In the void, the firefight continued.
The Murder-class Cruiser's hull was riddled with scars, and its repeated attempts to close in were thwarted again and again by the combined efforts of the Incessant's experienced Captain and Naval Officers.
The first wave of Navy Breachers inside the ship was almost completely annihilated, while the Blood Army's second wave had not yet been sent up.
Instead, due to her excessive proximity, the Imperial Navy's shots were unerring, and her blind charge only brought her devastation.
The seasoned Captain Peru was almost certain that the commander of this renegade ship was not an excellent Naval Officer; perhaps it was a renegade Astartes, as both his tactics and gunnery were too reckless and disorganized.
In contrast, on the Imperial Navy's side:
The Incessant's 49 commissioned Naval Officers, 20 probationary Naval Officers, and countless senior Warrant Officers formed an orderly, well-coordinated command-execution-operation chain, leading 150,000 Sailors and countless indentured laborers to jointly strangle the enemies of the Empire who desecrated the holy day.
"The enemy ship is approaching again; they seem to have used that blasphemous fuel again. The color of the tail flame is not right, red with black, like tearing a wake in the void," the Lieutenant reported to the Captain.
"Have the gun crews prepare, and let's give them the grand gift we've prepared," Captain Peru snorted coldly.
"Port gun crew, prepare shrapnel shells, set time fuze," the command came from the gunnery control platform.
Upon hearing the order, Farida immediately input the parameters and calculated a set of parameters using the thinker array.
[This isn't right… Why so many 9s?] Farida looked at the numbers on the display screen strangely.
Immediately after, the display screen flickered erratically and displayed some garbled code she had never seen before, and multiple calculation results deviated too much, making the values unreliable.
She recalled her father's teachings to her.
'If you find the formula calculated by the thinker array to be strange, especially with many 9s, do not hesitate, do not look again, calculate it manually immediately.'
Farida acted immediately; she now had to quickly calculate manually and double-check the correct numbers, otherwise, for a time fuze, whose effectiveness almost entirely depended on the settings, it was too easy to make mistakes.
And the cost of this mistake would be thousands more enemies boarding and damaging the warship.
Horatio was still below; if enemies suddenly boarded and landed in front of him, he would be in grave danger! She couldn't let that happen.
Farida bit her lip lightly, somewhat anxiously flipping through the manual to find the setting formula for the time fuze.
[How to calculate, how to calculate… ]
Her gaze quickly swept over the thick Void Formula Book, placed by Horatio near her hand before he left, which was as weighty as the Ecclesiarchy's Holy Word Record.
Farida then realized that the formulas in this book were so numerous and complex.
[God Emperor, did he memorize all these tens of thousands of formulas??!!] Farida's eyes revealed disbelief.
Looking at the dense numbers and letters representing variables, she panicked and began to rummage through the pages.
With a casual flip, she turned to two pages that had been deliberately folded in the upper right corner of the book.
Inside was a small piece of paper, thoughtfully inscribed with the words 'Delayed Fuze Extreme Close Range Fitting Formula' and an arrow pointing to the corresponding section of the page.
[This is… Horatio's handwriting? He had already anticipated that time fuzes would be used… ]
The stone hanging in Farida's heart fell. With her fair, slender fingers, she immediately picked up a quill pen and, referencing the formulas on the page, quickly wrote and calculated on a draft paper.
"Fuze setting 5.3 seconds!"
"5.3 seconds, set!"
"Low muzzle velocity, fire!!!"
No sooner had she finished speaking than the enemy ship ejected a dense swarm of boarding pods, striking the Incessant's port side.
The Incessant's response was to fire four huge time fuze shrapnel shells towards the numerous incoming landing pods.
Farida watched the void anxiously.
The shells emitted a metallic luster, and their internal mechanical timers, blessed by the machine god's oil-blood and incense, accurately detonated after 5.3 seconds.
Boom!!—
Four brilliant golden sparks appeared in the sky, like beautiful fiery clouds, or soft golden marshmallows.
Countless exploding fragments flew rapidly, scattering densely forward in a 90-degree direction, like detonated Claymore mines, spewing glowing phosphorescence in the void.
Enlarged screenshots from the peripheral cameras came in from the display console; countless landing pods were struck by fragments and caught fire. Most of the missed ones were intercepted by close-in defenses, and only a very small portion hit the Incessant.
Inside the port Macro cannon No. 4 launch deck.
The two factions battling on the ammunition bay deck suddenly felt the ground shake violently.
"Horatio, a small number of landing pods have broken through and crashed in, prepare yourself." Farida's anxious voice came through Horatio's comm unit.
"Leave it to me. Keep firing!" Horatio hung up the communication.
"Corpse Emperor's dogs, our reinforcements are here! Either join us in rebelling against the False Emperor, or wait for your heads to be offered to the Blood God! You have no choice." Their renegade officer shouted malicious and evil words of subversion through a corrupted vox-caster.
This caused some hesitation in the hearts of the Imperial Navy warriors who had been gaining momentum.
"Advance with me! How many shakes is this tremor?! I just learned from comms that we only took two hits, keep killing, let's chop them all to pieces! The enemy is on its last legs, victory belongs to us!!" At this critical moment, there was no room for hesitation. Horatio, thinking on his feet, set an example and invigorated the crew's morale.
He led the guard, picked up his Holy Blood Chainsword, and charged forward. A group of Voidsmen-at-Arms accompanied him, bayonets fixed, firing and assaulting simultaneously.
The Sailors exchanged glances, thinking their officer made sense.
If it were landing pods crashing in, how could there be so little commotion? Maybe it really was just shells hitting the hull.
"Brothers and Sisters, do not listen to these traitors' malicious threats; they are at their wit's end! Kill them!" the Sailor Sergeant Major shouted.
"Kill!"
The Sailors followed their clan leader and Horatio, who, despite being a high-ranking officer, fought with exceptional bravery, charging forward.
The intensity of the battle escalated again; everyone used almost every weapon they carried. Bullets flew everywhere, people scrambled, and those who dropped their weapons even began to bite the enemy's flesh with their teeth, using pain to force the struggling Sailors to let go.
Horatio wielded his Holy Blood Chainsword in one hand and fired his Navy Blast Pistol in the other. He was covered in blood, his new military uniform soaked with sweat and blood, so much so that he could wring water out of it.
The snipers he had positioned on high ground would pick off any enemy attempting to shoot him, and in front, large Navy Breachers protected him with their bodies.
A tall Blood Army Ogryn Axeman killed several people. This fellow's armor was custom-made ceramite armor from the Astra Militarum, even better equipped than the one Horatio encountered in the Lower Hive monastery.
He held a massive heavy Navy Breachers shield in one hand and wielded a demolition axe, which normally required two hands, as a hand axe in the other.
This guy charged at Horatio, and no matter how the snipers shot at him, it was useless.
Horatio raised his Navy Blast Pistol and pulled the trigger.
A single blast bolt dented the thick ceramite but did not penetrate, leaving only shrapnel scratches, a scorched mark from the explosion, and spiderweb-like cracks.
"Stop him!" the Navy Breachers Officer shouted, pointing her short sword at the renegade Ogryn warrior.
The Shield Guard immediately picked up his shield and blocked the front, simultaneously firing his shotgun at him.
But if Horatio's Navy Blast Pistol couldn't penetrate, their shotguns certainly couldn't.
The Ogryn swung an axe at the shield with such force that he sent the heavily armored Shield Guard, along with his shield, flying. The center of the shield was dented, the axe blade had pierced the shield face, and the immense impact broke the Shield Guard's thick arm.
Several Naval Axemen charged at their 'colleague,' and Horatio also seized the opportunity to rush forward.
If he could gang up, he would never fight alone.
The red-eyed brute roared, raising his shield to smash the incoming axes, instantly sending several axemen stumbling backward. His other hand swung the demolition axe, and with just one savage upward swing, he actually cleaved and sent flying a Naval Axeman charging from the side, along with his battle-axe.
"Damn…"
Horatio looked somewhat astonished at the half-corpse splattered against the ceiling like a rocket, realizing that this fellow, blessed by the Blood God, might have strength comparable to his own fully powered iron hand.