Opening my eyes with the tesseract vision, I began to deploy a thousand Nova Mines around the Necron escort ships, as to remove the annoying bugs from my tactical sense.

Not even waiting for the explosions, I began to deploy my Tyranid Auxilia inside a large Tomb Ship, although only the ones not implanted with Mind-shackle Scarabs. The Necrons would surely detect or maybe over-ride my controls, giving them a powerful army instead. No, feral Tyranids were useful enough, as they would force the Necron Lords to awaken and deploy their best troops to protect the most fragile or important ships sections.

Brrrrrrrooooom. Baaaang!

Shockwaves from the Nova Mines splashed against the outer shields, making the Black Lament shiver for a second.

"What is this anomaly? Nemesor Tlazolt , rectify the erroneous existence of these aberrant life forms infesting my ship!" A powerful Necron Lord demanded from his command seat.

"As you direct, Lord Ixatotekh ! Awakening Warriors and Destroyers!" the Necron Nemesor spoke with a grace voice, and began tapping his control engrams, filling the Tomb Ship with defensive troops and directing them to protect vital areas.

Excellent! The higher Necron ranks even spoke Gothic, making my task a little easier. I did have a modicum of Necron vocabulary installed on my mind-implant, mostly such that my pet C'tan could explain what some devices were, but Gothic was way better.

Sending a bunch of Orks on the other two ships, to keep them busy and observe their reactions.

"Arch-Cryptek Toholk ! I detect the Old Ones' spawn on my ship. Foul Orks, despoiling the pristine halls of my ship!" Another Necron Lord yelled from his command seat.

"Allow me to deploy my Tomb_Sentinel constructs, Lord Maktlan_Kutlakh . In the confined walkways of your ship, the Exile_Cannon on my Sentinels will be extremely effective!" the ancient Cryptek proposed in a servile voice.

"And use your Smoking Mirror ! Why was this Ork incursion not foreseen by your prediction engine!" the Necron Lord shouted while holding a control rod in his hand.

Wait a minute! A prediction engine...and a mind-controlled Cryptek? Curious...

Booooooom! The third Tomb Ship exploded without my direct input, why...Those Ork Mekboys surely didn't have anything to do with it, I hope?

Oh well, a million Orks for a Tomb Ship, surely a decent trade, right Gork?

This Toholk Cryptek took out a fairly innocent tablet screen and began scrolling up and down, then left and right, almost like some scrolling through a movie to reach the interesting part.

"The probing attacks on Forge Myre and Amraphel are going as planned, while we gather forces for the final push towards Amarah and Hydroghast . This human Hive World was not supposed to be defended, my Lord!"

"And yet it is! We even lost a Tomb Ship already! Do you hear me? Where did you go?" the Necron Lord exclaimed in outrage as his precious Cryptek vanished in front of his robotic eyes.

His artifacts vanished as well, and a second later the Necron Lord found himself inside the system's sun, melting slowly.

Click Click. The Tomb Ship became empty, as I recovered my Orks before they blew up another priceless Tomb Ship, and the Tomb Sentinels found themselves frozen in my labyrinth beside the genial Cryptek.

A minute later, the other Tomb Ship is similarly cleaned, and then stored in the tesseract.

I have almost recovered the wealth of Necron artifacts I had, before the Emperor fleeced me naked. Perhaps I shouldn't flaunt my wealth before a greedy god.

Now, a few hours to repair this poor Hive World called Drucilla Majoris, then I can play with my new robot toy. Genestealers, cultists, criminals and corrupted Nobles...you were supposed to die anyways when the Necrons hit this world, but the rest of the people should be happy for their escape. And then recruit a thousand Guard Regiments at my orders. I placed Ottilie Lancefire, an experienced daughter of mine, as the new Governor and detached a whole Blank Astartes Chapter, the Black Sharks as the guardians of this system. Unless the Necrons returned with another fleet, they should do fine.

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Already knowing a bunch of the Necron plans for their attack, the Crusade fleet departed for Hive World Chemarium to deploy another Chapter there, but luck can also be bad.

We found the Hive World in full riot, with millions of dead filling the streets, while Chaos ships prowled the outer edges of the system, sending infiltrators and saboteurs on the planet to raise hell, while also blockading any escaping ships. Click click.

My Astartes and Blank Division could use some live training on the ground, while the Thallax could deploy on the Chaos ships and raise hell back. They barely had 2000 Chaos Marines, while I sent 20000 Thallax and 200 tech-marines to secure my prizes. A few minutes later, I also sent 200 Silent Sisters to protect my Thallax cyborgs from incoming Warp spells. Why did these nobodies get to have a thousand Chaos Sorcerers?

A few hours later, I walked beside Chyron on the bridge of the Chaos Battlebarge, kicking aside blown up corpses. "They do not show signs of corruption. No Warp deformities, no extra limbs..." I noticed with a curious voice. We barely lost 400 cyborgs and the suits could always be repaired.

"Not all Warp corruption is visible, Chapter Master. But all their Chaos Marines were psykers, so I would guess these are the Tenebrae Warband. You know how it works, if their Chapter Master falls to Chaos, they soon follow. And then, they only recruited psykers..." the old Deathwatch Dreadnought explained wisely.

Canis walked beside me and chewed up bits of brains splattered around. "Arhhhh!" he added with a certain voice.

What? Mind-controlled? Canis had the strangest ideas! Still, he was rarely wrong.

Click. I brought my Inquisitor wife on board, and swiftly described the problem.

"It is surely possible. Brother Alric, taste what kind of mind-control they used, and who did it!" the Inquisitor commanded to her bodyguard Deathwatch.

The old veteran removed his helmet and began tasting bits of brains, chewing them slowly. "Lord Lancefire is correct. They were under mind control, some winged xenos creature called a root mind. I believe they may be the Khrave "

Brother Semnai also began to taste some brains then spat out the remains. "I read about the Massacre_of_Kormarg . The entire population was infected by the Khraves corruption and had to be slaughtered."

"Let's hope it is not the same with Chemarium ." I offered in a level voice and kept walking, until we reached the bridge and dozens of tech-marines using the Techsorcists skills on the remaining cogitators.

Inquisitor Ramaeus nodded slowly. "From my previous knowledge on the Khrave, only the biological are affected. We may not need to burn this world."

"But these are not the Khrave themselves. And there might be Chaos involved as well. It usually is, with the Warp." Brother Alric spoke with a stern tone, and covered himself once more with his old pattern helmet.

"We will know soon enough. It is why my sons trained to become Techsorcists after all." I offered in a mild voice.

The Deathwatch did have plenty of experience in dealing with the xenos or other Warp entities, but they were not fool-proof. Nobody was, in this damned galaxy.

Even the advanced Necrons fell prey to the Flayer curse.

On the other hand, I did just obtain a nearly intact fleet, one battlebarge, 5 strike cruisers and 11 frigates. Just enough to create another Astartes Chapter without reducing my Crusade fleet.

I may need to visit Forge Myre and refit, and see what the Necrons were up to with their probing attacks. I doubted it was only a few ships skirting the outer system.

After that, Amraphel. That was a republican world, ruled by a parliament. I was curious how they managed that in 40k.