Imperial amphibious troop transport.
Li Feng, dragging his exhausted body, walked down the ship's corridor. He had spent almost an hour with the Adeptus Mechanicus before his weapon was "blessed."
And Li Feng had now been lost in the corridor for over two hours; this spaceship was so vast it was like a maze. Li Feng now just wanted to drag those Oil Men over, hammer their heads, and ask them:
"You have space for so many shrines and places to light candles, but you can't put up a few signposts in the corridor?"
Finally, Li Feng managed to catch a Navy Soldier who didn't look too busy, and with his guidance, arrived at the officer's lounge.
(Science Popularization Time:)
(The smallest Imperial combat frigate is approximately 1-2 kilometers long. For comparison, the largest warship in the world currently is the US Navy's Ford-class aircraft carrier, which is 337 meters (0.37 kilometers) long. The entire ship is about the size of a single macro cannon on an Imperial battleship...)
(And The Thirteenth of the Emperor, Roboute Guilliman's "glory of macragge," is 26 kilometers long.)
(Now, everyone should understand why Li Feng would get lost inside, right?)
Li Feng opened the door to a standard officer's single room. The room wasn't large, probably less than 10 square meters, with a bunk-like bed, a table and chairs fixed to the floor, a wardrobe... and a bathroom with a toilet and shower combined.
Li Feng tossed his backpack onto the table, then flopped onto the bed. The bed wasn't soft; it was very hard, likely made of some compressed material with a layer similar to soundproofing cotton on top. The pillow was filled with some fiber-like material, and the blanket on the bed was just a slightly thicker field blanket.
"Not bad! Better than my start when I first went to school in the US." When Li Feng first arrived in the US, his apartment had no furniture, and he slept in a sleeping bag for a full half-month. (Standard international student start)
Li Feng surveyed the room's layout and noticed that the bed even had seatbelts. Was this the life of a crew member? Soon, the green display screen in the room lit up.
"We will depart the Dislathia system in 5 Terra standard hours. The mess hall is now open; crew members, please dine in an orderly fashion."
Li Feng's stomach had been hungry for a long time; it was time to eat something... But, thinking about 40K's diet... Alas, being full is better than anything... Ship Mess Hall.
Navy warships have two mess halls: a senior mess hall and a junior mess hall. The captain, senior Navy officers, and senior Army officers could dine in the senior mess hall, where the food was the best.
The junior mess hall was for Soldiers and junior officers, and naturally, the food wouldn't be as good. Li Feng didn't find Commissar Cain or Colonel Lao Mo among the crowd; presumably, they were dining in the senior mess hall.
Soon, Li Feng discovered there were two serving lines: one for officers and one for Soldiers. Li Feng picked up a plastic tray and a spork and walked to the officer's serving line, joining the long queue.
While waiting in line, Li Feng observed various scenes in the kitchen behind the mess hall's glass railing. Li Feng even saw a chef wrestling with an ant-beef steak. The ant-beef steak actually bounced off the cutting board and slapped the chef; Li Feng truly hadn't misseen it.
However, overall, the hygiene situation here, according to the standards of his previous world, would probably be a "frown face." Soon it was his turn at the serving window. Li Feng handed in his tray, and the mess hall aunt quickly ladled a pile of yellow corn mush, a large spoonful of ant-beef stew, and a few slices of bread onto Li Feng's plate.
Li Feng looked at the food on his plate with a complicated expression, but looking at the Soldier's serving line, there was pink corpse starch mush and several black gelatinous blocks resembling "donkey-hide gelatin."
As someone who had seen "Snowpiercer," Li Feng had pretty much guessed what those black blocks were... (cockroach cakes).
Li Feng now saw Yugen, not for any other reason, but because from Yugen's position, the people around him seemed to be separated by a barrier, sitting far away from him.
Li Feng also carried his tray and sat opposite Yugen, who was slightly surprised that Li Feng would dine with him. Yugen said nothing, just silently ate the black blocks.
And Li Feng also used his spork to pick up a piece of ant-beef and put it in his mouth to taste... Mmm, how to put it, the meat was a bit tough, lacked flavor, and had a texture similar to overcooked turkey. At least, this ant-beef didn't fight Li Feng in his mouth.
Li Feng discovered there were even mushrooms in the stew... took a bite... Mmm, some kind of fungus.
Then Li Feng took a sip of the corn mush. Hmm! It still tasted like corn mush, but with a cheap citrus flavor, probably for vitamin supplementation. Then Li Feng picked up the bread... Were those crumbs that just fell off sawdust?
"Yugen, would you like some wood bread... bah, bread?"
Yugen didn't speak, but Li Feng had already placed the slices of bread on Yugen's tray. This action from Li Feng caused gasps from the surrounding Soldiers!
Not for any other reason, but because many of these common Soldiers... had never eaten, not even sawdust-mixed bread, in their entire lives.
"second lieutenant, I really don't need it, I really don't."
Yugen said, trying to put the bread back on Li Feng's tray, but Li Feng refused. He was worried that if he ate that bread, he would suffer terribly on the toilet... Meanwhile, in the senior mess hall,
Cain and Colonel Lao Mo were eating a medium-rare grox steak, accompanied by borscht and a baguette. Even in the senior mess hall, Cain still thought the baguette was hard enough to sharpen a knife.
At this moment, a comms officer entered the senior mess hall, found Cain and Lao Mo, and handed them a note. Lao Mo put down his knife and fork, picked up the note, and began to read it, while Cain opposite him was grinding his teeth on the baguette.
"Commissar, take a look."
At this moment, Cain suddenly yanked the baguette, trying to separate his teeth from the bread. Then he took the note, read the information on it, and Cain's expression changed.
"It seems our second lieutenant might be away from home for a while longer."
The note stated that due to Warp communication interference, the fleet was having difficulty communicating with Terra. However, Cain didn't care; the next mission was to follow the fleet to a planet to quell a rebellion, and he heard they would be cooperating with Space Marines.
Lao Mo took a sip of soup and said, "Slaukenberg, I hear the situation there is very complex."
But Cain immediately quipped, "I hear the temperature there is very low; you guys should like it."
...A few hours later, as the red lights in the cabin came on, the huge tempered glass of the portholes was repeatedly isolated by metal protection plates, emitting loud crashing sounds.
The captain's voice sounded from the speakers in every room.
"We are about to follow the fleet into a Warp jump. All crew members, please remain in your rooms and do not leave your cabins. Navy Military Police will patrol the corridors. Any unauthorized departure from cabins during the Warp jump will be subject to the most severe punishment according to Navy regulations."
Li Feng, lying on the bed, watched as the porthole outside his room was covered by metal protection. Li Feng knew this was to prevent crew members from seeing those "unclean" things in the Warp through the windows during Warp travel.
"10, 9, 8... 3, 2, 1..."
As the entire spaceship emitted a loud bang, Li Feng felt a slight push, as if indicating that the Warp journey had begun.
Li Feng lay back down on his bed, the hard field blanket covering him. He shaped the pillow to perfectly fit his neck, then closed his eyes... Meanwhile, on the other side... The entire Navy bridge was in chaos at this moment! The Warp travel of the entire Navy fleet had encountered serious problems! After the Navigator confirmed the beacon and the Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus activated the Warp engine,
The Warp opening did open, and they were indeed undertaking Warp travel, but... but the latter half of their spaceship was still in the real universe!
It was similar to the front half of the spaceship being in the Warp and the back half in the real universe, but still undergoing Warp travel. Everything in the back half of the real universe receded rapidly, as if at the speed of light.
As the Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus conducted their research, they made an incredible discovery.
For unknown reasons, the entire fleet's journey was in a superposition of "reality" and the "Warp." At the same time, because of this superposition, the spacecraft's reference coordinates and destination coordinates would not change, which made the Warp travel, which was originally like a "lottery," become "certain." That is to say, this Warp travel would become very accurate, and even the time error caused by teleportation was minimized to: 0.00000001%.
At the same time, this superposition also created a "quantum bubble" around each ship in the entire fleet. This "quantum bubble" could isolate the effects of Warp travel, preventing the Warp's influence from causing any mental harm to the crew inside the ship.
Immediately, cheers erupted from the bridges of every spaceship... "This must be the Emperor's great power! Praise the Emperor!"
"omnissiah above!"
...And within a certain spaceship, a female Tech-Priest who hadn't undergone too many modifications came into a large room and handed a data-slate to a heavily modified Archmagos within the room.
"Is this the theory they've put forward?"
Hearing the Archmagos's words, the junior Tech-Priest immediately lowered her head: "omnissiah above, this must be the power of the omnissiah."
The Archmagos merely tossed the data-slate aside, then continued to busy himself in front of a pile of data computers, and said faintly:
"Many Tech-Priests nowadays have lost the true meaning of exploration... I believe the cause of all this must be on a certain spaceship..."
The female Tech-Priest asked, "Do we need to conduct a thorough investigation, Great Sage Kaor?"
Belisarius Cawl, this Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus who had lived for ten millennia, dragged his massive body around, then looked at the female Tech-Priest behind him:
"Do it secretly; don't let too many people know..."