40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 122: Horror

When I returned to my room, I remembered to unfreeze the Deathwatch guys protecting the teleportarium on the Aegida Fortress, and even gave them several archeoweapons from my personal inventory. Vortex grenades and inferno pistols might serve them well when sent on a Kill-team to hunt down a powerful Ork Boss or something.

Meanwhile, dreadnought Chyron remained in stasis, till he was needed. No need to stress him too much, after he saw me burn a Tyranid hive fleet and kill a Queen without lifting a finger. He would be my second-in-command thus he had the need to know. Plus a Null Wand would cover other problems of a more chaotic nature. Same for Brother Semnai, most likely. If they couldn't be Blanks, they could at least have the same protection via artificial means.

Then, I brought Calixa in the room while I entered my shower to refresh, at the same time with Canis.

"We got teleported...wait! I'm missing six hours on my datalog. Your master is so tricky, right, space wolf?" the blonde woman asked Canis in a curious voice.

"Grrr. Wooof!" the space wolf replied in outrage, and went to pour himself meat pellets and water.

He was still growing, and had to squeeze a little, to fit through the door frame meant for Terminator armors. I was ambivalent on this. A bigger wolf would be stronger, but he might reach van size soon. And then he will eat even more!

A minute later, the blonde woman joined me in the shower, to help me wash my back. With her chest, but I didn't mind.

"I thought Astartes were more...transhuman." she sent with a data transmission, while examining my body all over.

"But I'm not a real Astartes. All my organs are natural." I explained with a mind transmission, which would not be logged on her mind implant.

The Sounding Board was very useful for tricks like this, and invisible inside the tesseract.

I just had to wear one tesseract around my neck, like a relic talisman depicting a skull with angel wings. Made sense to have one tesseract always nearby, even when outside my armor with the magic glove. For example when naked or inside the Knight.

"Natural organs, you say, my lord. I guess I shall test this claim, very profoundly." the infocyte continued with a data entry, getting busy with testing my claim.

Much later, she rested on my chest and sighed in content. "All natural!"

I wasn't tired at all, so I called Jenit and Reila to my room, and help me relieve all my stress. "Ludvaius, see that Lady Calixa gets a room with a cogitator bank and a pair of tech-priests to watch over her. Biologis and Cogitatrice clades."

My bodyguard just nodded and opened the armored door to let Calixa walk out, with a simple bath robe covering her. Well, I wasn't so tight on uniform regulation, especially for women.

Robes made for easy access and good thermal protection, and that was sufficient.

A minute later, Jenit arrived with Regina, while Reila came hand in hand with Henna, as they were probably discussing complicated topics like raising children or blowing up xenos from orbit.

I checked inward to see if my energy stores would suffice, and my body promptly signaled that yes, four women will be just enough.

"General, you have the rank so you may go first", Regina joked as she leaned over to kiss me and measure my body with hungry eyes.

"We will soon start teaching you combined arms warfare, especially with airpower and orbital drops." I explained in a gentle voice as Reila dropped herself on top of me, and began enjoying the benefits of a young body once again.

Hopefully Amberley will remember to requisition those Catachan regiments and bring them to Illevar once the Moloch Crusade was over.

I planned to obtain as many of those jungle expert regiments as possible, and the Catachans had raised over a thousand of them, mainly infantry. And since infantry regiments had the largest numbers, that was excellent too.

Armed and trained colonists for the Fringe, while women will be provided by saving Hive Worlds and exacting a toll. All normal and natural in this galaxy.

For the next generations, Blank men from my Blanktown will start being sent as minor nobles in the colonies, and do their best to spread their genes to the Catachan descendants.

As for my daughters and granddaughters, well...I could marry them off into Rogue Trader families, or something of that nature. They will still command their spaceships, and spread Blank genes among other Houses, which will become important later.

Alliances among nobles houses were common enough, but my House will have a palace on Terra itself. I might have to beat off eager men with a stick.

They already knifed each other among the Catachans, but the Catachans were not rich and important and well-connected like Rogue Traders were.

That could wait though, until Decima and Serena advised me on it. Perhaps even those Sisters from Orders Famulous. I had a dozen of them among my concubines, without even asking them for it. They just somehow appeared in my bed, escorted by Helena and Catherine.

Several hours later, Henna took the last spot with a calm and patient demeanor, eager for another child. I was so lucky with this cousin, as she was everything other women were not, at least not here. Loving, accepting, soft and warm, a dutiful wife and mother.

However, while I did love her for it, those were not good survival traits, not in this hellish galaxy. Maybe in ten thousand years, if my efforts bore fruit.

"Tomorrow morning at 8.00 shiptime. All of you report on the cadet deck, for strategic courses. Henna, you befriend Calixa and see about medical tests." I commanded after we concluded the marital duty.

"Yes sir." Reila answered in a military tone, and leaned over to steal a kiss before she ran off.

"Teenager hormones. She'll get over it." Regina mused to herself, glancing after Reila as she departed the room.

Regina did not receive the chrono treatment as she wasn't in need for a young body yet, nor was Jenit. I caught her chin and kissed her abruptly. "Go and rest, my dear. I have other work now." I growled in a harsher tone.

She smiled and walked away swaying her hips, confident in her charms and position. I almost called her back for another round, but that was what Regina wanted, and we couldn't have that.

"See you tomorrow, my lord." Jenit whispered in a shy voice, and ran after her boss.

You bet your perky ass we will see you tomorrow! And for the rest of your life.

These three women will form my command staff in the future, and follow me on campaigns. We will see a lot of each other, and enjoy it too.

But perhaps not Calixa, if she was not loyal to me, like Rose had warned me. A double-agent if I ever saw one. Triple-agent, considering the Inquisition too.

I will have to handle her with caution then.

At my order, Felicia arrived in a minute and sat in my lap, while I powered up the cogitator to start working on the new machines.

The blonde enginseer almost forgot to pump her hips, while watching the trove of treasures on the screen.

"This is amazing, my lord. So many discoveries!" Felicia exclaimed and squeezed me in excitement.

"There is even more, from what I could recover from the STC caches Prelia and Jollov and these teleporting Orks right here. Some templates even seem intact. But first, we work on the walking turrets. I want one multilaser and one lascannon, powered by this small plasma reactor, and we'll cover them in blackstone. Maybe even a Flare shield, if you're good enough." I teased her and squeezed her breasts in my palms.

"Keep pumping, my lord! These babies will burn through xenos like the Omnissiah's Will!" Felicia demanded loudly as her Mind impulse unit delved deeper into the cogitator array, mixing and matching parts, balancing targeting codes and draining me of gene-seed in a strange but pleasantly competent display of multitasking.

I was very happy for her assistance, and offered Felicia a sip from the expensive Apple-peach juice from planet Iax. She sipped greedily through the straw and kept working hard. I knew she loved it, as her flesh was weak for pleasure.

But I would provide all the pleasure she wanted, in exchange for valuable service. My body, good food and drinks, gifts and treats and even children, one day.

My work was progressing a few times faster with her aid, and I got prime service too. What was not to like?

By the next week, most of my goals for this trip were achieved, including the obliteration of the largest Ork worlds in the Jagga Tyrant empire, a dozen more xeno worlds burned to the bedrock to eliminate potential new traits for the Tyranids, and a couple Hrud worlds that would surely be huge problems once they began migrating towards the Imperium.

While this might seem a pity, burning livable planets, truth was there were at least ten times more planets out there than those known on the official Imperial maps, and a thousand times more not livable yet, but those could be made useful with effort and time.

The galaxy was teeming with potential, but using Warp drives and exploring blindly wasn't really working. The Tau had the right idea, simply expanding their volume geometrically, slowly exploring and conquering every star system in their reach. Or at least they were, until their alien allies started getting burned, and their own cities invaded by demons.

What the Pharos showed me was entrenchment, orbital forts and starbases being built to defend the inner lines, exploring ships recalled for defense, and Ork Waaghs getting brutally massacred with ranged fire like in the War_of_Dakka.

Of course, this time the Kroot Warspheres did not survive, with plasma torpedoes teleported inside their engine rooms and bridges, while hundreds of Orks found themselves teleported on board the ancient vessels and doing what they did best, grabbing anything shiny and shooting with it. And given that the shiny weapons they found were Necron and Dark Eldar in origin, they had a substantial advantage over the Kroot.

Eventually the Tau would win, as they too had cheat codes in technology and organization, plus a star faring civilization still unbroken by the horrors of the 41st Millennium.

Not yet, not while they were useful. But later, the sky will open and rain fire on the heretics.

Now there was a God, and it hated them.