After the secret conversation with Brother Said, Soshyan immediately got into busy work.
Although he was nominally a war group leader in the past, the number of people he actually managed was the size of a war gang. He did not have too many administrative matters and could spend most of his time on training every day.
But now that the number of the battle group has exceeded 300, and with the size of three companies, he has a mountain of things to do at once.
It is necessary to arrange a place for the new warriors to live, live and train. It is also necessary to inventory the armory and re-equip the basic equipment for each warrior. It is also necessary to plan the next expansion of the monastery fortress, and to obtain more information from the planetary governor. Much material support...
There are so many things going on in general affairs that keep Soshiyang working almost day and night.
If he hadn't been a Space Marine with a superhuman body and mind, he would have collapsed from exhaustion.
Even so, after a week of struggling, Soshyan still felt physically and mentally exhausted. Fortunately, Sol assisted throughout the process, otherwise he felt that he would not be able to handle it alone.
During this process, many problems arose that he could not solve for a while.
For example, there is a shortage of manpower.
The people here are not referring to Astartes, but to mortals, slaves, and even servitors.
Previously, in order to activate the Unbound Soul, Soshyan had allocated all the manpower on the Starfire. Now that the Starfire was about to be repaired, Soshyan could only allocate the manpower prepared for the warship that was still under construction to fill the vacancy on the Starfire.
After the expansion of the chapter monastery, a large number of servants will be needed. The newly added warriors will also need a large number of servants. Even the warships brought from the Soul Drinker Chapter will require a lot of manpower in the future.
Adding up the total shortfall, Soshyan may need millions of young and middle-aged workers.
He definitely couldn't get these manpower by himself, so he could only turn to the planetary governor for help.
But this matter is also very difficult for the Planet Governor.
It's okay to be a servant of the Chapter, it is a very honorable thing after all, but living on the lower deck of a starship is another concept - most of the time, this is the job of criminals.
He could only find a way to scavenge manpower from various prisons on the planet, and this would take some time.
There are also vacancies in material and equipment.
At least half of the recruits among the Soul Drinkers do not yet have power armor. Most of them have actually completed the transformation of their black carapace and have withstood the baptism of war. They can put on power armor at any time and become a real space warrior.
However, the Astral Knights do not have so much inventory in their armory, and the Soul Drinkers, as a ship-based battle group, have very low savings. The power armor in the armory, plus some recovered later on the battlefield, can probably only be equipped. One hundred people.
In the end, there were still nearly 60 recruits without power armor.
In addition to armor, the reserves of weapons have also reached the red line. All bolters can be supplied, but there is a serious shortage of heavy weapons. In addition to Soshyan's set of Terminators, the Soul Drinker himself only has three sets.
After simple statistics, in addition to light weapons and melee weapons, the current group's reserves of other supplies only include:
31 heavy flamethrowers
21 heavy explosive bombs
15 automatic cannons
2 plasma cannons
12 plasma rifles
8 plasma pistols
6 heavy melta guns
20 acoustic missile launchers
1 gravity cannon
These individual heavy equipment seem to be much more than those of the Astral Knights in the past, and are enough for three companies, but the Astral Knights in Soshiyan's plan in the future will be more than three companies.
In addition to equipment, ammunition and parts are in short supply. Many of them cannot be produced by Nessen IV and can only be imported from neighboring industrial worlds or foundry worlds.
Although Soshyan didn't have much idea about the economy, he also knew that these things would probably not be cheap.
In addition to individual heavy weapons, the Astral Knight's vehicles have reached an ideal state. If it were not for the destroyed Burning Wings and the escaped Gunhound, there might be more on board now.
After counting, the war group currently owns:
6 Thunderhawks
8 Stormraven gunboats
9 Land speed attack boats
5 Land Raiders
4 Predator tanks
1 Vindicator siege tank
2 Cyclone missile launch vehicles
2 Lurker anti-aircraft guns
16 wheeled motorcycles
These armors and vehicles are more than enough for three companies and can form a powerful armored strike force on the battlefield, but again, maintaining them is not easy.
Whether it is road construction or replacement parts, or materials required for daily maintenance, it is an arduous task for the industrial world of Naisen 4.
The only good thing is that the war group currently has a lot more manpower, especially the technical staff. Various departments that used to be isolated have been supplemented by personnel.
The Pharmacists Association, in addition to Pallas, has also added one pharmacist, and currently has three people
Two technical sergeants have been added to the armory, and there are currently 3 people.
Only the monastery of priests is still Yazdan. Although there is also a preparatory priest among the loyalists, Yazdan still has doubts about him and needs more time to take the postgraduate examination.
The think tanks are still vacant, and Sarpadon's rebellion took away all the think tanks.
After being supplemented by other technical sergeants in the armory, Roglis planned to take the necessary step in his technical sergeant career - to go to Mars for further study.
However, due to the tightness among the members of the battle group, Soshyan temporarily rejected the other party's request to go to Mars, but promised to allow him to go to Mars in one year.
In terms of fleet, the battle group has also been greatly supplemented. In addition to the battle barge 'Soulbringer', there are also two strike cruisers 'Alien Killer' and 'Sword of Destruction', as well as four frigates, a total of 7 battleships.
Together with the Unbound Soul, the Starfire, which is about to be repaired, and the frigate Glory Saber, the size of the Astral Knight's fleet has reached an unprecedented 10 ships.
As far as large battleships are concerned, the void power of the Astral Knights Chapter is close to the level before the World Engine Battle.
Now Soshyan has the confidence to fight a large-scale space war and dominate the battlefield.
However, despite the joy, Soshyan also reminded himself repeatedly that he must not be careless and complacent, because there is also a huge crisis lurking in the battle group.
First of all, externally, he violated the rules of the empire and annexed a war group - even a renegade war group. With the example of Huron in front of him, it is conceivable that the Terran Council has absolutely zero tolerance for this kind of thing.
Once discovered, without even a second thought, the Astral Knights would be immediately labeled as traitors and end up with the same fate as the Astral Claws.
Soshyan must be very careful to hide his current power. Even the Soul Drinker's warship did not dare to sail to the home planet. Instead, like the Unbound Soul, he first docked at the temporary dock in Gages.
At the same time, the sudden appearance of so many space warriors in the battle group will definitely attract suspicious eyes, so even after returning in triumph, Soshyan quietly led the soldiers back to the monastery fortress late at night.
Except for the planet governor, he did not notify anyone and refused the other party's welcome ceremony.
But this can only be hidden for a while. The best way to avoid being discovered by others is time——
The Astral Knights cannot send out too many people at one time, and can only increase the number slowly, pretending to be the normal recruitment rate of new recruits who have successfully transformed.
He even had to forge the identities of some of the Soul Drinkers' former sergeants or company commanders to prevent them from being recognized - after all, they were different from Sevatar.
The Crow Prince was an active figure ten thousand years ago. Except for the old monster from Chaos who also lived for ten thousand years, in theory no one in the current empire can recognize him by his appearance and name.
But the veterans of the Soul Drinkers are different. They have all been active figures in the past hundred years. Some of them have fought side by side with other battle groups and have gained a lot of honors. They can easily be investigated by some people.
So Sevatar can do it without changing his name, but the veterans of the Soul Drinkers can't.
For the sake of safety, Soshyan would rather be overly cautious than reveal any flaws, not to mention he had a hunch that the Inquisitor Marcus might not let him go so easily.
In addition to the outside world, there are also unstable factors within the war group.
In the end, Soshyan did not kill the captured veterans of the Soul Drinkers, but planned to give them another chance.
Brother Said supported his approach. After all, the Eleventh Legion was already very thin. If we could reduce the losses, we should reduce the losses.
But to the other warriors of the Soul Drinkers, these were traitors after all, and they once turned swords against each other.
The former brother became a traitor, and then the traitor became a brother again. If this were known, Soshyan felt that many warriors would not understand.
Once the matter comes to light, a huge rift may arise within the Chapter.
In order to prevent this, Soshyan could only secretly recruit the traitors and make Luko their leader.
This secret company, plus Luko, has a total of 28 veterans, who are called redeemers. Soshyan promises them that at the right time, they will return to the light and accept the embrace of their brothers.
But for now, they can only exist as a secret force.
Although possible rifts in the battle group were avoided, Soshiyang felt that after this operation, he was almost schizophrenic.
He secretly recruited the Soul Drinkers without telling the empire, and then secretly recruited the traitors among the Soul Drinkers without telling the recruited Soul Drinker warriors...
Then, out of everyone's sight, there is a secret society of the undead army!
What is this thing called? ?
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