Chapter 37: Blood Calamity (I)

“Is the communication still not connected?”

General Sora paced back and forth in the command center like a caged beast.

Half an hour ago, contact with the ground forces had been completely severed. The *New Phalos* had also gone silent; although it was still sliding toward orbit, its speed had noticeably slowed.

“Have the rioters seized the bridge?”

General Sora immediately dismissed the thought. It was impossible. Weak slaves could not take a fortified bridge with nothing but water pipes, even if it were merely a transport ship.

Loken stood near a machine not far away, analyzing the noisy signals received earlier. He felt he could find something.

Finally, amidst a stretch of vague electrostatic static, he isolated a faint voice. It sounded like the final echo of a dying man, repeatedly uttering two words.

“...Traitor...”

Omnissiah preserve them! They had truly run into something cursed this time!

Loken immediately straightened his back, turned around, and shouted

“Sir, I’ve found—”

“Sir!”

Another voice interrupted him as the communications officer shouted excitedly.

“We’ve re-established contact with the ground forces, but the signal is being interfered with.”

“Play it.”

Soon, a low, muffled voice drifted from the loudspeaker, sounding like the young officer from before.

“...Emergency... retreat... return...”

“What? What is your situation?”

General Sora inquired tensely, but the only response he received was a burst of blurred static and the looping words of "retreat" and "return."

“Sir! The *Hyena* has been detected leaving the target and is returning to orbit!”

“Strange?”

General Sora rested his fleshy chin in his hand, wondering what kind of accident could have caused two hundred ground troops to return in such defeat.

“Sir!”

Loken rushed to his side, his mechanical appendages twitching incessantly, appearing quite agitated.

“We cannot let the *Hyena* enter orbit!”

“Huh?”

Sora looked at him and blinked, having no idea what Loken was talking about.

“I just isolated the true voice of the *New Phalos* captain from the channel! Listen!”

A ghostly whisper drifted from the small speaker on Loken’s mechanical limb. General Sora’s face turned deathly pale, and large beads of sweat slid down his wrinkled forehead.

“This... this...”

“Whatever is on that ship, whatever has happened, it is definitely not good! The *Hyena* has likely been seized, and it is attempting to enter orbit!”

Seeing that this foolish bureaucrat was still in shock, Loken immediately grabbed his shoulders and shook him violently.

“Sir! Sir! Do you hear me! Activate defense protocols to shoot down the *Hyena* immediately! Shoot it down now!”

In response, the damn fat man merely trembled his lips, unable to utter a single word.

“To hell with your protocols! I'm going to die sooner or later being stuck with a bunch of useless wastes like you!”

An infuriated Loken shoved General Sora aside, walked to the main screen of the command center, and plunged one of his mechanical limbs into the console below.

In the next moment, his voice echoed throughout the entire orbital station.

“Red Alert! Condition One Readiness! Red Alert! Condition One Readiness!”

Instantly, alarms blared across the entire station, and soldiers and staff scrambled frantically toward their posts.

“How far is it from here!”

Loken looked toward the panicked bird-watching officer, who, after a bout of frantic operation, replied

“Ten... ten minutes!!”

“What?”

Loken realized he had underestimated the speed of the *Hyena*. The landing craft's engines must have been modified, though he had no knowledge of it.

“Activate laser arrays immediately! Level one preheat! Lock onto the *Hyena*!”

He had made up his mind: regardless of whether his suspicion was correct, he would destroy the *Hyena*, even if that idiot was actually sitting aboard it.

Because the sense of threat was real. The *Hyena* was moving far too fast; it didn't look like it was in a returning posture, but rather an attacking one—like a predator closing in on helpless prey.

“Level one preheat complete!”

Soon, the weapons array sent word, but as Loken often joked to himself

His luck had always been terrible.

“Sir! Emergency!”

“Speak!”

“The *Hyena* has a high-level security clearance code! We must bypass the identification code before we can aim at it!”

Loken felt the world spinning. He glanced back at the station commander, who was still in a daze, wishing he could shove him into a cannon and fire him off.

Why would a landing craft be given a high-level security clearance code?

Unless...

Loken suddenly recalled the rumors he had heard regarding certain officers on the orbital station participating in smuggling.

Truly, he had run into every piece of bad luck imaginable.

“How long to bypass the code!”

“It will take... at least ten minutes.”

“We don't have ten minutes! Get it done in five!”

Despite his words, as a Tech-Priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Loken knew the characteristics of high-level security codes better than anyone. He immediately contacted the garrison forces in orbit.

“All units assemble at the landing platform! If you see any target, prioritize firing! Remember! Prioritize firing!”

Under his command, thousands of soldiers defending the orbit grabbed their weapons and rushed toward the landing platform. However, most of them had never seen blood; they were on the station merely to make a living, and true soldiers were few and far between.

Just as Loken had feared, the *Hyena* slammed into the landing platform of the defensive orbit before the security code could be bypassed.

The automatic autocannons on the external fortifications clattered as they tracked the flying object, but they failed to fire. Then, its landing struts deployed from beneath.

The gates of the landing platform opened to receive the *Hyena* and then closed again, the air pressure within the platform returning to normal levels.

Once the *Hyena* had successfully entered the landing platform, large groups of soldiers arrived around the area. They raised shotguns and laser rifles, using various suggested barricades as cover, staring vigilantly at this uninvited guest.

The roar of the engines subsided into the whine of idling, and then all sound vanished.

The sudden silence seemed to press down on everyone; some soldiers even felt as if insects were crawling over their skin.

The heavy forward hatch faced the entrance of the landing platform, alongside a black cockpit and autocannons that opened along the upper spine.

The defenders waited.

Finally, as the forward hatch began to descend, there came the vibration of magnetic locks disengaging and the hiss of servos.

A burst of pressurized steam blurred their vision; whatever lurked within seemed invisible.

Suddenly, the bodies of some soldiers began to tremble, because they saw...

(End of Chapter)