[M36.247.2]
I pressed the doorbell, glancing at the two very large mastiffs watching me with ears pricked. The door, deep within the fortress, slid open with a hiss revealing a smiling Merek.
"You found us then." Merek said, shaking my hand and then ushering me into his and Skyla's home. "Finally took us up on our offer. I didn’t think you ever would. How are you doing?"
I pushed back my body's natural response of blushing. It had been far longer than I had planned. "Things have been busy." I said by way of an excuse while inspecting the room. It was a large, clean area, with a combined kitchen and sitting room, with a few doors leading off of it.
The bedrooms, bathrooms and study, if the floor plans were to be believed.
"They always are!" Skyla shouted from another room.
I had only made it a few steps when a shrill squeal sounded, as a toddler charged into the room on unsteady legs, a massive smile on his little face. He paused, chewing on his finger uncertainly having caught sight of me. But lit up again and toddled forward once more when he saw his father.
The toddler wrapped himself around Merek's legs, giggling all the way. Still holding onto Merek's clothes, he raised his hands in the universal signal of 'Up'.
With a fond smile, Merek scooped him up and placed him on his hip.
Skyla exited the same door as the toddler, smiling as she saw me. "Boss. Finally made it. How are things?"
"Good to see you." I said as I moved forward and gave her a brief hug. "Sorry it took me quite so long."
"No, don’t mention it. The hive is stable once more, and the gang is stronger than ever. That is all I could ever ask of you."
"Still.. Anyway. I'm good, thanks. How are things with you both?" I said, following Skyla and Merek to sit around a table, a high seat already in place. The confused boy, who was still staring at me fascinated, was dropped into it, with both his parent seating either side of him.
I took the last space opposite them.
I had to fight a sigh as I sat. What is it with hard chairs? Is it so much to ask for some padding and I had a metal arse!
"This is Aleric. Do you want to wave hello?" Skyla said in a baby voice. "He was our boss, and still is for me."
That, more than anything, showed how much she had grown. She would never have been caught doing anything that embarrassing when I was last here.
The boy released another heartwarming giggle and clearly had no idea what was going on, but dutifully copied his mother and gave me an enthusiastic wave. Before completely losing interest and focusing on the far more interesting sippy cup Merek placed in front of him.
Which he proceeded to pick up and bash on the table, gurgling away as he did.
Skyla reached out lovingly, stroking the boy's cheek with a finger. "Is the gang safe now?"
"I can't speak for the future. But for now, yes. At least to external forces."
"Good, that’s a relief."
"Told you he would fix it." Merek said, sticking his tongue at Skyla, giving me a flash of the boy he once was.
"I just had to right a few ships." I said.
"Right, a few ships… sure." Skyla said with a chuckle. "Is that what it is called these days. I am connected enough to know what happened to our old beloved Governor."
Smiling, I shrugged, brushing it away.
Skyla looked up from where she was fussing over her child. "Thank you again."
"Always. Now tell me what's going on with you two."
"Well, I have been looking after the Mastiffs, care of someone running away from the responsibility." Skyla said, joking.
As we chatted and joked, I allowed myself to relax into the metal, uncomfortable chair and spent the next few hours catching up with my grown-up subordinates.
Which thinking about it, I needed to make sure they got a cycle through the regen treatment. Them and their kids.
It moved on to some of the stories of the forge world. I kept it vague, mostly describing what it was like and what I got up to. They didn’t fully understand what an achievement Magos was, but they understood enough. We were just speaking about how long I would be around this time, which reminded me.
"So what are your plans? You said you don’t want to get any higher in the gang?" I asked, taking a sip of the drink they provided.
They exchanged a private look before Skyla tilted her head at him and shrugged.
"For me, it's easy." Merek said. "I feel like I have hit a brick wall with what I can do. I have learned all I can from Thul. Your academy has been a large help in that regard."
That reminded me I needed to speak to him. I had been busy, or maybe distracted would have been better. With no oversight, I had finally been able to get to some of the larger experiments I had waited years for.
"Oh you joined it, did you?"
"Of course. Not all of the courses were relevant, but most of it has been very helpful."
A subcogitator dipped into the noosphere and pulled his records. It seemed he was being modest. He had completed almost everything offered, even things that had little to do with his field. He scored well on them too. No, that wasn’t fair; he had scored perfectly on them.
"I'm glad to hear it." Almost as a spur of the moment I also offered to give him access to some of my more advanced stuff. I hadn't planned to, but… it would almost be a crime not to encourage him. Besides, if there was anyone in the gang I trusted, him and Skyla would be part of that short list.
"That would be amazing." Merek said eagerly.
"Don’t mention it." I grabbed the relevant files and folders before pinging them to his personal cogitator. They were restricted so only he would be able to access them; I couldn’t have that information spread around. At least not yet.
"That should be everything. I wouldn’t recommend you let anyone know you have that, but if you ever complete and make use of that information, you will be one of the most learned individuals of cybernetics within the Imperium.
I wasn’t lying either. It was an incredibly dense and comprehensive collection. It didn’t contain everything, but a good part of it and I expected it to keep him occupied for years, if not decades.
"Thank you. I can't wait." I could see he wasn’t lying, with his hands itching to go access it. I wasn’t the only one, as Skyla gave him a very unimpressed look, which Merek sheepishly smiled at.
"What about you Skyla. You content being the leader of the Mastiff programme?"
"N…Yes… Maybe, mostly. I just want my kids to be happy." She said, stroking his head, placing a kiss on top of it. The boy carried on playing, focused intently on the block in front of him.
"I thought that went without saying." I said with a smile. I had seen how they were with them. "So come on, what else would you actually want to do?"
"Not sure. As… well, errrm. As I said last time, I can't really progress. And I don’t really want to; I like working with the dogs. So what else is there… well maybe."
"Go on." I said encouragingly.
"Well… I wanted to work with other animals and maybe even those that don’t need to go off to war, but that is impossible." She said, shifting uncomfortably before changing the topic.
I almost delved deeper but she clearly didn’t want to talk about it. But I could see where she was coming from. The Court wouldn’t invest in anything more, not when they already got everything they needed.
The conversation moved to lighter topics, but my mind still ticked what she said over in my head. The plan was still to have a place of my own. With the knowledge I had that was still likely to be a ship, maybe even a city-sized ship. And I wanted them with me, so maybe I could find a way to help her.
That was still years from now, but I had the start of an idea. I still thought the best way would be to use the STCs in my possession, or create a new one and then use that to bargain with Mars to gain the support of a ship. If it were a fabricator ship, even a small one, I could grow and build from there.
I had a lot of work if I wanted to get there. Not least as I needed to understand what would be valuable enough to get them to do what I asked. I also wanted to grease some wheels, so to speak, and bribe many of the forge worlds with other STC to not consider me a heretek.
Leaving Stratix had been cathartic and satisfying, but I had since wondered if I could have been more circumstantial about it. I didn’t think so. Even calling in my extensive list of favours hadn't gotten me far, even with proof I didn’t have an AI. Although I went with the preferable lie of finding an advanced machine spirit and befriending it.
It should go much further. Before I had even left I'd obscured what had happened and with enough time, the Throne of Insight I'd left Solvexa in partial control over would lock away the rest. Even records that were hidden within the personal sanctums.
So even if the Fabricator General did change his mind and inform others, there should be little to no clear evidence. Just his word against a hero as I'd made sure to leave that in. My connections to finding STCs, the saving of the main power plants, and the clearing of the Dark Mechanicus.
On paper I should be celebrated. Or that was the hope. Now that I was here, I should be receiving regular reports to make sure.
Anyway, my plans required exploring each forge to understand what they valued and were missing.
But it was years from being a complete plan.
---
Several hours later I was heading for the private workshop. Lysa had something she wanted to show Kellen and I, but checking my chrono, I still had several hours to kill. Almost without conscious thought, I found my feet took me to Thul's workshop.
Unsurprisingly, he had moved into a larger one, several times the size in fact, and we spent the next few hours chatting. Someone else I needed to put through the regen treatment.
With time running out, I quickly marched down to Lysa's workshop, needing to jog some of the way to make sure I wasn’t late. She would never let me forget it if I was.
Once Kellen and I were sitting in front of a large object covered by a thin sheet, I said. "Go on then Lysa, you have our undivided attention."
"Woo, hoo. Finally." Lysa said, bouncing in place, clapping her hands. "So this is…" She paused to build the tension and looked at us expectantly. When neither of us reacted, she pouted.
With a resigned sigh, Kellen started drumming on his legs. When I joined in on the drum roll, Lysa nodded imperiously at us before grabbing the tarp. "So this is…" she started again and pulled the tarp off, revealing a spherical silicon crystal lattice, about a metre and a half wide.
It pulsed gently as lights flashed across its surface. I could see cables and connections snaking through its internal structure, the crystal seemingly having grown around the hardware.
I dipped into the noosphere.
++Protocol Axiom Vitae++
++Purpose: Cogitational Experiment++
++Status: Green++
I read the information again, still not fully understanding what I was looking at. I got parts of it, but as a whole…
Still looking incredibly proud, she sent me its specification.
It was…
I checked her notes, scanning through years of research in moments and I was blown away. I had never considered approaching it from that angle. She had started with some failed examples and xeno samples. From there she'd expanded on the Litho-biological substratum to make it a stable, viable product.
It wasn’t that easy of course, and it had taken her years. But even so, it was an incredible creation.
She'd tried the next logical step of course. Shoving a human brain inside it. But that had fried itself, the silicon cells fusing together. But I could see some ideas for ways to avoid that. I was tempted to give them to her, but she had come so far on her own, I was reticent to take that from her.
Maybe I could leave some breadcrumbs and then only help if she asked.
But if she could work her way through the many hurdles, there might be a way to have a fully robotic being but still have a soul. She already had some hypotheses on how to achieve it.
According to her tests, the silicon mind, for what else was it really, was sluggish compared to standard cogitators. But it was early days. A downside that would need to be looked into was the fragility of the crystals, silicon matrices and wafers, not to mention the size. Which currently grew exponentially.
Regardless, it was incredible, and I should be singing her praise, and I would, I just had one problem. I reread through some of her experiments and the boundaries she pushed. Never quite cutting corners but getting damn close in places. Like when she was curious and gave the developing silicon mind a vat of hyper-rich and nutritional sludge which kicked the thing into overdrive.
Almost creating a biohazard as it expanded exponentially, consuming all it came across, including Lysa, who very nearly ended up as its food.
Or the time she wanted to see how far she could push it and nearly had the thing explode in her face.
I was still digging through the specifications and logs when Kellen leapt up and started to berate her for her recklessness.
Lysa's grin faded as he kept going, turning contrite as well as upset. The more he went on, the closer to tears she looked to be.
"Kellen, that’s enough.” I said, opening my arms for Lysa. "Come here."
She flew into my arms fighting back tears. She could never take Kellen being unhappy with her. "I'm sorry, I thought you would be proud." she mumbled.
"I am! More than you know." I said, pulling her into a tight hug. "And so is Kellen! This is incredibly and some of the finest research I have ever seen. It is genius Lysa. And I don’t say that lightly. So have no doubt of how proud we are of you. And any help you want, don’t hesitate to ask. If you will have me, I would love to work with you on some of it. I had never thought to try some of these ideas."
"Really?" she said hopefully, peeking up at me.
"Yes. On everything. But do you understand what the problem is? And why Kellen is upset. What with the risks you took?"
I felt her nod into my chest, sniffling slightly.
"Good girl. Now go hug your brother and tell him you're sorry for the risks you took and then show him through your incredible discovery."
Perking up, she hesitantly wandered over to Kellen, who instantly pulled her into a big hug. "Sorry Lysa. I didn’t mean to dismiss your work. I was just worried about you. It is amazing. I barely even understand it."
"That’s because you’re a dumb-dumb," she muttered, only to squeak as he jabbed her side. More seriously, she stepped back after one final tight hug. "Sorry Kell."
When she saw him smiling once more, it was like the clouds had parted and she dragged him over, talking a mile a minute, explaining everything.
Even as she explained it to him, I turned the discovery over in my head. It opened a lot of options, many of which I had dismissed. It also opened up others. If it could contain a soul, what about the warp? Could I programme them somehow? The ideas were almost endless.
More importantly, it wasn’t touched on by any of my fragments. Not in detail, and most that did told me it wasn’t feasible. Even other research I had done was limited, with the only possible example and one Lysa used being the void Kraken. A massive space-faring animal that prowled the space lanes. But even that was limited help, with not much known or learned about them.
But a definitive avenue for research. We just needed a way to catch one.
---
[M36.249.6]
I timed my arrival at the viewing platform perfectly. As I expected, a ship had moments ago warped into the Mandeville point and was now burning towards the inner planets.
Although… not the one I was expecting. I had been expecting Solvexa fleet en route to the Lupra system. The ship in question was not that. It might look like many other vessels, with its cathedral like structures, but where it diverted was the colour. It had been painted with a mat black finish, blending into the void behind it. If that wasn’t enough it was also running silent with few if any external lights emanating from it. Just looking at it, I could feel the despair and torment wafting off of it. It could have just been my imagination, but the tingling sensation, which faded when I flexed my soul, cast doubt on that hope.
If I could feel that despair through the warp from here…
I was on one of the more distant satellite stations orbiting through the solar system, having just finished some stress tests on my latest round of bionics, but that was still deep within the gravity well.
My augments automatically calculated the ship's course and put it on reaching the Mathew's prison within the week.
The Blackship had finally arrived.
They were well over two years late by this point, but the warp storms were still raging, rarely if ever abating to let traffic through. So that didn’t surprise me; if anything, it impressed me that they had made it at all. According to the limited information I had, the ship should be on the return journey to Terra.
With its arrival, I had something I needed to do. Spinning for the door, my robe flapping about me, I marched towards my shuttle. Even as I moved, I sent a message via the distant vox channels to some trusted subordinates.
They would pick up Mathew’s family, so they could meet in what would likely be for the last time. It was rare for a psyker to meet their family after taking the trip to Terra. Or at least I had never heard of any. Less than a day later, I entered his cell.
He looked up at the door opening and stood to greet me. "Aleric. What is it today?"
“No experiments today, unfortunately. The Black ship has arrived.”
Mathew's face instantly fell. He knew what that meant. I had explained what I knew, which was uncomfortably little. He tried to put on a brave face, but I could tell he was scared. I felt for him, I really did. He was an earnest young man and I respected his work ethic, but there was nothing I could do.
"It was inevitable, I suppose. You'll look after my family, like you promised?"
"You have my word." I said, clasping his hand and giving it a firm squeeze. "They are this minute on a shuttle here, so you will have a chance to say goodbye before you leave."
His eyes started to water. "Thank you."
"You're welcome young man."
"I will keep what you taught me private."
"Good." I could only hope it helped him. I might have underestimated how bad the ship conditions might be. Time would tell if the work I had put into him would pay off. I didn’t expect to see him ever again, but I did hope he would live a long, relatively happy life.
It was unlikely to be a pleasant one, but I at least hoped for a long one.
The training I had put him through should help at least.
At this stage, it didn’t even matter if he did tell anyone and more to the point, they believed him. Which I felt was unlikely, unless they could feel it in some way. I still didn’t know what it might look like to a psyker, if it was even noticeable.
It was probably too much to hope for that it was unnoticeable. But a man could dream.
I made sure he got top-quality meals for that last week. His family got to stay for three days before they were forced to leave due to the approaching Blackship. I didn’t think it was a good idea for them to be on the station when they collected him.
Or me, for that matter. I made sure I was well clear of it by then, wanting no part of it, even if I was interested in the technology aboard the vessel.
The aura of despair and suffering only crystallised the closer the ship came and I confirmed with Mathew that he could feel it through the warp. The suffering of millions over thousands of years. That suffering was almost baked into the ships by this point.
While the techniques I had taught him and put him through might have been a problem, I was more concerned about the genetic treatment I had put him through. At the time, it was to see if it had any effect on his connection to the warp—it didn’t—it only had the usual effects, like increased lifespan and so on.
So it couldn’t hurt him… I hoped.
I had been tempted to put some biological nutrition stores in his body, but decided that might have been over the top. I assumed they fed them on the journey; they needed to be alive when they reached terra after all. Still, I gave him some tablets that would slowly dissolve in his stomach over the years, releasing the micro and macro nutrients he would need, just in case.
It was a tearful goodbye when I took his family back to the hive, but an upbeat one. Their son was off to help the Emperor. Mathew and I purposely kept it vague and happy. How much his mother bought it, I wasn’t sure, but his siblings were comforted by it, so that was enough for him.
Even with him gone, his family were far better off than they were, arguably even if he got into the PDF like he planned. The whole family had moved to the academy. With the children learning, and if their reports were to be believed, thriving. Whilst the mother was there as a carer and training as a nurse.
One she was very good at.
So their prospects were looking good and I had several alerts to make sure they were cared for, even if I wasn’t on world.
Speaking of the House of Healing. It had taken off in a large way. The Cardinal of the Ecclesiarchy had clasped the opportunity with both hands. Anything to increase their influence and reverse their public image, which had taken a battering in the last few centuries.
Before, that hadn't been a problem, but with the loss of the Governorship and cut off from the outside world and their powerful forces, which—if rumours were to be believed, rivalling the Imperial guards and navy—they were desperate.
Peggi was careful not to let them grow too powerful or to make sure those sympathetic to the Court were in positions of influence. Already, gangers turned preachers were moving up the ranks. It was early days yet, but if things continued, the Court would have control of it as well.
Either way, the initiative had been a massive boon for the hive. Noticeably decreasing the rates of all cause mortality. Now, how much of that was the Houses of Healing or the other initiatives was hard to quantify. But they were going swimmingly as well.
The last two years of hard work had made a massive difference through all levels of the world. The algae vats Lysa and I had created allowed an increase in nutrients going into the corpse starch, which reduced starvation and malnutrition across the solar system.
Same with the water. With clean or at least cleaner water, disease and sickness dropped by a factor of ten.
And that was just a few of the programmes we had started.
The Adeptus Mechanicus was going well too. The Magi I placed in temporary charge of the Prefectus-Prime were working perfectly. There was some corruption, but there always was and they kept it to reasonable levels, so I had no problems with that.
The same could be said for the hundreds of thousands of initiates flooding into the bottom levels of the priesthood. Already, the hive cluster had most of the lower levels filled by Court members. Some looked like they might even be raised to full adepts within the next few years.
Not to mention the techies the academy trained that went straight to work for the gang, like the five manufactorum pumping out supplies exclusively for the gang's use.
---
I watched the Blackship leave orbit and enter warp. They had been in system just long enough to pick up Mathew and supplies before going on their way once more, stopping at Stratix before leaving the sector and heading for Terra.
With nothing to do I turned back to my calculations. I was on the final stages if my bionics and within the weak should start producing them.
I was just turning away when another alarm rose. A fleet of ships had jumped in. Adeptus Mechanicus iconography coated the hulls of the fleet and burned for the core, ready to pick up supplies and guard regiments. Morwenna and Lanto had been building them up for months, ready for this.
A draft had been called for more regiments to help with security of the sector, particularly the attack on the Lupra planet. Reading between the lines, it had some of those higher up concerned. According to Solvexa, they would even be taking several of the Knights to help.
I was slightly off, but Solvexa had finally arrived aboard the Canticle of the Unbroken Circuit. A Grand Cruiser that was centuries old and newly off the repair bays from the Dark Mechanicus conflict. It had barely been damaged showing how long ships could take to repair.
---
Hi all. Cant believe we have reached this far, I could have never imagined reaching such a nice number when I started this on a whim.
As ever thank you all so much for the support.