Chapter 258 04.0257: "The Third Salamander Company"

It’s the third to last day before the triumphal ceremony.

Horatio's personal condition has been adjusted to its peak state. His thinking is logical, he is refreshed, his mind is stable, and he no longer wanders off.

Today, he came to the star port and welcomed a special guest with many naval officers.
Boom!Boom!
Dozens of tall Space Marines walked down from the docking platform with heavy steps. They were wearing dark green power armor, with dark skin and red eyes, like anvils burning with raging fire.

As one of the many officers who volunteered to go to the starport to undertake the welcoming mission, Horatio was the first to see these solemn and dignified soldiers.

"Long time no see, son of Vorkan, welcome to Abyss Port." The Lord of Watch stepped forward and welcomed the tallest warrior among them.

Standing next to the Lord of Watch was the rescued Salamanders company champion, who was respectfully saluting the newcomer.

"Brother Bryant, we are so glad that you are safe. We are sincerely grateful to you, cousin." The tall bald man still maintained a firm and solemn expression, but his tone revealed sincerity.

This image seems to show that they are not the salamanders as commonly known.

Horatio looked at the huge hammer in the man's hand, and then looked at the weapons in their hands.

All of these warriors were holding flamethrowers, not any standard explosive weapons.

With so many details, Horatio only needed to look at their equipment, not the totems on their shoulders, to guess their identities.

There is no mistake, these Space Marines are from the Salamanders' Third Company 'Volcanic Rocks', and the captain is none other than Adrax Agatone, the Salamanders' chief of ordnance, who looks the closest to Vulcan.

The Salamanders are not a standard Codex regiment, they only have seven companies, which is a tradition passed down from the 30K era.

Although these men of the third company also adhere to the Promethean creed of protecting the weak, they are mainly responsible for playing the role of "black face" in the regiment.

However, they are definitely not the "crazy people" as rumored on the Internet in previous lives.

They are indeed the Chapter's purgers, as evidenced by the various powerful flamethrowers they are equipped with.

They are mainly responsible for dealing with situations that other brothers in the other chapters are unable to deal with, such as clearing out suspected corrupted begging poor people, young children of alien races, and wounded, dying or corrupted battle brothers.

In frontal combat, they are also efficient breakthroughers.

Only when absolutely necessary will they ignore casualties and sacrifice their own lives and the lives of civilians in order to achieve a quick breakthrough.

When other battle brothers are unable to quickly resolve the enemy due to being caught in a melee with a large number of unevacuated civilians, they will resolutely and efficiently execute the breakthrough order under the leadership of Captain Agatone.

Under this order, they will not be distracted by the casualties of other battle brothers and civilians, but will focus only on achieving strategic goals, and will magnify the anger of civilian losses caused in the process a thousand times and bring it down on the enemy who is the source of this suffering.

"Cousins, a very threatening cult has appeared in Abyss Harbor. They will launch another attack in three days. I wonder if you can leave in three days? Join us in maintaining order and stability."

"This is the responsibility of the Planetary Law Department. As long as they perform their duties faithfully, dealing with some heresy is not a problem, cousin. Our company's support mission schedule has long been scheduled for after 562, and we don't have time to deal with these trivial matters in the local area."

After Captain Agaton received the soldiers from his company, he turned around and was about to leave with his battle brothers behind him. If he had not heard that a Lord of the Watch of the Blood Angels was going to pick him up, he would not have shown up with his men to show equal respect.

"A large-scale kidnapping incident has just occurred in Abyss Harbor. The kidnappers are blasphemous believers of the Power of Joy, and the victims are a large group of innocent children and women. Their lives and deaths are unknown now. We plan to raid their hideout tonight."

"The victims are a group of innocent children and women." This sentence touched the sensitive area of ​​the fire lizards.

Before Captain Afiel finished his words, all the Salamanders turned around collectively, with a blazing red light appearing in the eyepieces of their helmets.

"We will punish these blasphemous pedophiles and bullies and burn them to ashes."
-
That night, the night grew darker.

The surface of the planet is brightly lit.

In Abyss Port, although the sentence "Poor people don't deserve to live on the ground" sounds uncomfortable and discriminatory, it is indeed a cruel fact.

As one of the top logistics hubs in the Hazy Star Region, the number of wealthy people and financial resources in Abyss Port far exceed the total of most star regions in the empire.

Anyone who can gain a foothold on the surface of this planet can be considered wealthy even in the entire empire.

But the problem that arises from this is that when these people live too well, not only will they fail to repay and be grateful for the gifts the Empire has brought them, but they will instead begin to deviate from the teachings of the God-Emperor and touch upon forbidden and profane people and objects.

The target of this raid was an artificial island on the Sea of ​​Stars.

It is reported that there is a huge underground structure under the island, where the kidnapped missing persons are held.

This location is 36,757 kilometers away from the throne area, on the other side of the planet, which is beyond the range of the Valkyrie.

But for the Imperial Navy that controls the void, and the two Space Marine companies with void ships, they do not need to take atmospheric aircraft for long-distance voyages.

At this time, the island with bright lights and laughter was tens of thousands of kilometers above us.

Three huge ships were hiding in the darkness of the void, hovering above the heads of the ignorant cultists.

Following the burning of incense and prayers, the red and dark green Space Marines each walked into the landing capsule of their respective regiments.

The Imperial Navy's gravity parachute is not sufficient to support the wearer's parachute jump in low-Earth orbit. The team led by Horatio will take the Lavis landing craft to reach the suborbital altitude and perform a 10,000-meter airdrop there.

Although the Hell Troopers cannot directly drop down in an airborne pod like the Astartes, their tactical value is still very high.

——The projection error of the Astartes' drop capsules is such that they cannot accurately hit an island of only 160 square kilometers from orbit without ground guidance.

If it misses the target, the drop pod will fall directly into the seabed thousands of meters deep. Even the Astartes power armor cannot guarantee their survival under such high water pressure.

Therefore, the Hell's Vanguard will play the role of 'Pathfinder' which was predetermined at the beginning of its establishment. They will serve as a ground guidance team, arrive at the scene first to guide positioning and clear a landing area for the landing of other troops, which is crucial.

This time he also brought Thei, the throne agent, and Yin Shuyao, a novice exorcist. Inquisitor Ravenor was meeting with the Death Watch team that arrived quietly and planning their mission objectives.

After the soldiers have cleared the ground, the two ladies will board the Lavis landing craft and arrive on the ground escorted by a naval infantry guard.

In a cult stronghold of this level, it is difficult to guarantee that there are no man-made subspace rifts or altars that can open rifts.
-
"The Hell Sniper is ready to take off."

Horatio looked at the data pad on his arm, looking at the preparation data of the five teams on the five Skyraider Valkyries, each of which was filled with 12 people.

Everyone is waiting for them.

Five pitch-black Skyraider Valkyrie transport planes took off from the small aviation deck on the belly of the battleship, spewing blue tail flames. After leaving the cabin, they suddenly boosted their power and headed straight for the planet's suborbital.

In the process of breaking through the thin atmosphere, the body began to shake violently, as if it was about to disintegrate.

But no one looked around during this violent tremor.

As an elite unit, every member of the Chief Eagle Flag Squadron has experienced at least a hundred such parachuting attempts.

It is worth noting that this time, these Eagle Flag warriors wearing power armor also put on polymer fiber cloaks specially customized for them by the Navy Department.

This cloak has excellent heat-insulating properties. When they break into the atmosphere alone and encounter intense friction with the atmosphere, it will not catch fire. It can also be used as a fireproof cloth when rushing into a fire scene, blocking the flames in front of them.

A low-visibility Imperial Eagle is embroidered on the cloak as a symbol of honor for the Chief Battalion.

"30 seconds left to airborne landing!"

"30, 29, 28..."

"Turn on the airborne indicator light."

beep—

The scouts stood up together, took out hot-fire carbines from the gun racks at their sides, then divided into two rows, waited behind the hatch, and waited for the airborne indicator light to change from red to green.

"1! Action begins!"

The hatch opened, and a howling gale swept into the cabin. The vanguards strode out of the tail cabin and leaped into the dark night sky. They were wrapped in navy cloaks that were blue to black, and their tails fluttered in the wind, making a whirring sound as they dived headfirst.

11 kilometers per second is the speed at which friction in the atmosphere ignites fire. Horatio saw through the trembling eyepiece that his body was already coated with a layer of red and yellow flames, but under the protection of the power armor's heat insulation layer and the liquid gold heat sink, it was not so hot that it was unbearable.

"Adjust your descent attitude when you are 500 meters above the ground."

To avoid staying in the air for too long and being discovered by the enemy with the glowing track in the night sky.

Horatio issued the order to use the gravity parachute at the minimum safe altitude, then stared at the rapidly jumping descent speedometer on his helmet.

The altimeter was changing rapidly.

Below the maximum altitude of 500 meters, the gravity-compensating force field of the gravity parachute will not guarantee that the lander can land safely, but above 500 meters the trajectory will exist for too long. Only the most elite troops can pursue extreme combat effectiveness at all costs and adjust their landing posture in time at this altitude.

The role of the gravity parachute vector engine behind them during landing is to adjust the landing direction and slow down their falling speed in time when they reach the minimum safe landing altitude.

This is also why they landed first to guide the landing - their terminal airborne direction is controllable in real time, and the Astartes airborne capsules often cannot achieve such delicate control, so they often collide with surface buildings during the fall, although this is also because these demigods think that it is no problem even if they crash into buildings.

"Altitude 576, start adjusting landing attitude! Slow down!"

Everyone immediately started the propulsion device and adjusted their posture in mid-air from head down to feet down.

The gravity parachute's built-in weight-offsetting force field began to take effect. Without the pull of gravity, Horatio felt as if he was floating in the void.

As the vector engine began to work in reverse, the falling speed dropped rapidly.

Pfft!Pfft!
One by one, they circled the island and fell into the sea near the beach.

The sea water evaporated, cooling the heat on their armor.

Soon, the wet helmets of the Hell's Vanguards emerged from the sea one by one. As they advanced rapidly, their deep armored upper bodies were revealed, and their powered armored boots with built-in roller skates finally stepped on the soft beach.

"Each team reports on personnel and operations."

"Team One, in position. Begin placing ground drop guidance beacons."

"Team Two, get in position, we have captured the beachhead tower without being exposed."

"Team Three, in position, landing zone secured."

"Team Four, in position, monitoring enemy movements, enemy infiltrates undetected."

"Fifth team, get in position. We have already infiltrated the enemy base and started exploring the underground structure. We will report back on any subsequent developments."

After each team reported, Horatio connected the communications between the two battle barges.

"My dear lords, the ground guidance beacon is clear and we can parachute." Horatio picked up the horn-shaped sound array communication microphone installed on Louise's back and reported. Louise knelt on one knee, holding a gun in her hand and keeping a vigilant posture.

As soon as he finished speaking, he and she looked up at the deep night sky, where bright stars were falling from the sky.

(End of this chapter)