40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 129: Unbroken

Having so many resources at my disposal meant I could enact strategies that might be considered wasteful by the Imperium, such as layered void minefields containing plasma and Nova warheads, asteroids with torpedo tubes and missile launchers placed far ahead to soften the attackers, and a couple of old defense lasers repaired and raised into orbit, and then set in geostationary orbit above the planet's poles.

On the ground, terrace walls of ferrocrete were being hastily poured, with plasma generators inside, to provide continuous and autonomous power to lascannons Tarantula turrets, and recharge slots for the infantry's lasgun powerpacks.

Poles with horizontally spinning flails dotted the dead ground around the Hive City, and drum flails above the gates, would provide some measure of protection against melee attackers, while underground the hive was being cleaned up and reinforced with extra walls of ferrocrete and plates of blackstone around important generators and conduits.

A couple of Drop-cruisers were making their way towards Avalos on sub-light engines, but they will still need a month to arrive, even going at a quarter of the light speed.

Perhaps using light cruisers wasn't so inspired after all, especially not against Tyranids. Might need to 'find' a heavy cruiser pattern for drop-pods, one with warp-less engines.

They were not bad, and worked great against Orks or other xenos or traitors, but when the space around a star system was blockaded by the Shadow in the Warp, a slower heavy cruiser would still reach the deployment zone faster. And they could carry 10 times as many drop-pods without having to remove the capital class weapon batteries.

On a side note, Avira Kalistradi was very grateful for being saved, and it only took a couple of days of light romance to express her gratitude in my bed. The other Inquisitor Lady was perhaps not too pleased, seeing her predictions coming true in front of her bionic eyes. Not that I would turn a friendly Inquisitor into a slut, that's insulting! Who would raise the children then?

Perhaps a really crazy Inquisitor, but with a great body? It would be like saving her life, and giving her a new purpose, in my opinion.

We shall see, once Trazyn provided me an enslavement method like he was testing right now on Astartes and many other of his slaves and subjects.

It would have to be very subtle and undetectable, as the Inquisition or the Librarians were quite adept at detecting xenos influence.

"Why is she here, Pef? Surely you can tell Lady Velayne_Ramaeus to wait outside while we enjoy a few hours together?" Avira muttered in my neck, and glared at her fellow Inquisitor for invading her privacy.

I wasn't that bothered, having gotten used with my bodyguards or wives keeping watch over me, even in bed.

"Doesn't bother me one bit, my dear. My body is pretty much perfect, angel genes and all." I answered in a cheerful tone, and gestured at my nearly Catachan-shaped body. Getting close to 2 meters tall, strong muscles, youthful appearance, angelic face, what was not to like?

To the side, Canis lifted his eyes to measure me, and then glanced at his own van-sized body of pure raw strength and glossy fur. He was quite amazing as well, too bad I didn't have a Fenrisian Wolf female for him.

"Also immune to Warp... I want kids like that too." my new Inquisitor lover murmured while pawing all over me, then deciding to climb for another ride.

I agreed, naturally. Her kids would be great as she had perfect genes. Someone on Terra must have been selecting the prettiest women to become Inquisitors, for some strange reason. And dear Avira was on top of the list even so, long black hair curling gently over her shoulders, and G-sized breasts meant to feed a dozen children.

"Your wish is my command, Lady Inquisitor. At least a dozen children, I suppose?" I quipped while groping those great prizes.

"Oh! At least that...yes." the black-haired beauty whispered in a slight daze.

Much later, I was having dinner and pushing Canis away from my food when Lady Velayne sat beside me and watched me in silence.

"I think the mystery is solved, Lord Lancefire. I will absolve you of the silly suspicion of corrupting Inquisitors. However I have one condition!" the woman demanded raising her tone a little.

I turned to measure the bionic Inquisitor in surprise. Don't tell me...?

"... Really?" I asked quite confused.

"... Not like that, damn idiot! But, my retinue could use a couple of Blanks, to cover my activities from Farseers and other psykers in that Cabal. Perhaps a Null Rod for myself, if you have it." Velayne asked in a more pleading voice.

Well, Blanks were quite rare indeed. Especially after a host of psyker groups started hunting them down, from Navigators to Inquisitors and a dozen influential groups in-between, including Chaos and genestealer cults, Eldars and even Necrons who made anti-psyker weapons from Blanks.

I pretended to think about it, before sipping my wine to wash off my meal. "It might be possible, Lady Velayne. But the same rules apply. You want Blanks, you give birth to them. It's the only way I will allow it, and make sure you'll take care of my children."

The woman scowled in disgust, as if having sex with me would be a chore. "That's not...I'm way over the biological limit anyway. I was over the limit a thousand years ago!" she explained in a low growl.

Oh, that explained why she was trusted to check on me, being this old and shrivelled inside.

So, I just nodded wisely and caressed her scared face. "Then you need a miracle, my dear. Luckily, you came to the right person. We shall see to it, after the Tyranids are defeated."

Ludvaius chuckled and held his thumb up, while Canis grumbled something like, 'Old bitch!'

An hour later, the first bio-ships of the Tyranids began entering the system, and thus my tesseract's range and I kinda forgot about this promise.

Too busy coordinating the fleet and setting up ambushes and surprise detonations.

As always, blowing up the Tyranids in the void was much better than letting them reach a planet, but sadly my fleet was much too small to intercept 10 million bioships.

Over the week, non-stop raids and harassment have forced the Tyranids to disperse somewhat, as to avoid being splashed by Nova shells and lose thousands of destroyer-sized organisms with every detonation.

So I began to cheat, and fire Nova shells at the larger organisms, while small bioships were stolen and then released back inside the explosion's radius.

This worked great, and the Tyranids were powerless to adapt. Only a million bio-ships from Hive Fleet Dagon reached the orbital forts, and less than a tenth managed to drop transport spores on the planet.

It was still a trillion-sized mass of teeth and claws and bio-plasma guns, and many other biological and psyker organisms, but Avalos was a dead world, polluted and radiated by millennia of careless exploitation.

That made orbital bombardment feasible and quite advantageous, striking the desant spores on the ground with lances and plasma cannons, while thousands of torpedoes created a barrage of death and blood mist in orbit.

And since the polar defense lasers did not have to content with atmospheric dispersion, a single shot could core a dozen bio-ships at once, while the battlebarges were constantly teleporting plasma warheads directly inside the Tyranid vessels, instead of Space Marines.

Cato Sicarius wasn't too pleased with my innovative use of teleports, so I told him to land and defend the Hive City's walls. It would come to a melee fight eventually, and the guy was a superb swordsman.

Captain Khan and most of the Blood Angels and Deathwatch Astartes received the same task, supported by Silent Sisters and Lamenter techmarines.

There was even a Company of Dark Angels, all fitted with multi-meltas and Storm Shields, waiting beside the Knights of House Lancefire. It would be the safest place on the battlefield but perhaps the worst too.

And then the horizon grew dark with Tyranid hordes, and artillery shells began landing among the first waves, our drones and ground-attack crafts with servitor brains took off to launch incendiary bombs and missiles over the rolling terrain of horrors,

while the skies filled with bombers and fighters vying for air supremacy with Tyranid flyers.

Our corvettes were ordered into low orbit over the Hive City, providing an extra screen against spores and flyers, as well as precise lascannon fire of lower energy output.

There wasn't much I could do right now, except hope my strategy was solid, and that the wall of firepower will be enough.

There were 30 Baneblades and 60 Doomhammers forming the bulwark against the terror, and 60 Macharius-Omega armed with Plasma cannons, backed up by 5000 Sentinels and 3000 Armed Sentinels, 6000 Guardian turrets and thousands of Chimeras and Hydras and Manticores, all unleashing hell towards the invading xenos.

And they just melted and broke, especially when the Knights added their colossal firepower and the wall turrets entered effective range.

I smiled and focused on winning the orbitals, as the ground troops could take care of themselves.

This was how humanity should fight everywhere, and while the Tyranids were the object of the lesson, the recipients were those Astartes and officers taking part in the fight, and seeing what we could do when we were not sabotaging ourselves.

And when the fighting reached the walls, I handed over a chronoglaive to Lady Velayne and sent her and her Deathwatch guards right beside Cato Sicarius and Captain Khan, and gave the Inquisitor the miracle she needed.

"The Emperor protects, dear Velayne. Pray hard and strike the xenos, and you will see!" I whispered in her mind while Ludvaius and Rafen prayed hard near my Sounding Board.

I will need the Angel to make this work, because healing was not among my abilities.

Did I cheat? Lie and steal? Of course I did. Nothing our dear Emperor wouldn't do.

In a golden glow, the Sanguinor appeared beside Ludvaius and stared at the three of us with dead, stone eyes.

The space twisted, bringing the Shadowlight out and touching his free hand, making the Warp construct increase in power a dozen times. He became more solid, larger and grew armor plates over the golden body, and the dead eyes flickered almost alive.

Almost. Not yet Primarh, but soon. Death will not bar my way.

"Go and help humanity, Angel. And do heal Inquistor Velayne. Can't have the mother of my children be a dried husk with half cyborg organs." I sent towards his mind.

The Angel smiled sadly and poked the Ancient artifact almost curious. Then he teleported away, slashing hundreds of Tyranids on his path and illuminating the Hive City walls with his golden aura.

Wounds began to stop bleeding and even restore themselves, drained Imperial guardsmen and terrified PDF soldiers were invigorated and motivated, and his Force Sword could slash with beams a dozen kilometers long, evaporating half of the enemy force in only a minute.

Among the golden glow covering the entire Hive City, the Silent Sisters were now visible as dark spheres, and a dozen more people in the city were not glowing, instead looking normal, dirty and poor like most Hive dwellers but not glowing. Well, that was an easy way to detect Blanks, so thank you Angel!

Those Blanks vanished in my labyrinth before the superstitious locals could grab them and have them lynched or something.

I guess we could repeat this miracle on the next Hive World, probably Castobel if it was still standing.