By the time I return triumphant to Illevar, my uncle Wentian has arrived at Forge Triplex Phall, the largest ship-building Forge in the Ultima Segmentum.

I dare say he was well-received, as a representative of the Lancefire Rogue Trader House. The Fabricator knew he had merely repaid one Favor, with the light cruiser given to Veryon, but by now he had a received a few adamantium transports, and even more STC templates found by me in the Fringe.

I won't get a battleship, which are all reserved for the Navy for the foreseeable future, nor Titans.

But Wentian wants his own capital ship, and thus he barters for a nearly finished Dominator_Cruiser to receive the Macross-pattern upgrade. A kilometer-long section of the dorsal side will be reserved for vertical torpedo launchers, but losing the macrocannons batteries on that section, since the loading and shock-absorbing mechanisms take enormous space inside the hull.

Instead, the Mechanicus will install 100 lascannons on both sides, and 100 quad light flak batteries for close defense.

It's not perfect, but the Dominators do come with a prow mounted Nova Cannon, which is very, very, very good.

I'm pretty sure I won't be able to reverse-engineer such an advanced weapon, but maybe I can scan and copy just the Nova shells. Then I could make Nova mines, and have a small chance with the Tyranids.

Powered by a rather simple fusion engine, those mines could be moved, slowly, and sent into the path of a Tyranid fleet.

Meanwhile, the lucky Larrisa continued her tour and visited Forge World Accatran, and managed to score another Favor by crippling an invading Necron carrier called a Cairn_Class_Tomb_Ship, with all her torpedo destroyers shooting at once, including the single vortex torpedo in her tubes. The rear engines and one wing broke off, and the Tomb Ship lost power to weapons, making it an inviting target for boarding.

The Mechanicus tech-priests soon capitalized on that, and invaded the Necron ship with thousands of battle-automata and a million of skitarii, and then sent even more, once all their initial forces were killed.

Then a dozen Elysian regiments were sent to hold the inner frontlines with their multi-melta armed Drop Sentinels, losing half their guardsmen in a desperate battle, even with Mechanicus support. The defending Necrons were completely superior in firepower and would always resurrect if not melted to slag.

An entire Space Marine Chapter called the Black_Templars arrived from Fergax and finally managed to pacify the wreck, and only lost 30 percent of their brothers.

During the siege, three Necron Scythe_Class_Harvest_Ships arrived to attempt a rescue, and Larrisa miraculously managed to blow up one of them, again with a full torpedo salvo, before running away like a true Rogue Trader.

Of course, such a victory didn't come cheap, and my daughter lost a precious torpedo destroyer, which kinda sucks.

Hopefully, that loss will be restored by Forge Accatran without having to pay the full cost.

The Astartes and the Mechanicus lost a lot more, but the Forge World was saved, and they even got a huge prize in the shape of an advanced Necron ship.

And with that small dataslate provided as a gift, I'm almost sure I have another ally among the Ultima Segmentum Forges.

Sure, they might be dicks and refuse to trade in good faith, but then there will be no more aid. No more templates, no more free adamantium, no more rescue fleets.

Their Fabricator should know this even better.

That Forge World was next door to a huge Ork empire called Charadon, which launched new Waaghs decade after decade, if left unchecked.

And Rose also messaged me, a short few lines how Jane was safely placed, and she found some voiceless women that could help me.

Then again, astropath messages were sometimes weird or required special knowledge to understand. I kinda suspect what she meant, and the Inquisitor possibly didn't want to disclose everything over the Warp-net.

Last good news was the fall of Mandragora. Only that system, not the entire Necron Dynasty, but the Tyranids, in the billions, did manage to break through and eliminate the Necron capital.

So I had an idea and walked cheerfully to my vault, and powered up the mental Skype with Trazyn the Infinite.

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"It's me, the puppy guy!" I commenced as if we were old friends.

"Of course you are. So, did you find something to trade?" the old Necron demanded forcefully.

"... Well. Let's put it this way, Lord Trazyn. Now that Mandragora has fallen, I need a new target to send those pesky Tyranids after. Got any enemy close by?" I wondered in a more cheerful tone.

A long silence followed, which was possibly a good thing. "I see. Perhaps we can work together then. How about Bone Kingdom Drazak ?" the Necron collector mused in a wary voice.

Not exactly close by, but it should work.

"Doable, with some effort. By the way, I located that Tau sword I heard about. Some person named Commander Farsight has it. A Fire caste leader in the Tau Enclaves." I added for a better future barter.

Again a long silence followed. "This can be confirmed...with some effort. And what do you need in exchange, mysterious voice in my head?"

Now it was my turn to think it over. "A very simply and rudimentary spaceship drive. Speed of travel and size of the engine are not really important. Only the ease of manufacture." I asked after considering other outrageous proposals. Advanced weapons or systems of Necron design might be potent, but not reproducible.

Trazyn cursed a few times, as he knew this wasn't such a simple deal. "How...exactly easy to build, do you need it?"

I smiled inward and thought how to articulate it. "Imagine for example, a Mechanicus Forge World, that can only produce a design using a simple but detailed schematic for every part. Then make it even easier, if possible. Also accessible materials, like iridium or adamantium, nothing exotic."

The Necron Lord cursed again. "I begin to see the problem. Something akin to those Tau engines, but even simpler. This will take a few years to construct and test. At least you didn't ask for a teleporter made from steel."

"I have a teleporter, just like you do, Lord Trazyn. But these allies of mine are less advanced. They did manage to cripple that Tomb Ship at Atraccan, so I should consider that another gift. One less enemy, right?" I asked in faint amusement.

"...Atraccan. A Forge World. Those are your allies?" he asked with suspicion.

"They make lasguns and Sentinels...so you may imagine how simple the ship engine must be. Although of course, there is no way to build those engines in the Imperium of Man. Xenos technology and all that discrimination." I complained a bit.

A minute later, the Necron Lord replied with more confidence. "Upon the destruction of the Bone Kingdom, you will have your cheap engine, stranger with a puppy. Be warned, it will need to be large, to make it easy to construct by those primitive tech-priests. You'd need at least a 10 kilometer long ship to fit it into. And you will need three times as much reactor power than a regular Warp drive. Easy build reactor is not included in this trade."

I sighed and closed the mental link.

Then, reverted the stasis field and took the elevator to the bridge, finding only the emergency crew at their stations. Couldn't actually leave a battlecruiser like the Canticle unmanned, because reasons.

Someone might steal it, for example.

So I sat in my command chair and opened the Lancefire Empire map, tracing routes and output yields from my planets and mining systems.

Liberation, the first system I grabbed from the pirates 3 decades ago was now a productive and highly profitable enterprise, with 23 million servitors working as miners and smelters, and over 1 million other people, like five guard regiments on the outposts and orbital forts, plus engineers, tech-priests, scribes and various merchants, servants and a dozen clansmen to oversee our wealth.

The local Forge was principally making iron, steel, plasteel and titanium bars and ingots for my own industries. Other valuable minerals like iridium, tungsten and osmium were sent directly to Antax.

Iron and copper were being mined planetside on Illevar and Retribution, while Natale was proving to become important for producing coal and promethium as well as food and textiles.

The locals already used some early type of steam engines for locomotives and mining equipment, and also for sea-going vessels and toxic electric powerplants based on fossil fuels.

This will have to change, and already did with the tech-priests brought by Finona. Fusion powerplants were a thousand times more efficient, and the precious coal and promethium could be better used to make carbon steel and heavy flamers, or combustion engines and jet fuel.

Those millions of ground attack and interceptor airplanes will need a lot of cheap fuel, as will the Weasels and most light tanks.

We still needed a good source of radioactive minerals for the fusion generators, and growing our population a dozen times, via emigration to the feral planets.

But for all that, I would have to take a fast trip to Sotha, and change the beacon to illuminate the next target, the Necron Bone Kingdom from the Ghoul Stars.