"Construction of the forge world will take at least thirty years, at maximum seventy years. It all depends on factors that are currently unknown. After we begin construction we will have a more reliable and accurate estimate."
I give ACM001 a nod. "That is to be expected."
Things are not built instantly, regardless of how much I would wish it to be so. In the grim dark even more so. The forgeworld being ready in seventy years would still be relatively quick by the standards of this world.
I said. "What about the fleet? How long will it take for it to be ready?"
ACM001 hands me a dataslate. "The capital ship will take ten terran years to be built, the rest of the fleet can be sourced in less than a full year."
I read through the dataslate. It contains estimations for the build time of every single ship in my requested fleet. Joline leans on my shoulder to read it as well, before saying. "You're giving us some of the ships requested by the imperial navy?"
Indeed, some of the ships in the list are ones that are almost complete, theoretically they are supposed to be going to the imperial navy. ACM001 nods. "We hope that you will come to us with any further STC fragments. You have proven your capability to effortlessly locate them."
They know we have some form of method that allowed us to immediately lock in on the STC fragment. Whether it's some form of tech or warp-fuckery they're not exactly sure. Us requesting a psyker would indicate warp-fuckery, but with how some imperial tech works that's not always a certainty.
We could just as well have a machine that eats psykers as fuel or something. Joline continues reading the dataslate. "So long as you pay more for the STC fragments than other forgeworlds would, we can agree."
Joline and I both suspect that we'd gotten somewhat underpaid for this fragment, especially by how quickly ACM002 agreed to my request. Whether or not his father also agrees is a moot point now, since the deal has already been struck. Playing the other forge-worlds against each other can only benefit us in the long run.
ACM001 creates a hologram of KH007 using one of his giant mechadendrites. "The core can be hollowed out to make space for one of our specialty reactors, that will be the endeavour that will consume the most amount of time. Thanks to the mild climate, building factories on the planet's surface will not be an issue."
There is a bit of an issue with that actually. There's a fairly large population of exodite eldar on the planet who would take great offense to factories turning their planet into a toxic wasteland. I chose KH007 specifically in order to trade with them for xenotech. "Joline and I plan to make KH007 our capital world, is there any way to preserve its natural beauty?"
ACM001 doesn't retch in disgust, but I'm pretty sure that he was close to doing so. "That is… possible. There are production methods that do not produce pollution, but they are somewhat inefficient compared to the standard methods."
Hopefully not by too much, if it's over a quarter we'll need to choose another planet. "By how much?"
ACM001 says. "Production will be slower by three point six one two five percent."
I let out a sigh of relief. "That's acceptable. Is there anything else that we need to discuss regarding the forge world and fleet?"
ACM001 shakes his head. "No. Unless there are any other requests that you have regarding them."
The xenotech trading will be handled by Dol and ACM001, so all that's left is trading for equipment. "How many favors will it cost for enough power armor sets to armor two imperial guard regiments?"
It's pretty difficult to tell ACM001's reaction to my question, what with his face essentially being a step away from looking identical to an emotionless robot. "Twenty favors for the cheapest variant. Fifty for the standard variant. The weaponry and necessary implants will be much cheaper in comparison."
Power armor is extremely expensive, but not expensive enough for the sisters of battle not to afford them. "What would the cost be for the cheaper variant, hellgun weaponry, the auxiliary combat vehicles appropriate for a force like this and the ships to escort them?"
"Thiry two favors."
That sounds about right. The ships won't be much more than glorified personnel carriers, so they're not that expensive. "Then we've got ourselves a deal. Do you have any more transport contracts available? We're hoping to get to Kearus."
ACM001 nods. "We will be sending a fleet there in a few months time for trade. They will pass by Kinja on the way there to acquire bodies for skitarii conversion."
Skitarii are essentially mind controlled cyborgs, where the bodies come from is basically irrelevant as far as the mechanicus is concerned, the cheaper, the better. "We'll take the contract. We'd prefer payment in additional xenotech for it however."
ACM001 thinks on our request, before saying. "That would be in our interest as well, we would still need to have a believable transaction occur as a front. Two favors as payment, one as xenotech?"
I nod. "Two as payment, one as xenotech. We'll cash in the rest of our favors for xenotech, Dol will be the one deciding what xenotech we will purchase with said favors this time as well."
ACM001 says. "I agree with your proposal."
—
The one who ends up being the happiest with the results of our negotiations isn't me, despite us being soon to have a significantly strong force to call upon. It's not Joline, despite the fact that we have a strong enough force to begin planning our revenge on house Coluber. It's Dol, because she now has a gigantic pile of toys to play around with.
Case in point, her calling everyone for a demonstration of necron tech. We all watch as the gauss flayer rifle fires onto a suit of carapace armor and strips it away layer by layer, only stopping once the armor has completely dissolved away. "That single shot utilized more energy than the standard power reactor will produce in a month."
One of those things is enough to power an entire ship. I turn towards Dol, who is currently trying to disassemble an identical gauss rifle. "Are you sure?"
Dol absentmindedly nods as she finally manages to dislodge a panel. "Positive. If we go by power efficiency these rifles are absurdly inefficient, this suggests that these 'necrons', as you call them, have no concern regarding energy consumption. The true treasure in these is not the rifle itself, it is the battery. It holds enough charge for an indefinite amount of rounds."
Khaeyl looks at said rifle with a bit more interest now, Anesh continues helping Dol dismantle the rifle. Joline looks at Anesh and Dol. "In other words, they're an infinite battery?"
Dol nods, finally managing to remove said battery from the gauss rifle. "Indeed. As far as practicality is concerned, these batteries hold a reliably infinite amount of energy. The only limiting factor is their effective power output, which is extremely limited outside of the scope of their own tech."
Joline looks at the fist sized battery in Dol's hand. "How limited exactly?"
Dol sighs. "About a tenth of the output of the standard imperial powerpack."
So they're going to be bad for small arms, amazing for vehicles and even more amazing for large scale projects. Dol hands the battery to Anesh, before taking another gauss rifle for disassembly. "Large scale projects would require them by the millions, we only have a thousand at this moment."
I forgot about that. Large scale projects are going to need a fuckton of them. If we want to get more we're going to need to raid more tomb worlds.
—
The admech fleet is scheduled to leave in about a week, so we have some downtime. Dol has elected to spend her time going through some of the xenotech we traded for, Khaeyl is trying to get Dol to give her one of the necron rifles and the rest of us are spending some quality time with my children.
Katherine and Ar, Dol's son, have grown up enough to start walking around and talk. Katherine hands me a figurine of a space marine. "Daddy, let's go play astartes and heretics!"
I pat her head and smile. "Let's play."
We spend the week like this, playing either card games or children games. Dol occasionally joins us when Joline pestering her manages to dislodge her from the shiny new toys.
—
"The imperial palace has failed to respond once again, we are to now assume that this world is under enemy control and act appropriately."
The magos in charge of this fleet, a man named Beta, points at the hologram of Kinja. "The first step is to gather enough human resources to produce an appropriate force of skitarii. Afterwards the planet can be put under imperial influence again."
The imperial palace has failed to respond to any and all inquiries. The planet is effectively radio silent, so what exactly is going on is a mystery. I turn to Beta. "We will be going down on the planet as well, we need to gather some human resources for ourselves."
Beta shrugs. "That is not an issue, there is no conflict of interest between the two of us."
—
We all watch as the maids slowly assemble a suit of power armor on Flakey. Joline smiles. "Are you ready for your first expedition outside?"
Flakey gives her a resolute nod. "Yes!"
I smile as the maids put on the pauldrons of the armor. "Remember, don't wander around and stay near us. Feel free to use your powers, if you begin to hear any weird whispering make sure to tell either me or Joline, allright?"
Flakey raises her hands, allowing the maids to continue. "If I hear anything weird or see weird things I'll tell you."
—
It didn't take long for the mechanicus to clear a landing zone, allowing us to safely land and begin our search. Most of the psykers we find are stable enough to capture, it's on the fifth one that we have a small problem. Joline points at the household guard accompanying us. "Follow them, they'll lead you to your destination."
The lady Joline addressed beings to twitch erratically. Flakey turns to me, I nod. The woman begins to open her mouth, only to get herself telekinetically squashed into paste by Flakey. Joline sighs. "At least she didn-" The meat paste begins burning with a red flame.
Thankfully none of it landed on us, going by the way the rock crete is melting that wouldn't have been pleasant at all.
The next two psykers are much more stable, allowing the household guard to get them to our ship. The third one is another exception. The moment that the scrawny old man sees us he rushes towards us at supernatural speed.
Flakey stops him in his tracks by telekinetically raising him above the ground, where he has no surface to push off of. His skin slowly begins to turn red as he swings wildly in the air. I blink. "This is a cultist from that blood cult, isn't he?"
Joline nods, her voice lacking her usual playful edge. "Yeah. Should we soul search him?"
Soul searching him normally wouldn't have any risks, but there's always the small chance that some method of trapping him would be used. "I'll do it."
Thankfully we're dealing with a blood cult. Followers of Khorne will never participate in or enact any form of sorcery. I reveal my third eye and give the man a deep look.
The man was born. He spent his first three years in the schola. He started working in a factory at the age of three. At the age of nine he lost his pinky finger in a work accident. At the age of twelve he was invited into the blood cult. He slowly became more and more powerful, more and more angry and more and more bloodthirsty. He awakens his psychic powers at the age of thirty, he ignores them. At forty he kills his wife and children out of anger. At sixty he becomes a shock trooper for the blood cult, his reason and intellect replaced with hate and anger.
I shake my head. "He was a high ranking member of the blood cult."
Joline throws a pebble at the man, making him rage even harder. "Was?"
I nod. "His cognition slowly worsened until he became… this."
We all stare at the old man as he screams in anger and swings his fists wildly. "So… what do we do now?"
I sigh. "We contact the inquisition, dealing with this is their problem, not ours. This guy we're going to kill, I'm not going to be taking any risks here. You can do the honors, Flakey."
The man's head is firmly turned to the left, his torso to the right and his lower body to the left. After forcefully splitting the man in three Flakey telekinetically crushes the remains into paste, before throwing the paste as far away from us as possible.
Flakey preens as Joline rubs her head. "Good job! I told you that there was nothing to worry about!"
We end up finding only a single more blood cultist during our search for psykers. This one is in no better shape than the first, just another rage filled shock trooper.
—
It doesn't take long for the admech to restore order, their skitarii being much more coordinated than the imperial guard aiding them immensely. In a single month a new planetary governor is reinstated, the inquisition is alerted to our findings about the blood cult and then we're off to Kearus.
On our arrival there we rest for a few days before loading our two regiments of death korp into their ships. Having them follow us around for now isn't going to be much of an issue, fuel and supplies are much cheaper compared to our services.
While the death korp are getting familiar with their new gear we begin our search for another contract. We end up narrowing our choices down to three contracts.
The second is a contract with the imperial guard, we're to make multiple back and forth trips to get troops for them to deal with an ork infestation.
The first is a longerish contract with the local sororitas chapter. There's a chapter of sisters of battle local to Kearus, they're going to go search for some relics before returning here.
The third is a contract with the administratum. A bunch of war machinery got delivered to the wrong planet, we are to bring it here.
The payment for these contracts is basically the same, as is their overall duration. Joline and I settle on the ecclesiarchy contract, watching how sororitas do battle should give us some insight on how to structure our own death korp regiments.
The leader of the expedition, Canoness Superior Galatea of The Order Of The Benevolent Lady, has invited us to discuss the details of the expedition.
Galatea takes out a paper map of the sector, before pinning down two systems. "Our first location will be here-" She points at one of the pins. "- in the Syreo Gamma system. Our second will be here-" She points at the other pin. "- in the Syreo Beta system."
The systems are somewhat far from Kearus, the good part is that they are pretty close to one another. The bad part is that we'll need to go the long way around, there's a really bad warpstorm between Kearus and those systems. "And what do you offer in exchange for our services?"
Galatea begins the negotiations. "Fifteen favors."
The journey is going to take about five years, and that's without however long it will take them to complete their goals on the planets. "That's way too low. The journey is going to take five years, that's discounting the time you'll spend on the planets."
Galatea blinks. "That long? I apologize in that case, I was under the impression that the journey would only be approximately eight months."
I shake my head. "There's a really bad warpstorm between Kearus and those systems. It's been there for the past thousand years and it will be there for the next thousand years."
Galatea says. "That explains how our previous expedition got lost on the way. What would be an appropriate remuneration in this case?"
I say. "Forty favors plus an extra two for each realspace year."
Galatea thinks my proposal over. "That is equivalent to what I had calculated for the shorter, previously expected journey. Very well. Is there anything in particular that is of interest to you? Knowing beforehand would allow us to prepare ahead of time."
I honestly expected much more hostility from the imperium's more fanatical factions, being treated nicely by them wasn't something that I had thought would happen. "We have two regiments of imperial guard outfitted in hellguns and power armor, training them in appropriate tactics would be appreciated."
Galatea blinks. "Will they be joining you during this journey?"
Joline nods. "Yeah, they're coming with us."
Galatea nods. "I will be joining the expedition personally as it is, so seeing to their training will not be an issue. That will be the equivalent of a single favor, since it's not something particularly bothersome."
Joline and I both shake Galatea's hand. "When will we be leaving?"
Galatea says. "In three weeks time. We need some time to prepare for the journey."
—
Joline and I spend said three weeks planetside, taking a form of mini vacation. Our accommodations are not that far from the planet's main shrine, giving us a pretty good view of the preparations of the sororitas. There is one thing that ends up surprising the both of us.
Joline and I both stare dumbfounded at the crowd of mutants reverently listening to the sermon of the pontifex. We're too far away to actually hear the sermon, but going from the way none of the mutants look like they're about to jump the pontifex it can't be anything about purging the mutant.
Joline shakes my shoulder. "Look there! They're even giving food to them!"
I turn my gaze to where Joline is pointing, which just so happens to be a deacon giving food, actual food mind you, not fucking corpse starch, to the hungry. Some of them are normal humans, some of them are mutants, the deacon does not discriminate between either.
I blink. Did we actually come across what might be the only chapel of the ministorum that doesn't actively make life a living hell?
Joline nods. "I think we did."
"I said that part out loud, didn't I?"
"Yeah, you did."