AN: Bit of a cliff at the end of this one. Beware.
*****
“You’ve actually found it?” Trazyn asked, baffled despite himself. He really had to disperse with his preconceived notions about the intellectual or martial abilities of organics when it came to his newest friend.
“Not only found it, I have an Avatar onboard, currently shadowing Overlord-Regent Ahhotekh,” Echidna said, sounding a close approximation of the human emotion called ‘smug’ based on his analysis. The facial expressions also fit, and indeed, she had reason to be ‘smug’.
The Hollow Sun was perhaps the most secretive, famed and altogether mythical of all the Necron Crownworlds of ancient times. Sure, Mandragora was more populous and was the current seat of the Triarchy — at least on the surface — and sure, Trazyn had a healthy pride in his own Tomb World of Solemnace, as anyone would if they had the honour of being the famed world’s Overlord. Advanced as the Necron Empire was in technology, few had a Tomb World that equaled Solemnace.
It was an artificial planet constructed around a Dwarf Star, and using the near-infinite power syphoned from it and from the C’tan Shards he held imprisoned in his basement, it never actually stopped growing. Even just the Infinite Galleries, his greatest pride and joy, expanded faster than he himself could keep track of as automatic systems, Canoptek constructs and the Worldmind all worked together to erect new halls and exhibitions using the uncountable artifacts he had in storage.
Even as an Overlord of the Nihilakh Dynasty, the dynasty known for being by far the richest, most isolationist and most focused on consolidation instead of unchecked expansion and conquest, he still knew that the Hollow Sun was something else, something greater. It was the crown jewel upon the bloody crown of the Suhbekhar, a physical manifestation of their technological genius and martial dominance.
By the Stars, the Nihilakh Crown World of Gheden was a thing of ostentatious beauty, but its most famous trait came about as a result of a mistake. The Crownworld suffered a devastating failure in its dimensional stabilisation array sometime during the Great Sleep and was left half-phased into a pocket dimension for all but a few hours of its stellar orbit. Said accidental phenomena left the world utterly impervious to outside force, invasion, or anything of the sort outside of those few hours that came about once per stellar ‘year’.
In contrast, the Hollow Sun was purposefully built, and its defences undoubtedly trumped Gheden’s by an appreciable margin. It was all but impossible to invade or conquer, or even so much as find if what Echidna said was the truth, and why wouldn’t it be? She had no cause to lie, not when she was here to … what exactly? Oh dear, it would seem Trazyn had lost himself in his musings. Fortunately, the strange creature that was becoming his near-permanent companion lately had patience unrivaled by any human he’d met before, so she left him to his thoughts, content with merely staring at the exhibit they had been discussing just before this topic had been brought up.
“I don’t suppose you brought this up because the good Regent seems amicable to the idea of giving me a tour of the place?” Trazyn asked, running the algorithm that caused the living metal that made up the ridge above his right ocular to shift vertically upwards. Truthfully, he’d spent far too much time perfecting his ‘expression’ but he was quite proud of how they’d turned out. His first attempts had always elicited horrified screams and the sudden fainting of all who beheld them, but lately humans barely even seemed to notice, that’s how natural his artificial expressions had become.
“No, I don’t think he would be,” the woman replied with what he supposed was a wry smile. “He strikes me as too paranoid to even consider inviting his own supposedly subservient Overlords to the Crownworld. I also might have made a rather explosive entrance, so I doubt he’d put much credence to my words either. No, I brought it up because it just occurred to me that even if I kill every Necron I came across there, I’d still not be able to do anything with the Hollow Sun itself. I have no idea how to maintain the arcane technology that keeps the stellar core around it at bay, or how to make sure the maddened Phaeron is never accidentally awakened.”
“He is sealed, correct?” Trazyn asked. Phaeron Ahmontekh, the Crimson Scythe, one of the living legends of Necron history. His name was up there in the same league as Imotekh the Storm Lord’s, or perhaps even with the Silent King himself. To think such an esteemed Necron Phaeron had succumbed to something like madness was … hard to accept. The Crimson Scythe had gotten through the War In Heaven, slaughtering Eldar, Krorks and even the occasional Old One or Eldar ‘God’, only to fall to ‘rage’ due to some petty dynastic political grudge?
“As far as I can tell.” His guest shrugged. “I found a portion of the Hollow Sun where they’d set up rather extreme defences around something they really didn’t want to escape its confinement. Also, I heard Ahhotekh be referred to as ‘Overlord-Regent’, which is another thing supporting the veracity of my knowledge.”
Rage and madness. If he had the required facial muscles, Trazyn would have sneered. It was such a pathetic end to one of the greatest legends of the War in Heaven. Honestly, it would be a mercy to entomb the Phaeron in a stasis-field and make him the centerpiece of an exhibition. Trazyn could depict him as he was before these maladies had robbed him of his senses. He could make sure the great Crimson Scythe was remembered as he was, and not as some ravening lunatic even worse than Valgûl, the Twice-Dead King.
Indeed, it was Trazyn’s civic duty as a Necron, one might say. He would save the Suhbekhar Dynasty from following in the wake of the Ithakas, he would save the legacy of a near-mythical Necron Phaeron, and he would earn himself a new crown jewel into his collection. Sure, he might have to keep it a secret since some Necrons got fussy about putting technically still-ruling Phaerons into his Infinite Galleries, but for now it would be enough that Trazyn himself would know about it, and would be able to enjoy the undoubtedly majestic exhibition Ahmotekh would become the centerpiece of.
“What exactly is it that you are suggesting?” Trazyn asked thoughtfully, deciding to stop dancing around the subject.
“Joint occupation,” Echidna said. “The Suhbekhar would betray any agreement I made with them, but maybe your Dynasty won’t. I can’t be sure, but it's my best bet for keeping the Hollow Sun at least partially under my control and without letting it go entirely to waste. I was also hoping you would be able to somehow make sure the mad Phaeron wouldn’t escape his confinement without me having to duke it out with him right in the middle of the planet I’m trying to keep as intact as possible.”
She wanted something of an alliance with the Nihilakh Dynasty, facilitated through him? Well … she certainly had high aspirations. His fellow Overlords and even his Phaeron barely interacted with the rest of Necron society, and have treated them as very possible enemies-to-be since well before Biotransference. It’s never been a secret that the Nihilakh were richer than all the other Dynasties combined and that predictably bred animosity, greed and innumerable enemies just waiting for the first sign of weakness to pounce on them and loot their treasuries dry.
Considering how well-defended and fortified the Nihilakh Dynasty’s holdings were compared to other Necron holdings, it would certainly be challenging to convince his fellow Overlords and Phaeron of the necessity of this venture. The Hollow Sun was quite far from Nihilakh holdings after all. But he could manage that, the Hollow Sun was a rich enough prize that it would get everyone’s collective greed working towards Trazyn’s goals, but the joint occupation … now that would require some creativity to sell to his dear colleagues. They looked down on other Necron Dynasties already, enough so to never consider a proper military alliance with them, but to ally with an ‘insignificant organic warlord’?
Hmmm. He would need to think about this. Echidna was certainly correct in her assumption that he wasn’t ready to maintain all the facilities of the Hollow Sun on his lonesome. Solemnace was still largely asleep, after all, only his essential staff was awake while the vast majority of his subjects still slumbered.
Was this venture even worth the hassle? He could spend all that time just touring his Infinite Galleries and continuing to engage in intellectual debates with the only person who could likewise appreciate its wonders in the same way he could. This venture could take years to get settled, and might cause him even more complications due to having to engage in the repulsive practice of Dynastic politics to get what he wanted.
Trazyn paused and pictured the exhibition before his mind’s eyes. It was a vast hall, depicting Ahmotekh plunging his Crimson Scythe into the planet of Maldek as Aeldari desperately tried to stop him.
It is worth it. It is worth every price, every annoyance and every tedium. I simply must have it.
******
With Trazyn busy preparing and plotting how he was going to convince his isolationist Nihilakh comrades to get off their shiny asses and help us, I had time. He said that even at a conservative estimate, it would take months at the very least just to assemble a proper gathering of Overlords at the Crownworld of Gheden and that it might take years before they decided on something actionable. Necrons really internalised the fact that they could live forever and refused to hurry unless absolutely necessary.
Which meant I had to kill time somehow … but I didn’t want to just sit here and besides, Cain and his friends were going to starve to death if I didn’t get back in the next week. I also couldn’t expect Selene to just sit tight in that tiny space bunker I’d built for her for years.
Which meant all that effort I’d put into faking my death and sneaking into the Hollow Sun was for naught. I had to leave, but maybe I could do something to make it at least somewhat worthwhile. Sabotaging the anti-teleportation field would be one. Killing the Regent could be another. Leaving behind dormant drones all over the place, ready for activation whenever I wanted could also be useful.
I had no idea how to do the first one, and I was still unsure whether killing the Regent was the optimal play here. It would throw them into chaos, sure, and it would probably keep them disorganised for a good while, but from what I’d overheard, it was only due to the Regent’s paranoia that the handful of slumbering Tomb Worlds nearby they knew the locations of were still asleep. If I killed him, it was very likely that his most senior advisors or lesser Necron Lords would seek to awaken the most senior Overlords of the Suhbekhar Dynasty that they knew of.
Ahhotekh had been named the Regent by the Hollow Sun’s Worldmind moments before it ‘died’ though. The selection of a new Regent would not be so simple. It might even come with a civil war of sorts, or decades spanning Dynastic politics and jockeying. Hell, could they even get here if I somehow managed to sabotage the Dolmen Gate on my way out?
With that in mind, I got started on the two parts of the ‘plan’ that didn’t involve immediately exposing myself to the Necrons. I went through the Hollow Sun, leaving small squads of stealth drones behind in the most abandoned and out-of-the-way sections. Dozens, hundreds, thousands. I wasn’t hurting for bio-energy.
Then I circled back around to the ‘dimensional interdictor’ as the one Necron Cryptek I’d overheard called it. I had no idea how it worked despite the crash course I was still going through with Trazyn’s Crypteks. I was pretty sure they were still teaching me the Necron equivalent of highschool stuff while whatever these pieces of tech ran on required several PhDs just to get started on grasping the workings of. Heck, I couldn’t even find the machine itself that did the teleportation re-routing, though maybe that was because they’d sealed the bulkhead back up and breaking through it with brute force was not an option unless I wanted to announce my presence to every Necron on the planet.
Maybe if I could have located the machine, I could have set up a timed explosive or something. That could have worked, even if I lacked the knowledge to sabotage it more covertly, or thoroughly.
I had the time while searching to think things through, and I came to the conclusion that assassinating the Regent was the optimal play before beating a hasty retreat and leaving the Suhbekhar to devolve into chaos and dynastic infighting.
So I searched for the Regent again, finding him just hours later and I waited for the perfect moment. He was an Overlord, so he probably had a bunch of tricks and Necron knickknacks on him that could ruin my day if I let him use them. The weird pocket teleporter of the Cryptek, Ozkan, popped into my mind as one thing to look out for, and the pocket anti-matter pistol he had had on him as another. I hadd to hit him hard and fast, if he died in the first nanosecond of the attack, the vast majority of whatever tricks he might have had up his sleeve would be useless.
When the opportunity presented itself, namely by the Regent stepping back into his command chamber and the monolithic door behind him slid back into place, I pounced. I didn’t pull on my soul energy, because they could sense it. I’d learned that from observing which of my stealth drones failed during the battle before, and all the ones making use of psychic techniques to bend light or erase their presences were noticed sooner or later. The Necrons could detect the energies of the Immaterium, so I didn’t use them.
The attack was to be a single blow of my mono-edged bio-sword, cutting the augmented necrodermis of the Regent right down the middle, tearing his head and torso in half with a single overhead swing. Trazyn reaffirmed that such a strike would kill a regular Overlord … if it struck true and if it was a regular Overlord. Trazyn himself could transfer his consciousness to any off the Necrons under his command at will, though only Lychguards were upp to his standards by default, while others needed time to grant him the strength and freedom of movement he usually enjoyed in his standard bodies. He also liked to send Lychguards shaped to resemble himself on errands to fool others into thinking they’d managed to kill him. However, I was pretty sure Ahhotekh had no such thing to save him.
I flew through the air silent as death, the air flowing around me and kept carefully undisturbed, since that was another thing the Necrons could easily detect. The blade fell and time slowed to a crawl. At first I thought it was just my own perception, my own augmented adrenaline-equivalend flooding my veins, but then it was as if the Regent sped up, getting out of the path of my blade just as it was about to sunder his metallic cranium in two.
The dissonance struck me then, of having two separate sets of thoughtstreams, one set in my soul and another in my Avatar. The latter progressed at a snail’s pace, so much so that it was practically frozen. Soul energy surged into my downgraded, stealth-drone body at the behest of my soul to throw the worst of the effect off, but then I saw a rift in space open up ahead of me.
A Cryptek stepped out, a characteristic Aeonstave aimed at me and radiating exotic energies which an errant thoughtstream tentatively dubbed ‘chronomantic energy’. The self-destruct of my drone activated, but even that was slowed, the signal almost freezing as it entered the physical medium of my organic avatar. The next step was cutting the Avatar free of my soul entirely, but I hesitated, unwilling to retreat without accomplishing anything. If the Cryptek could slow my physical body, I just had to transform into a fully psychic being made of pure ener-
A sudden warning struck me, coming from a mind-core that noticed something in my vision that I’d not: the sight on the other side of the spatial rift. I stared into the barrel of a cannon as the Cryptek stepped aside, Aeonstave still aimed at me. It was wide enough to crawl into, and I realised I’d seen it before, it was the same cannon Ozkan had tried to shoot me with when I was escaping from his Dimensional Sanctum.
There was no charge-up, no wait, or warning. I cut the soul-thread linking me to my Avatar free, but the cannon fired in the exact same instant and according to later data analysis, the shot hit me a fraction of a second before it actually fired its shot. I didn’t know what exactly it was, or what it shot at me, but between one instant and the next, my Avatar ceased to be and along with it went a chunk of my soul. Nearly five months worth of soul growth vanished as if it never existed, and a yawning wound had been torn into my Realm, just barely missing the mini-Realm I kept the souls of my people in.