Good Friends

Sand, damn sand, I never want to see sand again for the rest of my life.

The massive Iron Blood sat motionless. As a Gloriana Class warship personally overseen and modified by Perturabo during the Great Crusade, it possessed an extremely high level of automation, much like the Blacklight, requiring very few crew members. The only difference lay in the Machine Spirit.

Perturabo was immensely grateful for this feature of the Iron Blood. Had it been like the flagships of his other brothers, they would never have lasted until now; without supplies, such a large population would have long since starved to death in this endless sea of red sand.

Ever since they were captured by the Kobold, the Iron Warriors under Perturabo's command had never once stepped outside, imprisoned for a full ten thousand years.

If the Kobold had captured them to corrupt the Iron Warriors, that would have been one thing—at least there would be new faces to see—but Perturabo could not fathom why, for ten thousand years, that Kobold had never appeared even once.

Thanks to the pocket dimensions Hogg had installed in every brother-flagship, Perturabo would fill the cargo holds before every departure to ensure sufficient supplies for the Great Crusade. This was the only reason they had been able to hold out for so long.

During the first 2,000 years, this contingent of Iron Warriors maintained their basic organization, with only non-combatants entering the Stasis Field to sleep, fearing that any lapse in vigilance would lead to a surprise attack by demons.

The trapped Iron Warriors did not remain idle; they dispatched numerous squads to explore this red-sand world, hoping to find an escape route and scavenge for supplies.

However, their reconnaissance revealed that this world, scorched eternally by a fierce sun, held no life