40 Thousand Reasons

An hour later, I arrived back in my own villa in Blanktown and setup one small apartment for my new guest, including a bank of cogitators, and a small clade of tech-priests with knowledge of datasphere warfare and the special Runes of Engineering, a rather complex religious protocol for establishing a monitoring station, on par with a Knight suit of battlefield awareness.

Then I retrieved Elixa and her infocyte gear from her stealth shuttle.

"You will live here from now on, my dear Elixa. I want a signal intelligence operation prepared, to monitor this star system for infiltrators and other dangers. You can do that, right?" I asked gently, and patted her silky hair. It was cut kinda short, but that probably made sense if she needed to wear a sensorium helmet and other devices like that Signum transceiver antenna.

"But...oh my God-Emperor, so many cogitators! I can really work from here!" the woman exclaimed in surprise then joy.

"Yes, you will. And these nice tech-priests will look over your shoulder constantly, making sure my House and the Astartes Chapter are not endangered by your actions. My own rooms are down the hall, it says Pef on the door." I continued after a few seconds, watching her enthusiasm drop visibly at the new regulations.

"That's not so great..." Elixa murmured in a sour tone, glancing at the creepy cyborgs with suspicion.

"Dinner is in three hours, until then make yourself at home. I'm certain you can manage locating the shower and the wardrobe." I added as I walked out, only to find Ludvaius and Canis watching me with cautious eyes.

I ignored their obvious displeasure and began mentally selecting a dozen daughters from the local merchant concubines for infocyte training. The girls need not be Blanks, only smart and disciplined. Well, maybe one Blank at least, just in case.

The information they gathered would also help increase revenue from better taxation and resource management, plus they had local knowledge of industries and general trends.

Perhaps give them a special name, like the Obsidian Auguries? Yes, that will be conveniently vague and allow a certain degree of mystique and fear when they produced an identification tag plated with black obsidian.

Pretty sure everyone else would just call them spooks, but that was only natural. Technology was similar to magic in this universe, and the Necrons managed to beat Gods using only advanced science, with no Warp powers at all.

Humanity will need a long time to reach the same heights, even if they had examples of advanced xenotech or human archeotech practically littering the galaxy. There just was not enough education to make use of these artifacts, not to mention constructing new technology of the same capability or better.

"Woooof?" Canis asked in a small voice.

"Yes, my genial friend. Today we do like we always do. Sit at the cogitator and tinker with more STC patterns. But no more meat dispensers templates!" I explain and ruffled my wolf's hair with my hands.

"Woo?Woooooo!" the Fenrisian wolf complained and glanced at his paw-print food dispenser, which already had a dozen types of meat. There just wasn't anymore room for more food storage, as the room next door was now transformed into a large pantry filled with meat pellets and crunchy bones.

Ludvaius snorted at our antics and sat down on the plasteel dais, bolter aimed carelessly at the balcony door. That would be the most obvious point of entry for any intruder, although it wouldn't be just as easy as it seemed. I knew many people or not-people might want me dead, so I took precautions.

Three hours passed in a flash, simply tinkering with more automated turrets and flying drones. I did not intend to drop my troops into ambushes or hostile landing zones, losing a good part of them before they could regroup and counter-atttack.

Wouldn't it make more sense to drop a million turrets and clean up a large enough landing site?

Here I had the template of the classic Astartes Drop_Pod more importantly the Deathstorm and Support variants, those that did not carry troops but on-board turrets.

Sure, these things were massive, highly armored and of course, hugely expensive. It was actually cheaper to deploy 5 Space Marines with 5 heavy bolters than one of these monsters.

They would also run out of ammunition pretty soon and then just lay there, millions of thrones expended for little gain and immobile. Perfect for Orks to dismantle and arm themselves with perfectly good weapons of the best quality.

No, what I needed was a cheap version, armed with a twin-multilaser, and a lascannon version for hard targets like vehicles or power armor, perhaps one with a spinning flail for close defense. Naturally, these autonomous turrets could have more armor than the mere 10 mm of plasteel in the original template. It would depend on the Forge resources, but at least 10 cms of armor would be possible without making them too heavy. Perhaps even ceramite plates.

Drop those in a series of concentric rings, and a single dedicated light cruiser could transport and unload the equivalent of 20 regiments of firepower in a concentrated pocket. Soon after, insert tech-priests and servitors to repair, refuel and clean up the debris, before landing mobile forces.

Sure, a cargo ship could carry even more drop pods.

The problems begin when encountering enemies. From raiders and pirates, to harassing corsairs or traitor warships, to full orbital blockade or a tyranid swarm on approach, it is much better to have a light cruiser actually deploy the drop pods.

It is much faster, has better armor and guns, but most importantly is faster.

Pretty much why all Astartes use Strike Cruisers to deploy drop pods filled with powered armored Brothers in emergencies. This also carries the risk of troop pods getting shot down, or the limited Astartes numbers surrounded and destroyed by overwhelming defenses.

And if you landed say Chimera infantry transports, they could just carry these Tarantula turrets on top of their hull, and connect their power lines to the internal generator. Mobile turret obtained!

Or just place them on wheels and drag them into new fortified lines as the front lines moved, much like General Rommel did in Africa during WW2 with his 88mm cannons.

The best thing was the ability for rapid defense of compromised positions, simply dropping these turrets in front of a Hive City or an important Manufactorum.

This ability was the most used option for Adeptus Astartes, and caused the most casualties, even if a thousand pods and a few tech-marines could do the same job and possibly not lose a single life.

Even inside spaceships, such turrets could pop up from the deck plates and massacre invaders on long hallways and intersections.

Maybe even heavy flamer turrets? Only for fixed positions, because promethium might not like being dropped from orbit.

Missile turrets were already used on many Hive World or Forge Spires, but in the field they would rapidly run out of missiles. Plus they were kinda expensive.

No need to drop them, they could be landed with the troops and not damage the fragile missiles either. But then, forts and command centers would have some anti-air protection, at least until the fighters gained air supremacy over the skies.

The door opened to reveal a completely different Elixa de Mornay, dressed in a tight dress of blue silk and a House Lancefire cape. "I look like a Lady now, right?" she asked in a timid voice.

I just smiled genially and nodded, kinda lost for words. "You are a gorgeous woman, my dear Elixa. As for a Lady title, you just need to ask. I bet a throne our children will be very smart." I complimented her in a shy voice, while Ludvaius just blinked at me, then sighed in acceptance.

You should have expected this, Brother! I wouldn't let such a treasure get away, even if it meant a new wife.

Canis lifted his head to watch the new wolf mistress with curious eyes, then uttered a single "Woof!" which probably meant "Nice bitch, boss!"

"...What? How can you just propose to me!" she exclaimed in a rather outraged voice.

I just shrugged and rose from my adamantium chair to peek closely into at her blushing face. "Common sense, Elixa. You will have access to the House Lancefire secrets, thus you need to be part of my House. You would not betray your family and children, but instead work hard to keep us safe. I'm thinking to call your infocyte clade the Obsidian Auguries. Keeping watch from the shadows, for agents and subversion from other Houses, cultists or xenos." I explained as I reached the door and offered my elbow.

She blushed even harder as I escorted her to dinner, still grumbling at her new fate. "I didn't even say yes..." Elixa concluded as we reached the dinning hall.

I smiled inward and outward. She didn't say no either.

"Everyone, this lovely Lady is Elixa, our new spymaster." I presented her to my wives, a few of my children and a few Apothecaries who usually joined me at dinner.

"She is all flustered and red, daddy! Did you bed her already?" Talia asked with an innocent 8-year-old voice.

Elixa coughed in surprise, while Decima glared at me for a second, before approaching us with a queenly pace, slow and majestic. Well, she did oversee like a thousand star-systems for me, and acted as a Rear Admiral for a thousand space ships for our Rogue Trader Dynasty.

"Quiet,Talia! Hannibal, stop giggling! Ludvaius stay by the door!" my sweet wife ordered, returning the room to silence. Then Decima poked Elixa's forehead, watching her reactions shift from social awkwardness to a combat posture, the mind implant powering up for extra speed and auto-senses.

"At least Lady Elixa has decent training. We shall see about other duties, after your Apothecaries and nurses finish the medical examination. Vindicare temple?" Decima continued with a frown.

"... Errr. Classified." Elixa answered with a wary glance towards me. Probably shouldn't blurt out her secrets, if I wanted her to keep mine.

"Pef's mother was of Vindicare. Good assassin too, Lady Justine. Killed Fulgrim in her last mission." Decima explained in a softer voice, and gave me a short kiss, before returning to her seat.

"Daddy is better though. He killed Lorgar and didn't even die." Talia commented wryly, and without any tact.

I sighed audibly and sat down to eat. This looked like one of those dinners.