40 Thousand Reasons

However pleasant and rather unexpected, my honeymoon with the gorgeous Elixa was cut short by a desperate astropathic message.

From a hidden corner in the Vidar sector, where Forge World Antax was located as well, an immense Necron starship, larger than a planet and even better armed has awoken from its long sleep, and has began attacking Imperial shipping, blowing up anything crossing its path. Wasn't moving very fast though, so a quarantine area was declared for 20 light years around it.

Even worse, Primarch Guilliman has called all available Astartes and any available Navy or Rogue Traders to lend their gun to destroy this menace, now called the World_Engine.

Well, I was both an Astartes Chapter Master and a Rogue Trader. Surely I could raise a finger and help, right?

"What do you say Canis? Big fire or normal fire?" I asked my best advisor.

"Woof woof!" the space wolf replied eagerly and nudged my left glove as a hint.

Hmmm, I was thinking to use the Pharos...but perhaps Canis was right. Guilliman would surely figure out why the Tyranids fleets were attacking a Necron world in a frenzy, when there was nothing to eat there.

And I wasn't ready to face down another Primarch. Not unless I wanted to get beat up again.

The Icarus carrier was out on patrol, but I did have two light cruisers ready for duty, plus the Serenity battlebarge.

I could take the Dominator cruiser as well, the one with a Nova Cannon.

Yep, should be enough. Shouldn't show my entire deck yet, after all.

Sadly, the first 1000 techmarines were still in training, and the next 1000 were undergoing gene-implantation right now.

As for my Lamenters...well. They had a decade more to go til I considered even the first Company ready for action.

I should take a Sanguinary Priest, probably Yollus, and one Apothecary with me, and leave Priest Helios in command of the Starfort and the Chapter.

Only problem, my nice capital Illevar would be exposed until Victor returned from his ship finding expedition. This sucked!

I mean, we did have more defenses than a real Imperial Hive World, merely 300 asteroid forts, a real Ramillies-class Starfort and 3 Astartes battlebarges and 12 cruisers, plus 3 Lancefire battlecruisers, 100 destroyers and nearly 300 corvettes left in defense, so it wouldn't be completely exposed.

I just didn't feel safe without someone using a tesseract to keep an eye on things. Hopefully Elixa would manage the spying network while I was gone.

Soon enough, I took Fidelia and Hestia aside and had them assigned as protectors of the House and Chapter, grabbed Lord Whitelance and his Knight, plus my wolf and my wife Henna for my comfort during this long trip.

Then we began to embark a Catachan regiment and four PDF regiments on the ships, just to have some inner ablative armor in case of boarders, the Necron kind. Or any kind, for that matter.

Also, 8 Pariah women from Blanktown got the prestigious role as mobile Gellar fields for the bridge and Gellar generators, also in case of unwanted intruders of the more insidious type.

Ludvaius and Rafen came along as well, as well as 20 more Blood Angels for a tactical strike, if needed.

"How worried should I be?" Decima asked me after she kissed me for a long minute.

"Oh, you mean the Necron thing? Not very worried. Might lose a light cruiser, depending on some factors." I answered after computing my own odds in my mind.

"They are gathering a thousand capital ships. Doesn't sound so easy to me." my wife whispered in a scared voice.

"Just place a call for Victor to return, and stay on yellow alert until he does." I said confidently then triggered the teleport beacon.

"Welcome aboard Captain!" Signus said in a joyous voice, seeming happy to see me. Also looking a bit older...like all normal people when they aged.

"Do you know how to wield a sword, Signus?" I asked instead.

"...Errr. Slice and thrust. Are we expecting boarders soon?" the enginseer asked in a slightly worried voice.

"We always do, my friend. Still travelling through the Warp, on the small ships." I explained patiently, although I had other reason for asking.

I held out my chronoblade and had him show me a few sword moves. They sucked, even worse than me. Well, I was getting training now.

Then I pointed at a tech servitor to the side. "Three cuts, fast but minimal strength. The blade has atomic edge."

Blinking at me then at the ornate sword with a dozen purity seals hanging from its guard, Signus executed the servitor and drained his life.

"Good enough. Make yourself a sword, Signus. I'm not giving you mine." I demanded after grabbing the precious xeno artifact and returning it to its blackstone and plasteel sheath.

Two weeks later, my small fleet arrived at the meeting point and I quickly considered their strategies flowing on the vox box among the gathered Captains. Utter disaster, or at least until Roboute Guilliman got here.

"Navigator, do you have a hint how to reach this World Engine from here, but far enough from its weapons? Say a billion kilometers away, but in front of it." I sent via the vox channel.

"That far wouldn't be a problem, Captain. Our weapons will be out of range too."

"But that ship would be moving fast towards us. And we have Nova Cannons and Vortex warheads." I explained in a patient voice.

A single Vortex torpedo wouldn't be enough, of course. But it would breach that Necron shield. After that, I could lift a finger for humanity.

"As you will, Captain. Your plan at least has a chance of success." the Navigator muttered in some displeasure. Sure, he got kidnapped along with this former Mantis Warriors barge during the attack on Forge Angstrom, so he wasn't really a volunteer.

Then again, he was still Navigating a ship, so it wasn't all bad.

In a minute, we opened a Warp rift and departed, ignoring the increasingly annoying vox messages from all the other ships gathered here.

It didn't take long to overtake the Necron Engine and drop in front of it. Then I just closed my eyes and saw the void in the tesseract, the dimensional shield of that planet-sized spaceship blocking teleports just as expected.

But it couldn't block teleports right in front of it.

A purple flash small like a pinhole opened in the Necron shield and a Cyclonic torpedo sneaked inside, incinerating the surface and burrowing a dozen kilometers through the thick armor plate, before detonating.

"Commence Nova Cannon bombardment!" I ordered as more of my Exterminatus-grade ordnance struck the same place, over and over.

As soon as the Nova shells left the cannon, I flicked them into the breach, while I urged the Serenity to fire our melta torpedoes at the same spot.

Flares of bright light obscured the incoming ship.

"High energy maneuver. Turn the ships and dive!" I commanded after our torpedoes departed.

The Serenity barge had a 100 torpedo cell-block on the top side, which soon reached optimal release angle and I fired them all, one per second.

Meanwhile, Nova mines and Cyclonic torpedoes kept detonating deep and deeper into the monstrous warship, breaking apart small bits, the size of mountains. Thus, I was able to start stealing everything not nailed down, gigattones of blackstone and millions of Necron weapons and machines of every kind.

I strained my mind to abscond with as many broken bits of the Necron planet-ship, while targeting any exposed generators and conduits with high-yield explosives. No matter how redundant the Necron technology was, at one point the damage would be too much and systems will begin failing. It pained me that I had no idea what devices were powerful or rare, but I grabbed anything glowing green in the hope of figuring it later, somehow.

An hour later, our visible string of torpedoes started impacting the Necron ship, just as Battle bargeTempestusarrived next to us. The plasma warheads had little actual effect, but made for a great smokescreen.

"Chapter Master Lancefire, you managed to breach the xenos doomsday machine?" an incredulous voice asked on the vox channel.

"Nah, it was open when I found it. And those demons burning on the surface are not the result of a Vortex torpedo. Merely a flicker of imagination." I commented wryly as my fleet sped away.

A series of explosions marked my words, and the shield protecting the World Engine failed completely.

Well, perhaps I did hit something vital after all. Time to leave this battle, as more ships were approaching.

I was fresh out of munitions again, which wasn't fun at all. So I set course for Forge Antax to reload, while the brave ships of the Ultima segmentum all began arriving at the scene of the crime and began firing all their weapons at the defenseless Necron ship.

In a violet flash, we vanished into the Warp, just as a Glorianna-class battleship named Macragge's_Honour arrived to win the day, with Primarch Guilliman on board.

Good for him.