My Crusade Fleet has grown strong. Perhaps an understatement, also perhaps a shameful boast. We are strong when compared to the weak, and very weak still when compared to the strong.

A giant Waaagh! like that of of the War of the Beast with millions of Ork ships and even weaponized moons would be more than a match, like Primarch Vulkan can attest to. As for a Hive Fleet and even a small war fleet of the Necrons, my vaunted Crusade Fleet would be only a small morsel. Yes, we would go down fighting, but we would die even so.

Anyways, here in the Klybo system, the local Imperial forces are just as overpowered and undergunned like we would be when faced with Hive Fleet Leviathan.

The Calixis Sector Fleet maintains a supply base on the moon orbiting Klybo, filled all sorts of goods I want and need. No, I don't steal them, or even requisition the munitions and fuel, nor the torpedoes and missiles, not even the food stores. I buy them from the local Rear Admiral, with a two-sided offer. Firstly, Sister Stern will heal and rejuvenate his old body to his prime. And secondly, a gift of a hundred new Aquilla starfighters armed with Las-cannons and Ion Beamers, along a dozen training seats and even an STC template for everything they contained.

Lady Valyene, my Inquisitor wife, is not very pleased with my unorthodox Rogue Trader methods, but I know best. Admiral Thorne is an Imperial Noble, and thus he is conditioned to act in a certain pattern. Even more importantly, I got to test my Breath on the dead world, and find out what I could truly do.

Were the STC rumours on Klybo true? Turns out they were, and also not. The STC cube I found under the old ruins was too damaged to read anything out. But under the STC cube, there was an intact data slate with technical manuals in STC format, explaining in every detail the construction and maintenance of proper STC data cores, including planetary-sized ones, or as the Demiurg called them Ancient Cores or the Votann.

Yes, I am stupid sometimes. So I used my Breath to transmute the ruined city into a working STC core, and then everything turned black.

Sometimes later, I woke up with techpriest Juggler deep inside my colon, his mechdendrite at least, while Canis and Zath stood watch over the medical procedure.

"Wuuu. Wu?" Canis asked in his wise way.

I almost burst in laughter at his cute sounds. And no, I haven't burned my brains out.

'The hermetic core in your left armpit saved your life, Pef Lancefire. I did wonder what purpose it served, since you weren't shifting dimensions like a C'tan, or maybe a Necron Overlord' my pet C'tan observed in his casual cruel way.

Good to know at least someone other than the Emperor knew what the metallic nodes at the base of my limbs were. And their purpose.

'Do you know what the other three cores are for?' I asked mentally with a hopeful voice.

'The word hermetic means sealed and locked. The cores will only reveal their function after you waken and use them. The first one appears to regulate stellar mass drain, possibly by shutting down your brain before you over-drain. Not something of my make, but definitely C'tan tech.' the wolf-shaped C'tan explained with a patient voice.

Since I was now a patient, it fit quite well.

"I'm fine now, Magos Juggler. You can go explore the device now." I urged the techpriest, who nodded eagerly and ran off to join millions of other tech-priests and tech-marines exploring my city-sized creation down on the planet.

I side-stepped through my tesseract labyrinth to get washed and dressed in my Terminator plate, then returned to the battleship's bridge. My two wolves used different ways, but also re-appeared at my side, flanking me for shock and awe.

"Lord Captain! Good to see you back." my officers greeted me, while Stern just glared sternly at me. She tended to do that a lot.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I waved a hand in a princely way, and sat down on my Command Throne, linking myself with the Machine Spirit and every bit of noosphere data in the fleet. Unlike other days, this went much faster and smoother, so perhaps the metal node in my armpit had unlocked more abilities. Anyways, it was clear that planetary sized transmutations took a lot of energy, unlike playing with Sentinels and other regular war vehicles.

It will take a year to go over and upgrade every single weapon with my new Breath, leaving the Titans for last, since they were the most complex of all the humanity's machines.

'Your personal contemplation rate has increased by 875%, with no detectable stress on the mind implant unit. The extra heat appears to vanish someplace.' the Blade AI noted with a curious voice, in my head.

While my old mind translated the AI speech into RAM memory cycles, I also knew this wasn't quite true anymore. The C'tan were not machines, although they wore a metallic body as a shell. Imperial cogitators and implants were also metal shells, but they contained souls, or machine spirits. As for advanced cores and AIs, they were minor divinities inside the noosphere, and sometimes even outside. Information was power, after all.

'Call it thermal discharge, to another dimension. It's how Void Shields work, right?' I answered the Blade with my own rhetorical question.

'Regardless, that core manual is very useful already, Lord Captain. I have began implementing some repairs into all the fleet cogitators, but your personal touch is needed to upgrade them to full operational status, Federation grade.' the Blade AI continued with a slight logic nudge.

The Blade was obviously correct. Most of the data infrastracture of my Crusade Fleet had been hammered together by a conclave of superstitious tech-priests, and while the Singularity battleship was far ahead due to Archmagos Cawl personal attention back on Terra, the other ships were in a poor state. Still working and ready to fight, but way less efficient and accurate than they could be.

I opened my mind and let the Breath of Gods in, while keeping the schematics copied in my implant in front of my mind. In a minute of less, the central cogitator of the battleship transformed from a battered old relic into a brand-new sparking Federation grade data core, possibly 10 times faster.

'Scanning, testing...I conclude a 1094% increase in contemplation rate for the central core. Excellent work, Lord Captain!' the Blade congratulated me, as it too began to expand into the stronger cogitator and the faster network connection all over the ship.

I felt my head sway and my vision dance, since creating a powerful super-computer with only your mind and an alien gadget interpreting your will was quite a tedious task. Maybe I should rest a bit?

So, I closed my eyes, for just a minute.

"Battlestations! Vox network switching to autistic mode." I heard someone yell far away.

Even with my eyes closed and a tired mind, I still had my tesseract vision, and a certain Tempormortis vambrace on my right arm. The future was safe, even with these new fleets.

Two more fleets had appeared in the Klybo system, one of them expected and enticed with the STC template donation to the good Admiral, the other not so much.

The Calixis Sector Battlefleet had sent 20 cruisers and 100 destroyers, while the Kreg fleet had 30 Stronghold class vessels and 10 Bastions, thus around 10 entire Brotherhoods equivalent to 10 Astartes chapters.

"Humans of the Imperium, we only want the Ancestor Core. We can trade valuable technology in exchange!" the vox transcript on the main holoscreen appeared from the Kreg.

"I need to sleep. Wife...you deal with the small ones." I mumbled in a tired voice, then moved myself to my bedroom and turned off the mind implant.

Yeah, I can be stupid sometimes. But I was tired!