40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 165: Learning curve

Well, I guess Sanguinius needed to be seen and accepted too, just like the other Primarchs.

Which is why he took command of this Crusade, with knowledge gleaned from the glass throne and practically blitzed the Fiends with dozens of brutal attacks at key points, intercepting fleeing ships and exterminating nearly every single last one of the xenos, except for a thousand Fiends saved in my labyrinth for collection purposes and biologic experiments. Much the same for the technology, an entire civilization spanning 50 stars vanished without a single trace.

I collected some crystal ships and lots of exotic weapons, in the hope of getting them reverse-engineered by techpriests or a certain Necron.

They seem to work on lateral scientific principles though, much like Eldar or Joakero tech did. Fringe science, eh?

Still, our losses would have been quite large without my hidden support. It will take some time until Sanguinius realized that available Imperial forces were not the same now.

The millennia of neglect and corruption had eroded the Imperium greatly, and most advanced machines were simply locked away or forgotten, wars reduced to grinding attrition of billions of poorly armed guardsmen and Astartes Chapters often lacking enough power armor to suit all their Space Marines. Tanks and fighters lacked parts for repair, or people who knew to repair them.

As for spaceships, it was even worse. Most of the Imperial Navy had been reduced to using artillery macrocannons and flak autocannons, lacking even proper guidance for torpedoes or the knowledge to operate lance batteries.

The Astartes ships were somewhat worse still, because the proud idiots refused to let the Mechanicus perform repairs, but they still didn't train thousands of techmarines to cover that part.

Reactors leaked radiation, Gellar fields were malfunctioning frequently, and they never really used their heads when planning a campaign, just diving straight in with horrible loses.

Exceptions like the Iron Hands and their successor Chapters were too rare to make a difference.

As for the Black Templars, well. At least they didn't use psykers, at all. So they had pretty much zero defections to Chaos, which was something at least.

However, the Blood Angels did, and quite many of them. Add to that their mad Brothers rampaging on the battlefield in a haze of Black Rage or Red Thirst, or both...it wasn't pretty.

I don't think Sanguinius minded too much to see them go. I sure did not.

"I'm going to need more Blank recruits." the Primarch grumbled while examining the deformed corpses of his sons in the Apothecary.

"Right away, Primarch. About 30 thousands, for all the successor Chapters too. I'll return to my bedroom immediately." I quipped while flicking the useless bodies into the sun.

His eyes tracked the burning corpses and he sighed. "This Culexus Assassinorum temple. They can clone Pariahs and make more recruits, correct?"

I nodded in agreement. "They do. Some Mechanicus technology, although is very flawed and produces more monsters than viable clones. The Grey Knights can turn psykers into Pariahs as well. Which trick, is possibly what we need in the short term. Pariahs have different abilities from normal psykers, but are especially potent against demons and psyker xenos anyway. They can even reverse Waagh fields and turn psyker spells around on the caster, turn themselves invisible and produce nullification fields the size of a spaceship."

Sanguinius held his hand out, forming a globe of blue energy, which then turned into a shimmering aura around him.

"You can still see me?" he asked to make sure.

"Yes, my lord. The big white wings give you away, even if you hide behind your hand." I answered with a smirk.

"Wiseass! You're not helping at all." the big hawk boy complained and sobbed fakely.

"You want to see the Tyranids next?" I wondered instead.

"Yes. I could only sense a dark blob of nothingness heading towards Orask. I heard Warp-engines fail in this Shadow in the Warp. But these new Macharius-pattern drives do not. I want to test that." Sanguinius demanded in a sterner voice.

Of course he does. Learning everything about the galaxy once more, but much faster than any human or even Astartes.

"By your command, Primarch! We can intercept them and try a few strategies. If you lose a single ship, I'll be very disappointed." I muttered and vanished, returning to my beloved bedroom and the next batch of Silent Sisters awaiting holy impregnation.

I didn't mind Sister Helena teaching them the Sisters of Battle lore and hymns, but a personality cult wasn't in my plans.

I kinda felt the pain Sanguinius and other Primarchs felt for being adulated as Holy Messengers now. Sure, it was convenient and sometimes useful, but also irritating.

By the next week, I felt the pain of watching a military commander re-learn the basics of fleet command, and getting overwhelmed by billions small critters that detonated our torpedoes and missiles before reaching the target, attempting to board Tyranid bioships, almost getting my battlebarge eaten by a Hive Ship, and losing a hundred fighters and bombers to gargoyles and other winged creatures that could fly in vacuum.

Slowly he got the hang of it, and when the Black Templars and the Death Specters fleets arrived from behind the Tyranid fleet, and then forming a pincer formation, he even managed to win.

As per usual, I only recovered the crew of the lost spacecraft and the boarding teams, since they were not at fault for their leader's learning curve.

Soon enough we returned to Occludus slightly battered but more experienced, with a Crusade of Black Templars trailing us. Well, they were a fleet based Chapter, so they didn't need to be anywhere, and their Crusade ended much too soon.

Surely, the Reborn Primarch will provide them with more opportunity to massacre the enemies of the humanity.

Lady Velayene did manage to 'procure' the procedure used to kill the Death Specters recruits, a special type of poison in a psyker-charged chalice, which I kept in order to feed it to my own poisoned recruits back on Illevar.

If a few survived...well. That would be great. Having precogs on my side might prove useful, just like the Grey Knights had their Grey_Knights_Prognosticar.

Sanguinius and Mephiston dealt with extracting the glass throne from its petrified roots, making the stone flow apart and the roots retract into the throne, quite similarly to how living stone worked for the Necrons.

Only not the same, because this stuff was charged psycho-active glass, while the living stone was the reverse.

As the glowing artifact was floating in mid-air, I snatched it and replaced it with a Tyranid Zoanthrope, curious to see what these Alpha-level psyker could really do.

"Left!" the Primarch commanded at once, making Mephiston blur at speed and strike with his Force Sword to the left, while Sanguinius used his Force Spear to slice downwards at the floating monster bug.

A pysker scream pushed both of them back, and made them lose focus, then a pair of warp-lightning struck them at once, sending them tumbling to my feet.

Powerful bugger, this bug. "Try something else. Zoanthropes are made with Eldar genes." I advised them both in a wry voice.

"Pef! You brought this creature here?" Sanguinius yelled while rushing to heal his son and formed a shield around them.

"These organisms are the artillery of the Tyranid ground forces. Hundreds like it in a single army. And facing them, are PDF regiments with lasguns and heavy stubbers. Bayonets and autoguns too." I explained patiently while walking past them and approaching the psyker beast.

It was rather small and pitiful for a Tyranid, and lacking any armor or claws. Merely a floating brain with psyker powers.

As I approached, the thing bombarded me with screams and magic spells, doing nothing. So I simply moved myself, straddling the creature like a flying pony. Of course, I had power armor on, and the weight caused us to descend rapidly and reach the floor, where I kept the thing trapped between my thighs, then twisted an eye or something to make it obey.

"Damn cheater! How are you even..." Mephiston grumbled as he approached us cautiously.

"Why did you attack a psyker xenos with a sword, Librarian? Obviously, you have that bolt pistol at your hip. Anti-psyker rounds? Maybe a psych-out grenade?" I demanded in a curious tone, then stepped away and made the Zoanthrope vanish into its holding pen.

The mighty Librarian patted his hip, while I produced a bolter magazine with phase-iron tips.

He took it hesitantly and checked the rounds, frowning deeply just as the Primarch stepped beside him and checked the ammo clip as well.

"Phase iron. I will have to implement this too. And those grenades you mentioned." he demanded holding his hand out.

I obliged of course. It had been the point of this lesson, after all. I handed him another ammo clip and a couple of psych-out grenades then took off my helmet to stare into his blue eyes. "This is why they hunt Blanks. Boil them in molten iron, you get phase-iron, imbued with a Null's aura. Grind their bones to dust, and you get psych-out grenades for the Inquisition, or other branches of the government. And there are worse things too."

The Primarch glanced at his Blood Angel and he nodded slowly. "Ordo Malleus in particular. Most are quite insane, even by our standards." Mephiston answered the silent question.

"You want revenge, Lord Lancefire?" Sanguinius asked in a gentle voice, while weighing the weapons in his giant hand.

"I'm too powerful for that already, my lord. Justice will suffice." I replied with a careless shrug.

Mephiston eyed me warily, while the big angel just sighed. "An Angel of Justice, huh? That's a bit scary."

"We need to go, Primarch. Tell the Black Templars to meet us at Forge Hydra_Cordatus. With some luck, we'll catch the traitors between our fleets, and have the Iron Fists owe you their allegiance." I proposed and immediatly moved us onto the bridge of the Serenity.

"Set course for Baal! I want my own ship already." the Primarch ordered with an annoyed glare at me, and soon enough the fleet departed its moorings, leaving behind a very different Death Spectres Chapter, devoid of their original purpose and tasked with a new one. Or possibly the reverse.