Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 648 06.647: "'The Last Mission'"

Zizzi! Zizzi!
The sparks from the welding gun flickered and jumped in the cabin illuminated by red light. The light was like a tenacious fire in the darkness, and it was particularly eye-catching in this space filled with nuclear dust.

The cabin was filled with grayish-white nuclear dust, forming a thick haze.

The damage control team members moved with difficulty during the Epic's violent drifting maneuvers.

They were like sailors sailing in the strong winds and huge waves. Every step they took was full of hardships. They struggled to clear the rubble and repair the gaps in the hull in this extremely harsh and deadly environment.

The Fifth Damage Control Team was tasked with a difficult task - repairing and replacing the internal circulation system pipes.

"This is it." Old man Qiao's voice sounded in the noisy environment, with a hint of fatigue.

He and his two sons acted quickly, dismantling three sections of ventilation pipes that had been twisted and deformed beyond recognition, with skilled and steady movements.

Then they carefully connected the replacement pipe, and then picked up the aluminum sheet and carefully repaired the several leaks.

They were inside the cabin and knew nothing about the outside world. They had no idea what was going on outside or what kind of crisis the Epic was facing.

The only thing they could truly feel was the rapidly increasing acceleration and the occasional drift of the ship. The force of inertia always threw them against the bulkheads on both sides without any warning.

They remained highly vigilant at all times and were extremely careful in every movement, fearing that the protective clothing would be cut by the twisted sharp surfaces in the cabin. Once the protective clothing was damaged, it would undoubtedly be fatal.

boom!
A sudden and sharp noise suddenly exploded between Old Man Qiao and his two sons. That sound was clearly the sound of metal being pierced.

Immediately afterwards, two small-caliber railgun shells penetrated the cabin with tremendous force.

One shell narrowly passed between the two men and then went straight out of the cabin roof; the other shell exploded in the compartment they had just passed.

The shell hit the fire door accurately and detonated the fuse instantly.

The violent explosion was like a ferocious beast, instantly destroying the road they came from.

At the same time, the two human-shaped icons in the member organization on their helmet screens instantly turned gray.

They knew that this meant the two team members had lost their vital signs.

"Hey! Can you hear me?! George! Charles!" The youngest son was extremely anxious. He jumped over the gap without hesitation, ran quickly to the collapsed door, and shouted at the top of his lungs to the outside.

However, apart from the faint wailing and screaming, he received no response.

He looked through the collapsed gap towards the nearby cabin and saw that two people had been killed instantly by the explosion and collapse, and the protective clothing of two others were seriously damaged.

In the terrible vacuum environment, their skin and flesh dehydrated at an extremely fast rate and became full of wrinkles, like mummies with their bandages removed. The scene was shocking.

This scene frightened the youngest son so much that his face turned pale and his body couldn't help but tremble slightly.

"Dad...outside...outside." he stammered.

At this time, Old Man Qiao was concentrating on the work in his hands and didn't even look outside.

He used the last piece of aluminum he had to carefully weld the last hole.

Whoohoo!
Finally, the sound of air flowing through the trachea could be heard again.

"Ah, our mission is accomplished." Old man Qiao rubbed his shoulders, which were sore from long hours of work, and slowly walked towards the intact door on the other side.

He first knocked hard on the fire door with a wrench, listened to the dull sound, and then turned the door handle.

Then, of course, he discovered that the door was locked from the other side - a measure apparently taken to create a leak-proof isolation area.

Although the door at the other end looked intact, no one responded no matter how hard they knocked.

"Do you still have a signal on your communicator?" Old man Qiao turned his head and looked at his two sons, asking with a hint of anxiety in his expression.

The two sons shook their heads helplessly. In this highly difficult environment filled with nuclear radiation and dust, the communicator only emitted noisy electromagnetic sounds and could not receive any external signal waves at all.

"Sit down, now we can only wait. It's best to find a place to lie down and save air. I hope someone can find us." There was a hint of fatigue and helplessness in old man Qiao's voice.

The two sons looked at each other, and then did as their father said, finding a place to sit or lie down.

They took a look at the oxygen reserves. In such a heavily polluted environment, the filter in the gas tank was consumed faster under internal circulation and would soon need to be replaced.

This also means that the small gas tank that could originally save lives for 3 hours can now only last for half an hour.

If they took off their masks, the hellish, toxic environment would kill them instantly.

Even though they knew this, they had no choice but to wait quietly for rescue.

Old man Joe held the wrench tightly in his hand and knocked hard on the hatch next to him every once in a while, his eyes full of hope, hoping that someone could hear the signal for help.

But in this quarantine zone, who would be so bold as to risk the huge risk of nuclear dust spreading to release them?
The atmosphere on the command bridge was as tense as a taut bowstring, ready to explode at any moment.

"Open fire!" A roar broke the tense atmosphere.

Boom boom!

The cannon on the ship's spine emitted a deafening roar, and fired back fiercely at the pursuing enemy ships.

The Epic finally gave up hiding. Like a beast that had escaped from its cage, it charged at full speed towards Mandeville Point.

As a warship equipped with a Voss-type engine and a power-to-weight ratio comparable to that of an escort ship, its speed when sailing at full speed is still the fastest among Imperial warships.

The Epic's machine soul was like a tireless warrior, using all its strength, and the engine power and ion conversion frequency were pulled to a record high. Under normal circumstances, with such a high frequency of overload, the engine would quickly overheat and have to slow down.

But at this critical moment of life and death, the Epic's machine soul withstood the overload power. She had only one belief in her heart at this moment, which was to take her captain out of the enemy's encirclement and escape from the enemy's pursuit.

This is her promise and the mission she sticks to.

Horatio looked at the Machine Soul Girl, whose figure gradually turned pale and dazed. Facing this unknown situation that had occurred for the first time, he was filled with panic. However, seeing that the Tech Priest had not reported the risk of the engine exploding, he was powerless at this time and could only hold the girl's hand tightly and do his best to comfort her.

[Come on, epic number.] He prayed silently in his heart.

"The rear torpedo compartment is loaded! Fire!"

With an order, whoosh!

Two torpedoes whizzed out from the parallel launch tubes at the rear like arrows, rushing towards the approaching light cruiser.

Their guidance heads accurately locked onto those high-energy heat signals, and they did not hesitate to hit the engines first, regardless of whether they could destroy the enemy ships or not. As long as they could paralyze the power plant of the light cruiser, it would never be able to catch up with the Epic. The macro guns on the ship also turned to the side and rear, using extremely high precision to prevent the destroyers and frigates, which were as fast as the Epic, from approaching.

The other surviving but injured attack ships sent emergency signals to withdraw from the battle one after another. In the entire airspace, only the Epic was left, charging forward bravely and single-handedly, as if it could defeat a thousand enemies.

"Go! We're almost there!!" Horatio gritted his teeth, his hands gripping the adamantine command throne almost denting this second-hardest alloy made of human alloy. His eyes were filled with determination and resoluteness.

In the lower cabin, Old Man Joe was slumped against the cabin door. His forehead was covered with beads of sweat that kept rolling down his cheeks, and his helmet was already full of fog.

The fog was like a thick curtain, preventing him from seeing the current condition of the two boys clearly. He could only see from the marshalling column that they were still alive, and that was all.

"Warning! Oxygen reserves have dropped to 20%, please prepare spare gas tanks as soon as possible." A column of eye-catching small words popped up in front of the helmet.

Old man Qiao reached out to touch the gas tank bag on the breast wall, but when he put his hand in, he found that it was empty and two empty tanks rolled down to his hand.

In addition to the gas tank storage bag that comes with the void suit, he specially sewed a pocket on the chest of his void suit. He has done his best to carry two more gas tanks without affecting his work and actions.

But now, the two gas tanks were used up, and he shared one with his two younger sons. He believed that as an old man, he must consume less oxygen than his two sons.

"Are the two boys still alive?" He asked weakly as he lay there powerless.

"Dad, my eldest brother's last oxygen tank is running out." The youngest son replied anxiously.

"Where's the bottle I gave you?" Old Man Qiao asked.

"My eldest brother and I have already used half of it. Dad, are we finished?

If we die like this, can we still ascend the Golden Throne? Does this count as our death in battle? I don’t think so.”

There was a hint of despair in the younger son's confused words.

“……” Old man Qiao swallowed and sat up with difficulty. His skinny old hands trembled as he raised the wrench and knocked on the fire door again. However, there was still no movement.

"Lie down and don't talk too much. I'll give your brother an extra charge from the gas tank." Old man Qiao said, trying to cheer himself up.

"Dad!" the youngest son suddenly shouted, "Big brother has fainted! Hey! Big brother! Wake up! Dad, can we pry open a hole in the ventilation pipe and let Big brother breathe a breath?"

When Old Man Qiao heard his youngest son say this, his eyes immediately widened, as if their eyeballs were about to pop out, and his eyes were full of shock and determination.

"No!" He used all his strength to reject it firmly: "What if we all die later, who will plug the hole we pried open? Now the internal circulation has been restarted, and the nuclear dust inside will be blown directly into the command bridge through the pipes!"

The younger son collapsed on the ground, his vision blurred. He glanced at the gas tank and saw that the remaining amount was less than 5%. Even so, he gritted his teeth and prepared to give his remaining 5% to his eldest brother.

"Boy." Old man Qiao pulled out the gas tank from his void suit and said slowly, "I have been a traitor for my whole life, but I have never made any progress.

To be honest, I had thought of bringing you into the navy just to make a living. I had never thought about the future, nor had I ever thought about actually working on a few routes.

But I didn't expect that you guys worked so hard, as if this was our new home.

Eh, I don’t know if it’s because I’ve grown old and have lived here for so long that I’ve come to regard this place as my home. Now I’m not used to the days after returning home. ”

"Dad, what are you talking about? Put the gas tank in quickly."

The youngest son said anxiously.

"Connect it to big brother." Old man Qiao removed the gas tank from his airlock and threw it hard at his youngest son.

"I've lived enough. I spent the first half of my life hanging out with gangsters in Xiachao, and I haven't achieved anything in more than 30 years.

But you are different. You have finally gotten on the right track with the captain. Your life has just begun and you must survive."

Old man Joe struggled to sit up, breathing the remaining air in the void helmet, his eyes full of expectations and reluctance for his sons.

"Bringing your brother and you out alive is my last mission for you."

"Dad."

The younger son's voice was tearful.

"After I leave, take my wrench and knock on the door every two minutes. Do you hear me?"

Old man Joe glanced at his youngest son. There was a thick layer of fog in the helmets of both of them, and they couldn't see each other's faces at all.

"Dad..."

All he could hear was his youngest son's suppressed sobs.

"Damn, this fog on the helmet... I can't even take a last look at you." There was a hint of regret in old man Joe's voice.

His vision began to blur, and everything in front of him gradually lost its outline.

"Dad... don't die. Brother! Brother!"

The youngest son's cries echoed in the gradually silent cabin.

[It turns out that death can be so easy.]
Old man Qiao's head slowly drooped. The process of death from lack of oxygen was not as painful as he had imagined. He just felt his head was hot as if he had a fever, and then he felt dizzy and his head was swollen, as if he was in a dream, a place he had never been to.

The younger son crawled over with difficulty.

'Warning, oxygen reserves are running low. Please replace the gas tank immediately to avoid danger.'

In order to save oxygen, he restrained his crying, fumbled to take off the medal awarded to him by the captain from his chest, and gently placed it in the palm of old man Joe's hand. He then picked up the wrench that fell from his hand and knocked on the fire door with his last bit of strength.

Gradually, he felt his head becoming heavier and heavier, as if his body did not belong to him, and each strike became more and more difficult.

"Warning! Oxygen exhausted!" His head dropped completely, only his hands still stubbornly grasped the wrench, knocking on the heavy steel door again and again.

Click! boom!
There was a loud noise.

He used all his strength to turn his head to the side and lay on the ground weakly.

All that could be vaguely seen was a tall, red robot with a white head and engineering pliers in both hands. It used its huge strength to pry open the fire door and then began to carry out engineering work.

Then, a woman in a robe and a hood, holding a half-gear axe in her hand, walked steadily to him, unafraid of the nuclear dust and radiation inside, and stared at him quietly with her head down.

But he didn't even have the strength to open his eyes. His consciousness was cut off and everything in front of him was plunged into darkness.

(End of this chapter)