Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 876, page 08.875: "Three-Way Reinforcements"

Inside the Star Language Tower, the air was so heavy it was almost solidified, filled with a strange smell of ozone, and the pungent odor of a mixture of refrigerant and the incense of the state religion.

This is the ship's only ultra-long-range communication hub, the only umbilical cord connecting the lone boat to the Milky Way.

The servants, dressed in grey robes, were expressionless, their skin appearing sickly pale in the dim light.

With their withered arms, they lifted the corpses of psionicists, their seven orifices oozing black blood, from the nutrient solution tanks.

These unfortunate souls, once part of the tithes of some distant world of the Empire, are now consumables for maintaining interstellar communication. Their lives are drained by repeated painful screams, dissipating into invisible ripples in the warp.

A new batch of offerings was forcibly stuffed into the liquid tank.

They struggled, their limbs scratching futilely against the smooth inner walls, their eyes filled with the fear of being swallowed up.

As the amber-colored maintenance fluid was slowly injected, submerging their mouths and noses, the struggles of these men and women gradually weakened, and they eventually fell into a deep sleep in terrified spasms, awaiting their fate of being sacrificed.

Chief Star Speaker Melon leaned against her psionic staff, feeling a heavy weariness emanating from the depths of her soul with every breath.

The crystal at the tip of the scepter hummed softly in the aftershocks of her psychic energy, as if in mourning.

On this day, too many lives had turned to ashes in her hands, but her cries went unanswered, like stones sinking into the sea.

Lord of mankind, have you truly abandoned your people...?

The void is so vast that the entire fleet of any race is but a drop in the ocean in this boundless sea of ​​stars.

The chances of the RX-0371 escort team being rescued are extremely slim.

Mellon's palms were sweating, and his slender fingers gripped the cold scepter tightly.

She decided to try one more time, at the cost of her last precious life.

"Great Lord of Mankind, grant me your grace. Protect your servant, so that in this endless dark void, he may find guidance from the beacon of humanity..."

She condensed her will into a sharp knife and pierced the mind of the sleeping psionicist in the liquid tank beside her.

A silent scream exploded on the psionic level, and the life of the psionicist was ignited in an instant, transforming into the purest psionic medium, which was transmitted to Melon's body through a complex network of pipes.

Mellon's eyes flashed with dazzling golden light, and two beams of pure energy shot into the huge focusing crystal in the dome.

The golden light was amplified and gathered, transforming once again into a pillar of light that tore through the darkness, shooting straight into the sky and disappearing into the controllable subspace rift above the ship, which had been artificially torn open and was constantly churning.

The rift was turbulent and filled with unstable, volatile energy.

Meanwhile, in the far distance, at Mandeville, the point that the RX-0371 task force was desperately rushing toward, a faint disturbance was heard.

Jiong! Buzz!
Space itself seemed to be torn apart, and a blue-purple light flashed across the void before quickly disappearing.

Immediately afterwards, several warships, like moths breaking free from a spider web, rushed out of the subspace exit formed by the intertwined lightning storm, leaping from the unreal dimension into the physical universe.

On the bridge, the sirens blared and the metallic groans of the ship creaked together.

A man with a buzz cut suddenly stood up from the command throne. On the right breast of his crisp Imperial Navy uniform, a gold battle wound medal swayed slightly with his movement.

"Navigation Center! Report our current location! Is this Juno?"

“No, Captain.” An officer’s voice came through the communicator. He repeatedly checked the waterfall of data flowing across the display panel, his tone tinged with confusion. “The coordinates of Juno are extremely far off. We… we have been pushed off our planned course by the subspace surge. This is an unnamed area on the star map.”

Colonel Sterling let out a heavy breath, the alloy implant in his chest trembling slightly with each breath.

That was the price he paid for surviving a near-fatal attack on the "Indulgence" ship.

"Navigation area, recalibrate the target... We must..."

"Captain!" The communications officer's shout broke the silence on the bridge.

"report!"

"We intercepted a distress signal from the RX-0371 escort convoy! They are engaged in combat with the enemy in airspace 150,000 kilometers away from us! The convoy is under attack and requests urgent support!" "Enemy situation!" Sterling's voice was unwavering.

"Detected... a battleship-class Dark Eldar Black Ark, Captain. We are just... a light cruiser." The communications officer's voice trembled slightly.

"Of course I know we are a light cruiser!"

Captain Sterling's voice boomed like a bell, echoing across the bridge, "But we are the Imperial Navy's Gothic Fleet! Tell me, what are the Imperial Navy's principles for engaging the enemy?!"

All the officers' eyes sharpened, and they roared in unison:

"The Imperial Navy will fight any enemy we encounter!"

“That’s right, Imperial Navy, we must fight the enemy!” Captain Sterling’s eyes blazed with fighting spirit. “Order the fleet to change course! Communications Department, immediately send a letter to Lord Horatio Cochrane, requesting to be placed in his command order. We must immediately support and cover the RX-0371 escort convoy!”

He turned to another control panel: "Air Force! Get those young girls who just disembarked from the Valkyrie transport plane ready for battle! They're lucky to have met their commander three weeks early. But that's on the condition that they survive until the end of the battle!"

"Yes, Captain! We are currently establishing a connection with the 'Swift Skyhawk'... Connection successful, transferring!"

A burst of background noise came through the communicator, mixed with the distinctive popping sound of a Hellfire Gun being fired.

"This is the 'Swift Skyhawk,' we are currently engaged in a boarding retaliation operation against the invading enemy! This is Lieutenant of Communications—(Jiong Jiong!)—repeating, the bridge has been compromised, we are in boarding retaliation operation!"

"Lieutenant, where is your captain?!" Sterling demanded sharply.

"Sir, Captain—(beep—buzz—) Sir! The captain is fighting an elite enemy force that arrived via lightning strike! He is temporarily unable to transfer communications, but we urgently need support. How many warships do you have?"

"One 'Provocation'-class light cruiser and four escort ships!"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the communication line, followed by a heavy voice saying, "Sir, the reinforcements are too few, but... we are very grateful for your assistance."

"Enough talk, Lieutenant! Hold off the attack for your captain and hold out until we reach the battlefield. We'll buy you more opportunities!"

"Thank you, Colonel."

The communication ended. The Provocation-class light cruiser, along with its four escort ships, resolutely joined the command network established by the flagship HMS Swifthawk.

“Heard the orders, guys?” Sterling surveyed his men, a fearless smirk on his face. “We’re going to hunt a whale. Get ready! Who says a ‘small boat’ can’t hunt a whale!”

As a naval officer who had narrowly escaped death, his tactics as captain were particularly aggressive, but no one could say for sure whether this was because he was influenced by the brilliance of his old colleague, the late Thomas Cochrane, or because the life-and-death friendship he had forged on the HMS Inexhaustible had made him completely oblivious to the boundaries between life and death.

"Captain!" Captain Bird's voice suddenly rang out, tinged with surprise, "A new Mandeville point rift has been detected from the rear! It's a large, controllable rift!"

"What?! Scatter immediately and take cover!!"

The Provocateur-class light cruiser quickly turned, and the surrounding escort ships also quickly dispersed.

Whoosh! Whoosh whoosh!
Almost at the same time Sterling gave the order, several even larger Imperial warships plunged out from the newly appeared Mandeville point.

Due to the extremely dense formation, the two warships even collided slightly, creating a string of dazzling sparks in the void.

The three fleets, thrown out by the same subspace surge, now stand in a triangular standoff, staring at each other in the deathly silence of the void.

Colonel Sterling looked at the fleet rushing out to his left. It was a majestic Imperial Navy battleship, surrounded by three cruisers, three light cruisers, and three escort ships, forming a moderately sized but powerful fleet.

Then, he turned his head to look to his right.

His brows furrowed even more.

Because that wasn't the design of the Imperial Navy's warships.

On the massive bow airstrip, countless tiny fighter jets roared out. In the entire empire, only one faction possessed warships with such a unique design—

Space Marines.

(End of this chapter)