Warhammer: Don't Call Me the God of All Machines

Chapter 11 Targeting the Flagship
Chaos and garbage codes are spreading in Cos's mind space.

It is no longer a tolerable obstacle. These highly polluting data are constantly eroding and swallowing up other normal information flows, which is undoubtedly cutting off the sentinel's control over orbital space.

This feeling of loss of control was unfamiliar to Hurst and many high-level technicians.

The processing cores they had added were overheating in an incomprehensible data game.

"How many warships and weapons platforms can we send this information to?"

"Probably 40% or less. The interference from the orbital platform and weapon array is stronger. We need time." Senior technician Tao Lun checked the warships that could receive the information flow from the sentry tower, but found that the Ultramarines' flagship, Macragge's Glory, was not among them.

"Let's do this, let those warships that can receive the signal start their engines, they must get out of the airport." Hurst is using all his knowledge to make weapons to fight against Chaos waste code. The first step to deal with these unprecedented enemies is to create new attack modes.

"clear."

The flow of information surged rapidly in Coss's mind space, and the war orders from the surface were activated. In a very short time, the airships that were transporting supplies in low-Earth orbit and the warships that were already docked in the airport and connected to it through brackets received orders to stop all actions.

The alarm sounded inside the battleship, and the red warning lights kept flashing.

Many officers and technicians on the battleship were confused, but they immediately followed the procedures and performed standard responses according to the training they had received.

Large amounts of energy were reinjected into the reactors and engines that had been shut down or were operating at a low efficiency, the deck's protective measures were activated, and the starship's weapons array operators were put on alert.

All of a sudden, the officers and workers in each warship became busy, racing against time to regain control of the warships.

But getting these huge war machines into operation is not a matter of just one order. In order to assemble between the legions this time, the warships of the Extreme Marines need to carry a large amount of weapons and fuel supplies, and the starships themselves also need to be overhauled.

Under the orders from the surface, all this had to be forcibly stopped.

Especially for the Empire's warships, even if they use the Thinker system, in order to start the warships, they need to mobilize a large number of technicians and mortal servants, and the transmission of these commands and the mobilization of personnel require a lot of time.

Hurst increasingly sensed a threatening aura from the constantly raging chaotic garbage code, and he had a vague feeling that time was not on their side.

"No, something's wrong. These junk codes are not just attacking other data streams. They are forming a data shock. They want to--"

Hurst discovered the horrifying truth, but as he had anticipated, time was running out. All the technicians and thinker systems in the sentry tower were connected to Coss's mind space in order to process the huge amount of data flow in the fastest and most efficient way.

But precisely because of this, when the data shock released by those chaotic junk codes arrived, the brains of dozens of data technicians were instantly exploded or burned by the impact of the huge amount of data.

Whether it was the parts of them that had been mechanically modified or the parts that retained flesh and blood, they were all collapsing and burning.

The electronic machinery short-circuited and overloaded in the data, and the flesh and blood began to emit boiling heat from the impact.

Hurst is stronger than them, and his transformation can withstand more shocks. He endures the data shock like a tsunami, and endures the collapse and disintegration of Cos's thinking space under this shock.

His body couldn't stop shaking, his internal organs and modified prostheses quickly necrotized, and his soul was burned by the scalding data. His death could no longer be reversed.

Before death actually came, Hurst completed the weapon he had built and used binary code to send a signal to the weapons array in orbit.

[Attack Macragge's Glory with laser array]

Just because it was impossible to inform the Ultramarines' flagship via data transmission did not mean that the message could not be transmitted physically.

Hurst felt a sense of relief in those final moments, having informed the Primarch.

-

Macragge's Glory.

Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines, stood before a new projection on the battleship's bridge. Tiers of control stations rose like the spectator stands of an ancient Roman amphitheater. Light was bent and twisted by force fields, creating a lifelike illusion.

Millions of kilometers apart, Guilliman held a virtual meeting with his brother Lorgar Aurelion.

With the help of technology, the Primarch's flesh and armor have real texture and color, and his voice also resounds within Macragge's Glory.

"My dear brother, I haven't seen you for many years. I'm sorry I don't have time to change into ceremonial clothes." Lorgar's voice was full of sincerity and apology, which made Guilliman smile warmly.

"You are not to be so polite. We will meet face to face soon, on Calth," said Guilliman. He looked at the Word Bearers commanders beside Lorgar, "and your children. I have not seen them for a long time."

"I have prepared a surprise for you, dear brother Roboute." Luo Jia smiled mysteriously.

"Then I'll wait and see."

The two sides continued to exchange friendly words for a while, and the Primarch of the Thirteenth Legion ended this brief meeting. He felt that communicating through virtual projection was not serious enough, and he would have a good exchange of feelings with this brother when they met face to face.

The weapon array on the surface of the planet drew huge amounts of energy from the reactor, and the bird servant aimed at the largest ship in space.

The machinery runs, energy enters the cable pathway, and light and heat burst out from the weapon output port.

The bright beam of light cut through the starry sky and hit the Glory of Macragge in just a moment.

"An emergency, sir!"

The senior technician of Macragge's Glory suddenly submitted an urgent report to the Primarch. He didn't even think about forming his words. "Sir, Calth's weapon array attacked us. It was a laser array that penetrated part of the flagship's external armor."

Without activating the void shield, the battleship can only rely on its own hull armor and huge size to withstand attacks.

In the area that was hit, the high temperature comparable to that of a star melted the metal on the outside. The molten iron was blasted into space by the force and quickly condensed into irregular iron blocks.

The mortal servants and technicians active in that area were instantly evaporated along with the hull.

The battleship's airtight hatches were quickly closed to prevent the damage from spreading further.

"Captain Zedov, report to me immediately what has happened." Guilliman remained calm. The weapon array on Calth was jointly shaped and adjusted by the Mechanicus of Mars and the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar. It had extremely complete reaction measures and insurance methods. Every order needed to be reviewed by surface and orbital technicians.

"Analysis reports are being compiled, sir." The captain growled at his men.

"I'm afraid it has something to do with the waste code we found earlier, as well as those unusual disturbances." The senior technician replied.

Guilliman immediately recalled several disturbances that had appeared in the data he had read, but they had been inferred to be the effects of the star's sunspot storm.

The senior technicians and mechanical priests on the flagship have also discovered the problem of chaos waste code, but like the technicians on the surface, they are also trying to figure out how to deal with them.

"But technically speaking... it's almost impossible." The senior technician of the Mechanicus hesitated, unwilling to admit that the waste code could affect Calth's powerful orbital platform and weapon array, which meant that the technology of the Mechanicus was not 100% reliable. "But it should alert us."

After being hit by the laser array, a data shock spreading from Calth dealt another heavy blow to the Glory of Macragge. For a moment, the battleship's Thinker fell into an overload state, and the well-lit bridge became dark, with only the alarm's bright red light flashing continuously.

"Caws's thought space has also been disconnected. Oh, Messiah, where does this data shock come from?" Countless people screamed in the starship. Some mecha servants twitched and fell to the ground. Their heads were emitting boiling smoke, and they were completely scrapped.

The Mechanical Priest was twitching, but he endured it. The data shock exploded in Cos's mind space, and the starship only bore the aftermath.

Moreover, the machine soul of Macragge's Glory was powerful enough to block most of the impact.

(End of this chapter)