Warhammer: Striving to Be a Grinding Man

Chapter 201 The Gathering of the Net Path (Part 2)

When the "Fist of Perseverance" jumped out of Mandeville, Joachim von Strasser's first impression was of emptiness.

A fragmented galaxy unfolded before him. The star was a dark orange red dwarf, its light falling on its armor like a thin layer of rusted bronze. Two rocky planets orbited close to the star—the closest one almost brushing past the corona, always facing the scorching star with the same side. Across the orbital space stretched an unusually dense asteroid belt, fragments ranging from gravel to hundreds of kilometers in size, their edges jagged, as if torn from a larger structure by some violent event.

But something else had already appeared in that desolation. The faint light of navigation beacons, the outline of small refining platforms, the metal supports of engineering servitors' docking stations, and industrial facilities operating further away were scattered among the rubble, like someone had relit lights in the ruins.

Joachim stood by the porthole on the bridge, watching quietly for a while. His mechanical eye automatically focused, sharpening the outlines of the distant rock fragments layer by layer. He saw that some of the fragments were larger than his flagship, their surfaces covered with micro-meteorite impact craters and dark gray sediment layers; some were only the size of a fist, casting long, thin shadows in the low-angle starlight; and some had unusually smooth edges, as if they had been cut in half by something, the broken surfaces retaining the unique luster of cooled metal.

The fleet did not traverse the scree slope but maintained its course in the airspace above it, at an altitude of approximately two hundred kilometers. Sensors scanned downwards for structural signals within the gaps in the scree, while the navigator continuously adjusted the course along the guide markers left by the Garros patrol. The markers were evenly spaced, and the signal strength was stable—a fixed course that had been repeatedly calibrated. Joachim noted that the precision of this course planning exceeded the scope of ad-hoc reconnaissance and reached the standard of routine operation.

He looked at it for a moment, then said, "Melbourne, report."

Rear Admiral Melbourne von Wald's voice came from the side and rear, maintaining the same composure he had in the Fury Harbor operations room: "The sensor array has completed a full-airspace scan. The density of the inner asteroid belt is two orders of magnitude higher than the standard value, with debris concentrated near the disk surface. The airspace above is clear. Three minutes after jumping out, the sensors detected signals from three ships on the flanks. The identification codes confirm that they are the patrol sequence of the Galos fleet, and they are approaching."

Joachim stood at the porthole, watching the rock fragments slowly glide past the edge of his vision. Three Garros patrol ships quickly emerged from the shadow of the rock fragments, forming a triangular lead formation ahead, and turning towards the navigator after confirming the fleet's identity.

They were flatter than the Imperial Navy's Sword-class corvettes, painted dark gray, with gear and skull insignia etched on their sides. They maintained a steady speed in the ecliptic plane, their exhaust trails leaving parallel blue streaks in the darkness, each adjustment precise as if pre-measured. They emitted no superfluous information, simply confirming their identity before leading the way.

An encrypted pulse was injected into the receiver array along the communication channel. Decoded, it contained only a single line of low Gothic instructions: "Follow the lead formation. Maintain spacing."

There were no greetings, no explanations. Joachim watched the tracks of the three patrol ships—they advanced along a parallel path to the ecliptic, occasionally veering off course to avoid a protruding rock before returning to their course. They were there to guide the way.

The fleet advanced along the ecliptic plane. Rock fragments drifted slowly below, some no bigger than a fist, others larger than a frigate. A large rock fragment, nearly the length of the USS Steadfast Fist, swept past the flank of the formation, its surface covered with micro-meteorite impact craters and dark gray sedimentary layers. Its edge had a smooth, melted cut, the fracture still retaining a metallic sheen from cooling.

Joachim stood at the porthole, gazing at the cut. In his century-long naval career, he had seen the wreckage of ships shattered by naval gunfire, the armor plates warped by the fluctuations of the Geller field during warp travel. But this cut was different—it was too regular, as if it had been sliced ​​from a single block of rock. He didn't know how Garros had done it, but he knew it wasn't naturally formed.

The sensors quickly provided the answer. A ship, about two kilometers long, emerged from the depths of the asteroid belt, its rugged, utilitarian silhouette half-hidden in the shadows of the rubble. Four heavy plasma-cutting beam launchers were embedded in its bow. During operations, the cutting beams would slice the asteroid from its core, the fragmented rock being dragged into the processing compartment within the ship's hull by traction beams. It was a mineral-collecting vessel, but its operation carried the precision of the foundry world—the cutting angles, traction paths, and loading timing all accurate to the second—a repetitive operational procedure. Joachim recalled the staff briefings on Garros's production efficiency—those numbers now had concrete visual form.

The lead formation began its slow descent, diving into the asteroid belt from the surface. Joachim's mechanical eye zoomed in on a gap in the rubble, where a dark gray asteroid, about 300 kilometers in diameter, was embedded in the middle of the asteroid belt, its surface indistinguishable from the surrounding asteroids. But it now had an opening, its edges gleaming with a faint energy glow, guiding a beam of light that shot out from within, carving a straight pillar of light through the shadows of the rubble.

That was a transit star. Joachim watched it emerge from between the rocks, and the fleet began to dive along the lead formation's path, converging towards the passage. More than a hundred ships were slowing down, forming a column thousands of kilometers long, their attitude thrusters spewing short bursts of ion from the sides of each ship, leaving fine streaks of light in the darkness.

"Your Excellency, the communications officer's voice came from the control panel. A communication request from Garros has been received. The identification code has been confirmed as Sage Fernandos, Chief Development Officer of the Shattered Galaxy. Priority: High."

"catch."

Fernandos's holographic image appeared in the center of the bridge. He wore a dark gray robe with dark gold gear patterns along the hem, and a standard-sized mechanical prosthetic eye was embedded in his left eye. He gave a gear salute, the movement crisp and decisive, without any pleasantries.

"Admiral Joachim von Strasser. Welcome to the Shattered System. I am Fernandos, Chief Development Officer of the Shattered System."

Joachim returned a salute with an eagle's head. "The Calicius fleet has arrived as ordered. The Imperial Regent's command states that the Galos fleet will be the primary force." "Sage Fernandos, where is the Galos fleet?"

"The main force of the Galos fleet has already moved forward." Fernandos didn't pause. "The Calicus fleet will cross the network to the rendezvous point. Upon arrival, the navigation ship will guide you to your positions."

Joachim's prosthetic eye narrowed slightly. "The Net Path?"

Fernandos looked at him and paused for a moment. "Yes. The same network as Karasta. The Calicius fleet will pass through it."

The image cut off. Joachim stood by the porthole, watching the holographic projection dissipate.

He had seen the Webpath before. Not from textbooks, but on the battlefield. Forty years ago, during a pursuit in the Golegana Frontier, he had witnessed a Dark Eldar cruiser vanish into the void ripples, leaving nothing on the sensor screens. He ordered a full-power scan, attempting to pinpoint the ship's location. It was as if it had been erased from reality. At the time, all he knew was that it was the Eldar Webpath, and the Imperium was powerless to stop it.

He witnessed it many more times. The same pattern: Dark Eldar ships accelerated toward a certain coordinate at the last moment before their destruction, their armor plates glowing silvery-white before vanishing. His gunners called that phenomenon "jumping into the shadows." His reconnaissance reports contained several entries each year about "anomalies in unknown space," from different ships and different star sectors, all describing the same way of disappearing—a tear in the void, and then nothing.

All he knew was that it was the Dark Eldar's means of escaping pursuit, something the Imperial Navy faced time and again when it lost its prey at the last moment. The Empire had spent millennia trying to reach it, and he himself had lost track of countless Dark Eldar ships in pursuit.

Between the Empire and the Internet, there is only blood feud.

Now, he stood by the porthole, watching the transit star fully emerge from the gaps in the asteroid belt disk. The lead formation continued its dive, the fleet following slowly. The guide beam grew brighter and brighter, beginning to lock onto the bow of the USS Steadfast Fist. His right hand rested on the railing.

Guilliman's orders were correct. The Imperium had gained control of the Web. The hatred of the entire Calicus fleet towards the Dark Eldar finally had a clear direction.

He withdrew his gaze and turned towards the bridge. The guiding beam cut a straight line in the darkness, pointing towards the passageway opened by the transit star.

"Your Excellency, the relay satellite signal has been confirmed. Port entry windows are being allocated. Galos requests that the fleet conduct rapid replenishment before proceeding through the network in sequence. Space is limited, and each ship cannot remain in port for too long."

Joachim was silent for a moment. "Is the net passage inside?"

"That's the official statement."

Joachim stood at the porthole, gazing at the terraformed asteroid. "Fleet, slow down again. Proceed according to the dispatch sequence."

Maintain spacing.

"Yes."

The "Fist of Resolute Will" glided slowly into the equatorial passage of the transit star along the guiding beam. The entrance was not much wider than its flagship. The armor plates on both sides displayed regular patchwork patterns at close range, with faint indicator lights embedded in the seams, flashing at a fixed frequency as the ship passed by. At intervals along the inner wall of the passage were adamantite support rings, connected by longitudinal ribs, firmly locking the internal structure of the asteroid.

Joachim stood in the center of the bridge, feeling the continuous, even vibrations as the ship passed through the tunnel. He was familiar with this structure. The tunnels of Fury Harbor were like hollowed-out asteroids, their adamantine frameworks pushing through the rock layers, layer upon layer of airtight doors opening and closing alternately as the ship ventured deeper. Different builders, the same logic. As his flagship passed through the fourth airtight door, a thin layer of mist condensed on the portholes. Air was already circulating within the tunnel, and the temperature and humidity control system was operating.

People live here.

Then the light changed.

The cold, white psionic light seeped out from the space itself, and when it fell on the armor plate surface, it had no reflection angle and no sense of direction.

Joachim's prosthetic eye went out of focus for a moment, then refocused. He was trying to discern the texture of the light—it wasn't warm like starlight, nor as uniform as an array of lights. It was seeping from the wall, like a layer of mercury pressed into stone.

Then he saw the internal cavity of the relay star.

With a diameter exceeding one hundred kilometers, supported by a refined gold framework, each rib extends from the dome's curved surface to the edge of the central platform, converging into a centripetal geometric pattern under the cool white light. The light at the highest point of the dome is beyond the range of the naked eye, leaving only a blurry halo, like an inverted abyss. At the bottom of the cavity, three net-like gates are arranged along the walls, each exceeding five kilometers in height. The gate frames gleam pale in the cold light, and within them, silvery ripples of emptiness surge at a constant frequency.

Joachim loosened his right hand from the railing. He stood by the porthole, looking at the wire mesh door, and remained silent for a long time.

"Your Excellency, berths have been allocated. Docking supports are extending. Rapid replenishment has been initiated, with only one standard hour allocated to our flagship. Subsequent ships will need to dock for replenishment in sequence."

Joachim didn't answer immediately. He stood by the porthole, looking at the open Webway gate. Void ripples pulsed at a fixed frequency within the gate frame, each rise and fall causing the skeleton frame to briefly light up and then dim. The briefing he received when assembling at Furyport only stated, "Proceed to the Shattered System to rendezvous with the Garros fleet"—no Webway, no explanation. Now, standing here, looking at that gate, he understood why the Imperial Regent's order was so brief. The phrase "primarily the Garros fleet" was left unexplained because some things couldn't be written down.

Sage Fernandos waited on the observation platform at the exit of the passage. He stood there, his dark gray robes motionless in the circulating wind, with no one behind him. He watched as the "Fist of Resolute" came to a stop and gave a gear-like salute.

Joachim descended the gangway. He stood at the edge of the observation platform, his hands resting on the railing, watching the open net gate. Void ripples pulsed steadily within the gate frame, each pulsation causing the skeletal framework to briefly light up and then dim.

"Sage Fernandos," his voice was low, "My orders are to proceed to the Shattered System and rendezvous with the Garros fleet. I understand the security level of the Webpath."

"There are some things that can't be written in the briefing yet," Fernandos's voice came from the side and behind. "Once we get here, we have to wait for declassification before we can return. There's nothing wrong with the Calicus fleet being stationed in the network—maybe next time Fury Harbor will also have a network."

Joachim did not refute. He did stand there, and he did believe. But the meaning of those words was deeper than he had anticipated; it meant that his understanding of the universe, built up over the past 137 years, was being restructured at that moment.

"The main force of the Galos fleet is not on the transit planet," he said. It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

"They've already moved forward. The Netway Fleet is heading towards Gamor to seize a favorable position. After the Calesis Fleet passes through, the navigation ship will guide you to the rendezvous point."

"Gammo," Joachim repeated the word. The Dark Eldar capital. "I knew it, it's for dealing with these sons of bitches."

"Yes."

Joachim was silent for a moment. "I was puzzled when I was in Furyport—why would the Calithis fleet need to come to this insignificant system and take orders from a frontier forging world?"

"Oh?" Fernandos looked at him.

"Because the Imperial Navy doesn't yet know how to fight in the net," Joachim said in a low voice. "Gallos is obviously very familiar with it."

Fernandos did not deny it. "Yes."

Joachim glanced at the door again. "When will my fleet pass through?"

"Your flagship will have 15 minutes until initial resupply is complete. The rest of the ships will follow in order of resupply time, and the navigation ship will guide you."

Joachim turned and walked toward the covered bridge. He didn't look at the door again; he had already memorized its outline.

As the "Fist of Resoluteness" passed through the netgate, Joachim stood before the bridge porthole. The porthole armor cover remained in place, and he watched as ripples of the void began to engulf the hull from the bow. Cold, white aura flowed across the armor plates, like a layer of mercury pressed into metal.

The passage through the void lasted several seconds, after which the ripples receded from the stern. The Network Hub 0124 unfolded outside the porthole.

This was a massive hollow structure, its dome stretching to the horizon in the cold, psionic light. The walls of the sacred bone gleamed with a pale, cold light, their surface covered with intricate psionic energy channels that pulsated slowly along the walls. Multiple passageways extended from the hub's walls, each tens of kilometers in diameter, converging into this hub like blood vessels.

No one spoke on the bridge. Joachim felt the ship begin to decelerate after entering the hub, the attitude thrusters fine-tuning its course, following the guidance signals of the navigation ship ahead.

"Admiral," Melbourne's voice came through the communications panel, half a octave lower than usual, "Sensor readings stable. No structural abnormalities. Geller position not required. Scanning hub structure - receiving positioning signal from the Garros navigation ship."

The communications panel fell silent briefly. When Melbourne spoke again, his tone remained unchanged, but there was a very short pause between sentences: "The navigation ship is providing supplementary communications. The current hub is merely a medium-sized node at the edge of the network. The main channel ahead is reportedly measured in light-hours, large enough to deploy combat positions."

, 7

Joachim stood by the porthole, gazing at the silhouette emerging in the cold psionic light ahead. In the direction the Garros navigation ship was navigating, the massive armored fortress appeared in the cold psionic light.

It stretches over three thousand kilometers. Its outer shell gleams with a warm, pale golden luster, like bone-white glaze infused with psychic cold light, its surface covered with fine, slowly pulsating patterns. These patterns extend along the curves of the armor plates, casting flowing shadows on the pale golden surface, like a living network covering the entire fortress.

Joachim's prosthetic eye was automatically focusing. The material of this armor was similar to the sacred bone on the walls of the mesh channel, but it had an additional layer of pale gold film on the surface—not paint, but seeping from within the material, like a layer of psionic deposits pressed into the metal surface. Macrogun arrays lined the sides, their barrels gleaming with a dark metallic sheen in the cold light; light spear turrets were embedded on either side of the bow, their cooling grilles arranged in concentric circles, emitting a faint blue residual warmth in idle mode; further away, point defense arrays were arranged in rows along the armor seams, the turrets maintaining a fixed pointing angle in idle mode. Sensors indicated that the caliber of those macroguns was nearly twice as large as the broadside guns of a standard Imperial Navy battleship. This was a steel fortress equipped with engines.

"Communications officer," Joachim's voice was low, "Does the Garros navigation ship have any identification information about the ships ahead?"

The communications officer's fingers danced across the control panel. After a moment, he looked up: "Identification pulse received from the navigation ship. The vessel ahead is a 'Perpetual Bulwark' class fortress ship. This ship is Perpetual Bulwark One."

Joachim stood at the porthole, watching the pale gold armored fortress unfold within the nexus. Its thruster array was activating, its exhaust trails leaving dark blue streaks in the cold psionic light as it headed towards a main tunnel deep within the nexus. Garros's navigation ship issued another communication: the Calithis fleet was assembling here, then following the Eternal Bulwark One. Two more fortresses of the same type had already advanced.

The ships of the Calicus fleet were passing through the netgate one by one. Ripples of the void rose from the bow of each ship, flowed along the armor plates to the stern, and converged into a fading silver-white streak of light—one after another, from the colossal shadows of battleships to the slender silhouettes of destroyers, like a river of steel injected into the void.

Joachim stood at the bridge porthole of the "Fist of Resolute Will." He watched his fleet emerge from the cold, psionic light—first the blue-white exhaust plumes of the thrusters, then the bow, then the entire hull. Each ship corrected its attitude within seconds of passing through, automatically merging into the parallel formation. This process lasted for over ten hours because the relay planet couldn't simultaneously resupply so many ships. From the first to the last, over a hundred ships gradually took shape in his vision, forming a steel plain spanning tens of thousands of kilometers in the cold, psionic light.

HMS Unyielding Fist led the formation's central axis. Its shadow covered the three heavy cruisers below; more than ten battlecruisers spread out in an arc on either side; nearly forty heavy cruisers were distributed in the midsection, interspersed with light cruisers; destroyers patrolled the edges like a group of sharks hunting a whale. Three dark gray Inquisition ships remained independent, trailing behind the formation, neither joining the ranks nor falling behind. The propellers of each ship left parallel blue streaks in the darkness, those streaks converging into a solidified halo over a distance of tens of thousands of kilometers.

The fleet began to advance. From the perspective of a single ship, each vessel was moving forward at a steady speed; from the perspective of the formation, over a hundred ships accelerated simultaneously, the entire steel array sliding in the same direction amidst the cold light of psionic energy; from the perspective of the network hub, it was merely a slowly moving patch of light.

The sacred walls of the Nexus flowed silently past on both sides. The cold, psionic light high above the dome descended from three hundred kilometers away, spreading a pale halo across the formation's armor plates. Eternal Bastion I led the fleet—its pale golden hull, thirty kilometers in circumference, obscured most of the view ahead. The barrels of its massive cannon array gleamed with a dull luster in the cold light, like a row of steel ribs nailed to the spine of a behemoth. Its propeller array glowed with dark blue streaks at its tail, each pulse increasing the entire formation's speed by one degree.

Joachim rested his hand on the armrest. He had seen countless formations assembled, but this was the first time he had ever seen so many ships advance simultaneously, following a thirty-kilometer-long pale golden fortress into a net-like passage suspended in the void, steeped in the cold light of psionic energy for countless millennia. He had only ever read the name of the battlefield of Karata in battle reports—now it had a concrete scale.

His voice rang out from the bridge: "Main fleet, maintain formation spacing. Follow Eternal Bulwark One forward."

The formation continued to advance. The macro gun array of Eternal Bulwark One cast long shadows in the cold psionic light, those shadows slowly gliding across the armor plates of the following ships, like a moving curtain covering the entire steel array.

Joachim turned around, walked back to his commander's seat, and sat down again. The focus of his mechanical eye slowly expanded and contracted in the cold psionic light.

Calesis's fleet stood at the forefront of the war, not to take control, but to be in the right place when needed. His intuition told him that more fleets were surely on their way from all over the Empire.

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