The older I get, the faster time flashes by. One moment I’m welding ramps and hoops so my kids have somewhere to run wild, and the next I’m sending them off to the Heralds for their two years service.

Sometimes, leading by example absolutely sucks. I am fucking terrified my boys will get killed in some minor conflict, and my daughter strung up by a fanatical mob because some dumb chicken died and the farmers are all ignorant, zealous twits.

I won’t put my kids in a gilded cage though, and as we complete the final deceleration into Acheron, I have my own challenges to face.

Acheron is a brown dwarf, a star that never properly ignited. The system is equally barren with three small planets the size of Mercury and a mixed field of asteroids and comets twelve AU from the dwarf star. By the time we complete the Macro-Ferry, there will probably be no orbiting bodies but our own.

Three weeks before we arrive, a Battle Barge, Grave’s Bite, three strike cruisers, seven light strike cruisers, eighteen escorts, and four freighters Warp into the system, putting the Stellar Fleet on high alert. Having to expose the rear of our vessels as we decelerate towards the system along a highly predictable path is not a position I like to be in and the main reason why I was so annoyed with Odhran.

During our approach, the Eldar have their armour and weapons returned to them. They depart on a squadron of class two D-POTs, the cargo holds filled with the rest of the weird fruits and vegetables that we grew for them and plenty of medical supplies. Ylien also joins them, agreeing to take up the role of envoy between the Alaitoc Eldar and the Stellar Fleet.

Orodor gives no thanks upon his departure, nor apologises for his shitty behaviour. Despite the initial fuss, none of the Eldar give up the MIUs I forced upon them either. While a few would need to keep them to help pilot the D-POTS, the rest do not. None of them can resist secretly messaging each other using the devices constantly, rather than having to draw on the Warp to do so, or use their own channels that are fairly easily compromised by most competent Bonesingers.

Amused at the idea of them all constantly scheming and insulting each other on a long journey, I let them keep the MIUs. If they still have one and I meet them again, it will give me a wealth of data!

The Alaitoc are somewhere in the Ultima Segmentum, so I have few expectations that I will run into Ylien again or the Alaitoc Craftworld. They are known for spreading stealthy agents throughout the galaxy though and I will be content if my overtures to them ensure that there will be one Craftworld who will not interfere with my Fleet. I have absolutely no expectations this will happen though.

The Barghest Librarian, a Space Marine Psyker, shows off during our approach, speaking directly into my mind from tens of millions of kilometres away, even though he isn’t an Astropath. He asks us to confirm our identity. I decide not to give too much away, much as I’d like to directly reply to him, and contact them through the Psyker Servitor wired into our main altar in Iron Crane’s cathedral like a proper Tech-Priest.

Quaani shows up nine days later with all seven of his vessels as well as a Luna-Class cruiser. I’d like to find out immediately what is going on, but no one is shooting at each other, so I avoid sending any more messages.

While Imperial FTL data exchange is fairly robust, it does have some quirks. For example, because messages are sent through a space detached from time, upon occasion, one can receive replies to messages they have yet to send. Not only is this is a massive security risk, but out of order messaging causes much confusion and harm Astropaths as their minds take the brunt of the paradox.

To reduce such incidents, it is customary to always send not only the intended message, but the previous three exchanges between the parties as well, softening the impact of any paradoxes that might occur. This also isn’t great for security either as to intercept or alter one message is to wreck a whole chain of them. It doesn’t stop people from making things up either.

Sending a message is similar to trying to interpret someone else's dreams, and misunderstandings are fairly common. I do not want to have to flee back the other way because an Astropath got his ones and zeros the wrong way round.

Human minds do not do well with inhuman numbers and I’ve no idea what sort of implants the Barghest Fleet’s Astropathic Choir has, or what supporting systems they are using to interpret the data that I send them. This is why the Mechanicus tends to use Psychic Servitors, or Psy-Servitors and why many Astropaths who work in the relays have their minds burnt out by the vast volume of data they are forced to transmit without pause or respite.

This system does have some positives though, as sending a message chain can provide much context to strange messages and make it more obvious if a message is corrupted, all for the simple cost of increasing the load on one’s pet mutant to almost intolerable levels. Really, in the Imperium, one could not ask for a more perfect method!

I almost change my mind about not sending further communications when the Barghest Chapter Fleet surrounds Quaani’s fleet in a ‘protective’ formation. Over the next ten days the Stellar Pathfinder Fleet and the Barghest Chapter Fleet exchange six shuttles.

At maximum, the Barghest Chapter could have put ninety battle brothers on Distant Sun, and no matter how awesome they might be, I still don’t think the Space Marines could chew through a thirty thousand strong regiment of Heralds, which, if they’ve been updating their mixed regiment like we have, should have three hundred and ninety troops in heavy power armour, not including whatever personal armour the Tech-Priests outside the Stella Corps might have cooked up for themselves over the last two decades.

With those numbers, and a home territory advantage, I’d give my Heralds a decent chance of winning against such odds, or at least be so costly that it isn’t worth the assault. Now that I think about it, that might be why I received an invitation to Grave’s Bite a day after the first shuttle exchange.

Depending on how much Odhran actually told them, they’ll regret it if they resort to threats with me on board as I have a few new tricks.

Two days before we arrive at the Mandeville point, we finally get to turn our prows towards the Barghest Fleet, our retro-thrusters now able to slow us for the last bit. Secure vox messages become viable and I finally get to see Quaani’s face again through a series of visual and text messages that I receive every few hours, and then minutes, as we close in.

Watching the message I can see that he’s picked up a small mutation and now has nictitating membranes across his Human eyes, and he still has the extra joint in his long fingers, much like I did until I replaced my hands with machines.

“Hello Aldrich, it is good to be nearly home. I’m looking forward to meeting my new ‘cousins’. Hopefully they will like the gifts I have brought them. It’s been an eventful journey, and I’ll give you the full details later, but you’re no doubt pacing around Iron Crane wondering why and how I’ve acquired a Luna-Class cruiser.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Well, the truth is, it isn’t ours, but it could be. The cruiser, Torchbearer, belongs to a renegade navigator house, House Lafiel, what’s left of them anyway. Only six males remain, all too mutated to sire new navigators. Even if they did manage to strike a deal with another house, their meddling with the genetics in search for greater power and freedom from persecution, or so they tell me, means they can only father male children.

“I met them at Footfall, the first and last port for all who traverse in and out of the Koronus Expanse. They tried to abduct me for their house, but thanks to all the training I received from Ylien, and the awesome armour you gave me, we trounced them and abducted one of theirs instead.

“Thus began negotiations.

“Heal them and they will join our house and gift their Luna-Cruiser to the Stellar Fleet. It’s in crappy condition compared to what we’re used to but still functional.

“The Torchbearer’s chief enginseer had a right fit when I started telling him how to do his job. He even tried to sabotage the reactors and was even more furious when I cracked his simplistic codes and overrode his authority on the ship. He and his cronies got an eyeful, then the Heralds gunned them down.

“There were a few more attempts to rectify this ‘Insult’, but they never got anywhere as I was quick to gain the favour of the primary Machine-Spirit, whom I named Phase, and after ten years, the red robed fools revere me like the Omnissiah’s own son!

“It’s honestly rather annoying and I don’t know how you put up with it. Maybe you don’t notice? You can be quite oblivious, or maybe you’re just too polite to read everyone's emotions all of the time. Most of the tech-priests I’ve met were a lot more normal, but the ones on Torchbearer are unusually mad and fond of zapping everything with electricity from their fingertips.

“Do not shake their hands or mechadendrites and try to be nice to them. They don’t deserve such favour!”

As I read Quaani’s message, I can’t keep the smile off my face. I exchange a few more messages and we agree that I should meet the Space Marines before him because their big fleet is making both of us nervous and he’s getting annoyed at them poking around Distant Sun, looking for Emperor knows what. He’d refuse if he could but he doesn’t have anything that needs hiding and they have more and bigger guns.

I soon find myself on a Class three D-POT, with its squadron of escorts following behind. The five Space Marines, Odhran, Killian, Darrah, Nuada, and Eoghan are with me, as is my entire bodyguard company, still led by Captain Bedwyr Keane. A class three D-POT can hold a whole battalion, so we’re rather floating about in here with all this space, but I wanted to posture a bit as well and it never hurts to bring torpedoes.

Soon, I get an up close view of Grave’s Bite, the pilot completing a single loop around the nine kilometre ship. The Battle Barge is far wider and flatter than a normal Imperial ship with a hammerhead shaped prow and far more substantial Cathedral and Castellan superstructures than Iron Crane.

The hammerhead prow is an absolutely massive seven point two kilometre square hangar, spread across four decks, with a shimmering void shield across it, looking more like the wide maw of a great beast than something constructed by Human hands.

The Castellan has distinct tubes where one can launch drop pods with speed and ease. A massive Bombard Cannon is also housed within the Castellan, and there are two lance turrets in the centre of the vessel along the spine. Both port and starboard sides of Grave’s Bite have three Macro-Cannon batteries, each wide enough to drive a lorry down. I doubt anything smaller than a cruiser would last more than a volley or two from all those guns and I become increasingly nervous as we approach the mammoth vessel. Especially when I count over four thousand CIWS.

The stern of the vessel is a bit odd, reminding me of the ornate ships of the line used by European vessels during the Age of Sail. Really, it would look more at home on a pirate ship, I think, than a Space Marine Battle Barge. Each Battle Barge is unique to its Chapter though, so I guess the designers of this one wanted to stand out in some way.

As we slip into the prow hanger I get a chance to measure the armour, twenty-four metres of adamantium, ceramite, and plasteel composite, which does not surprise me in the slightest, and an additional eight metres of ablative ferrocrete, which is quite the shock given the material’s weight. Distant Sun and Iron Crane only have two metres of ferrocrete!

We set down in the hangar and disembark, Odhran and his marines first, then Eire and I, then one squad of Heralds in power armour and five Vanguards with their twenty-five supporting infantry.

Arrayed before is almost a third of an entire Chapter, with three companies of marines and all their supporting vehicles. I spot no less than six Dreadnaughts, forty Rhinos and nine Predators. Supporting Tech-Marines, pilots, and Apothecaries are also present, a total of four-hundred and eight Space-Marines.

What stands out is that absolutely none of them have their helmets on, which doesn’t seem right for what is obviously a full parade. Instead they are tucked beneath their arms and their bolters are strapped to their chests. Before I can work out what is going on, they all begin to sing a lively gothic chant.

I freeze, our little group stopping with me.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.

His Day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:

“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;

Let the Hero, born of precious seed, crush the xeno with his heel,

Since God is marching on.”

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgement-seat:

Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies He was born across the sea,

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:

As he burns to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

[Battle-Hymn of the Republic, by Julia Ward Howe. Slightly altered for the 41st Millennium.]

The whole hanger echoes with their voices, sending a shiver down my spine.

I was expecting shouts and accusations, endless posturing and shows of strength.

I didn’t expect to cry.