How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 401: Macragge's Glory is silent, but keeps leaving the port

Dorn strode through the corridors of Hera's Fortress at a brisk pace.

When Guilliman separated from him, he hoped that they could put aside their previous disagreements during this period of time and calm down and think carefully while doing other things. Dorn thought there was nothing wrong with this proposal, so he agreed. Before the accident that affected the entire world of Macragge, he temporarily put aside the issues related to the Celestial Lions or the Inquisition and concentrated on studying alternatives to his broken arm until now.

It was already night time, but what fell through the viewing windows in the corridor was not the twinkling stars in Macragge's originally clean and clear night sky, but the dirty colors of the warp. The alarm sounded throughout the fortress, sharply hitting everyone's eardrums. According to Dorn, Guilliman's subordinates, whether they were Space Marines or mortals, were as well-trained as ever. Everyone was busy in an orderly manner under the stimulation of this sound, but no one could tell the Primarch what kind of situation the entire Macragge was in, except for the signs that everyone could see.

That's why he had to find his brother, but unfortunately, as the master of Macragge and even the entire Ultramar 500 Worlds, Guilliman didn't have a complete grasp of the situation. Any commander's grasp of the current situation must rely on the intelligence transmitted by frontline observers. Therefore, if the intelligence transmitted by frontline observers is confusing or even contradictory, then even the Primarch cannot infer the accurate situation from it.

"The only thing we know now is that the enemy did not come from Mandeville Point, but directly tore open a warp rift near Macragge's orbit, catching us off guard." Guilliman said with a bitter mouth, "The enemy did not pay attention to the gravitational influence between the fleet and the celestial body, or they deliberately used it as a weapon. Not only were the ships near the rift torn apart by the warp, gravitational waves or enemy fire in an instant because they were caught off guard, but those a little further away were also directly blocked in the air port and were at the mercy of others. Even Macragge, the world itself, had to deal with natural disasters while dealing with the enemy's attack - the monitoring department issued a large-scale earthquake and tsunami warning to me, and all cities had to quickly enter the risk avoidance process. Perhaps the only good news is that the terrain of Hera Fortress is high enough and will not be affected by the tsunami; as for the earthquake, the crust fixation equipment of the Mechanicus will try its best to deal with it."

Another tremor came from under their feet. Guilliman forced a smile and said, "Alas, it seems that their technology is not as amazing as they like to boast."

This is a bit wrong to blame the Mechanicus. After all, when these red-robed weirdos built the corresponding equipment, they could never have anticipated such an extreme situation. The Hera Fortress is located on the highest and largest mountain in Macragge, which is a plate boundary area with frequent earthquakes. The earthquake resistance level of the Empire's buildings has increased to an incredible height with the advancement of materials science, but this does not mean that the fortress's load-bearing structure cannot be collapsed by a high-level earthquake.

Dorn nodded without commenting. He might know more about the earthquake resistance of Hera Fortress than the owner who had slept in this fortress for 10,000 years. You know, after Guilliman was put into the stasis field in the Battle of Thessara, Dorn came here and personally renovated and strengthened the self-discipline protection measures of the entire Hera Fortress. Therefore, he skipped this question and turned directly to the more core aspect: "Who is our enemy?"

"It's not clear yet." Guilliman's voice revealed a sense of irritation caused by the situation getting out of control. "Almost all the outposts were disabled the moment this huge warp rift opened up. The readings of the auspex arrays are also a mess, and the communication lines are full of meaningless garbage codes. We can only barely know that the enemy has three battleships and more than a hundred frigates - this is an approximate number, because the size of the enemy fleet seems to continue to expand every moment. The information transmitted from the Macragge satellite said that they recognized that this was the Iron Warriors fleet from the identification codes of several ships in the fleet, but after they said they would further confirm this information, there was no response from this monitoring station. We still don't know whether we can regard the entire enemy fleet as belonging to the unified command of the Iron Warriors."

"But at least they're there." Dawn nodded.

The situation was terrible. The Imperial forces on Macragge - both the navy and the army - were like being put in a sack after turning a corner and being beaten by someone they didn't know what to see. Some weak-willed and inadequate commanders would fail to issue effective orders in such a situation, but the Primarch's mind and tactical vision were far above this baseline.

"No matter what, you should fight back." Dorn pointed out calmly. They really didn't know how this warp rift was created, or which family the enemy was. Knowing this might make it easier for them to fight more targeted, but the more realistic problem was that they were already being beaten, so they had to fight back to buy themselves some breathing space to regroup.

Guilliman agreed with this view: "So I have asked the outermost ships of the skyport to enter combat status directly to buy time for the ships in the port. At the same time, the Macragge's Glory will also go directly out of the port to lead this counterattack. Now all we can do is wait, wait for the ships that can still move to fight while scouting the situation on the front line."

Dorn nodded without objecting. He agreed with this tactical arrangement - even though they all knew that many ships on the port would be in such a miserable state because of these few words of command.

Because in war, there is no other way except to exchange countless lives and massive amounts of precious resources for chips, throw them into this horrific sacrificial site, and buy a tiny chance of victory for one's side.
-
Almost at the same time as the sky cracked and the alarm sounded, the powerful shields and air defense systems installed on the ground of Macragge were activated. However, the teams in charge of these powerful anti-aircraft weapons did not expect that the first thing they needed to shoot down was the huge fragments of the Empire's own ships that were damaged by various reasons and then captured by Macragge's gravity and fell to the ground.

This is a very scary thing: the sky above the city is torn apart by the rifts of the Warp, and any mortal who even looks up will be at risk of being corrupted by Chaos. But the warnings and warnings repeatedly echoing in the intercity broadcasts can't stop the citizens from looking up at the sky. Under the excellent education system of the Macragge mechanism, the citizens are indeed at least literate, know how to follow orders, and are well trained in the many unfortunate wars that have come. But in the current situation, the instinct written into the genes of humans to "look at the source of the horrible sound to determine the direction of their escape" will easily overwhelm the habits acquired through education.

In addition to the foul light of the Warp, there is actually another bright light source in the originally peaceful sky of Macragge. The meteor-like engines of the huge warships, the light emitted when they fired at each other or hit each other can be clearly seen even on the ground in the daytime hemisphere, not to mention the loud noise and fire produced by the friction between the wreckage of the warships captured by gravity and the air when they fell to the ground. The people of Macragge may have been accustomed to the sight of various fighters diving down from space, and are also familiar with the stream of fire produced when the Space Marine drop pods cut through the air - but this, a metal structure weighing thousands or even tens of thousands of tons, which is basically the size of a skyscraper, falling from the sky with the force of destroying the world, is completely on a different level.

Even among the fireballs that were torn off the ships and unfortunately fell, there were still some barely usable life-support devices and people. What was happening in the sky was even more cruel than what was seen on the ground. For these people, it was unclear whether it would be luckier to be boiled to death in the process of friction between the remnants of the ship and the atmosphere, or to be hit by the anti-aircraft guns of the ground city defenses and die for some reason during the impact.

The cruelest things, of course, happened in orbit, because such sudden attacks and inexplicable deaths were commonplace in the war-torn galaxy. The only thing that would always burn the nerves of the Imperials and bring about fiery anger and hatred was betrayal.

In orbit, it wasn't just the presence, ramming, and shooting of the enemy that caused the casualties and sinking of ships. The Macragge's Glory was also leaving the port.

When the Imperial Regent returned to the court, he brought back the First and Second Companies of the Ultramarines. The Second Company returned to Macragge with him, while the First Company and a group of Ultramarines stayed in space to take care of the Queen of Glory battleships and the corresponding escort fleet. After receiving the order from their gene-father, these ships, which were mainly controlled by the Space Marines, immediately took action as usual and prepared to leave the port to fight. However, the ships at the berths around could not cooperate with their actions, and even some ships in the entire fleet had problems and could not respond to the order immediately. Because no matter what, the ships in the Empire must be driven by people; these workers who are diligent and hardworking in their posts are mostly men and women with flesh and blood. The cornerstones of the Empire are mostly built by these people, but unfortunately, these people are also easily affected by the warp. When the accident happened, the impact of the warp energy caused many crew members to be corrupted in an instant, and hurt the minds of more people. This caused chaos in every part of each ship, and for a time they were extremely short of manpower, making it difficult to deal with them quickly. Ships like those under Guilliman, which were dispatched by Primaris Space Marines, were the only ones that could respond quickly in such an extreme situation.

But the Macragge's Glory was still leaving port.

The Queen of Glory-class battleship was like an island floating on orbit, a navigable city. Now, this city, which had quickly recovered its ability to move under the command of the Ultramarines First Captain Severus Agerman, decided to use artillery fire to clear its own route almost immediately, without being able to obtain the response and cooperation of other ships in nearby berths. Ships of the Imperial Navy, ships belonging to the Ultramarines or their successors, ships of the Inquisition, and charter ships carrying supplies were all shot down indiscriminately under the fire of the Macragge's Glory. Several small frigates were also dispatched in a unified manner, aiming their rams at their peers first, and rushed forward without paying attention to the chain reaction caused by the close distance between the ships, using this violent physical method to push the temporarily immobile ships away from their original positions.

From a global perspective, this is an understandable strategy: if nothing is done, once even one enemy battleship gets a clear angle of fire, all the ships in the entire port will not survive. But if the emergency response of the Macragge's Glory - even if it comes at a great cost - can achieve some results, at least one-third of the ships in the port can be saved.

Using smaller sacrifices to offset greater sacrifices, this kind of cruel contest and trade-off often occurs on the scales of war. But not everyone is rational enough to understand the pros and cons, especially when forced sacrifices fall on their heads. Some ships near the periphery, who only realized that they were blocking the muzzle of the Imperial Regent flagship, tried to flee in panic, but only sent themselves under the muzzles of the enemy further out; and some ships that did not fully understand the current situation, discovered what the Glory of Macragge had done, and immediately determined that the Ultramarines had betrayed the Empire under the influence of the warp, so they turned their guns and tried to shoot at it...

In short, stepping on blood and fire, steel and life, no matter what happened, the Glory of Macragge still resolutely left the port. After enduring the impact of the warp, it was still able to provide the battlefield situation to the command level on the battleship in real time through the Auger array and auspicious instrument operated by the efforts of the technical priests - then, something even more desperate happened:
Among the enemy's complex and chaotic escort fleet, which was barely cobbled together from various types of ships, the fourth battleship slowly emerged from the subspace rift.

She was huge, very huge, and appeared very slowly, with half of her still trapped in the warp. Neither the navigator nor the divination agency could yet outline her full appearance, but the bridge had already received the identification code of this seemingly uncontaminated Chaos ship:
Iron Blood.
-
"Earthquake?" Ritsuka Fujimaru, who was still in the underground facility, nervously grabbed the hand of Akultona beside him as the building shook.

Earthquakes are not uncommon. As someone who was born in the first island chain earthquake zone in the Asia-Pacific region, she has a lot of experience with this, and even has the leisure to judge by physical sensation. The current vibration is probably about a magnitude 5 earthquake. What makes her a little nervous is that she doesn't know which escape route to take, and she doesn't know whether the earthquake evacuation process these days is the same as what she was used to.

"Don't worry, this is inside the Hera Fortress." Maxius spoke for his own regiment's base. "The strength of the building structure is enough to withstand most earthquakes. Moreover, deeper underground in the fortress, the Mechanicus has also installed crust-fixing equipment, which will alleviate the impact of plate movement."

Although he comforted himself in this way, he was actually unsure. He only learned these things from the information. In fact, he was not born in Macragge, but was secretly recruited and transformed by Cawl on Mars after the launch of the Primaris Project. Although Maxius had a name that could easily blend into Macragge, in fact, the time he stayed on the land of Macragge might not be more than the time he stayed on Macragge's Glory, and the time he spent on Macragge's Glory was probably less than one twentieth of the total time he served.

Regardless of whether Maxius was confident when he spoke, it somewhat reassured Fujimaru Ritsuka - although she still doubted whether the elevator could be used in this situation. But considering that this part of the building looked like it had never been designed with stairs...

"We still have to get to the ground as soon as possible. This accident will not affect our original plan." Akuldona commented. Then, he naturally turned to the clone on the other side: "My lord, you should go with us."

The clone's face, still covered in dust and blood, showed a little surprise, and Santo turned back angrily, wanting to say something. Maxius didn't react and was still a little stunned, but Fujimaru Ritsuka was the first to say, "I think it's okay. The regent needs to know what happened here. And even if we take a step back, it's hard to think that a floor that has been infiltrated by the enemy once is safe and secure."

Santo paused for a moment, then turned back angrily, staring at the next door 20 meters away in the corridor. The clone also nodded obediently after a brief pause: "And the Ultramarines guarding nearby."

He wanted to say that everyone should leave together, but in a flash he realized what the tragic scene in the previous corridor contained, so he had to pause and turned to Maxius awkwardly: "I'm sorry. But the think tank took a few people to the corridor further back. Maybe they will have better luck."

Maxius didn't think things would be so optimistic, but he nodded politely and prepared to thank him. But just as he opened his mouth and before he could make a sound, a loud explosion-like sound suddenly came from the other side of the adamantine door 20 meters away - and then, the door seemed to be hit by hot metal, and the metal surface began to turn into a white-hot molten state.

"Santo?"

"Not me. Do you think the melta's range is twenty meters?"

Iron Hand was about to raise his bolter again in a bad mood, but at this moment, Fujimaru Ritsuka asked tentatively:
"Arjuna?"

(End of this chapter)