Warhammer 40K in a box

Chapter 501 Astartes' Field Medicine

The Empire needs to rebuild the Legions, so that the Astartes, as they were 10,000 years ago, can once again carry out large-scale frontal campaigns across vast fronts or in key star systems, becoming a pillar force capable of independently undertaking and winning victories in major theaters of war.

This requires restoring corps-level command structures, logistical support, and interoperability to assemble forces sufficient to match or overwhelm the current primary threats.

However, the valuable experience and tactical advantages accumulated during the Warband era should not be discarded.

For example, the elite combat capabilities developed under the Warband mode, which enable efficient decapitation strikes against high-value targets such as enemy command nodes, powerful alien individuals, demonic entities, or critical facilities, still have extremely high tactical value within the Legion framework.

This precision strike capability is a powerful complement to a legion-level frontal offensive.

For Hathor, she was never one to be complacent or stuck in her ways.

The legion warfare model of the Great Expedition era needs to be continued in order to meet the large-scale war needs that the Empire is currently facing.

But this doesn't mean she completely copied 30K's experience without making any adjustments.

Similarly, this does not mean that she would ignore or deny the success of the 40k era battle group mode in special operations and elite training.

The future Astartes force structure must be an integrated entity: possessing legion-level scale, strategic mobility, and the ability to engage in direct combat, while retaining and strengthening the tactical flexibility, independent combat skills, and elite forces developed in the battle group model to carry out highly difficult special missions, especially against enemy elite units.

This integration aims to create a composite military force capable of both grand strategic battles and deadly precision strikes to address the multidimensional threats facing the Empire in the future.

However, Hathor still ordered the Gabbro, which was on standby in orbit, to begin recovering the wounded. At the same time, he sent another veteran company that had been on standby to work with the Third and Fourth Companies to clean up and finish off the remaining Orks on the planet.

The entire tempering operation, in addition to clearing out this orc-infested planet, also involves clearing out another planet controlled by the Chaos Cult.

As for the operation targeting that planet, the main force consisted of the Ash Knights' other two veteran companies, with the new recruits playing a supporting role at most.
-
With the help of two chapter servants, Mikhail struggled to fit himself into the cold seat of the Thunderhawk transport plane.

Just as the hatch was about to close, through the still-open hatch, his gaze swept one last time over the smoke-filled, scorched surface of Planet Broken Tooth III.

On the scorched earth from which they had just fought their way out, several figures caught his eye—the warband's apothecary and his spiral monk apprentice.

The apothecary's power armor was not much different from that of the ordinary Ash Knight, except that the left shoulder armor was painted a striking blood red, while the right shoulder armor was engraved with a red spiral-shaped Hermes' Staff emblem.

At this moment, he was kneeling on one knee beside the body of an Ash Knight, which had been almost blasted into pieces by orc heavy weapons, seemingly praying for his fallen comrade.

The slight vibration that came from the magnetic lock engaging was like the lingering, intense pain within Mikhail's body.

The Thunderhawk began to ascend, the rusty ground rapidly receding into the distance, replaced by the deep, cold void.

His Thunderhawk wasn't the only one in the returning formation.

Accompanied by escort gunboats, several transport planes, like giant steel birds returning to their nests, traversed the orbital space littered with warship wreckage and burning debris.

The image of that last glance lingered in Mikhail's mind: the apothecary's movements were precise and efficient, yet carried an almost religious solemnity.

At the end of the adamantite probing arm extending from the power armor backpack, a buzzing, spinning medical chainsaw gleamed with a cold light.

He carefully cut open the warrior's tattered breastplate and torn superhuman tissue, his target clear and singular: the precious gland—the gene seed—encased within a reinforced biomembrane deep within the chest cavity of his fallen comrade.

A silent mourning seemed to fill the air. The apothecary murmured incantations, low and ancient hymns to emperors, soothing the souls of the departed.

Finally, he successfully retrieved the sacred relic that contained the bloodline of the warband and the essence of the deceased, and gently placed it into a purification container engraved with holy runes and kept at a constant temperature and pressure at his waist.

This seed will be purified and nurtured in the Apothecary's Sanctuary, and eventually implanted into new blood, allowing the power and will of the deceased to continue, becoming part of the chapter's immortal life.

After the retrieval was completed, the pharmacist solemnly covered the soldier's body with a shroud bearing the battle insignia.

He then stood up and glanced at the next place where he would need to perform his sacred duty.

Several silent warband servants followed closely behind, responsible for carrying the body and necessary tools.

This scene was deeply imprinted in Mikhail's mind.

The price of victory was so heavy; the recovery of every gene seed represented the fall of a brother.

He clenched his fists instinctively, and the damaged servo joints made a faint grinding sound.

Back in the massive hangar of the "Gabbro," filled with the strong smell of engine oil and promethium, they were greeted by a medical team that was already on high alert.

A solemn-looking medical nun in a plain white robe is leading several silent medical servants and chapter servants in classifying the wounded who have been brought back by the Thunderhawk transport plane.

Mikhail and other wounded soldiers were carefully carried off the Thunderhawk by medical operatives and servants and placed on anti-gravity suspension stretchers.

The grotesque, massive dent on his breastplate, along with the constantly flashing crimson alarm symbols from the internal sensors, led the medical nuns to classify him as "emergency treatment."

He was quickly transported to the battle group's medical area, located deep within the warship.

The air here is filled with a unique smell of disinfectant, preservative grease, and rusty blood.

The sophisticated medical servo skull, like a silent sentinel, hovers and shuttles at low altitudes, its slender robotic arms flashing cold scanning beams or gripping gleaming surgical instruments.

A massive Thinker screen was embedded in the wall, with cold blue data streams cascading down like a waterfall, monitoring the life force of each wounded person.

The medical nun in charge of Mikhail is ready.

Over her originally pristine white nun's robe, she wore a sterile surgical gown stained with her brother's blood, her solemnity tinged with a hint of sorrow.

Mikhail was strapped to a cold, metallic operating table.

At the nun's concise command, a medical machine-operated power cutter emitted a piercing hum and precisely peeled away his severely deformed breastplate, exposing the purplish-red, swollen chest cavity and broken, twisted ribs beneath.

The excruciating pain struck, but Mikhail simply gritted his teeth, silently enduring the pain.

The medical nun bent down and personally inserted several thick needles connected to complex life-sustaining tubing into his strong main blood vessels.

The pale golden nutrient solution, along with potent blood-clotting agents and regeneration catalysts, began to be injected into his superhuman body, initiating his treatment.

(End of this chapter)