Time passed quickly. The boarding battles between the Defense Force and the Space Marines drew to a close, and the Imperium fleet had been almost entirely wiped out.
"Commander Gray, I've finished clearing out all the Astartes Space Marines on my side," Mo Tuo reported to Gray over the communications channel after the battle ended.
"Excellent work." Hearing Mo Tuo's report, Gray could not help praising him.
"Do you have any prisoners who can sail the battle barges back into the system, or should I arrange for Navy sailors to come and operate the captured Imperium warships?"
"There are roughly a thousand sailors left aboard each warship on my side. They can slowly sail the ships back into the system, so there's no need to send Navy sailors over."
Mo Tuo checked the information Second Company had hurriedly reported. He found that there were still some sailors among the prisoners on each ship, enough to sail the Astartes Chapter's battle barges back into the system, so he declined Gray's offer to send Navy sailors.
The Astartes Chapter's battle barges housed not only an Astartes Chapter, but also large numbers of shipboard sailors, maintenance personnel, reserve Astartes Space Marines, auxilia whose augmentation surgeries had failed, and all kinds of Servitors.
Thus, when the Star Space Marines attacked, many of those fighting on the front lines were killed, while the ordinary humans responsible for the Astartes Space Marines' logistics and administration survived by surrendering.
It could not be said that these people were cowardly. When faced with an opponent they could not resist, as long as that opponent was neither Chaos nor xenos, surrender was simply the wiser choice.
If it had been Chaos or xenos, these logistics personnel would have fought to the death as well. Who knew what kind of