40 Thousand Reasons

Under Rose's commands, the Aegida becomes all of a sudden friendly and welcoming, and thus I fill their prison dungeon with those 300 Mantis Warriors I have 'rescued' from the siege at Forge Angstrom.

Their own Primarch is here to chastise them after all, since the Mantis were a successor Chapter of the White Scars. The crew of a Mantis cruiser also appears in the adjacent cells, while their Mantis Strike Cruiser simply appears on a tangent course with the Inquisitorial Fortress, with a single tech-priest on the bridge. Should be enough to allow an honor guard and an independent vessel for the Primarch, at least til Ultramar.

"When you reach the Segmentum Solar, do investigate Hive World Necromunda and that rich House with an STC in their basement. That should buy you some standing with the Cult Mechanicus on Mars. You also have a gift in the Aegida's dungeon." I mentally tell Primarch Khan, while I observe the local Deathwatch Astartes move around him, with proud but wary faces. Primarchs were all considered lost, but here he was, walking among them, looking rather beat up and sad.

"Is that you, Pef Lancefire? I thought this Null Rod stops all psyker powers." the giant replies in my mind, seeming surprised.

"I'm a Blank, Astartes. So obviously, I'm not transmitting via a psyker method. Something to study in the future, no doubt. Military orders sent mind-to-mind, without chance of interference or distortion by the Warp...might prove valuable for humanity. Then again, what do I know?" I answer in a self-deprecating tone.

Khan doesn't quite believe my meek demeanor anymore, although I wonder why. I was kinda harsh with him, at first, I admit. But he was also unruly and not in control of himself.

"What House, on that Hive World?" the Primarch asks in an annoyed voice.

"Someone very rich with advanced weapons they make themselves. Nothing like a poor Rogue Trader like myself can even approach. And look, there's even a cruiser heading your way! Almost like someone wants to leave at great speed, before this system is attacked again." I explain in a cheerful voice and turn off the connection.

Then I resume my family overwatch, directing my fleet of missile destroyers and frigates to rescue that Forge in the Siege_of_Hypnoth, and try to obtain an STC pattern for the advanced augury scanner called the Eye_of_Hypnoth.

With 25 escorts and 2 Nova Cannon cruisers we should provide sufficient surprise to gain a major Favor from that Forge World, plus another for the STC dataslate carried by Wentian.

Meanwhile, my bodyguard Company and the Silent Sisters keep exploring the artifact planet, and close a couple more demon portals, for a single hexagrammic necklace and two more chronoblades.

Oh well, perhaps this was it.

They keep searching though, while I pinpoint the rest of the planets around Illevar for the next expansion phase, noting down a thousand star-systems possibly rich in minerals and a hundred habitable planets.

The Vitrix's Captain, my dear daughter Teresa, receives those mental imprints with rough astronomic distances for each trip, so she can already plan the route and create a circle of outposts and small mining sites, depositing tech-priests and servitors at each stop.

Of course, only a Blank Captain gets a battleship, and even most of her bridge crew are Blanks from my officer academy, plus thousands of Retribution tech-priests and a hundred thousand servitors with piratical origins.

Victor receives his inheritance, the fourth tesseract with a hundred ships inside, including the other Overlord-class battlecruiser I captured at Badab. Plus a Chronoblade and my old power armor. He was already ruling the Hive World but now he would have the means to rule it absolutely.

"Dad...it is really okay to give me all this power? I can see everything on the planet, and everything in the system, til the most distant comets. Don't you need it?" Victor asks after downloading the manual on with his savant implant.

"Bring comets and asteroids closer in a high orbit, and begin building more forts and corvette shipyards, plus a repair dock for those destroyers. There are a trillion trillions Tyranids heading your way." I answer in a softer voice.

"Oh! I better get started then. And I think you have another labyrinth like this, right?" my son wonders after powering up the savant functions.

Smart boy.

Anyway, teleporting a tesseract filled with goodies from Sotha to Illevar is a great way to transport an entire fleet from one end to the other of an entire segmentum.

I can't send a fleet to Baal and help my sons that way, but I can gift them Terminator-pattern Astartes armors covered in blackstone plates and personal forcefields and archeotech weapons like melee Power Weapons and grav-guns or conversion beamers. And I do.

They may all be Blank and immune to Warp, but they are flesh and bones. And knowing what Blood Angels get into all the time, I want my sons to emerge victorious and alive, all 200 of them.

Am I cheating? Sure I am. But the galaxy is merciless, and those detractors to the Blank program, even among the Blood Angels, will have to swallow their words.

"They shall be my finest warriors...in great armor shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns they shall be armed...such that no foes can best them in battle." The Emperor said about his Astartes.

The Emperor had the right idea, just didn't see it through.

You said no foes, dear Adam, but what about Chaos and the Warp? Did you make them Blank, or at least give them Null Rods? What about Silent Sisters as escorts and informants for the Primarchs?

No you did not, and thus half of them fell or rebelled and nailed you to your throne.

Not to mention tactics and strategies. Sure, Big E possibly envisioned a billion of Astartes, cleansing the galaxy of xenos or rogue psykers, while erasing all religions they found.

Didn't work quite like that.

Even himself went to duel his wayward son in a sword fight, instead of tele-fragging that Horus moron with a plasma warhead.

I turn back to searching the Ultima segmentum for targets of opportunity, just as Rose beams inside the Pharos.

"Inquisitor Barzano better appear again, perhaps after the Primarch leaves. And what's with those prisoners in my dungeons?" My Rose asks while eyeing the crucified C'tan on the cave's wall with distrust.

"The Mantis guys? Well, they are Khan's sons, aren't they? I hear the High Lords imposed a penance of their Chapter, for being fooled into that rebellion. The Primarch is on penance to, so they fit rather well, right?" I ask in a careless voice.

"So you're imposing penance even on Primarchs now?" the Inquisitor growls in a colder voice.

"Those guilty of dereliction of duty, sure. Vulkan, Russ and Dorn among them. Lion and Roboute lie wounded and in stasis, so I reserve judgement for now. As for my own Primarch, dear Sanguinius does as much as he can from beyond the grave. I might need a God of the Dead to bring him back, and for that I have worked hard." I explain as an Atmospheric Incendiary appears beside me.

"Killing people...to revive an Eldar God?" the Ordo Xenos asks in a deathly voice.

"No sacrifice is too great. No treachery too small." I quote while I begin priming the Exterminatus torpedo.

"Where is this munition going?" my Rose asks curious.

"Hadex Anomaly, again. There's a Chaos fleet gathering in the Blood_Trinity, more specifically at Mataras III. They are also conscripting a billion of the local cultists, so I shall consign their souls to..." I mutter as the weapon vanishes from the Pharos and detonates right under the infamous Carnage-class CruiserBlack Grail and its attendant fleet.

In a minute, the planet burns and none of the traitors escape the flames, incinerated along with all the weapon factories and demon engines they were preparing.

Two more torpedoes appear beside me, but I'm no hurry to exhaust myself. The other two planets in the Mataras system don't have fleets, and their heretical inhabitants can only wail in despair, knowing what fiery inferno awaits.

"...Oblivion. You would make a great Inquisitor, my dear Pef." Rose whispers while her tarot cards spin in the air, and yet refuse to fall.

"I think I have sufficient power for now. So, you heard of Inquisitor Kryptman's plan to burn all the world in the path of the Tyranids? Without evacuation, of course." I muse to myself, while keeping watch for my Astartes battling another demon incursion.

"...That's...how many worlds are we talking about?" the Inquisitor asks in a calculating voice.

Well, burning worlds is a sad but realistic choice in this grim future. But sometimes common sense should prevail.

"Thousands of human planets at least, probably ten times as many, if nobody reports him, and nobody will dare, because the Inquisition acts with godly impunity. And I'm not talking of our Sotha solution, burning the Hive fleet in orbit. No, that would require he exposes himself to danger, instead of killing trillions of people preemptively. Plus all the valuable industry or a million Guard regiments. So what do you think I should do, dear Inquisitor? Slap his hand or pat his back?" I ask rhetorically.

My Rose frowns in deep thought. "He will be excommunicated once those actions become public. And he has to know this. Keep burning those cultist worlds, while I make a call back to Terra."

I nod and deposit Rose in the Aegida teleportarium, while a thin chronoblade appears on Janice's desk, now decorated with a dozen golden Aquilas on the hilt, and a sheath of Blackstone with a simple logo painted on it: Ave Deus Imperator.

"Take care of this weapon, and don't cut yourself. It was made to kill Great Demons, sweetie." I whisper to my daughter.

"Thanks dad! It feels old and powerful and kinda scary. It has seen so much death." my daughter murmurs in my mind.

I know it did, I have killed a hundred Orks with it myself. I should arm my bodyguards with these weapons, as they can slice any material without effort.

The hexagrammic pendant in my hand, once again covered with a brass cover painted with golden Aquilas, I teleport it on Roboute Guilliman's chest, ignoring the stasis field he is kept inside on Maccrage. The Pharos is much too advanced for a mere stasis field to hold, just like I found out with the Sounding Board.

As expected, the Warp poison inside his veins doesn't like it and draws away, slowly pouring out of his wound, almost like it tries to run.

An STC dataslate falls from nowhere right on the stasis console, and interrupts the field while alarms start blaring inside the Ultramarine's fortress-monastery. It might even contain the warp-less drive STC and many of my inventions including more effective ships, fighters and vehicles.

In a minute, the neck wound heals and the Primarch opens his eyes in confusion. Damn bullshit regeneration, but then I have seen Khan many wounds worse than that. Just without the Warp poison.

"Why am I still alive?" he murmurs to himself.

"Your duty has not ended, Astartes. You have rested enough." I comment in a wry voice, straight in his mind.

"Father?" he asks in suspicion and worry.

"Hah! I'm not as old your Father. Wait, I had something else..." I says cheerfully and drop another Null Rod in his lap. "I mean really, Adam says no foes can best you, and then doesn't even give you a Null Rod? Pretty sure the Warp was among those foes."

I explain and then shut off the connection.

This guy is smart enough, and might even remember about the Pharos soon enough.

Time to finish my business here and get going.