TH - Chapter 72

[M36.250.4]

The heavy doors to my workshop clunked open. Sweeping in, I passed several of my half-finished projects. One was another of Solvexa's heavy artillery pieces. They had been a great help to her, so I wanted to get another out before I left. They weren't easy to make, requiring a lot of my time to put together. Time I no longer had in abundance.

Particularly with my priorities shifting, what with me heading into a war zone.

That took me to my current project. It started its life as a Stormbird, but its designs were unrecognisable by this point. I had modified the designs heavily, mostly to suit my needs. Again, I was hand-crafting it, but unlike the artillery, this was to be mine. I wanted a way to retreat safely if shit hit the fan.

So by the time I was done with it, its shield and armour would be several times stronger than the base, able to tank hits that would shatter unmodified ones. At least on the underside. To keep weight down I had to make some compromises, so the top of the gunship was weaker, therefore it wouldn’t be good if the air was heavily contested by aircraft.

But the current battlefield, or at least the reports I'd had from Kellen and Solvexa, that was fine.

I'd also beefed up the weaponry. I'd kept the missile tubes as they were. I'd been tempted to remove them but they were very effective for their size, the gunship just wouldn’t have a large magazine depth. I'd increased the number of twin lascannons from four to six. I could have had more, but took most of the additional space to install a heavy laser destroyer. It had been a finicky thing to get working but now I had the gunship packed quite the punch. It couldn’t fire too fast, needing time to charge after each shot, at least not without effecting other systems like the void shields, which too were vastly enhanced. Mostly by the power they had available to them thanks to the multiple generators I'd installed.

I'd removed the heavy bolters to fit in two Las-Talons and four hotshot valley guns for close range. They could release a punishing rate of fire and with my efficient capacitors and energy generation could fire for significantly longer, so much so it was the materials of the weapon that would fail first. Something I had somewhat mitigated by my Will crafting.

This had increased the size somewhat but that did mean more people could be transported, so it wasn’t all bad and there was no reduction in capability in the air.

Overall, when it was done, it would be an absolute unit and should secure mine and many of my factions' retreat if the worst came. If I had time I would create a second, but that was looking unlikely. Maybe I could make one while I was there?

Regardless, that wasn’t what I was working on right now. I was focused on my personal close quarters defence in the form of servitors.

I already had some types from the TNS, to the BH and the BFGs. The first type was irrelevant now. I wasn’t hiding their purpose; I would be on a warfront, so that seemed just the teeniest bit pointless. So that left enhancing the BH and BFG.

The BHs probably didn’t warrant it, maybe just the MS variant for scouting. I wanted to see what I could do for their scouting orbs. I was confident I would be able to enhance them, even if only slightly.

So that left the BFGs. They had proved their viability already and Solvexa still used them heavily in her forces. I'd since given her the pattern to be able to produce them in-house. She hadn't shared the designs as far as I was aware, so they were still concentrated in her forces, for now.

The first thought was my Will crafting and while I would do that for a few, I wanted to improve the designs, not just their creation. Mostly so others could build them for me. I didn’t fancy crafting thousands of servitors. I was patient, but even I had limits.

The first thing to be upgraded was the power. I bulked out the chest ever so slightly, which gave me room for a larger generator. This then meant I needed to improve the power distribution system, which then allowed me to add a number of bells and whistles on it.

First to get upgraded were the shields, taking them from crappy (at least by my standards) conversion fields to miniaturised ion shields following the same design as Knights might. Of course they weren't nearly as durable, but then they weren't nearly the same size, so with the emitters closer together, the shield integrity wasn’t far off. Although it didn’t have their staying power.

The final areas for upgrade were auspex and weapons. Auspex was a simple matter. More power meant I could fit better ones—easy.

The weapons on the other hand were a different matter. While I might not have gained all the carefully secured STCs pattern Stratix had, I'd gained many of the lower-level ones, such as the copious number of weapon types.

So instead of cobbling together tweaked las weapons I used the purpose-built variants, although I kept my CSL cycling system. For example, one of the flamers was changed out for a melter. The claws were both changed for power fists, something the old models didn’t have the power for. Finally, the heavy las weapon was changed out for a Hellgun that I had beefed up slightly to cross larger ranges. Something I was calling the Hotshot Long-las, HLL for short. Not a trendy name but descriptive. It was close to the Marksmen variant but served slightly different purpose. I'd also created it so it didn’t have many of the downside the weapon was known for.

Overall, this increased their lethality considerably. And that wasn’t even taking into account my material science. While I wouldn’t use top-level materials, it was too expensive and risked their discovery, it was still significantly better than before.

For example, increased the tensile strength of the armour while reducing the weight. Or the efficient lubricant and increased torque output of the motors. All of this meant the machine was lighter than before and faster, able to outpace a fit man running, even if it wasn’t the most elegant sight.

Overall a significant improvement. I'd kept their iconic design by this point, so when charged to full power, white light glowed from the cracks in their plating.

They were my basic 'infantry' at this stage, although it felt odd to call them that. If, when I first designed them, I'd been told they would become one of my most common servitors, I'd have laughed at them.

Still, I wanted something heavier. A heavy hitter, like the Kataphron Battle Servitor, only of my own design.

My first decision had been how I wanted it to move. At first I'd tried using legs like the BFG but quickly ran into too many issues. What I wanted was just going to be too heavy for them and I'd have to make compromises, or it would have been agonisingly slow. Like plant growth speeds.

So that was out which only really left tracks. Wheels were an option but too likely to be damaged or get stuck. Something like hovering appealed, but that might have been a bit too eye-catching. And the effectiveness of that was questionable, so no, I'd fallen back onto the good old tank tracks.

With the base to work from, the rest flowed in pretty easily. In the end it wasn’t too dissimilar to the Kataphron, only I had made no attempt at keeping it human. Like the BFGs, most of the organic flesh was stripped away, leaving only the brain and brain stem.

Like the BFGs, this was then heavily encased to protect the weak fleshy parts. Using the same gimble system gave the servitor free range of motion, able to spin 360 degrees and the tracks allowed them to turn on a dime as well. While not fast, on ideal terrain they could reach 35mph.

Just don’t expect it to stop quickly.

By the time I was finished with my first design I ended up with a Kataphron plus. It was larger and more powerful in most ways, but not truly amazing. That was when Lysa bounced in and took a metaphysical look over my shoulder. In reality she just dipped into the noosphere and accessed the project, taking it all in with a glance and asked a question that had me facepalming so hard I almost put my hand through my skull.

How I hadn't thought of it I will never know and pleaded temporary insanity. Although it proved that I still needed people around me. Anyway, she of course asked why I wasn’t using my space manipulation technology. I would not be making huge numbers of them like I would of the BFGs, so it was a no-brainer.

Going back to the drawing board, I ended up with something slightly larger than a Kataphron, coming in just over four metres tall and slightly wider. But in actual space, it should have been as much as two times as large, if not more. I would only be able to create a few hundred before we left, but that was more than enough to give a few to Lysa for guards, some to Kellen when I saw him and the rest for my servitor army.

With the designs and testing done, it was a matter of getting the parts made, something my techpriests were more than capable of. Well, all of it except for the space array—that I calibrated myself. Anyway, if my predictions were correct, I should be able to produce 287 of what I had taken to calling BOBs, Battle Orientated Buddies, by the time the fleet arrived.

I had to keep my naming convention consistent, and I liked them even if everyone else seemed to turn their nose up at it.

Anyway, that left me time to personally create six of them. Each would be a masterwork in their own right and with my Will crafting…

These would be the personnel guards to the three of us and, as such, were slightly modified to A) have larger and stronger shields, with more close combat weapons, but B) had a small safe room within that was shielded and environmentally controlled. A sort of oh shit room in case they needed it.

But first, the all-important bionics. I dropped into a chair, my mechadendrite slipping from my robe and scooping up what would become Lysa's bionics. Carefully turning it over, inspecting every inch of it before doing the same with the next.

For some reason Lysa refused to get any larger, although she was adamant about getting the biggest tits she could. They looked comical in my opinion, but she would take no other answer. The height constraint did make her slightly weaker. Or not weaker, but reduced her versatility as we had been unable to fit as much into it, but that just meant she removed a good chunk of the weapons I'd made sure I had.

She had little interest in fighting anyway, not that her new body wasn’t capable of it; it just didn’t have the specialised tools or mechadendrites like mine did.

---

Rhyvax Tolen-Kor said, bowing to me. Mirrored by a handful of other Ordinarii arrayed around me in the training room. Lysa was sat with Katra off to one side, already cheering me on. Katra watched on with interest; she would be getting the new round of bionics as well. Not quite up to the same standard as mine or Lysa's, but that was mostly because she couldn’t handle it.

It would fry her brain if we tried. It would be many years before she would be able to reach our level, although she would still be stronger than most people she came across and with her custom weapons she would be a monster. One I was looking forward to sparring against.

Bowing in return, I slipped my heavy black robe off, dropping it to one side, so I was just clad in a loose-fitting outfit.

It was finally time to put my new body through its paces in a fight. Before now, there was too great a risk of killing someone, but I at least had nominal control now.

A small grin splitting my face, I activated what I thought of as my warform. The effect was immediate. Deep within my body, a distinct shink shink sound of decoupling metal as my arms and legs separated. Two other arms unfused from my human-proportional ones, sitting just below them. Unlike my human ones, I'd made no effort for these to pass as human and were a bright, glossy silver, their texture changing as the adaptive metal modified itself to be resistant to the weapons I knew I would be facing and ended in clawed hands.

The change was even more apparent for my legs as they separated into 8 insect-like claws, lifting me higher into the air. Each limb was heavy-duty, and with them, my head was raised to scrape the ceiling 3m above us. In this form I cared little about my human looks, my face shifting slightly to be more angular and small armoured plates grew out of my body like thin scaled male. Small but incredibly durable.

Finally, my generator kicked into high gear, my eyes flaring white. Pulling out my blades, just training ones, and settled into a stance.

Getting used to four arms didn’t take all that much work, far shorter than I would have expected. Part of this was my constant use of mechadendrites, but also the extensive knowledge of bladed combat, parts of which had extensive experience with four arms. All of which made the transition much smoother than it would have otherwise been.

At the signal, my body tucked down and accelerating forward. Even prepared, the Ordinarii had little chance to react before I was amongst them. My four blades whipping out, breaking guards and slapping away weapons. Not being biological arms allowed them to twist in ways that they shouldn’t, catching several Ordinarii off guard. Those that were prepared fared little better getting batted aside by my preposterous strength.

Even as the blades attacked, several of my legs darted out, as if they had a mind of their own, shifting as they did. They could have turned into needle-like points able to punch through even the thickest armour, from there the modified poison, care of the Drakarii technology, could be administered. As this was only a spar, they turned into blunt weapons that pelted several of the Ordinarii away.

In less than a minute the two dozen-strong force of Ordinarii were disabled.

As the fight came to an end I let my combat form fade and I shifted back to a thirtyish looking human once more. As tests go, it was a good one.

“Wooo. Go Aleric!” Lysa said, bouncing up and down, clapping from the sidelines.

When the Ordinarii had picked themselves up once more, we went again, and again, and again. Them able to respond a bit better each time. They were still clearly out matched but they were starting to compensate. As for me, I was learning just as much.

Both in how to move my body, but also in how to use my new durability. I didn’t need to dodge every attack and could let some slip through if it gave me a good opportunity to counter attack.

By the time we were done several hours later I had barely broken a sweat while the Ordinarii lay slumped to the floor, battered and bruised.

Dropping into a seat, I turned to Katra. “So what do you think?”

“Disturbing.” She said ruefully. “Will mine be like that?”

I blinked, surprised for a moment before conceding it might be a bit much for most others. "It doesn't have to be. I can change what your warform looks like, if you even have one.

“No. I want one, just not so I look like a monster from Hell!”

I laughed at that. “Fair enough. It was just the most efficient form. So what would you like yours to look like?”

That was as far as we got before Lysa threw herself at me. “It was amazing. You looked so cute like that. I want mine to do that!"

Cute?

I shook my head ignoring the moment, always the best defence against Lysa. “But we had to cut out most of the warform as it wouldn’t fit. You would need to be a few feet larger—"

“Awww. But it was cute. And nope.” She said, shaking her head vigorously. “I like my size and won't change it.”

“Well, there you go then—"

“Nope, not good enough.” She said, pouting. “I want a cute form.”

“Well, I could still give it to you; it just won't be as powerful as mine currently is?”

She turned that over in her head thoughtfully before nodding decisively and grinned. “Acceptable.” She said, hopping up and charging from the room.

Katra and I could only stare after her in confusion. With Katra muttering cute like myself as she watched her go. "I do not understand that girl. Nor do I like her energy. She makes me feel old.”

“She's over twenty.” I reminded her.

“Doesn’t matter. She acts like she is in her teens. And don’t even get me started on thinking your combat form was cute. It looked monstrous. That is a whole can of worms I am leaving fully alone.”

I grinned at Katra as I knew Lysa had slipped into Katra's heart just as much as the rest of us. "Anyway, your warform. Would you just like to grow armour or something?

“Maybe. Won't I already be in armour?”

“That I haven't worked out quite yet. The plan is to be, but any armour used won't actually help right now and instead would just get in the way. So I am still working on that.”

Katra tilted her head from side to side, considering it. “Hmm yah I can see your point. In that case, yes, I want armour when I enter it.”

“I will come up with some models for you to see, as you won't be able to customise it on the fly like I can.

Katra frowned in confusion at me. "I thought you said you couldn’t customise them.”

“Not the broad strokes, but I can tweak them depending on what I am facing. For instance, I could generate more armour if I was facing a particular opponent it was effective against.

Rhyvax had wandered over to us by now and was standing at a respectful distance waiting. Turning to him, I sent a pulse through the noosphere for him to ask.

He said, nodding respectfully to me.

Already guessing what it was.

Rhyvax nodded and left, collecting his Ordinarii as he went.

I didn’t know if I was ever going to release it apart from a select few. Realistically, I should. It wouldn’t be as strong as mine of course, not having been crafted and enhanced by my Will. But they would still be beasts in combat.

It would likely be years before I put that into operation. Much of its creation required my attention, but I should be able to create a lesser form of it to distribute. If I could help my people, I should. The main constraint apart from my time was resources.

It used a large amount of very rare things to produce. Now the molecular manipulator could generate them, but that was a slow and painful process. Not to mention an energy hog. I'd had to shut down parts of Atlantis to create them; it used that much energy.

With Katra sitting in thoughtful silence having understood our conversation. I’d given her some augments to understand the binheric language.

As she did I replayed the fights back over in my head. Noting things I could have improved, but also how things might be different if I were using my true weapons. For instance, one of my mechadendrites could release a Volkite beam, burning everything in its path. I hadn't quite cracked the conversion beam, which would disintegrate everything in its path if given enough time, but I was still working on that in the background. I had close range options as well like the plasma cutters on another mechadendrite.

Not to mention my other weapons be that guns or power blades, all custom made. I had been working on creating a variant of the blades, something closer to a force weapon. I was hoping it would be a way to increase the power of my Will, although I had not made much progress yet.

It had somewhat fallen onto the back burner for now.

Maybe one day.

---

One of the countless vessels jumped in and burned for the inner solar system. There was a constant stream of them moving to and from the system, many of them heading to Lupra to keep up the steady stream of supplies heading for the warfront.

I would have ignored it as I did the hundreds if not thousands of others when it pinged the noosphere as it came into range. Its range was still not as far as I would have liked, although the sensors and comms were getting there.

Still ginormous, but my next iteration should cut that down by half.

Sitting back from the workbench, leaving the Neuroforged Cortex which was what allowed the body to feel sensations as if it was flesh and blood, half completed and I opened the messages. The first was from Kellen, giving me the regular updates. Mostly him talking about what he had been up to. I put that aside for now and would listen to it properly later.

The others were from Solvexa, both reports on the war and Kellen, as well as a message. One I had not expected.

She explained she had a Knight that was refusing the Adeptus Mechanicus's aid and so it was out of action. And would be for the foreseeable future. She was hoping I would be able to work my magic on it. Whether I would be able to or not was one thing and I would only find that out when I arrived. However if I had the knowledge was another matter altogether.

Knights weren't simple machines after all. Not to mention an entirely different set of rituals to learn. I would also need help; it wasn’t the sort of thing I would be able to tackle on my own. But it was too good an opportunity to pass up, being able to tinker with a Knight was amazing, so I replied to her that I would and then set to work.

First finding what information I had, which thankfully was rather extensive. With many of the rituals and rites I would need. Not all of them clear why they were needed, but I was sure they had a perfectly good reason for them…

Yeah, I would be testing them when I arrived, cutting those that didn’t help.

Apart from compiling the knowledge I needed, I went in search of someone to help. Lysa of course would pitch in, as if I would be able to keep her away, but it needed someone who could holy focus on it.

I already had someone in mind but checked with Lysa to make sure the adept I was thinking of would work.

Thavrek Solumn-88 was a possible good fit. He was skilled, having caught my attention early on with how quickly he picked up information. He was also creative, able to think outside the box to fix or work around problems. He was also well liked and already had a decent amount of responsibility.

I nodded, liking the pick. I would check with him, but couldn’t see him turning it down. It wasn’t often this sort of opportunity appeared.

PointsImperium: Hive Cities Scavenger (Tier 2) - IIWarrior (Tier 4) - XImperium: Hive Cities Danger (Tier 2) - IIIHuman: Hand to hand (Tier 3) - VTerra Federation: Technician (Tier 3) - XTerra Federation: Software (Tier 4) - IXSharpshooter (Tier 4) - VIIISelf (Tier 4) - XVIIReverse Engineering (Tier 4) - XImperium: Canine Handling (Tier 2) - IVAkashic Throne (Tier 1) - IBlade Mastery (Tier 4) - IXPhysics (Tier 2) - XXIIIGlyphcraft (Tier 3) - IIIBlueprints (Tier 3) - IIIActing (Tier 1) - IMathematics (Tier 2) - XIIBiology (Tier 2) - XVIIITeaching (Tier 2) - IIMachine Spirit (Tier 3) - VIIChemistry (Tier 1) - XIEngineering (Tier 1) - VIIBionics (Tier 4) - XXIICrafting (Tier 4) - XLeadership (Tier 1) - I