Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 962, page 08.961: "Who gave you permission to leave?!"

In the image projected onto the servo skull, he saw Lieutenant Vox of the Engineering Department, the prized student of his classmate and friend Leidos, nervously downloading the intelligence that had been seized in an abandoned building.

Immediately afterwards, they were attacked by the Dark Eldar who breached the door.

Amidst the chaos of gunfire, the image of a skull trembling accompanied the Hell Soldiers' urgent retreat.

Then, the others in the scene remained outside the fire door, gave a solemn Eagle Salute to the officer at the location of the skull, and then turned to engage in a desperate battle to cover the retreat.

Horatio had stopped breathing. He watched intently as the vanguard resolutely fought to cover the enemy's retreat.

The person left in the safe passage along with the servo skull was wearing Conqueror-class officer power armor. This armor was now riddled with holes and cracks.

Horatio wouldn't mistake him; that was his captain, the chief of operations officer, Henry Harvey.

He was filled with anxiety as he continued to look ahead.

Harvey sped forward through the fire escape route until he ran into a Dark Eldar infiltration squad.

Harvey's decisive and brilliant use of the last molten metal bomb to destroy the ventilation duct and his subsequent bloody hand-to-hand combat with the wounded Ducalli were meticulously recorded frame by frame by the Tactical Servo Skull.

Harvey won. It was a hard-fought victory.

His opponent was crushed in half by the last falling fire door.

He continued speeding forward and finally reached the safety exit at dawn.

There were no enemies, no traitors, only the morning sun shining on the golden earth.

“Where’s Harvey?” he asked Valina.

Horatio felt a sense of relief; he couldn't wait to see him. He had to commend his bravery! And the unwavering loyalty of the fallen officers and soldiers.

Valina shook her head silently, her eyes revealing an overwhelming sadness.

Valina's performance made Horatio's heart tighten.

Yes, Henry Harvey was also one of her students. If this woman, a veteran of countless battles, could show such an expression, what else could it signify?

He looked away and continued watching the second half of the video.

Harvey knelt down, sobbed briefly, and rested for a moment. After composing himself, he followed the servo skull forward toward the friendly forces' position.

Just then, the Sintira artillery opened fire.

Judging from the timestamp, it was precisely when I was in the energy hub that I requested Brigadier General Rana to call a halt to the shelling.

In the scene, countless shells roared in, covering the land.

By the time the messenger's order arrived, the artillerymen had already fired a basic load of shells.

They engulfed the Hell's Vanguard soldiers who were still putting up a fierce resistance at their original location, the abandoned administrative center where the intelligence core had been discovered, and the place where Henry Harvey had just escaped, all in a sea of ​​fire from the shelling.

No one knows if anyone survived such shelling.

The third squad's mission is complete.

But it was accomplished at the most tragic and devastating cost that Horatio least wanted to see.

Horatio's pupils trembled incredulously; each last frame of the image felt like a knife slicing through his heart. His elite troops… his life's work… his classmates… his comrades… his friends…

At this moment, the arrogant and frivolous flintlock musketeers continued forward, preparing to leave the area.

As Dumourié passed Colonel Jadvig, he stared down at her, and she glared back fiercely.

“You still won’t learn, Yadviga. You’re like those scoundrels who dream of rising to power through a riot, fantasizing about escaping their obligations as women.” He spoke with the arrogance typical of someone in a high position addressing someone in a lower one.

"Women do not need to show their faces on the battlefield, let alone participate in politics."

Your battlefield is the birthing bed; all you need to do is give up your uterus to continue the man's bloodline.

This is what you should be doing! I swear to you, your resistance is futile in the face of absolute power.

No matter how much you resist, our elders have already sealed the marriage between our two families.

Soon, you will leave the army forever, return to your boudoir, put on beautiful dresses and smooth stockings, and there conceive, giving birth to a glorious bloodline. Heh heh, that's what you, as a woman, should do."

"Get out of my sight, you scum!" the female colonel cursed fiercely, her teeth clenched in a menacing manner.

The heavily made-up man ignored her disgust, and after venting his anger, he laughed and prepared to ride away in style.

"Who gave you permission to leave?!" A furious shout, like a thunderclap from a clear sky, exploded in the ears of the arrogant Astral Army Major General.

? !
Suddenly, the world spun around.

The man was suddenly pulled off his horse by a tremendous force and slammed heavily to the ground.

His eyes were filled with shock and anger.

Even heretics or aliens who defied the Empire had never dared to attack a sacred and inviolable Major General of the Astral Army! Never!
The next second, a heart-wrenching pain shot through his back. After a struggle that left his fine clothes covered in dust, he finally rolled over and saw a burly man's furious figure before him.

With a dark expression and eyes that could kill, Horatio personally lifted Dumourie from his horse, threw him hard to the ground, and then slapped him hard across his heavily made-up face.

That slap was hard enough to draw blood.

Five clear finger marks were left on his face, quickly turning bright red until his entire face swelled up.

Yadviga, standing to the side, was filled with shock and astonishment. She had never imagined that someone would slap a major general to uphold the dignity of a woman. But she could also see that this man was doing it for the sake of his men who had bled and sacrificed their lives.

Brigadier General Rana remained silent, poised to step forward and break up the fight, but did not act immediately, seemingly only to prevent the man rolling on the ground from being beaten to death. That was all.

"Who are you! How dare you!" A major named Sintira immediately dismounted and rushed to Major General Dumourie, who was being trampled underfoot.

He shoved Horatio, but it was like pushing against a wall; he didn't budge an inch.

The next second, he received a solid slap across the face from Horatio.

With a loud crack, the blow made him spin around like a top, until he finally collapsed to the ground, arms outstretched, staring at the stars and unconscious.

The other Sintiras panicked; none of them dared to approach the burly Imperial Navy officer, who was over two meters tall.

"Apologize to this female citizen! And apologize to the Imperial Navy's Hellfire Cavalry who were caught in the crossfire of your artillery fire! Otherwise, I will teach you what discipline and respect are in the Imperial Navy's way!"

"What...what kind of naval method? What kind of Hell Vanguard?" The man, whose face was swollen from being slapped, spat out a mouthful of blood and stammered, his eyes filled with shock.

Swish!
Horatio pulled a distinctive instrument of torture from the waist of a boarding officer—the Nine-Tailed Whip.

It was a whip made of nine strong ropes twisted together, with a heavy knot tied to the end of each rope.

Its whipping is enough to make any normal person scream in agony—in fact, Slaanesh believers do too, just for different reasons.

"You dare! That's stuff for beasts and lowly commoners! I'm a Major General in the Star Force! I'm a...!"

Snapped!
With a crisp crack of the whip, several closely spaced parallel bloodstains immediately appeared on the man's smooth, powdered face.

The insignia of a major general on his collar was also whipped off by the lash, falling to the ground and mingling with the gravel.

"I am Horatio Cochrane, an Imperial Lord granted a title by the Ministry of the Interior, a High Lord Colonel of the Gothic Fleet of the Imperial Navy, an Honorary Knight of Macragge, and the heir to the legendary Admiral of the Gothic Fleet! You may go to the Gothic Fleet to complain about me! But before that, you owe two formal apologies! Otherwise, you won't even have the chance to go and complain alive! Apologize to this lady! Apologize to the officers and men of my ship who suffered!!"

Every time Horatio announced a title, he would lash Dumourier with a heavy whip.

When they accused him, they beat him even harder, leaving the dignified Major General of the Star Forces rolling on the ground and howling in pain like a dead dog.

Blood feud must be avenged!

At this moment, filled with resentment, he had made up his mind to choose which side to support between the Sintira conservatives and the Sintira military reformers.

Even if I whip the entire conservative faction into a spinning top with a belt of fine gold, it doesn't matter! Among the soldiers I command, there have never been, and will never be, any useless ones!
He has little ability but a big ego; he does little practical work but causes a lot of trouble. In other star systems, such a person wouldn't even be fit to be a menial soldier. Only in a place like Sintira, a place known for its "outstanding people and beautiful scenery," would such a thing happen.

On the ruins of the monastery, the short-statured Sintira and Lytirian Leap Soldiers, selected from the hunters of the new land of Pola Bellia, held the last of their strong liquor in their jugs and gloated at the Astragalus Major General below, who was being whipped and rolling on the ground.

It's clear that many of them harbor deep resentment towards this effeminate, gender-neutral superior.

This is mainly due to the reality of unequal pay for equal work.

Although the leaping soldiers were one of the constituent battalions of the reformed flintlock regiment.

But while they do heavier and more dangerous work, their wages and benefits are less than one-twentieth of those of the veteran soldiers.

Rather than being members of the flintlock regiment, they were more like a group of stragglers conscripted from the new area to fill in lines and carry out reconnaissance missions. They had done most of the flintlock musketeers' tasks, and the only thing left to do was serve the masters by helping them defecate and use the toilet.

The short, leaping female battalion commander leaned against her large-caliber laser rifle, looking at the chaos below with an expressionless face.

She seemed to notice something, and her gaze shifted slightly to the other side of the road.

“Captain, Captain!” Suddenly, a psionic communication sounded in Horatio’s mind. It was the voice of his chief star communicator, Melon: “I’ve finally made contact with you. The sandstorm on the surface was preventing my psionic calls.”

Acting Captain Louise told me that a Calicus fleet returning from the Eye of Fear defenses warped near our ship. They communicated with us; their leader is looking for you, but you're not there. Captain Louise told them your location, and they're going down to find you now.

(End of this chapter)