otherwise he would not have been assigned to maintain the Indomitable while I was away."

"I have no doubt about this, but can you see any other clues from this? What about you, Ulfius?"

The Librarian's psychic hood was shining with an increasingly obvious blue light, and his innate psychic power was compressed to a safe and controllable range. His eyes changed from the deepest bottomless black to a bright color radiating blue flames.

"I..." he said slowly, "There are... many different psychic marks here... many... many kinds of prayers and many kinds of souls have echoed across this fragment, not only humans, but also a powerful Unliving One... but strangely, its power characteristics are very inconsistent with the intensity of the echoes it shows, as if... a Groxmon is walking on the toes of a spider..."

"Then I may be able to analyze something more intuitive, Om Messiah bless you." Salvatore finally stood up and said, "From the angle, this was caused by an explosion almost from below. It was blown away by an extremely powerful explosion."

"How powerful was it? Can the composition of the explosive be analyzed?"

"It's rare." The old technical sergeant thought, "It's like... it's like the trace left after someone's plasma gun overheated and exploded, but this equivalent certainly can't be caused by such a small weapon explosion."

"Plasma torpedo?" Captain Galenus frowned. If there was a force that could possess this level of weapon and break through the defense of the Indomitable, then the scope of suspicion would be greatly reduced, and the key point was that they had not heard of any fleet or force capable of launching this level of weapons in the vicinity recently.

Therefore, he asked, "Biochemical plasma cannons are unlikely. This is not the kind of place that the Tyranid fleet likes to go to. There are no living creatures here. The planet is scattered and too barren. So is it a pulse weapon or a plasma-like weapon from the Eldar?" ? Or a dimensional plasma cannon?”

Every time he mentioned a name and the power behind it, Salvatore shook his head solemnly.

"No," he said, "This scale is not comparable to...the traces formed by the instant explosion on it...If I were to describe it, I would say that someone put a planet-level plasma annihilator here and launched it. But the storage time and reactor energy required for that thing are too great. If the Indomitable encounters a spacecraft that can fire such large plasma fire or torpedoes, then Ulphius will be able to sense that such a large object is left here. The traces of the warp voyage, and the traces of the Indomitable's return fire against such a large target will not look so few here. "

The think tank nodded and agreed with Salvatore's view, "Although we found this fragment and carefully scanned the surrounding asteroid belt using various methods using it as the starting point, the radiation and particles of the giant planet itself The storm interfered with the scanning accuracy greatly, and as the Salvatore brothers said, the scale of the engagement here seemed to be unworthy of the duration and firepower of the explosion that blew down the statue. "

"Then we have no way to find them except to make sure they have been attacked here?" Galenus became obviously anxious, but he immediately suppressed the emotion, "When I think about what may happen to our brothers, I can't rest assured about my fate, Ulphius, Salvatore." The captain's voice suddenly dropped, as if he was whispering a secret, "Think about the Broken Ones, even though I will. I will carry out my orders meticulously and destroy any enemy of the Emperor, but I really don't want to imagine that one day I will be suddenly ordered to kill those unfortunate fifty brothers and the Artolion brothers. "

"The dead are gone. Even the best warriors and the most sophisticated strategies will make mistakes and need to retreat." Ulphius's voice sounded more like a sigh in the wind, and his eyes The psychic vortex caused the two comrades to look away slightly, "What we have to do now is to return immediately and report to Lord Tigris, and let him and Lord Calgar decide our next actions instead of blindly here. Searching for the departed Indomitable and wasting time.”

"Perhaps if we look further, there will be more clues that can be found. After we leave, they will really be annihilated in the radiation storm here." Captain Galenus obviously still wanted to make a final struggle, but Salvatore also agreed with Ulphius's opinion. Since the two of them had the same experience with this kind of subspace jump as Galenus, the Marching Lord finally accepted their suggestion and the soldiers belonging to the fifth company The strike cruiser Eternal King began to slowly shift its huge bow, heading towards Mandeville Point and finally disappearing in a flash of warp jump.

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"The Eternal King has jumped into the subspace and left. The confirmation signal has disappeared."

Hestian reported to Master Honso who was sitting on the command throne.

The promising young tech sergeant blinked.

Um……? Silver livery and Apothecary symbol... When did the Ultramarines' Indomitable have an Apothecary brother from another chapter as its commander?

...Oh, yes, he remembered. The reason why he didn't react just now must be because his spirit has been immersed in the ocean of binary and mechanical chants for too long.

The Artolion brothers began to repeatedly set existing jump coordinates due to severe neurodegenerative problems in their brains. The other crew members of the Indomitable found that the Star Fortress they were riding in was constantly flying over the routes they had already sailed. In view of this, Hestian consulted with Sergeant Olanto, the most senior person in the area, and sent a message explaining the situation and requesting help to Macragge through an encrypted channel.

Macragge's reply and the temporary solution he finally sent was the pharmacist brother who is now sitting on the throne in the command center of the Central Cathedral.

Master Honsou from the "Silver Skull" battle group and the members of the "Silver Skull" team he brought.

Although Hestian was a little strange as to why the Mother Chapter did not send the Ultramarines' own apothecary brother, considering that Macragge has not had any temporary replacement, support or even direct replacement of members of the Chapter by members of the Chapter over the years. Regarding the situation of the regiment, the support sent by veteran members of the Ultramarines sub-region such as Silver Skull is not particularly out of the ordinary. Maybe it is because the parent regiment has been a little short of manpower recently? I wonder what happened to Captain Galenus and the others... Strange... Why is the name of the Eternal King so familiar?

The blue sterilizing light illuminated Hestian's face suspended in the sink. His slightly swollen face was frowning, and his eyeballs were trembling rapidly behind his eyelids.

Hongsuo, who was sitting in the master control seat nearby, glanced at the panel, adjusted some of the brainwashing code signals input to the sink, and slightly increased the inflow of sedative drugs.

The brows on the technical sergeant's face slowly widened, and his brain wave signal returned to the normal range.

…Oh…Yes…The Eternal King was sent by the 4th Company to deliver messages and clear the area…Yes, that’s right. However, the communication from Macragge also specifically told them that the pharmacist was also a very good commander, so he would serve as a temporary commander to assist and take care of the Altorion brothers to command them until Macragge could transfer the next batch of personnel to replace the command authority.

Considering that it was indeed less than a year away from their next scheduled normal shift, Hestia nodded and convinced himself, "Nothing is a good thing." Then he once again devoted himself to the work of repairing the fourth quadrant and the southern dock area of ​​the Indomitable.

——It must be said that these silver skull brothers brought by Master Hongsuo are really good at construction work, and the coordination and smoothness of the personnel and material allocation and logistics scheduling of the construction site are amazing. Hestia thought that even among the Ultramarines, there are very few people who can combine the talents of architecture, design and logistics.

Especially the commander of the reconstruction squad, these days he always heard Sergeant Oranto and Brother Artorion praising his efficiency, precision and progress control.

What's his name?

Ah, yes, Brother Kadaras Grendel, an excellent auditor, master builder, rigorous scheduler, and project manager.

Even many Ultramarines themselves can't make everyone satisfied with a construction site that is in operation and lacks something, but Brother Grendel has done it so that no one can say anything bad.

And what's even more amazing is that when everyone thinks that he must have violated the rules of the Bible for efficiency and completion, anyone who wants to catch him wrong will find that he has cleverly made his every move comply with all the temporary management rights and behaviors allowed by the Bible - this is thanks to Master Hongsuo who treated Brother Artorion, and the temporary authority granted to the commander because of the special navigation nature of the Indomitable!

And if that were the case, the Grendel brothers wouldn't be impressive enough to impress the Altorion brothers, but he was even a master fighter. After entering the gladiatorial cage with him, Sergeant Oranto commented that it was a pity that Grendel was not a member of their company, otherwise the Fifth Company would have a brave warrior who could compete for the championship of the mother regiment and could suppress the arrogance of the Grand Duke of Tarasa on the field.

A new navigation order came, with the Altorion brothers' command code at the end.

Hestian glanced at the coordinates flashing on his retina, nodded, and began to connect himself to the star fortress's defense field and power system, ready to enter the next jump once the navigators sent the prepared message.

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“Although you still refuse to let me out, this is very disrespectful, Warsmith!” said a metal symbol with two horns and a wide-open mouth in Hongsuo’s hand. The source of the voice was the dark and evil existence in the core of the warp engine of the Inflexible. Hongsuo used his living metal arm to grab a drop of the material in it to forge this amulet, but he refused to release the Unborn completely.

“But you are so creative to be able to use, tease and erode the descendants of Guilliman so silently, and let them do things that blaspheme the False Emperor and his corpse empire for you... I am very satisfied with what I have seen! It is worth it for me to hide the Inflexible for you this time.”

“You see, I keep my word.” The Warsmith nodded, “How do you think about my proposal? M’ka the Three-born.”