Watching the Kreg dwarves depart with their treasured data-core, held in a stasis bubble, I knew I had planted the seed for a future incursion into the Galactic Core.
For a while, the new Kreg Votann will be weak, but it shouldn't die easily from external threats. The real threat came from other Votann AIs, who might conquer and subsume the new core for extra data storage, despite favorable trade deals they could obtain in peaceful ways. Not even the Blade was certain that our plan will work, since the internal culture of competing AIs was foreign to the cooperative type of AI like the Blade. Oh well, at least we got the Fane database, which was quite a treasure by itself, not only the STC templates, but also new galactic routes, trade partners, mining worlds, deadly zones, xenos races and so on. The Kreg had explored mostly the north-western part of the galaxy, skirting the edges of Imperial space.
While the main Crusade fleet departed for The_Periphery and the Ork invasion, several cruisers were sent to the nearby Forge Worlds like Belecane , Perinetus and Synford to obtain replacement equipment for our future wars.
As for the other threat in the sector, Forge World Idumea seemed to be the focal point of the Phaenonite conspiracy. An entire branch of the Inquisition had fallen and dealt with Warp devices, and were even corrupting Chaos cults to their own needs. Blank Astartes were uniquely suited to deal with Warp-wielding Inquisitors and their cults, especially the Primaris Space Marines which started off as strong and fast as a Veteran Firstborn but kept growing faster and better with each year of service.
And thus, the long slog of ground war began against the Orks, losing the Prol scribes on their first deployment as agreed. On the other hand the Kulth_(Planet) became a peaceful and fertile place in a single week, as we only had to seed new plants in the fresh soil of the former War World.
Sadly, to fully control the Eldar tech-virus the user had to be a psyker, which should have been obvious. All the Eldar were psykers after all. My Librarians with dual Blank-Psyker genes had a field day, while Sister Stern kept watch from orbit, only rarely moving a finger to stop a mistake from my sons.
From Kulth, we moved on to Avitohol and then dozens more Ork worlds, cleansing the Ork menace by gun and sword, and then the Ork spores with the monofilament Void Spinner.
My daughter Arielle returned from Forge World Synford with 1000 Baneblades of various patterns, raising our inventory to 2400 of the nice heavy tanks. The Forge World received a large STC package for their side, which made them rather happy, I hope.
One by one, the slow behemoths got touched by my Breath, losing half their weight and gaining Tiamat plate armor, as well as Twin-Ion Cannons and Ion Beamers as secondary weapons, plus better power systems, sensors and Weaveshields. Against Orks, the new Ionicbanes performed great, killing a billions Orks and 40000 tanks and meks, while taking a single Ionicbane loss from an invisible Gargant which managed to shoot first with a devastating alpha strike.
I wasn't sure if to laugh or cry when I grabbed the Ork machine in the tesseract. The giant Ork Titan was painted purple, nothing more. No advanced shadow field or cloaking device, no Warp-head Ork as a pilot, nothing special. Just purple paint and 87 heavy guns of various types, one of which was a Eldar brightlance which still worked, for some strange reason.
I just sighed inward at the Ork bullshit, as I also had plenty of bullshit of my own. Warboss Ghenghiz Grimtoof certainly thought so, staring at me in frozen hate. Don't worry, you big green mushroom! I will have you lead my Ork Auxilia next.
As the Halo Crusade Fleet gathered from a hundred different raids and incursions into the Perifery, the Blade began listing every single Ork encounter and use of the Void Spinner, as well as the more successful and not so deployments of the tech-virus. It seemed that the Warp skill and concentration of the psyker was the most important factor, followed by local conditions such as orbital bombardments and Warp rifts, and lastly a tertiary "feeling" of best use by the psyker in question, similar to what snipers felt before firing.
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As we entered the Idumea system, my tesseract eyes scanned the various cloning vats and blood-oiled manufactorums. Millions of clone soldiers were being produced by the fallen Forge World, while their forges and fabrication lines ran red with blood. Sacrifices. A thousand humans were being eviscerated and spilled their blood every minute, with voidships bringing new victims every day.
Both my wolves growled loudly, for similar reasons this time. It was killing time. However, blowing up the place wouldn't help much. Yes, we would end the corruption, but the crazy Inquisitors would simply corrupt another Forge next.
A few taps with my glove, and the suffering stopped as the sacrifice victims just vanished in my spatial storage. Deformed and corrupted tech-priests and acolytes ran to find the problem, and got expelled into the sun, as soon as they revealed their true knowledge and allegiance.
Zath drew a large breath inward, and sighed in satistaction. 'Consider this doing you a service, Captain Lancefire. Those corrupted souls will not enter the Warp anymore, and will not fuel the etheric emanations.' the C'tan shard explained in my mind.
'Of course, Zath. These souls will fuel you now, right?' I asked rhetorically. Still, better the monster you know.
"I am going down, and deal with the Forge leaders. Don't stand in my way, Lancefire!" Sister Stern demanded in a cold, stern voice, then teleported out.
"Who am I to stand in the way of righteous fury? But maybe we can deploy and cleanse the Forge World where she is not. And purify the machines too, while at it." I commented in a clear voice, just as Canis and then Zath howled and sped away from the fleet, leaving a golden trail like a twin comet.
The Blank Astartes, the Silent Sisters and lastly the Blank Auxilia and the Blank Lorica cyborgs descended on the Forge World, followed by a huge Psi-Titan with blaring sirens. I could also strech my legs a bit, and have fun stomping Daemon engines and other foul machines.
The main Forge Temple was a bright beacon of light and lightning, as my Demonifuge lover was showing her anger and faith quite angrily.
My Psi-Titan flew on Tempest Wings, firing the Sinistramanus cannon at any corrupted Titans and kicking tanks and dark automata like a giant rugby player. Sadly, none of the kicked tanks reached orbit, so that's a disproven myth.
Destruction is too easy though. Once the Forge leaders got killed, the defenses crumbled and repenting tech-priests appeared with their trusted acolytes to plead for mercy and a chance to repay their sins. Not all the world was doomed, but some kind of penance would be needed.
Holding still for a minute, I considered the Iron Vitae cloning chambers and the similar fate of the Death Korps of Krieg. But this time, with full Mechanicus support and war machines?
Yes, I could start the same thing here, the Iron Korps. My Death Korps officers will be quite useful here, to organize a proper Korps spirit. I could spend a hundred officers to help things going.
It took a month to organize the place, since rebuilding was much harder than destruction. With near-Blank cloneskeins for the troops and a thousand Blank Lorica cyborgs as their mailed fist, the succesors of the Death Korps might become a feared force in the galaxy. Especially for any of the Phoenonite Inquistors and allies, as the new Iron Korps was out for vengeance.
Manufactorums lines churned out Ragnarok medium tanks and Armed Sentinels for the Korps, while in orbit a dozen shipyards were producing Drop cruisers to deploy the Korps wherever they were most needed.
We passed by Forge World Belecane on the way out of the Calixis Sector, since I was quite interested in their stasis tech and other special means.
While my daughter Rami had traded quite well here, I had more to offer. Like a brand-new star system filled with rich asteroids and Space Hulk fragments, plus extra forts and defence platforms, as well as repairs to their STC constructor, a new data-core and a dozen manufactory lines for planes, tanks and new Ion tech.
It was also here that I found the first clue about the Vulkan's death conspiracy. His stasis capsule had been produced here on Belecane, 9000 years ago. Special consigment for the Inquisition, Ordo Malleus. Vulkan wasn't too happy when reading the Forge's manufacturing demand with the Inquisition sigil. "The stasis field needs to contain and secure a large humanoid mutant, over 4 meters tall. It must also resist Warp emanations of the highest grade."
"I'm gonna rip someone head's off!" he grumbled in his gruff voice.
"I'm sure you will, Primarch. But meanwhile, start working on better stasis fields. Getting to the Galactic Core is quite dangerous." I answered with a lighter voice.
The Primarch and his clones stared at me for a minute, then powered up their new Federation grade STC cores and delved into the stolen Stasis templates from Belecane.
These guys were quite smart and even better than me at upgrading STCs. I liked them.