With the impending threat of a murderous Inquisitorial investigation on its way, even the Fabricator is slightly more motivated into finishing up the repairs of my ships.
One after another, the corvettes are rearmed with torpedoes and loaded into their launching bays on the Icarus carrier, while the damaged Battle Barges are dragged into dockyards for a complete refit.
So are the damaged cruisers and other vessels boarded and captured, while the traitors are kept disarmed and under guard, awaiting their trial.
The last Astral Claws' Cardinal-class Heavy Cruiser named the Thoth's Hound contained the Forge Master Armenneus_Valthex, known for his advanced artificier-grade weapons and armor. This guy was so renowned for his skill that even tech-priests would consult with him on various artifacts related to the Astartes.
Well, Valthex was presumed dead after his cruiser's bridge exploded from a teleported plasma warhead, but he now simply laid in stasis among many other of his Astral Brothers.
I had almost 16 thousands Claws, 300 Mantis and 200 Executioners among my trophies, but I would need a way to mind control them, just like Trazyn had his Mind Scarabs.
Not really an urgent matter, but something to consider. Perhaps via those Enslaver bones, as they did literally belong to a mind controlling monster.
Once my loyal Astartes were painted black in Deathwatch color, nobody would need to know their origin, right?
The stolen ships would be harder to disguise, although this wouldn't matter for now. Crew and officers, servitors and tech-priests will be needed for every single ship, and extensive repair and refit to make the warships effective when they had to battle outside the range of my cheating presence.
I did send an Astropath message to Sotha, informing my Rose of the official result of my Crusade, and requested the Lamenters still in the Deathwatch to be released into my care. That will take some time, but having a core of Veteran Marines as trainers for my Blank recruits would be invaluable. She owed me a lot for all those Eldar prisoners, including a Farseer, so might as well spend that favor for my Astartes.
More Gellar generators had to be constructed and installed in every captured ship, but the trade with Forge World Angstrom was easily achieved by donating the damaged hulls, plus some of the spoils from my Magog plundering.
All those ancient pattern weapons found with pirates and criminals were rather useless to me, as I lacked the expertise to repair them. I kept the scans of course, as STC templates would be valuable to other Forges too.
Even so, the Fabricator did promise to begin constructing his own fleet of system-only torpedo corvettes, and to mount Nova Cannons on the salvageable cruiser hulls. As for my other ideas...
"Importing indentured serfs from nearby Hive Worlds to train new tech-priests...or culling the underhives for more servitors? You do have the strangest ideas, Lord Lancefire!" the Magos exclaimed, while we were going over the captured equipment from the traitors, including gunships, fighters, power and Terminator armor plus many broken tanks and weapons and other machines.
"Of course, honored Fabricator. Repairing all these artifacts would take millennia otherwise. And then I would have to ask another Forge for the privilege of examining and repairing these priceless relics we recovered from the Astral Claws and the Executioners. I still have to, for my own Lamenters gruesomely butchered power armors and dreadnoughts. Probably Forge Tigrus or Metalica, while Forge Incaladion will take care of the Blood Angels armor." I explained politely, and pointed at Master's Phoros terminally damaged armor.
"No! I mean... Don't take everything away, Lord Lancefire. Leave us at least two of every item, and we might uncover more great mysteries of the Omnissiah from them, by careful logis comparison and arduous machine canticles." he asked in almost panic.
The situation was funny for me, but understandable from the Mechanicus perspective. It would be like showing some museum curator the original armor of Emperor Constantine, and then giving it to another museum for restoration.
"And that Contemptor_Pattern_Dreadnought? Are you certain it can be restored enough to inter my Captain Tybahlt of the Blood Angel bodyguard?" I asked with a sadder voice.
It seemed some kind of phased claw had managed to rend even his blackstone armor plates, ignoring the shield as well.
I had a suspicion what kind of technology stood at the base for that claw, probably one of those phased swords used by the Callidus Assassins, or a similar weapon with C'tan provenience.
Astartes Tybahlt valiantly held onto the arm of his Astral Claws foe, allowing his Battle Brothers to kill his enemy, but his organs were all shredded beyond repair. I wasn't ready to allow him to die so easily though.
The dreadnought itself was found empty in a sealed vault on the Mantis barge, but wasn't fully operational, although the Atomantic Shield still worked, and that was the most important thing.
"And I expect you want that Ghost Razors gauntlet installed on the dreadnought as well. Alright, it can be done, but it will take a few years." The Fabricator accepted after a few seconds of thought.
He probably needed to work on this himself, which would guarantee perfect quality, and allow him to examine and learn all those secrets. Sneaky tech-priest, but then I couldn't really complain.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
"Great! You're amazingly helpful Fabricator, and do your Cult Mechanicus proud. So you were saying something about a Knight? I would need two of them, for me and my other pilot I rescued at Badab." I demanded with a slightly more pleading voice.
Just a tiny bit, because I did have an Astartes Chapter now. No more need to be ultra meek, just politely meek.
A wave of metal tentacles blurred around him, and it seemed I touched a sore spot. "I would gladly help, Lord Pef. It is why I gifted you with the best Mind Impulse Unit in the galaxy. But my Forge World cannot produce Knights or Titans. We have several godmachines, but we only service and repair them. The Volcano Lance and Cannons templates from your STC gifts will allow us to field a dozen more Titans in a decade, which is immensely important to our faith."
I blinked in surprise, and then just sighed. Of course not all Forge Worlds had Titan Manufactoriums. I was used to richer Forges after all. This was not Ryza, who kept an Ork Waaagh on their doorstep just to test the Titans in combat.
"It's it alright, Fabricator. Let me see where your Forge could be of help...Catachan regiments! Yes, the jungle warriors, once provided with Armed Sentinel walkers, will be very useful in establishing my dynasty on a dozen jungle worlds around my capital, and help me clear the Orks. Unlimited order for as many regiments you can obtain, with as many guardswomen as they can spare, dear Magos. And provide them adamantium blades and chest plates, like my other Catachans have. I'd say a thousand Sentinels per regiment, plus 500 Chimeras and Hydras for the mechanized regiments." I mused out loud, while picking up an Astartes heavy bolter in my left hand.
The heavy bolter gun was straining my power armor even without firing it. Much too heavy even for a Catachan, but would work great on the Sentinels and Chimeras.
Lasguns wouldn't really work against Orks, just like the ongoing war on Armageddon proved. The stupid mushrooms were too resilient, and so were the Tyranids.
"And you want heavy bolters and flamers...possibly combi-weapons on those Sentinels?" the Magos deduced as I strained to hold the heavy weapon in one hand.
Looked great, but bolter pistols were the effective limit for my current armor.
"Chainsaw sword and flamer one arm, adamantium gunshield with heavy bolter on the other. Sealed cockpit with adamantium window blinds. Infrared auspex for night combat. Similar outfit for Chimeras, flamer and heavy bolters. Tanks will not be that useful in jungles, but a wing of bombers per regiment could provide close-air support. Promethium refinery and a bolter round manufactorium for every settled planet, with a thousand tech-priests to oversee repairs. And a hundred more bolt sniper rifles, per regiment." I added in a distant voice.
Adamantium might be expensive, but there were megatonnes of it in the damaged hulls. A single cruiser could provide a million tons of adamantium, enough to armor a million Sentinels.
A Sentinel is twice as small and 1000 times cheaper than a Knight, and the gunshield would be large enough to cover the shoulder socket and the bolter ammo drum.
The chainsaw uses promethium as fuel, and same does the flamer, and the burning promethium would melt even steel, and more importantly, the flesh behind the armor.
Very effective in jungles and vs. organic enemies like Orks and Tyranids.
"A dozen Catachan regiments should be possible to requisition. But for more guardsmen and all that equipment...a few decades." the Fabricator proclaimed while examining the sniper rifle that I pointed him to.
A good sniper could kill a hundred enemies every day. Times a hundred snipers per regiment, they would devastate any enemy, even if fortified and entrenched.
Not that Orks or Tyranids hid in trenches, but they weren't the only possible enemies, just the most numerous.
The repairs on the damaged Astartes ships continued and the barges were being modified with a vertical torpedo cell-block for 100 torpedoes, which should allow them to fight a battleship and even win.
Similar to that reload system I first created for the Manticore missile launcher, the empty torpedo container could be extracted and replaced with a full one, increasing re-arming speed by ten times in zero gravity.
The teleport rooms on the barges were also undergoing complete repair, while the Astartes were grumbling about having tech-priests going all over their stuff.
I didn't care much about that. Who were they going to complain to? Me?
Just like former Master Huron had discovered, independent Astartes command of their Chapters might be great for the absence of superiors, but that also meant no protection from those superiors.
They were at my mercy, and mercy wasn't something I was willing to spend much.
I spent my time overseeing my new Lamenter Chapter and revising their Codex and doctrine, tinkering with the hypnotic chairs that enforced loyalty and imparted automatic reflexes and knowledge of enemies and weapons.
It would take decades to prepare a better Codex, but my own STCs could be uploaded in the data-vault, and various memetic subordination commands for the Inquisition or other high ranking Adepta of the Imperium could be slightly loosened or outright circumvented.
There were also some highly coded mnemonic instructions with Mars signature imprints, which were probably part of the problem with the Lamenters curse. Someone had experimented on them, right at their founding 5000 years ago.
Sadly I didn't have clearance to delete them, so I might need to 'borrow' other hypno-chairs from the other barges or the Starfort.