nycdaug Chapter 671 The Moon
Chapter 671 The Moon
Chapter 671 The Moon
Adamantua Forge World.
Four Imperial Fists Space Marines were dragging a red-robed tech-priest, trudging through the mud and bombed ruins after the rain, while also fighting off the chrome beasts that popped up from time to time.
"I don't know how these chrome beasts took out one of our ships. Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe it was an accident. But a fleet... obviously there are no accidents. This is a fact we have to face."
Laurentius said as he walked, panting.
"There are others."
Kurland looked around and said in a deep voice.
Help the sage finish what he has not finished saying.
"Yes, there are other people in this galaxy."
Sage Laurentius stopped and said:
"Actually, I have a theory about this."
"tell us."
Kurland said bluntly.
Laurentius nodded and said:
"I think these sounds might be a form of communication. I guess these chrome beasts want to communicate with us. I used to think they were unintelligent animals, and the phrase 'I am killing' might just happen to sound similar to the orc language, but I could be wrong. Is there a possibility that they want to send us some kind of message... some kind of warning."
"Some kind of warning?"
Kurland stopped when he heard this.
"You mean to say that these aliens came here from such a long distance and invaded the Adamantua sector just to warn us? Are they so nice?"
Kurland stared at the sage and asked back.
"Of course it's not just to warn us. What I mean is that the invasion of the star zone itself may be a forced migration behavior, just like... have you ever seen animals, Captain? One animal's territory is invaded by another more powerful animal, so they are forced to migrate."
Laurentius did his best to explain his theory.
"Very good, a perfect theory, sage."
An Imperial Fist warrior curled his lips and said:
"But how does this help us now? Our fleet is gone, we're stranded on the surface, low on ammunition, without support, and surrounded by an endless stream of aliens who 'want to warn' us. Awesome, I can't imagine a better picture than this."
"This may explain where they came from and why they came, and then reveal who our real enemy is! These studies are very meaningful. Even if we can't leave here in the end, even if we all die in the end, we should know at whose hands we died! Truth is meaning!"
The Tech-Priest spoke loudly, waving his arms.
"Sage Laurentius is right."
Kurland raised his hand to stop his men.
"We need to know the truth."
Kurland looked up at the sky:
"And we can't die here. Not only do we need to know the truth, we must also spread this truth and let more people know that the threat is coming. They can destroy an Imperial Fist fleet without triggering any warning. This level of military force is extremely deadly to any Imperial world!"
It's not so much encouraging his subordinates.
Kurland was more like inspiring himself.
……
Adamantua sector.
Adamantua system.
A naval fleet tore through the barrier between reality and nothingness and appeared near Mandeville Point in the Adamantua system. It was a medium-sized fleet, but its cabin was filled with fifty regiments of Imperial Guards and a full hundred Imperial Fists Space Marines from Terra and Phalanx.
The various screens on the battleship's bridge were cluttered with bits of information from the early days of the war and from interceptions before the reinforcements left Terra, but during the weeks of sailing through the Warp, they had received no news at all.
Now that the space jump has been completed, they have returned to the real universe and communications can be restored.
But all the captains were surprised to find that there was no communication signal from the Adamantua sector.
Without any instructions, the crew members in charge of the detection array spontaneously got busy and started measuring activities.
However, as the data were summarized one by one, the technical crew members in front of the detection array began to look at each other in confusion.
Still no information.
Any information about humans.
The entire Imperial Fists fleet, and even the entire Imperial Fists Chapter, seemed to have disappeared out of thin air. There was no trace of their existence in the galaxy. Communications were not responded to and scans found nothing. The situation was somewhat strange and inexplicable.
"What's happening here?"
Finally someone asked this question.
The Imperial Guard's commander-in-chief, Hess, accompanied by a Lord Admiral and the Captain of the Imperial Fists Wall Guard, walked up the stairs to the bridge. He was surrounded by a team of guards and clerical staff.
Compared to High Lord Admiral Lanson, who reluctantly sent his precious toys back from the borderlands of the Empire, Hess was a more selfless man who fully understood the potential dangers of this war and chose to personally join the reinforcements. This was the largest military deployment in the Core Sector in recent years, and he was not going to leave it to his men. Hess wanted to show that, unlike other High Lords such as Lanson, he was willing to do the dirty work. The Imperial Fists asked his Imperial Guard for help, and then he joined the battle himself.
When Hess announced that he would personally join the reinforcements, it did cause a stir in Terra's political circles. Lanson did not make any petty remarks about this matter, but his reputation was indeed stolen a little.
"Is there anything on the surface of the planet?"
Hess stared at the auspicious instrument and asked sharply.
"It's a mess down there."
The admiral of the naval fleet replied:
"But there is no human signal."
"Where are the Imperial Fists?"
This question hangs over everyone's head.
"According to the preliminary detection of the auspicious instrument, the atmospheric conditions on the planet's surface are undergoing catastrophic changes. The planet seems to have fallen into some kind of stellar crisis. We initially thought that it might have been hit by something, such as a large meteor, but there were no obvious signs of a disaster."
A technical crew member said.
"Forge World Adamantua has been unstable for six weeks since last received, with unstable atmosphere, high levels of surface radiation... In addition, there are clear signs of severe gravitational instability from both a geographic and orbital perspective."
Another technical crew member said:
"The last few intercepted messages we received from the advance fleet before we set off seemed to mention the gravity anomaly, but this data has never been confirmed. We are now contacting Terra via astropathic communication to see what they may have heard from the advance fleet when we jumped, which may help explain the current situation."
"The answer seems to be insignificant."
The Lord Admiral said.
He looked directly at the Captain of the Imperial Fist Wall Guards:
"Six weeks ago, two days after we entered the jump, effective communications with your Chapter Master and the advance fleet ceased, and they disappeared."
"So they're done?"
The captain of the Imperial Fist Wall Guard looked down coldly and asked:
"Are they all dead?"
"There's no indication of any surface deployments by the fleet, but that doesn't mean they're not out there. So, maybe we should head to the surface?"
A naval captain quickly tried to smooth things over.
"In the auspex's field of view, the planet and its orbit appear as a jumble of interference images. It's very likely that the fleet is there, and the ground forces are there, but our scanning equipment can't detect them, and the interference is too severe, and we can't communicate with them."
The technical crew suggested another possibility.
"So what signal did we receive?"
The captain of the Imperial Fist Wall Guard asked coldly
"A massive burst of infrasonic noise."
The technical crew member replied:
"Similar sonic booms to those reported by ground forces before they lost contact, but much greater in intensity, frequency, and duration. It was like the planet was howling in pain."
The Lord Admiral glared at the technical crewman, and the officer subconsciously stepped back and lowered his head, ashamed of his overly vivid description.
"What made that noise?"
The captain of the Imperial Fist Wall Guard continued to ask.
"Some kind of stellar effect, I guess."
The Lord Admiral shrugged and said:
"Perhaps it was a solar storm, or perhaps it was a gravitational disturbance... In short, some kind of cosmic disaster suddenly erupted. Although the probability of this happening is very small, it is not impossible."
“What action are we going to take?”
Hess interrupted them and asked.
"I'm going to take people down to the surface."
The captain of the Imperial Fist Wall Guard said without question:
"I want to see for myself what's going on."
"Arrange a landing spacecraft for him immediately."
Hess waved his hand and gave the order:
"I will send a regiment down with you."
Ten Thunderhawk gunboats rushed out of the belly of the warship and rushed towards the planet covered by the changing extreme weather, and soon disappeared in the rolling and changing clouds with lightning and thunder. Hess watched the last team of Imperial Fists leave the fleet and rush to the unknown land. He suddenly remembered a sentence that his good friend Wangerich said to him before he set out for this place:
"This is irrational. We cannot commit an entire chapter at once. This is the most basic principle, and even I know it. Because if this chapter encounters some kind of major failure, then its gene seed will be completely cut off."
The Grand Master of the Assassin's Court said at the time:
"We did force Lanson to agree to this reinforcement through a vote in the Senate, but he played us, hoping to reduce the manpower commitment of his own navy fleet by facilitating the deployment of the entire Imperial Fists Chapter. This guy has put his own political interests above all mankind."
Hess knew that whenever Wangoric said this, it meant that he had already made up his mind to kill. But at this moment, he didn't care whether the Grand Master of the Assassin's Court really dared to attack the Supreme Lord Admiral or another High Lord.
He was thinking of the previous sentence:
"If this Chapter were to suffer some kind of catastrophic defeat, its gene-seed would be completely extinct."
All members of the Imperial Fists Chapter have arrived. Just now, the last Imperial Fists Space Marine had been sent to the surface. If... No, no, there is no if.
Hess shook his head to shake off the thought.
The Imperial Fists cannot be wiped out.
They are one of the nine founding war groups.
……
The Imperial Fists Wall Guards went to the planet's surface, and Hess gave them five hours to determine the surface conditions. At the same time, the fleet in space was not idle, and they approached the area that was determined to be disturbed - the area that could not be detected by the auspicious instrument and sensors.
The reinforcement fleet began to redeploy around the planet. This naval fleet did not have super-giant radar ships such as the Emperor-class battleships, so it could only expand the exploration range of the entire fleet by slowly expanding the dispersion range of each battleship.
All naval officers stared at the strategic panel. Flashing indicators swept across the terrain grid. In every corner of the screen's huge data array, columns of data spread, then were broken up and reassembled, calculating the flow of energy and the characteristics of the planet. Hess had never seen a planet produce such a large amount of contradictory data so quickly.
"and many more!"
The Admiral suddenly spoke up.
He stepped across the observation panel, pushed the two technical crew members aside, and began to operate the control panel himself.
"there."
The Admiral said, pointing at the screen.
"An afterimage?"
The auspiciousness supervisor asked tentatively.
"The echo of a fragment of rubble from a building on the ground being blown away by a sudden change on the planet's surface?"
Another technical crew member asked.
Both were very experienced naval officers, but their experience was not as rich as that of an admiral. The cosmic knowledge gained from years of fighting allowed him to make judgments quickly.
"What the hell is that?"
Hess couldn't help but ask.
"It is a ship, my dear Admiral."
The admiral finally gave the answer:
"One of our ships."
……
Although this admiral was from Lansong, it was undeniable that he was indeed experienced. Not only did he determine that it was a spaceship through a residual image in the detection array, but he also accurately identified that it was a ship of the Human Empire, not other aerospace equipment, through the shape of the residual image.
The ship, or "piece of ship," emerged from the stormy environment surrounding the planet. It emerged from the soup of radioactivity and the sea of high-energy charged particles like a wreck floating from the seabed. It was repelled by the currents of energy and magnetic fields, glowing with phosphorescence, and then flowing back to the planet surrounded by the crazy gravity.
The remaining half of the engine nozzle lit up white, pushing the wreckage to slowly rise. The crew on the flagship cheered, and at the same time they received a distress signal, indicating that some of their compatriots were still alive in the wreckage.
They could see that many decks of the ship were rolled up and exposed outside the hull, and the hull was twisted and broken into two pieces, as if fierce fighting had taken place in every cabin.
The admiral immediately dispatched two Overlord-class battlecruisers to approach the struggling ghost, and then used several giant metal cables to pull it out of the atmosphere, helping it escape from this cosmic-level horror.
"Report its identity."
Hess spoke up.
"This is an Oberon-class battleship, my lord."
The Admiral observed carefully and said:
"Which means it is most likely the Antorax, the battle barge of the Imperial Fists Chapter, the largest ship under the command of Chapter Master Morhen."
"Through the keel number and the automated broadcast code, it has been confirmed to be the Antorax, sir."
A technical crew member reported.
"Contact the surviving crew members on the ship immediately!"
Hess was cheered up and immediately gave the order.
Thanks to the unremitting efforts of the technical crew.
A communications link was established.
Strange screams and roars suddenly exploded from the loudspeakers. The surrounding sounds were distorted by radiation and gravity. Pulse signals were analyzed from the screams. Energy crackled around the cables and rack rings of the projector inside the workbench. Then, a distorted image began to flicker and was gradually adjusted to an appropriate position.
"I am Hess, the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Guard. I am speaking to you from the bridge of the Azmuths, Antorax. Can you hear me? If you have received it, please reply."
Hess said in a deep voice with a cold look in his eyes.
The sound of static was like the moaning of a ghost.
"Antorax, Antorax, this is Azmuth, can you hear me?"
The Admiral began to ask questions repeatedly.
"I am glad to hear your voice, Marshal."
A staccato voice sounded.
"This is the flagship of the Imperial Fists Fleet, the Antorax, and I am Acting Captain Aquilina."
"The throne is above, there are survivors."
The Admiral said with a sigh of relief.
"captain."
Hess stepped forward and said urgently:
"I am High Lord Hess. Could you, Captain, explain the current situation as you understand it? We are in need of valuable information right now. Can you still report?"
"Thank you for coming, my lord. I never thought that a high lord would come to rescue us personally."
The voice said weakly:
"I have been keeping a log of my missions since these events occurred. I will link the data directly to your ship's Cogito system, and you can download and view all the information in detail. Anyway, we were close to victory. The nest fell under the attack. Ground forces were sent out, and other forces were ready to be airdropped. Then came the sonic boom, first the sonic boom, and then the gravity anomaly. This system should not have these dangers, but they tore through the space around the planet like an axe."
"Please explain in detail, Captain."
Hess said, frowning.
"We were the only ship to survive the gravitational storm. It destroyed the entire fleet, my lord. I saw ships all around me falling apart, crews ablaze... I saw the Chapter Master fall."
The mortal captain's voice was filled with sorrow.
"God Emperor above!"
Hess lowered his head and closed his eyes.
"We survived even under these dire circumstances. We were dragged into its interior by the gravity storm and all directional input was lost, my lord. I did not move for fear of crashing directly into the surface of the planet, and I did not drive the battleship until you finally showed up."
The mortal female captain choked up and said.
The battered battle barge gradually broke free from the severe space distortion, and debris fell off it and was sucked back into the gravity well like silver dust. The resolution of the communication image was improving, and the voice communication was becoming clearer.
She was visible now in the hologram. The bridge behind her was a charred ruin, less distorted. The mortal captain, her command staff, and her technical crew were clad head to toe in astronaut uniforms, but each had patches of stain on it, as if pink fluid had seeped from its interior.
"Plasma reactor leak, radiation burns."
The admiral muttered grimly:
"They were burned so badly..."
"captain."
Hess immediately announced:
"We are sending rescue boats..."
"No, my Lord."
The captain said, shaking his head slowly.
Her voice was calm but firm:
"We are exposed to deadly radiation, my Lord. We are dying, I know that. My entire ship is contaminated, and no one can board it. To board our ship is to die."
"But……"
Hess wanted to say something else.
"Thank you for coming to save us, but we don't have much time. Keep your distance. All I can do for you now is to show you my will and transmit all my information. You must do this, my lord. A great disaster has struck the Imperial Fists in the Adamantua sector."
“We saw it clearly.”
The Admiral interrupted:
"A cosmic gravitational catastrophe..."
"No!"
The captain interrupted firmly:
"It doesn't happen naturally, General."
"Could you please say that again?"
Hess asked seriously.
"This is not a natural disaster phenomenon. It is not the will of the universe that hit us hard... This impact is man-made. This place was directly attacked."
The captain's voice grew weaker and weaker.
"attack?"
The Admiral repeated her exact words.
"Who did it? The Chromes? Those aliens?"
Hess grabbed the edge of the countertop with both hands.
"I do not think so, my Lord."
The mortal captain's voice became increasingly quiet:
"There is a special sound in the sonic boom. Listen carefully to that, and then look at the rising moon."
"as far as I know……"
The admiral frowned and said:
"The Adamantua system has no moon."
"Now there is."
The captain's voice completely faded away.
…………