My eyes fall on a litany written with golden words on a flag, most certainly Chaplain's work.
"Where there is uncertainty, I shall bring light. Where there is doubt, I shall sow faith.
Where there is sha, I shall point atonent. Where there is rage, I shall show its course
My word in the soul shall be as my bolter in the field."
Nothing about reason or facts. Nothing about discovery or joy.
We might as well be Orks, they too have only faith and fury, after all. It even works, their Waaghs bending reality as they rage and plunder and destroy.
Fighting each other, the Orks beco stronger, and then they attack others. It is what a branch of Inquisition fosters, the so-called made in the Eye of Terror, were produced in too small numbers. The sa was true for the Imperium or the Eldar and only the Orks had cheap airplanes.
The enemy would have a hundred or a thousand starfighters, I would have a million cheap fighters. Quite possibly at the sa total cost. Damn spacefighters were really expensive.
Sadly, losses would be high, due to laser weapons that took milliseconds to hit a target. Perhaps the new cheaper shields, gifted by my friendly Necron wizard, could be produced in the needed numbers.
We shall see.
The inspection took a whole week, from planes to tanks and small arms factories, to visiting the Catachans and convincing them of their new role as guardians of the Fringe, and of the defenseless won who fled the destruction of their howorld.
I even promised them 10000 thrones prize for every 10 kids, and 40000 thrones for reaching 40 kids, which wasn't a usual gratification for a simple guardsman, even a renowned Catachan.
Sohow, the trip gained plenty of good will, and a hundred old-era Catachan concubines willing to bind themselves to and my clan.
Will have to thank Trazyn for his good taste, and the pleasant warm nights he gifted .
From the Sisters, only Alana was eager to taste my body yet, but I was certain the rest will follow one day. It wasn't like they have many choices in n. Kinda hard to get close to anyone else when you were a Pariah.
A few months later, Sisters Hestia and Aleya did in fact give in to my charms and friendly deanor and argued they might get a new Janice from our holy union. I was hoping the sa thing, of course.
More dical tests and sample collection followed, fresh eggs and seed sent to Antax for more and better Blank Machine Spirits.
And then, the Conveyors and the Canticle arrived, with their own new problems.
I gathered all the Stygies high-priests in the great hall of the chanicus Forge, flanked by my Astartes and Silent Sisters bodyguards.
"Welco to Forge Retribution, all of you. Now, before you get working on all those STC templates and damaged battleships, I will make things clear. You are not to conduct personal research. That's a capital cri in the Lancefire domains.
Secondly, while the rules will be a bit laxer, you will not attempt experints on my people. No viruses or infomorphs or other mass-effect devices. You will not work on Warp technologies of any kind. Xeno research will be conducted in sealed labs on the outer moons, with lta bombs planted under those labs. You will follow quarantine protocols, and stay under Gellar fields at all tis. I want to hear: Yes, Lord Lancefire!"
Grumbling Magi of all clades looked around for support. Perhaps they did want to experint freely, outside the Imperium.
"This is not what we were promised, Lord Lancefire. We have brought many forges and servitors and rare artifacts with us, just to escape the oppression of the Imperium." a tall robed cyborg argued and many tech-priests around him supported him with voices or gestures.
"The focus of my Forge will be Warp-less technologies. Realspace ship engines, better reactors, mind-to-mind stellar range transmission, better personal weapons, better shields, cheap aircraft, cheap power armor and Blank Machine Spirits. That's for starters. Later we will begin assembling Reality Cages around my worlds, to prevent any Warp emissions from interfering with civilization, from Warp Storms to Ork Waagh fields or Tyranid Silence. I don't really care about other types of projects, nor will I fund them. Everyone who agrees, bow down and take a pledge." I shouted as hard I could.
From about 3000 tech-priests, less than half agreed. "Good enough!" I muttered, while flicking my left glove with a shiny crystal on the backhand.
The recalcitrant Magi vanished in my tesseract, leaving only the more pliable ones.
I was certain I could trade them, for sothing of value.
"I am certain we will have a great future together. Welco to Retribution." I announced while passing among my new tech-priests while they looked around a bit stunned.
"Another miracle, my lord." Chaplain Delos said while watching with glowing eyes.
I could only sigh, and hope it would be enough.
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