The order was quickly relayed, and the entire Tithe Fleet immediately sprang into action.
The warships anchored in the synchronous orbit adjusted their attitudes, and the Macro-cannon turrets on their bows slowly rotated, aiming at the surface of Brevis.
The carrier-based aircraft slid out of the hangar and formed a perimeter alert formation around the ship.
Urgent alarms echoed through the corridors of every warship, and red warning lights flashed one after another.
Dominic stood back at the porthole, gazing at the planet below, faintly visible through the clouds, feeling as if a the Rock was pressing on his chest.
He still clung to a last sliver of hope.
Perhaps... perhaps things aren't as he thinks.
Perhaps Kerry was simply misled by his subordinates and made a momentary lapse in judgment.
He waited, waiting for the young man to come up and give him a plausible explanation.
But instead of receiving a response from Lynn, he was met with another disaster.
"Alarm!!!"
The observer's report suddenly broke the solemn atmosphere on the bridge.
"Strong Warp fluctuations detected in the Eastern Dock Zone, energy level... the energy level is continuously expanding!"
"What?" Dominic turned around abruptly and strode to the observation platform.
On the main screen, in the airspace where the eastern fleet was anchored, the Warp began to become unstable.
The Astropath simultaneously issued a warning, sensing an unprecedented sense of fear and corruption.
A massive rift, spewing green miasma and flies, was torn open in the Realspace.
Immediately afterwards, more than a dozen strangely shaped warships attempted to emerge from the crack.
The warships were no longer recognizable as the original Imperium vessels, their hulls covered with thick, dark green mold spores.
The ship's surface was swollen with abscess-like growths of flesh, and thick, vascular-like tissue wrapped around the gun barrels and bridge, pulsating slowly with a breathing rhythm.
The once sturdy bow had become bloated and rotten, with viscous yellowish-green liquid seeping from the portholes, and even the propeller nozzles were covered with jagged, tooth-like growths.
What spewed out was not a stream of plasma flames, but a thick gray fog carrying the scent of plague.
The moment they came into contact with real space, the pustules and cysts on their hulls began to contract and compress.
It then erupted violently, hurling corrosive debris and filth into space, creating a filthy, polluted area.
" Nurgle Fleet..."
Dominic's pupils trembled slightly with shock.
He had never faced the Lord of Pestilence's fleet directly, but he had read about it in the Imperial Navy's textbooks and in the battle reports from fortress worlds around the world.
The image of this rotten, bloated ship, reeking of endless filth, was already etched into the minds of every officer.
Grandfather's fleet.
The plague in the Lower City did not appear out of thin air.
Their origin must be this Chaos Fleet emerging from the depths of the Warp.
"Immediately contact the fleet in the eastern anchorage area!" Dominic ordered sternly.
"Get them to their battle positions immediately and isolate the infected ships!"
"Yes!" The communications officer immediately began operating the system, but his face quickly turned pale.
"Major General, we can't reach you!"
"Most of the ships have lost response! Only, only the outermost frigate still has a signal!"
"Take it!"
Intermittent static noises immediately came through the communication channel, mixed with the captain's terrified screams.
"Major General, Major General! We didn't make contact with them, we didn't make contact at all!" The captain's voice was filled with despair.
"Something was wrong with the ship even before they appeared!"
"The rust starts at the engine core, spreads rapidly, and then flesh grows underneath the rust..."
"Various kinds of intestines, tumors, and things that look like eyes!"
"The system went completely awry too; the gun barrel was moving by itself, the hatch was closing by itself..."
"The crew members started getting fevers and developing pustules on their skin; they're not human anymore!"
"The cruiser is completely out of control! It... it's come back to life! It's trying to attack you!"
The captain's roar reached its peak, then suddenly turned into a shrill scream, accompanied by a viscous writhing sound and a strange gurgling noise.
The communication abruptly stopped, leaving only the crackling static of the electrical circuit.
The bridge was deathly silent.
Everyone was stunned by this bizarre scene.
The contact certainly didn't happen recently; rather, the plague was brought to those ships through some means.
But the ability to infect machines with this disease was beyond all their understanding of plagues.
"Command!" Dominic was the first to regain his senses, his voice resolute and unwavering.
"Pass on my order: all warships approaching the eastern infected zone, immediately concentrate fire!"
"Destroy all infected friendly ships. We absolutely cannot allow the plague to spread!"
The order was given, but the nearby warships hesitated.
Those are friendly forces.
One second they were side by side, the next they were to be destroyed by their own hands?
The captains' hesitation lasted only a few seconds.
But those few seconds of hesitation were enough.
On the screen, the infected ships had turned their bows around.
Inside the bloated, rotting cannon barrel, there was no roar of Macro-cannon, only thick, grayish-green pus being sprayed out at high speed.
Like the most disgusting phlegm being spat out, it was sprayed towards the nearest healthy fleet.
Smack!
The first clump of plague slime slammed into the Void Shield of a frigate, creating a blue ripple.
The shield value didn't decrease much.
However, it is foreseeable that if these disgusting slime projectiles hit the ship's hull...
A single shot is enough to infect and paralyze the entire ship.
"Major Admiral! The Macro-cannon array is fully charged. All nearby ships requesting firing orders!"
Just then, the voice of the officer in charge of liaison between the ships broke the silence on the bridge.
Dominic took a deep breath, suppressing the churning discomfort in his chest, and was about to order the entire left flank to assemble and prioritize destroying all infected friendly ships.
Suddenly, the communications station's secret channel sprang to life, its flashing red light as rapid as a critically ill heartbeat.
"Major General, it's Colonel Vulkan from the ' Spear of Flame,' a top-secret contact. He says he has an urgent military report." The communications officer looked up, a hint of surprise on his face.
He said it concerned the Plague Fleet's tactics and he had to tell you directly.
Dominic frowned slightly, and the corresponding file flashed through his mind instantly.
Vulkan Hawke, captain of the Mars-class Battlecruiser Spear of Flame, with the rank of colonel. A survivor of the Battle of Anvaheim.
That was a catastrophic pursuit battle decades ago.
Warships from the Segmentum Obscurus pursued an outnumbered Nurgle Plague Fleet in the Quidus Asteroid Belt.
But before the last plague ship disintegrated, it successfully delivered the Death Guard squad known as the " Rotten Choir " to the vicinity of the Navy.
They cut off all of the navy's retreat routes, besieging the Imperium army in the polar fortress of Anvaheim.
The trapped Imperial Army held out for three months amidst the harsh winter and plague. Ultimately, in a three-year war of attrition, the Imperial Army was almost completely annihilated.
Less than one in a million people survived, and most of them were left with lifelong, incurable illnesses.
Vulkan was one of them; his lungs were permanently eroded by the plague, and most of his respiratory system was replaced by mechanical parts.
It relies on a life support system to maintain its breathing most of the time and stays in a temperature-controlled maintenance chamber year-round, rarely appearing in public.
Dominic remembered this man; he was extremely calm and collected, and his actions were meticulous. He would never take the initiative to bypass his superiors and use a secret line to call someone unless it was a truly critical moment.
"Bring him in," Dominic said in a deep voice.