117. Galaspa (middle)
Death has already flown across the Galapagos Galaxy. He spread his wings. He saw the price, but he remained unmoved.
Death cannot escape itself.
The enemy's planetary defense system quickly and silently poured huge amounts of torpedoes and ammunition at them. This pocket civilization living in a corner has accumulated unimaginable ammunition.
But they had no idea what exactly they were attacking.
Their scanning system showed a fleet rapidly heading towards their home planet. The giant flying objects at the top and outer ends of the fleet and the plasma thrusters on them were identified, and bullets and fire rained down.
Just as Mortarion thought.
That was not a Death Guard ship, but an asteroid collected from various places, which was roughly equipped with plasma thrusters and operated by technicians on the Fourth Knight.
The Death Guard have only a short time to prepare, so the plasma thrusters on these asteroids are only enough to keep them moving in a straight line -
That's enough.
The opposing fleet finally reacted, and a huge number of warships sailed towards the Death Guard. The warships, known as "surveillance fortresses" and "firepower platforms", had densely packed gun muzzles and deep gunpoint.
The first concentrated fire began, but it was clear that neither side could achieve a flanking attack.
Suddenly, a cruise ship broke away from its formation and went straight through the outer asteroid defense. It stood in the center of the Death Guard fleet and fired in all directions.
"Stay in line."
Mortarion said,
"All frontal batteries facing the enemy."
The ship was quickly torn to pieces, but it did not retreat a single step before death came.
This further confirmed Mortarion's speculation about the Knights.
Retreat is not allowed.
After realizing the victory brought by the first Fortress, more and more Watch Fortresses broke away from the formation and rushed into the Death Guard fleet.
Amid the fierce concentrated fire, the asteroid began to disintegrate. The sensors buried in the rock layer in advance faithfully recorded the process and sent preset commands, detonating the huge bombs buried by the Death Guard on the back side of the asteroid!
The planet exploded instantly, and on the return screen of the Fourth Knight, brilliant bright yellow waves gently swept across the dark void.
But Mortarion knew that the blast was enough to destroy a light cruiser.
The scattered fragments of the asteroid flew rapidly towards the nearest enemy ship, and the meteor shower fired wildly at the enemy.
On the well-defended surveillance fortress, these planetary showers made only slight scratches.
But they successfully detonated the enemy's firepower platform. One firepower platform was destroyed in the explosion of its own ammunition. The aftermath of its death also enveloped the other platforms, and death began to spread in the starry sea.
At the same time, Mortarion ordered the destroyers of the second tier of the fleet to attack the Death Guard's fortress.
Those were old, decommissioned destroyers, controlled by remote control, and Mortarion had given them the power to die.
Those remote-controlled destroyers rushed towards the enemy ships in a suicide manner, pouring torpedoes and artillery fire, and at the same time ramming into the enemy's belly like a sharp blade.
But the surveillance fortresses that were hit by the fire ships did not retreat. The giant metal structures that were knocked down hung on them. Inside the fortresses, the secondary explosions caused by the Death Guards' attacks were echoing in the ships, and countless lives were disappearing.
But it still fired its final plasma thrusters.
It can still bring death to the Death Guard.
The other two surveillance fortresses sensed its actions and also ignited their engines, dragging their shaky bodies towards it and heading straight for the Death Guard's heavy cruiser "Tombstone".
The engine accelerated to the limit, and because of the rapid speed, it began to shake the broken ship beams, and continuous explosions began to burst out on the surveillance fortress!
The surveillance fortress's engines had been strained to the limit by the ship's need to reach and fight back the invaders, and it had been damaged beyond repair, but because the engines were still running, no one even considered trying to shut it down. And so, the inevitable death occurred -
The plasma drive exploded.
A large amount of energy burst out and shone in the void. The dazzling silver-white color caused anyone who looked directly at it to be temporarily blinded for a moment.
Amid the enormous, stellar-like heat, the three surveillance fortresses evaporated silently.
The explosion shattered more outer asteroids, engulfing all the fire ships.
The heavy cruiser Tombstone passed almost directly through the epicenter of the explosion.
When people observed it again, the plasma engine that had originally bloomed with blue-purple flames had long been extinguished, and a huge gap was clearly visible on the port side.
In a place invisible to the naked eye, in Mortarion's imagination, the air on the tombstone was rushing rapidly into the void through this gap.
Its aorta had been cut and blood was gushing out. It was gliding among the corpses of the fleet simply by relying on inertia.
The Fourth Knight received a communication request from Captain Lavas of the Tombstone.
"Open the channel."
Mortarion said calmly,
Ravas's voice, tinged with pain, cuts through a sea of static.
"We are running low on strength, my lord."
He coughed out the words with difficulty, but Mortarion would remember every word he spoke until his death.
"We can no longer keep up with the fleet, and now our responsibility is clear."
The hissing of the breathing mask sounded, and he looked at death calmly.
"Let more people die before the end comes, Captain."
"We will, they will learn to fear us before they perish."
The Tombstone had fallen out of line, and being isolated made it an attractive target for the Knights.
Mortarion stood here, at the tactical podium of the Fourth Knight, watching the Tombstone struggle and die in the enemy's siege.
He noticed Barasin frowning.
"Don't tell me the Dusk Raiders are unfamiliar with sacrifice, Captain."
"The Tombstone's crew number one hundred and fifteen thousand. They will soon die, and many more will die before the Fourth Horseman reaches his goal. There is nothing to regret or lament, this is the price of war, nothing more.
“I don’t doubt the need for sacrifice,” Barasin said.
"But what I want to ask is, can we lose Tombstone?"
"You can ask. The answer is yes, we can and must afford everything that will bring us victory."
“Including death.”
"Tombstone still has power. If we slow down, we can retain its power as part of our formation."
"How does that benefit us?"
"We are trying to figure out the enemy's tactics and formations. Their ships are definitely no match for ours. We can move forward more steadily and then tear apart the enemy fleet bit by bit."
"There are too many of them."
Mortarion said slowly,
"This is the key, numbers, the key to the Knights' defense. If we slow down, we will give the enemy a chance to exert their full strength.
They will drown us in a sea of corpses.
After our deaths, the caution of those who supported the blockade of Galasper will be vindicated, and the Imperium will forget about it until it is needed again for the Great Crusade.
We do not come to siege a city. We come to strike directly into the heart of tyranny. Tombstone remains part of the war effort. It will do its last bit to move forward. We will continue to move forward at full speed."
Move forward, move forward unstoppably.
If you hesitate, if you stop because of the wound, then unbearable failure will come.
Lavas was as good as his word. Long after the last transmission, the readings on the platform screens told Mortarion that the Tombstone would not die easily.
The roar of the engines, the silhouette of the Tombstone, and the silhouettes of the enemy ships surrounding it were left behind them.
They continued to move forward.
The closer they got to the main planet Galasper, the more intense the artillery fire they suffered, and after losing the defenses of the outer asteroids and old destroyers, more and more enemy ships rushed into their formation.
Vast amounts of data flowed through the console, and Mortarion looked at every loss, every death.
He anticipated the death that was to come and carefully considered which death he could accept.
"Minimal flanking strikes,"
He said that further sentence of necessary and necessary death was pronounced,
"Concentrate your efforts on the defense ahead of the fleet."
The enemy ships ahead dissipated under the concentrated firepower of the Death Guard, but the main force at the forefront of the Death Guard continued to advance rapidly.
They left behind enemy ships, as well as their own ships with damaged engines.
The abandoned Death Guard ships will slow down the enemy's outer fleet's efforts to return to defend.
By the time they were about to get close enough to Galaspa, the Knights' firepower could already be described as desperate.
Mortarion saw through the porthole of the Fourth Knight beside him that the fortress's intensive firepower erupted on the cruiser "Melancholia". The torpedo penetrated its hull and detonated the ammunition depot.
The explosion threw it off course, and it inevitably tilted to the right.
Due to the dense formation of Death Guard, Melancholia collided with the battleship "Necessary Call".
Their bows collided and they both turned to starboard, about to endanger more ships.
"If they don't stop," Barasin said.
He did not voice the danger.
The fleet was in tight formation, and the capital ships had a wide turning radius. If a disaster occurred, there would be no way to avoid it.
“They’ll turn around.”
Mortarion said firmly,
"The crews on those ships will find a way. They have to, they know the stakes, and they will sacrifice everything to keep the main fleet moving forward."
He looked at them in silence, he believed in them and they believed in him.
As Mortarion spoke, the right engine of the Necessary Call began to roar violently, and it turned sharply to the left at a maximum acceleration that was completely beyond the maximum acceleration the ship could withstand.
Tiny ship structures fell away from the bulk of the Necessity as it moved.
At the same time, the Melancholia also began to desperately ignite its right engine which had long been scrapped beyond recognition. Due to the crew's forced ignition, its right engine suddenly exploded, and a huge amount of flames gushed out!
But this further stopped its trajectory from deviating to the right.
The actions of the two ships made their collision even more severe—
They instantly turned into huge ruins.
It stumbled and tangled, tilted to the left, and hit an asteroid straight and fast.
At the last moment, the two ships fired all their ammunition to the port side. The dense meteor shower and huge explosion caused by their impact with the asteroid also dragged the enemy ships into the abyss of death.
They didn't even send a transmission request to the Fourth Horseman, because they knew exactly what they were supposed to do.
So they did.
There's nothing much to say.
Death Guard have no Battlecry.
Mortarion watched them die in silence.
Maybe he should react, but not now.
He is the commander of the legion, he is the decision maker, he is the master holding the sickle.
In the shadows beneath the hood, the Pale King's amber eyes sparkled, and a huge amount of information flowed into his mind.
"We have breached the Knights' defenses," Barasin said.
“The ones outside,” Vox said.
Mortarion said nothing, staring ahead, ready to meet the onslaught from Galasper Prime's orbital platforms and planetary cannons.
The voyage through the star system is only a prologue.
If he misjudged the Fourth Horseman's abilities, he would lose everything.
This article is not v, for the same reason as the previous one.
There should be another one in the evening. Today I will try to finish telling the story of Galaspa, also known as the Pale King.
In fact, I felt very emotional when writing this article, because I was the leader of the Death Guard who broke through the defense of the Galaspa Galaxy.
In this article, the main theme of the Death Guard led by Mortarion is already very clear: sacrifice and trust.
There are definitely some points to criticize, but it does look stunning.
Thanks again to the B station translation column and translation court.
The processes and dialogues in this article are extensively quoted and adapted from the original text.
(End of this chapter)