'Those two men!' Lash nosed at a pair of Sacristans that tended to a damaged Knight.

I searched my implant, and brought up their files, both recruited on Boros when we rescued that Knight World. Heavily augmented with cybernetics, they were almost tech-priests in their skill with fickle machines, and worth their mass in gold. They have just returned with us from Stygius...

'What about them?' I asked curious.

'Etheric disturbance. Type 3, contagious.' the C'tan shard noted in a disgusted voice.

I froze for a moment, even if the exact type of danger wasn't certain yet. 'You better translate that in Low Gothic.' I said while sending a message to my wife, just in case.

The wolf-shaped Ct'an drew a deep breath, and twitched his nose. 'Corrupted recently. Now trying to corrupt this walker and install an etheric nucleus inside its processing core. Engaging!' he answered with a loud growl, then flashed at speed towards the infected Sacristans. His claws extended out in mid-strike, flaring with green light for a second, before slicing the two intruders into a dozen distinct parts, all smelling foul of daemonic corruption.

Velayne arrived at my side a moment later, with her Bone Staff already in hand. "I see you have everything in hand, husband." she offered with a thin voice, tingling with unspoken danger.

"When the Emperor upgraded Canis, he installed a few new organs..." I explained with a calm shrug, then gestured at the wolf C'tan to keep searching.

"And even Phase-tech claws. I knew the wolf was special, but now?" she murmured to herself, as my other wolf ran around, sniffing at the repair and logistics personnel.

'They taste foul, but I was rather hungry. This woman...' the C'tan continued as he stopped in front of Felicia Tyber, my concubine and priceless help with many STC repairs.

'What about Felicia? She was an Ork prisoner once.' I said with a tinge of pain in my heart. I hoped she wasn't corrupted, but then Nayla...anyone could fall. Even Primarchs had fallen.

'Ork? Yes...she still has the Old Ones smell on her. Etheric disturbance, type 1, localized. You appear to use that knowledge for yourself?' the C'tan asked me, sounding curious.

'Call this a double-agent plot. She can understand non-human machines.' I explained with an inner frown.

"Isn't this woman your own concubine?" Velayne asked with a veiled suspicion. "She smells of Ork. But we knew that already." I answered her inquisitive voice.

"How interesting! I wonder if we could chop that nose and...nevermind. The wolf's nose is his His work as well." the Inquisitor faltered at my glare, realizing that maiming my wolf wouldn't end well.

'I could build you a dozen etheric detectors, Rogue Trader. For a small price.' Lash offered with a tiny snort in my mind, knowing I already considered the option.

'You can continue purging the infected, Lash. But other than Chaos or Tyranid corruption, you will ask for my approval. As for the price, make your offer carefully. There are thousands of other shards out there, some more pliant than others. You can ask your brother what I did to those that failed to comply.' I replied with my own veiled threat. Then I turned to Velayne and smiled grandly. "My dear wife, although you parsed your request poorly, I understand. You may receive an olfactory-etheric detector one day, when I managed to copy it."

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The Inquisitor measured me from head to toe, then glanced at the fake wolf that sped up to sniff at more and more Forge personnel. She then leaned on her Bone Staff with a thoughtful look on her face. "This smells like another of your outrageous trades, my dear. More Necron magic?" she guessed at random with her Ordo Xenos honed senses.

"Necron? I doubt they have this thing exactly. Maybe similar though." I mused softly, mostly to myself. Trazyn did have his Jokaero task group, which already provided me with omni-sense eyes and visors, but they were clearly not as effective. Smell detectors though, I may have lucked out again.

"More dubious tech that would make my work so unbelievably easy? Tell me more, dear husband!" Veleyane demanded in a throaty voice, promising pleasure or pain, at her discretion.

I vacillated for a second, then picked pleasure. "We will discuss this in private, say later tonight?" I offered with a coy voice, then walked away rapidly, already busy cleaning up the gory mess left behind by Lash. Sweep the infected corpses into the sun, then wave my all-cleaning Necron wand...I should choose another profession soon. Becoming the janitor of the galaxy was going to be tedious.

I wasn't joking either. Cleaning the mess left behind by the Crusade took me a whole month, and gave the C'tan shard thousands of souls to feed upon.

Building the etheric scanning device wasn't as easy as I hoped either. We couldn't simply use blackstone for everything, with humanity being as xenophobic as ever. Making it look like an elephant's trunk like Lash proposed, wouldn't work either. Biotech wasn't used much by the Imperium, except for certain internal augumetics.

In the end, we picked a wrist watch look-alike, with a dozen thin needles poking the nerves under the skin and connecting the user with the device via bio-electric signals and neural feedback. It was painful to use, and even smelled a bit like the normal 40k cyberware, so it was perfectly fine. When I pointed mine at the real Canis, the detector screamed in my mind of a major Type 5 disturbance, if localized to a single individual. I was right, the Emperor did boost my puppy with his version of a Great Warp Angel, or maybe Daemon. Heavenly Wolf, I decided as Canis sniffed at me then turned to stare at his competitor.

'Now you see what I see, when you look at your innocent puppy.' Lash added from the side, then managed to raise a hind leg and scratch his head.

'You say he can also devour souls, like the C'tan?' I asked instead as I leaned into my wolf and scratched his chin.

'He needs time, to grow and develop the animaphagion gland. Just like you do, Pef Lancefire.' the C'tan answered with a piercing gaze at my forehead.

Whoa, he sprang the news on me mercilessly! Then again, I was to one to feed two C'tan shards to the Emperor. Now that he got the taste, I doubted the Emperor would stop at two.

I looked to the wall, where Zarhulash still hanged impaled by living metal chains. "I will depart for Octiss soon, maybe tomorrow. You have some nice targets en route, Mighty Zarhulash?"

The C'tan nodded and made the hololith screen connected to his toe lit up. A number of worlds began to scroll, each with their own interesting loot or adventures. I linked to the Sounding Board and began scanning the galaxy and systems on the way with the Pharos, until I had a dozen points to create a route. As each target world demanded a different level of authority, I had to make sure to bring the appropriate ships and companions on this quest.

Rogue Traders had little power inside the Imperium, even those like me, with a signed Warrant. An Inquisitor was required, as was an Astartes fleet and some Forge tech-priests, even a Forge ship. A dozen Indomitus ships from the Imperial Navy, then transport ships, supply, refueling...it was still a Crusade Fleet anyways, not that the Black Lament Fortress was weaker than any Imperial Fleet by itself.

In total, 8 battleships, 4 battlebarges, 122 heavy cruisers and 12 escort carriers would form my ranging fleet, those that have escaped from the Stygius Crusade with the least damage. The rest would need years or decades in dock, or be melted for metal and forged into new vessels. Barely a third of my grand fleet, but still powerful enough to contend with nearly everything this evil universe could throw at us. I started with a single light cruiser though, so I wasn't really unhappy.

First target, another Blackstone Fortress, the so called Eighth_Blackstone_Fortress . Once recovered and upgraded, it would nearly double my fleet's mass and firepower by itself.