40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 125: Brood

As I returned to the command center, I was already exploring what these Orks have brought me, besides the Space Hulk still far beyond the gas giant.

Nearly 80 Kroozers, 6 Ork Battleships and 250 escorts, of which 50 were Chaos Destroyers still bearing the marks of a couple Chaos warbands. This was possibly the payment the traitors used to attract the Orks, not that it actually took much to convince them into attacking anyone. Done it myself a few times.

But this indeed gave me a great idea, if only I could find an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor to get on board with my plan.

And while my ships formed into a strike group to dismember that Spake Hulk, I concluded my work and ejected those infested destroyers into the Sun. Good riddance.

I now had even more metal to construct my army and armor up my ships.

The battlecruisers and battlebarges first, because they had the huge reactors meant for battleships, and thus more than enough energy to move, even after tripling their armor.

And once all these Ork Kroozers were cleaned up and repaired, I would have a hundred capital ships to form the core of my personal fleet, backed up by ten battleships and several carriers. And everything would be able to travel outside the Warp too.

The logistics would get a bit complicated, but while I had the Kroozers towed to friendly Forge Worlds, then upgraded, the next generation of granddaughters will be almost ready to become Captains.

The decision thus made, I nodded to myself while Chiron just mumbled something.

"You said something Chyron?" I asked to make sure.

"I said you're breaking all the rules, Lord Lancefire. Not that the Chaos worshipers didn't break them first. A hundred Ork capital ships, and a hundred traitor vessels, just gone. There must have been billions of Orks and ten thousand traitor Space Marines, with Emperor knows how many Demon Engines and fighters and bombers and tanks." the dreadnought grumbled in a deep voice from his coffin.

I nodded in agreement. His estimations of enemy numbers and equipment were spot on.

Going by any rational measure, the traitors should have won, in less than a year. Probably before any help could be sent from Ultramar.

Then again, I did kinda burn down nearly any remaining Demon World in the Pharos range, plus a hundred Ork worlds and just as many Tyranid crawling nests.

Must have ruined lots of carefully laid plans and reduced the Chaos influence in the segmentum by half or more.

I should have captured some cultists and interrogate...wait. There were some remaining on the Space Hulk. And a billion Orks too, plus the other assortment of creatures generally found on a Space Hulk, like mutants and genestealers and a dozen types of xenos I never seen before.

These guys must have come from the Eye of Terror or somewhere.

But in a few hours, it was kinda over, as the monstrous hulk began breaking up under a barrage of torpedoes and Nova shells, and I could start stealing away battleship-sized fragments, widening gaps for more weapons to strike at fractures and split off mangled hulls and twisted weapons and engines.

Even so, the hulk began moving away while losing megatonnes from its mass with every salvo from our strike group. Seeing this, I directed a thousand corvettes to dive and unload everything in the middle of the remaining hulk.

A fragment 100 kilometers long sheared off under the thousands of torpedoes striking along a mid-line, and less than half of this hulk reached Warp limit and jumped away.

Damn cheating bastards! In time the Space Hulk will collect more victims and grow again, as in the Warp dimensions were malleable, and ships could intersect each other, then remained fused once the hulk emerged into realspace.

Anyway, I did manage to collect a couple of sorcerers and even a Navigator. Well, it kinda made sense to use a Navigator to guide this beast, and the captured ships would each have a Navigator. One of them would eventually crack and do the bidding of his new masters.

I began organizing an interrogation center, with security protocols in place. Pain wouldn't be really useful, but techpriests and drugs would, as well as memory reading devices and Silent Sisters to keep things fair.

And then, the interrogations began, recorded on pict-cams and send to the command center and the Lamenter barracks. The new Lamenters should know what to expect in their career, and fucking use their melta backpack before they lay limbless and dissected on a torture table.

Brother Semnai arrived escorted by a Sanguinary Priest and huffed at the display. "This will hurt morale, and give the recruits bad dreams."

I snorted and waved a hand at the big holoscreen. "No Astartes has ever died of old age, Brother. The lucky ones will get a bolter round in their face, or maybe a claw. As for the unlucky ones, this is very mild. The worst would happen to those Lamenters who are stupid enough fall the Chaos. Because then, I will be the one making them suffer. Not merely having the memories torn away by a Mechanicus brain probe. A millennium of real suffering and then True Death, obliterating their souls completely." I continued in a pleasant voice, as if we were talking about wines.

The Sanguinary Priest shuddered and walked off in a hurry, while his eyes turned black. He could run, but I knew all of them now. I had every single one memorized, just in case I needed to extract them, or hunt them down.

Semnai was made of sterner stuff, or he has seen too much in the Deathwatch. Inquisitors could be inventive and brutal too, I suppose. The man just sighed and sat down to watch.

"We'll need to salvage that Ark Mechanicus. It will make good training for the recruits. We'll incinerate and melt the rest of the metal to buy new ships and weapons." I continued while highlighting a nearly intact Mechanicus cruiser that was only lacking engines.

"Expected opposition, Chapter Master?" Chyron perked up at the idea of killing xenos.

"There are 68 thousand hostiles on board. Half of them genestealers. There's even a Broodlord, on deck 15." I explained in an amused voice.

The dreadnought grumbled something like insanity and impossible. Then spoke more clearly. "And who will go?"

"Those 5000 Aspirants, the techmarines, and all the Sanguinary Priests in the first wave, under your command. Bolt pistols and melee weapons only. The Blank recruits and Semnai will teleport on deck 15 to engage the Broodlord and its retinue using only melee weapons." I demanded, giving the easy job to Chyron.

So many people, will only need to fire 10 shots each, and not miss.

Semnai grunted at his task, hand patting the bolt pistol on his hip. "We cannot take our weapons?"

"You can take whatever weapons you want. Those who use anything else than what I ordered get disqualified. Now this, this will become our Lamenters training schedule. What other chapter can train in boarding operations, with live enemies, in their home system? Just imagine how big that Space Hulk is! We can train a million Aspirants with ease." I exclaimed in a joyous voice.

"As you say, Chapter Master. Here we can train in safety. But you won't always be there to watch over us." Chyron proclaimed in a wise voice, and walked away to prepare the operation.

Brother Semnai had a much smaller task, and fewer troops to command. In ten minutes my Blank sons were ready, half wearing Terminator armor, the other Devastator models.

Once they confirmed readiness, I just moved them on board the Ark Mechanicus cruiser on deck 15, and then started sending over small groups of techmarines and Sanguinary Priests, as soon as they held a palm out for transport.

Initially it went well for both groups, but as soon as I started to move Aspirants over, it became hectic. Men were panicking, genestealers were jumping about from pipes and behind corners, their claws able to slice through metal with ease.

Pistols served little purpose if you were not able to see and target your enemy.

I allowed most injuries, except losing limb and life, extracting the 'dead' ones and sending them again on deck 1. The injured men found themselves in the Apothecary for emergency medical care, and then sent once more to deck 1, to start the mission again.

It was kinda fun, playing dungeon master.

Once in a while, a group of Orks Boyz would spawn at their backs, forcing the Aspirants to advance more carefully.

New bolter crates and bottles of water and nutrigruel would await at every new deck, as a reward for reaching a new level. It was kinda fun.

Sadly, the boss raid wiped, as a Broodlord was a bio-titan and not easily defeated by noob players.

They had to start all over, passing through corridors infested with Orks and Tyranids to reach the boss room again and again.

About six hours later, the men seemed exhausted, and they still didn't manage to complete the mission.

Don't worry guys! We will start again, tomorrow.

I had enough Orks and Tyranids in my tesseract to train an Astartes Legion of old. And...that's what I did try to obtain.