Adamantuaya casts the world, orbital space.

"It can't be the moon!"

The chief navigator propped himself up and looked at the holographic projection on the strategy table, and said with a face full of disbelief:

"It's so close to this planet, look, it's so close to the ring of perturbation in near space, its gravitational effect will split the world of Adamantua's casting in two!"

Almost as soon as the mortal captain of the Imperial Fists fleet finished his last words, a giant celestial body suddenly appeared on the screens of all the orniths and sensors, and everyone in the bridge of the flagship of the naval fleet looked up.

On the main screen of the bridge, the shadows caused by signal interference dissipated, and a planet suddenly appeared next to the planet. It's smaller, like a conjoined twin next to a larger planet, or like a swollen cancer that extends out of this world. Evil, and weird.

"I don't understand what I'm seeing."

Hess muttered as he stared at the moon.

"If a planet suddenly appears so close to this world, it will have a concentrated and significant impact - the world of Adamantua Casting may change its orbit, and it may even crash into it directly! The fundamental laws of physics of the universe simply do not allow the moon or other moons to be so close to the planets, and such celestial bodies will not appear......"

The navigator said incoherently.

"I've seen demons before, and they're very close to me, so don't tell me about the fundamental laws of physics of the universe!"

Hess turned his head and cursed.

A question loomed over everyone's heads: Why did a moon with a huge gravitational force and radiation suddenly appear next to the world of Adamantua's foundry?

The logbook and scans from the Antolax have been transmitted to the Ponderor terminal on the bridge, and the technical crew is busy analyzing it. But analyzing this huge and redundant data does not help the current situation - the "moon" has appeared in front of the fleet!

"Anyway, get ready to fight!"

The admiral roared.

In the shadows of the orbital space that casts the world, things are changing, and the gravitational storm that has churned the planet's atmosphere into a pot of porridge is intensifying and then spreading outward.

The scales of all sensor screens and bird gauge arrays on the bridge turn to the red zone, then dark red, and finally the ungraduated white edge. The dial cracked, and the copper frame cracked out. The sensing slaves screamed, and the cable connections stuck to their skin were ripped off, splattering with blood and amniotic fluid, staggering like ears of wheat in the gale. The main strategy console flickered and then shut down in a stream crash. The admiral rolled out of his seat.

The change in cosmic gravity is so rapid and violent that the boiling storm around the planet turns into something completely different in the space of twenty to thirty seconds. All the technical crew members on the bridge were instantly traumatized, their eyeballs burst and their eyes were blinded, and most of the rangefinder scanning machines were scrapped.

Gravity is expanding and the pressure is rising dramatically.

"Shield! Shields! ”

The lord admiral shouted as he lay on the ground.

Even though the experienced deck crew had activated the flagship's Void Shield generator, he hoped that the fleet commanders who were close to the edge of space would be alert at the critical moment, activate an emergency evasion strategy, and evacuate from orbital space at the highest speed that a real universe can carry.

He turned to his officers and yelled:

"Restart all the probes, add the data, I don't care if you reconnect the power coupler by hand in hand as a human connector!"

They hurriedly obeyed his orders, though there seemed little hope of recovery. Filigree sparks flickered, and severed and burned cables dangled from the roof of the bridge. Several consoles caught fire, and two large monitors burst into flames as a result of the explosion. The damage management team rushed to extinguish the fire and dragged away the crew members who had been burned by the glass splash and flames.

After the unremitting efforts of the damage management team, it was repaired.

Half of the power was finally restored to the main console.

The sirens sounded again, and the bridge was covered in red light. The screen automatically zoomed in on the detected image: it was hundreds of missile-like objects launched from the moon.

The admiral's breath froze.

Sensing slave laborers have fallen to the ground in rows.

But he didn't need to report to recognize:

That's a ship, that's a battleship!

Countless warships, large and small, assembled in all sorts of tattered metal, burst out of the crack in the moon and formed an attack formation to attack his fleet.

It is not necessary to see the face of the enemy, the admiral with combat experience already knows who the enemy is. There is no uniform model and specification, both practical and crude style......

"Orc...... Orc Battleship! ”

A technical crew member shouted heartbreakingly.

"Artillery ready! Artillery ready! ”

The lord admiral climbed to his feet and shouted:

"Reload all weapons! Right now! ”

They are struggling to survive as best they can.

But they are also waiting for death.

The bridge turned into a chaotic place, with alarms blaring, mostly from other decks of damage, and some triggered by the approach of orc fighters. The air was filled with choking smoke from the combustion, and the crew rushed in all directions, trying to pass on data or frantically trying to fix the collapsed bridge control system.

Now, the strategy desk is working again. Above, the Admiral could see his own fleet take on several curved green lines, embedded in the orbital space of the Adamantua-Cast World like an outstretched claw. He also saw his enemies, the avalanche-like red hazard icons pouring out of the moon.

Numerically, each naval warship had to face thirty or even forty orc enemy ships. It doesn't take a bridge officer who has been trained for years at the Imperial Naval Academy of Strategy to know how it will all end.

"There is no chance of winning at all."

Hess crawled out of the corner in embarrassment:

"Retreat, obviously, we must retreat."

The admiral shook his head and said:

"There's no time, my lord. Long before we teleported, we would have been killed by them. ”

"What then?"

An adjutant next to Hess asked in horror.

"Tell the Imperial Senate and the Council of High Lords to report what we know as completely as possible, and send it out as soon as possible through the Starwhisperers. I'll try to stall for as long as I can, but it won't be long, we'll just do our best to take as many enemies as we can, and that's the last resort. ”

The admiral said, drawing his saber.

Hess raised his hand and saluted him.

The admiral returned the salute.

"Autoload complete!"

Message came from the artillery officer.

"The secondary artillery group fires freely."

The admiral ordered:

"Slaughter these green animals!"

Then a pre-numbered fire sequence was activated.

The main and ridge gun groups of the forward formations of the naval fleet opened fire, and the recoil caused the superstructure of these huge ships to groan. Beams of light were fired from the ship's ridge, followed by slower-moving clusters of artillery shells and torpedoes.

A green-skinned battleship explodes into a ball of light in a beam of light, like a miniature star about to become a supernova. The second ship was torn apart, and the mechanical entrails erupted, tumbling over as fuel, gas, and flames spilled through space, constantly tumbling due to the loss of inertial stability.

The space warships of the Human Empire, both in terms of firepower and protection, are far superior to these shoddy orc warships, but the opponent has an absolute advantage in numbers. A frigate on the port side of the flagship was engulfed in artillery fire, and a cruiser on the starboard side of the flagship was surrounded and jammed with orc landing craft.

The jumping gangs of the orcs swarmed in.

The naval fleet began to fall one after another.

"Gather the entire Star Whisperer choir."

Hess yelled as he walked briskly.

The attendants around him ran around to deliver orders.

In the few seconds they spoke, the entire left-wing ship group of the naval fleet was completely overwhelmed by the dense artillery fire and the hordes of jumping gangs from the orcs.

They could see clearly from the porthole.

Several people were stunned and speechless for a while.

"We ......"

The adjutant swallowed hard and said:

"We've defeated them countless times, sir."

"What?"

Hess asked, standing behind the porthole.

"Orcs, sir. We could always beat them before, even ...... Ulano"

The adjutant looked up at Hess and said.

"At that time, the emperor still walked between us."

Hess replied with a gloomy face:

"And the damn primitives. It was a different time, a time of the gods. We stopped them, but they got stronger, stronger than ever. And we have weakened, the emperor is gone, and so are his favored sons. ”

Hess fingers scratched his scalp and lamented:

"But the greenskins ...... O throne! They're only six weeks away from Terra! No warnings, no warnings at all! Orcs have never been this close to the core world! They have technology that we have never seen before, even in the old Ulano ...... Gravity Manipulation! Space Tunnel! Teleportation...... Or a whole fucking planet! The God Emperor is on top, and they have almost killed an entire warband of the best Space Marines in a single encounter! ”

"Emperor bless."

His adjutant ended up with only one sentence left.

This prayer is bitter and sad at the moment.

"He used to."

Hess pressed his hands on the porthole and said:

"But today we are the only ones left."

…………

Terra, the Royal Palace.

"This message has to be concise and to the point."

The footage is being played in a dimly lit room.

The fragment was not very clear and had a great deal of distortion, and it must have been transmitted and encoded by the Starwhisperers with all their might, and the face of Hess, the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Guard, could only be barely recognized. There were other people around him, though their figures were blurry, and behind them what looked like the bridge of a battleship, with constant noise and shaking in the footage.

"The 'battle moon' of the Orcs I have described has great war potential and potentially unlimited energy. Since we were no longer able to escape from the exchange of fire with the orcs, Admiral Kieran, an officer whom I greatly admired, decided to lead the ship closer. We tried to destroy the Battle Moon with a salvo from the main guns, but to no avail, it had the dual protection of armor and shields, probably some form of gravitational force field shield, which bombarded us with rough but effective boulders. Scans revealed that the Battle Moon was partially hollow, and inside it, it had a large mouth that could be used to teleport endless reinforcements and warships, presumably a subspace portal. ”

On the screen, the High Lord struggled to raise his head as the battleship Hess was in shook violently, and the image flickered briefly before resuming.

"With limited time and limited resources, we tried to translate the broadcast sent out by the Battle Moon. The biological sage Laurentius, who I recommend without reservation, has devised some reliable translation methods. All teleportations intercepted from orc warships and the notes of the Sage of Lawrentius, as well as the decipherment code, have been transmitted with this message. We speculate that the orcs refer to that subspace portal as the 'Waaagh Gate', and that the self-proclaimed name of their war boss is difficult to put into a simple and accurate word. Depending on the details, it seems to be able to be referred to as a 'beast' or 'carnage', or 'a lord on the verge of a great slaughter'. I don't think it matters, his intentions are obvious and ......"

The image is blanked again.

This time it took longer to get back to normal.

"I'm running out of time."

Hess said when he reappeared.

He was cut by something, what appeared to be a splash of glass shards, and he looked directly into the lens of the VCR:

"Study the documents I've passed through, study the damn data. In order to protect Holy Terra, you need to understand that you must be prepared. The Imperial Fist is over, and they've wiped them out, a whole warband. We're going to die here, and we're going to die unless you're ready, ......."

The screen goes blank.

"That's the end of the report, my lord."

An assistant whispered.

Lan Song nodded.

He sat on the couch and thought for a long time.

"Go directly and send a message to Lord Udo, telling him that there is a major emergency, we need to call all the High Lords for a meeting immediately, go now!"

Lan Song ordered in a deep voice.

"Yes, sir. Convene the entire Senate? ”

The assistant asked, looking up.

"Nope." Lan Song shook his head and said, "There are only the High Lords, only twelve people, not others. ”

……

Terra, Inquisition Headquarters.

"This message has to be concise and to the point."

Hess's blurry image says:

"Study the documents I've passed through, study the damn data. In order to protect Holy Terra, you need to understand that you must be prepared. The Imperial Fist is over, and they've wiped them out, a whole warband. We're going to die here, and we're going to die unless you're ready, ......."

The screen goes blank.

"Turn on the lights."

Venand spoke.

The representative of the court stood up from her seat, the lights in the room intensifying, the screen dimmed, and behind her was a silent group of inquisitors.

"This is the latest intercepted information."

Venander turned to look at the crowd and said:

"It went straight to Navy headquarters, via a security beacon, but thanks to our friends who were planted in the Imperial Guard's transmission department, a copy of the data was extracted for us. For the next hour, Lansong would show the video, or at least the highlights of the video, to the twelve High Lords. “

The representative of the trial court paused.

Facing her colleagues, she said solemnly:

"I think there are three things that are self-evident. First, we must act now and without hesitation, because this crisis is as serious as we feared and predicted. Second, the public must not be informed of the fall of the Fist of the Empire, which is an important morale issue. Thirdly, we have to raise our game level, and there is no more subtlety to speak of. We know better than any other power, including the Imperial Navy, who is coming. We didn't share this knowledge with the twelve High Lords, because we knew that Lansong's clique would not be able to point us in the right direction and adopt appropriate strategies. Traditional and rigid military dogmas are shackling us and delaying our ability to react. From now on, we must determine the strategy, we must be the source of power in and after this crisis, otherwise the empire will not be spared. ”

"What about those who disagree?"

One of the inquisitors asked, holding up his hand.

"This is an unparalleled crisis, and no one can stand in the way of our plan of action this time."

Venander looked at the questioner and replied:

"When their term is over, they need to be controlled, or they need to be silenced."

……

Terra, Assassin Court Headquarters.

"What about those who disagree?"

One of the inquisitors asked, holding up his hand.

"This is an unparalleled crisis, and no one can stand in the way of our plan of action this time."

Venander looked at the questioner and replied:

"When their term is over, they need to be controlled, or they need to be silenced."

"Click."

The Grand Mentor of the Assassin Tribunal, Vangelich, pressed the remote control. In the center of the screen in front of him, the image of Vinand, the representative of the court, speaking in his private suite, stopped.

Vangorich sat back in his chair, he put down the datapad and remote control in his hand, and crossed his fingers under his chin. It's a habitual action he moves when he's stuck in thought.

"The Beast has risen."

The Grand Mentor of the Assassin Court said to himself:

"But...... Who will let him fall? ”

…………