A grey wolf with amber eyes manifested beside me as I was rebuilding the asteroid forts guarding the orbit of LE-F-7445, the Mechanicus name for Liminal Expansion Feudal, seven continents, four oceans, four climates. Fifth of the same type. Of course, the locals called it Leftaar, because leet speech isn't for everyone.
Made me wonder how many Imperial worlds got their names from similar leet names in the Mechanicus archives.
"The jungle continent that you wanted to be filled with venom and poison critters got eaten again. You already know that Tyranids will become immune to any venom in a few birth cycles." Yggra growled at me, displeased that his art work was defaced by termites and worms.
"The jungle is meant to prepare humanity for such battles. And the Catachans love it. Even some cloneskein clades." I said while restoring the fortifications and the void minefield.
"Let's say I agree with the jungle. Oxygen should be restored naturally, if possible. But a desert and an ice continent too? Maintaining the balance is hard, and for nothing. Nobody lives there!" the C'tan argued with an angry voice.
I petted his head, and dodged his angry bite without looking. "If you don't realize why, then you still have much to learn about worldshaping. Four continents with ideal climate and arable land are enough for 10 billion people, even without going into Hive Cities. And what do Hive Cities need? Water!"
"Peffy was much easier to satisfy. One place with a big mountain fortress, and the rest plains and rivers. The Ashen Kingdom is growing twice as fast!" Yggra muttered and sat down to rest, as the jungle grew back and perhaps even thicker than before.
Peffy had 100 worlds now. He could have them all paved with wooden boards, and population would still grow fast. But the idea of a mountain fortress was borrowed from Fenris...and that reminded me of Canis.
"How many wolves are ready?" I asked as the last soldiers in my tesseract received their nanite injection and were sent back home. Still couldn't do much for the crippled ones, except bionics when the tech-priests had free time, but most burns and cuts and pierced organs could be regrown now.
The amber eyes glanced at me, then back down on the planet below. "67 Shards will join you for Wolf Time. The black wolves will stay with Peffy."
That meant both Nightwolf and Kali Shards, 13 of them in total. Not great, but I'll take what I get.
"If you want, keep building more worlds for humanity, Mighty Yggra. I'm going into the Warp soon, and will probably die." I said in a calm voice, and petted the alien wolf again. This time he didn't bite, just sniffed in a sad manner.
The wolf drew a big breath, and all the Tyranid corpses and bioships vanished from the star system, leaving everything pristine once more.
"There is still an Old One that remains in this galaxy, working from shadows. The Orks, the Eldar and the Jokaero are all influenced by his Will, what your wife calls the Dark Pattern. That is your true enemy, Blank human from the past." the C'tan told me as he transformed into an ash tree and turned into a white ghost tree that waved a branch at me, then vanished.
I leaned into my Command Throne, while the Blade turned and sped my ship towards home. My real home, Earth.
By the time we left the star system of Leftaar, Lash had already returned from his long-range scouting and phased into the engine to make it run faster. Or fall faster, if my understanding of science was correct.
'An Old One? C'tan are known to lie when it suits them.' my AI adviser warned me with her bright mind.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
But Gods didn't lie by telling untruths. The Chaos Gods used their Primordial Truth to such effect, because they didn't lie. The Imperial Truth...was made by a hopeful human with psyker powers, and was still true. There were no real Gods in the universe. Only powers, principalities and authorities, influencing and Warping reality to their whims. But in the beginning, was the Word. Enuncia.
And a trained dog would respond to certain commands, or words. Not that Canis was a simple canine. The Emperor wouldn't have bothered to upgrade an animal. He was not the Emperor of Dogs, but of Mankind.
"You will have time to read and relax in my dimensional pocket, Valerian. The Zone Mortalis will not suit your soul." I told my bodyguard, who just nodded with a sad face.
"That would be nice, Lord Lancefire. But I will still train your Silent Sisters. My duty has not ended, like my twin's." the Custode answered with a grim voice.
"So, Valerian the Second has died? Not in combat, I suppose." I mused with a lamenting voice. This Emperor Nihilus was so merciful, and as gleeful for more dissections and autopsies as any Magos Biologis or more.
"He already suspected you sent him to die, on Mars. Do you think the Emperor would let a Custode made by another live? We are his Will, manifested as flesh. The Second was not manifested by the Emperor's Will." Valerian spoke with a grieving voice, like a part of himself had died.
I sent my bodyguard Custode into the tesseract, before he could blame me for something I didn't do. If the Emperor wanted to chop up his fake Custode and see what went wrong with the duplication, that was his prerogative. They were his flesh and soul, just like my family was mine.
I already knew that not everything could be duplicated, and Peffy himself was exactly what the Emperor was searching for. Someone like me, but made with C'tan powers, and thus a known quantity. He didn't have CYOA powers, but their in-universe equivalent, like the luck of Commissar Cain, the implant tolerance of a Titan's Princeps or the growth of a Primarch. Not bad at all, especially when combined with the Blank genes.
But Yggra knew he failed, as my CYOA powers were still different. We looked and felt and acted the same, and our powers seemed identical, but they were not.
The more Blanks I produced, the stronger my own powers. For we are Lancefires, and we are what they fear.
The Zone Mortalis was still dead empty and silent, with barely a few mining and agri-worlds extracting some value from this place. Risky business, even for a Blank, as Necrons or bad Shards could always find you and ruin your day.
We moved fast past the zone, although I still collected asteroids and valuable equipment if nearby our route. Waste not and all.
In 9 more hours we reached Holy Terra, and Valerian returned at my side, with a single extra scar on his ear. "Accident or skill?" I asked with a nod at his scar.
The Custode grinned, and placed his oblong helmet back on. "I am a very good swordsman." he answered with a dismissive voice, sounding distant from his helmet's vox box.
So, probably an accident. My Silent Sisters were great, but a Custode was basically a tiny demigod especially in melee. Then again, some Silent Sisters could kill even a Great Daemon. Hmmm. A curious conundrum.
"Voidship Singularity, House Lancefire! You are to dock at Port Stanley and not deviate from the following trajectory. By the Holy Sovereign's Will, you will maintain peace and not engage in any 'helpful actions'. Is that clear?" A Grey Knight Veteran yelled at me from the main screen, with a winding route projected to avoid the main worlds in the Sol system.
"Roger, roger. No graviton singularity weapons, no Nova Shells, no Lance batteries, no Pariah powers..." I began to list, while the Grey Knight became livid on the other side of the screen.
"It's fine, Astartes. We will obey the trajectory and dock at Port Stanley. Thank you for saving us a year of waiting in the back." Valerian spoke in a mild voice, to which the Grey Knight only nodded and turned off the video call.
"Hmmm. They only gave us a path, not a maximum speed. Ever seen a Glorianna-class break to zero from full speed ahead?" I asked a bit rhetorical, while Lash giggled in my mind.
'You always know how to entertain, Captain. We shall park at Port Stanley, and leave skidmarks as we break!' the C'tan agreed to my prank as we began to follow our legal trajectory at 99% light speed.
"If you wanted to prove you're an idiot, you didn't need to try so hard." Valerian commented in wry tone, and sat down to clean his weapons, as they were clogged with Blank blood from training my Silent Sisters.
Numerous messages bounced back to the sender as we followed our trajectory dutifully, if a bit too fast. If we missed the parking and slammed into Terra at our speed, we would exit the other side as a solar flare, and Terra itself would have big hole, so big you could walk a billion camels through.
It took a few minutes for us, and perhaps hours for those living below light-speed, when the Singularity dumped its inertia and stopped on a dime, exactly in the docking port. I was home.