40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 88: Failure

Captain Aphael from the Blood Angels arrives one day, and brings with him Ludvaius and Rafen, which is great.

"You got your own Chapter, I see. Not bad for a whiny trader." Rafen comments wryly at my pretty Astartes armor and Sanguinary Guards.

"It wasn't my idea, you know? They kinda forced me into this. And the Angel showed up to enforce the claim." I defended myself while shaking hands with the three of them.

"You've grown taller, Captain. Still got that baby face though." Ludvaius observes smartly. Well, he does have savant implants, so it makes sense.

"Ladies love it, so I can't complain. I'm not like you guys, impregnating men with your seed. I'm modest like that.'" I laud myself while Chaplain Delos slaps his helmet in despair. Probably shouldn't have said that out loud.

Captain Aphael simply smiles serenely and gestures me aside. And thus, we seclude ourselves in my Master quarters, which might be inspired by all those Fabricators I have visited, thus it has at least a thousand relics and armor bits for decoration.

"Nice quarters, Lord Pef. You almost get the feeling right. But the baby face spoils everything." he comments in a joking tone.

"Did I get some gene-seeds?" I ask more to the point.

The Astartes Captain picks up a Grav-gun and plays with it, possibly trying to scare me. But I fear nothing, because I cheat.

He gets frozen in my tesseract while I restore the weapon on its mantle and sit at my desk, and then unfreeze him. "Gene-seeds?" I ask as if no time as has passed at all, or he got lost in thought while I moved around.

Being mysterious is a bit risky, but this time it works. "I have heard of your 'strange' powers, Master Lancefire. Brother Ludvaius was adamant about that, and our new Librarian Mephiston agrees. The Angel watches over you...which is not a bad thing at all."

"One day...I will reach the same size as a Primarch. My mind grows in strength every year, and so does my body. And for that, I can only thank Ludvaius, for calling that Angel. How is Mephiston, did he take the spear yet?" I ask as if it has already happened.

Captain Aphael sighs, and looks around my quarters again. "Not yet, but I believe it will happen soon. They are still testing him for corruption. The last adventure of Brother Arkio has made everyone paranoid, and that Chaos Sorcerer in our dungeon doesn't help at all."

"Still got nothing out of him? His name is Fabius, of some traitor legion. I hope you did chop off his limbs at least. The only use of those limbs would be to escape, right?" I ask rhetorically. His face tells me they didn't consider it.

A bunch of childish naive idiots, all of them.

"That's...so dishonorable...and logical. Raised by a tech-priest, and it shows." the angelic Astartes comments in a sad voice.

"I wouldn't care if that guy gets to the grail and steals the blood, except my kids are there. If they get killed by your stupidity, I will retaliate. What about the accomplice, that whatever guy who invited the sorcerer inside your fortress? Still alive?" I ask curious.

Captain Aphael blinks and stares at me for a minute. Seems they didn't even investigate the crime...oh well. No wonder Inquisitors could play these naive giants like puppets.

"It seems I need to return to my ship and place an astropath call to our fortress. Wouldn't want your sons to die for our stupidity. I hear a lot of places got exterminated without warning." he says a bit wary.

I smiled politely. "Commorragh was the most difficult. Will have to turn my attention on them again, I heard of a Drukhari raid on that Agri World... It seems they didn't get the message, so I'll have to insist." I muse to myself softly.

Astartes have great hearing anyway. I'm sure he got the message, unlike the crazy Dark Eldar.

Then again, I was an Angel of Death now. Might as well prove it, with some death and mayhem.

Not right now, because I wanted to finish this Dhol_VI campaign and exterminate both the Orks and the Necrons there. Perhaps capture the C'tan shard they had.

My battleships already had the new warp-less engines, plus two torpedo cells of 100 torpedo each, but that was merely an emergency measure, just in case we got invaded by something. The battleships were not combat ready, and will not be for 5 decades.

I wanted them plated in adamantium and blackstone, just like I was doing for all the Lamenters and the heavy tanks of my armor regiments.

Same thing for my battlecruisers, starting with the Canticle, then the gifted Mercury from Forge Kronos, and then the other two we haven't 'discovered' yet.

My mind made up, I began sending orders to my fleet to prepare for a limited deployment.

One battle barge, two cruisers armed with Nova Cannons, and 20 destroyers. Blackstone had been lined around the engine room and the bridge for those ships, which would make Warp travel somewhat safer.

A very small fleet, given what my dynasty could field, but this would be just a small incursion.

A minute later, Ludvaius and Rafen ran inside my quarters with wide grins on their faces. "Another crusade? We have to come!"

I smiled kindly and nodded. "Sure, why not? But I do need those gene-seeds...someone did bring them, right?"

"Yes, Lord Pef! They are being transported on the Starfort right now...but I guess Captain Aphael didn't tell you. So you have more Blank sons already? You sure work hard!" my bodyguard praised me with a knowing look.

What could I say to that? I worked hard every day!

"Go to my forgemaster and have him fit you with new armor plates. I thought I sent some of those plates, with the barge I gifted your Chapter..." I demanded as I noticed they lacked the blackstone plates that all my other Astartes had already.

"Not Codex approved, or something. Our Librarians don't like them." Ludvaius explained in a sadder voice.

"Right, because protection from the Warp must be in the Codex...I see. Just like growing wings is in the Codex. One day I will visit Baal and straighten your Chapter out. I'll ask the to Angel explain things, while I beat a few defenseless librarians with their books."

I mutter in annoyance.

By next day, the fleet is on the way, while Captain Aphael has departed for Baal with 100 new Blank recruits. Technically, I could give them more, but I want these men to be educated and have their own kids before they leave.

Critical thinking and a basis for science and technology will help them more in their lifetime of strife that will end in brutal death.

My sons and grandsons will not be farmer boys manipulated into traps and plots by whatever enemy comes first.

Back on Illevar, my Apothecary and Sanguinary Priests have already began implantation for new techmarines, plus a Company of Blank Lamenters.

Couldn't help with that part, except proving good quality gene-seeds.

The Red Scorpions genes will work well-enough for the non-combat roles, be they herbalists or lorekeepers or tech-marines.

My Apothecary confirmed they had 94 percent purity, which was amazing for this era.

And because the Blood Angels did not lose the original blood of Sanguinius, they had even higher purity.

The dead bodies of my Lamenters were simply sent to Forge Antax without extracting the gene-seed at all. If the Mechanicus wanted the gene tithe they could have it all, 900 dead Brothers, paid in advance.

And so said my written message to the Fabricator-General. "Do not expect more of it, trying new gene stuff that's not damaged in fabrication. Their armor better be in excellent shape when returned."

Following our fleet was a forge ship and a dozen mineral barges with mining equipment, just in case we accidentally found more blackstone to mine.

And 3 weeks later, we arrived at Dhol to find the planet embroiled into a large scale Waagh, and a hundred Ork ships bombarding the Necron positions.

A golden figure, at least 50 meters tall and trailing whips made of living stone was battling a pair of giant Ork Gargants, while thousands of Necron machines and millions of Warriors supported it from afar.

Then under my eyes, the golden figure turned right towards my fleet and smiled, with a tingle of mental communication trying to reach my mind. Must be the Crimson_God then, he felt similar to Zarhulash, the C'tan from Sotha.

I was pretty sure the C'tan could have won easily, but perhaps it wasn't often the Necrons let it out to play.

A salvo from a Gargant passed right through the C'tan and pulverized a few Necron divisions, as the Crimson God became phased and untouchable.

Perhaps he was worried I might use some psyker power?

Necrons were still vulnerable to that, and so were the C'tan.

"Captain, do we engage the Orks?" I heard the gunnery officer ask in anticipation.

I held my left hand up for silence, just as Alana tried to speak. "Wait...they have a C'tan. I want to see what it can do."

The ship's holoscreen couldn't get the high detail I could observe via the tesseract labyrinth, and most of our long range auguries were slightly distorted by the Waagh field or by some Necron dampening field..or both.

Then something flashed on board an Ork Kroozer, and down on the ground a large Ork boss appeared via teleport.

"Necron God! Fight me....good fight! Waaaagh!" the idiot mushroom screamed as his orkish underlings cheered him on.

The Gargants stopped firing and a sort of impromptu ring formed with the C'tan and the Ork Boss inside.

A giant lighting claw stuck the C'tan in the chest, and the Ork tried to head-butt the larger enemy in mid-jump.

And then the figure smiled, with red teeth. "I do enjoy a good fight, but most of all, I enjoy bloodshed." the C'tan replied politely, ignoring the arcing voltage and the adamantium spikes stuck inside in his stomach.

Instead, the Crimson God grabbed the Ork by the rusty spiked shoulders, and kept him in mid-air with the trailing chains...and then ripped the Ork Boss to shreds. He was still smiling, like this was a great day.

I sighed inward. Damn boss had been too weak.

Fighting resumed, but without much coordination for the green mushrooms, especially as the Ork ships began vanishing from orbit. That might have been my fault, but I'm not sorry.

In an hour, the Gargants were destroyed and the Necron armies began advancing, massacring million after milllion of greenskins, their gauss rifles and many other weapons no longer ineffective.

I decided to risk it. A flick of my gloved finger plunged an Atmospheric Incendiary torpedo right on the other side of the planet and exploded, rapidly igniting all the air and biomass and spreading fast around the globe.

"My Lord, that seems to be an Exterminatus!" Chaplain Delos observed in horror.

"Please make a point with that. All I see is two xenos fighting each other. Exterminatus is the correct sollution, as per the Codex, isn't it?" I asked in a sterner tone.

I waited for the flames to engulf the smiling C'tan and then I tried to wisk him away in my labyrinth. An immense headache blinded me, and the golden being vanished, falling though the ground towards a tomb deep underground.

Damn it! I have failed.

THIS CHAPTER UPLOAD FIRST AT NOVELBIN.COM