Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

"Is anyone injured?" Perturabo glanced gloomily at the soldier who informed him. Before the other person's legs began to tremble, he looked away and directed his irritation at his jammed machine again. He decided to repair it later with the soles of his shoes. Its ragged construction relieves depression.

"Bring the report, you can leave." He said dullly. "Let the injured return to Lokos. I don't need the injured to fight yet."

After the soldiers left, he quickly kicked the machine to tell it to continue spitting out paper tape, then sat back in his steel chair and read the incident report on the small-scale accidental injuries caused by the new laser gun conversion device going out of control.

He hoped in his heart that this was an unexpected flaw on the assembly line, rather than a huge flaw in some link of the overall industrial process, so that in the future he could say that it was not his mistake - well, Perturabo couldn't lie to himself.

"Another mistake of mine." He muttered to himself, patted the machine that started to freeze, and began to deduce possible errors in his design based on the phenomenon described in the report.

In any case, the same type of laser pistols in the army need to be completely removed and overhauled to avoid more accidents. Since this happened to him, it is his responsibility.

He pulled several blank pieces of manuscript paper to his hand, and hung the pen in the air. He paused for a while, put down the pen, covered his face with both hands, and deeply immersed himself in a purer thinking session.

Then, after exhaling, he tightened his grip on the pen and started calculating again from the beginning.

Not long after, Didi's call sounded.

Perturabo was quite obsessed with having the entire interior space of a tank to himself, so at this moment he had to personally pick up other people's communications instead of assigning a guard and telling him, "You go and follow The other person told me I was busy and I wasn’t here.”

"What?" He was preoccupied with two things, preparing to replace the scraps of paper that had been cleared by calculations, and at the same time responded impatiently, "Which artillery piece exploded again?"

"At least not yet." Callifon's voice sounded, "Maybe there won't be in the future?"

The movement of Perturabo's pen across the surface of the paper became sluggish.

He immediately replaced the unused scratch paper and slapped the new paper on the center of the table, controlling and regretting his emotions.

Recalling the last time Morse mocked him for being more prone to soaring into the sky due to heat and expansion than Lokos's hot air balloon, Perturabo suddenly felt that there was nothing to be angry about.

"What's the matter, Callifon?"

"Let me ask how you are, Abo." Kalifon said softly, and the sound of flipping paper could also be heard from her side. She must have been busy as well. "I believe the accident was not your fault."

"You believe me and you can change reality?" Perturabo complained slightly, moving the calculation to the next step. No longer able to find any loopholes, he felt it was necessary to re-verify the theoretical formula he had summarized previously.

This is actually a pleasant process for him. There is no need to think about any twists and turns outside the market. The numbers and axioms always show an amazing accuracy and frankness. They neither mock him nor deceive him. , let alone worship him, knowledge is knowledge.

Callifon said quietly: "No. Harkon is among those injured."

"Such a coincidence... no, that deserter!" Perturabo reacted immediately, and anger rushed into his head.

The calculations under his hands doubled again, and his brain was spinning like gears nested layer by layer. Countless numbers and letters were laid down on the scratch paper as accurately and quickly as printing. Perturabo spent his anger in this way.

Gun energy out of control? What a shame he could say such a thing! He obviously didn't want to participate in the battle, so he found a way in advance to lie down in the back and sleep.

Califon continued: "I know my brother. He is probably worried that you will kill him, so he is trying to escape early."

She sighed, with more guilt in her tone: "I sincerely apologize for him, Lord of the Legion."

"Are you also worried that I will take the opportunity to kill him? Am I so fearful and narrow-minded?"

The tip of Perturabo's pen cut through the paper and broke on the steel surface.

He rummaged through the cabinets in search of a new pen, although he knew full well that he had stored his spare writing tools in another drawer.

"No," Callifon said, "I just admitted that my brother was a deserter."

This sentence made Perturabo quiet for a moment.

He let go of his cabinet, gave the perpetually jammed machine a hard slap, and then opened the top. The wind took away his annoyance.

The young man imitated Morse's posture and sat down, crossing one leg over the other.

It's not that he likes it. On the contrary, he will use this awkward feeling of dissonance to remind himself to reflect from the inside out.

Kalifon's voice was mixed with some soft rustling sounds, maybe it was the brush of her sleeves on the table, maybe it was the error of the current itself. These trivial movements are not annoying, but become a footnote to Callifon's own temperament.

"Are you wondering why, Abo?" she said.

"I just want him to fight with ordinary soldiers, and I don't want to harm him. Our technology is obviously so advanced." Perturabo said.

"But he is jealous of you. From the first time he saw you, he secretly compared you with you." Califon said calmly, as if she was not describing an elder brother, but just stripping away private society. A separate individual after a relationship.

"When you first met your father, he was actually beside him, but you didn't even look at him." At this point, Califon smiled, "This is what Harkon told me himself."

"The longer you stay in Lokos, the more dazzling your glory will be. You have already accomplished ten achievements that Harkon could not accomplish before you came of age. My father would occasionally say that if the eldest son had your talent, he would have done it long ago. Let the eldest son succeed to the throne instead of continuing to torture his age with power and government affairs.”

"As the years go by, you leave more and more traces in Lokos. Your endless talents have changed the entire country, which gradually caused my eldest brother to have another worry - whether my father is more important than him. I like you."

"I?"

"He is afraid that his father will ask you to take the throne. After all, Lokos is already your country in a practical rather than a symbolic sense."

Perturabo was silent for a moment, "He's right."

This time it was Callifon who was surprised: "Do you want to be a tyrant?"

"I don't want him to succeed to the throne. His behavior has ruined people's goodwill; even if he returns to my army in a few days, I will drive him away."

He continued: "If you could, I'd like you to wear an iron crown."

Callifon immediately laughed: "In front of me, there is Andos lining up under the throne."

"Not Andos, he's too friendly and kind."

"His nature is so pure. I am afraid that for my brother, a beautiful enough butterfly is more valuable than a thousand iron crowns."

Thinking of the overly simple and simple craftsman, the two laughed together. Compared to Harkon, Andos is really both lovable and reassuring.

Perturabo stood up and took a few pieces of paper from the top of the storage shelf: "I wrote a war declaration speech. Can you listen to it for me?"

Califon happily agreed and joked: "How many manuscripts did you write of the speech you gave at the naming ceremony?"

Perturabo was unmoved and looked into the distance: "You can guess."

Although the mountains and the end of the dangerous road were out of sight, Perturabo's calculations told him that Kaldis' fortress was approaching.

I highly recommend the book "False Gods and Evil Sons" which is a rationalized HE hammer in the original style of "Family Reunion, Empire and Big Wins". You must read it ()