Chapter 73 Krieg’s reinforcements and the storm further away
War is an eternal topic, and it is also a topic that every Imperial citizen in the post-Emperor era cannot escape from from birth to death.
It is like a bell that is constantly ringing. Depending on the distance, it gives completely different feelings to different people in the same star area or galaxy.
The same is true for Orpheus, without any exception.
To the people living in Amara, the capital world at the center of the sector:
War is the tension coming from the other side; it is the occasional price fluctuations in the trading market; it is the occasional administrative orders for overtime and rest days that are notified to the work unit; it is the fans in the next star district who are close at hand but far away.
Later discussion.
But for this group of lucky people, war does not mean bloodshed and death.
Like people but different fates, the citizens of the Empire living on the edge of the star sector do not have such luck.
War is a different experience for them:
It is the panic of precarious life; it is the bad news of the fall of the city where relatives and friends live in the distance; it is the embarrassment of being unable to guarantee food and fresh water; it is the ubiquitous but following death.
Katyn, the northern theater of the Orpheus sector and the capital world of the sector's Northern Fleet against the Chaos defense line, is shrouded in such an atmosphere.
The Northern Fleet, headed by Lieutenant General Ernest Joseph, Admiral of the Navy, the senior general of the Orps Fleet of the Imperial Navy, relies on the defense system of this galaxy to maintain a balance with the Chaos Fleet with great difficulty. In Imperial Calendar 39, decades have passed since the tragic Corridor Battle of the Imperial Fleet.
Today's Northern Fleet and the defense line of the Katyn system where they are stationed are no longer what they used to be.
After receiving limited support from the empire, the size of the fleet has barely reached the minimum defense standards.
Although it still does not have the ability to proactively seek combat, it has improved a lot compared to the initial days when it was difficult to maintain the defense of the galaxy with three surprises a day.
In the orbit of the capital world of Katyn, in the dome hall of the battleship Holy Words, the flagship of the Orpheus Northern Fleet.
Lieutenant General Ernest Joseph was holding his admiral's scepter and stood under the star map in front of him for a long time, caught in the long test of this long chess game.
This is the normal state of his life in the past ten years, and it is also a microcosm of the life of the soldiers in the northern theater represented by him.
The war has been going on here for decades, and there is no hope of ending.
Against the backdrop of the short average lifespan of ordinary citizens of the empire, this resistance to Chaos and aliens will surely fill the memories of generations.
Since taking over the defense here, this noble-born general who is only 150 years old has never had a complete sleep.
The initial flames of war broke out from the edge of the Hassan sector and spread to the entire sector in a very short period of time.
The orc offensive came so violently that suddenly, the Orpheus fleet could not even complete its assembly, but watched helplessly as its neighbor, Orpheus's de facto ally, was completely destroyed.
As the central sector of the five major sectors established at the same time, after losing the strategic depth of the Hassan sector, the next war will inevitably burn towards the Orps mainland.
But the star district has no power to stop the orcs from attacking.
Because there has been no war crisis, Orpheus itself has been providing additional supplies for three thousand years to support other wars in the Storm Star Territory.
The senior generals of the sector defense force have proposed the upkeep and maintenance of the fleet and the rectification of surrounding defenses more than once.
However, under huge economic pressure, the Orps family, which dominated the star sector, finally chose to give up.
The bitter fruit of this inaction was finally tasted by their descendants after hundreds of years of delay.
When the war BOSS in the Hassan sector led an overwhelming orc fleet and rushed towards the mainland of the sector with an unstoppable offensive.
This term's sector governor can only look at his own fleet, which is less than half the number, and has nothing to do.
Yes, in the Imperial Navy's setting for a large sector defense fleet, a full complement of more than 20 medium and large ships, including a minimum of five battleships, is the size Orps should have.
But at that time, the number of Orps' battleships that met the standard was only 12, including only three battleships.
For this reason, we have to exclude one-third of them, which have lost the ability to maneuver and can only be used as forts on orbit...
Needless to say, there is no need to say much about the war that followed. The Orps fleet, which fought and retreated, maximized its limited force for decades.
Relying on the defense system of the border system and the unity of the local military and civilians, they were able to barely withstand the endless numbers and exponentially increasing intensity of the orcs' invasion.
But at this moment, news of the appearance of the Chaos Fleet actually came from the ruins of the Lyak sector, which was completely opposite to the Hassan sector.
Although the Storm Star Territory did not pay much attention to the threat here at that time, there were many far-sighted people in the military headquarters and navy.
Thanks to their efforts, the Storm Star Territory authorities symbolically dispatched three cruise ships from the Star Territory Fleet to support.
However, the situation of being attacked from both sides still makes the star district unsustainable.
The main force of the sector fleet can only run repeatedly in vain between two completely opposite war zones.
Coupled with Chaos' premeditated corruption and infiltration, it eventually led to the tragedy of the famous "Corridor Naval Battle".
Ernest Joseph's promotion from rear admiral on a battleship to vice admiral was accomplished under such a precarious background.
If he had a choice, he would rather not give up this position that symbolizes glory and power in exchange for a relatively stable ending in the second half of his life.
But fate is so cruel, and he, who has been in the army for generations, cannot retreat at the critical moment of the empire's survival.
The military situation was so intense that from the ceremony for his promotion to Lieutenant General to the moment he was ordered to take over the full power of the Northern Theater Command, there were only a few minutes required for the ceremony;
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The war was raging, and it took him the longest fifteen years of his life to go from the embarrassment of only three warships when he accepted the Northern Fleet to now more than doubling the number of fleets and being able to resist the invasion of Chaos.
Today, Lieutenant General Joseph is much older than his actual age. The life-extending surgery originally scheduled for 50 years may have to be carried out in advance.
But the price is worth it. The stable defense situation in the northern theater has given the entire sector a rare respite.
Under his leadership, the Northern Fleet, relying on the fortress defense system of the Katyn galaxy, achieved brilliant results.
With less than one-half the number of enemy ships, they have repelled several waves of attacks by the Chaos fleet, winning nearly half a year of peace for the entire northern theater.
During this period, more labor and engineering materials were continuously gathered from the rear, and a new defense system was built behind Kating.
There was originally no danger to defend the strategic void behind the Katyn Galaxy. However, due to the Northern Fleet's stubborn defense at all costs, there was finally a glimmer of room for error.
But the enemy will not do nothing. The recent frontal situation has been too calm, so calm that Joseph instinctively felt something strange.
In his eyes, this was not so much a respite from the enemy's long-term attack. Joseph was more willing to believe that a larger offensive was being brewed.
The information from the Tribunal also confirmed some of his conjectures:
In the lost forge world of Nazlem, a brand new, huge battleship of unknown type is being built.
The specific information on that kind of battleship has not yet been obtained, but Joseph can imagine its brutality just from the picture of it lying in the berth with its main gun almost as long as the keel!
What is this?
A battleship equipped with huge cannons?
Or is it a giant cannon equipped with a battleship engine?
But no matter what, when the battleship is completed and carries the destructive heavy artillery to the Katyn defense front line, the pattern of war will be permanently rewritten!
A heavy-duty warship purely designed to attack the permanent defense system!
Under the threat of this new sword, Kating and the new defense behind it are meaningless.
You must take the initiative!
The admiral's scepter made of pure gold banged heavily on the table, frightening the staff officers working beside him and making the entire hall focus on him.
It must be destroyed before it reaches the battlefield!
This was the final conclusion that Joseph came to, and it was also the biggest reason for the desire to die in his eyes.
"No matter the cost!"
The corner of his mouth used these two words as a conclusion, and finally spit them out in words, which shocked the young staff officer beside him.
He did not dare to ask the commander in front of him where the words came from, but he could smell the endless blood in these two words.
The Katyn Fortress under the starry sky was still calm when it opened, but Joseph knew that the pace of war had arrived.
Different from the increasingly tense atmosphere here, there is greater strength moving forward in the subspace from Krieg to Orps, passing through Chiros.
A large mixed fleet composed of seven strike cruisers built by the Krieg Industrial System and the Fire Eagle Chapter's own Raptor King star fortress are rushing towards Orpheus in a silent but oppressive manner. Hammer of Order, Shield of Order, Spear of Order, Sword of Order, four first-generation products of the Krieg Shipyard named after Order;
Plus three second-generation cruisers: Dawning Light, Dawnfire, and Blood Rebirth;
A total of seven large patrol ships surrounded the King of Raptors in a star-shaped manner, carrying 3,500 Astartes warriors among them, arriving from afar in a standard marching array.
The subspace fluctuations caused by such a huge fleet are almost comparable to half of the sector's great fleet.
What is even more frightening to those in the know is that these battleships all bear the Astartes Chapter logo.
This is an assembly of four battle groups, with at least one complete battle group and ten companies advancing in armed force.
Dozens of planets and hundreds of astropaths in the Chilos sector were all shocked by the majesty of the fleet.
They fell into an unspeakable silence, and could not calm down until the fleet's tail flame had disappeared for a long time.
The meaning of such a neat action is self-evident.
This situation immediately aroused high vigilance among the entire Storm Star Territory authorities, including the Tribunal.
The Astartes warriors are not only the sharpest swords of the Empire, but also the deepest nightmare of the Empire.
The reason why the Empire's attitude towards them is so contradictory is that the Empire has never truly achieved complete control over these superhuman warriors.
Without control and obedience, there is no trust and support.
This is also the significance of Guilliman’s setting of the Codex Astartes:
A self-restraint that you know and I know; a shackles of self-imprisonment with the tacit understanding of both parties.
That's all.
He clearly knows that a group purely based on force will not be able to sustain itself for a long time and will fall into self-destruction sooner or later.
Therefore, an imperial government composed purely of Astartes is completely unfeasible.
The opposite is also true. The Legion of Astartes clearly exists, but it can neither be trusted nor make good use of it.
A government that is completely unable to control the Astartes is also a dead end.
The Imperium and the Astartes must try to re-establish trust between each other, especially in the turbulent millennia immediately following the Heresy.
No matter who they are, they can no longer bear any more losses.
But now, this fragile balance has been openly broken.
The empire can paralyze itself and accept individual founding war groups rejecting the "Holy Code" for various reasons, because it proves that they at least still have the desire to explain and the need to be trusted.
But the Empire cannot accept the blatant alliance of a group of second-generation or even third-generation Astartes Chapters, because that means that the highest order of the Empire's military force is breaking away from their control.
This is something even more terrifying than the complete fall of Orps itself.
The journey of the Astartes fleet from Krieg continues.
But before they actually achieve their goal, the influence of their existence has already spread to the distance like ripples.
The Storm Star Territory, like the Terran Council that received emergency notification further away, is destined to have countless people unable to sleep tonight because of their presence.
This was an extraordinary night, because there were countless pairs of eyes wandering between Terra and them.
Everyone is waiting for the final results of the High Lords Council after dawn.
Because that means the empire's view of them, and some more essential logic hidden behind it.
Compromise or confrontation.
These are two completely opposite options that the High Lords Council is about to make.
The former means the end of the era of mortal rule. The old armed groups will continue Horus's last wish and completely lead the empire to an out-of-control chariot composed of military rule;
The latter means the tragic end of this fleet. The High Lords Council must use the most severe means to deal with them to declare the firm position of the mortals represented by the High Lords.
Only in this way can we frighten those who come after us and maintain the legal rationality of the unified empire.
A huge political storm is about to arise.
As the initiator of this storm, and the possible direct victims.
The soldiers in the distant fleet are still kept in the dark, and have no way of knowing what happened to Terra.
First update, there should be a second update, please vote.
Also: I won the prize.
Continuing from the previous chapter, I mentioned that my next-door neighbor was taken away. Today at noon, I received a call from the local prevention and control department. I have been officially included in the stimulus contact list.
I'm at home now, waiting for the community to come and put a seal on my door.
Fortunately, I am quarantined at home, so my updates will not be affected for the time being.