With the help of Cryptek Toholk and Spartan, I managed to bind the Emperor's gift to the T-engine I recovered from the Omega Vault, which greatly increased the range and scope of its temporal predictive powers, in addition to granting me a third sight into near-time, past or future. Should be nice to dodge any incoming hits, at least.
Luckily I had also grown in mental powers during the use and abuse of the tesseract time field, so seeing three visions at once was still bearable, if barely.
It did make conversations awkward most of the time, as I could predict what people were going to say with 90 percent accuracy.
However, the temporal vambrace also indicated the next emergence of the Blade of Infinity, somewhere near Ordex-Thaag in the next two months.
That gave my Crusade a hard time limit to deal with the Necrons in the Orphean War, as the time-warping ship would not appear unless there was a major crisis they wanted to warn the Imperium about.
"Do you think your Phaerakh, Xun'bakyr is able to block my own tesseract, Cryptek?" I asked in a worried voice.
" The Mother of Oblivion is very skilled at recovering our own Warriors and Immortals from the battlefield, and also at deploying small size constructs like Scarabs anywhere in a star system. But she couldn't block my Tomb Sentinels, and feared their dimensional guns, thus my mind-shackles." the ancient robot declared with a proud voice.
"Entropic damage then? Her mind is less able to control the full might of a tesseract?" I asked a bit more hopeful. Most of the Necrons did emerge with damaged cognitive engrams from the long sleep.
"Nobody knows the full might of these ancient devices. Maybe only the C'tan, these cursed creatures!" Toholk muttered with a grind of metal teeth.
I exchanged a glance with Spartan then locked the dangerous Necron back into his stasis pod.
"Not sure if you can trust the sneaky Necron, Lancefire! Their Dynasty's Tomb Worlds are easy enough to locate and verify, even by simple reconnaissance, but this Xun'bakyr robot seems a bit capable. I would advise we wait for Primarch Khan, maybe even this Adepta Tertia." my General clone said with a doubtful voice.
I frowned, considering a thousand things at once.
"There isn't enough time to wait for Janice, no matter what powers she may have now. I do have my own goldfinger, Sister Stern." I explained with a glance at my new vambrace, where the Tempormortis word glittered gently everytime the lights blinked.
"Then again, the Emperor himself asked you to look into this situation, and gave you the precise means to intervene at the exact time. .I hope you realize this artifact is not exactly a reward." Spartan spoke in a serious voice, even rubbing his bald head to imply he was thinking very deeply.
Warning received, big guy!
"Can you use that big brain to figure out what the ship's name means? Blade of Infinity?" I asked curious.
"It certainly does not mean a sharp sword, or even any kind of blade at all. It has to do with temporal splits and perhaps singularity wells, some kind of advanced science from the Golden Age. Likely a metaphor for their real purpose, and perhaps the propulsion method...the Federation did use AIs quite a lot, especially for an important temporal-engine asset." the cloned Primarch inferred after a long silence.
"Using time as a weapon, it would possibly be an infinite edge, that could simply try again and again until it achieved their goal. The Federation would not give up, not even if the Eye of Terror opened up in their midst." I mused softly, almost regretting taking his quest from the Omega Vault.
"Fail again and again, yet never grow dull or chipped, you mean. There isn't anyone they could even talk to, in the Imperium. If not burned alive for heresy, they would surely be dissected for their knowledge." Spartan said in a sad voice,
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and proving his exceptional mental abilities once again.
"But luckily, my domains are far away from the Imperium proper. I think Aristotle would match their knowledge in a few millennia." I concluded with a wry smile.
"Luck, huh?" the clone wondered with a complex look towards me.
"Luck is not enough, but it does offer us the opportunity to be prepared. So, we should go and end this crazy Necron girl, then prepare for this next crisis. Janice should arrive by then." I proposed with a grin.
An hour later, we were already on the way to destroy the nearest Tomb World, with a cyclonic torpedo primed and ready, beside a dangerous Vortex warhead.
As it happened I had to use the smallest ship still capable of warp-less drive, and also upgraded with the new Ares engines. Hidden under a reflex-shield and flying almost blind, the Litany for the Vanquished made the perfect platform for a Deathwatch style Kill-ship .
I even covered the torpedo itself in a reversed Construct shield, making it almost as invisible as the Litany itself, if much faster due to its low mass and Ares engines.
Although a bit risky to fly without our Void Shields, we did have the new Weave shields dialed to deflect most Necron Gauss weapons, plus random particles and micro-meteors.
As we approached the Caracol Nebula, where two stars had just gone Nova at the same time, we finally began to match the star map provided by my Cryptek, and tenderly extend my tesseract senses to confirm it was truly a Necron World. Millions of Necron Flayers standing dull on the surface provided the final clue.
Launch!
A stealth torpedo began to accelerate towards the Necron Tomb, as I guided the Litany into a wide course to observe.
A few hours later, a tandem warhead detonated at contact with the dead world, then again when it reached the planet's core. Crack!
Scratch one target, 6 more to go.
Spartan patted my shoulder as we continued onward. A month later, we reached the Maynarkh crownworld, and nearly instantly detected 4 more Tomb Ships, plus a few thousands cruiser and escort vessels.
"I think they figured it out we were hunting their outer worlds. This must be their entire remaining fleet." I said with a calculating voice.
"One Tomb Ship must be missing. Seven worlds, seven ships, but where is the command ship?" Spartan asked in a smarter voice.
"You think the Necron girl ran away?" I wondered as my torpedo fired, and sped towards the final target.
"...She may not even be on the crownworld. I think we just missed her." Spartan spoke in a low voice.
As the crownworld exploded hours later, I captured more of the Necron Maynarkh fleet, without the robots. As fun as a Necron Xenos Auxilia may be, a single Cryptek was enough for now.
Damn Necrons were dangerous enough, without millions of them escaping the labyrinth at the worst time.
Curiously, there was not any C'tan shard imprisoned in this Tomb, nor any fancy Necron girl. Maybe Trazyn stole her, and got himself a girlfriend?
A day later, and after collecting any of the remaining blackstone, I steered the Litany around and rushed towards Amarah with a gut feeling something was wrong.
Valerian should already be there, and keep an eye out with his own tesseract, but a vengeful Pharaoh equipped with the best Necron artifacts would be quite deadly.
If they obeyed my orders, only the Krieg regiments would have deployed on the Amarah's surface, spread out in 200 separate battalions to hold a Necron advance, for long enough for the orbital weapons to burn out their attackers.
"Don't worry, Margos has a good head for void combat, and Primarch Khan is pretty good as well." Spartan encouraged me with a kind voice. I wasn't worried for my fleet. They had enough firepower to stop a single Necron ship, even if it was stronger than a Tomb Ship. I was worried someone else will fuck it up.