StarCraft: Tyranid Empire.

Chapter 151 Blood of the Patriot
Cannis, in the asteroid ring around Korhal IV.

This is a small satellite with a diameter of about 300 million feet (more than [-] kilometers), and its surface gravity is only one-tenth of that of Keha IV, while some smaller asteroids with carbonaceous and metal cores And the ice cubes are surrounded by the satellite's gravitational influence.These gray-brown asteroids within the lock range of the satellite fortress sentry turret reflected the light of the star, rotating or standing still.

When Lieutenant Colonel Curt Josephine arrived at his garrison in a speedboat equipped with post-combustion accelerators, he could see through the portholes that the steel fortress and inter-galaxy space missiles that had been densely covered on its surface Dark brown moons fully covered by silos and anti-aircraft missile towers.

This moon named Cannis gave birth to many beautiful fairy tales and poems, and observers of the observatory today can find that the original rocky surface has been transformed beyond recognition, and there are hundreds of towering towers on the moon and the moon. The fortress is home to thousands of railguns, railguns and cluster laser weapons.

Those solemn and magnificent polygonal fortresses are located between the craters, connected by countless underground pipelines, missile launch towers, command centers, radar launch stations and barracks into a large-scale whole.The ten-foot-thick armor plates of the strongholds gleamed golden in the light of the stars, and the flags of the Korha Revolutionary Army and the Golden Wolf banner of House Mengsk were inserted obliquely on the top of each stronghold, drooping due to gravity.

Cannis has become a giant space fortress, with a huge nuclear fusion reactor buried in its core, which can both power all weapons and internal systems, and can be manually detonated if necessary.On this small moon, the traces of human transformation are so large and magnificent that the landscape of Cannis has been permanently changed, and even the gravity and diameter have undergone significant changes.

At this moment, there are about 80.00 Korha Revolutionary Army soldiers and operators of turrets, missile launch towers and other defense facilities stationed in Kannis and the [-] orbital stations within [-] miles around it. More than [-]% of these people Five of the soldiers were originally from Keha IV, and the rest were basically soldiers from the Umoyan Volunteer Army.

Josephine's shuttle stopped on the parking platform of a fortress on the back of the moon. The artificial gravity and internal air circulation system allowed him to breathe freely as if walking on flat ground.More than a dozen adjutants, division staff officers, majors, and commanders of the Umoyan Volunteer Army came towards him one after another. They surrounded Josephine and brought bad news one after another.

"Lieutenant Colonel, twenty Behemoth-class battlecruisers." The commander of the Umoyan Volunteer Army said: "According to the images sent back by the galaxy telescope and drones, and from the painting and printing on the sides of these battleships, this The first fleet should be a mixed fleet of Delta Squadron, Nova Squadron, Beta Squadron, and Omega Squadron."

"Their subsidiary fleet is still on the way of the transition. According to calculations, the last time the Omega Squadron appeared was a thousand light-years away from Korha. From this, it can be seen that they began their transition to the core galaxy within at least three standard Earth weeks. .”

"The flagship of the enemy's mixed fleet is less than two AU (astronomical units) away from Canny. They did not send detection drones and assault ships. According to their driving speed, they can reach the Siren giant planet in 10 minutes at most. , The Revolutionary Army has nearly a hundred high-energy gas refineries on that planet." A staff officer said: "And we only have less than 5 troops on that planet."

"Who is their commander?" Josephine was wearing a thick school officer's uniform, and looked up at the starry sky above her head.After Augustus handed over nearly [-] revolutionary soldiers to Josephine half a year ago, no matter how incompetent he was, he still possessed some leadership qualities.

Josephine is not a famous general who is used to strategizing and being good at fighting. He graduated from the Stilling College of Art and knows nothing about leading soldiers in war, but he knows that he should listen to the opinions of professionals extensively , How to manage a huge army in order.

"The flagship is the Nord I of the Beta Squadron. According to the information provided by the Umoyan Intelligence Agency, this battlecruiser belongs to the command of Gasher Duke. It is said that he is a relative of the famous general Edmund Duke of the Federal Navy. relationship," said the officer.

"Maybe they will stop on the giant planet and refuel." Josephine said: "The Federal Navy has already won the victory, and Gasher Duke is a very successful person. We don't have a fleet that can be used to stop them. We can only send Hope and the folly of the Federal Fleet Commander."

"Order—" Josephine said: "All fighter planes go into the air and charge the main guns of the fortress."

"Yes, sir." The order was delivered quickly and without hesitation.

From the parking platform on the top floor of the fort where Josephine was standing, he could see Avenger fighter planes with vermilion primer and gold stripes leaving the electromagnetic projection track of the fortress. Thousands of fighter planes were like sharp swords. lift off.

At this time, the back of the moon in Cannis was dark, with faint lights flickering on the fortresses, and the ice-blue plasma thruster flames of the Avenger fighter jets were like soaring light spots, and the fighter jets coming out from the other side of the satellite were Like a comet passing by a moon.

An interceptor carrier about a thousand feet (300 meters) long sailed past Cannis under the cover of the Avenger fleet, and ten frigates converted from Goliath-class frigates were arranged horizontally behind the mothership.These battleships are only a dozen miles away from the ground of Cannis, and they look like brilliant stars from the fortress.

This is the only fleet we have.

It is almost impossible for these warships and fighter planes to return successfully. All the pilots and crew members of the warships set sail with the determination to die.

Josephine wondered sadly and sadly: what would you do if you were here, Augustus.We don't have a fleet, so we can only be beaten passively. The outcome of Keha IV has been doomed since the moment of rebellion.

Although Josephine is an open-minded person by nature, even he can feel a tragic sense of mission at this moment. Everyone who fights side by side with him is ready to sacrifice for Keha.Josephine thought that great people do not exist. He never realized that there are more than 100 million Kha soldiers with such noble morals and dedication.

At the critical moment of the survival of the race, there will always be many ordinary and great people among us.

These soldiers of the Revolutionary Army are not reformed resocialized soldiers, they have sound and independent personalities, they have their own thoughts, and of course they also fear.Many were sons and daughters of workers and farmers before they took up the Gauss rifle again, and some of them were even selfish in their daily lives, but they remained in Korha.

Everyone knew what they were about to face. If the Federation wanted to turn Keha IV into scorched earth, then the "Sons of Keha" would also be reduced to ashes.

"Where is Marshal Mengsk's fleet?" Josephine said as she put on a military coat handed over by her subordinates, and walked down the spiral staircase leading from the mooring platform to the interior of the fortress.

"The fifth-level encrypted communication mentioned a day ago that the First Fleet has arrived in the MTY324586 galaxy, which is less than six light-years away from the planet Della IV where the Dellarian shipyard is located. They must have arrived by now." Joseph A young lieutenant of Finn said: "Even if the intelligence service of the Tyranid Federation could find this one among the millions of fake puppet messages, it would take days to fully decipher it."

"If everything goes well." Josephine walked down the interior of the spiral staircase and entered the command center: "I think by this time the members of the Tarsonis Federation Parliament are already crying."

The forts in Cannis are all built with modular plates, each of which is equivalent to the Howe Fortress of Turasis II. It can accommodate [-] fully armed Revolutionary Army soldiers. Its interior extends in all directions. Shelter against Level [-] nuclear blasts.

Along the way, Josephine saw many Revolutionary Army soldiers patrolling the aisles. Until now, the Revolutionary Army still only had the power armor for officers, so private soldiers were still wearing ordinary dark gray uniforms, with boat caps and armbands.

Since the Keha Revolutionary Army is not a loose organization in the nature of a peasant uprising army, it is written in the enlistment oath that junior officers and soldiers should salute immediately when they see senior officers, so the soldiers saluted immediately after seeing Josephine And responded with a serious and respectful expression.This is a well-disciplined army, and Josephine is sincerely proud of being able to command such an army.

Josephine never thought that he could become a school officer. He had many dreams and nightmares, but none of them could compare with the magic in reality.Josephine probably never thought that he would stand here in such a capacity one day in his life. A year ago, he was just an ordinary soldier in the Federal Marine Corps, and his only idea was to join the army to avoid the limelight.

When Josephine was young, he was considered a hopeless playboy, and his mother, Mrs. Josephine, was so angry that her son was so unrestrained that she was bedridden.Josephine himself has never repented or had any thoughts of change. His life is probably like this, as a marine died on an unknown battlefield in an unknown battle.

No one cares, no one mourns.

Compared with his old boss, Augustus, Josephine was much more of an asshole when he was young. Among the old lovers he abandoned were noble ladies with excellent family background, doctoral students in colleges and the Stilling underworld The leader's only daughter, as for those countless one-night stands, I can't remember clearly.

Anyway, when Josephine came back to his senses, the hired killers were impatient to chop off his head. In order to prevent his family from suffering, Josephine had to join the army.

It doesn't matter if he dies in the federal marines, a scum like him is just a bad life.

But Josephine survived in the end. The war forged his strong will, and the friendship between the teams somewhat reshaped his sense of responsibility that might not have existed at all.The experience of the devil in heaven told Josephine that people can also form a solid and inseparable group.So Josephine began to revisit the escaped past, trying to make up for the wrong things she had done.

Before this battle, Josephine could have escaped with the last colony ships to leave the Korhal system, but he didn't.Josephine's aging father also joined the Kerha Revolutionary Army and was serving in the First Fleet of the Kerha Revolutionary Army at this time.

The Josephine family is the nobles of Keha, and the nobles of the Keha people have always stood between the people and the disaster.Just like those knight lords who have been eliminated by the times but still regain their armor, pick up a huge sword and ride on a horse, Korhal is a much younger colony than Tarsonis, and the nobles can still see the legacy of their ancestors. The next bloody.

The reason Josephine stayed was simple.Just like Rundstein, he is from Keha, and he is also an heir to the old nobles of Keha.If outlanders like Harnack and Lisa were willing to stay and fight for Korhal, they would also see themselves as cowards who fled.

Among the generals who were born in the Devil of Heaven, only Josephine and Rondstein were born and raised in the Keha nobles. Their ancestors swore to protect their people in the early days of the colonial era.Although the glory brought by this oath has long since dissipated, almost every nobleman who has survived the wave of the Keha Revolution has sent his children to the battlefield, and those who have lost their heirs have carried their own. arms.

"What do you need us to do?" said a young Revolutionary Army soldier, probably in his early 16s.

"Stay at your post, soldier." Josephine could feel the young soldier's nervousness, his legs were even trembling slightly.No one forced him to stand here, he is determined to fight in this way in a place like this today on his own terms.

"Fight for Keha!" The young warrior saluted suddenly, "I am ready to die."

"Fight for Keha!"

"Fight for beautiful Keha, for the homeland of our ancestors." Josephine walked into the command center as she spoke. In front of the console in front of a huge radar map and star map, there were about twenty radar monitors. members are speaking at the same time.

A behemoth-class battlecruiser of the Tyrannian Federation Navy appeared on the radar scan, with dangerous red lights flashing on the bow, and the rest of the warships followed.

"If this is just the vanguard, sir." Looking at the dark green radar map, a major officer said, "How many follow-up fleets are there?"

"What's that?" Suddenly, a radar monitor shouted.

Josephine followed the reputation and saw the artificial intelligence in the command center's remarks on the dense red light spots on the radar map: missiles or other small flying objects, some of which are likely to be empty bombs used to confuse the field of vision, The fragments of their explosions traveling at high speed in the vacuum appear to be dozens of reflection sources in the radar picture.

"Dense long-range missile and space torpedo strike groups with over four thousand sources and more to come."

"But the Federation Fleet is one and a half AU away—another fleet, Zeta Squadron—"

"One of the nukes—"

"Apocalypse-level."

"One hundred—one hundred more—three hundred—by the Holy Son, four hundred—"

"Intercepting—"

All the anti-aircraft missile towers in Cannis and all the kinetic energy weapons started to fire. In the near-vacuum environment, everything was very quiet. Josephine and his subordinates could only see tens of thousands of firepower points firing at the same time. shine.

"It can't be stopped." Josephine's tone sounded relieved: "I hope they only carry so many nuclear bombs."

In space warfare, a nuclear bomb may be a weapon with low efficiency. In a vacuum environment, a nuclear explosion does not produce a shock wave, and the light pressure produced is negligible, so it cannot cause the mechanical blow that occurs when it explodes in the atmosphere. All its energy will be Released as radiation and electromagnetic pulses.

However, just like what Josephine saw, at the very center of the detonation of the apocalypse-level nuclear bomb, the extremely high-temperature electromagnetic waves caused the steel fortress on the surface of the Cannis satellite to begin to melt, as if it was a melting sugar cube. Everything is like a distorted mirage.

"The son of a bitch—"

(End of this chapter)