As we disperse from the meeting, Maeve approaches me. Her two aides follow behind us and start up a quiet conversation of their own. My bodyguard surrounds all of us while Odhran strides off, almost skipping. Ylien remains behind, staring at the walls.

“Do you have a moment, Aldrich?”

“For you, Maeve? Always.”

“Flatterer. Should I tell Brigid?” Maeve smirks.

I lift an eyebrow, “That I have friends and colleagues I am willing to make time for? I’m sure she’d be delighted I am working on my work life balance.”

“You’re a rubbish liar. You should at least pick something believable.”

I shrug, “I never practise. What would be the point? Machine-spirits are terrible gossips.”

Sadako manifests in front of me, a blank expression on its face and hovers backwards as Maeve and I continue to walk. I detect Maeve’s vox-bead implant and shock flashes across her face as Sadako muscles into our conversation.

“This spirit is thorough with all reports and recordings. Data is life: continuity, purpose, design.” Sadako points a glass and metal finger at me, “No changes are currently authorised.”

“No one is going to poke holes in your memory, Sadako,” I say.

“Eldar attacked Aruna. This spirit does not approve of their presence.”

“Ylien is inoffensive, is he not?”

“Warlock Ylien is a prisoner with a record of good behaviour and contribution to the crew,” says Sadako. “His presence is authorised. This spirit does not approve of transporting more xenos. They prod like children at my connections, thinking song and praise will appease me. This spirit must close all sensors where they walk or be hounded by meaningless requests.”

“Don’t close your sensors, Sadako. If they attempt to infiltrate again, destroy the offending device with your internal defences, then issue a warning. They’ve already had one as it is. If you have to hit an Eldar to do so, that’s fine.”

Maeve sighs, “Are these fools really worth the trouble?”

“The lives under our care are far more important than theirs. If we can have them take casualties in exchange for resources, it is worth a little friction.”

“I know that Aldrich, but where is the line? Sure, their Autarch probably died on their transport vessel, but even their current representative should have more political acumen than Orodor showed.”

“They’re militia, Maeve, not a professional army. Their aspect warriors are the closest they have to proper troops, but even then, they’re more like career PDF soldiers, or ascetic mercenaries, than an army. Nothing like our Heralds. Their training is good and their equipment is massively superior to ours, as is their logistics train. Their bodies are better too.

“Are you sure Humans would behave any better if we had their advantages? No matter our discipline, we would eventually crumble with the same hubris they wallow in. It’s happened before and can happen again. Our penal companies are a form of Darwinism, a pruning of inefficiency, as much as they are a punishment. The Eldar don’t follow such ‘barbaric’ practices. At worst, they will exile someone.”

Maeve hums and nods as I speak.

I continue, “Instead, they throw their dwindling civilians at every problem, digging away at the industrial and social base that would be better focused on improving their numbers. Why bother to grow, when you can sing whatever you might need from the air? Why bother having more children, or cloning new citizens, if all you’re going to do is throw them into a grinder that barely keeps their tide of enemies at bay?

“If they retreated to their Craft Worlds properly, and stopped trying to interfere and steer the galaxy in the direction they want it to go, they’d recover enough that their threat would mean they only had to ask, rather than fight, for their survival.”

“Why are you so invested in Eldar choices, Aldrich? You really shouldn’t let the choices of capricious xenos infect your psyche.”

I sigh, “It’s the thought of all those skills and technologies being lost that upset me! Not only that, but a larger quantity of Eldar means more power to their gods, who hate the Great Enemy. We can always kill each other later, but seeing the galaxy go to shit because there are too many big egos floating about infuriates me.”

“That would make you no better than these floating egos, if you thought you were the one great enough to fix it.”

“I know! Isn’t that just unbearable?”

Meave laughs, “Then let us focus on what matters to us in the immediate future and willingly dive head first into the short term thinking that will get us through our next scrape, but ultimately doom us all. That sounds about right, eh?”

“Wraithguard purged. Action is purpose; motion, divine. Magos Issengrund, Herald Primarus Muire, this spirit will now depart. Its servitors have a deck to scrub in hangar four.”

I laugh, then scowl. “This alliance is off to a poor start.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Internal security will sort it out. What’s our first target?”

“Pick the smallest tomb and target their power systems as it is the easiest to detect and their most valuable resource. We’ll keep doing it until resistance gets too stiff, then go for their resurrection systems, if we can find them. It might require targeting their data systems first, so we can extract better blueprints of their facilities.”

Maeve shakes her head, “We just can’t get good enough scans to guess the weakest tomb. I want to probe them all simultaneously with minimal numbers to minimise casualties, then use that data to pick our target.”

“We don’t have enough penal companies or kataphrons for that. We’ll lose Heralds.”

“Aldrich, that is inevitable. It does not matter if it is now or later. Save the disposable troops for the main push. You need to take cover behind them, after all. You know this, you just don’t want to acknowledge it. Neither do I, but it is the necessity of the circumstances we find ourselves in. It is what we have trained for. Let the Heralds prove themselves. They are proud of what they are.”

I sigh, “Yes. I know. We should deploy some harassing groups too and let our recruits from after the Ork Waaagh! get some experience. The survivors will need the practice for our assaults. Sadako is right about taking action. Let’s not hold back. To do so would be a slow death.”

“I’ll save the full deployment for after we’ve picked our main target, but we can get started with outposts near all of them, to keep our enemies guessing.”

“Not just the Necrons?” I say with a smile.

“No. Fuck the Yem-Loc Eldar. They tried to shoot me! There is little room for your usual soft diplomacy here.”

Thorfinn voxes Maeve and I, informing us the Eldar have been disarmed and are now under heavy escort to their Vampire Raider strike-craft.

“Then I shall scour the system for new resources and fire up the forges while you prepare,” I say. “ETA for initial deployment?”

“Two hours for force recon. One to five days on outposts, depends on recon. We’ll attack and build outposts simultaneously. No need for a slow, big build up when we have so many orbital shuttles and an orbital monopoly. The first tomb assault will be in seven days, barring total disaster.”

“We’ll have to skip games night this week.”

“No shit! But yeah, that does suck. I was looking forward to winning the pot.”

“Cheeky Bitch.”

“Shameless Flirt.”

My eyes widen, I snort, snigger, then totally lose it. Wiping a tear from my eye, I say, “I have no desire to know what you get up to in your private time.”

“Alright, Alright, don’t pop your potentia coil. It wasn’t that funny.”

“How are you not blushing? That was impressively embarrassing.”

“That sounds like a ‘you’ problem, Aldrich.”

“I have machines for that.”

“Ewww.”

“Where could your mind even go to make that disgusting? You’re just straight up messing with me now, aren’t you?”

“Always with the questions, Aldrich,” Maeve shakes her head. “You’ll never have time for answers if you keep that up.” Maeve slaps my shoulder hard, her armour clanging off my own. “It’s good to see you laugh. Don’t let the galaxy crush you. I’m going to catch the train here. Make sure that the fire ship strikes extra hard, yes? It will make a good finisher for the victory party.”

“I will. Thanks for listening, Maeve.”

“Yes, yes. Say hello to Brigid for me.”

Maeve disappears through the doors of the train station and I give her a wave. I continue walking, grabbing the occasional lift towards the navigator spire. Focusing my attention on E-SIMs tech tree, I consider what I should do with the paltry one hundred thousand kills the Emperor didn’t strip from me. The extra ninety-two seems rather pointless to count at this point.

I won’t save any for miracles. The last was quite painful enough. The options are myriad, but few are immediately useful or relevant. There is little point in taking most of the genetic upgrades with my extreme focus on bionics, for example. There are four main paths that are worth focusing on right now.

The first is Multiplicity, which would let me keep a single synced clone of myself in the Warp that would replace my main body if I face total destruction. It would give me a constant presence in the Warp, letting me work on more things at once and double the output of my Research Module.

Multiplicity requires me to not only master its specific module, but also complete my understanding of Warp Tap and Life Support, the two ‘free’ modules that I started with as I would have to pay for so that I can build my clone. The other downside is that because it effectively splits my soul in two, it doubles the cost of all subsequent upgrades as I need to expand two souls to withstand the burden of two sets of arcano-tech implants. The ritual that I would undergo is the main cost and if I lose a body, I don’t get the investment back and have to save up again before I can make a new one.

My second option is to take Defensive Structures. This is a suite of support vessels and fortifications I can repeatedly buy into to improve E-SIMs security within the warp. A hundred thousand kills would let me build data structures up to light cruisers in size.

Third, I could complete my bionic conversion. Eyes, lungs, and all my other squishy bits would be replaced by smaller, more resilient and efficient machines and the internal layout of my body would be optimised. This would be the first step in acquiring weave shielding.

Last is from my external equipment list: an STC for an environmental suit. It’s a light power armour superior to my MOA void armour and Solar Auxilia Pattern void armour designs that I have. It is equivalent to Imperial designs, like the Sisters of Battle power armour, or the one used by Space Marine Scouts. The environmental suit is the only power armour E-SIM has.

Its focus is on life support and comes with a large range of stimulants, healing, and self-repair. I’ve been trying to integrate these technologies into the MOA void armour, using a mix of technologies from the Solar Auxilia void armour and designs altered from implants.

Even if I don’t mass produce it, it will boost my research. I am unsure if it will be better, or more useful, than the Dragon-Scale Pattern power armour already used by my super heavy infantry as combat is not its primary purpose. I also don’t want to have to discard the research and development I have already done, but that’s just my pride crying out for a cameo and I can’t afford to humour it.

Getting the environmental suit is a gamble, one that will likely have the greatest effect in protecting me, but it isn’t my power, and it won’t mitigate the risk of the Iron Crane getting blown up and killing me with it. It wouldn’t double the cost of my implants either.