Assault torpedoes had already existed in the war ten thousand years ago. Oest still remembered the good old days when he rode assault torpedoes to breach the warships of those yellow-skinned idiots.
Every pull of the trigger sent a bullet inscribed with insults into their foreheads and helmet lenses. Watching those yellow-skinned idiots fall one after another filled his heart with the joy of release.
But now... what he had to face was no longer a yellow-skinned idiot's warship, but a vessel that seemed to have survived from the Golden Age, unable to unleash its full firepower and caught in the interference of an electronic daemon.
"We can take this ship," a soldier suggested to Oest.
Oest knew the boy. The gene-seed used to clone him had been mixed with some World Eaters and Space Wolves stock, giving him a somewhat restless temperament.
"Quiet! I have my own plans!"
Oest coldly told him to shut up. He had no desire to waste words on these rookies whose total combat experience was shorter than his training period. He did not care whether they lived or died. All he cared about was whether he could leave a mark in his father's heart, even if it lasted only a second.
"We can seize this ship! Then strike back at the Imperium! We will plant our order and our forges across every world!"
The soldiers, with barely more than a hundred years of combat experience, clamored noisily, making Oest even more impatient and irritable.
"Enough! I said shut up! I am your commander!" Oest drew his gun at the soldier shouting the loudest and fired two shots into his chest.
The bolter rounds failed to penetrate the armor, leaving only two dangerously deep craters, but that was enough to cow the soldiers into silence.