Chapter 498 Master Hongsuo from the "Silver Skull" Chapter-
When the ninth day passed, and another nine days passed, a special choir in the Hera Fortress still did not receive the originally scheduled message. communication.
Although this communication will only be received by Calgar's own secret room, not by the Great Choir serving the Chapter and the entire fortress, and only High Lord Macragge and his most important Trusted advisors can intervene, but the operation that has been stable for more than half a century* (Note 1) accompanied by Varo Tigris’ increasingly worsening dream prophecies is obviously not a good sign.
The Chief Librarian, who had been disturbed by all his recent dreams for a long time, immediately asked the remaining half of the 5th Company to set off again, led by Captain Galenus, to go find them Brothers on duty on the Indomitable.
When the Marching Lord* (Note 2) led his brothers to the last trace of the psychic jump that the Great Thinker was able to track using the communication mark-that is, the gas of Outer Eskari When they were in the high-altitude circular orbit of the giant planet, they found nothing at first. Some people had begun to think that perhaps the Indomitable jumped into the subspace too frequently and too many times, so that the unfortunate half The brothers encountered perhaps one of the worst situations one could encounter while traveling in the Warp.
That is, either they encounter a subspace storm and the monsters in it, and are swept away to the depths of the Ocean of Souls, where they undergo countless tests and attacks over the past many years. In the end, if they are lucky enough, they may be able to piece together some After other wreckage, they were spit back into the real universe in a place and time without any rules - this is the encounter and origin of many space hulks that suddenly appeared.
Or maybe they were more lucky and just encountered a rare subspace navigation misalignment. This kind of force majeure navigation accident often causes people to reach the destination before the voyage begins, or vice versa. But no matter which one it is, it seems that they are unable to find the missing Indomitable and its fifty Ultramarines, six thousand auxiliary troops, and Judge Sibiya and her guards at this point in time.
It wasn't until Captain Galenus, unwilling to just give up on half of his brothers, ordered multiple, layered, most careful scans of the planet's orbit that they started from the gas giant. A very small amount of peeling fragments were found in the asteroid's halo - it was only because of the reflection of the gold foil on a gilded statue that originally stood on the top of the fortress that it faced the star that the searchers noticed it from the corner of their eyes.
After careful isolation, salvage, analysis and comparison, this fragment was found to be one of the decorative statues from the top of the Indomitable Church, carving the heroes of the Battle of Cold Steel Peak.
“What do you think?” Captain Galenus asked his right and left for advice.
On his left stood Ulphius, the Librarian of the 5th Company. This warrior was older than all the members of the 5th Company here. He accompanied Galenus through the long journey with his predecessor. Over the years, his short hair that turned almost completely white, the thin skin with scars and wrinkles wrapped around his skull, and his skin color that looked like stone carvings all profoundly revealed how fiercely he once lived in another dimension. He has fought and resisted to the death against things that mortals cannot see directly.
On his right is another of his old partners, Brother Salvatore. His rust-red paint, gear skull emblem and mechanical arm on his back all mark him as a technical sergeant returning from Mars. identity.
Now, Salvatore leaned down, and his multi-eyepiece lenses were shrinking and rotating, showing that the old technical sergeant was conducting multi-angle and multi-spectrum data analysis, "Hestian is my best One of the good juniors," he said at last, "otherwise he wouldn't have been assigned to maintain the Indomitable in my absence."
"I have no doubt about that, but you can tell from this. Do you see any other clues on it? What about you, Ulphius?"
The think tank's psychic hood is shining with an increasingly obvious blue light, and his innate psychic power is blocked. Compressed to a safe and controllable range, his eyes changed from the deepest and bottomless black to a bright color radiating blue flames outwards.
"I..." he said slowly, "there are...many different psychic signatures here...many...very many kinds of prayers and many kinds of soul echoes that have passed through this fragment, not just There are humans, and there is a powerful inanimate one... But strangely, its power characteristics are very inconsistent with the intensity of the echo it displays, as if... a Grox beast walking on the toes of a spider That way..."
"Then I may be able to analyze things more intuitively, Om Messiah bless you." Salvatore finally straightened up and said, "From a perspective, this is a mistake. It was almost blown up by a very strong explosion from below."
"How strong is it? Can the composition of the explosive be analyzed?"
"Old technical sergeant. Thinking, "It's like...it's like the traces left after someone's plasma gun overheated and exploded, but of course this kind of yield cannot be caused by the explosion of such a small weapon."
"Plasma torpedo?" Captain Galenus frowned. If he could possess this level of weapon and break through the Indomitable's defense, then the scope of doubt would be greatly reduced. And the key is that they had not heard of this. Any fleet or force capable of launching this level has recently appeared in the area.
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 it is 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 even comparable to...the traces formed by the instant explosion on it...If I were to describe it, I would say that someone annihilated a planetary plasma Or put it here to launch, but the storage time and reactor energy required for that thing are too great. If the Indomitable encounters a spacecraft that can launch such a large plasma fire or torpedo, then Ulphius will be able to detect it to some extent. The subspace navigation traces left by such a large object here, and the traces of the Indomitable's return fire on such a large target will not look so few here."
The think tank nodded in agreement with Salvatore. Opinion, "Although we discovered this fragment and carefully scanned the surrounding asteroid belt using various methods using it as the starting point, the radiation and particle storm of the giant planet itself greatly interfered with the scanning accuracy, and it Like the Salvatore brothers said, the scale of the battle here seems to last and the firepower...not worthy of the explosion that blew down the statue."
"Then we can make sure here. They were attacked, is there no way to find them?" Galenus became obviously anxious, but he immediately suppressed the emotion, "I can't help but think about the fate that may befall our brothers. Rest assured, Ulfius, Salvatore." The captain's voice suddenly became lower, as if whispering a secret, "Think of the Broken Ones, even though I will execute the order meticulously and eliminate anyone. Enemies of the Emperor, but I really don't want to imagine that one day I will suddenly receive an order telling me to confront those unfortunate fifty brothers with swords and swords."
"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 need 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. We are wasting time searching for the Indomitable that has left."
"Maybe if we look again, 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 wants to make a final struggle, but Salvatore also agrees with Ulphius's opinion, since the two of them have the same passion for this kind of subspace jump as Galenus. Experience, finally the Marching Lord accepted their suggestions, and the strike cruiser Eternal King, belonging to the fifth company, began to slowly transfer its huge bow, sailing towards Mandeville Point and finally disappeared in a warp jump. in the flash.
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“The Eternal King has jumped into the subspace and left. The confirmation signal has disappeared.” Hestian said to the sitting commander Master Hongso reported from the throne.
The promising young tech sergeant blinked.
Hmm...? 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.
Due to severe neurodegenerative brain problems, the Artolion brothers began to repeatedly set existing jump coordinates. The other crew members of the Indomitable found that the star fortress they were riding in was constantly flying past them. In view of this, Hestian discussed the situation 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.
The reply and temporary solution sent by Macragge 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 parent group did not send the Ultramarines' own apothecary brother, considering that Macragge has not had temporary replacements by members of the sub-chapter for so many years, In the case of support or even direct substitution into the parent group, the support sent is a veteran member of the Ultramarines sub-group like Silver Skull, which is not particularly out of the ordinary. Maybe it is because the parent group 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.
Honso, 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 opened, and his brain wave signal fell back to the normal range.
...Oh...yes...the Eternal King was sent by the Fourth Company to deliver news for them and clear this 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 Artolion brothers to command them until Macragge Until Rag can mobilize the next batch of manpower to replace the command authority.
Considering that it was indeed less than a year before their next scheduled normal replacement, Hestian nodded and convinced himself, "Nothing is a good thing." Then he wholeheartedly said Begin the work of repairing the fourth quadrant and southern dock area of the Indomitable.
——I have to say that these silver-skull brothers brought by Master Hong Suo are really good at construction work, and their coordination and smoothness in the allocation of personnel and materials and logistics dispatch for construction site work are amazing. Hestien thought that even among the Ultramarines, there were few people who could combine the talents of architecture, design and logistics.
Especially the commander of the unit responsible for reconstruction. In the past few days, he has always heard Sergeant Olanto and Brother Artolion praising his efficiency, precision and progress control.
What is his name?
Ah, yes, Brother Kardalas Grendel, an excellent auditor, master builder, rigorous scheduler, and project manager.
To satisfy everyone on a construction site that is running and something is missing, even many Ultramarines themselves cannot do it, but the Grendel brothers just did it and made everyone say no. It's hard to get out.
And what’s even more amazing is that when everyone felt that he must have violated the regulations of the Holy Code for the sake of efficiency and completion, anyone who wanted to catch him in his mistakes would find that he subtly allowed himself His every move complied with all the allowed temporary management rights and behaviors stipulated in the Holy Code - this is thanks again to Master Honsou who treated the Artolion brothers, and the temporary management granted to the commander due to the special nature of the Indomitable voyage. Permission granted!
And if this is the case, Brother Grendel will not impress Brother Artolion, but he is even a master of combat. Sergeant Olanto commented after entering the gladiatorial cage with him. He said that it was a pity that Grendel was not a member of their company. Otherwise, the fifth company would have had a brave warrior who could compete for the title of the parent company and be able to suppress the arrogance of the Grand Duke of Thalasa on the court.
A new sailing order came, with the Artolion brothers’ command code attached at the end.
Hestian glanced at the coordinates flashing across his retinas, nodded, and began to connect himself to the star fort's protective stance and power system, preparing to enter the next jump as soon as the navigators sent a prepared message. .
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“Although you still refuse to let me out, this is very disrespectful, War Blacksmith!” Honso was holding a long sword in his hand. The metal symbol with two horns and a roaring mouth spoke. The source of its voice was the dark and evil existence in the core of the Indomitable's subspace engine. Honsou used his living metal arm to grab a drop of the substance. Forged the talisman, but refused to fully release the Unborn.
“But to be able to silently use, tease and corrupt the heirs of Guilliman, and have them commit acts of blasphemy against the false emperor and his corpse empire for you, I have to say, you are really powerful. So creative...I'm very satisfied with what I saw! It's worth it that I hid the Indomitable for you this time."
"You see, I do what I say." War Blacksmith nodded. How did you think about the proposal? "Three Lives Muka"
(End of this chapter)