40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 196: Price

By the next day, the fleet was ready to depart, all ships fueled and armed.

A leadership conference with all the Captains and their XOs had just finished, where I instructed them what orders to obey and how.

The Navy guys were possibly used to being subordinate to Adeptus Terra, seeing as this was the Sol System. Primarchs, Astartes, Inquisitors and various High Lords would often grab whatever fleet was available for a task or another, though I doubted any of the previous Crusade commanders had my ideas on how to conduct space warfare.

Even their best Fleetmaster, Lady Cassandra was mildly qualified in my eyes, compared to the type of training and practice I had my Captains go through. Not her fault, as neural indoctrination chairs were not available to the Imperial Navy, so she had to struggle reading history or technical data page by page, from the often censured scrolls and books of the Schola Progenium or in the Admiralty spires.

I gestured her to stay seated and took out a Null Wand like a Marshal's baton. "You will carry this device at all times, my lady. Have it surgically implanted next to your femur, if there's any chance you might not be able to wear it." I demanded in a flat voice.

The woman took the wand and examined it for a few seconds. "I will do so, my lord. But why?" she asked with a frown.

"We're going to Cadia. The mote in the eye of terror, and a place that probably annoys the Chaos quite a bit. Your fleet's real task will be to harass any enemies we encounter, without losing your ships. This stratagem is called a fleet-in-being, and is at least 40 thousand years old. But that only proves it is still effective now, as it was to our ancestors." I said with a slightly kinder voice. I happened to like smart women.

Cassandra frowned again, and tapped her temple with the Null Wand. "I understand that. My ships do not have very effective weapons, but they can maneuver very well, even in places where Warp drives could not. But what is the purpose of this?" she asked holding the wand up.

I thought for a second, then shrugged. "The device is a smaller Null Rod, which blocks psykers and demons from affecting you with spells. Can't read your mind, or your future or influence you through the Warp. It even keeps most elemental spells at bay, to a point."

"So...nothing else? I suspect there is more to this." she muttered a bit suspicious.

"Yes, but you're not cleared to know. In fact, even I don't know exactly what the situation will become, except possible Eldar involvement. However, with the alliance getting ratified right now, I do not expect hostilities with anyone except Chaos forces. Everyone in the galaxy hates Chaos, so we'll probably have some strange allies for a while." I concluded and stood up.

"There is more to this..." Cassandra grumbled a little as she walked away.

As the armored door of the conference room closed, I turned around to find Vaedrax removing his helmet and nod towards me. "So the Fleetmaster is my bait?"

"Only if Ahriman comes. Otherwise, is a standard protection detail and you're cleared to engage or not, at your discretion." I explained in a casual voice.

The Culexus Assassin grinned back at me. "You're a strange one, Lord Lancefire."

I agreed completely with his sentiment. "How was training with the Lamenters?" I asked instead.

"Well, they are somewhat slower than regular Astartes, but much better armored and armed. Quite excellent quality equipment too. Still, avoid sending them in melee fights, especially against Chaos marines." the Assassin answered with a careless shrug.

As expected from someone trained to assassinate difficult targets such as Ork Bosses and Chaos Lords, Vaedrax wasn't impressed with the skills of my Blank sons. He was obviously right, as I've met a few blademasters myself.

My sons also did not have millennia of combat experience, nor were they decimated in ruthless training to select only the fastest.

"And the Silent Sisters?" I wondered with a smile.

Vaedrax just shook his head. "There are a few who might survive in close quarters, but...no. Without Astartes or Assassinorum-grade enhancements, they should not be on the frontlines. I would suggest sniper rifles for all of them. A single World Eater could plow though twenty of them with ease, if he gets close."

"Well, these women were meant to hunt rogue psykers and demons, not traitor marines. I fought a Chaos Sorcerer on Estaban too, and it wasn't too difficult, even without enhancements. Sister Ordela killed two Greater Demons at Fenris, took her like five seconds." I mused in remembrance.

"And then, there is the Demonifuge...she killed one of ours, a few decades ago. Why is she on your ship?" the Culexus asked in a colder voice.

"Why not? The Emperor gave her the powers. Is she at fault the Inquisition wanted her dead, or for fighting back?" I wondered with a sad grimace.

"... That's not what I know. She was empowered by a demonic ritual." he argued back.

"By the victims of demonic ritual, you mean. The 700 Sisters of the Screaming Cage poured their faith and souls into her, to obtain vengeance on that demon. And she has never stopped destroying demons since. Now, in my own line of work I've met many Inquisitors. Some I've befriended, or even loved. Others...I executed them and had their Rosettes sent back to Terra. That is the problem with those people who are not Blanks. Eventually the Chaos can get them, Primarchs or Inquisitors alike. Not that I blame Chaos for everything. Stupidity, greed and pride can get everyone, even Blanks." I answered in a softer tone.

"That..." he started to say and remained frozen in a stasis field.

I turned around to find the Emperor himself, holding a tesseract in his hand. "I saw you liked my Psi-Titan."

"It was quite expensive, to be fair. Pretty fragile too." I muttered in a disgruntled tone. I worked hard for all the goodies in those tesseracts, plus the crystals themselves.

He just waved a hand, producing some samples of xeno weapons, and my 'secret' dataslate with all the inventions, even some too advanced to release just yet.

"Perhaps it is so. But it would take me too long to produce such weaponry from nothing. And the Blanks problem...I've considered it for the past day. Vaedrax here, while a decent warrior and loyal to the bone, he would certainly die if implanted with a gene-seed. The women are not compatible anyway, due to extra chromosomes. Only you, and your miraculous bloodline can sustain a gene-seed implant." the Emperor admitted in a slightly annoyed voice.

I just nodded. This wasn't exactly news to me, as I had conducted my own experiments back at Illevar.

"So, what now?" I asked after a minute of awkward silence.

"I enhanced your body and mind, without going too transhuman with it. Otherwise, you're free to conduct yourself as before, or any other way you please. Go forth and multiply!" The Emperor proclaimed while handing me back the Null Box.

I opened the box to see a new Warrant of Trade, signed by the Emperor himself. The paper itself was glowing faintly, so to a psyker this would likely appear as a raging bonfire of Warp energy.

I guess I did pay for it, with all the loot I produced for the Imperium.

The Rosette had a snarling lion inscribed on top of the metal cog. Blaring engrams swiftly informed me I was now an Agent of the Throne, Ordo Sinister - Chamber Occendentalis - Perceptor secondary. Probably the necessary promotion to operate the Psi-Titan. Plus requisition things, people and whatever else I needed from every loyal Imperium world. Not at the level of an Inquisitor Lord, or Perceptor-Intendant, but probably a normal Inquisitor or such.

Killing billions of people for no reason might be frowned upon, and killing trillions of innocent citizens might result in a reprimand or even a recall to Terra for inquiry. But otherwise, free hands.

"I don't think I'll visit the Imperium much." I muttered with a grim smile and raised my eyes towards the Emperor.

He was long gone though.

"Fleetwide, form in pattern Gamma, and maintain point defense stations. Then begin engine burn towards Cadia." I commanded over the vox network.

As the fleet began to accelerate away from the Sun, a coded transmission arrived from the Synopticon agent, directly on the Manifold circuit. "My lord, three separate transmissions from the Indomitus fleet. Destinations: Terra, Luna and Titan. Decoding the contents will take me a week or so."

Green hair or not, the boy was quite competent. Well, at least I knew someone would arrive at the party for certain.

Now it was only a matter of waiting.

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