Next day, I stood with Felicia inside the command bridge of Rhea, and added finishing touches like an etheric detector in the Throne Mechanicum, keyed to detect impostors and anyone not a Lancefire Blank.

A pair of C'tan wolves shifted inside, despite the new Neutron Shield being active. "Captain Lancefire, my friend has a request" Lash spoke first and nudged Yggra forward.

"Peffy is busy with his women, if you're curious." I answered with a single glance at the visitors.

"Can you build another of these Titans? Peffy already dreams about his Atlas Titan." Yggra asked for a friend.

"Run diagnostics and fly to Illevar and back when you're ready, Rhea." I ordered and moved back to my ship, while Felicia was sent back to her day job. Fabricate!

'Rhea is not fully autonomous like the true Castigator template. Let's hope she doesn't get lost...' the Blade muttered as Yggra entered my ship and sat on his ass in a dignified stance. Begging silently now.

"You said you won't help me with the Yoke. I guess you prefer the Silent King riding the Dragon." I told the C'tan and took my Amasec bottle as a reward for a good job.

"I do not! It's just that...hard choices." the old C'tan growled and sat with his head on the front paws, much like Canis when he was sad. Too much like Canis.

"Lash come out! You started this." I growled back and drank some bitter-sweet amasec.

The other wolf ghosted inside, and sheepishly sat beside his Shard friend. "I received news from big brother. He cannot decrypt the engrams."

Right. Damn Star Gods and their divine intellect. I was still so easy to manipulate.

"And thus, Yggra can duplicate the head, and do not copy the encryption at all. Keep the memories intact in the copied head. Very smart of you." I said with a lamenting voice, and slumped in my command throne.

"I told you he will guess the answer. Always does." Lash muttered and covered his eyes in shame.

"I suppose using my innate power to copy a Necron part isn't much of a help, but it's all I can do. Is it worth an Atlas?" Yggra wondered with a hopeful voice.

Could say yes. Win-win. But I was a Rogue Trader. "We don't know if the head even contains what I need. It may be a trap or just bad poetry. Plus, you only want that Atlas because I don't pilot a Titan. You want Peffy to be more than me."

Yggra grit his metal teeth with the sound of a metal door being torn in two. "What else you want from me, Rogue Trader?"

See? Now we're talking. I took out the Sunfire templates, the original ones painted with flowers. "Eat these, and duplicate copies that aren't booby-trapped. Peffy will approve, as he doesn't want his Atlas to be blown up by a child-minded monkey."

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Velayne phased beside me and sat on the armrest to observe the Rogue Trader trading with a xenos to defuse another xenos plot. Complicated stuff, but I manged so far.

One by one, new duplicates without the flowers were spat at my feet. "First two bottles are not trapped. The third...hmmm. Very esoteric stuff. Jokaero tech, from the last war." Yggra said with a bitter voice, then he ate the next STC wafer, spitting a good copy again.

Fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh were not trapped either. But the third was, and Yggra couldn't copy a good version.

'He trapped the Titan-sized bottles! Even one could blow up a Hive City!' the Blade exclaimed as I retrieved the working copies.

'Yes. Trazyn suspected I would send the big Sunfire template to be checked by the Emperor. Too risky to use otherwise. Same with battleships and cruisers, or tanks and Knights. But now we cannot use anti-matter to power the Titans. Or corvettes, if I had enough production to use it on corvettes.' I answered in my mind.

'It's fine. We can still use two or three smaller bottles for the same task. Even give them dedicated partitions, as for weapons and shields. Titans were never supposed to be cheap to produce anyway.' the Blade consoled me with a kind voice.

Truthfully, even a Knight-sized anti-matter source would be enough for a Titan, if it didn't use energy weapons, just kinetic weapons. But Volcano Cannons drained a lot of energy with each shot.

"I'm beginning to doubt you'll even be able to copy a good version of that Necron part. Give back the trapped wafer." I asked Yggra with a doubtful voice.

The C'tan spat back the flower wafer, and I stored it carefully inside a vault made of gigatons of Blackstone, inside the tesseract. It wasn't a giant bottle filled with anti-matter, but Jokaero tech was known for their digital weapons, miniaturized beyond what was possible. Better take precautions.

"I can still try. Normal people don't place bombs inside their heads, not even Necrons." Yggra proposed with a defeated voice.

I kinda suspected Trazyn wasn't normal at all, not even for a Necron. Plus, it wouldn't be his actual head he gave me.

"You can try, but go near a Necron world when you do. If you blow up in a supernova, I don't want it to happen inside the Pharos or near my Forges." I allowed in a magnanimous voice, and drank more Amasec.

Yggra hesitated for a moment, then glared at me with his amber eyes and vanished.

Lash glanced towards Sotha, then back at me. "Captain, he only wants to help..."

"And I said yes. But can't take the risk of blowing up my Forge Machina because he is proud." I answered with a casual tone.

"There were traces of Jokaero explosives on the Duality as well. Those little monkeys caused us a lot of trouble in the war, with their sneaky bombs and tricks." Lash added in a sad tone, then curled up to sleep.

Actually, I knew about those, since Magos Cawl detected the paint job on my Singularity when he visited my ship. Made me wonder if my ship was safe or not.

'Lash, go and erase whatever Jokaero paint you find on this ship. Then add the signature to the ether detectors. Better safe than sorry.' I sent to my Shard friend, who opened one eye and nodded. 'I was thinking about the same thing right now. Type 8, Jokaero interference. Dormant, benign and critical?'

'At least those, but hidden and inverted adjectives are possible too. Plenty Inquisitors and Deathwatch members use their products, and may all be at risk.' I added and opened my Null Box to retrieve two digi-rings for Lash to scan.

'Both are benign, but I see your point, Captain. I'll start with the engine.' Lash confirmed and sank into the floor, just as Yggra returned and spat two Trazyn heads at my feet.

"Done and done. No wonder that Zarhulash couldn't break the encryption. There was a trap, but aimed at the user trying to unlock his memories. Ghostwind displacement and a bait for Flayers. The Potentate would have escaped long ago if a simple dimensional shift had freed him from the chains." Yggra proclaimed in a proud voice.

"Lash is searching the ship for more Jokearo traps. You are allowed to help." I said in an inviting voice, and collected my prize.

Trazyn's memories! This will be a fun movie to watch, especially if those memories included me in a good light. I could even write a book after, something like the Divine and the Infinite. I could sell millions of books and become rich!