After spending an entire month at Forge Myre to repair and refit most of our basic vehicles with Ion Flare Shields, and weapons able to damage the Necrons, we departed for Amraphel.
In my wake, I left a shattered Necron fleet of 7 Scythe Harvesters and 200 escorts, plus a completely transformed and upgraded Forge World, comparable to a rich Forge from the Solar Segmentum, not a backwater planet that dared to call itself a Forge because it had 13 Titans in its Titan Legion. Now they had a small Lorica Legion of 50000 Thallax suits piloted by war-clones and a new Techsocist clade to protect their machines from Warp invasion.
I did have to share the Demiurg cloneskein STC and build them a new workforce, plus defenses and manufacturing facilities, but it should be worth it anyways.
Their shipyards will be able to produce Machine-pattern corvettes and fighters by the thousands, while the vehicle facilities were already churning out Ragnarok tanks and Armed Sentinels, firstly for their own defense, then for export.
However, what we found at Amraphel left me speechless for once. Not only did their parliament hire the Khrave xenos as their mercenary army, but they also dismissed their local PDF and most of their armed militias, considering them too expensive! Millions of votes as well, from the grateful soldiers that were now free of dangerous duty. Ah, the wonders of the electoral system would never cease to amaze me!
Inquisitor Valeyne of Ordo Xenos was literally fuming and demanded we punish the traitors to the human species, while the Amraphel Republic felt safe and content under the shade of the bone-trees raised into low orbit by their 'allies'
To be fair, the Khrave did somewhat respect their mercenary charter by blasting the prowling Necrons with bolts of Warp lightning, but they also fed on the powerless population, leaving entire hab-blocks empty of life and souls.
Instead, I just smiled and produced Sister Dessima onto the bridge, cancelling the Warp spells of the xenos and halting their mind control over the ruling class.
Then just waited. It didn't take long for the Lords of Parliament to wake up and realize what they have done, followed by numerous suicides and calls for help, while the Khrave wailed in their trees under the blanket suppression of a mighty Omega-level Pariah.
"Now we can help. Better to be invited as liberators, than drown the population in their own blood. I'll send the Silent Sisters to deal with their root minds, after that we can deploy in force." I offered in a mild voice, while doing exactly that.
The Silent Leviathan walkers appeared in silence near the main nest of the Khrave, while Tarantula turrets and the Blank tech-marines fortified every intersection.
As soon as the assault began in force, the Blank Division and the Astartes pushed on, massacring the devil-looking xenos.
Spartan took over the Thallax Lorica Legion, managing an excellent job as the commander of indoctrinated cyborgs, while M got the chance to prove himself with the fleet, hunting down fleeing Khrave tree-ships.
Clonemaster Anzion had the more nasty task of recovering crippled Blanks from the Auxilia, and working beside the Apothecaries to install them into Thallax Lorica frames, as undying Warp-immune cyborgs.
Firstly it was only a few hundreds, but as the fight became fierce, more Thallax suits got blown up by the potent Khrave sorcerers, as did more of our Blank Auxilia.
After three days, 20000 Thallax had to be repaired and the pilots replaced by crippled Blanks. The Khrave had lost at least 8 million of their own, giving Spartan a respectable kill-ratio, even when fighting in bewildering mazes of Warp bone and tree branches climbing into the sky.
On the planet itself, the Inquisitor and her Deathwatch Black Shield regiment took over the Parliament and gathered the elected Lords for questioning and interrogation, not that it took much for them to admit their guilt. Some of them were just greedy, pocketing the cost difference from maintaining a Guard regiment with the cost of their xeno mercenary. Others were populists, acting for public opinion and more votes to gather more personal power.
And a small part were actual traitors and even secret Chaos worshipers, hoping the sacrifices to the Khrave would bring the rule of their Dark Gods into the real.
They would all die for treason, but some would die in a more painful manner, as befitting the crime.
Sadly, I had to reach deep into my petrified heart and find the mercy of sparing the planet from Exterminatus, at the cost of imposing a Blank Governor and a much different leadership system.
The bone trees would have to be trimmed to the minimum, and be used as orbital elevators and defense platforms, and an entire new army would have to be conscripted and trained. Not an easy task, for whoever was left behind as the Governor of a far-flung planet. Then again, it would still be safer than being the Captain of a spaceship, always thrown into the crucible of war.
To my surprise, I even had a volunteer. Lady Raisa Lancefire had been the Captain of an escort corvette lost at Drucilla, and her bridge crew agreed to join as her government staff.
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The scale would be larger, but the basics were fundamentally the same. Feed the crew, prepare them for combat, execute the orders, defeat the enemy or die trying. If it was a ship's crew or an entire planet, it worked much the same, in principle. I know I did so, quite easily.
With a small Knight House of 100 Knights and a reserve of 5000 Armed Sentinels, the new Governor had a long task ahead. Then again, Amraphel would have orbital elevators for easy exports, and billions of people to produce things to export. They should do well enough, unless the Khrave or the Necrons returned.
While I did leave her 100 more spare Knights in storage, the problem with Knights was lack of pilots, for my house. Knight Suits were being manufactured constantly by my STC Constructor, beside other walking suits.
The next journey took us to Ghorstangrad the homeworld of the Emperor's Swords Chapter . I wanted to arrange a deal with the Emperor's Swords Astartes and provide them a Blank Company and some aid, but instead found the entire planet in revolt, and the Chapter fighting among themselves, very often using the same swords they were named after, while the traitor Alpha Legion attacked them from all sides.
After defeating the traitors and capturing their ships, we began post-battle analysis and found that the Alpha Legion placed subconscious triggers in the rituals used by the gangs and sects. It was from these gangs and sects that the Emperor's Swords recruited new Space Marines. During the cleanup of the Hive World and its underhives, a Torchbearer ship arrived with Primaris tech and a thousand Grey Primaris, maybe on accident but probably not.
The Emperor did have to spread his attention to a million worlds, thus aid would rarely come on time.
The Custodes Shield-Captain of the Torchbearers knew me from my adventures with the Golden Throne, so it wasn't a difficult talk.
"Lord Lancefire, the Emperor's favorite jester!" he exclaimed as we met.
I smiled fondly and replaced his Master-crafted polearm with a bouquet of red and gold flowers with large soft petals I bought for a hefty sum. Maybe about same cost with the polearm, due to flower rarity and expense of travel. The pole-weapon even had a las-cannon as a secondary function!
"A fair exchange then. Ever heard of pole dancing?" I asked instead, while playing with my new toy.
The man frowned for a second, then smiled back. "If it increases your fertility, the Emperor would consider it a fair exchange." he quipped with a sarcastic voice.
"Good. Now, I'll be able to donate 400 Blank recruits to the Emperor's Swords, including actual swords like this one." I explained patiently and held out a Phase blade for inspection.
The man became serious in an instant, and powered up the C'tan sword for a few fast cuts. "C'tan tech. And even better than Callidus' clade swords. I hope you didn't steal it from a Deathwatch Vault." he observed with a knowing tone.
His suspicions were correct, but also not. I actually filled a Deathwatch Vault with a fair number of Phase Blades. "There are still thousands of them lying around in the Omega Vault. And other nicer stuff. If only someone had full access to that Vault, and was allowed to leave alive with the loot. You know there's a nanite plague inside the Vault? I would guess old Federation tech, created specifically to dissolve intruders."
The Custodes powered down the sword and placed it at his belt. "The Emperor thanks you for your service. And that means Corax." he answered in a dignified voice and handed me an archeotech device then walked away, still holding the flowers.
Hmmm. Fat chance the big guy wouldn't notice his own son running around in Astronomican's range.
As for the Emperor gift, it had a data-port on the side and a single word printed on it with auramite letters: Tempormortis.
I hoped it was something like the Moment_Shackle that Adeptus Custodes' Captain-General Trajann Valoris used in battle, or simply to safeguard the Emperor from assassins.
It was nice to feel valued by the Emperor, although I suspected it was only a tougher job given for my results so far. Luckily, I did have a pet Cryptek with a good knowledge of arcane technology.