Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 514 If you keep doing this, Bluebird will owe you a fight!
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When the Indomitable Star Fortress emerged from the defense range of New Badab in her proud and glorious mammoth posture, with obvious signs of combat, alarms immediately sounded and defenses were raised over the entire New Thorn Palace of the Tyrant.

The fleet in orbit began to assemble. Hell's Iris, an important asset and base of the Red Corsairs, which was also originally a Ramirez-class star fortress, began to close the port and activate his weapon systems that were twisted by the energy of the warp and the rituals of the lifeless into strange and bloody, but equally deadly.

The black market and camp at the foot of the palace mountain were in chaos. Many people fled on various ships to nearby asteroids in the void or any area that could shield the detectors. They then carefully sent out spies or automatic augurs, or, more classically, used shamans, fortune tellers, wizards or psychics to conduct trance-style observations, and by the way, predicted the fate of both parties in an attempt to place bets more accurately.

However, more pirates and warbands who were more familiar with and knew Luft Huron's temperament and his past achievements chose to stay where they were as part of the Red Pirates' defense circle: if the Pirate King of the Maelstrom could win, the reward for this gamble would be extremely generous.

Of course, there were some disagreements between the Sword Dancer's leader, Atasiya, and the Pirate Queen, Katya Salongba, about the direction to go, but soon, because both of them had a love for gambling and extreme thrills in their bones, and most importantly, Atasiya thought of something that Hong Suo had told him.

In the end, the fleet delivered to him by the War Blacksmith remained on Huron's side and was assigned to the position of a flank ambush. Although their mobility was mainly concentrated on the pirate fleet, they were more familiar with this star fortress than others - at least in terms of void warfare and troop allocation, Luft Huron's command had no problems, and it could even be said to be fair and excellent.

"It seems that this beautiful noble lady will eventually fall into our hands."

Katya Salomba stood on the bridge of her ship.

Next to her stood Atasiya. Although the latter knew something, his expertise was not void warfare. Therefore, he had become wise and chose to let the Pirate Queen serve as the fleet commander at this time. However, he stood beside her at a distance of a sword with a smile on his face, which showed that he did not trust her so much.

However, the pirate queen of questionable descent didn't mind this kind of thing - Artasia's sword was indeed fast and deadly, so what? Being appointed as a fleet commander was also a new experience for pirates. As a swordsman, she knew that the chances of her winning Artasia's first attack were very low, but since everyone had the same goal for the time being, she would not do anything to deliberately attract the other party's attack. She, Salongba, just had a bold lifestyle and liked to pursue excitement, but she was not really high on the Dark Eldar combat drug and had no brains.

Of course, she would only keep such words in her heart, so what she said now would be very consistent with her "mask".

She licked her lips, which were painted purple with the tip of her tongue. "I can't wait to ride my flying machine through its central avenue again, waving my sword to harvest the heads of the soldiers who shoot at me! I will finally kick open the door of that magnificent but boring cathedral! I will step on the backs of slaves and the blood of the defeated to be the first to ascend the throne inside and sit on it!"

"Hmm..." Atasiya, who had been observing carefully from a hidden place for a while using the aucmascope array, made a strange sound.

"What's wrong, my dear? Do you also want to be the first to ascend the throne? If you are willing to accompany me to get drunk after winning the battle tonight, I may consider sharing this honor with you and letting you stay overnight." Salomba habitually cast a coquettish glance at the leader of the sword dancers, but glanced at his observation panel out of the corner of his eye, hoping to get more information from it.

Atasia was so used to her flirting that he was indifferent to her. He frowned under his mask.

"... Although..." He murmured, the cold light from the divination instrument panel shone on his new mask. It was the face of a very classical human handsome man, handsome, elegant, solemn as a marble statue, yet with a strange sense of sensuality.

Salongba suddenly had a strange feeling. She had never realized so clearly that Nosa Atasya once served the false emperor, and his slender body that had been blessed and mutated was not what he should have originally been. He was now a slender rapier that was deadly poisoned, but perhaps, in a period of time before Salongba herself was born, the sword dancer had also worn heavy power armor, wielded a power sword and a saber, and shouted passionately and fought passionately for the glory and victory of his father and master.

Fortunately, Ataxia spoke next, interrupting her wonderful thoughts.

"Maybe we won't have to fight next." The sword dancer raised his head, and the shrewdness and confidence of a rigorously trained and experienced veteran returned to him. "Well... it should be very likely."

"What do you mean?" She moved closer, but Atasya didn't avoid her nor push her away. Salomba, who had a very sharp intuition, always felt that something had changed about the sword dancer, but she couldn't tell where, because Atasya's appearance had just become more artistic, and there was no bad change.

"This shouldn't be the Ultramarines coming for revenge. Our crazy boss who made a bet with us and said that if he didn't succeed, we would inherit his legacy may have succeeded. I can't observe the radiation signature of the weapon system being warmed up and activated, and there are no other accompanying ships except the star fortress itself - no navigator's fleet, no frigate, no tugboat, no supply fleet - and its flight posture is very... unconventional, even too fast, come and see."

"You mean he really won the bet he made with me? ... Boring, I thought we could inherit his fleet..."

With a look of disbelief and doubt, Salongba walked to the panel of the auspicious array and observed the details carefully. Not long after, she exclaimed, "This speed... is almost catching up with the fastest ship in our fleet! How can a giant like a star fortress fly at this speed?! How does it navigate?! Is the war smith crazy?! They will hit too many asteroids, meteorites and space debris in this dense star field! Even if its shield can block the smaller ones, the big ones can't! Look!"

She used the tips of her blood-red nails, which were beautifully painted with a skull pirate logo, to tap the two scanning light targets on the screen that were about to touch. "This! That's a space hulk that drifted here before! It's too dangerous that no one dares to stay there for a long time... but it's huge! They're about to collide! I don't think such a bulky thing can be at this distance - ah - -?"

Then the sound that came out of Salomba's mouth was similar to the sound of a violin playing a high note out of tune. Although the voice was still very beautiful, she was shouting "ah" so much that she forgot to stop.

In full view of everyone - or in other words, in the images of many auspicious instruments and scanning arrays around New Badab, the huge star fortress, which is usually used as a port for berthing warships, flexibly raised its front end and performed an extremely perfect Immelmann Turn, then did a show-off half roll as if nothing had happened, corrected its course, and continued to drive towards New Badab at high speed.

——Now Salomba knew why, although the alarm had been sounded long ago, no garrison fleet or anyone on the road could stop the Indomitable from advancing all the way to New Badab——Oh my god! It was so powerful and so powerful, who in the world could resist it, and how could they resist it?
No, no, it can't even be called a rapid advance... This is called... Ataxia sighed for her at the right time: "What a sudden and fierce offensive!"

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Robert Guilliman, who was sitting on the mechanical command throne of the Indomitable Star Fortress, swaying his body and happily driving it, suddenly felt a strange, unprecedented subtle feeling in his heart, so subtle that it would be easily overlooked.

The Primarch looked around in confusion.

The naked eye of his current body did not see anything unusual in the deserted command center. The hot reka coffee that Vannas had just poured for him on the table was still emitting smoke - yes, even as he completed the difficult racing and flying maneuvers, he even allocated a bit of computing power to maintain the instant adjustment of the internal gravity field to avoid spilling his precious drink - supplies were too difficult to find here, and it was difficult for his nephew to dig out coffee and clean water from some corner - and the vision and sensors of the Indomitable, which were connected to his perception through wires and cables, did not see anything unusual in the surrounding void.

As for the large and small ships of various specifications that were on high alert, he automatically put them aside after calculating the degree of threat.

Could there be something wrong with that strange mass of garbage that just flew over?
Guilliman recalled the data screen in his memory. It was true that the thing could not see deep, but it was clearly not touched at all? His driving skills just now were perfect! Even if Chagatai came in person today, he would have said so!
What would it be?
He frowned in confusion.

The door of the command center was opened, and in strode the master of pharmacy with a toolbox and lunch, or as he would call him next, the war blacksmith and pharmacist Hong Suo.

Although the reserve resources in the star fortress were so scarce, for some reason, Hong Suo could always find some reserve food and marching rations that were dried to the point of dehydration or extremely unpalatable from the ruins. After some laboratory operations that even the original gene masters could not understand, the final products that appeared were some things like "carbon dioxide synthesized glucose and fat", "technologically active flavor sauces", "pure natural plant meat", and even "artificial milk and butter". But what was even more outrageous was that the sugar and milk could indeed be used to make coffee...

Although the Raven Guard's facial expression was sometimes a bit strange when he saw the contents of the food, he ate and drank it anyway. Grendel, who always seemed very energetic, did not show any abnormality and ate happily. Neither of them showed any problems after the meal. Perhaps it was purely because Guilliman himself wanted to eat something delicious in this dream world with multiple dimensions overlapping?
In any case, as a Primarch who had been raised by mortal adoptive parents for a long time and who attached great importance to communication and cooperation with mortals, the pride of Macragge Konnor, the child of Euden, he was very happy to be able to eat a few delicious hot meals again after staying (unconscious) for nine thousand years, and decided not to pursue the question of how the food in the dream came about.

After all, Hong Suo's thoughtful explanation for his dream seemed to make sense. What if he really found out something if he got to the bottom of it? Should he eat the meal and coffee or not?
The wise and noble Thirteenth Primarch decided to remain faithful and keep his appetite for his meal.

"What's for lunch today?"

The Master Potion Master raised an eyebrow and placed the tray in front of the Primarch who sat on the throne.

"You should have smelled it when I walked in, my Lord."

"Remember to change 'you' to you when you speak. Also, remove the honorifics. I, Robert Guilliman, out of my own will and for the sake of justice, allow you to offend me, the Primarch, and the glory of other empires when necessary in this operation." The Thirteenth Primarch nodded and reminded the other party.

"It's great to hear your forgiveness, my lord. I mean. -'Mercuris'." Honso said sourly, and at the same time opened the lid of the tray, which contained plant meat soaked in technological flavor sauce and seasonings. The meat pieces were cut into the size of Grox steaks and fried. The soft structure absorbed the thick reddish-brown sauce. It was boneless, tender and delicious, smoother than the tenderest lamb, and melted in the teeth of the Primarch with just one sip.

"This should be our last meal before we arrive in New Badab. We can only cook again after we get settled down there."

Guilliman nodded and began to eat under his new alias.

As he devoured his meal, Hong Suo took a complicated look at the Principal's current appearance, and for the ten-thousandth time, he crossed his index and middle fingers behind his back to cheer himself up - this was a small mystical ritual that his kind father had inadvertently taught him. If a person lied to someone and wanted to escape punishment, he had to secretly make this gesture.

——The "Astartes" who was sitting there eating was wearing red armor, the surface of which was engraved with scriptures and mysterious symbols. The same was true for his exposed head and face, which were also covered with patterns and texts. What was even more eye-catching were the two small bone horns slightly protruding from his forehead, and the cloth strips wrapped around his arms and waist, which were covered with scriptures.

It was a disguise that was perfectly logical and acceptable to the Primarch. No one would ever guess who he actually belonged to! Even if his words and actions were exposed, no one would believe it!
Hong Suo, you are such a f*cking genius!

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Thousands of miles away, a certain blue soft-bodied monster that was laughing so wildly that he could no longer stand up turned into a pool of blue colloid, with only his beak still shouting, "Hurry up and give him the reserve for next month!!!"

(End of this chapter)