The training ground was bright and loud and recently redecorated in the particular way that combat practice redecorates spaces.
Nolan moved through the wreckage without power armor, the blood scythe trailing green light in one hand and the Forgebreaker trailing coils of lightning in the other, both weapons swinging in practiced alternation through the last of whatever the Automata Corps had sent at him. Mechanical tentacles spun away through the air, each one still gripping a chainsword it no longer had a body to connect to, and landed across the training ground floor in a scatter pattern that covered most of the available surface.
The last unit tried to come in from his blind side.
His mouth was already moving.
The sulphuric acid saliva hit the Scyllax Guardian Automata's serpentine chassis squarely, the stream connecting before the automaton had finished committing to its angle of approach. The metal shell dissolved where the acid touched it, the corrosive reaction moving fast through the joins and plating seams, and what had been a functioning unit became a structural problem in the space of a few seconds. The Forgebreaker finished the assessment, the hammerhead coming down on the automaton's skull with the full weight of a Primarch-grade weapon behind it, and the training ground went quiet.
Nolan rolled his neck once and turned toward the edge of the ground.
The Stormtroopers and the Lamenters garrison personnel who had been watching from the perimeter had already begun making space, reading the direction he was walking before he had consciously chosen it. He moved through the gap they created, nodding once to the assembled faces as he passed, and went out into the base corridors.
A single type of Automata Corps unit was no longer enough to bring him to anything resembling full engagement. He had considered using Astartes as sparring partners, but the arithmetic was unfavorable: unarmored, he could manage exchanges with the Raven Guard champions and a few of the Lamenters company commanders, both groups having the reflexes to last more than a few rounds. The average Astartes simply could not absorb the sustained force he was generating now without risk of serious harm. And if he entered combat mode against fully armed Astartes, the outcome for whoever drew the short straw was not one he wanted to explain to a grieving squad afterward. Given the Lamenters' established relationship with misfortune, the probability was not theoretical.
He stored both weapons and went to find breakfast.
The metal round table in the base lobby had been replaced with one surfaced in vibranium. The previous table's acid-etched crater had been the deciding factor. Nolan sat at it and worked through the items David had flagged while he ate.
The mobile city project had entered its first engineering phase in the mutant nation. The resource flow was coming together as planned: the mutant nation's own mineral reserves as the base layer, supplemented by material streams from Europe and the Americas that were being redirected with the efficiency of a supply chain that had been building its relationships for some time now. The production lines being established would handle the casting requirements for the large structural components. The timeline was aggressive but achievable.
A communication had arrived from Director Zheng of S.P.E.A.R., addressed to David, expressing interest in deepening the cooperative relationship between S.P.E.A.R. and the Guardians of Terra. The tone was warm and the intent was clear.
Nolan read it and set it aside without acting on it.
The mutant nation needed to complete its first mobile city before that conversation moved forward. Allowing Asia to see the product of the alliance before they had consolidated their own position in the new arrangement would compress the negotiating leverage unnecessarily. A degree of managed anticipation was not dishonest. It was appropriate pacing. The competitive awareness between the two regional partners was something to maintain rather than resolve; it kept both parties performing.
He finished eating and moved on to the next item.
A few days later, the immediate domestic situation had reached a state of stable forward motion that did not require his continuous presence to maintain. The team understood their responsibilities and could execute within them. Nolan had made a career, such as it was, of building organizations that could function without him standing over them, and this one was no exception.
He was going back to the Carcharodons fleet.
The home universe carried obligations that the home world could not supersede indefinitely. The fleet had been waiting. There was work there that could not be delegated.
David was coordinating the supply preparation at the base, the inventory of what the fleet would need assembled and staged in an order that reflected David's particular gift for anticipating requirements Nolan had not yet stated. Nolan left him to it and walked to the Twin Islands foundry.
The foundry hall was active in the way it was always active when Reditus had been given a project and sufficient time to develop opinions about it.
The Starfire Glory stood on the casting platform at the center of the hall, surrounded by servo robots in numbers that suggested the work had been intensive and ongoing, each one engaged in a specific task related to a specific system, the collective effort producing the particular focused noise of a foundry operating at high precision. Nolan stood at the entrance for a moment, taking in the scope of the modifications, and then walked toward it.
"Reditus. What exactly have you been doing to my armor?"
The servo skull appeared from somewhere behind the platform, its anti-gravity engine carrying it in a bobbing, slightly agitated arc through the air as it redirected toward him. The red light in its optical units was cycling with the particular frequency that meant it had information to deliver and was pleased about having it.
"Primarch! The armor's combat feedback data has been extensive. I have made iterative adjustments to the fit calibration across every major structural component to account for the physical development that has occurred since the last fitting. Starfire Glory will perform considerably better against your current frame than it would have without these changes. This is straightforward optimization."
"The more complex a system is, the more ways it can fail under field conditions. You know the combat environment at home."
"Of course, Primarch. The philosophy of the modifications has been additive only at the margins. The core systems remain exactly as they were."
Nolan's gaze had moved during this exchange, pulled by something on the forging platform. He walked toward it without changing his expression and looked down at the skull helmet.
The Mind Stone sat in the center of the helmet's brow, set into the ceramite with what appeared to be deliberate intention rather than improvisation. He looked at it for a moment.
"Reditus. Why is the Mind Stone embedded in my skull helmet? In this universe, it is a powerful expression of cosmic energy in its origin state. Here, it is decorative."
The servo skull dropped in altitude and circled him at a slightly reduced speed, the optical units brightening.
"Primarch. It is not decorative. Permit me to explain."
"When I disassembled the Infinity Gauntlet, I extracted what data I could from the living metal of its structure. The material has memory and plasticity in ways that standard metallurgy does not, and by working within those properties I was able to inscribe runes carrying the properties of absorption, conversion, and release into the skull helmet's surface. The helmet now incorporates a limited version of certain functions that the Infinity Gauntlet performed."
Nolan looked at the helmet. Then at the servo skull.
"You are correct that the Infinity Stones are universal origins. They operate at a different scale away from this universe. What I can promise is this: the neural interface inside the helmet will allow you to direct the runes to draw energy from the Mind Stone. Not the Stone's full properties as they exist here. Not mind control. What is extracted is something different in character: an energy with destructive potential, emitted through the Mind Stone as a medium."
"How powerful?" Nolan's eyes had sharpened. "Comparable to what the Stone can do here? Can it still reach into a living mind?"
Reditus raised both mechanical hands, palms forward.
"Stop. Primarch. Making the Mind Stone produce any useful output in this universe at all represents the absolute limit of what I was able to accomplish. The mind-altering properties are not present in what the runes extract. What comes through is purely destructive energy: applicable as a direct emission, powerful in that mode, but without any psychic or cognitive dimension."
A pause.
"I have given this extracted energy and its emission mechanism a name. Something simple and clear."
The red light in the optical units pulsed once.
"Psychic Ray."