Chapter 395 Processing
"There will be nothing more worthy of pursuit than peace. Even if a thief wants to intrude on the peace of others, he must maintain peace with his accomplices and maintain peace with his own limbs. Even if he is keen on war The glory he wants after his conquest is peace. The only thing he hates is the peace he does not want, and the only thing he recognizes is the peace he likes." - "The Book of Lorgar"
Gerry-Georg. Lys doesn't really know everything about his titular second home planet, Caliban.
Forests, giant beasts, and infinite dangers. The undercurrent surges. hunting. Hiss. Lurking hunting vine.
How strange. Gerry once thought so. Megan may find these scary - maybe they are indeed scary, but the Terrans will never understand the threats of these dark greens. The green of life has not embraced the hearts of Terran people for a long time, maybe hundreds of years, maybe thousands of years.
When the would-be Astartes Megan pointed her short whip at the shadowy giant tree that seemed to be alive in the holographic screen, telling them everything Leon El'Jonson wanted his future warriors to know, when the mysterious figure from the jungle When the lady described to them the terrifying shadows on the ancient planet originating from the twisted life itself, all Gerry could think of was the desolate steel city he had seen when Terra was born.
That place has no name in Gothic, and it is not even one of the places of honor on the list of surrendered places when the great Lord of Man conquered the old land of Terra. Gerry's birthplace is just an unnoticeable corner of a broken island located in the west of Europa, separated from the main continent by a strait. It is swallowed up by a large steel structure as ferocious as a sea beast. It is the remains of a rainy season war. Slowly suffocating in the relentless winter acid rain.
That was where Gerry Gris's first impression of the birth of life was established - different from the warm and trivial pulse that ordinary people think of, life in his eyes was cold and grand.
He knew that it came from the steel that covered the sky and the sun, not life itself. However, in the early years of a newborn's life, the entire world is made of the same similar material, and the impression it brings must be vague and consistent. one.
This impression was further strengthened when he was selected by the emperor's recruiting officer, lay in cold iron, fixed by metal rings, and underwent a series of operations to open the heart and replace the lungs. His mortal life that passed away with his rebirth was completely fixed in the subtle smell emitted after the metal was wetted, and the blood stains that flowed with it.
And in this area, the core area of the alien creature ship, through the filtering of the breathing grid, just from the smell itself, he found this familiar smell. Tendons and gunmetal, blood vessels and rusty iron. Cold and full of vitality. This is the source of life that the Terrans can understand.
And Gerry-Grice would never admit that.
The massive steel structures were wrapped around the warm flesh exterior, just as they were around the entire ship's exterior protecting its interior. They are a pair of membranes that echo each other, the outer skin and the inner membrane, which isolate the Space Marines' boots from the flesh under their feet.
Jack fired at the wall, a series of explosive bombs, and fire scattered everywhere. Very good, the attack brought by his explosive bomb was very effective. The rusty metal layer was exploded, in exchange for a large number of piles of meat and yellow-green tissue fluid that fell to the ground from the charred hole. The smell will be on the spot. The Luna Wolf was so frightened that he took five or six steps back.
"Why are you hitting the wall?" Hammer asked in a muffled voice, and the external circulation air valve was temporarily closed by him again.
"You don't often play that kind of trick, bang," Jack gestured twice with his gun, "bang, there's a big explosion at the point of force, and the whole wall collapses. I thought I could learn a trick."
"Are you going to Iron Warriors, Jack?" Gerry asked.
"What? No, Horus is so good, why should I go to the fourth... First of all, let me declare that this is just my personal feeling and does not represent the consensus of everyone or any general opinion. At the same time, I have no Trying to offend any of us..."
"You can shut up, Moonwolf," Kroger warned.
Just as the Luna Wolf was about to retort, the gentle voice of the Word Bearer drifted into the channel: "Brothers, do not get into mutual disputes. This is behavior that is not beneficial to our service. We should abandon it. To cultivate yourself.”
Jack shrugged and put away his gun. Everyone, including Hashem himself, knew that Jack couldn't stand the Word Bearers' chatter.
They continued to advance slowly in the dark hall. After walking a certain distance, Gerry realized that this place seemed to have a guessable effect based on the usual ship structure. But it was Kroger who really made the statement.
"This is the bridge structure," the Iron Warrior concluded. Even though he had thought about it many times before speaking out, there was still hesitation in his words.
"It's such a mess outside, but there is a clear structure inside?" Jack whispered, "What's the reason?"
Hammer said: "The metal here is older than the outside. There is at least a time difference of more than a hundred years.”
"How do you judge?...Forget it, I understand, you are the Iron Warriors." Jack replied, patted the butt of the gun with his hand to create the effect of applause, and raised his feet to step over a pipe rising from the ground.
"They grow, outside the metal, and then are revised, concealed, and obscured again." The Word Bearers chanted rhythmically, "They fly, relying on iron, relying on flesh and blood, and then again It's iron."
"A good guess." Gerry commented, that's exactly what he thought.
Across the bridge, they determined that they were approaching the core area of the spacecraft. The sweltering heat was still rising. The temperature control system of the armor helped them maintain the internal temperature at a level suitable for combat, at the expense of the heat dissipation system. It hummed like an old Forge World Baneblade production line that was in disrepair.
Air flow floated in front, and the air circulation caused by some temperature differences invisibly wrapped around their armor from the multiple wall gaps or forks in the old metal hall like gossamers. Hammer's expressionless helmet carefully examined the surrounding clues and calculated the possible path of the bullet in the wind.
It has been a long time since they encountered the strange enemies they could encounter on the outside, just like those creations born of flesh and blood that lost the nurturing environment in which they were born on this metal road.
But just as they approached a fork in the road, there was a sound of armor scraping, and a familiar sound of footsteps sounded distantly in the passage, echoing through the wide and long road environment to the twenty-third Next to the team.
Jack quickly identified the hissing sound of the armor operating, the sound of the warrior standing up from the floor, and the clanking of some connecting buckles as they moved. His excited voice immediately sounded in the communication channel Ringed: "I thought only our team arrived in this area, what's the number on your side?"
"That's Norwood," Kroger spoke first, recognizing his comrades, " Team 11. "
"Oh, nice to meet you... 伱," Jack stopped his pronoun, recovered from the excitement, and realized that what appeared in front of them from the corner was just It was a steel warrior whose armor was burned through by black light and was heavily wounded. He had just put down the gun he held high.
Jack wisely didn't ask what happened to the rest of their team.
"Well." The new Iron Warrior said, his voice hoarse, like grinding gears, "Kroger, Hammer, and you."
He paused, Not shy about their losses: "The rest of my team members died from the gravity squeeze in an inner mezzanine, and I continued exploring until I got here. Need help?"
"How proud," Hasse Mu said, his tone could be described as gentle, "How heroic. I will not refuse you, battle brother."
"But this will only reach half the Iron Warrior concentration in the team!" Jack said, "No matter what , welcome you to fight side by side with us..."
"This is difficult. I can't fight side by side with you for a long time." Norwood interrupted the welcome of the Luna Wolves, and his tone was even a little rough, which was in line with the attitude of other legions except for a few specific legions. The inherent impression of Iron Warriors.
“The reason.” Kroger said.
Norwood glanced around the 23rd Team present. His helmet blocked all his expressions, but the members could almost imagine his frowning face and his face as stone. Of course, that experience comes from their observations of Kroger and Hammer. Each legion has an overall personality that each legion has, and all warriors express these to a greater or lesser extent.
"I'm going to die," Norwood replied. "My first heart has been ruptured, my second has been damaged, and other organs have been damaged to varying degrees. I'm not sure I can continue to live. How long, and it's a challenge to keep fighting." Jack fell silent.
The Word Bearer nodded solemnly to the other party: "May the honor of serving belong to you, brother, and may your labor rest."
"Yes." Norwood replied short and short, just from the sound of his voice. Come and listen, you can barely hear any inner pain or hesitation.
"You haven't reduced your numbers yet? I hope you know that the bodies of the soldiers who died in this ship will be taken away by the aliens that appear." He said, "My original plan was to destroy my gene seeds , but since you have the ability to get here, I think you will also have the ability to track the aliens that appear after my death. This is the effective help I can provide."
"But... no, Your Majesty, you have only been here for five minutes...and you have come to arrange funeral arrangements with us. Shouldn't it be a process, first fighting alongside us, then having an accident, then saying goodbye with tears, and we move on with grief and indignation? ..." Jack murmured.
Norwood's helmet turned towards him, and then the Iron Warrior took off the helmet and held it in his arms, revealing a face that was half mechanical and half full of dried blood.
"Is it necessary?" he asked. "You stay away to avoid alerting the enemy. Until I die and the alien appears, you will continue your mission."
"We understand, brother." Kroger replied, "You have been waiting here. A long time."
"Yes, I heard you appear, so I came over." Norwood nodded seriously. "Goodbye." Kroger nodded. Mo, Gerry, Jack, Hashem, let's go to the tunnel and wait."
They left Norwood silently, and the soldier watched them go away, and then sat down again.
A few minutes later, he felt that his time was up, and said on the communication channel: "Get ready."
In the tunnel, the 23rd Team, which received the signal, began to monitor the soldiers after they fell. conditions around the ground.
At first, there was nothing there, darkness, silence, and the everlasting smell of blood, caressing the Astartes' olfactory nerves. Then, subtle movements appeared on the armor of the dead warriors, accompanied by the gentle collision of iron products, just like the whispers left by the deceased during his lifetime, lingering deep in the hot and humid air.
Krog raised his hand and asked the team members to wait patiently. Soon, the body of the deceased suddenly fell downwards, and his armor briefly caught on the cable link on the ground, causing a brief delay.
"Now!" the soldier ordered, and the 23rd team arrived at the target location in an instant, everything happened in the blink of an eye. Under the body of the deceased, the steel ground was removed, and thick pipes like blood vessels were exposed. A bloody opening was accepting the deceased to fall into it, and the liquid in the pipe drifted along.
Without hesitation, several people chased and jumped into the opening, and then were quickly carried forward by the extremely fast flowing biomass liquid. The dark blood flowed surgingly, repeatedly knocking their armor upside down in the thick water channel.
The Astartes' excellent sense of balance helps them distinguish everything that rushes towards or rushes past them. The incomplete broken iron seems to be eroded by the crimson background, while the volcanic rumbling noise in their ears repeats endlessly. Rolling, looping, never-ending, shocking their eardrums again and again. Crimson and black iron rotated alternately wherever they could see, and occasionally huge disks like blood cells rushed past them, rolling up turbulent waves.
Suddenly, everything became lighter, and the coercion and pressure of the blood flow left them. The last threat to their lives was the fall from the center of the pipe.
Gerry gritted his teeth and fell to the ground. The height this time was much higher than the last time, and his armor was the heaviest among them. He hit the ground, and next to him was a deep red pool. Other soldiers happened to fall into the pool one after another and were swimming out of the high-density water quickly. Hassem grabbed the arm of Norwood, the deceased, and dragged him to the metal floor beside the pool.
A spike passed through the underside of Grid's shoulder armor and pierced his upper arm from close to the armpit. He recovered from the flash of black and red spots before his eyes, pulled out the spike, and found that it seemed to be some kind of decorative bone blade, mounted on an alien statue.
statue. Yes. Statues - unmistakable symbols of civilization, unequivocal evidence of cultural pursuits.
Half of the statues by the pool were smashed by him, and the remaining half looked like some kind of soft biological variant. The arms were open membrane wings, without feet, and they could only swim like sea creatures. long tail.
He soon got the opportunity to confirm the image of the complete statue, because the creature depicted in the statue - or one of the species itself, was appearing in front of the team.
This alien is very different from any that have ever appeared before. It is in an upright position and is about less than three meters tall. It is supported by a powerful and delicate bone-white fish tail and swims on the ground, connected to many neurovascular root-like structures on the ground.
A pair of membrane wings are folded behind it, and the other pair of soft and flexible tentacles are stretched out in front of the body, and the suction cups grasp the metal blades. A thin, translucent jellyfish-like skin covered its head downwards, blocking its pink-white upper body like a veil. It also reflected a faint fritillary-colored luster, like a soft firefly, slightly illuminating the surroundings. dark.
From a certain subjective perspective, its smooth lines and wonderful shapes can almost be called beautiful, as long as a human's receptive ability is strong enough.
Its head turned until a pair of slowly flapping gills faced the direction of the warriors. Then, a sound imitated by friction and vibration came from it.
"Astartes..." the alien said in its own way, "you are still alive..."
Hashem couldn't bear it anymore and opened fire.
No matter what the alien wanted to say or what emotions it contained, it was drowned in the flames. But this time, the burning of the flames hit the barrier, and the smooth and soft skin of the alien eliminated the long-range firepower. At the same time, its membrane wings instantly unfolded, and the torrent of blood rushed towards the team, but the real fatal thing was undoubtedly the hidden thing inside. ion dark light.
Kroger and Gerry immediately decided to engage in close combat. What was annoying was that the alien's fighting skills were also a problem. It flexibly used every part of its body structure in a way that humans could not imagine, and fought back quickly.
The turning point occurred after Hammer severed several nerve vessels on the ground. The alien's counterattack immediately became slow and blind, as if it had forgotten how to fight. Tens of seconds later, Jack's power claws tore off its jellyfish-like cortex, and then smashed the opponent's chest.
“For Norwood—this is the first time I say this for someone I’ve only known for five minutes, really.” Jack said half-snarled, half-sarcastic.
The alien fell in the wail of infrasonic waves. Hashem was still angry. After placing the body of the deceased Norwood on the ground, he picked up the power mallet and used his power on the alien.
Krog bypassed the severed nerves on the ground and walked deeper into the room. This was probably a place similar to a command room. He saw a large screen and a strange joystick that seemed to control the spacecraft, but they were all abandoned and covered with blood vessels.
Now, the interior of the room is filled with cocoon-shaped translucent objects, with human figures floating faintly inside. Next to the cocoons are piles of Space Marine armor that have been roughly removed.
He identified the armor on the ground one by one. One set, two sets, some glowing with pearly white, some the gray armor used by the Word Bearers to write scriptures. Each set of armor comes from other teams that join the gang with them, and if you count them by cocoons, there are more than twenty cocoons that have been completely formed, and more cocoons that are half-formed, leaving the damaged warriors inside. The body is exposed.
"Hashem," he heard himself say, his voice thick with hatred, "Gri."
"I understand," the Word Bearers and the Dark Angel said simultaneously, " I will handle it.”
(End of this chapter)