Can someone live surrounded by women for 1000 years and emerge a lonely man? I know I did.

Lonely and a bit wiser, I hope.

I noticed it immediately, as I returned to realtime and things seemed so distant, even the struggle of humanity to survive in this cruel and cold universe.

'Blade, I feel sick.' I told my digital confidant.

'You aren't sick, Captain. But you are estranged from your family. Humans need their connections.' the AI answered like a proper therapist.

I sighed inward. Was I even human anymore? I think only Corax has experienced anything like I did. He also roamed the universe alone for 11000 years. And he didn't come out a sane and well-adjusted man either.

Maybe I should take out poetry. But that was the way of the harlequins, not quite the best example to follow.

On the other hand, a single year had passed, but with Speranza in charge properly and quasi-legally, my domain was back on track. Of course, the change in course was attributed to my return, as were the administrative changes that re-organized the domain to become productive.

Priests were assigned preaching tasks, while merchants were sent to trade and bring in the resources we lacked. Even now, a million Blanks were exploring and looting valuable stuff from the Zone Mortalis, from Rapture in the south to Krastellan farther north, and including the lost Forge World Ixas and their precious Las-Impulsor STC .

Imperial Knights and their Constructors, plus megatonnes of ancient weapons and artifacts, were being spread around the Domain's Forges, as well as minerals and other resources. With this single move, Speranza had restored the balance of trade and increased the cargo and firepower of my Dynasty by a factor of two, since Ixas had a large mining fleet and plenty of warships as well.

Laur was still on site at Ixas, since his tesseract was quite useful at locating and extracting priceless artifacts from hidden vaults.

Closer to home, the Faithful's_Deliverance starfort of the Doom Legion was replaced with a trio of smaller Ramilies-class forts that could cover the asteroids of the Elusian Maze far better and allow the mining ships to delve deeper, to exploit the rare minerals there.

I wasn't even surprised when this ancient starfort was moved to Forge Machina for upgrades, and was found full of secret data-files and STC templates, plus a number of locked vaults full of weapons and arsenals of biowarfare agents. The Imperium was already proven to misplace important things or send them to rust beyond the range of the Astronomican.

Primarch Vulkan was now exploring the artificial planet of Elusia Prime, with thousands of his gene-sons and even more tech-priests from Forge Machina.

An entire planet made of metal...mostly voidsteel and adamantium, full of inner layers and entire sectors of ancient machines.

Sadly, Elusia was also the homeworld of the Doom Legion Chapter, or I would have confiscated the entire thing in a moment. That much metal would be enough to rebuild the entire Imperial Navy a dozen times. But slowly mining the thing and extracting anything of value from the insides was good too.

Anyway, I had the Faithful fort right here now, ready to be transformed into another Phalanx, but for my own troops.

'Lash, I'm thinking to take this fort as a mobile base. You saw the new Phalanx, right?' I asked the C'tan wolf.

'And that upgraded Kronos fort as well, Captain Lancefire. Same thing?' the C'tan asked in a bored voice.

'Mostly yes. But we need a few big weapons on it though. We will go fight more Necrons soon. Their Tomb Ships are rather resilient.' I said with a hopeful voice.

'Your ancestors were decent builders, Pef Lancefire. But you are not them. You lack an energy source for super-capital beams.' Lash noted with mild irony.

Yes, I did lack that. But I knew someone who had it.

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In a minute, I dressed in my armor, collected my bodyguard and stepped on Solemnace again, many years since I last visited.

"You're probably pushing your luck, Lord Lancefire. I cannot deal with an entire Necron World by myself." Valerian commented with a sad voice.

A green portal opened to reveal Trazyn and a pet Jokaero monkey in his arms. And they both had bananas in their mouths.

"Already preparing yourself for a living body, I see." I observed with mild humor.

"Lord Lancefire...and a Custodes I haven't met before. Proof of the Emperor's favor, or his suspicion?" Trazyn the Infinite asked instead, and passed his banana to the orange monkey, who ate both at once.

I waved a hand carelessly. "Anything I do or say is approved by the Emperor, Lord Trazyn. My power source?" I replied and summoned myself a metal throne to sit down.

The Necron petted the Jokaero and then teleported it away. "Mister Banana here was quite helpful in solving your predicament, Rogue Trader. But since you didn't mention what was needing power, I obtained seven different STC templates. Pick one." Trazyn said as he took out seven orange-glowing data-wafers, each sporting a different flower pattern in a corner. Jokaero-tech for sure. Very artistic.

"Is this safe, Lord Lancefire? Xenos-tech will probably backfire on you at the wrong time." the Custodes asked as I picked one wafer to scan its non-encrypted contents.

"You wouldn't be so petty, Overlord Trazyn. I did warn you about the bomb, you chose to stay and burn alive. Plus there were 300 Necron Dynasties at that conference, you have gained greatly from the bomb too." I argued with a casual voice.

"Indeed, the fact that it was a Phosphex warhead meant to torture the victims before they died, instead of a regular Cyclonic warhead as used by the Imperium, has convinced the Silent King this was the work of a Chaos madman, possibly Ahriman. But doubts remain." Trazyn spoke in a certain way, as to warn me of surveillance.

"The Drukhari love torture too. And I recall some of their Void Mines being used in the same way, some time ago. The Craftworld Eldar are more direct I think, but there is that Mandragora guy who likes being a metal robot." I added with a tiny smirk.

"You must mean Phaeron Imotekh who is now in open rebellion against the Silent King. Mandragora was eaten by Tyranids a millennium ago, and Imotekh doesn't want to risk returning to a body of flesh, only to get eaten for real. You think he would use this kind of sticky fire to show the Necrons that a necrodermis body is safer?" Trazyn was quick to throw the guilt on another suspect.

"I wouldn't dare to accuse anyone, Lord Trazyn. We humans had the Horus Heresy a while ago, and our Emperor has barely recovered from the trauma. Plus, Necrons don't have a Golden Throne to nail your Silent King on, like the Emperor was. " I mumbled out while trying more orange wafers.

So far, nothing stronger than a ship reactor, which was still useful but not enough to mass-produce adamantium via fusion. I needed something as strong as a star.

Then I opened the sixth wafer, and jackpot! Exactly what I asked for, sunfire in a bottle.

"Stay for some tea, Lord Lancefire. We meet too rarely..." Trazyn asked in a false tone.

'Recall to base!' I asked Lash, who used the Pharos to bring me back. And a second later the Custodes as well.

"What the hell, Lancefire! You burned 300 Dynasties with phosphex? And why did you mention the Dias of Dominion to that Necron Lord?" Valerian exploded in outrage, while ignoring the towering Zarhulash nailed to the Pharos wall.

"What is a Dias_of_Dominion ?" I asked innocently. Really, I had no idea what that was. Maybe a dais, like a floating platform?

"... You just started a Necron Civil War, Pef Lancefire. Quite masterfully, if I may add. How did you know the Silent King was there too?" Zarhulash asked me in an admiring voice.

I didn't do anything! I was innocent, I swear! But the more I pleaded, the more both Valerian and Zarhulash nodded in concert and threw me admiring glances.

I never saw any Silent King, although with the maze of tesseracts around Solemnace, my vision was quite limited.

Perhaps it would be a bad move to go back and argue my innocence to the king of Necrons. Oh well, things happen, I guess.