Chapter 16: You Said You Wouldn't Kill Me!
Fezekks was close to tears.
"You can't kill me! You shouldn't kill me! I'm useful to you! I can swear loyalty by my true name — complete, total loyalty! Not that worthless oath where I just have to tell the truth. A true subordination oath. I bind my soul core to yours!"
Every part of its body that could move was thrashing wildly.
"Keep me at your side! I can guide you anywhere on this wreck — I know every crack and crawlspace on this ship! I can sense any warp entities approaching and detect psychic disturbances before they arrive! Do you have any idea how much is hidden on this hulk? Centuries of accumulated salvage — Imperial, xenos, even relics from the Age of Darkness!"
"I will be more loyal than any guard dog you humans have ever trained!"
Rosen looked at it.
Then he smiled. It started at the corners of his mouth and spread slowly to his eyes.
In the darkness of the weapons bay, surrounded by hundreds of silent weapons and five expressionless Death Warriors, Kol Rosen smiled the first genuine smile he'd had since arriving in this universe.
"Sure."
Fezekks's one eye lit up.
For approximately three tenths of a second.
Because three tenths of a second later, Rosen's left hand closed back around its throat, all five fingers pressing together.
"G—"
A rapid series of dense cracking sounds came from Fezekks Vorrmulin's neck as Rosen's fingers tightened.
That single eye went wide to its limit. Its mouth gaped open. The blackened stub of its remaining tongue jutted stiffly into the air.
"You said... yes..."
Rosen's voice was calm. "I said sure. I didn't say I believed you."
His fingers kept pressing.
Fezekks Vorrmulin's body began to come apart in his grip.
The eye dimmed. Its forked tail made one last weak curl, then went slack.
The system chimed.
[Minor warp entity (Imp) detected — physical elimination confirmed.]
[Soul core intercepted and purified.]
[Warp Energy +1.]
Fezekks Vorrmulin's body disintegrated completely in Rosen's hand.
No residue. No trace.
Erased from the universe entirely, the same as its companion.
Rosen wiped his palm on his trouser leg.
"The only good daemon is a dead daemon."
He looked at Number 1 beside him.
"No matter how persuasive one of those things sounds, no matter how eagerly it agrees to your terms — every hour a warp entity spends near you, your scent in the warp gets stronger. The higher-order daemon entities track that scent like sharks tracking blood in the water. They will find you."
The Imp's offer had been genuinely tempting.
A loyal guide. A living map of the hulk. A sensor that could detect warp disturbances before they arrived.
Real value. No question about it.
But the cost?
The Bloodthirsters nesting in the lower decks, the daemon princes served by those Chaos Marines, the nameless things peering into realspace from the deeper reaches of the warp — they would all eventually notice that signal.
When that happened, it wouldn't be two Imps coming to find him. It would be something far worse.
Take what you can get, then cut the loose end. No exceptions.
That was the only sensible call.
Now he had the armoury to deal with.
Rosen turned his attention back to the weapons on the racks.
When he picked up the warp-contaminated boltgun, he noticed something change on his system interface. A tab that had been greyed out and locked since the beginning had lit up.
The Armoury tab was active.
A holographic projection opened in his field of vision.
It displayed a cube-shaped space roughly one cubic metre in volume. Its edges were outlined in faint blue light. The interior was completely empty.
A block of text appeared beside it.
[Armoury System — Unlocked]
[Available storage space: 1 cubic metre.]
[Storage rules: The host and all Death Warriors under command may deposit or withdraw items from this space at any time, regardless of distance.]
[Special function: Weapons and equipment stored within will undergo a base-law purification process, removing warp contamination and repairing physical damage within recoverable limits.]
[Space upgrade: Current space may be expanded to 2 cubic metres. Cost: 100 Dimensional Anchor Fragments.]
[Dimensional Anchor Fragments: 0.]
Rosen stared at the last two lines for a few seconds.
Dimensional Anchor Fragments.
Another new resource type.
The system offered no indication of how to acquire them, but that was a problem for later.
What mattered right now was the core function of the Armoury — purification.
He looked down at the warp-contaminated boltgun in his hand.
The weapon dissolved into a cluster of faint blue motes and vanished without a sound.
Inside the Armoury space on his system interface, a holographic rendering of the boltgun appeared, floating in the centre of the one-cubic-metre space. A dark red aura covered the weapon — the visible expression of its warp contamination.
[Warp-contaminated weapon detected. Initiating base-law purification sequence...]
[Purifying... 20%... 50%... 80%...]
[Purification complete.]
[Warp contamination residue stripped and transferred to Scrapyard.]
Rosen switched to the Scrapyard to check.
Sure enough, within the churning grey mist that already filled the tab, a small new mass of dark red residue had appeared alongside everything else already stored there. It was darker than the Waaagh energy waste stripped from the greenskin souls — denser, more viscous, with faint twisted marks inside it that looked like fragments of runes, drifting in slow, irregular patterns.
He returned to the Armoury interface.
The dark red aura was gone from the boltgun entirely. The purification process had also repaired several minor physical defects on the frame as a byproduct.
Rosen retrieved the boltgun from storage.
He raised it, worked the slide, and checked the chamber and feed port.
Smooth action. No resistance at all.
He tossed the purified boltgun to Number 3.
"Yours."
What followed was straightforward assembly-line work.
Rosen directed his Death Warriors to begin systematically processing everything in the weapons bay.
One cubic metre of Armoury space wasn't large, but it was more than sufficient to handle weapons one at a time.
Number 1 and Number 4 pulled weapons from the racks and passed them to Rosen.
Number 2 and Number 5 sorted and organised each item as it came out of storage, purified and ready.
Number 3 stood at the entrance with his newly acquired boltgun, keeping watch alongside Number 2.
When the last batch of weapons was retrieved from the Armoury and laid out in neat rows across the weapons bay floor, Rosen looked over the full inventory and allowed himself a satisfied expression.
Time to distribute.
"Number 1."
Rosen handed Number 1 a purified Locke-pattern boltgun and four fully loaded magazines. Number 1 had been carrying a lasgun with depleted charge packs for far too long. This was a meaningful step up.
"Number 2."
Number 2 received a standard M-G pattern lasgun with three charge packs and a chainsword.
"Number 3."
Number 3 already had the purified boltgun. Rosen added a chainsword and a handful of grenades.
"Number 4."
One lasgun, three charge packs, four grenades, and a combat knife in good condition.
"Number 5."
Number 5 received the power shield.