52: Chapter 52 Supply Lines

The day after Locke returned, Old Tom's Arsenal began rushing the second task.

Guilliman's requirements were very specific: a batch of logistics supplies no lower than the imperial guard logistics standard, including ammunition, spare parts, medical kits, and compressed rations. All materials had to be self-produced, with no external purchasing allowed. After reading the specification sheet, Old Tom's first reaction was to flip the paper over to check the back, putting it down only after confirming there were no more items.

A faint warmth emanated from the weapon in his hand—the mirror of the emperor automatically completed its charging feedback: energy reserves ready, capable of supporting continuous fire for approximately 45 seconds. That was enough.

He put it down only after confirming there were no more items. Then he said, "It can be done—but half of the specifications need to be adjusted."

"It can be done," he said. "But half of the specifications need to be adjusted."

The imperial guard logistics standard was a refined system of specifications established during times of peace. For an Arsenal starting from scrap metal and ore on a fringe planet like Hope Star, some standards were unrealistically high. Old Tom's solution wasn't to lower his standards, but to modify the production process—he spent several days debugging, raising the forging precision of the Steam Hammers to a new level, at the cost of a drop in the hammers' daily output.

He didn't rush him. Looking out from the window of the Intelligence Center, he could see the black smoke from the Arsenal's chimneys was thicker than before. That was Old Tom using a slower speed to forge more precise things.

Looking out from the window of the Intelligence Center, he could see the black smoke from the Arsenal's chimneys was thicker than before. That was Old Tom using a slower speed to forge more precise things.

During this time, Alice completed the compilation of the medical supplies list. Under the medical conditions of Blackstone Town, she used biological material samples found in the underground shelter to improve the formula for an Implantable Coagulant—she had scraped some residual components from the base of the emperors gene repair fluid container for analysis. She discovered that some of these components, when diluted in trace amounts, could be used to promote wound healing, with effects far exceeding standard Imperial military coagulants.

She didn't tell Lin Mo where the raw materials for that tube of coagulant came from. However, she placed a tiny, pale gold label on the finished packaging.

Under the moonlight, Lin Mo examined two piles of supplies: a batch of ammunition boxes and qualified parts forged by Old Tom with millimeter precision, and a batch of coagulants labeled with pale gold by Alice. He opened his communication terminal and began drafting the logistics delivery report to be submitted to Guilliman.

Alice neatly stacked the last batch of labeled medical crates, standing at the warehouse door and looking at her hands by the light of the setting sun—the cool touch of that coagulant tube still lingered on her fingertips. She closed the warehouse door. The lock clicked shut, like a countdown signal marking the end of this long day.

A tube of coagulant improved by extracting trace components from the gene original liquid,

and a Steam Hammer with reduced speed but increased precision—

During the production line debugging for the logistics order, Old Tom encountered a problem he had never faced before—the precision was sufficient, but the speed was not. The tolerance range required by the imperial guard logistics standard was a level higher than what the Blackstone Town Arsenal's existing equipment could stably output. Old Tom spent three days testing repeatedly, finally finding a solution: he lowered the stamping speed of the Steam Hammer by one notch, allowing enough time for the metal to deform uniformly during each strike. The price was a drop in yield.

Lin Mo only later learned that this planet had a designation on the Imperial star charts, but no one remembered its name. In the warhammer 40k universe, there are far more unnamed planets than named ones—they are just a string of numbers on a star chart, gathering dust in archives, waiting for some battle destined to go unrecorded to wipe the numbers away.

He laid out the pros and cons of this plan before Lin Mo, waiting for him to decide. Lin Mo asked only one question: "Can we deliver?" Old Tom said they could. Lin Mo said then they would follow his plan. Old Tom showed no emotion—but as he turned to leave, even his fatigue seemed to lighten. He had received the best kind of authorization: being trusted to execute according to his own standards.

The final samples of the logistics order were sealed in shockproof crates, ready to be sent to the Ultramarines' liaison station by raven reconnaissance drone. Lin Mo opened the crates for one last check before sealing them, confirming every item met the imperial guard logistics standard. Once verified, he closed the lids, locked them, and signed the transport manifest. While signing, he did one thing—he wrote an extra serial number next to his signature. It wasn't a standard Imperial Logistics Department number, but an internal tracking code he had devised himself. If anything went wrong with this batch, he could use this code to trace it back to the specific batch of materials, the specific machine, and the specific worker. Marcus said nothing when he took the manifest and saw the number, but he understood Lin Mo's meaning—for everything from Blackstone Town, someone was responsible.

Locke believed in one thing: on the battlefield, there are no perfect plans, 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 actions had to be practiced until they could be done without thinking. Because Chaos would not wait for you to be ready before attacking. They would appear at the moment you were most tired, most lax, and most wanting to give up. What Locke had to ensure was that when that moment arrived, everyone in Blackstone Town would have bodies faster than their minds.

The lights of the Medical Station were always the last to go out in Blackstone Town. Lin Mo would sometimes pass by late at night and see the silhouette working with a lowered head reflected on the oil-paper windows. He never went inside to disturb her—but he would slow his pace, confirm the light was still on, and then continue back to the Intelligence Center. He didn't know if Alice noticed those slowing footsteps outside the window. But he knew that if that light ever went out, he would stand before the window for a long time.

—Memo from Old Tom's Logistics Production Log

Marcus was responsible for intelligence gathering in Blackstone Town during the expedition. Every day, he would have the Raven fly a reconnaissance route—not to search for enemies, but to confirm the location and status of every landmark around Blackstone Town. He wrote the time of capture and coordinates on the back of every reconnaissance photo before filing them. These photos might have no use at this stage—but if the forces of Chaos ever altered the terrain, they would have a baseline for comparison.

While reviewing these photos, Lin Mo noticed a detail—in one photo toward the south pole of Hope Star, there was an area where the vegetation density was significantly lower than the surroundings. It wasn't a natural thinning—it was as if nutrients had been sucked out from underground by something. He pulled that photo out and placed it in a separate folder, marking the date and coordinates. Another clue needing verification. On this planet, there were more unsolved mysteries than known dangers.

While organizing the reconnaissance photos, Marcus discovered an overlooked detail—in that area of sparse vegetation near Hope Star's south pole, the crowns of several trees exhibited an abnormal symmetry. Naturally growing trees wouldn't be that symmetrical—unless they weren't naturally grown. He pulled these photos out separately, labeled them "Suspected Artificial Planting," and handed them to Lin Mo. Lin Mo looked at the photos for a while and asked a question: "Has a soil composition analysis of that area been done?" Marcus shook his head. "Have Yang Shitou go collect a sample tomorrow," Lin Mo said. Another thread dangled from this web.

Compared to the issue with the "neighbors," the more urgent problem was food. Although the first harvest of STC Crops had been stored, the inventory was still only enough to support sixty percent of Blackstone Town's current population. The remaining forty percent gap had to be made up by expanding the planting area.

But expanding the planting area required more manpower. Currently, among the adult labor force in Blackstone Town, about forty percent were in the military, thirty percent in industrial and agricultural production, and another thirty percent in infrastructure and logistics. Squeezing out another group from these people to reclaim wasteland meant that work in other fields would be affected.

Lin Mo stared at the labor distribution chart in the Intelligence Center late into the night, finally making a decision: to temporarily reassign twenty percent of the military force to participate in wasteland reclamation for two months. Military personnel had higher physical strength and organization than ordinary townsfolk; using them to reclaim land would be more efficient.

This decision sparked some dissatisfaction within the military the next day. It wasn't because the soldiers didn't want to farm—it was because they felt they were "disengaging from combat status" and worried that if Chaos attacked, they wouldn't be able to react in time.

With Locke away, Lin Mo had to handle this himself. He called the dissatisfied soldier representatives to the Intelligence Center and then did something he rarely did: he presented a set of data.

"What you're worried about is reaction time, right?" he asked. The soldiers nodded.

"Then set the reclamation area no more than a thirty-minute journey from the town center. If there's an enemy threat, you can complete assembly within twenty-five minutes."

Data, logic, solutions—this was how he had dealt with development teams back on Earth. Here, it was still effective. The soldier representatives looked at each other for a few seconds and then nodded.

["The sun shines bright on every door, replacing old charms with the new."]

—Wang Anshi, "New Year's Day." Memory fragments sealed within the mirror of the emperor emerged quietly in the darkness.

Old Tom suffered from insomnia that night. Not because he was too tired—but because he suddenly realized something: among the data from that STC Core, there was a set of codes he couldn't read. It wasn't encryption, but another language entirely. He copied that set of codes down and locked them in his iron chest.