No. 587 was not designed to fight wars, it was not even designed to operate independently, and over the decades its management protocols were built around excursions between colonial worlds, primarily to carry out armed transport and space rescue missions and.
Valentin's training has always emphasized that if he encounters danger, he should immediately flee to the nearby planet.
He sat on the simple command seat, his head was heavy with worry, and his palms were all sweaty. He felt that the whole universe had folded on its own, and all the familiar things had disappeared, but no new ones had replaced them.
"How far is it from the planet?"
Later, he asked the sensor manager.
The silly guy turned towards him from under the detection platform.
"It's not clear yet, but... wait, Golden Throne, I saw something on the remote scanner."
Valentine felt his stomach twitch.
"let me see."
The display array mounted on the command seat switches to the remote image and rotates for primary yaw correction.
The captain concentrated his energy, adjusted his field of vision and focus, and finally spotted something hundreds of kilometers away, approaching quickly.
"what is that?"
he asked hoarsely.
no answer.
No one on the bridge had seen anything like it.
"They're intercepting us, we can't go any faster!"
Valentine is in chaos right now, something happened a week ago and only half of the people are aware of it, emergency protocols are being made that require all naval assets to be moved to major sector stations.
Of course, this means nothing to him, because no matter what happens, they only need to dock with the transport fleet according to the schedule.
Therefore, they did not give much concern about possible interception.
The only problem is, the transport ship is missing.
The communication fell into silence and remained silent.
From that moment on, Valentin realized what was happening and quickly rushed from the edge of the galaxy to the Expiration Star.
But even so, they were too late.
He found his hands shaking and gripped the arms of the throne tightly.
"Perform evasive maneuvers!"
The sensor manager stared at him, as did the first mate, whose ship had standard subplasma engines and none of whom knew what the captain meant by "evasive maneuvers."
Valentine wanted to speak, but felt his lips were wet, so he lowered his head to look.
His nose began to bleed, and the drops formed a dark net on his work clothes. He wiped the blood away, but he couldn't stop it.
Then, he heard a buzzing sound coming from the spacecraft's communicator, and the transmitter connected to the command seat made knocking sounds again and again.
The sensor manager suddenly looked uncomfortable, hunched over in his seat and clutching his stomach.
Valentine struggled to concentrate.
"What about the target?"
There was no answer, so Valentine approached the console and stared at the data.
"Oh my God, it's right above us!"
The next second, the automatic siren used to detect approaching objects activated, the red light spinning and the horn howling.
The lights on the bridge flickered to life and then went out, plunging them into complete darkness.
"Activate emergency power!"
Valentine screamed and stood up, reaching for his pistol.
Blood trickled down his chin and he felt dizzy.
soon,
The dim red light lit up, dispersing some of the shadows to a minimum.
He saw the stumbling forms of his crew, some bleeding like him, others writhing in pain that came from nowhere.
The buzzing grew louder and louder, making it difficult to think.
He stumbled across the main console and could hear a thud from somewhere above, and then a violent crash.
The ship rocked and spun as if it had been punched by a giant hand.
Then a scream of metal on metal was heard, followed by a series of explosions.
He cursed immediately when he realized his power pack was empty.
During the long journey, he always wanted to check it out, but there were always more important things that distracted him and he had no time to take care of it.
Valentine stumbled back to his command post and opened the compartment embedded in the armrest, which contained many of the necessities he needed to store and use.
As he knelt down, he heard the crash coming closer and closer - great shocks, one after another, like the sound of a terrible drum.
The alarm wailed, a low buzzing sound that stung his ears.
It took him a few seconds to reach the compartment, reaching for the safety buckle and fumbling with it.
His gloves were covered in blood, his chest was sticky, and he was making crazy sounds.
The men screamed, the women screamed, and the deck vibrated rhythmically with an ever-increasing pounding beneath their feet.
Valentine could barely see what he was doing, but he managed to open the hatch and pull out a new energy pack.
Trembling, he inserted the replacement round into the pistol and lowered the feed catch.
Then he turned around, facing the bridge, holding the laser gun in both hands, looking for something to aim at.
The darkness was as thick as bilge water, a blur of silhouettes reflected in the dark red mist.
boom----!
Suddenly, the blast doors of the bridge were blown open, and the mutilated bodies of the defenders flew through the jagged gaps.
Valentine raised his lasgun and fired—one or three searing flashes of light illuminating twisted shapes he couldn't identify.
For a moment he thought he had struck a writhing mass of snakes, which spilled out of the jagged gap and slithered across the deck in a flapping manner.
But when the giants strode into the cabin, he saw that the so-called "snakes" were actually rolls of flesh and horns growing out of the thick armor.
"Oh God Emperor!"
Valentine fired again and again, his finger tightening on the trigger in panic.
He couldn't see how many there were - five? Or six?
The captain, in his maddening terror, noticed some strange details. He noticed hundreds of numbers engraved on the monster's armor, as well as other small signs and symbols he did not recognize, and noticed that on their shields There is a larger image on the shoulder - a metal eye surrounded by an eight-pointed star.
Lasers don't work.
The captain looked directly into the monster's eyes. He could smell the sulfurous breath and hear the heavy breathing in his chest.
He wanted to scream, but his throat tightened.
He couldn't shoot or move.
The monster who walked in leaned towards him, its huge horned helmet like the head of a wild beast.
"You're lucky."
It was in slurred Gothic that sounded heavily accented, alien, distinctly ancient, distorted by sound machines, tubes, and whatever else lurked beneath that nightmarish visor.
Valentine barely registered the question.
Lucky? Is this a sick joke?
"....A fairly qualified sacrifice."
Suddenly, the captain noticed that the sound did not come from under the opponent's helmet, but from the grinning devil's face on the opponent's breastplate.
The next moment, his mind was overwhelmed by boundless darkness.
"Send a message to the Warmaster. The last target has been removed and a full-scale attack can be launched."
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