Warhammer 40k: Starting as a Rogue Trader

Chapter 144: The Immense Gap in Strength

Lucan informed Ian that he had accepted the request for cooperation.

"Lord Lucan has agreed," Ian relayed. "The Dynasty's fleet has already departed and will arrive in the Malfi system in seven days."

Leon was curious. Did this dynasty have its own astropaths on Malfi? The reply had come far too quickly. Or perhaps Ian held such a special position within the Mongorte Dynasty that he could make decisions on behalf of the Rogue Trader?

Regardless, Leon's objective had been achieved.

Leon, in turn, provided Lucan with a wealth of intelligence on Malfi. Besides troop dispositions and the locations of ground-based weaponry, he also supplied a long list of problematic nobles that his faction had compiled over many years.

"Inquisitor Hawkins," Ian said, "I hope you can use your political influence to exempt the Imperial Navy fleet in orbit from Glydus's command. The Lord does not wish for loyal soldiers to be lost in a meaningless internal conflict. Also, do you have a way to shut down the defense platforms near the Mandeville Point?"

"It can be done," Leon replied. "Glydus and the families under her influence may ignore my orders, and some of the nearby Imperial Navy elements have been infiltrated by them, but I am still an Inquisitor. I can still command a portion of the forces."

"Then I'll leave it to you!"

Another five days passed.

Glydus grew increasingly agitated. Damon and his team seemed to have vanished completely from Malfi. No matter how hard she tried, she could not find any trace of them. Even the Imperial Navy fleet, which had previously obeyed her commands due to her authority as sub-sector commander, had begun to act on its own. When she demanded to know who had given them new orders, the answer she received was: the Inquisition.

Glydus had been searching for the hidden Inquisitorial stronghold on Malfi for years, but had found nothing. The authority of the Inquisition within the Imperium was truly in a class of its own, unshakable. Even the power of a sub-sector governor was useless before it. Fortunately, the planetary defense fleet she had spent over a century building still obeyed her commands, and the countless orbital defense platforms were under their control. The PDF she had established and her powerful family guard were the foundation of her control over the entire planet.

These were forces completely loyal to her. When the orbital defense platforms near the Mandeville Point were shut down, she immediately realized that an enemy fleet was about to enter the Malfi system.

Meanwhile, the flood of hunters from the middle hive had thrown the entire upper hive into chaos and filth. Many secret sacrificial rituals had even appeared, allowing Chaos corruption to fester in the shadows. Glydus was using this opportunity to eliminate the nobles who were not part of her faction and seize their resources. Only by doing this could she truly rule Malfi and perfectly utilize all of its power.

Norris and his team had already infiltrated her palace, but their search was not going as smoothly as they had imagined.

When Norris led five Ghosts into the palace, their psychic talents immediately sensed that something was wrong. The seemingly normal palace was strangely devoid of life. To maintain a palace of this size, there should have been a large number of servants. But here, only a multitude of automated devices kept the palace running, and these were not the normal mechanical creations of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Though subtle, they could still see signs of blasphemous technology.

The terrain mapping and life-sign detection on their tactical visors were cranked to maximum power, but they found nothing. A kind of psychic energy permeated the entire palace, interfering with their senses. Norris quickly used his own psychic abilities to counteract the negative effect.

"There's something wrong with this palace, Lord Norris," a Ghost reported. "These energies are affecting our senses! No wonder we could never find the right path; we've just been going in circles!"

Conventional detection methods were almost useless in the face of this power.

Norris's expression was grim. The assassination mission had run into a dead end right at the start. When he was first gathering intelligence in the hive, he had heard legends that the Governess's palace was like a maze, and that no one who entered without permission ever came out. He hadn't expected it to be a literal truth, not an exaggeration. A psychic spell was altering the very physical structure of the palace.

Without psychic talent, it would be impossible for anyone entering here to find their way by conventional means.

Suddenly, the still-cloaked Ghosts heard the sound of heavy, rhythmic footsteps approaching. Norris and his team immediately froze, afraid of being discovered. Soon, several figures who looked like tech-priests appeared, leading a number of combat servitors.

Seeing these "priests" and their mechanical creations, Norris immediately recognized that they were not ordinary members of the Mechanicus. They were corrupted hereteks of the Dark Mechanicum. At the joints of the combat servitors' mechanical components, mutated flesh had grown, binding them together. These hereteks looked remarkably similar to the one he had killed before. Blasphemous bionics had replaced much of their bodies. They stopped near Norris's position.

"Be careful! Someone may have infiltrated the palace! The great Vashtorr's bio-sensors have detected an abnormal psychic signal here."

The signal was originating from their exact location, yet all their scans came back with nothing. The Ghosts' specialized combat suits shielded all their life signs. To counteract the psychic interference in the palace, Norris and his team had been forced to actively emit their own psychic energy, which was precisely how the traitors had tracked them.

Just as the Dark Hereteks were about to leave, the Ghosts simultaneously fired Lockdown Rounds, immobilizing the mechanical enemies. They then simultaneously applied Mind Control to all the hereteks.

"Steal the data from their brains!"

Under mind control, the hereteks willingly opened the defenses of their processing units. As the data-probes were forcibly inserted into their brains, a complete map of the palace was successfully stolen.

"Got it! Since the enemy already knows we're here, we don't need to be completely stealthy anymore."

Lucan had told them that a successful infiltration didn't necessarily mean remaining unseen. Killing everyone who saw you was also a form of successful infiltration.

At that moment, Frank turned to Glydus, informing her that some uninvited guests might have broken into her palace and were killing her soldiers.

"Those priests were killed? Hmph. They'll never find the right path in this palace. Ignore them. Have the palace guard monitor their movements. It's just a few assassins. Is there a shortage of dead assassins in this palace?"

A short time later.

Thanks to the powerful warp engine of the Stellar Pioneer, Lucan's fleet arrived in the Malfi system ahead of schedule.

When the massive fleet appeared on the augur arrays, Glydus realized she had still underestimated this Rogue Trader Dynasty. In terms of both quantity and quality, it was far beyond the scale a normal Rogue Trader should possess. As a governor, she knew exactly how many resources it took to maintain a single warship. A light cruiser was usually the limit of what a dynasty could support.

But now, besides the behemoth that was the Stellar Pioneer, the enemy fleet contained several cruisers.

The sudden arrival of the fleet threw all the informed parties on Malfi into a panic. The ship's identification signals clearly displayed "Mongorte Dynasty," and they knew their governor's actions had brought the enemy's retribution down upon them.

Ian and his team were ecstatic. Leon, however, had a grim expression on his face. When he actually saw the scale of the fleet, the joy he had felt at their successful cooperation vanished. He had already overestimated the strength of this Rogue Trader's alliance in his mind, but when they truly showed their fist, he realized he had still underestimated them.

The best cooperation is built on a foundation where the power gap between the two parties is not that large. But now? He had become the distinctly weaker party in this partnership.

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