"Vick."
The titanic figure slowly turned, its motion measured and reverent, almost ceremonial. Its voice bypassed all auditory receptors and resonated directly within the minds of Vick and Sevin, vibrating through every cog and synapse.
Though the voice was ethereal and sanctified, Vick still recognized the speaker from the distinctive accent of High Gothic.
He promptly performed a perfect cogwheel salute. "Praise the Omnissiah. Praise the Lord of Talon."
Sevin, stunned for a moment by his friend's reaction, quickly followed suit with his own cogwheel salute. He felt the weight of presence, not merely machine but divinity, an echo of something vast and ancient. For a commander used to measuring threats by range, armor, and firepower, this was different. The figure before him did not feel like a weapon pointed at him. It felt like judgment waiting for an answer.
The giant before them was the shell currently inhabited and controlled by Qin Mo.
A day earlier, Qin Mo had transmitted this body to a location near the Celestial Engine. This was a long-range teleportation, an extreme-range maneuver, even by his standards. Despite the Celestial Engine's signal strength surpassing most teleport beacons, a minor spatial error had occurred. The shell did not rematerialize directly within the Agripinaa system as intended, but rather emerged five hundred light-years away in a neighboring star system.
When the vessel emerged from the dimensional rift, it materialized amidst a raging space battle. A small detachment of Imperial Navy vessels, aided by Aeldari warships, were engaged in a desperate attempt to repel a Chaos raiding fleet. Qin Mo immediately reconfigured the body into a frigate-class warship and obliterated the Chaos attackers.
The intervention was brief and brutal. The Chaos vessels had been pressing their advantage, their gun batteries already turning crippled Imperial escorts into drifting wreckage. Then Qin Mo's shell unfolded into a warship, brought its weapons online, and erased the raiders before either the Imperial captains or the Aeldari could decide whether the newcomer was salvation or another threat.
The journey was fraught with complications, yet the vessel ultimately reached its intended destination.
"You shared the STC template I granted you with the entire Forge World?" Qin Mo floated forward, gazing down at Vick.
"Yes," Vick admitted, though he spoke with the weight of a confession rather than pride. He knew there was no point in concealing it. "The STC wasn't something I discovered. It was a divine gift. To hoard it for personal gain would have been heresy."
His mechadendrites held still as he spoke, a rare display of restraint from a Tech-Priest whose every limb usually calculated, adjusted, or recorded.
"He truly have the makings of a Saint," Qin Mo thought, though he kept that to himself.
Vick's decision had earned him immense reverence. Within the Cult Mechanicus, where knowledge hoarding was tradition and altruism an aberration, such selflessness was nearly unheard of. Thus, he was hailed as a Sage. In a society where status was measured in data and devotion, his choice had made him a living anomaly.
But this had practical implications too. If Vick ever claimed to have communed directly with the Omnissiah, those who had benefited from his gift would not immediately dismiss him as a heretic or madman.
They would listen.
"You had your reasons. I understand," Qin Mo said with a nod, then turned to Sevin. "I've reviewed the Thunderborns' reports concerning you. You're an exceptional commander. The Talon ground forces contributed little during this campaign, but your leadership proved decisive."
"Only during the ground engagements," Sevin replied calmly. "Had this miracle, a divine structure as massive as a planet, not entered orbit and reclaimed orbital supremacy, the Forge World would've fallen eventually."
There was no false humility in his answer. Sevin had fought the war on the surface, and he knew exactly where his command had mattered. He also knew where it had ended. No ground commander could win forever beneath hostile orbit.
Qin Mo nodded in agreement. He, too, had wondered about the course of the war upon reaching the Celestial Engine.
Originally, the Chaos warband attacking the Forge World should not have possessed such a powerful fleet. Their advance should've been less coordinated, more characteristic of the usual disarray among the servants of the Dark Gods, and eventually they would've been repelled by the Blood Angels Chapter en route. But everything had played out differently.
Fortunately, at least the Forge World still stood.
"How much of your industrial infrastructure was lost?" Qin Mo asked.
Vick opened his mouth to answer, but Sevin responded first. "The primary Engine Foundry has been utterly destroyed, along with several sacred manufactoria that had endured for millennia. Even now, scattered enemy remnants continue to sabotage key facilities across the planet."
Vick's lenses dimmed slightly. "Several machine-spirits remain trapped in damaged systems. Some still answer. Others only repeat fault-prayers. Restoration teams are working, but our manpower and intact equipment are insufficient."
"Then this Forge World requires restoration." Qin Mo extended his hand. A black sphere materialized in his palm, its surface rippling like voidglass and humming with barely-contained energy.
"Is that… an STC template?" Vick asked, his optical lenses flaring with sudden light.
"A variant STC. One specifically designed to reconstruct this Forge World," Qin Mo replied.
This particular Standard Template Construct had been forged in less than a single Terran day. Infused with the essence of Qin Mo's C'tan-level power, its usage would trigger a temporal reversion within a five-hundred-meter spherical radius, similar to the time-reversal technique he'd previously used in the hive city to restore the scene around the Chaos Spawn and its former Psyker host.
But unlike that ability, this STC would reconstruct the recovered temporal data of the past through matter-printing technologies, effectively rebuilding structures and equipment exactly as they had been.
It would not bring back the dead. It would not undo every wound left by the invasion. But it could restore broken manufactoria, collapsed assembly lines, ruined conduits, and sacred machinery before the damage spread through Agripinaa's remaining production network.
"Thank you for this divine gift," Vick said, reverently accepting the orb with all his mechadendrites and servo-limbs.
"It operates the same as the previous STC," Qin Mo instructed. "Use it to repair your world."
Vick handled the sphere as if a careless movement might profane it. He immediately stored it within the sacred compartment housed inside his primary heart-cogitator chamber. His entire form trembled with awe. He looked up at Qin Mo.
"How… how could I ever repay you… How can the Forge World repay such benevolence…"
"This is a blessing, not a transaction," Qin Mo said flatly. "But if you truly wish to serve me, become this Forge World's Archmagos. And await my orders."
"I will fulfill that mission at any cost," Vick pledged with utmost resolve.
While Vick's status was only marginally higher than Magos Sevin's as a supposedly enlightened Sage, it was no easy task to ascend to the rank of Archmagos. But the previous Archmagos had perished during the war.
And now, Vick carried a divine artifact, bestowed by the "Omnissiah" himself. As he walked the war-ravaged manufactorum zones and restored them to their former glory, none would doubt that he was a living saint, an emissary of the Machine God.
Even if the High Council of Mars never officially recognized him, it wouldn't matter. He would hold de facto control of the Forge World Agripinaa.
"I will support Vick with all I have," Sevin suddenly said. "Anyone who opposes him will be silenced… permanently."
Though their roles were different, Vick and Sevin were men of similar spirit. Even without a formal pledge, Sevin would've helped Vick without hesitation. But he still felt the need to declare it.
Vick turned slightly toward him. For a moment, neither spoke. Their friendship had never required sentiment. It had been built from shared labor, shared danger, and a mutual understanding that survival sometimes required decisions other men preferred to call impure.
Qin Mo turned to him and raised a hand.
Sevin had no idea what was happening, until he felt it.
Every cybernetic implant in his body began to shift and transform.
What followed was a level of refinement he had never seen: nanoscopic augmentation down to the atomic scale. His vision sharpened. His hearing heightened. His comms implants now allowed instant communication with any part of the Forge World. He could even sense the real-time location, stress index, and vital signs of each subordinate.
The old power source for his cybernetics was replaced by a micro-fusion core capable of generating limitless energy with negligible running cost.
His command capabilities had been pushed to near-omniscient levels. But Qin Mo didn't stop there. After the command systems came the combat enhancements.
Living metal, separated from Qin Mo's shell, crawled over Sevin's body like sentient mercury, bonding with him symbiotically. Every mechadendrite and servo-arm could now morph into a tool or weapon at will, his form a modular marvel of divine engineering.
When the process ended, Sevin barely retained any organic matter. Only a trace of his flesh remained, a redundant relic of his former self. To reach this level of augmentation through conventional means would have required astronomical wealth and the full support of multiple Forge Worlds.
This wasn't just enhancement. It was a complete refitting of body, command system, and battlefield role. Sevin had entered the chamber as a capable Magos commander. He now stood as something far more suited to the war and politics ahead.
Sevin uttered a binary hymn of gratitude and exultation.
"Now go," Qin Mo said. "You both know what needs to be done."
The silent Yoan, who had remained still the entire time, finally rose and led the two from the Celestial Engine after they saluted once more.
Vick left with the black sphere sealed inside his body. Sevin walked beside him, each step steadier than the last as his new systems settled into place. Neither spoke on the way out. There was too much to say, and none of it needed saying yet. Agripinaa had survived. Now it had to be taken in hand before lesser men and lesser priests wasted the miracle they had been given.
Qin Mo withdrew his consciousness from the vessel and returned to his true, biological form. There, he contemplated his next move.
The Agripinaa Forge World had been defended successfully. There was still time before Abaddon launched his 13th Black Crusade against Cadia.
Time enough to secure and stabilize the entire Talon Sector.
Time to build more warships. Time to raise new armies. Time to prepare for the darkness yet to come...
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