40 Thousand Reasons

By next day I was back on my feet, but I decided to let myself recharge for a week or so.

Those Hell Forges weren't going anywhere, and only I had access into the interior of the Pharos where the missing torpedoes rested.

So I spent my day in bed, enjoying the command privilege of having two Sisters of Battle doing their best to relieve my stressed mind. Helena and Catherine didn't mind at all, and it all worked great.

Until a certain Chaplain heard what I was doing and decided to visit me anyway. Damn bodyguards!

It will take some time to turn their loyalties towards me.

They even allowed the Chaplain to enter my rooms while carrying weapons...damn idiots.

"Chaplain, I do not intend a religious marriage with these amazing women, so your services are not needed." I explained politely.

The psyker Astartes sneered in disgust. "I'm not that kind of chaplain, Lord Lancefire. I guard the purity of my Brothers' souls."

I sighed and urged my concubines away. "Fun time is over, ladies. Go...you have patients to care for, in the nursery."

In a minute, my room was occupied by only by a psyker, a dog and a Blank, as my so called bodyguards nodded politely and walked out.

"What is happening, Lord Pef? The astropaths are baffled, the Navigators are scared, the alarm keeps blaring on the Battle barge and it seems some torpedoes have vanished mysteriously." he asked in a softer voice, and seeming worried. Then again, as a psyker these events hit him much harder.

"Well...the situation is very complex and yet simple enough. Sotha is important, more than you knew. But you have to remember it was declared a Dead World and interdicted by the Inquisition following the Exterminatus. Without my approval, nobody is allowed in this system. Not even your Primarch, if he returns sooner than I predict." I said in a level voice, but deadly serious.

Entire Space Marines Chapters have been hunted down and exterminated for going against an Inquisitor.

The Astartes realized this just as well. "I think I begin to understand. You would have burned us alive, if we did stay to defend Sotha. And now what? We are your personal army, to maneuver however you need?" he asked just to be sure.

"I don't need your entire Chapter, Lord Hornidal. Nor are you subject to permanent duty, like these Blood Angels. The Battle Barge and 2 Astartes Companies will aid me in my task, involving many hostile boardings of pirate vessels. In exchange, I will establish an Inquisition Fortress on the Aegida, and provide orbital defenses for the Pharos. A Company of your Scythes will take the black and be stationed on Aegida, with a pair of Strike Cruisers for rapid deployment in this volume." I declared in a gentle voice.

He knew how things worked in the Imperium, this Chaplain. "So she is coming here. Well, when travel will become possible again."

"Do you know how human eyes work, Chaplain? We simply absorb light with our eyes, and create an image of what is outside, in our minds. But imagine you had to see by projecting light outwards, then see the shadows. That's how the auguries work. We project lasers and other types of radiation outwards, and decode the returning echoes. But the enemies see those lights as well. And if these enemies have machines, or psykers, they can trace the beam to the source, right inside your ship." I added in a simplistic lecture.

Hornidal stopped to think, since this might have been too much science for his fanatical brain. "Turn off the lights, the enemy cannot teleport inside our ships?" he asked after a long time.

Yes! He completed a miracle by himself.

"It's not a perfect solution, but we have Void shields and other means to block their scans. Without obtaining a fixed destination, teleporting through Warp is near suicide. I'm certain a clever ancestor did create an STC pattern to solve this problem, but it might have been lost." I mused in low tone, as I just figured out how to solve it.

"So we just use our eyes, and perhaps other passive auguries. Send nothing out, they can't get in. Clever." the Chaplain said, nodding in approval.

"Pretty sure Astartes already use this wisdom when fighting on the ground. Keep an eye closed to preserve night vision and other tricks like that. Learning to think is painful, but ultimately very rewarding. Especially if you aim to preserve the lives of your Brothers." I concluded while pointing at the door.

"Wait! What about the missing torpedoes?" he asked in near panic.

I shrugged innocently. "I'd assume only someone with the right authorization can use them, so they're very safe wherever they are. I did try to safeguard them, but someone turned the auguries back online, leaving the door open for a mysterious force to abscond with your devices. The Inquisitor will be very upset with whoever authorized that reckless action."

The Chaplain gritted his teeth in near anger. "So I hope, Lord Pef. This mysterious force better be benevolent and target only xenos or other enemies of humanity."

"If I was a psyker, I would try to locate where those devices might have landed. Cyclonic torpedoes do make a big splash when they hit something. But alas, I'm quite the opposite of a psyker, a mere Blank that can't even make a fire without a lasgun." I complained in a pitiful voice.

The psyker snorted audibly and walked out, stomping a little too hard.

"What do you say Canis? What do you want to play with today? Fire, big fire or warp fire?" I asked my trusted friend.

The space wolf tilted his head and eyed me with concern. "Woof woof!" he declared after a long minute of deliberation.

I smiled and grabbed his head for a tight hug. "Big Fire you say? Don't tell me, you are that mysterious force the punching bag asked about?"

"Woof!" Canis proclaimed proudly.

"I knew it! Well done puppy. So, you wanna take the flashy elevator or the dizzy one?" I asked to make sure.

"Wooooooo" the puppy complained. I guess he didn't like either, since even dogs would feel their stomach turn inside out after a teleport.

I took note and sent him to watch over the nursery instead.

As soon as I was dressed and armored I opened the door to find my Blood Angel Captain berating the Scythe bodyguards for leaving me alone with the known violent offender that had already beaten me gravely one time.

I kinda agreed with the sentiment, to be truthful. Luckily, Blanks were not easy to be read by psykers, so I wasn't completely exposed.

"Walk with me, Captain." I asked the Blood angel before turning towards the Scythes of the Emperor. "You two, stay. No, guard the Gellar generator instead, for next two weeks. Hopefully without letting demons in, because they are psykers." I told them in a warning voice.

That should teach them a small lesson. Plus the Gellar field was quite vital anyway.

Soon enough, I arrived in the teleportarium, and took my glove off to caress an atomic warhead. I needed to test a smaller mass teleport, and why not use a sunny message?

In a flash, we arrived in the interior of the Pharos and the Blood Angel cursed loudly at the deadly ordnance around. "You did steal the torpedoes after all, my lord." he concluded after a minute.

"I have no recollection of such actions, Blood Angel. And be careful with that kind of accusation. Stealing Exterminatus-grade munitions is a capital crime, and my head is very important. Now, if you recall our caf deprived discussion a few days ago, you proposed Junkatta for Exterminatus. Let me ask an Inquisitor if their crime deserves such a waste of precious munitions." I spoke sternly and closed my eyes to contact my dear Rose.

"I'm back, my love. Got hit by the backlash quite bad, but now I'm all better!" I explained in a short empathic transmission.

"Strange...but then you were always very strange, even for a Rogue Trader raised by a Tech-priest with a Blank assassin mother." the Inquisitor replied in a not too friendly tone.

"My Navigator said some kind of Empyrean escaped from Sarum. Was that the bad news?" I asked to make sure. It could have been something else.

"... Well. In hindsight, it wasn't all bad. That thing is rumored to massacre millions of cultists and many traitor marines in the Eye of Terror, just for sport. So, you have another target in mind, my dear Pef?" she asked a bit more amenable.

"The Blood Angel Captain wants Junkatta. It seems they make battleships and demon engines. I want Samech, because they make cogitators. And ships can be destroyed somehow, but..." I explained in a short burst. Dark cogitators were much scarier than simple battleships. Those things would have Scrap Codes and whatever other insidious viruses and memetic infections.

The Inquisitor hummed in my mind while she considered options. "You are correct, of course. Take a long break between deep strikes, Pef. Those Forges aren't going anywhere. But I don't have another Rogue to launch Exterminatus from half the galaxy away. Stay safe."

With that, I began activating another cyclonic torpedo, to send it deep inside the Hadex Anomaly and obliterate the damn cognition danger.

In an hour, I was ready and the torpedo vanished into the heart of the anomaly. A few seconds later, a strange wave flashed over the inner cave, like something had tried to scan the source of the torpedo.

I fell onto my knees, probably because I was a bit exhausted.

Well, there were gods in this universe, and their plans would begin to derail as more Dark Forges blew up unexpectedly.

Another type of wave burst from under our feet and banished the interloper, passing over me and the torpedoes without noticing me at all.

However, Captain Raxiatel wasn't so lucky. His eyes began bleeding and he fell to his knees in constant prayer, just like I did.

I was only mentally tired, but the Blood Angel was going mad, and very rapidly.

Thinking fast, I locked onto Ludvaius. "Brother, I have one of yours going bad. Sarcophagus, now!" I muttered in his mind and pushed the Captain into the teleport beam, with my mind.

"I got him, Lord Pef. What happened?" my loyal friend asked from thousands of years away.

"Some kind of psychic wave. Doesn't work on me, but his eyes went red..." I concluded with a weaker voice and triggered my teleport beacon.

Hopefully I didn't ruin my brain too much.