Chapter 206 Invisible Shadow

Osiris Cluster, an astronomical system composed of eleven stars, is a hive cluster that barely survived the darkness of the old night. It announced its submission to the throne on the same day that the Imperial Expeditionary Fleet arrived in its orbit. With the Empire's initial investment, it injected a resurrection vitality into the stability and continuation of its own political system.

It is precisely because of this that the sudden rebellion in Osiris was undoubtedly beyond the expectations of the Imperial Ministry of the Interior. These officials of the Ministry of the Interior, who considered themselves the pen of the Empire, had to apply for a more powerful weapon, the blade of the Empire - the Space Marines, to resolve this unpredictable rebellion.

"I want to confirm that launching a decapitation operation on Sepetus XII was your original plan?" Robert Guilliman asked, Glenn Wosoto standing in front of him, separating the Primarch from more Chapter Masters and Captains. Since the latest batch of shoulder armor with relief and military emblems has not yet emerged from the billowing smoke of the Mechanicus factory, these armored warriors have just painted the new blue U-shaped emblem on their shoulder armor with paint. They lowered their heads, showing silent stubbornness like trained children.

"Yes, Master Primarch," the deputy commander of the legion replied, "According to intelligence, the administrative and economic center of the Osiris Cluster is exactly Sepetus XII. A quick attack on this closed hive city is enough to defeat the rebellion, and the rebels will not have time to regroup their forces."

"According to intelligence, there should be no rebellion in the Osiris Cluster." Robert said.

"The Luna Wolves did this before, and they demonstrated the efficiency of this form of attack, as well as the minimal damage to the infrastructure of the hive world caused by the decapitation operation. In addition, as an annex of the Empire, the potential military strength and armed level reported by the Osiris Cluster to the Empire every year also helped us assess the rebel forces we might encounter..."

"According to the intelligence." Robert said this half sentence for the second time, "Tell me, deputy commander, which theory in the third lesson I taught you is suitable for this situation?"

"Theory provides a framework for thinking and analysis, and proposes views and hypotheses that can be adopted, but reality determines theory. Theory and hypothesis must be verified in practice to exist, and the source of information must be verified in practice and concrete. From the third lesson ten minutes and thirty-one seconds." Glenn Wosoto answered quickly, so skillfully that Robert thought he might have memorized every word he said.

"Very good." Robert said, "Now tell me, in a giant hive covering millions of square kilometers and inhabited by tens of billions of people, will the strength of the rebels hidden inside be consistent with the strength they report to the Empire?"

"I don't know. The real data must be confirmed by actual observation." Glenn said, and Robert was satisfied with his answer.

The Primarch turned his head and looked out through the porthole of the Goliath-class battleship. He hid the excitement of his first space voyage in his heart. He used rational analysis and data collection of this vast star to give practical meaning to his senses and thoughts mobilized by excitement.

The Thinker on the table made a beeping sound, and Guilliman opened two new messages.

"Are you ready for the warp voyage?" Perturabo asked. "The 7th Company of Iron Warriors will escort you."

"The 4th Company of Imperial Fists will provide support. The main unit types equipped in this company are assault configuration units, including special units for destroying armor and light fortification units, as well as anti-ship heavy weapon firepower groups. The specific unit descriptions are as follows..."

Robert Guilliman smiled.

"Glenn Wosoto, stay and tell me the observation method you are going to use later. Marius Gage, go ask the navigator about the preparations for the warp navigation; other commanders, return to your respective ships and wait for instructions."

——

Morse just found out that sneaking into the warp in a physical way is actually an experience he lacks relatively. As a sufficiently powerful psychic and a sufficiently special spell user, it is difficult for him to keep the patience to stay in the warp with the fleet for several months.

However, from the perspective of the physical universe, watching the magnificent illusions swallow the ship into the brilliant and twisted ether ocean like the colorful film of crude oil in an incomprehensible way is also a good experience; if you want to enjoy this moment as an artist, I am afraid that many sensitive and romantic souls are willing to pay all the price to see the direct shock that the warp can bring to people's hearts-this is why some malignant sources of pollution often appear in the form of art and literary works.

He stood by the window of the battleship, pulled open the heavy iron baffle, and observed all the changes happening outside the window with his naked eyes. The flowing light was cut into colorful threads by thousands of dark sections, and the waves that occupied all the colors of the spectrum from low to high were shining. The viscous colors of varying depths surged and washed the outer shell of the ship protected by the invisible force field, like a falling waterfall that wrapped the hard steel in the extremely flexible strips. The deep humming from the depths of the ocean that was directly transmitted to the human brain without air complemented the double shock of hearing and vision.

Morse's fingers moved, but he decided not to waste his energy to print the scenery in front of him on the canvas of special materials. He was not interested in destroying an unfortunate enemy by disrupting the protection of the subspace curtain.

He sat down again in the small room left for him in the battleship. The Space Marine-sized furniture didn't allow him to get a chair large enough to serve as a sofa - there was just a collection of plain training cushions.

After Perturabo announced that he would send a company to follow Guilliman, he thought again and again and decided to pick another battleship to follow the company, so that if Robert Guilliman encountered an emergency, he could The unexpected speed and the beautiful image that arrived in time made a majestic appearance, fulfilling his dream of a perfect Olympian hero, such as "lifting up a panting brother and smiling at each other after the war", which has not been achieved so far.

Yes, Perturabo never said he wanted it, but he was quietly working in this direction.

The Iron Lord should now be sitting in the office he snatched from his scion, pretending that the iron Primarch didn't need to sit down to rest because the chair was too cramped.

As for Barabas Dantioch, who lost his office, perhaps he was praising the brotherhood and benevolence of the Gene Father in the Agora Market in the center of the ship, where the Iron Warriors used to exchange tips on daily life— —

A black spot.

A brown irregular dot suddenly jumped into the subspace.

Although that tiny dot, so tiny that even the Primarch cannot accurately detect it, is hardly worth mentioning in the changing brilliance of colors, the gray void in the reflection of the emotional wave caused by the familiar and unique collective soul fluctuations in the warp is. The rush caught Morse's attention. And, unlike those organisms in the Webway who have been forced to live in harmony with the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Iron Warriors since their inception, this group of visitors who crashed into the warp brought more unconscious cheers and thirsty war into the world. On the other side, there is a violent tendency that goes beyond the norm.

No matter where they come from or why they appear, the arrival of these guys must trigger a warning within the fleet.

The Orc's smoking hulk fell out of the subspace after a violent shock. The next time it appeared, it rushed into another point in the subspace, bringing a series of silent small explosions and falling parts. All of this takes place in distant parts of the Warp that cannot be described by conventional spatial positioning. Mors simultaneously psychically contacted the cogitator in the center of the agora and Perturabo himself.

Perturabo himself reacted slightly faster than his heirs, perhaps because the Astartes were alert to the unsendered message that suddenly popped up on the datapad: +Morse, it happened...+

In the instant of psychic communication, a violent collision force suddenly hit the side of the battleship. The lights were chaotic, the instruments were overloaded, the hull made a loud noise, and all the alarms sounded. It seemed that the huge force that was enough to overturn the world made the battleship almost topple over. , and the chaotic tide of subspace doubled the sensory confusion and body overturning within the ship. The Space Marines supported each other and grabbed the horizontal bars to stand firm, enduring the buzzing in their ears.

The toughness and stability that the Iron Warrior battleship was proud of failed in this sudden heavy damage. The hull shell was hit hard by the ramming of the broken Orc hulk combined with a messy mysterious force field, and the real damage was enough to tear it apart. The damage that cracks steel is the unparalleled and surreal destructive damage caused by the moment when the real universe and subspace come into contact. Perhaps it was a coincidence, perhaps it was inevitable, but the enemy happened to be teleported directly into the same coordinates where they were located in the subspace. This is enough to destroy all the shields that human technology can create.

The drastic change in air pressure brought terrible dizziness and deathly pain. The air escaped from the lips of the Space Marines. The head exposed outside the armor and the body inside the armor were torn apart from each other. They were directly exposed in the gap between subspace and reality. For mortals, it is equivalent to the most painful death in the world.

However, just half a moment before even the nerves had time to react, the cracked battleship shell was forcibly fixed by the chains of golden runes, and the light film blocked all the twisted vortices of the etheric ocean, while the roaring orcs who tried to jump into the ship were The cold and sharp golden flames instantly turned into ashes.

In the next moment, the orc's hulk was mercilessly devoured by golden and blue fire. The runes cut through the dark void, burning the entire attacking ship and all the living creatures on it into white-hot fragments and a rain of molten iron. At the same time, the damaged dark gray battleship metal shell began to recover rapidly from the edge of collapse. The steel plates were closed, the burn marks faded, the pipes were reconnected, and the atoms were connected. In an instant, the trend of destruction was transformed into a miracle of repair under the influence of golden runes, just like reversing time.

As the background of the ship being repaired, the tiny sequins and shadowy embers that fell into the void exploded into the depths of the colorful subspace like a torrential rain of flowing gold and iron, being swept away by the endless surging immaterial waves. With the rustling greedy dark charm, it nibbles and devours.

And Perturabo's mind was still in the psychic communication circuit, and he said the words he had not yet finished as if inertia: +...What happened? +

+It's okay now. + Morse said, ignoring the electronic lock and pushing open the door of the office commandeered by the Iron Lord. His voice also returned to the range that reality can touch from the strange sense of isolation attached to the psychic sound transmission. "The orc's ship almost teleported into our ship. I traced it back and it was a coincidence."

Perturabo recovered from the momentary panic when the battleship was almost intercepted, and regained his logical thinking: "Is it a coincidence that the orcs appeared?"

They came to track down the rebellion of Osiris. If the rebellion was the work of the orcs, based on Perturabo's understanding of the orcs, he did not think that this group of creatures, who always made things huge and chaotic, could be in the empire's Invisible in front of the intelligence system, even if the empire's intelligence system is as bad as the harmony of the entire empire's civil service system.

"It was a coincidence that they almost hit us. The level of these chaotic Orks traveling through the warp is a complete disaster." Morse turned the golden pen in his hand, "But they are coming towards our fleet. ”

He pointed the pen tip out the window: "Look, another green-skinned hulk, Guilliman had better exit the subspace. Starting a chaotic battle in these channels that violate the rules of physics is something that even the Emperor may not do."

Following the direction specified by the tip of his pen, the subspace tide suddenly erupted into a manic riot, ruthlessly tearing the intruding ships apart.

Perturabo immediately gave a brief order to Dantioch, advising Robert Guilliman to quickly exit the warp and return to the real universe. Mors glanced at him, knowing that Perturabo was not yet ready to tell Guilliman that he was in the battleship that had been nearly pierced.

Mere seconds later, Dantioch sent a reply, telling his Primarch that Robert Guilliman had decided to emerge from the warp at the suggestion of Rogal Dorn - yes, Rogal Dorn. En also came with his fourth fleet.

"Follow Roboute Guilliman and leave the Warp," Perturabo commanded through a cable attached to the Thinker.

He then looked at Morse: "You have a clue about the orc attack."

"Not sure yet. But I saw something else, the ripples left by some kind of psychic power fluctuations in the subspace, and the phantom image it presented." Morse waved his pen, and it appeared in the air. Create a light colored hourglass. "This is the source of the attack."

Perturabo stared at the hourglass closely, and two seconds later, he gave the answer: "That's an alien spacecraft."

"Great, let's tell your company commander to report to Roboute Guilliman," Morse said. "I'm actually a little curious as to why the greenskins suddenly came to us."

Note: The Osiris Cluster is actually in the Sun Sector, but...

This is another world line (sure)