Chapter 285 04.0284: "About to arrive"

"I should have told you all, I emphasize again, you cannot enter the staircase with the number 9 at 9 o'clock at night! Sailors, didn't you remind your superiors?!"

A lieutenant in the armed forces flew into a rage.

"He...he said he forgot his ribbon and wanted to go back to get it. When we found out it was nine o'clock, he had already gone upstairs..." Several patrolling sailors said tremblingly.

"Then we didn't dare to go up to the ninth floor, so we just waited downstairs."

"What's wrong?" Horatio asked the second lieutenant who was leading the team next to him.

Then, Louise, who had already squeezed in, let out a cry of surprise.

"Mr. Lieutenant, a midshipman from our department who was on his first shipboard duty went missing on the 9th floor of the port upper deck at 9 o'clock last night.

When we found him this morning, he had died mysteriously in the corridor on the 19th floor of the west staircase on the bridge, right here."

It is indeed weird. The span of these two stairs is too big. No matter how fast a person walks, he will not be able to deviate so far.

Horatio walked over to Louise.

I saw a young man in a brand new uniform leaning against the wall. The wall behind his head was covered with blood and red and white brain tissue, and his face was bleeding from all seven orifices.

His pistol fell to the side and it looked like he had committed suicide by shooting himself.

From the blank and horrified expression on the suicide candidate's face, no one knew what kind of desperate illusion he had seen before he died that made him choose to commit suicide.

But the blood coming out of all his orifices clearly wasn't caused by suicide by swallowing a gun.

Horatio narrowed his eyes. The number 19 above the corpse's head seemed to be announcing to them that this was the first victim of 9.

'Also at 9 o'clock at night, do not go up or down the stairs on the floors with a 9, otherwise you will find that every floor you go up or down is still the 9th floor, and you will never be able to get out.'

Horatio remembered what the captain had said to him, but it was obvious that perhaps the horror was far more than just being unable to escape forever.

Soon, the candidate officer's body was placed on a stretcher, covered with a white sheet by a medical officer, and carried away by medical assistants to the morgue, where the body was cremated the next day.

Just one day into the voyage, a valuable naval officer committed suicide.

This was not uncommon for the Imperial Navy.

In the infinitely strange subspace, all the monsters and demons are not just fables.

Although the Geller force field can prevent the demonic entities from appearing out of thin air inside the ship, they are not completely helpless as they are always trying to devour souls.

Specific times and specific places can enhance their power, allowing them to affect the creatures on the ship. Some demons have even found ways to exploit loopholes in Geller's force field, which can cause victims to appear.

Even he himself has to be careful.

"Come on, Louise, forget all this." Horatio gently stroked Louise's back, which was rising and falling frequently due to her rapid breathing, and led her out.

"I will, Lieutenant Horatio, please take care, I'm going to duty." Louise pursed her lips and saluted Horatio.

"Be careful, and... also treat those legends with caution."

She nodded.
-
After the initial few days of self-adjustment, and the adaptation in the following weeks, the Geller force field became increasingly stable with the continuous prayers and maintenance of the technical sages.

Compared to before, Horatio now feels much better and is not as uncomfortable as when he first entered the warp.

At least, he can now fall asleep immediately and distinguish nightmares from reality.

My appetite has also recovered a lot.

He can eat a pound of Grox meat in one meal, paired with table wine.

To his delight, Louise and Farida were also much better than before.

Because of the depressed mood and loss of appetite for several days, the two girls' faces became visibly thinner and less round.

After their situation gradually improved and they adapted to life in the subspace, they not only recovered.

Louise also somewhat shyly asks Horatio to help her prepare for the naval lieutenant exam.

She usually leads her troops to improve their combat skills in a simulated training cabin equipped with a psychic. In her free time, she studies the knowledge points for the naval captain examination with Horatio.

For candidate officers, preparing for the exam is their top priority.

The Imperial Navy didn't need them to do much work that could be done by warrant officers.

Of course, Farida also had her own Naval Supervisory Examination, also held in Sepura-Mundi.

Perhaps six months later, they would have to take a favorable ship to the Navy Headquarters together to take the officer examination.

Horatio naturally spared no effort, sharing all the test preparation knowledge he had prepared before but ultimately did not use, hoping to help them pass the test.
-
Week 5 of the Warp voyage, day 3, command bridge.

"Report the current situation." Horatio shouted to the captains after taking up his combat position.

This shift was manned by a commissioned lieutenant, and there were four people working in three shifts. There would always be a situation where only one person was on duty at a time.

The shifts of officers and warrant officers are staggered so that the officers arrive after the previous shift has been relieved and the warrant officers can report to him on the current situation.

"Report to the commander, the ship is currently in subspace navigation, everything is normal, all ships are maintaining a safe distance, and there are no abnormalities." The warrant officer responsible for summarizing the coordinates reported by each ship said to the punctuation chart.

"Each ship has reported to the flagship the losses of the crew on that day. The Moon-class cruiser Lord Daros lost 278 crew members, the Dreadnought-class light cruiser Fury lost 82, and the destroyer Starfire lost 67..." "The closed-circuit televisions on board were damaged by mutants. Some blocks are close to key surveillance areas, so a maintenance team needs to be dispatched to repair them."

The large CCTV screens were in the lower deck partition, and several of them were indeed damaged. Some of them were in critical locations and were close to the Geller force field generator, so they had to be dealt with as soon as possible.

Otherwise, if an accident happened and the Geller force field generator was destroyed, the people on a battleship would be distorted and corrupted by the subspace in an instant and turned into a monster mixed in the steel hull.

Transformed into a demon ship.

Horatio stood in front of the CCTV control panel. Through the signal sent back by the CCTV, he saw Louise who was leading the cleanup team in a fierce firefight with the mutants in the cabin.

These former crew members were originally Sons of the Void. Due to the mutated genes brought about by being born in the Warp, most of the descendants of these crew members will one day turn into hideous monsters.

When that day comes, what awaits them will be the ruthless suppression of the Imperial Navy.

Through the surveillance camera, one can see that the black and white cabin is littered with corpses, and the flames from the navy's explosive bombs constantly fill the screen with dazzling white light.

For the Imperial Navy, suppression = bloodbath.

There is no situation where any survivor will be spared.

"Candidate Officer Louise, please pay attention. Four liquidation targets have just escaped into cabin No. 3 on the side. Please keep an eye on them." At the suppression scene, Horatio's voice was heard from the sound array on the surveillance camera.

"Got it, Lieutenant." Louise, covered in blood, replaced a new set of magazines for the bolt rifle in her hand, looked at the probe and nodded, then stepped over the bodies of the sailors who were beaten to pieces by the mutants, and continued to lead the team to clear the deeper cabins.

During the 38-day voyage, the Indefatigable alone had suffered a loss of more than personnel, not counting the number of contract workers lost.

Many people die every day due to various reasons.

Some newly recruited sailors, dissatisfied with the strict regulations, began to violate discipline under the influence of intense emotions.

After gathering to demand an increase in the daily grog ration to no avail, he was publicly executed for inciting mutiny.

They obviously mistook the warship for the civilian ship they had been working on previously.

The Imperial Navy will use whippings and noose to teach them what military discipline is.

Horatio had counted that Farida and Louise would preside over more than ten punishments a day at most.

Basically, it was Farida who issued disciplinary orders to the boatswain, and Louise led the armed forces to maintain discipline.

Of course, executions alone would not kill so many people.

Much of this loss was caused by infighting due to the corruption of the Warp.

Someone from one clan lost control and killed someone from another clan, and then the two sides, who were already emotionally agitated, started fighting each other because of this fuse.

The winners among them will be blessed by the evil god, and the best among them will become the devil's apostles.

The armed forces of the Imperial Navy need to slaughter the entire polluted and corrupted area in a narrow cabin.

Then ask the state priest to lead his servants to purify the area again.

But this purification without the baptism of fire is not thorough. Some filthy places that escape the cleansing and purification may very likely lead to the next corruption and riot.

However, for the Imperial Navy, they have long been accustomed to all this.

Even 38 people died in days, which is considered a small number.

The reason why warships are built so large and can carry hundreds of thousands of personnel is to leave redundancy and replace casualties.

The total number of crew members is the minimum required for the operation of all the ship's equipment, and each operating position is sufficient to ensure that even if a crew member dies ten times, there will still be replacements to continue the ship's navigation.

All officers have undergone enhanced surgery specifically for subspace navigation, and have good logistical support, medical maintenance, and dedicated staff to serve them.

During these 38 days, the total loss of officers in the entire support fleet, including the reserve officers, did not exceed 5 people.

"Lieutenant, according to the navigator's report, our ship will arrive at the assembly point near Ghana Rock in three days at the latest." The warrant officer who was specifically responsible for communicating with the closed navigation tower sent a message.

"Received." Horatio immediately uploaded the information to the command throne hub.

Commodore Peru nodded. "That's where we will meet up with the Karl Dunyash fleet. Communications Department, prepare to establish a contact beacon."

"Yes, Astronomical Office, this is the Communications Department. Contact the Mars-class battlecruiser Storm Eagle, the flagship of the Karl Dunyash Evolutionary Squadron, and request that they report their real-time coordinates."

"As you wish, sir." A vicissitudes and strange voice came from the device.

In the battleship's Star Language Hall, when a special door was closed, the Geller force field faded away from inside.

At this point, this became the only two places on the entire ship that were not covered by the Geller force field.

The psychic communication device, which was shaped like a giant organ and had three rows of astropathic seats, began to vibrate and hum with strange chanting.

Abstract psychic signals were thrown into the vast ocean of the Warp, sending communication parameters to brother fleets within the approximate range of distant Warp channels at speeds beyond imagination.

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(End of this chapter)