Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 498: Master Hongsuo from the Silver Skull Regiment
When the ninth day passed, and then another nine days, a special choir in Hera Fortress still had not received the communication that was originally scheduled to be sent.

Although this communication would only be received by Calgar's own confidential room, rather than being detected by the Grand Choir serving the Chapter and the entire fortress, and only Archlord Macragge and his most trusted advisors could inquire about it, the originally stable operation for more than half a century* (Note 1) was obviously not a good sign with the increasingly deteriorating dream prophecies of Varo Tigris.

The Chief Librarian, who had been feeling uneasy about all his recent dreams for a long time, immediately asked the remaining half of the Fifth Company to set out again, led by Captain Galenus, to find their brothers on duty on the Indomitable.

When the Marching Lord*(Note 2) led his brothers to the last trace of psychic jump that the Grand Librarian had been able to track using the comm markers - a high-altitude ring orbit around the gas giant Outer Eskari, they initially found nothing, and some had begun to think that perhaps the Inflexible had jumped into the Warp too often and too often, so that the unfortunate half of the brothers might have encountered the second worst possible situation in Warp travel.

That is, they either encountered a warp storm and the monsters in it, and were swept away to the depths of the Ocean of Souls, where they endured trials and attacks for who knows how many years. Finally, if they were lucky enough, after piecing together some other debris, they were spit back into the real universe at a place and time that had no regular patterns to follow - this was the fate and origin of many suddenly appearing space wrecks.

Or maybe they were luckier and just encountered a rare warp navigation misalignment, this kind of irresistible navigation accident often caused people to reach the end before the voyage began, or vice versa. But no matter which one it was, it seemed that they could not find the missing Indomitable and the fifty Ultramarines, six thousand auxiliary soldiers, Inquisitor Sibia and her guards at this point in time.

It was not until Captain Galenus, unwilling to abandon half of his brothers, ordered multiple, layered, and most careful scans around the planet's orbit that they found a very small amount of flaked fragments from the gas giant's asteroid ring - and that was because of a flash of reflection of the gold foil facing the star on a gilded statue that originally stood on the top of the fortress, which caught the searcher's eye.

After careful isolation, salvage, analysis and comparison, it was found that the fragment was one of the decorative statues on the top of the Indomitable Church, depicting the heroes of the Battle of Cold Steel Peak.

"What do you think?" Captain Galenus asked his subordinates for their opinions.

On his left stood Ulfius, the think tank of the 5th Company. This warrior was older than all the members of the 5th Company. He had accompanied Galenus and his predecessors for a long time. His short hair, which had almost turned completely white, the thin skin with scars and wrinkles wrapped around his skull, and his complexion that looked like stone carvings all revealed how he had fiercely fought and resisted against things that mortals could not look directly at in another dimension.

To his right is his other old partner, the Salvatore brother. His rust red paint, gear skull emblem and the mechanical arm behind him all identify him as a technical sergeant who returned from Mars.

Now, Salvatore leaned forward, his multiple eyepiece lenses shrinking and rotating, showing that the old technical sergeant was conducting multi-angle and multi-spectral data analysis. "Hestian is one of my best juniors," he said at last, "otherwise he would not have been assigned to maintain the Indomitable while I was away."

"I have no doubt of that, but can you see anything else in this, Ulfius?"

An increasingly obvious blue light shone from the Librarian's psychic hood, his innate psychic power was compressed to a safe and controllable range, and his eyes changed from the deepest bottomless black to a bright color radiating blue flames.

"I..." he said slowly, "There are... many different psychic marks here... many... many kinds of prayers and many kinds of souls have echoed through this fragment, not only from humans, but also from a powerful Unliving One... but strangely, the characteristics of its power are very inconsistent with the intensity of the echoes it displays, as if... a Grox beast is walking on the toes of a spider..."

"Then I might be able to come up with something more intuitive, Om Messiah bless you." Salvatore finally stood up and spoke, "From the angle, it looks like this was blown away by an extremely powerful explosion that detonated almost from below."

"How strong is it? Can you analyze the composition of the explosive?"

"Rare." The old technical sergeant thought, "It's like... it's like the traces left after someone's plasma gun overheated and exploded, but this yield certainly can't be caused by such a small weapon explosion."

"Plasma torpedo?" Captain Galenus frowned. If they had the power to possess weapons of this level and break through the Indomitable's defense, the scope of suspicion would be greatly narrowed. And the key point was that they had not heard of any fleet or force capable of launching such a torpedo in the area recently.

So 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 things here. The planets are scattered and too barren. So is it a pulse weapon or the Eldar's plasma-like weapon? Or a dimensional plasma cannon?"

Every time he mentioned a name and the force behind it, Salvatore shook his head solemnly.

"No," he said, "This scale is not comparable to... the traces left by the instantaneous explosion here... If I were to describe it, I would say that someone placed a planetary plasma annihilator here and launched it, but that thing requires too much energy storage time and reactor energy. If the Inflexible encountered a spacecraft that could launch such a large plasma cannon or torpedo, then Ulfius would be able to detect the warp trail left by such a large object here, and the traces of the Inflexible's return fire on such a large target would not appear so small here."

The think tank nodded in agreement with Salvatore's opinion. "Although we carefully scanned the surrounding asteroid belt using various means after discovering this fragment, the radiation and particle storms of this giant planet itself greatly interfered with the scanning accuracy. And as Brother Salvatore said, the scale of the battle here seems to be not worthy of the explosion that blew up this statue, in terms of duration and firepower."

"So, apart from confirming here that they have been attacked, there is no way for us to find them?" Galenus was visibly anxious, but he immediately suppressed the emotion. "I cannot feel at ease when I think of the fate that may befall our brothers, Ulfius, Salvatore." The captain's voice suddenly became lower, as if whispering a secret. "Think about the Broken Ones. Although I will carry out orders meticulously and eliminate any enemy of the Emperor, I really don't want to imagine that one day I will suddenly receive an order telling me to fight with my brother Altrion with my spear and sword against those fifty unfortunate brothers."

"The dead are gone. Even the best warriors and the most sophisticated strategies can make mistakes and need to retreat." Ulfius' voice sounded more like a sigh in the wind. The vortex of psychic energy in his eyes made his two comrades look away slightly. "What we need to do now is to return immediately and report to Lord Tigris. He and Lord Calgar will decide our next move, instead of blindly searching for the Indomitable that has already left and wasting time."

"Perhaps if we look again, there may be more clues to be found. After we leave, they will really be annihilated in the radiation storm here." Captain Galenus obviously wanted to make a final struggle, but Salvatore also agreed with Ulfius's opinion. Since the two of them had the same experience in this kind of warp jump as Galenus, the Lord of the March finally accepted their advice. The strike cruiser Eternal King belonging to the Fifth Company began to slowly shift its huge bow, heading towards Mandeville Point and finally disappeared in a flash of warp jump.

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"The Eternal King has jumped into the warp and left. Confirmed signal has disappeared." Hestiaan reported to Master Hongsuo who was sitting on the command throne.

The promising young technical sergeant blinked.

Hmm...? Silver paint and the symbol of the Apothecary... When did the Ultramarines' Indomitable be commanded by an Apothecary brother from another Chapter?

...Oh, yes, he remembered. He didn't react just now because he had immersed his mind in the binary ocean and mechanical hymns for too long.

The Altorion brothers began to repeatedly set existing jump coordinates due to severe brain neurodegenerative problems. The other crew members on the Indomitable found that the star fortress they were on was constantly flying over the route they had already navigated. In view of this, Hestia discussed with the most senior Sergeant Oranto here, and sent a message to Macragge via an encrypted channel to explain the situation and request help.

Macragge's response and the temporary solution that they finally sent was the pharmacist brother who now sits on the throne in the command center of the Central Cathedral.

Master Hongsuo from the "Silver Skull" regiment and the members of the "Silver Skull" team he brought with him.

Although Hestia was a little surprised that the mother chapter didn't send the Ultramarines' own apothecary brothers, considering that Macragge had sent members of the daughter chapters to temporarily take over, provide support, or even directly replace the mother chapter over the years, it was not particularly unusual to send a veteran Ultramarines daughter chapter member like the Silver Skull to provide support. Maybe it was because the mother chapter was a little short of manpower recently? I wonder how Captain Galenus and the others are doing... Strange... Why does the name of the Eternal King sound so familiar?
The blue sterilizing light illuminated Hestiaan's face floating in the sink. His face, slightly swollen from soaking, frowned, and his eyeballs trembled rapidly behind his eyelids.

Hong Suo, who was sitting in the main control seat nearby, glanced at the panel, adjusted some brainwashing code signals input into the sink, and slightly increased the flow of sedatives.

The frown on the technical sergeant's face slowly relaxed, and his brain wave signals fell back into the normal range.

...Oh...yes...The Eternal King was sent by the 4th Company to deliver messages and clear the 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 Altrion brothers to command them until Macragge could transfer the next batch of personnel to replace the command authority.

Considering that it was indeed less than a year until their next scheduled shift, Hestiaan nodded and convinced himself, "Nothing is a good thing." Then he once again devoted himself wholeheartedly to the work of repairing the fourth quadrant and southern dock area of ​​the Inflexible.

——It must be said that these silver-skull brothers brought by Master Hongsuo are really good at construction work, and the coordination and fluency of the deployment of personnel and materials and logistics scheduling on the construction site are amazing. Hestian thought that even among the Extreme Warriors, there are very few people who are so talented in architecture, design and logistics deployment.

Especially the commander of the reconstruction squad, these days he always heard Sergeant Oranto and the Altorion brothers praising his efficiency, precision and progress control.

What's his name?

Ah, yes, Brother Cardas Grendel, an excellent auditor, master builder, rigorous scheduler, and project manager.

Keeping everyone satisfied on a working but somewhat lacking construction site was something that many Ultramarines themselves struggled to do, but the Grendel brothers managed to do it in a way that no one could complain about.

What's even more amazing is that when everyone thinks that he must have violated the regulations of the Holy Code for the sake of efficiency and completion, anyone who wants to catch him wrong will find that he has skillfully made his every move comply with all the permitted temporary management rights and behaviors stipulated in the Holy Code - this is thanks to Master Hongsuo who treated the Altorion brothers, and the temporary authority of the commander who was granted because of the special sailing nature of the Indomitable!

And if it were just this, Brother Grendel would not be enough to impress Brother Altorion, but he is even a master in combat. Sergeant Oranto commented after entering the fighting cage with him that it was a pity that Grendel was not a member of their company, otherwise the Fifth Company would have a brave warrior who could compete for the championship of the mother regiment and could suppress the arrogance of Grand Duke Tarasa on the field.

A new navigation order came, with the command code of the Altrion brothers at the end.

Hestian glanced at the coordinates flashing across his retina, nodded, and began to connect himself to the star fortress's protective stance and power system, ready to make the next jump once the navigators sent him a prepared message.

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"Although you still refuse to let me out, this is very disrespectful, Warsmith!" said a metal symbol with double horns and a wide-open mouth roaring in Hongsuo's hand. The source of the voice was the dark and evil existence in the core of the subspace engine of the Indomitable. Hongsuo used his living metal arm to grab a drop of the material in it to forge this amulet, but refused to release the Unlife completely.

"But you are very creative in being able to quietly use, tease and corrupt the descendants of Guilliman, and make them do things that blaspheme the false emperor and his corpse empire for you... I am very satisfied with what I have seen! It is worth it that I hid the Inflexible for you this time."

"You see, I keep my word." The Warsmith nodded. "What do you think of my proposal? Muka the Three-Born."

(End of this chapter)