In a minute, I reached my Chapter Master quarters aboard the Serenity, and let Sly get familiar with the place, and inspect all the weapons and artifacts placed on the walls. I did have plenty of relics to show off, and a mountain of them in my tesseract.
Amberley was already waiting in her armchair, sipping tea and spinning tarot cards to read possible tilines.
"Offer the Inquisitor your hand, Major." I demanded after powering up my cogitator and selecting a hundred items on a list, all useful for infiltration, sabotage and outright murder.
Sly Marbo hesitated for a second, before nodding and offering a hand for inspection.
"Ouch! Not only I can't read him, his touch makes feel sick!" the blonde Inquisitor exclaid in a thin voice, obviously in pain.
"See, Major. That's why you had to work alone, and couldn't have friends or family til now. You're an Untouchable, or better said a psychic Blank. One in a trillion people are born with this gift, much rarer than psykers." I announced in a patient tone, while Amberley wiped her hand in disgust.
"I know." the big Catachan soldier muttered and then lit himself a thick cigar, dragging from it with satisfaction.
Amberley fled the room, after glaring at Sly Margo in outrage.
"Amberley is pregnant and doesn't like smoke. Even holy incense makes her sick. My own gift is milder, although I did send a psyker girl screaming to the floor at a ball. Inquisitors are made of sterner stuff, because they need to be." I continued as my bodyguard Rafen leaned back on his plasteel dais and started cleaning his Power Sword with scented oil and plying the Machine Spirit of the weapon with twirling swirls of blue smoke and low voice litanies.
Sly observed the ritual curios, and then dragged from his foul cigar with a careless shrug.
"Never cared for that chanicus crap. Never needed them either." the man comnted in a superior tone, and walked around to stare at the proposed list of infernal devices.
"So of these rituals are indeed useless, others are recharge and maintenance protocols, regular security password checkups and purity seals against Warp entities. The Lanters know this very well, especially when their own weapons explode in their hands, or entire warships vanish in Warp Storms and freak accidents. Blanks are much less bothered by demons and Warp-based curses, up to being immune or even inimical to demons that they can banish them with re proximity. That last category is called Pariah, a trait developed by the Emperor himself into the Silent Sisters geno." I explained softly, and turned my hand to reveal a Psych-out grenade obtained by grinding Pariah bones into dust, while the cogitator holoscreen selected the weapon and revealed the weapon's capabilities.
Sly examined and possibly morized the paraters of his new toy. "We should make millions of these grenades." he demanded in a practical tone.
"They do make millions of them. On Luna and Terra, maybe Mars too. Catch Blanks and Pariahs n, and grind their bones into anti-demon dust. Or boil them alive in red-hot iron to make phase-iron when the death echoes imprint into the tal. Neurons and nerves extracted for Blank Machine Spirits, to make Titans immune to demons and corruption. And it's possible worse for the Sisters, and definitely worse for the brainwashed Cullexus assassins. I hear only one in a thousand passes the trials. Their corpses are still very useful after all." I mused while watching the man nearly crush the phase-iron grenade in his hand.
"I see. Perhaps we should not make millions of these grenades. Blank soldiers, and officers are immune to this Chaos bullshit, right?" the Catachan brute proposed in a more level tone.
I nodded gently. "Already working on that, as you saw with dear Andrea. I have a thousand concubines and so will you, and any other Blank man we find. And we'll keep our family secret in the Eastern Fringe, til we have enough numbers. Trillions of Blanks and armies of Pariahs. Thus, you're hereby forbidden to die, not until you have a thousand Blank children." I ordered with a thin smile.
Sly grunted as if hit with a Terminator fist in the stomach. "It shall be so, Lord Lancefire. But I'm not good with won..." he admitted in a shy voice.
"Doesn't matter. I might pass on to you my current Catachan concubines, at least those with a foul mouth and demanding a real man." I added with a wry grin.
"Just smack...I an... I shall take them off your shoulders, Father-in-law. You're too pretty for a real man anyway." Sly Marbo quipped and grinned with an ugly smile.
I didn't mind smack talk about my angelic face, I did that everyday to my mirror. But not my kids...
A bolter pistol appeared in my hand and I tapped his progenitor glands with it. "You smack my dear daughter once, I shoot one ball off. You smack her twice, it's your head, clear?" I asked in a pleasant voice.
His smile vanished as he glanced at the weapon that just appeared in my hand. "Loud and clear, sir! Very useful ability, to carry extra munitions in the field." he observed in a professional voice. I carried more than munitions in there. A lot more.
"I shall try to obtain a small dinsional pocket for your use, Major. They are just extrely expensive, like all ancient relics. Until then, you have a month to organize a company of special ops troops, with anything you saw here, and perhaps more. Automated turrets and Sentinels, dropships, drop pods, a stealth dropship even. You will also all need mind implants, and perhaps power armor to carry larger loads. Deck 4 is reserved for you and this unit, so get started." I commanded, curious what he will do with a free hand.
I an, this guy liberated entire worlds by himself, even took down scores of Chaos Marines and a Chaos Titan! Most of his military records were sealed, even for , so I could only make educated guesses about his real abilities.
And, perhaps Trazyn did have a ship-sized labyrinth in his collection, to carry demolition ordnance and other supplies. They would be much easier to make, than a tesseract able to cover a solar system.
Rafen coughed as Sly Marbo left the room, and held his own psych-out grenade in a silent question.
"We will still use the weapons, Rafen. We won't let their deaths be in vain. But there will be a ti for reckoning, one day. You can bet a throne on that." I muttered in a cold voice.
The Veteran nodded and stored the grenade back on his combat harness. "There is nothing to bet, my lord. In a few decades, there will thousands of Blank Astartes. And the Primarchs were contemporaries of the Silent Sisters on Terra. They fought beside them from Mars to could have all the Catachan concubines they could find, I really liked the Norse features of these Valhallan won.
"We're going to fight Tyranids, more exactly Hive Fleet Moloch which is attacking the Imperium from the north. It's possible everyone here will die very soon for the Emperor, while eaten alive and crying in pain. Everyone, but not the good Commissar Cain over there, as the Emperor watches over him for so reason." I explained in a half-serious voice, while a thousand eyes locked on the cowardly Commissar with curious eyes.
I think I saw Cain swallow his tears for a second.
"For those of you who never fought against the Tyranids, you should expect the horizon to be filled with giant bugs, on the ground, in the air and in orbit. Trillions of them. Stubber weaponry will not bother them at all, and most of the Guard's infantry weapons will be minimally effective." I concluded in the ominous silence.
Reviews
All reviews (0)