In orbit.
A dozen warships floated beside orac's massive frame.
Meanwhile, in the depths of the void far from the orbit, scattered warships continued to break out of the Warp from almost every direction of Alert Star.
However, most of the warships that emerged were only in groups of one or two, and almost all of them were covered in damage and thick smoke.
At this moment, beside orac, a Transport carrying points of light slowly flew past these warships.
Van Roth and the others sat in their seats with heavy, downcast faces; only Sith looked expressionlessly out the porthole at the reinforcements Guilliman had sent him.
A roar of ammunition detonation echoed from the distance, with massive flames, scattering wreckage, and corpses forcing the Transport to hastily pull away.
Looking at the frozen crew members filled with terror and despair, Sith silently withdrew his gaze. Amidst the increasingly somber atmosphere inside the cabin, he calmly glanced at the adjutant recording nearby:
"Cross off one lunar class."
The adjutant lowered his head, not daring to say much, and hurriedly crossed off a lunar class from the list.
Everyone else buried their heads even deeper; as excited as they had been an hour ago, they were just as dejected now.
Guilliman had indeed sent reinforcements, but looking at the fleet that arrived, Sith had no doubt these warships were in a fierce battle just moments ago before being forcibly reassigned to Alert Star.
To the point that as Sith looked over, he couldn't find a single undamaged ship among the warships allocated to him.
As for the detonation just now, it wasn't even the first one.
A large number of Transports and rescue ships flew out from the decks of orac, approaching the lunar class to salvage as many personnel, supplies, and promethium as possible.
Resources were scarce; Sith truly couldn't afford any waste right now.
Even if the entire lunar class was eventually stripped bare, its wreckage would be consumed by orac to further strengthen the hull.
"Let's go back."
After inspecting the fleet Guilliman had sent as reinforcements, inside the somber Transport, Sith finally spoke with a hint of weariness.
Bruno, the first adjutant, hurriedly turned and entered the cockpit. The Transport flickered with light, accelerating to gain altitude and circling around the top of orac to depart.
Passing the side deck, one could see many rescued crew members wailing as they lay on the floor, blood flowing from severed limbs and abdomens, staining large areas of the deck red.
"The arriving reinforcements aren't all pulled from the battlefield; many warships from nearby Ecclesiarchy Shrine Worlds and Adeptus Mechanicus Forge Worlds have also come to follow you, my Lord."
Seeing Sith's silence, Van Roth couldn't help but offer words of comfort. Sith silently glanced at the relatively intact ships outside the porthole.
However, looking at these ancient ships—some so old that several of their factory-installed light Macro Cannons were completely sealed off—Sith really couldn't treat them as the 'warships' Van Roth spoke of.
These ships from Shrine Worlds and Forge Worlds, funded by the believers themselves, were probably only slightly better than armed merchant vessels.
Even as Sith watched, some poverty-stricken believers—perhaps desperate to pay off loans for their nth-hand warships—actually risked their lives by running into the detonating ships to dismantle keels made of adamantine.
To the point that while Sith watched, his followers hadn't even reached the battlefield before dying in space due to air leaks from their aging aerospace equipment the moment they left their ships.
Then, both the bodies and the aging equipment were dragged back by the followers behind them, driven by the philosophy that 'even a mosquito's leg is meat.'
In Sith's inspection, the only ones that looked somewhat decent were a Rogue Trader fleet from the Faramor Dynasty, hired at a 50% discount using valuables from the entire Alert Star at slightly below cost.
Looking at the mere thirty-odd ships hired even after selling everything down to the adamantine doors, Sith didn't even have the desire to face the Tyranid fleet head-on.
As for the scattered Chaos Warbands that came to follow Sith, their ships weren't much better.
Even with their best efforts at maintenance, Chaos Warbands without logistics could only barely maintain two-thirds of their warships' original combat effectiveness.
Furthermore, they were all small ships like frigates and Destroyers; so far, there wasn't even a single Cruiser.
The only somewhat acceptable thing about these Warbands was that they provided long-awaited reinforcements for Sith's high-casualty Astartes.
The atmosphere in the cabin remained silent until the Transport landed back on the Spire of Hyberia. When the hatch opened, everyone looked at each other and then at Sith.
From outside came the overwhelming sound of recruits training, and the long-silent factories of Hyberia began to roar again.
But along with the sound came the bleak, cold wind from the heights of the Spire.
Without a word, Sith sat in his seat for a while in silence before finally standing up under the increasingly urgent call from Terra in his heart.
He walked out of the hatch calmly without saying a word. Van Roth and the others hurried to follow, and the veterans waiting at the Spire immediately stood at attention and saluted.
The officials who had been waiting for a long time made way, bowing respectfully around a projection.
Daviello below hurried forward:
"My Lord, the Regent is waiting for you."
Sith, whose eyes had been dull, looked up slightly and saw Guilliman's giant-like figure in a massive projection in the center of the Spire, wearing a golden laurel and surveying everything on Alert Star.
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