"Jolinne, Jolinne" I spoke in a mild voice, as the Inquisitor regained her bearings and froze for a second as she recognized Valerian.
"That is a Custode! Why is he with you, Lord Lancefire?" the woman asked with a shocked voice.
"The Emperor's Will, obviously. I met the Emperor just two months ago. Which brings my question. Why are you on my capital world, Inquisitor?" I continued with the same mild voice. I had the big stick at my back, no need for threats.
Her face changed into a dozen of emotions, from rage to fear and back to shame. "My Conclave sent me to investigate."
I shrugged and waved my hand to let her continue. Her Rosette's engrams pointed to the Damocles Conclave as her starting point.
"There are allegations, rumors of proscribed Abominable Intelligences at large in your Rogue Trader Domain. I even found clues about the one called Ironhead, last rumored to be on Necromunda. My Kroot...he knew of this one trading with the T'au Empire." The Inquisitor revealed with a glare towards me.
Guilty as charged! And probably more than rumors, if the traces lead directly to my Domain.
"I thought the Inquisition has smart people in their ranks, not Sisters with a Rossete. The AI term stands for Artificial Intelligence at the origin, in particular the Men of Stone.
Later, the Men of Stone created their own servants, automata in the shape of men, mostly identical to the Kastelan Robots of the Mechanicus. Those Men of Iron rebelled and waged war against their creators, and humanity as well. Often infected with Daemons too, what we now call Daemon Engines. Thus, an Abominable Intelligence is a thinking machine possessed by a daemon." I explained with a sad voice, mostly about the lost glory of the Golden Age.
"It doesn't matter if they are possessed or not. The AI have to be destroyed!" the Inquisitor yelled in a rabid voice, likely due to neuro-indoctrination or some similar mental modification.
"Really? But our STCs are all Men of Stone, or degraded parts of one. Most voidships and Titans also have Men of Stone at their core, what we call Machine Spirits. You would have humanity ride horses and use spears, instead of the arsenal we have now?" I asked with fake surprise.
"No wonder the Emperor is so disgusted with the Inquisition. It is idiots like these who ruined the future of humanity, while the Emperor lay wounded on the Golden Throne." Valerian commented with a disgusted voice.
"What! The STCs...but nobody said..." Jolinne mumbled as her beliefs crashed, and she fell to the floor in a mess.
"Go back to your Conclave at Damocles and never return, Inquisitor Jolinne. It shames me to share the same species with people like you. And you call yourself an Agent of the Throne? Did the Emperor even meet you? How could he make you his Agent?" I said in a lamenting voice, then displaced the Inquisitor back to her cruiser.
I sat down and took out my Amasec bottle, then glanced at the Custodes. "The last part was a bit harsh. There are about 30000 Inquisitors in the Imperium Nihilus right now, and few if any will ever get to meet the Master of Mankind. You tend to think everyone is like you, Lord Lancefire, but nobody is." Valerian noted in a calm voice.
Well yes. That was true, but on purpose. The Inquisition will not stop chasing after AI, not when they are still proscribed by Imperial Law and their Imperial Faith. At least this one Inquisitor will not return.
'Recall' I sent in my mind, and we moved back to Sotha, in the Blackstone lair of the Pharos.
"Those Simulacra were quite interesting, Pef Lancefire. I don't remember even seeing a creature like that, not even in the days before the Shackles. The Obsidian Augury may use such infiltrators for harder missions." Zarhulash argued with a wise voice.
"We have something similar in our Space Marines, the omophageia gland, but not to this extent." I noted with a nod at my bodyguard.
"And when combined with the polymorphine of the Callidus Order, it would make for a perfect infiltrator. The Emperor will be interested for sure." Valerian added in a knowing tone.
I mean sure, I was better off having the Emperor experiment with the Simulacra instead of my mother or other Blanks. "I'll send a few corpses with the next ship that transports Librarians to Mars. Maybe some biowarfare weapons too." I answered with a thought of the same weapons found on the Faithful fort: Nano-Plagues, Amalgam Bioautoma and Rad-Phages.
We returned to my quarters, to finish the Amasec bottle and work on more STCs. I kinda neglected my work for a year, with the impregnation schedule and all. Those 7 million women took a lot of hard work.
"It is a pity that your talents do not extend to genetics, to the same extent as your use and repurpose of STCs. The Emperor dreams of a perfect humanity, but the Primachs were a colossal failure." Valerian complained, and managed to criticize me while praising me in the same sentence.
"I do have some skill with cloning and even cloneskeins, but I have no skill at imbuing them with Warp stuff and myths, like the Emperor did to the Primarchs. Even your Custode Companions were the 300 Companions in the legendary cavalry that escorted Alexander the Great when he conquered Terra some 43000 years ago. Knights on horseback, not mecha walkers." I countered with the same tone.
"You are Lancefires, and you are what they fear. I would say you are creating your own myth, far greater than conquering a single Bronze Age planet." Valerian observed with his keen intellect.
'They certainly fear me, and my fellow AIs.' the Blade added in my mind, as an arsenal of STC templates opened on the holoscreen.
Now, let's see. Sentinels were already in production, all three variants with Ion Beamers, Las-Cannons and autocannons. But tungsten was quite rare and expensive to waste in training the pilots or to massacre weaker targets. Lead or iron practice rounds? Yes, much cheaper. Plenty of iron asteroids out there, barely needing any processing to make practice shells. Just some weight adjustment to compensate for tungsten being heavier, thus a longer iron shell.
I changed the STC template to include 8 tons of ferrous shells, mostly for target practice. 10 times as many as the tungsten shells for war. And saved and added to the pile.
The Speranza noticed in a millisecond, as the data-base updated. 'Good idea, Rogue Trader. I also forgot the human pilots need training. You aren't born trained, after all.'
Great, next idea. The Astartes weapon training, copied from the neural chairs and implemented into the Sentinels, via brain implants, like a primitive Throne Mechanicum.
I had a warehouse of such chairs in my inventory, obtained from the incursion into Zone Mortalis. So I started to work, until I found the kinetic weapons code and then trimmed it down to only autocannons. Get the Blade to verify the check-sums and other coding stuff I might miss, then saved to file again.
I felt hungry, so I looked up to find Velayne and a plate of food. "Sorry, love. I was hard at work."
"I noticed. Targeting protocols for the Sentinel? You really love the dumb things." my Inquisitor answered with a joking voice.
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She didn't understand, so I brought up the STC for an Armiger Imperial Knight, also armed with autocannons. They looked different, but the stats I added below didn't lie.
Velayne wasn't stupid, just locked in the same mental circle as the rest of humanity was.
"A downgraded Armiger Knight? But billions of them..." she realized in mild horror, by the time I inhaled my food.
"And cost per unit will go down, the more of them you fabricate. Instead of a million Armiger Knights, we will have 40 billion Sentinels. Industry is humanity's super-power, after all." I revealed with a giant grin.
It was true. It could be done and would work. But first we had to make enough to them, then train the pilots. Much better if all of them were Blanks too.
I asked the Blade to calculate, and felt a sudden pain in my balls. I was fucked.
I went to speak with Lady Gemma, who was a rather great expert in biological sciences, then Sister Vesta of the Order Famulous, then my Apothecaries and even Heph, my clone of Vulkan. Solutions were proposed, to aid this titanic quest.
A synthskin suit to prevent dehydration via excess of sweat. Oral or electro-mechanical stimulation, troupes of naked dancers, auditory channels filled with erotic sounds, more medical nanites to increase refractory period and so on. But there were limits to anything, and I was but a single man. Even if we re-used the women, at least 10 billion would be needed before childbirth risks became too great for the mothers.
The Blade was most amused, as each new aid barely reduced the time I would need, from 5.7 million years to 2.3 million. "I know I can last 1000 years. Maybe, 10000 years if I push through with willpower. Hell, I'll go hard and last 20000 years! But..." I grumbled at the huge task ahead.
"I don't recommend such a course of action, Captain. Your willingness to sacrifice is admirable, but I've seen you after only 7 million impregnations. And the silly part, you are a male. Your testicles always contain around 300 million unborn children. We could be finished in a single week, without any pain." The AI spoke with a sad headshake.
"That doesn't work for Blanks, Blade Lancefire. It took the help of Isha to unlock my own unlimited children, but nothing else. Someone or something wants me to bang as many women as possible." I complained in a despondent voice.
Then a shadow arrived at speed and bumped into Lash, and reformed into another metal wolf. Zath had returned. "You have the strangest problems in the universe, Pef Lancefire. But as a friend, I would recommend a different path. The Ymga Monolith." the C'tan proposed with a toothy smirk, then a dozen new wolves appeared in my room, filling the space.
"Too large, you're taking all the space. Wolves are not that big anyway." I demanded in a growl, and the C'tan wolves drew inward, looking like normal wolves now. Except Zath, who liked to look big and strong. He only retracted a third of his mass, to fit between Lash and my bed.
"Another pack of wolves, Lord Lancefire?" Valerian asked while his body tensed at the potential danger.
"It was bound to happen, sooner or later. The Necrons seem interested in exterminating all life, and the C'tan are interested in freeing their captive Shards. It's an alliance made in Heaven." I explained with a patient voice.
Zath measured my bodyguard for a long minute, then sighed. "A Shard of the Emperor of Man, shining bright in his soul. But without the Anathema aura to protect him from the Warp. He is a liability, Pef Lancefire."
That was kinda true, but not really. Custodians would never turn on the Emperor. They could be mind-controlled or corrupted, which is why Valerian wore a Null Wand for protection. Not a perfect solution, but the best I had at this time.
"Nobody is perfect, Zath. So, you're here now for the Novokh Dynasty and their insane Destroyer Cultists?" I asked more directly.
"For starters, yes. And later, we intend to destroy the Dias of the Silent King and release my other self. Perhaps even kill that Necron King, although we made him too strong for an easy kill." Zath disclosed in a casual voice.
There were 13 C'tan wolves in the room, and they weren't sure against the Silent King? What kind of insane powers did they give him?
And why would they tell me? Oh, no!
"You need my help?" I asked to make sure.
"You can kill anything, Pef Lancefire. I know you are wary of creating a new enemy, but in a few decades the Silent King will attack Mars and your Emperor." Zath spoke in a convinced voice.
I sighed a bit loud. "In 30 years. I know that." I muttered in a lamenting tone.
"I need to warn the Emperor!" Valerian exclaimed in mild panic.
"He knows, Valerian. The Starchild told me the date, when I visited Terra. Even told me to prepare to defend Mars..." I added in a low voice.
The Custode paced around, less worried about the C'tan Shards in my room. "So that's why you struck that conference of 300 Dynasties, it wasn't for no reason. You tried to weaken the Silent King, and even embroil his forces in a civil war. How far did you plan all of this, Lord Lancefire?" he asked me in a hopeful voice, while the C'tan wolves seemed quite interested too.
I suddenly felt like Commissar Cain, too deep in muddy waters and not knowing why things just happened around me.
I walked beside Zath and looked in his alien eyes. "Why the Ymga Monolith? And don't tell me it's the Shards inside. There are thousands of Shards elsewhere, much easier to recover."
The C'tan blinked, perhaps not expecting the question. "Indeed. I sometimes forget you are not like the Imperials I know. Duplication, is a limited resource. You can make one copy, not more. Three Blackstone Forts become six. And six such weapons....you remember the last time we had six."
"So we use the duplication, then destroy the Monolith to prevent the Necrons from using it. What happens to the people inside?" I asked more to the point.
"You know what happens. You have two Emperors now." Lash answered instead, and solving half the problem with the Blanks.
I could duplicate not only myself, but the other Blanks that came with me. I could have twice as many Blank Astartes and their equipment, the ships and weapons. Not to mention the Blank crews, my precious Thalax suits even the Ion Sentinels and the Titans.
Double the STC constructors too, if I dared.
"Then we go to war. Novokh Dynasty first, while I gather the troops." I decided on the spot.
'I'll start compiling a list with the things we would want to duplicate, Captain. And people too.' the Blade said and posted the Singularity battleship at the top.
'Speranza, I know you're spying. Interested in the magic trick?' I asked the other AI present in the star system.
The answer took a minute to arrive, while I sent a flurry of orders to prepare the Domain for war.
'Finish the Forts' upgrades before leaving, Lord Lancefire. You will need the guns, for certain. I'm not going. ' Speranza answered in a cold voice.
I drew a big Breath, and started working. In a minute, the C'tan Star Gods also began to help, mostly with moving big Blackstone plates for armor and filling the Sunfire bottles with anti-matter.
I have to say, having competent help made my job far easier. I only fainted on the sixth day, and rested the seventh in my bed.
Sister Vesta came visiting, to try out her oral stimulation theory, which worked more than fine. She got her Blank baby out of it, while I felt refreshed and ready for war.