Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

"Your suggestions, company commanders."

Robert Guilliman said, standing in the hall of the command room. His presence made the hall that originally seemed too empty suddenly be filled with the radiance that his noble body unconsciously radiated.

"I'm not here to make all the decisions myself. On the contrary, I want to see your analysis and thinking."

"After the reconnaissance force sent the information back, we landed on Sepetus 12." Glenn Wasotto replied. After several repeated thoughts, he still chose to stick to his original strategy, even if it would make him Appear stubborn.

"Reason, deputy commander."

"The unexpected outbreak of civil war among the green-skinned orcs has cleared away the obstacles in the channel. By bypassing the green-skinned gunboats and finding a channel that observes the blind spot, we can invade the core of the war zone at the minimum cost."

Guilliman neither denies nor affirms.

"Who else wants to express their opinion?"

"We should give priority to removing some of the anti-aircraft firepower and shields." Another relatively young company commander said, "After arriving at Sepetus 12, use strategic bombing to deal with the surface situation."

"Any more?" Guilliman waited for a few seconds, during which he scanned all the commanders present to make sure they knew they were being watched. "Who else thinks differently?"

He tapped his fingers on the table, and the unfamiliar gauntlet made a crisp collision sound on the thick marble surface.

Robert then projected the sand table on the white wall behind him, and removed all the gorgeous badges and velvet flags commemorating past glory from the smooth wall, and recolored it with a monotonous but clear enough tactical mark map.

"This is Sepetus XII, our strategic target," Guilliman said. "And on these planets, there are points of firepower against the fleet that the star cluster had identified before the rebellion broke out." He circled some planets "If we don't have enough destructive firepower, we can certainly go through this route," a clear but zigzag arrow was drawn, "directly bypassing the known defense points and entering Sepetus, but you obviously didn't take it. Our allies, the other two subordinates of the Primarch, did not take into account their own high-powered weapons."

"Theory: The use of extermination weapons should be minimized. Reality: Destruction weapons can be used in the right circumstances. I don't like to rely on large numbers of lives as the cornerstone of victory, but here I see greater efficiency, and greater possible success."

Robert drew another arrow. There were small reconnaissance ships scattered outside the arrow. At the front were high-speed combat ships carrying tactical torpedoes. In the middle were the main carrier fleets. In the three-dimensional space, the arrow was surrounded by a small number of Ultramarines. frigates and a large number of heavy-fire battleships; two seconded assisting companies were floating outside.

This arrow takes a more direct route, passing through several defensive planets, and points directly to the center of the Osiris star cluster.

He turned around and rested his hands on the edge of the table. His blue eyes reminded the Astartes of the heavenly oracles that had been working continuously before the war. They were keen and sharp.

"We must quickly gain the advantage of warships in this universe and suppress the defensive firepower of ground-to-warships and warships-on-warships on Sepetus 12 and its surrounding areas. Whether it is jumping into the hourglass spacecraft to deal with aliens, or landing on Sepetus Pettus No. 12, these are all prerequisites that must be completed.”

——

Kaspion quickly classified a bunch of documents that were sent back to the command room, and chatted with Valentus to relieve the mental exhaustion. The reconnaissance ship they were on had just returned from a near miss and was drawing a famous small circle outside the main force.

"Capa's command is quite dexterous," Kaspion said. "It's much better than when the mortal captain decided on his own. We turned around in a big circle like this, but no light spear was aimed at it."

The scanner reported that a signal from an enemy-controlled planet suddenly disappeared. It was not sure whether it had obtained signal shielding means to avoid tracking. Valentus quickly switched the communication channel and sent the latest news from the Imperial Fist to the command room.

"Planet Balal's shields have been destroyed," an Imperial Fists officer said.

Valentus has not yet identified those temporary companions who have not taken off their helmets. He responded with "received" and redrawn the actual line of control of the Osiris Cluster rebels.

Caspian tapped quickly on the data pad to feed back the latest intelligence to other scout ships in real time. "I'm really glad that we have reliable teammates this time, the Imperial Fists. Did they get their name in the Imperial Army because of the Battle of Rome in the Unification War?"

"At eight o'clock, the angle is fifty degrees. Move forward, not fire." Valentus picked up the communication array and sent the latest instructions to the captain's room.

Kaspion raised his head and glanced at the holographic projection. In the forward direction reported by Valentus, a series of red dots went out one after another, and the iron-gray mark marking the Iron Warriors fleet was leaving. For a moment, he felt as if the two fleets were engaged in an invisible competition.

"The Iron Warriors of the Fourth Legion," he said, "how can they fight more fiercely than the Seventh Legion led by the Primarch... Do they have a super psyker?"

"It has nothing to do with psychic powers, it's their own strength." Valentus took a moment to pay attention to Caspian, "The operating status of the power room."

"Blue indicator, extreme blue." Caspian is proud of his language puns.

Valentus nodded. He pulled up the communication array and flipped a switch on the table, and the pulse quickly sent new information into the captain's cabin of the reconnaissance ship.

Kaspion took a millisecond to read the data pad in front of Valentus. "Increase the turning rate, raise the bow of the reconnaissance ship, and enter a circling pursuit." He was surprised.

"We're just a scout ship, sir!"

"But we have cannon," Valentus said. "The Imperial Fist fleet sent a message that they are about to jump to the rescue of a lone alien hourglass ship. We will provide cover."

Kaspion took a deep breath and said, "We must not miss this opportunity. There are people who are more impulsive than us, the sons of war."

"First of all, we are the Ultramarines." Valentus pressed the button.

"Secondly," Kaspion said as he pulled out a new blank paper, and quickly wrote a long series of neat and small Gothic records with the broad palm of the Space Marine, "Secondly they have Rogal Dorn. On the front lines. I'm not saying I wish my father was there, but a Primarch, gosh," he changed the paper, "I wish I could fight beside my father..."

"Shut up, Caspian. Even that new guy Iote Capa is quieter than you."

——

Perturabo stood in the Agora, which was somewhat cramped for a Primarch, and a black cable connected directly to the central cogitator indicated that he was listening to Dantioch, Robert Key, Liman's three-way conversation with Roger Dorn.

The Iron Warriors' legion bazaar did not take into account the arrival of the original body when it was first built. After all, Perturabo more often appeared in the Masons' Club in the first half of the twelve-man hall of the original's Glory Queen-class battleship Iron Blood. This invisible It makes a hierarchical distinction between the two main associations of the Iron Warriors.

When Barabas Dantioch was implementing the project left by Defes, he even worried that the Gene Father would be displeased by his overstepping his authority in some sense.

But Perturabo was willing to bow down in this simple gathering hall of warriors, his face showing no trace of impatience, calmly following his decision, and following the prompts that a Primarch's extraordinary thinking ability could give.

It almost made Dantioch feel a misplaced sense of care.

Perturabo could see his emotion at a glance. "My children must not be weaker than others," the primarch gave his answer.

Dantioch bowed his head to the Primarch respectfully, turned around and looked at the communication windows of the other two Primarchs on the data board that was split in two.

Now the content of his curiosity became why the father of genes didn't talk to his brothers himself, but had to find himself as a middleman.

The hook nets and jump bridges of the Imperial Fists and Ultramarines are pierced into the hourglass ship, providing a passage for the Imperial Fists' jump gangs. Soon, they entered the outer shell of the spacecraft.

The surface of this alien spacecraft has been shaken open by the aftermath of the attack from the orcs' unknown energy cannon, and the defense system is close to being completely paralyzed. Half of the spacecraft is like a real broken hourglass, spewing out countless charred fragments that reflect light. Its dilapidation and isolation proved that the spacecraft had been abandoned, which was one of the basis for Roger Dorn's judgment that he dared to enter the alien spacecraft alone.

Rogal Dorn will not carry a camera slave on the battlefield, so he is using the scanning auspicious device and energy detector built into the armor to record the situation inside the alien hourglass spacecraft through large sections of high-speed scrolling on the screen. The data is indirectly sent to the hands of the Ultramarines Goliath-class battleships and Iron Warriors.

Unfamiliar with the customary numerical values ​​and conversion ratios of Imperial instruments, Roboute Guilliman had to accept that he could only half-rely on Dorn's dry dictation to establish an impression of the structure within the alien ship. Thanks to the modeling imaging program built into another cable that Perturabo took out from the back of his head, Dorn's data was reconstructed into a visual picture in real time directly in front of Dantioch.

By the way, even if all the programs within the Iron Warriors retain recognition interfaces for Perturabo, some program versions will still lag behind the technological core Iron-Blooded for various reasons. This sometimes conflicts with the information in the Iron Lord's brain. The latest version of the control cable has a version conflict. Therefore, Perturabo also has a data line specifically used to update the system environment within the Descendant spacecraft.

In the auspicious image, the entire perspective is following Dorn's steady running, approaching the interior of the spacecraft at high speed. The renovated Storm Fang bites through the wall, accurately splitting the wall blocking the road, as well as the atomic bomb hidden behind the wall that has not been detonated or even assembled. The road ahead is extremely winding and long, and wide enough to accommodate small ships. It is not difficult to see that this is actually a small ship repair station in the alien spacecraft.

Dantioch thought of the Phalanx - he said sorry to his Primarch in his heart, but the hourglass ship in front of him was indeed closer to the Phalanx in function. This place should not be called a spaceship, but a small space station.

As for the Battlestar, he believes that the hourglass space station in front of him, which is only a few kilometers long and wide, does not deserve this title.

Rogal Dorn leads his Primarch Guard through the swirling clock-dial complex of Hourglass Station. The Haskar Guard and some ordinary Astartes from the 4th Company are loyally guarding Dorne, dealing with surrounding hidden dangers for him.

Dantioch did not see Sigismund, but a particularly tall recruit in the crowd briefly caught his attention. He realized that Inwit had brought the first troops to the Imperial Fists who were of the same origin as the Primarch.

The architectural style of the Hourglass Space Station is very different from that of humans. There are no conventional stairs, doors, or iron locks. There are landslides, transport vehicles, and slender pipes everywhere. It is like the aliens living here are some kind of flowing strange existence. What makes the architectural structure evolve into a kind of weird art are the transparent clocks and running dials that are appropriately decorated here and there. The disk surface that reflects the light and shadow and the hands that bounce in a grid are everywhere. The passage and return of time seems to be an extremely important element in this alien civilization.

Relying on Rogal Dorn's real-time transmission proving the speed of time, and the judgment of Morse who appeared behind Dantioch at an unknown time, they determined that this was just a culture respected by the alien civilization, not a real one. What time technological or psychic weapons.

After several minutes of running, they reached deep into the interior of the Hourglass Space Station.

The first piece of evidence that they had gone deep enough was that a living alien finally appeared within the scope of Rogal Dorn's auspicious omen: it was some kind of ghostly, ghost-like steam-like creature, with a body burning with fiery flames. Energy, the explosion was going on in his body all the time, which caused the readings of the instruments Dorn carried to begin to flash abnormally.

The Haskar Guard, founded less than a year ago, immediately rushed to fight for their genetic father. Since everyone in this guard is a veteran of the Unification War who has been reviewed by Acammus and Sigismund, their combat effectiveness obviously cannot be evaluated by the length of time the team was established.

The Guards first tested the damage power of power weapons against such gaseous aliens and confirmed that their gaseous limbs could still be severed by physical means.

After a round, teammates who were shocked by the forced combat due to the psychic power erupted by the aliens withdrew from the close combat and reorganized their formation. The second group of besiegers immediately charged forward, taking their places, and separated with extremely strong offensiveness. Slashing at the alien's head and numerous limbs. This alien didn't survive more than thirty seconds.

Dorn waved forward calmly, the repaired storm teeth cutting into the hot air. The warriors of the Imperial Fists press deeper.

As another wall collapsed, more enemies emerged in front of them. Manipulated by some mysterious psychic force, the human slaves raised their crude wrenches or chainsaws and approached the Space Marines. The Astartes took a few extra seconds to kill each one of them.

"Robert Guilliman." Dorn suddenly changed the topic in the communication channel and ended his descriptive description of the battlefield. "Let the soldiers participate in this battle nearby. We need more manpower to clean up the space station and kill the manipulated ones." Humans and aliens that control humans.”

Robert separated a channel of thought to calculate. After a blink of an eye, he replied: "Valentus Doro's reconnaissance ship and the assault team led by Iron Warrior Mesut Campos are near you. Valentus will join Jump gang."

Dantioch activated the sound transmission array, knowing that Perturabo's silence was equivalent to recognition. "Mesut Campos will join a gang."