Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 428: When you become the Iron Hand, remember to be careful when making friends -
Vosko Dovk now has an emotion in his heart that is extremely rare among Iron Hands warriors - constant uneasiness and frustration.

He walked alone in the passage from the Lakuan Conquest Hall to the lower mechanical preparation room with heavy steps. This was not because there was a problem with his energy backpack, but more of an indescribable feeling for this Medusa native youth.

Because of the crazy geographical conditions and extreme living environment of the Medusa planet itself, the Medusans have an extremely poor vocabulary of beautiful things, good things, relaxation, melancholy, etc. - they have a wide variety of words to describe man-eating monsters, ghosts, various dangers, death, dedication or fighting.

Anyway, this weird extra heaviness is like...

It was as if the invisible mood could also make his physical steps heavy.

Although the rational part of his mind knew that this was impossible, he could still feel the feeling in his body.

Perhaps it was because most of his body was still weak flesh and blood, he thought, while turning the heavy gear hinges, opening the maintenance hydraulic door and crawling in.

But for the Iron Hands, the only part a new member is allowed to honorably remove is his left hand and left forearm, as he is now.

His left arm was ritually chopped off from the elbow down by Iron Father Malkan with his sacred Cogwheel Axe, and replaced on the spot with a reliable, stoic, and strong mechanical prosthesis.

The part of his newly acquired prosthesis that was connected to his own arm flesh and skin was not integrated very well yet, and the skin in some places was inflamed and swollen because it had not been well cared for recently. Although it did not bother him, the itching that penetrated into the flesh and bones sometimes made him feel more inconvenient than the pain.

He sighed again and quickened his pace slightly, his lonely footsteps echoing in the deserted gray passage.

After the overhaul, even the patrolling servitors and those embedded in the walls became fewer - after they were scrapped, they were replaced by newer all-metal instruments.

It is said that the new wetware has been integrated into the more solid, neater and cleaner mechanical reliquary, so people cannot see them, only the smooth panel and rows of neat operating buttons.

Although Vosko felt that there was no need to pursue the neat appearance of wetware containers, the shriveled, preservative-soaked faces of the servitors and the sounds made by decayed human vocal cords were more reassuring.

Alas, this idea is actually wrong, flesh and blood are weak! It should be a good thing that the biochemical robot servants were replaced by beautiful and hard steel. Why is he still nostalgic for these cold corpses?

As a member of Clan Bogus, it must have been too long since he prayed and confessed to the Iron Priest or the priest of Om Messiah.

He really needed to have a good talk with his new friend.

This is what he found the priest when he was sent alone to check the unexpected situation of the automatic door of a mechanical preparation warehouse on the lower deck after the last boarding operation.

Although the other party was always wearing a red robe and was unwilling to show his full appearance to him, this was also very common among the followers of Om Messiah.

In this place full of veterans and fearless people from the Lakuan and Karagu clans who are more ruthless and cruel than Medusa's nuclear radiation dust storm, this new friend who calls himself "Maintenance Priest of Lower Deck No. 3" is a rare comfort for him here.

After all, who would have thought that there wouldn't even be a devout priest of Om Messiah in the Iron Hands' Hall of Conquest? And Iron Father Malkan Ferros wasn't someone a novice like him could disturb and take up his precious time. The number of Iron Priests was far less than that of the Bogus Clan, and they were also very busy.

As for why a new recruit from Bogus would be here...

And, first of all, because Vosko was here purely to escort a supply shipment.

For some reason, the integrated multi-purpose electronic ground scale they were using got stuck in the reading at the last 99.99%, causing Vosko and the Lakuan warrior who was taking over to dig out the brains of the mecha servants with their butts bent over for a long time - they found that it was stuck because those brains had somehow slipped into the narrow gap in the water tank at the bottom of the Thinker culture tank.

According to the calculations of other thinkers at the time, it would be most convenient to dig them out carefully with hands, as human fingers would not easily break them. However, only he and another warrior with their own flesh hands were present.

Because this incident attracted his attention for a while, when the Laquan Conquest Fortress quietly flew out of the asteroid belt of the Stenelos system at full speed, he found that it was too late and impossible for him to get off the ship halfway. As for giving a novice like him a single Thunderhawk to drive back by himself, it was even more unrealistic.

Secondly, his current clan name is still Dovok, not Lakuan, and he actually comes from the devout Bogus clan, so sometimes fate really plays tricks on him.

As the newest member of the Dovk clan, which basically serves the equivalent of the Tenth Company in other Chapters, this meant that Vosko had participated in the Medusan Death Challenge held on the Ouranus Rock training grounds this year, and became one of the very few lucky ones who survived and went through the surgery, and also became a brand new... Dovk recruit of the Iron Hands.

So he was assigned to the Dovk Clan Company as per convention - all new Iron Hands recruits would join this Clan Company until they survived enough times or lived enough times to be replaced with iron prostheses, and then be assigned to other Clan Companies. Generally speaking, after this assignment, there would be few changes to Clan Companies.

Not many, but they do exist. However, generally speaking, for this kind of special personnel transfer, the party receiving the transfer will pay certain resources or information in exchange for him.

All in all, he shouldn't be following the Lakuan Clan in their Conquest Hall right now. He hasn't received more training yet, and although he is not afraid of a challenge, the Lakuan Clan warriors obviously don't think so.

Although they didn't intend to kill him on the spot (he doubted it), things that made him even more unacceptable kept happening. The assault—without him! The training room—he was not allowed to use it! The boarding operation—without him! The battle report—not told him at all!
The Lakuan veterans told the unlucky recruit that they were planning to return to Medusa after this expedition, so he could wait to go back with them. As for the training, courses, hypnosis and bionic implantation surgeries that he had missed due to his "disappearance", he would have to find a way to convince the instructors of Dovk after he returned...

What followed was the story of how he was sent to check the abandoned mechanical preparation room on the lower level, where he made a new friend and was surprised to find that the other person was a mechanical priest, who agreed that he could come to him to confess and pray.

He found the hatch. Although it was also covered in dust, he knew that its lock had been carefully repaired and oiled. It could be opened very smoothly after recognizing his identity. "Master No. 3...are you there?"

A small indicator light next to the door lit up, indicating that the priest was in the cabin at the moment and was available.

Vosko exhaled subconsciously, opened the door, stepped in, and closed it behind him.

The dark passage returned to silence.

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Let’s put “the unfortunate and lucky Wasco” aside for now and look at the story on the other side.

Why is it that although all clans are members of the Iron Hands, there seems to be such a huge gap between them? This brings us back to the day when Ferrus Manus landed... Okay, that's getting off topic.

Basically, the Iron Hands Chapter superficially follows the Codex Astartes, but if you use your toes to imagine that these crazy people who believe that "the death of Ferrus Manus means he has failed and has fallen from our God to the mortal world" and "Ferus is dead so we're in great pain, it's okay for the entire galaxy to be buried with him" and finally deduced that "so we have to take out all the dark technology in the treasury that Daddy sealed up and didn't let us use! The switch oil man helped! The son sold his father's land! This way Ferrus will come back and lead us again!" will not honestly abide by this codex.

Therefore, the ten companies corresponding to the Holy Scripture are the Ten Medusa Clans. What is special about them is that they are very, very particular about the differences in clan bloodlines.

In most cases, each clan only has the genetic bloodline of its own clan. Only the Dovk clan has a large number of recruits of different bloodlines in addition to its own team. The bloodlines of their own clan generally serve as non-commissioned officers or instructors.

The personnel transfer mentioned above has a special term, "transfer of nationality". Transfer of nationality can only be implemented in very rare circumstances through extremely cumbersome procedures and operations - because it also requires changing the clan characteristics of the person transferring nationality.

One of the issues is that the tribal relations between the various clans were actually loose and highly competitive (it is actually hard to say whether they were semi-hostile) before conscription.

Secondly, after defeating each Medusa tribe one by one through a series of treks and battles and defeating the silver dragon Arcinos, Ferrus Manus did not actually choose to unify Medusa. Instead, he continued to let these tribesmen who survived in the doomsday radiation wasteland maintain a life of fighting, nomadism, and scavenging, resulting in them still maintaining this cultural custom after entering space.

The third is something that Ferrus Manus never expected - his death caused at least three major splits in the Iron Hands, resulting in some clans - such as the Bogus - being strictly guarded against by other clans.

Therefore, in addition to establishing the Iron Hands' secret vaults and cellars at a few specific, geologically stable points, each clan actually separated itself when operating on the surface of Medusa, using its own mobile giant fortress.

However, even though the reactors in the clan fortress monasteries were very powerful, most of them could still only operate on the ground, and the Lakuan Clan Hall was one of the few that also had the ability to navigate in space.

"--Don't ask me why such a bulky thing can fly up and down." When asked by the curious Fulgrim (and Fulgrim Ishtar) once, Garuda raised the hands of the silver giant high and made a helpless gesture, "It's just unreasonable, unless you want me to explain to you the principles of Sarkosson's formula, the eight sleeping sages, the cursed regulations, etc."

"You speak of things that are beyond the comprehension of my innate intelligence," Fulgrim said, his lavender eyes like sparkling amethysts, "but they give me a very powerful feeling."

"Of course." Ferrus Manus said through the mouthpiece of the silver mechanical giant, completely unaware of what he was teaching the other party, "Because these things were originally sealed by me in the scattered Mimir treasure houses. These things are too evil and powerful and should not be released into this universe. Otherwise, the consequences will be disastrous."

"Uh. But."

"…It is my responsibility to recycle and process these accumulated over the past ten thousand years…" The word lingered on the tip of his tongue, difficult to spit out.

"Even if they become like this, and you have to deal with the aftermath, I think it's better to call them 'offspring'."

There were two phoenix voices, one young and innocent, the other mature and experienced, saying similar things at the same time in Ferrus' receiving unit and data loop, which made his face look strange again.

"What's wrong?" The young Clone Primarch in front of him looked at his guardian in confusion. "Although I admit that the days on Vesalius do seem a bit creepy now, I learned some parts from it that I think are correct..."

"for example?"

"For example, when they call you 'father' instead of something else, even if he looks like a thousand-year-old heavy block of metal with full body prosthesis, his tear ducts will probably start working when you call him 'son' and touch his head."

"...I think the tear duct would be one of the first parts they remove."

"Oh," the young Phoenix said somewhat meaninglessly, "then they must be very sad, because there is nothing better for 'humans' to express their emotions at this moment."

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Of course, things and discussions were not always so joyful. In fact, most of the time, it was obvious that the three of them, especially the two of the silver giants and the young cloned phoenix, had disputes. For example, now -
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Where did he go out of spite again?
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Yes, he was running down the hall to the lower deck again, and though he never said where he was going, it was one of the same old places.
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Is it safe there? -
It's safe. No one usually goes there, and Malkan and the others have also been notified. The machine spirits in the Clan Hall can see there, so - do you want me to share multiple perspectives with you? I can share them with you.
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No! Thank you! Just know he's safe there. Also, Mr. Chuchu, out of courtesy and trust me, you should reduce the number of sensors monitoring the multi-view room.
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What's wrong? For various safety considerations——
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...No, you're right, but if he knew that you were monitoring him from multiple angles like this, I think his reaction would be more intense and his attitude towards you would be a little more distrustful.
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Is that so? Then I will cut off the surveillance audio now.
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...The ghost of Chemos! Are you still recording?! Cut it off! Gorgon!

(End of this chapter)