Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Valcke lowered his head.

"As ordered."

The order was quickly issued.

The inner barracks of the Ghost of Destruction are opened.

The Black Claw Guard began to assemble.

This is one of Huron's most loyal and ruthless personal guards, composed of Red Pirate veterans, heavy-armored terminators, Chaos Space Marine executioners, and a small number of Dark Mechanicus modified killing machines.

Their only responsibility was to follow Huron and kill.

Three stealth cruisers awaken from the dark harbor.

Their hulls are coated with a light-absorbing black layer, and their thrusters have been modified by pressing, making them suitable for low-signal navigation in complex whirlpools and wrecked ship zones.

The six raiding frigates are equipped with boarding claws, short-range torpedoes, and suppression guns.

In one of the maintenance corridors of the Ghost of Destruction, a Lurker disguised as a low-level technical servant heard the sounds of troop movements from a distant military camp.

He didn't look up.

They simply continued wiping the grease off one of the pipes.

A few minutes later, he pressed a tiny metal fragment into the gap in the pipe.

Outside another cargo hold, an infiltrator disguised as a slave doctor saw the Black Talon Guard pass by.

He lowered his head, pressing his face close to the ground like all slaves.

Terminator A walked past him.

Huron's elite forces are leaving the flagship.

Deep within the Ghost of Destruction, Hamadlaya climbed into the psionic observation nest above the vault.

It lay there, like a nightmare in disguise.

Valk Bloodhook takes over bridge defense.

The treasure vault gates closed one by one.

The Ghost of Destruction appears safer than ever.

Kolosen's eyes had already opened in its shadow.

Hours later, Huron departed the Ghost of Destruction.

Before leaving, he glanced back at his flagship.

The ten-kilometer-long Ghost of Destruction hangs in the dark currents of a whirlpool, its red pirate emblem on its hull resembling congealed blood.

The treasure trove is inside.

Hamad Leya is inside.

Valcke is inside.

His wealth, his assets, and the most valuable things in his stronghold are all in there.

Huron's eyes were gloomy.

He knew there might be a problem with this deployment.

But the Pirate King could not tolerate the three captains dividing up a fortune that could buy a planet right under his nose.

If this is true, he must be beheaded.

If this is fake, he will also dig out the person who set it up.

The stealth cruiser's thrusters glowed in low light.

The fleet broke away from the Ghost of Destruction and headed towards the Broken Ring Space Station along the route through the ship graveyard.

The storm of the whirlpool churned in the distance.

Huron sat on the temporary command throne, his iron claws gripping the armrests.

"full speed."

"I want to see them kneeling before me before they finish dividing the spoils."

After Huron left, the Ghost of Destruction entered the inner perimeter for alert.

Valk Bloodhook is stationed on the bridge.

Hamadlaya is perched atop the vault in a psionic observation nest.

The Red Pirates' guards took over the main passage.

The Dark Mechanic Cult technicians sealed off the core server room.

The treasure vault gates fell down one by one.

The ship's identification password was changed three times.

All external berths are temporarily closed.

Each corridor leading to the core vault is now guarded twice as much.

There's nothing wrong with this setup.

The problem is that Lawson never intended to "steal the treasure vault".

He wanted the whole ship.

Deep within the Ghost of Destruction, on the outer wall of cargo hold number seventy-nine.

A tiny node, stuck in the gap of the pipeline, lit up for the first time after remaining silent for twenty-seven days.

The maintenance slaves did not raise their heads.

The patrolling red pirates were unaware.

The low-level monitoring servant of the Dark Mechanicus only made a faint noise before continuing to crawl along its original route.

But in that instant, swarm intelligence had already found its way in.

These nodes are all very small.

Each one is like dust.

But when there's enough dust, it can be paved into a road.

The swarm intelligence did not rush to take over the main system.

The machine spirit of the Destroyer Ghost is very fierce.

This flagship has undergone countless modifications, sacrifices, emergency repairs, contamination, and reconstructions by the Dark Mechanicus.

Its mechanical spirit is no longer the ancient, heavy, and stubborn state of a standard imperial warship.

It's more like a deformed beast locked in a steel body.

Half of it is the remaining glory of the imperial warships.

Half of it is the brutality that has been polluted by the Red Pirates over the years.

Another part is a warp-space auxiliary system that was forcibly inserted by the Dark Mechanicus.

If you want to seize the ship, you can't seize the treasure vault first.

The first thing to do is to destroy Huron's control over the Machine Soul.

The mainframe shrine of the Destroyer Ghost is located deep within the ship, near the central area between the main reactor and the bridge.

There are heavy Red Pirate troops, Dark Mechanicus guards, a legion of machine servants, multiple isolation gates, and the psionic watchtower left behind by Hamadleya.

The infiltrator cannot enter the node.

Swarm intelligence takes a different approach.

Intrusion starts from low-level systems and external noise.

An anomaly was detected in a cargo hold temperature control record.

A group of slave collars reported an error simultaneously.

An old-style access control system enters through a self-check.

The pressure in a waste liquid pipeline exceeded the standard.

A gun compartment supply elevator is stuck.

These are all minor glitches.

The Ghost of Destruction is too old, too big, and too messy.

Similar malfunctions occur every day.

The Dark Mechanics technicians were used to it.

The Red Pirate officers got used to it.

A ten-kilometer-class flagship is like a nest city, where there are always leaky pipes, dead slaves, jammed hatches, and out-of-control servants.

The real danger is that these malfunctions are starting to occur in a certain rhythm.

Through these minor malfunctions, the swarm intelligence system was able to probe the internal workings of the Ghost Ship that was about to be destroyed.

Which line connects to which place?

Who is in charge of which access control system?

Which level of the cabin has indirect feedback to the host soul?

Which set of Dark Mechanicus monitors will sound the alarm first?

Which redundant line can bypass the frontal firewall?

This process lasted thirteen minutes.

Thirteen minutes later, Lawson opened his eyes.

"enough."

His consciousness pressed down simultaneously along all the nodes.