Chapter 63: Landing |
“This Inquisitor’s got a lot going on inside her head.”
A certain Thousand Sons Sorcerer piped up in the transmigrators’ channel.
“Ramses.”
Romulus, still figuring out how to rescue those poor bastards, couldn’t help raising his voice.
“Come on, I’m not a psyker. You can read this girl’s thoughts with your naked eye.”
“I’m telling you to stop messing with her.”
“All three of us were wearing helmets and masks. The one giving pressure with just his gaze was Garna, not me.”
Ramses refused to take the blame. Why was it always on him? He immediately pointed out the real culprit.
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“Arthur was staring too.”
“Huh?”
Arthur looked confused.
He only joined in because everyone was staring at the Inquisitor. Figured he’d go along with the group. Was planning to slash a couple enemies, but honestly couldn’t tell what was going on.
Thought his buddies had some deeper insight.
Turns out they were just watching for fun?
“I thought she’d been replaced by a daemon. So it was just the underlings misunderstanding her and killing someone?”
Smack—
Romulus slapped his forehead.
“Cut it out with the hell jokes.”
Seriously dark humor. In just a few lines of dialogue, a bunch of people ended up dead.
“For survival, these people will do anything.”
Garna sighed. He’d had more contact with mortals and was in charge of monitoring the Church too, so he had a bit of insight into how humans in this universe thought.
The way this universe twists people shows up in every little thing.
After that brief moment of grim humor, no one tried to brush past the incident.
“Looks like we’ll have to give clearer and more detailed orders in the future. Absolutely no room for interpretation. Otherwise, folks like those in the Inquisition will just end up screwing things up with good intentions.”
Watching Aglaea’s awkward figure as she walked away, Romulus—who also couldn’t calculate the survival rate of those poor bastards—sighed and came to a conclusion.
The fate of those poor souls was determined by the greater environment. Romulus could save them once, but they’d be killed off later under some other excuse.
Bottom line was, their very existence was seen as a threat to their colleagues’ chances of survival under Aglaea.
“True.”
Everyone agreed deeply.
Emperor knows what absurd things these Imperial folks might pull off when given an order to “run the factory at full capacity.”
Ramses quietly activated the safe house around the figure in question.
They couldn’t decide how these people lived—but at least they could decide how they died.
At the very least, once dead, they’d find peace.
Bzzz—
Two completely different cruisers slowly entered planetary orbit.
Seemed quiet?
Just as the suicide squads aboard the decoy ships let out a sigh of relief and prepared to start the orbital bombardment test, ten heavy plasma blasts from the surface of planet Pierde gave those aboard the “Dawn” who had never experienced space warfare a real taste of firepower.
The surface of Pierde, shrouded in massive dust clouds, suddenly glowed with a faint blue light.
Then, ten glowing projectiles rose from the surface, pierced the atmosphere, and struck the decoy ships at sub-light speed.
Countless streams of high-energy particles instantly overloaded the void shields. Superheated plasma engulfed the cruisers, causing an unprecedented explosion that shattered both kilometer-long warships into fragments.
Even though space is a vacuum where sound shouldn't travel, the transmigrators still heard an ear-splitting scraping noise.
That was the sound of high-energy plasma expanding and repeatedly slamming against the ships’ hulls.
Yeah… the transmigrators got a pretty good idea of why you don’t bring the main fleet too close to a Chaos-controlled planet.
With this level of ground-based firepower, even a battleship would be instantly vaporized.
“Confirmation complete. The planet’s orbital defense platform is under heretic control. The main fleet cannot approach.”
Aglaea looked at the cruisers that had just been blown to bits and made her report.
So this was the verification method?
Incredibly efficient… and incredibly wasteful.
The transmigrators now had a very visceral understanding of how the Inquisition operated.
To the Imperium, every resource was expendable in the face of threats—everything for the sake of higher efficiency.
Romulus checked the comms.
The voices were calm, as if Aglaea’s move was just business as usual.
Unhinged—but oddly fitting for this world.
“Shall we continue verifying the Hive City’s void shield functionality?”
“No need.”
Kaul spoke up. “Detected that warship debris was intercepted by void shields.”
Void shields could directly hurl high-velocity particles or physical objects into the Warp. Even crashing debris would be tossed the same way.
The Explorator Fleet’s detection systems were excellent, and they captured the whole thing.
“How are we supposed to break through to the surface?”
Aglaea asked the next obvious question.
Once one problem was solved, another followed right behind.
How to get ground forces from the fleet down there?
“The Adeptus Mechanicus has enough assault boats.”
Kaul replied, “Enough to transport Astartes or other armed units past the ground-based void shields for the first landing wave. But we know nothing about the main world of Pierde, so I can’t guarantee high landing success.”
“The Expedition Fleet has enough Thunderhawks to handle the first assault mission.”
Orlando spoke up. Infiltrating the surface, securing a beachhead, and seizing anti-air control—Astartes were the best choice.
The Black Templars had built up countless landing experiences over millennia. This situation was still within plan. They’d faced worse.
No way he was letting the elders go in first.
“......”
Tyberos, appropriately, stayed silent.
“We have Stormbirds.”
Romulus, who had kept a low profile since the naval battle, waited patiently for everyone to finish before finally speaking.
“Twenty of them.”
“......”
“Also, considering the planetary conditions, I request that you come aboard the ‘Dawn’ for gear changes.”
“No need!”
Orlando quickly refused.
Who were they to deserve the honor of wearing sacred relics before even achieving anything?
“We’ll accompany you for the assault mission.”
Romulus didn’t emphasize the surplus of gear or make any meaningless comments about weapons being made to be used.
He simply added one line—and the meaning was clear.
You don’t want to be unable to protect the elders just because of equipment limitations, right?
“No… I mean, the Expedition Fleet will comply with the order.”
Orlando still wanted to decline, but after the priest made a series of very clear hand gestures, he quickly changed course.
“We’ll assemble on the ‘Dawn’.”
Romulus curled into a victorious smile.
He was starting to understand these warriors.