NOVEL WEB 147 – Diplomacy
My final choice fell to a nice hill in the middle of a set of grassy plains. My strategic sub-brain whined a bit, but I easily overrode its largely useless reasons for natural defences with the fact that I could make natural defences of my own later if I so wished.
Also, fortifications made by me would be much harder to destroy and go through for an enemy force than ones made with my own new materials.
By the time the Ethereal’s own fancy little voidship entered orbit, I already had the foundations of the building down along with the much needed reinforcements done for the ground below.
My base, my headquarters, was going to be a gigantic star fortress. Sure, it wasn’t super modern in the eyes of a 21st century girl like me, but the people of this galaxy loved building big and impressive.
Its base was, of course, a pentagram with five smaller pentagrams out at the tips to make up the star. I think I’m also going to have to build a flagship once this thing is done, and maybe even a defensible mobile space station like the Phalanx? Hmmm. I’d also have to build orbital defences around the planet and then the system as a whole once the Tau sod off from here.
The moment I caught a landing shuttle break through orbit, heading right for my position, I sent an honestly staggering amount of bio-energy into the construction before me and the whole fortress started growing up based on my mental blueprints like a tree.
It even looked like a tree, one with ashen white bark and it wasn’t even just a stylistic glitter I threw on top but an actually useful defensive layer. That white bark was supposedly almost as good as Adamantium.
With the whole fortress being almost a grand total of four kilometres across and fifty metres in height. Though the latter was still growing at a respectable pace. The very tippity top of it was going to be five hundred metres up in the air.
My Zedev-sourced Admech knowledge told me the Imperium had a scant few star forts that were not just ground bases, but fully mobile space stations with Warp capabilities too. That new tidbit dampened my self-satisfaction at my new building somewhat, but oh well.
I’m going to have one of those two at some point. A fully mobile space fortress.
The shuttle gently landed behind me with surprising grace and silence, even its thrusters merely hummed instead of the usual roar.
The door of it opened up with a soft hiss, pulling up as a ramp extended down and I spun around to lower myself into a graceful bow. With my perfect control over every muscle in my body, I made it perfect, almost eerily so.
Of course, the first people out were the honour guard of the Ethereal, not the man himself. They were all kitted out in the fanciest battle gear and held pulse guns at the ready, but not aimed at me as they fanned out to survey the area.
The Ethereal, the Magister stepped out of the shuttle even before they gave him the all clear. He was a Lord, the lowest rank of their Caste, but the man still had a pair of Ethereal Guards walking just a step behind him as he trotted down the ramp and came over to my still bowing form.
That was kinda rude, if I was a regular human my back would be hurting by now. Oh well.
“Rise, Captain … I’m afraid I don’t know your name yet,” the Ethereal said in a friendly tone entirely unbefitting of what most Imperials would have expected from one of his rank. “Would you care to enlighten me?”
I rose slowly, glancing around the armed and armoured guards now encircling the two of us and then at his two Ethereal Guards like I couldn’t feel their presences clearer than day before.
“I’m afraid I’ve discarded the name I’d been given in my homeland,” I said, smiling at him. “I have not thought of a new one yet.”
I sure as hell wasn’t going to give him the name Echidna, that was for sure. I didn’t want it to spread, or by some miracle reach any Imperial agency spying on these Tau.
“I see,” he nodded easily. “I suppose ‘Captain’ will have to do for now then. Well, Captain, I must say you have … made quite the impression on me already.”
He waved his hand at the massive structure sprouting up next to us, its height growing a metre or two every second.
“Have I?” I asked demurely. “Hopefully a good one, my prior well-intentioned first-impressions seem to have not been too well received among your kin.”
“Ones of the Fire Caste tend to take on personalities that make the name more apt than it should be,” the Ethereal said, sighing sadly. “I am Aun’Saal Vas’Talos Vioroh, but you may call me ‘Coldstone’ as I know our tongue is ill fitted for the freshly initiated.”
“Thank you, Lord Coldstone,” I gave a small bow, not dropping my smile. This fellow was surprisingly genial so far, I wonder how long it’d take for him to reveal his true colours. Or maybe he is one of those truly genuine believers of their Greater Good tenets? That’d probably be for the best. Or maybe a practical one.
“I’d ask whether you have a more fitting location for our conversation than this hill,” Coldstone started, then gave to the growing fortress with an exaggerated glance. “But it seems I’ve come a little too early for that. Tell me just this though, how early am I? Would you have had a fully furnished waiting room by the end of the month? Or by tomorrow?”
“Fully furnished?” I raised an eyebrow. “That would have been challenging to manage, there are … few suppliers out here, so I suppose I would have had to make do with what I have on hand and make my own. A week, perhaps?”
“Well,” Coldstone said, gazing at the fortress for a few moments as his silent guards all stared at me instead. It would have been unnerving had I not been able to obliterate their entire existence with a psychic fart in their general direction. “I suppose spending a bit of time in nature is good for one’s health … for the mental health at least, I feel this moon’s new biosphere is less than welcoming still, just in an entirely new way than before.”
“Nothing will harm you, Lord Coldstone,” I said, smiling at the slight narrowing in his eyes. “Not while you are with me, I assure you. Would you want to choose the … venue? Or would you allow me to? I have just the right spot, a beautiful little meadow a few minute’s trek from here.”
He agreed, and under the vigilant glares of his guards who rushed around and ahead of us to make sure I wasn’t leading him into an ambush, we arrived at our destination.
It really was a pretty little meadow with a small point glistening with prismatic light under the rays of the sun at its centre and a welcoming copse of trees surrounding it.
A single willow stood near the point and with a flex of my will its roots moved like my own tendrils, breaking through the grass-covered ground and forming into a pair of chairs facing each other and a small table in the middle.
“I’m afraid that’s the best I can manage at the moment,” I said, graciously ignoring the wide-eyed stare he had on as he watched the newly made furniture.
I sat down in one, swinging one leg over the other as I smiled back at him. His guards came forward and under my inward eye roll started poking at the chair. It took them a whole half a minute before they seemingly gave the go ahead to their charge.
Coldstone gracefully strolled over and lowered himself into the chair, smiling slightly as he said. “Well, I hope those roots aren’t Stranglers.”
I tilted my head a little, and he elaborated.
“A particularly distasteful species of plant local to my home world of Vas’Talos,” he said, shaking his head in apparent distaste. “I had the misfortune of seeing its vines strangle more than one of my men to death.”
“Well, these roots like strangling only as much as any other plant,” I said easily, leaning back in my chair as I put on an apologetic look. “I’d offer refreshments, but alas, I likewise have no supply of those here. I’m afraid this moon is still in a severe lack of even just regular water, not just something fit for someone of your station.”
“Well, in lack of those I suppose it would be prudent to get on with the matter I came to discuss with you,” Coldstone said, his demeanour shifting slightly as his genial smile gained a serious edge and his spine straightened up. He levelled a look at me as he continued. “Or rather, the number of new topics that came to me upon seeing your … talents in person.”
“Do go ahead,” I said, motioning for him to continue with a continued lack of any outward fear for what he was about to say. “I’m listening.”
“You seem like a woman who appreciates straightforwardness in negotiations, Captain.” Coldstone leaned forward, intertwining his fingers on his lap as he narrowed his eyes. “I have worries, so do the rest of my Ethereal comrades … which is why you are talking to me, a low ranking Lord instead of someone higher up. And because you have given no indication that those worries might be realised, is why I am here at all and not a kill squad. So answer only this honestly. Are you what your Imperium considers a … Witch?”
So they do have some rudimentary understanding of Psykers. Fascinating. I wonder how deep it goes. The question spread a wave of startlement over the regular guards, not that it showed in their body language, but even with their tiny souls, I could feel it wash over their cute little auras when they were practically swimming in my own aura.
I leaned back, my carefree smile slipping a little as I gave the Ethereal a coy look.
“Depends on who you are asking, and what interpretation of a ‘Witch’ they are deciding it by,” I said, noting the fact that he used the Low Gothic word for Witch. Seems like they didn’t even have a word of their own for Psykers and their ilk. “Some would most certainly call me one, but so would they call you a Witch if you so much as waved one of your light bulbs in their faces. They are ignorant, the vast majority of them are anyway.”
“And you are not?” He challenged. “We know overconfidence is a vice as dangerous as it is deadly for those wielding powers … believed to be beyond mortal comprehension.”
“I like to think that I am not,” I said, shrugging. “But let’s go back to your initial question, define to me what you think a Witch is and I’ll give you an answer.”
"A Psyker, or Witch, is a being with the ability to manipulate forces beyond the natural world,” Coldstone said, his voice taking on an intonation alike someone quoting a passage they’ve read long ago. “They tap into powers that can be unpredictable and dangerous, often serving their own needs rather than the Greater Good."
“Going strictly that definition, my answer would have to be ‘Yes.” I nodded, willfully ignoring the way how even the Ethereal guards tensed at my admission. “But if you change the wording just a little bit to ‘They tap into the powers of the Warp’ etcetera, which is, by the way, the source all human Psykers draw their powers from, then my answer would be no.”
“You claim to get your power from somewhere other than the rest of your kind?” He asked, still sounding conversational as he gave some signal to his guards which dissipated the tense atmosphere they’d created. “Something safer? Less dangerous? I will be honest with you. As you seem to have been with me, many have called for your swift removal to prevent any possible danger your mere presence in our Empire might prove to the Greater Good. Convince me, no, give me something so I may convince them not to go ahead with that plan. Let me help you, so you may help me, and the Greater Good as a whole.”
I raised an eyebrow at him, half curious and half surprised. He sounded genuine; he felt genuine, sincere even. That was a surprise. He wasn’t just trying to shove that all down my throat and use me, but he really seemed to believe that I could be a positive force in furthering the Greater Good.
“You are a strange man,” I said, kicking my feet up on the coffee table of roots. “I expected a kill team, threats, maybe an attempted imprisonment. Maybe an attempted kidnapping at one of those close to me. I suppose your words could be taken as a threat, but I feel they were not meant to be so. Hmmmmm.”
“Diplomacy should always be the first choice of any civilised being,” he said with all the conviction his small, blue body could hold within itself. “Even if it seems to be all but futile, not that I think that is the case in this specific instance.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest idea what I could say that would convince your … comrades?” I tried, then shrugged, not really knowing what other Ethereals would be to Coldstone. Comrades, maybe? “I’m still not all that familiar with how things work around here, which is mostly why I asked to be placed out in here, on the fringes. Along with the fact that my … war-crew aren’t all that fit for polite society.”
“I’ve been made aware of the latter, Orks.” He looked like he wanted to say something, but was reluctant to let the topic shift away from what he wanted to talk about. “They would want assurances, assurances that you won’t have a sudden, unexpected, but extremely grisly and destructive end like all Witches recorded in our archives have seemed to have.”
“I can tell you all the platitudes in the world that you like,” I said, shrugging. “But none would convince you. I could reason with you, but you know far too little of the Immaterium and its workings to know whether I’m lying to your face or not. All I can tell you is that I am quite certain I will not have any end, even remotely similar to any Psyker your Empire might have had the displeasure of stumbling across. And that even if I did, it wouldn’t matter out here in this stretch of war-torn space where I am just as likely to blow up your enemies as I am to do so to your own.”
“We usually aim for precision and reliability in both our technology and training for our troops,” Coldstone said evenly. “But I can see your meaning, still, I doubt it would sway many.”
“Then let the benefits sway them,” I said, huffing out a laugh. “Let them know the dangers and then tell them of the benefits that so far outweigh those dangers that they’ll seem insignificant.”
“Benefits,” he said, leaning back and glanced around at the moon that had been nothing more than a dying ball of rock just days ago. “Do tell me more.”
