40 Thousand Reasons

Sotha had been declared a Dead World by my Rose following the Exterminatus we had conducted on the poor planet.

In theory, this meant nobody would be around to check on it, plus there might be some escaped Tyranid organisms around...in the asteroid belt or such.

I wasn't worried about the Pharos installation, because its living rock bunker was made to contain a god, or at least the fragment of one.

But three weeks later, I was proven wrong.

A dozen Scythes warships were prowling the Sotha system, including a Battle Barge, and the idiots were even trying to land and excavate the entrance to the Pharos, using heavy tanks and exoskeletons on top of their power armor, called a Centurion.

There was still molten rock and flowing lava covering the burned planet, as expected, but the Space Marines had a duty, and didn't seem to care about the harsh conditions.

"Stop your digging, Scythes!" I send at once via the Vox.

Their friendly Chaplain, Lord Hornidal appeared on my screen via a pict transmission, in less than a minute.

"You! Haven't you done enough, Rogue Trader?" he asked me in a disgusted voice.

I smiled prettily with my new teeth. "Don't make me come there and punch you again, Astartes." I growled menacingly, just like Canis did beside me.

Only his growl was a thousand times more scary, because the wolf had grown to full size in the past year and his vocal cords thrummed with subsonic cords striking at your deepest fears.

That seemed to work better than my pathetic threat, probably because a space wolf wasn't something anyone could have.

"We have our duty, Lord Lancefire. Unless there's an Inquisitor backing you again, we will continue establishing the fortress-monastery." The damn Librarian announced proudly and shut off the transmission.

Okay then. Time to visit the vault and retrieve my special motivational implement.

I held my left hand out and Ludvaius dragged me out of the command chair. Funny, I know. But until my whole body was infused with the Sanguinor blessing, using a power armor was still awkward.

"You still don't stand a chance against a space marine, Lord Pef. Not to mention a Chief_Librarian..." my Astartes friend muttered as a warning.

I sighed in acceptance and patted his oversized pauldron. "I don't exactly mind the Scythes protecting the place, Ludvaius. I just don't want them digging. That would be very bad, should the thing down there escape."

Rafen rose an eyebrow, perhaps in surprise. "Ha! And you said guarding you would be boring, Captain Pef. You were ready to beat up a defenseless Librarian, for his own good." he commented with a chuckle. Not really defenseless, as long as the guy had psyker powers on his side. However, I did have a counter for that.

"Might still need to, if he doesn't behave. Thrasius, phased munition clip ready, if you will." I demanded while marching pass the last surviving Scythe in my retinue.

The Astartes Captain hesitated for a second, before following me and the Blood Angels into the elevator. "I'd rather not shoot at my own Chaplain, Lord Pef. Bad form...and a betrayal of my oaths." he muttered in displeasure.

I nodded grimly. "If the C'tan below escapes...then it would be bad form. I'm not confident I can defeat such a being, not yet." I explained in a sterner voice, and patted my loyal Canis as he pushed his bison-sized head into my shoulder for support.

Thrasius blinked and looked away. We would be all rather impotent against a god, no matter our duties and oaths.

"So you know that secret as well...even though only Captains have access to the old logbooks and the foundling codex." the Scythe grumbled to himself.

In a few minute, I reached the vault and took out the Sanguinius spear and an Enslaver bone. I passed the spear to Rafen as if it was only a scene prop. "Hold on to this, Rafen. Try not to give in to those urges to shout benedictions and battle hymns."

The Veteran Astartes was rather impressed, but held on to his senses. "So much power, no wonder Brother Arkio went mad with glory and pride. And yet, you don't even consider it a worthy artifact, instead choosing that xeno bone for yourself." He mused out loud.

"The spear is strong, that's true. But only in the hand of a Primarch. I don't see wings growing on you, Astartes." I said in a sober tone, and opened the next vault with the Sounding Board.

Soon enough, I mounted the ancient artifact on a Cyclops remote tracked vehicle and had it advance in front of us towards the teleportarium.

This Cyclops didn't have a plasma warhead inside, but it did have a few pairs of mechanical arms to secure its load.

The hexagonal teleport platform already held an atomic warhead ready for deployment, just in case. Made it easy for me to simply lock onto a location and deliver a small sliver of sunfire, in just the right spot to illuminate some idiot's thoughts.

Captain Thrasius wasn't stupid and saw this as well, because the warhead was deliberately marked with radiation warnings and Mechanicus litanies for soul purification.

"I do hope our Chaplain will be reasonable..." he commented in apprehension.

"Go on, Captain Thrasius. Speak to your spiritual leader, and have him listen to my advice. Fortifications yes, but no digging. I'll be down in the Pharos for other work." I invited him, while opening my chest plate to extract the Rosette shaped a cog.

With a flash, the Scythe Captain teleported beside the recalcitrant Librarian. I could have beamed the atomic warhead instead, and he knew it very well.

A minute later, the Cyclops and my group beamed straight into the Pharos main chamber, using the Rosette to ping a locator beacon, left behind by a helpful Inquisitor.

Almost instantly, my mind was assaulted with empathic links from the Pharos. "... A road guiding to safety or to ruin." I whispered with a forgotten memory.

The xeno bone floated in front of me, ignoring the material reality. So I locked on the location of Trazyn and pushed it gently with a finger. The air distorted and the bone vanished, emerging thousands of light-years away, still afloat.

"Enslaver bones are quite amazing, right?" I commented towards the surprised Necron Lord.

"... Is this another gift, stranger?" he wondered after a minute of silence, probably after updating his esoteric defenses and scanning the alien bone for danger.

"Of a different nature. A gift for someone. An Inquisitor of Ordo Xenos will be the one to find the ship engine, when it's ready. And she will need a potent mind-shield and mind-lance crafted from that bone. I expect you have already retrieved the chronofield blade, and perhaps the immortal bearer as well." I explained and turned off the mental link.

Knowing the Necron Lord's abilities, he had surely confiscated the xeno blade and its user, possibly already a decade ago. Temporal manipulation was easy for Trazyn the Infinite, and a path to achieve plenty of objectives or artifact collections, just like that entire Tyranid fleet he kept in his tesseract field.

I wasn't going to lose my parents in this universe. With some 'deus ex machina' magic, they could be extracted through time, just like missing Primarchs or Dark Age of technology artifacts.

However, trading with Trazyn wouldn't be easy at all. He was still a monster, and not quite sane.

Luckily, the galaxy was literally crawling with relics and heroes, that Trazyn could be enticed to collect and save. And now that I have proven my own ability to transport valuable artifacts in an instant, the ancient robot zombie would have to be wary and cautious, since he stood to lose much more. Instead of a simple exotic bone, there could have been a Scrap Code warhead or something just as annoying.

I turned to find Rafen posing in a victory stance with the holy spear held valiantly over his head. Damn idiot.

"Rafen! What did I tell you? No pride and glory, until you grow wings!" I shouted at him and pointed my finger down.

The Veteran caught himself and rapidly lowered the spear, hiding it behind his back, like a child caught playing with matches. "...Hehe. Sorry, Captain!" he declared in a not-too-sorry voice.

Ludvaius chuckled and grinned as this was a good joke. "Astartes Rafen needs to pray and meditate on his actions, Lord Pef. Such behavior is unseemly for a mere Sergeant."

I sighed and returned to scanning the Segmentum for more useful real-time events and incoming attacks.

Couldn't do much about thousands of human worlds under attack from hundreds of various xeno or traitor bands, but I could keep an eye for the precious Forge Worlds and send a relief fleet to arrive at an opportune time.

I turned my attention on the Badab Sector that lies within the Maelstrom Zone of the Segmentum Ultima. This area of the galaxy has become a haven to pirates, Heretics and Renegades. The Maelstrom Zone is a region of lawless wilderness containing about 24 Ork empires, 15 Hrud infestations, and a hundred human pirate strongholds.

I engaged the remembrancer implant to mark down targets for rapid conquests and ship acquisition. A wealth made of a thousand destroyers, a hundred cruisers and even a few battlecruisers could be obtained in my next crusade, although for effective ship boarding I would need more Astartes. Like these Scythes, wasting their time defending a magma world.

Plus, if I do manage to confiscate those pirate ships, the future Tyrant fleet will be much smaller, and thus reduce the amplitude of their rebellion.

But first, I would need to eliminate the enormous danger posed by the Dark Forge of Ghalmek. And even if I might succeed with a deep strike modelled after the Deathwatch, there was no real need. I had the means to exact retribution right here.

"Please be quiet, both of you." I murmured while delving deep into the Pharos powers. The teleport function worked backwards too, and you could bring something to you, if you knew your target well enough. And I did.

In a flash, the Cyclonic torpedo aboard my Canticle materialized inside the Pharos chamber and I started working, using my Rosetta to activate the catastrophic warhead, releasing the safeties one by one.

After a long hour of tense ordnance activation protocols, the twin-stage warhead activated and began humming ominously. A short prayer towards the Emperor, for success, and the torpedo vanished in a spacial distortion.

I felt tired suddenly and fell into a groaning armchair left behind from the previous visit.

"There we go. Ghalmek should be purified in three...two..." I muttered tiredly as the Pharos link with the device vanished abruptly.

Struggling to keep my eyes open, I tried to locate that corupted Forge World but there was only fire and screaming souls in that spot.

It probably worked.