Regarding the last impression of the planet named Oman, Calvin and others only stayed at what they saw when they left, the doomsday-like large-scale landing of the Titan Legion from the forge world of Grea - the Morning Star Legion.
Scenery.
He could probably imagine how furious these mechanical priests from the Reza Forge World faction would be after they arrived and discovered that the ruins inside the river valley had obviously been disturbed.
How these poor skull snatchers face the consequences of this rage is not a question that Calvin can be responsible for.
He only cares about his return journey now.
The Noble and the Dirty spent a full week in the asteroid belt heading to the other side of the channel, during which time there were several close encounters with interstellar pirates.
Like thieves and prostitutes, banditry, a traditional profession with a long history, is still active in the borders of the human empire in the interstellar era.
But unlike the old era, the threshold for pirates in the interstellar era has become very high, and it is no longer a profession within the reach of ordinary civilians.
Their sources may still be diverse and their quality varies.
But considering that the service targets of this industry are at least semi-military organizations such as the Imperial Merchant Fleet, then the martial ethics of the pirates cannot be too bad.
Therefore, excluding some amateur pirates who occasionally work part-time when conditions permit, the "industry insiders" who can really survive in this industry for a long time often have their own unique side.
The renegade interstellar navy is the minimum standard of practice in this industry, and it cannot be lowered any lower.
Otherwise, when a group of "unarmed" miscellaneous pirates encounter a fleet of armed caravans, it is really not certain who will be plundered.
It is not surprising to go further up, such as the green-skinned orcs and the Ark Eldar, and it is not uncommon to even find active signs of renegade Astartes on some recognized dangerous flight sections.
Interstellar pirates usually rely on certain special terrains or flight segments that cannot be effectively covered by the Imperial Navy.
The asteroid belt is an important gathering point and place for selling stolen goods for interstellar pirates located near the Rust Belt.
The complex environment here naturally allows these small-scale armed forces to fully demonstrate their ability to advance and retreat freely when encountering irresistible forces such as the sector defense fleet, the forge world exploration fleet, and the Astartes Chapter strike cruisers.
Flexibility to gather and disperse as you wish.
But the list of forces that have an absolute deterrent effect on pirates definitely does not include a lone black ship of the Inquisition.
A single small pirate ship is indeed not very interested in the black ship, but interstellar pirates of medium and above sizes are slowly moving closer to the black ship's route as the news of the former spreads.
When their power has become so great that they are not afraid of the retaliatory encirclement and suppression by the Inquisition afterwards, then a rare and high-value target like the Black Ship is definitely a gluttonous feast that cannot be missed.
This is the situation of Noble and Dirty.
After their relatively peaceful first half of the voyage, as time went by, they were inevitably targeted by some medium and large pirate groups.
The Gray Knights led by Calvin are not afraid of the threat of these offal from various sources. In their eyes, offal is just offal, and ten thousand more will still be offal.
But the special terrain on the ship made him take a lot of consideration. Whether it was the engine room, fuel room, bridge or ammunition depot, these strongholds were key nodes that could not be abandoned in possible gang-hopping battles.
The Gray Knights only have fifteen people, and even if they are to conduct denial operations as a small team, the number is still not enough.
They are destined to make choices on these key nodes in the upcoming battle.
After discussing with Ma Wei and his captain for a whole day, they finally reached an agreement with difficulty: to disperse the materials in the ammunition depot across the ship in a planned manner and then abandon this node.
The Gray Knights will be divided into two teams, one team will guard the bridge to protect the core crew on the ship, and the other team will be flexible.
As for the engine room and fuel room, the marines carried on the black ship are responsible for defense.
Then in a possible gang-hopping battle, the black ship's close-defense weapon array will consciously guide the intruder in the direction of the ammunition depot.
In the hypothesis, after the basic defensive posture is formed to withstand the first wave of gang-hopping attacks by the pirates, the mobile team headed by Calvin will cooperate with the defense forces at these key nodes in the ship to clear certain points one by one, and finally complete the defense
The purpose of the black ship.
The vision of the plan is beautiful, but it will take some time to prepare for the relocation and transfer of ammunition depots and the establishment of fortifications at other nodes.
Fortunately, these pirate forces have more than one enemy, and they themselves are wary of each other.
Before multiple pirate fleets targeted the same target at the same time and failed to reach a consensus on dividing the spoils, all Calvin and others had to face were sporadic tentative attacks from these pirates.
Moreover, the black ship's voyage within the asteroid belt is not too long after all, so these pirate fleets can only follow the black ship and maintain a delicate dynamic balance with other pirates.
As the end of the journey within the asteroid belt approaches, the pirates who feel that their prey is getting closer to real safety are becoming more and more anxious.
The fragile balance between the pirates and their colleagues who could not reach a tacit understanding in a short period of time can no longer be maintained.
On the last day of the Noble and Dirty's voyage out of the asteroid belt, a group of Orc pirates finally exhausted all their patience and launched a desperate attack on them.
The long-awaited attack has finally arrived, which is a good thing in a sense.
After all, it wasn’t just the pirates’ patience that was worn away by the long confrontation.
During the long period of waiting for the second boot to fall, the will to resist of the majority of the mortal crew on the black ship was also consumed to a dangerous level.
Calvin, who had spent his entire life as a junior officer in his previous life, could clearly smell the increasingly depressive atmosphere on the ship.
The alarm for defensive operations was sounded as soon as the Orcs' landing ship was discovered. The combatants on the entire ship began to move toward their pre-designated areas in an orderly manner and reported the status of their equipment one by one.
The communication team of the temporary headquarters on the bridge also began to work nervously and orderly.
When the battle really came, Calvin entered a relaxed state.
The combat plan had been drawn up five days ago, and all they have to do now is execute it according to the predetermined plan.
Calvin, who was separated from the perspective of the commander who was closely watching the morale of the whole ship, took a breath. From now on, he only needs to be responsible for himself and his team.
"Alert! Orc ship found!"
"Alert! Distance 50 kilometers!"
"Alert! Distance 30 kilometers!"
"Enter the effective range of the firepower macro cannon and apply to fire!"
"Approval to fire!"
The macro cannon on the side of the black ship started firing, and the huge shells caused waves under the opponent's waaaah force field.
Various strange tubes of different sizes on the opponent's Onslaught-class assault ship began to work. After a burst of black smoke, these so-called "cannons" also launched a counterattack at the black ship at one-tenth the cost of exploding the chamber. p>
Most of these cannonballs drew various strange Brownian motion lines after leaving the barrel, and then disappeared into the universe around the black ship.
Only a few shells reached the surface of the black ship after going through many hardships, testing the shield working condition of the black ship.
In the first round, both sides failed to cause losses to each other, and the distance between the two sides is still getting closer.
After the Black Ship was determined to fight a deterrent battle, it no longer tried to escape, but used its mobility to ensure its broadside firepower advantage in the naval battle.
The iconic Onslaught-class assault ship of the Orc Pirates only has the characteristic of being thick-skinned from the front, so the opponent does not have too many tactical choices. They can only face the enemy head-on and approach it with the firepower of the black ship.
The gunnery sergeants of the black ship angrily urged their men to speed up the reloading. Amidst the binary curses of the mechanical priest, they ignored the protest of the machine spirit and loaded the cannonballs before firing at the opponent again.
The orcs, on the other hand, don't care about the results of their own artillery fire. In their opinion, as long as these big pipes can be heard, they are really cool, and if they can kill someone, that would be even better.
In the eyes of the boys, the function of this thing is more like a prelude before starting waaah. It is best to have it, but it is fine without it.
Anyway, relying on the disproportionately thick front armor and void shield of the Onslaught-class assault ship, as long as it can rush to a certain distance, the Hengji jump ship will do the rest...
As long as they can climb onto the opponent's battleship, the Dirty Gun Boss and the Chop Guys will let each other know what the best banging and the most waaah fucks are!
As for what will happen if the chamber explodes, who knows. Let’s survive first...
After five rounds of bombardment, the void shield on the Orc assault ship finally could not be maintained, and a huge explosion announced the end of the mission.
The distance between the two sides has also narrowed to the limit allowed by gang-hopping operations.
As the Orc battleship moved like throwing away garbage, the Orc's jumping boats and jumping torpedoes carried some debris that seemed to be broken parts, throwing the parts while rushing towards the black ship.
The black ship's close-defense weapon array also joined the roaring ranks after the next round of macro cannon roar.
At least half of the Orc jumping gang vehicles were wiped out by this round of close-range fire.
However, the opponent's number of flies still inevitably penetrated the maximum load-bearing value of the close-defense weapon.
As the first batch of jump boats penetrated the deck of the black ship with the help of the orcs' unpredictable front melt, the crew on the ship already knew this fact:
What they least wanted to see, the most brutal gang fight in the naval battle, was inevitably coming.
Everyone on the bridge stared closely at the holographic diagram showing the status of the entire ship.
The rapidly increasing number of red marks on the hull informed the decision-makers on the scene of the landing point of the entire battleship.
The relatively concentrated alarms near the ammunition depot proved that their original plan was at least half successful.
"Let the soldiers in the artillery array withdraw. Their mission has been completed." Calvin couldn't help but remind him.
"Evacuate? Where to retreat? If we abandon the close defense array now, there will only be more orcs landing later."
Ma Wei, who always presented himself as a businessman and a good old man, taught Calvin a good lesson.
The other party's almost cold attitude at this time reminded Calvin of his position in the Alien Tribunal that he had almost ignored.
"Don't feel sorry for me, and don't feel sad for them. Your Majesty, how much I feel sorry for them usually, how much I will hate them when I am truly loyal to the empire. I know this, and they also know it.
If you don’t believe me, just ask them and ask them to withdraw. Will they withdraw?”
Calvin stopped talking and just watched as the bright spots representing the weapon array on the hologram dimmed one by one in front of his eyes.
He knows that this is the glory that belongs to them. He has no right to take it away.
And there's not much he can do, just live up to the sacrifices of these people.
The first wave of gang-hopping attacks has ended, so since the other party has not provided "special care" for the bridge, Calvin's significance here is no longer significant.
He tightened the warhammer in his hand, looked deeply at the commanders present and said: