No. 587 was not designed to fight wars, it was not even designed to operate independently, and its management protocols over the decades had been built around excursions between colonial worlds, primarily to carry out armed
transport and space rescue missions and.
The training Valentine received has always emphasized that if you encounter danger, flee to the nearby planet immediately.
He sat on the simple command seat, his head was heavy with worry, his palms were all sweaty, and he felt that the whole universe had folded on its own, and all the familiar things had disappeared, but nothing new had replaced them.
"How far is it from the planet?"
Later, he asked the sensor administrator.
The silly guy turned to him from under the detection platform.
"It's not clear yet, but... wait, Golden Throne, I saw something on the remote scanner."
Valentine felt his stomach twitching.
"let me see."
The display array mounted on the command seat switches to the remote image and rotates for primary yaw correction.
The captain concentrated his energy, adjusted his field of view and focus, and finally spotted something hundreds of kilometers away, approaching quickly.
"what is that?"
he asked hoarsely.
no answer.
No one on the bridge had ever seen anything like it.
"They're intercepting us, we can't go any faster!"
Valentine is in chaos right now. Something happened a week ago and only half of the people knew that emergency protocols were being formulated that required all naval assets to be shipped to major sector stations.
Of course, this means nothing to him, because no matter what happens, they only need to dock with the transport fleet according to the schedule.
Therefore, they did not give much concern about possible interception.
The only problem is that the transport ship is missing.
The communication fell into silence and remained silent.
From that moment on, Valentine realized what had happened and quickly rushed from the edge of the galaxy to the Expiration Star.
But even so, they were too late.
He found that his hands were trembling, so he grasped the armrest of the throne tightly.
"Perform evasive maneuvers!"
The sensor manager was staring at him, as was the first officer. Their ship was powered by a standard subplasma engine, and none of them knew what the captain meant by "evasive maneuvers."
Valentine wanted to speak, but felt his lips were wet, so he lowered his head to look.
His nose began to bleed, and the drops formed a dark net on his work clothes. He wiped the blood away, but he couldn't stop it.
Then, he heard a buzzing sound coming from the spacecraft's communicator, and the transmitter connected to the command seat made knocking sounds again and again.
The sensor manager suddenly looked very uncomfortable. He bent over in his seat and held his stomach.
Valentine struggled to concentrate.
"What about the target?"
There was no answer, so Valentine approached the console and stared at the data.
"Oh my God, it's right above us!"
The next second, the automatic siren used to detect approaching objects activated, the red light spinning and the horn howling.
The lights on the bridge flickered and finally went out, plunging them into complete darkness.
"Activate emergency power!"
Valentine stood up screaming and reached for his pistol.
Blood dripped from his chin and he felt dizzy.
soon,
The dim red light brightened, dispersing some of the shadows to a minimum.
He saw the stumbling figures of his crewmates, some bleeding like him, others struggling in pain that came from nowhere.
The buzzing gets louder and louder, making it difficult to think.
As he staggered across the console, he could hear a thud from somewhere above, and then a violent impact.
The boat rocked and spun as if it had been punched by a giant hand.
Then a scream of metal rubbing against metal was heard, followed by a series of explosions.
He cursed when he realized his power pack was empty.
During the long journey, he always wanted to check it out, but there were always more important things that distracted him and he had no time to take care of it.
Valentine stumbled back to his command post and opened the compartment embedded in the armrest, which contained many necessities he needed to store and use.
As he knelt down, he heard the crash coming closer and closer - great shocks, one after another, like the sound of a terrible drum.
The alarm wailed, its low buzzing sound hurting his ears.
It took him a few seconds to reach the compartment, reached out to press the safety buckle, and fumbled with it.
His gloves were stained with blood, his chest became sticky, and all kinds of weird sounds made people crazy.
The men screamed, the women screamed too, and the deck vibrated rhythmically underfoot with ever-increasing impacts.
Valentine could barely see what he was doing, but he managed to open the hatch and take out a new energy pack.
Trembling, he inserted the replacement ammunition into the pistol and lowered the lock on the feed port.
Then he turned around, facing the bridge, holding the laser gun in both hands, trying to find something to aim at.
The darkness was as thick as bilge water, and a bunch of vague outlines were reflected in the dark red mist.
boom----!
Suddenly, the blast door of the bridge was blown open, and the mutilated bodies of the defenders flew through the jagged gaps.
Valentine raised his lasgun and fired—one or three searing flashes of light illuminating twisted shapes he couldn't identify.
For a moment, he thought he'd hit a tangle of writhing snakes, which spilled out of the jagged gap and slithered across the deck, slapping.
But when the giants strode into the cabin, he saw that the so-called "snakes" were actually flesh rolls and horns growing out of the thick armor.
"Oh God Emperor!"
Valentine fired again and again, his finger tightening on the trigger in panic.
He couldn't tell how many there were - five? Six?
The captain, in his maddening horror, noticed some strange details. He noticed hundreds of numbers engraved on the monster's armor, as well as other small signs and symbols that he did not recognize, and noticed that on their protective shields
There is a larger image on the shoulder - a metal eye surrounded by an eight-pointed star.
Lasers are of no use.
The captain looked directly into the monster's eyes. He could smell the sulfurous smell and hear the heavy breathing in his chest.
He wanted to scream, but his throat was choked.
He couldn't shoot or move.
After walking in, the monster leaned towards him, its huge horned helmet like the head of a wild beast.
"You're lucky."
It was in slurred Gothic that sounded heavily accented, foreign, distinctly ancient, distorted by sound machines, tubes, and other things lurking beneath that nightmarish visor.
Valentine barely responded to the question.
Lucky? Is this a sick joke?
"....A fairly qualified sacrifice."
Suddenly, the captain noticed that the sound did not come from under the opponent's helmet, but from the grinning devil's face on the opponent's breastplate.
The next moment, his mind was overwhelmed by boundless darkness.
"Send a message to the Warmaster that the last target has been removed and a full-scale attack can be launched."