Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 436 06.0435: "Warship cat... girl?"

"This is my daughter Lina, you have met her before." Colonel Lord Elphinstone had a signature smile on his face and pulled the girl in military uniform beside him and said:

"She will serve as the intelligence officer of the First Attack Squadron, using the new 'God Emperor's Secret Language' cipher machine that was previously installed in small batches to exchange encrypted intelligence with the mothership."

"It's nice to see you again, Major Cochrane." The girl wearing gold-rimmed shrapnel glasses said in a calm tone without any emotion.

She just looked at the man in front of her, just like she looked at anyone else, without revealing the slightest emotional fluctuation.

"Well, welcome, Miss Elphinstone." Although Horatio didn't know why the girl always had a blank expression on her face, he still welcomed her warmly.

"Long time no see, Lina."

Farida, who was standing aside, smiled and saluted the girl who grew up with her.

The cold-faced girl looked at Farida and finally smiled: "Me too."

Another friendly soldier arrived on the battlefield, which made Farida very happy and she could not hide the joy on her face.

Recently, she has been trying to survive between a group of "little vixens" and "big vixens". The strong pressure has made her feel a little breathless as she wants to maintain her position as the main wife.

Now I finally have someone who is truly my own.

This finally made her feel less alone in her emotional struggles.

After a brief welcome to the new technical talent on board, the Epic began final preparations for its first voyage to the war zone.

"The power system is normal! Pressurization is normal! Shadow field generator is normal!" Leidos reported.

"The escort route has been drawn. Our ships will conduct reconnaissance on the left wing."

Horatio sat on the command throne made entirely of adamantium. When the neural plug at the back of his head connected to the machine soul of the Epic, almost all the parameters of the ship appeared before his eyes.

"Identity verification in progress..."

"Horatio Cochrane, Lieutenant Commander of the Imperial Navy"

『Position: Captain』

"Welcome, Captain."

The Epic's voice was clear and cold.

The tone is stiff and mechanical.

It cannot be as autonomous as the machine spirit of the Indefatigable, and it cannot even express its own emotions.

But as a brand new battleship, it is still acceptable.

After all, all Imperial Navy warships were required to be able to operate even without a neural plug connected.

[If I use Machine Soul Affinity on this new ship, will it be better?]
With the mentality of giving it a try, he activated the machine soul affinity skill once.

As the pulse of the built-in source power circuit in his body surged, it was injected into the battleship command throne through the dendrites on his knuckles.

"Detected... an unknown power source circuit..."

Suddenly, a wave of undercurrent was fed back to Horatio, and the command throne, which was originally a little cold, gradually warmed up.

Horatio closed his eyes and felt the beating of the machine soul through the thick nerve plugs behind his brain.

He was in a different dark vision.

As the affinity unfolded, the machine soul gradually became more agile from the initial indifference and coldness. The invisible texture wrapped around Horatio's body and became more active as his fingertips moved.

"Captain, please give your orders."

It's like a newly adopted cat, which goes from being alert to becoming familiar, and then starts to wag its tail affectionately and ask for rubs.

Cats...? Well, this metaphor is really appropriate.

"Captain! There is..."

Horatio felt someone calling him. At first he thought it was the machine spirit's call, but soon he found that the voice was getting louder and louder, making his eardrums vibrate faintly.

That was Archie's voice.

"What's wrong?" Horatio suddenly opened his eyes, returned to the real world, and looked at his first mate.

"Just now, a boat boy who was checking the ventilation ducts on the bridge was scratched by a half-cat man. I think you need to avoid it first. This may be a precursor to the alien assassination plot."

"what?"

I just thought of cats, how come a half-cat man suddenly appeared? ? ? ?

Horatio was puzzled by this and went directly to the scene of the incident despite Archie's dissuasion.

In front of a ventilation duct on the west side of the bridge, the grille was opened from the outside. Old man Joe's prickly little son was sitting on the ground, gasping for breath. There were three bright bloodstains on his hands. It was obvious that he was frightened by the sudden attack.

The armed sailors on both sides turned on their high-intensity flashlights and pointed them into the pipe.

I saw a half-cat girl with her pupils shrunk into a scary vertical slit, curled up in the pipe.

Judging from her expression, she was also shocked and scared.

"Come out here! Mutant! You have three seconds to come out and confess your intentions! Otherwise I will shoot you to death!" an armed sailor threatened. "1..."

Louise also rushed over. As the commander of the armed forces, she carefully held the bolt pistol and squatted at the entrance to keep vigilant.

Huh? She seemed to have seen this half-cat before. She was vaguely familiar with this mutant.

After a small commotion on the bridge, Horatio finally arrived.

"What happened?"

"Sir, a mutant is hiding on our warship. I don't know if he is a stowaway. We are currently carrying out the elimination process.

Hey, come out!

two! "

He crouched down in front of the pipe, and Louise rushed forward to cover him.

“Yo yo???”

That’s right, this half-cat man is the stray cat girl that he put into the labor gang.

"It's okay, Louise. This is the cat man who helped us keep watch during our previous mission. He used to be my subordinate." Horatio leaned close to Louise's ear and said.

Louise nodded and signaled the sailors to put away their guns and stand down.

"Boss..." After seeing Horatio, the half-cat girl's pupils gradually blurred and her body was no longer tense, instantly turning into big, watery, round eyes.

"How did you end up on the warship?"

"Yoyo hasn't seen the boss for a long time. Only the boss treats Yoyo as a human being.

I saw the boss was recruiting people, but the recruiter didn't want sub-humans and almost arrested me as a mutant, so I sneaked into the starport along the space elevator, found the boss's ship, and hid inside."

"Ah...that's it..."

Hiss, you are incredible to have passed through the heavy security of the Imperial Navy, and even not been caught by the Death Watch Raven Guard. Horatio didn't know whether to be angry with the security forces or feel lucky that Yoyo was one of his own.

“Archie, are half-cats considered legal sub-humans in the Imperial Navy?
She was in Abyss Harbor before, and I personally recruited her into the gang. Now that she is here, if I throw her down there, she won't have a good time since she is unfamiliar with the place."

“According to the Imperial Code, strictly speaking, cat people are indeed legal sub-humans of the Empire, and half-cat people should be considered legal sub-humans even more.

As for whether or not you can stay on the warship, according to the law, as the captain, you theoretically have the power of life and death over anyone aboard your warship."

Horatio rolled his eyes. Since ancient Terra, there has been a custom of keeping cats on ships.

Not only because cats can catch mice, but also because they are auspicious.

Based on the principle that he didn't know if it would work, but just in case it really worked in this world of monsters and demons, he decided to keep Yoyo. After all, this was a void attack ship that would face life-and-death situations.

"Listen, Yo-Yo." Horatio squatted in front of Yo-Yo, who crawled out of the pipe with messy hair and disheveled clothes. The tip of her white nose was stained with black engine oil when she was drilling the pipe. With her round baby face and shaking cat ears, she looked like a cute little kitten.

The half-cat girl, who still looked thin with a distinct skeleton, was like a little girl who had made a mistake. She squatted obediently at the mouth of the pipe, listening to the boss's lecture without daring to move.

"This is a warship. Do you know what a warship is?" Horatio said earnestly.

The half-cat girl just nodded ignorantly, and didn't say whether she understood or not.

"The warship means that we are all in the same gang. If we are not careful, we will die together. Anyway, this place is different from the Hive Gang. Here, there are very strict rules."

"We go by whatever the boss says. We're not afraid of death." The half-cat girl hugged her knees with her hands, turned her thin face to the side and hummed.

Seeing the half-cat girl lying down completely and giving up thinking, Horatio sighed.

"If you want to stay on the warship, you must abide by the rules I set and never violate them.

You can learn from it, and it would be best if you could find a job. If you really can't do it, you can just find something to do, or do odd jobs, but you must not be idle, especially not stealing things, understand?"

Yoyo sat up and nodded.

In fact, Horatio did not expect this half-cat girl to do much, because humans had some discrimination against sub-humans.

It is inappropriate to specify which department to go to, as it is not appropriate for both sides.

And she was too thin to do much physical work.

If it really doesn't work, just keep a cat girl on the ship as the warship cat mascot.

It doesn't matter if I make a living.

"Ms. Yin, the accountant, take her to wash, and then pick out a set of crew clothes for her from the warehouse."

"Yes, Captain. Please follow me, Miss Yoyo. The Captain is very busy, so I can't bother him too often. I will teach you the things you need to pay attention to on the battleship..."

Yin Shuyao was no stranger to this half-cat girl.

after all.

Yoyo and Horatio, and her encounter, happened in front of her family's store, didn't they?
Yoyo nodded straight and obediently followed the girl who had given her delicious food. She wagged her long cat tail and seemed to listen to the girl's explanation seriously.

(End of this chapter)