40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 117: Sanction

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 timelines.

"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 me feel sick!" the blonde Inquisitor exclaimed 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 Mechanicus crap. Never needed them either." the man commented in a superior tone, and walked around to stare at the proposed list of infernal devices.

"Some of these rituals are indeed useless, others are recharge and maintenance protocols, regular security password checkups and purity seals against Warp entities. The Lamenters 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 mere proximity. That last category is called Pariah, a trait developed by the Emperor himself into the Silent Sisters genome." 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 memorized the parameters 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 men, 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 metal. 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 women..." 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 mean... 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 dimensional pocket for your use, Major. They are just extremely 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 mean, 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 me, 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 time 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 Prospero. The debt will never be forgotten." he declared in a certain voice.

I wasn't so sure, Primarchs could be too pragmatic sometimes, even with the deaths of their sons, not mention other people unrelated to them.

Then again, those Astartes sons were merely imprinted with gene-seeds, not their birth children. Not like mine.

From this meeting I went to meet with the regiment commanders and organize the land armies for deployment, held in the largest meeting hall on the battle barge.

It was no surprise to see a hundred Colonels and a few Generals already at each other throats, while Commissars and Sanctioned Psykers stood watch just as their bodyguards and while aides and Lexmechanics and Autosavants were often called to explain certain logistic problems or solve a dispute who deserved what munitions.

The Catachans Colonels were way more reserved, probably surprised they were even invited to such an august meeting, even those of Noble origin. They had no Autosavants, and few Lexmechanics, but they had Ogryn bodyguards, which leveled the odds in their favor. I even recalled meeting one smart Ogryn bodyguard back on Forge Ryza, still guarding General Griess. The Catachan's 2nd regiment was now commanded by Colonel Straken, loaded on the carrier Daedalus at Forge Tigrus.

The Inquisitor stood on a high dais, flanked by her new Deathwatch guardians, all wearing ominous blank armor without any insignia at all, beside the Inquisitorial seal. They were already dead, and the Inquisitor will decide where to spend their deaths. Nothing more. No Chapter, no honor, not for them.

"Attention everyone! Be silent! Bodyguards wait outside, you're all safe in my presence." I boomed using the room's vox casters at maximum power, making everyone not protected stumble and sway from shock.

The awe will come later.

Ludvaius hefted his Power Maul on his shoulder, ready to enforce my order.

On the side, I saw Lord Commissar Cain slump in defeat at my presence, while a dozen priests from the Adeptum Ministorum all began vociferating and threatening me with sanctions.

"Oi, you heard the Emp'ror Son! Out!" Nork Deddog, the big Ogryn yelled and began waving his big automatic shotgun at the other bodyguards.

Most of the escorts started to trickle out, while I waited patiently. A Crusade wouldn't work easily, not from the start.

Then one higher-rank priest started raising his staff and praying loudly and asking me to repent, and he vanished somewhere.

"Ludvaius, start breaking the heads of any insubordinate traitors." I commanded as the entire room stared at me in awe.

As the Blood Angel Veteran hefted his weapon and made it glow and hum, by powering up the energy field, dissent turned into panic and the delegations started running towards the exit, while pleading to be let out faster.

I saw only three women among the regiment commanders, an older woman called Reila_Vann, then two prettier ones from Valhalla, named Jenit_Sulla and Regina_Kasteen.

General Vann was in command of three Cadian armor regiments, all dispatched from the Fortress World of Spite, guarding the Hadex Anomaly Rift.

Well, I did kinda burn pretty much everything of strategic importance for Chaos in the area, so they would be available now.

As for the other two, they were the Colonel Kasteen and her aide Major Sulla, commanding the 296th all-female Valhallan artillery regiment. Which was very promissing, for my own needs.

Sly and Ferik_Jurgen could have all the Catachan concubines they could find, I really liked the Norse features of these Valhallan women.

"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 some 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.