51: Chapter 51 Return Flight

Locke did not stay in the Green Sector for even one more day.

The day after the War Chief was killed, the Expeditionary Force began its withdrawal. After losing their unified command core, the Orks in the Green Sector would fall into internal division—but that didn't mean they were no longer a threat. Before the return voyage, Locke did one thing: he made a copy of the Ultramarines' ancient marching route data slate and left it in the communication terminal of the Green Sector's orbital station. If any latecomers were to complete the task of clearing out the remaining Orks, this route would save them from many detours.

The return voyage was much more silent than the journey out. Of the four hundred people who set out with the Expeditionary Force, one-third were missing upon return. Not all were killed—some soldiers remained at the orbital station of the Abandoned Forge World to handle transit security, and some were injured in the battles of the Green Sector, lying in the simple medical bays of the transport ships. As for those who truly did not return—several names were crossed off Locke’s roster.

Locke barely spoke during the return voyage. He checked the condition of the wounded once a day and inspected the equipment inventory on the transport ship once a day. The rest of the time, he sat in a corner of the cargo hold, using a whetstone to repair the cracked wooden handle of his battle-axe. He didn't replace it with a new handle but instead bound the crack tightly with fine copper wire.

He checked the condition of the wounded once a day, inspected the equipment inventory on the transport ship once a day, and spent the rest of his time sitting in a corner of the cargo hold, using a whetstone to repair the cracked wooden handle of his battle-axe.

The raven reconnaissance drone returned to Blackstone Town ahead of the main force. When Marcus jumped down from the cockpit, he was already waiting on the runway. Marcus only said two sentences: "Locke is fine. Most of the Expeditionary Force is back."

Lin Mo nodded. He didn't ask for the specific numbers.

A few days later, when the scarred transport ship appeared in Hope Star's orbit, there were fewer people standing in the Blackstone Town square than on the day of departure—but there was a new, folded flag in the welcoming party. Yang Shitou led the reserve militia in formation on the square, and Alice stood at the entrance of the Medical Station with enough bandages and medicine ready. Lin Mo stood among them, watching the hatch open and seeing the survivors walk out one by one.

Locke was the last one to step down. Copper wire was wrapped around the handle of his battle-axe, and the grip was polished bright. When he saw Lin Mo, he didn't say "I'm back," but instead said something more in his style: "First item. Done."

[Uncertain.] Lin Mo didn't look back, [But moving forward is better than waiting to die.]

Four hundred people set out,

over three hundred returned.

He once read a sentence in a fragment of some Imperial database—[Humanity has expanded among the stars for ten thousand years, yet has never truly understood any single planet.] At the time, he didn't understand. Now, standing on this nameless planet, smelling the sulfur and rust in the air—he understood.

On the returning transport ship, one of the wounded was severely injured—his neck had been slashed open by an Ork weapon, and the bleeding wouldn't stop. One tube of the coagulant Alice had improved had already been used up, but the rate of bleeding was still faster than the rate of coagulation. The medical conditions on the ship were insufficient; if the bleeding wasn't controlled before reaching Blackstone Town, the man wouldn't survive until landing.

Locke crouched beside the wounded soldier and watched silently for a moment. Then he did something—he tore off the hem of his shirt, folded the fabric into a thick pad, and pressed it against the wound. He held it down with his hand. He pressed for several hours. By the time the ship landed, his hand was completely numb, and his palm was covered in dark red bloodstains. When he moved his hand away from the wound—the bleeding had stopped. Locke said nothing. He simply went to the tap to wash the blood off his hands. That wounded soldier survived the subsequent battles, but Locke never mentioned the incident again.

Inside the transport ship during the return voyage, Locke sat in a corner of the cargo hold with a whetstone on his lap. He wasn't sharpening a blade—he was thinking about the Imperial dog tag he had brought back from the Ork nest. He pulled the tag out of his pocket and looked at it against the light. He had memorized the serial number and the name, but he didn't include it in the official report. He needed to figure out what this dog tag meant first—an Imperial Guard soldier's dog tag from the Horus Heresy era appearing in an Ork nest in the Green Sector could have several explanations. The most unsettling one was—this wasn't the relic of a fallen soldier. It was a marker left by someone still alive. He flipped the dog tag over to look at the back; it was smooth, without any engravings. On the way back, he leaned against the cabin wall with his eyes closed, listening to the roar of the engines, the serial number on the tag repeatedly surfacing in his mind.

[Following the map, three days.]

Locke believed in one thing: there are no perfect plans on the battlefield, only perfect habits. Therefore, his way of training recruits wasn't to teach them how to execute tactics, but to make their bodies remember what to do even when they were too exhausted for their brains to function. Changing magazines, crawling forward, judging cover—these movements had to be practiced until they could be done without thinking. Because Chaos wouldn't wait for you to be ready before attacking. It would appear at the moment you were most tired, most lax, and most wanting to give up. What Locke had to ensure was—when that moment came, for everyone in Blackstone Town, their bodies would be faster than their minds.

— Lin Mo, Battle Damage Records on the night of the Expeditionary Force's return

However, the true threat was not ahead—it had been behind him all along, it just wasn't time to reveal itself yet.

After Locke's expedition, the nights in Blackstone Town became quieter than before. Without Locke's shouting and the clanging on the training grounds, the town felt like it was missing half its heartbeat. Every night, Lin Mo would sit in the Intelligence Center for an extra hour—not because there was extra work to do, but because he needed to confirm that everything was still functioning in the places he couldn't see.

Occasionally, he would walk to the window and glance at the light from the Medical Station in the distance. That light stayed on late every night—Alice, like him, was someone who didn't let herself stop. He didn't know if she was working or waiting for something, but the fact that the light was on was the only thing he didn't need to confirm in the middle of the night to be sure of.

Sometimes he would stand in front of the window for a few extra seconds. Not because there was anything to see—but because he needed a reason to get himself up from his chair.

On the third day after Locke's expedition, the first internal dispute occurred in Blackstone Town. Two new families argued over the location of their housing allocation—one wanted a spot close to the water source, while the other believed those who arrived first had priority. Yang Shitou was sweating profusely when he ran to find Lin Mo, repeating "They're about to start fighting." Lin Mo didn't step in immediately—he let Wang Defu go first. When Wang Defu arrived at the scene, he didn't judge who was right or wrong; he simply squatted down and drew two boxes in the mud, writing "draw lots" in one and "rotation" in the other. He said: "If you think it's unfair, draw lots. If you think it's inconvenient, rotate. Pick one." The two families looked at each other, silent for a few seconds, and then chose to draw lots. Wang Defu pulled two grass stalks from his pocket—one long and one short. The matter was resolved within five minutes.

On the fifth day after Locke's expedition, Blackstone Town received the first encrypted communication from the Expeditionary Force. The communication was brief, and the signal was intermittent—but in that late night, everyone in the Intelligence Center held their breath, listening to Marcus decipher the content word by word from the receiver.

"Arrived at the perimeter of the target area... Terrain more complex than expected... Expect to enter combat position in two days... Locke."

The night wind blew again. This gust was cooler than the last, carrying a scent mixed with metal and soil. He wrapped his coarse cloth coat—which had already started fraying—tighter around him. It was given to him by the villagers and was much warmer than the T-shirt he had worn when he crossed over.

Just like that. No "all is well," no "don't worry," none of the usual phrases found in communications. That was Locke's style: report only facts, express no emotion.

But Lin Mo noticed one thing—there was a very brief burst of static at the end of the communication, like something had brushed against the edge of the communication frequency. He had Marcus extract that segment of static separately and ran it through the analysis function of the mirror of the emperor.

The analysis results made him frown: that static wasn't natural interference. It was a coded signal—an extremely brief "monitoring" superimposed on Locke's communication frequency.

Someone was listening to Locke's communication.

It wasn't Chaos—Chaos's psychic monitoring wouldn't leave traces of a physical signal. This was more like... another faction that also possessed communication technology, secretly watching every move of Blackstone Town.

Lin Mo marked new points of question on the map. In this sector, just how many "neighbors" were there that they still didn't know about?

Night fell. The lights of Blackstone Town went out one by one, leaving only the torches on the watchtowers swaying in the wind. He stood by the window for a while, then returned to his desk to continue writing his plans.

[Floating clouds, a traveler's thoughts; the setting sun, an old friend's feelings.

A wave of the hand, and from here you depart; the lonely horse neighs as it leaves.]

— Li Bai, "Farewell to a Friend." Memory fragments sealed within the mirror of the emperor quietly surfaced in the darkness.

On the third day after Locke's Expeditionary Force vanished into the sea of stars, a new marker appeared on the hills north of Blackstone Town—a section of a black flagpole wedged into a rocky crevice, with no flag attached. An eight-pointed star was carved into the flagpole. It was new.