Over the next year, the Crusade proceeded as planned, not that the Tau were able to match the array of forces deployed against them.

My forces advanced as deep as Ke'lshan into Tau territory, where we first had to fight off The_Purge, a large Chaos warband with a predilection for chemical weapons.

Then, minor incursions from Orks and some Eldar Corsairs, followed by a large genestealer invasion carried by nine Space Hulks that emerged from the Perdus_Rift. Free ship hulls and gigatonnes of precious metal would make the development of this new sector much easier, even with the stupid regulations of the Administratum. I kept one Space Hulk to distribute the more intact hulls to the other Rogue Traders, and grabbed one more battleship and three battlecruisers for my own House.

The ships would need decades in dock to be restored to operational status, but in the meanwhile they will provide work for my Forge Worlds in the Fringe. The cruiser hulls will need to be transported to more advanced Forges like Metalica or Tigrus, because the smaller Macharius drives required a high degree of precision.

The Tau did not stay still and let us conquer them, and struck back from inside the Nexus pocket, and with two large fleets that tried to pincer the Crusade the rift and re-connect with their lost colonies.

They didn't stand a chance, but still they tried. I was happy to fill my tesseract with more Tau ships, as well as advanced battlesuits and remote drones. These machines will need to be reverse-engineered and refitted for human use, then I could equip the next wave of colonists with better vehicles. Of course, just the Mechanicus techpriests were not enough for such a task, which is why I retained nearly a billion Tau specialists in my tesseract for follow-up development outside the Imperium.

The Iron Hands and their successors also took charge of a number of reconquered systems including the Taros_System, which anchored the new Sector with another powerful base.

Meanwhile, on Dolumar IV, Sister Dessima and my lovely Inquisitor wife found themselves caught in a Chaos plot involving a pocket dimension filled with demons, a corrupt Governor and the usual effects of an Eldar Farseer's failure to solve a problem. Turns out this Farseer had simply cut off a segment of the Webway to imprison a demon army, then left it forgotten until the humans arrived and had to clean up the mess.

I wasn't very happy either, since the debacle has cost me five dead Silent Sisters and 233 dead Deathwatch marines, plus millions of dead PDF and Guardsmen from the local garrison.

In comparison, the entire Damocles Crusade took the lives of 219 Astartes, of which six were Lamenters and less than a million Militarum soldiers, most of them from the Cadian regiments sent to bolster our numbers by Primarch El'Johnson.

Lady Amberley remained on the Aegida to conclude a new treaty with the Tau, appropriately called the Sword of Damocles.

However, I had no time for diplomatic games, and moved my fleet and most of the Crusade through the rift, and headed towards Kar Duniash, to exchange part of the loot for new Dominator Cruisers and extra munitions. A single Space Hulk had enough metal to construct a thousand cruisers, so the shipyards were happy to trade me ten new cruisers for this once in a lifetime deal. I also kept my bargain and donated five of them to the Raptors Chapter, and even gave them Blank Captains from my own House.

It is hard to please a large clan of Rogue Traders that always expect to command a capital ship, but I do my best.

Three weeks later we made haste towards the Evraad System to take part in the Ambush_at_Gnarion_Reef.

And thus, we made it just in time for our forces to re-capture from the Orks a dozen unfinished battlecruisers at Port Vull. The Forge World was happy enough for my help that two of the Mars battlecruisers were transferred in my care, and they got ten of them back to be delivered to the Navy upon completion.

My Aspirants were already skirmishing with the Orks, in hit-and-run strikes among the asteroid field, while our Auxilia troops and the techmarines provided defense for many shipyards and asteroid forts.

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Also, the Space Wolves were inbound with a battlebarge called the Axe_of_Russ, which stood little chance against a thousand Ork ships.

The following battle was a textbook Lancefire withdrawal and envelopment, that netted us a modified Ironclad battleship called the Kill_Wrecka and the head of Ghazghkull_Mag_Uruk_Thraka, 114 Kill Kroozers and 577 Ork Eskorts captured, in exchange for four frigates and seven corvettes lost by the Crusade.

Although I allowed Blademaster Khan the honor of dueling the infamous Ork Boss, he was still upset. I just made sure the Warboss wouldn't run away. Which feat, would be difficult without legs.

"You melted his legs off!" the White Scar Captain complained while holding the head of Ghazghkull in his left hand.

I shrugged innocently, and nodded. "This Ork has escaped from Primarch El'Johnson at Armageddon. Fast on his feet, or so I heard."

A soft snort from Lady Valeyne warned me I was stepping on thin ice with the lethal sword master.

"Stop helping, damn rookie!" the Blademaster grumbled and kicked the head away in disgust.

The giant head rolled for a hundred meters and fell off the deck, then bounced away towards a trash chute that would be emptied before we departed the system.

I kept watch in disbelief with my tesseract vision as the head continued an unlikely adventure to escape my ship, then bounce off towards a lifeless moon in the distance. One of my patrolling corvettes clipped the Ork head and changed its trajectory towards a Mechanicus shipyard where the techpriests were already working to restore an Ork Eskort to its former Imperial destroyer status.

With a raised eyebrow, I kept watch, and followed the rolling head as it was once more clipped by a construction robot and rolled onwards towards a medical ward.

I mean, there is luck, and then there was this. I didn't doubt Ghazghkull would manage to restore himself to life and escape, if left alone. Damn critter was already getting his head mounted on a defective servitor!

I snapped my fingers and deported the Ork head and the traitorous servitor into the sun, then kept watch for a few seconds until they got vaporized.

A second later, I stepped away and out from my power armor, to enjoy a warm shower and then a whole day of sleep. Major battle were still tiresome, especially when splitting my attention a million ways to keep watch over my troops and enemy movements, not to mention stealing ships and exploring hidden vaults with the tesseract.

I had barely landed in my bed, when the door opened to allow Lady Cassandra, my Navy Admiral into my room.

"Yes, my lady?" I muttered in a sleepy voice.

"What can I do, to be given this captured battleship?" the Lady Admiral asked in a straightforward voice.

I grumbled a tired "Sleep" and drifted off.

Minutes later, a soft body climbed beside me in bed and hugged me tight.

I think I heard an amused snicker from under the bed, which I promptly ignored.

A dozen hours later, I opened my eyes to stare into the medium bosoms of my Admiral, who was already awake. "Cassandra?" I uttered in fabulous logic.

"I did what you asked, my lord. Is this enough?" she asked in a coy voice, glancing down at her chest.

I sighed inward and poked her breasts in revenge, then teased a pink nipple between my fingertips. "You don't need to sleep with me, my lady. And you already have command over a hundred capital ships."

Instead, the woman glared at me for a long minute. "Maybe I do want to. Maybe I also want Blank daughters that get to roam the galaxy freely, and commanding their own battlecruisers." she answered in a soft voice, and stretched her hand to grope at my biceps.

Well then. Put it this way, I could spare a battleship for the mother of my children.

"Becoming a Lancefire is dangerous." I warned the woman before she took the last step.

Cassandra snorted and climbed on top of me with a wry grin. "We've been to Hell and back already. I think we're way past dangerous by now."

I grinned back and drew her into a kiss. I never slept with an Admiral before.