The light transport slipped deftly through the barriers of the atmosphere and headed out into the sea of stars.
Through the thick viewing window, Gaia looked down at the pale red planet below, and her heart stirred.
This was probably the first time she had truly entered space.
As she looked at the stars flickering in the darkness, she felt an indescribable vastness.
At that moment, she finally understood why the humans of the Golden Age had been so obsessed with expanding their dominion, and why the Master of Mankind had sent His twenty-one sons leading unstoppable Astartes Legions on a Great Crusade to bring the stars to heel.
If the first human to gaze up at this dazzling universe had seen the most beautiful treasure in existence,
then for the next hundreds of thousands of years, humanity had done nothing but try to seize it for itself.
Sadly, the Imperium of Man today had not only failed to hold that jewel in its palm, but in its growing rot was gradually losing even the fragment it had already grasped.
Lost in that thought, the transport crossed the Kármán line. At that moment, they had truly left Klaurund behind.
[In despair, a sliver of hope remains. Achievement completed: {Escape from Death}]
[Obtained Talent {I'll Be Back}: When you fall into danger, enemies have a chance to stop to talk instead of finishing you off.]
Feeling the popup in her mind, Gaia instinctively glanced at Nia, who was sitting on the other side of the transport, watching over Horne with worry as he lay half-charred.
"Don't worry, little Nia. My ship may be small, but it's more than enough to save that stubborn idiot."
As he spoke, the transport reached the holding orbit, where a small dark-yellow vessel was already waiting ahead.
It was a modified Cobra-class destroyer, and its sleek, streamlined hull fully justified that graceful name. A small macro-cannon capable of turning through nearly a full angle was mounted along the midsection, while the weapon arrays on both flanks were fitted with large numbers of torpedo tubes, giving this ship, barely 1.5 kilometers long, enough firepower to stand up to larger escort vessels.
It was worth mentioning that, in the Warhammer universe, warships were classified by tonnage from largest to smallest into several tiers: battleships, cruisers, light cruisers, frigates, destroyers, and raiders. Yes, destroyers were smaller than frigates.
She had a beautiful name.
Spear of Destiny.
As a comparatively small vessel, she lacked the large hydroponic farms and livestock facilities of bigger ships, but she still had a compact crop garden and pens for animals.
And her minimized dimensions also granted her enough speed to race pirate raiders.
"Now then, all of you are about to officially set foot on Captain Harlock's deck. Before that, I need to lay out a few rules."
Solomon dropped his usual teasing manner and became unexpectedly serious.
"First, you need to understand this: traveling among the stars is extremely dangerous. If you encounter something strange, don't get curious. Run."
"Second, always remember that in this star-sea, miracles and desperate situations exist side by side."
At that point, his trademark grin returned.
"And the finest miracles are usually born from the deepest desperation."
The moment he finished speaking, a deep rumble ran through the hull of the transport.
A blinding light shone outside the viewing window, and a steady male voice came from the cockpit.
"Mr. Mordecai, we've arrived."
"Good. Thank you, Johnson."
Solomon called back loudly.
Confusion was written all over Gaia's face.
Mordecai?
How did that have even half a word to do with the name he had introduced himself with?
Seeing the dark lines slowly appearing across Gaia's face, Solomon coughed lightly.
"Johnson is a pilot I hired at great expense. Even if I had the transport, I couldn't have rescued you myself without a pilot."
"No, that's not what I'm asking."
Gaia's eyes narrowed.
"Your name is Mordecai?"
The question made Solomon awkwardly scratch the back of his head.
"Well... when I got my free captain's license, there were some minor irregularities. So I borrowed someone else's name a little."
That was enough for Gaia to understand.
He had previously claimed he landed out in the countryside of Klaurund just to save docking fees, but the real reason was that his papers were under a false name.
In other words, this was an illegal ship.
So this really was getting aboard a pirate ship.
And the truth was, while Solomon looked unreliable, in reality he was exactly that unreliable.
He was so fond of recruiting people through all sorts of odd methods because he was an illegal captain and could not recruit crew through proper channels.
Because of that, though his ship was small, he had never once managed to fill out a proper crew roster.
His subordinates were like the fingers of a Tau.
Too few.
That was also why he had risked his life to rescue Gaia.
The crew really was short on people.
Gaia was full of dissatisfaction, but there was nothing she could do. She could only follow Solomon aboard his stolen ship.
Standing on the bridge with a smile from the heart, he raised a hand toward the vast starfield ahead.
"Then hear your captain's order. Spear of Destiny, set sail!"
Feeling the thrilled trembling of the ship's machine spirit, a rather bad thought suddenly surfaced in Gaia's heart.
She would not somehow cause an accident halfway through the trip... right?
...
"Alright, boyz, listen up proper. This is a very Waaagh! story... but it ain't green."
Inside a battered aircraft, a large greenskin whose body was half replaced by strange machinery gestured wildly at the gathered boyz in front of him.
"'Cause the main character is a humie."
"A humie?"
The boyz all let out confused jeers.
"Shut it!"
The big greenskin tore off his prosthetic leg and smacked the loudest one with it, and immediately the other boyz quieted down.
"Now listen close. That weren't just any humie. That was da Big Lady."
"She could smack a proper Waaagh! Ork boss around like a grot-ball, and ordinary boyz got turned into mushroom chunks the second they met her!"
"And the scariest thing is... she killed the Warboss!"
"I seen it meself!"
The boyz erupted into shocked shouting.
In their minds, a Warboss was the biggest and most Waaagh! thing in the world.
And if that humie had killed the Warboss, didn't that mean she was something even bigger and more Waaagh!?
"Her skin's tougher than the metal plates a big Mek hammers together. Ordinary choppas and shootas can't even scratch her proper."
"I fink, even if she don't look big now, she's definitely gonna get bigger later."
"And even if she ain't green now, one day she's definitely gonna turn green."
"So remember this. We all gotta watch out for her. All the other greenskins gotta watch out for her too. Only a proper Great Warlord can really match arms with her."
"Remember what I said. Watch out for the Big Lady!"
(End of Chapter)
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