“I’ll be right there Quaani. Where are you now?”

“The navigator spire with Headmaster Sop.”

“I’ll be twenty minutes. Can you hold on until then?”

“Yeah, I’m not dying, exactly.”

“Alright. Aldrich out.” I hang up. “Mr Cygnus. Coordinate with Aruna, and clear the hangar. We’re going for a combat landing.”

Pushing the thunderhawk to its maximum acceleration, an unpleasant ten gravities, forces me into the seat. I can see why usually space marines and machine-spirits are the only pilots for thunderhawks. This is really rough.

As the Distant Sun comes into view, covered in lights and glinting metal, Mr Cygnus squawks and hisses highlighting a particular point near the navigator spire on one of the thunderhawk’s pict-viewers.

Unable to speak, I reply via my implants, “Of course it has a private airlock. Thank you Mr Cygnus.”

Flipping the thunderhawk, I decelerate just as fast, Mr Cygnus aiding me so the thundhawk’s side door lines up perfectly with the airlock.

“Thank you for your aid, once I leave, please return to the main hangar.

Mr Cygnus waves me away with his wing as I undo the straps from the pilot’s seat and rush to the exit. A thunk echoes through the hull as the thunderhawk seals against the airlock.

Yellow lights flash and, with combat protocols engaged, the door opens immediately, rather than the usual thirty seconds. I pat the door frame as I pass, idly daubing a dash of sacred oil on an ancient mechanism where I notice one of the plasteel locking rods required two percent more power to retract than the rest of the door.

I ascend the extravagant spire, one of the few places in the ship still coated in precious, shiny metals. It didn’t seem right to mess with Quaani’s family home and he hasn’t asked me to change it either.

Five fine landscape paintings later, I arrive at the private medicae facility, an immodest, ten bed ward with an operating theatre, drug synthesising facility and dispensary, and two spacious consultation rooms.

E-SIM highlights the left side consultation room and the door opens silently as I approach.

Within, Quaani lies on a gurney, chewing through a mountain of snacks, though he is as thin as ever. Multiple diagnostic machines are fixed to the walls, though none are in use.

Aileen sits upright in a grox leather office chair next to Quaani. A small amount of frost crystals cover the walls and their breaths fog the air.

I walk over to Quaani and reach out to his hand.

Quaani pulls back, “Better keep your distance, Aldrich, we’re not sure what might make this worse.” He gives me a weak smile.

I sigh, “Well, if you think that’s best.” I step away and stand so I can see Aileen and Quaani. “Please tell me what is going on.”

Alieen glances at Quaani, who nods his head.

“Go ahead, Headmaster. You know more than I do.”

“Very well, Quaani.” Alieen looks up at me, “This will take a while Aldrich, take a seat, I don’t want to get a crook in my neck.”

I pull a sturdy stool from under one of the counters lining the wall and sit.

Alieen rubs his hands and leans back, “Well now. Let’s start with what we do know. A navigator, like Quaani, is an engineered human given psychic powers for a specific purpose. A psyker is a standard human with a greater than average connection to the warp capable of manipulating it to any purpose, so long as they have the will to do so.

“Navigators are specialists. They are limited in what they can do, however they are more powerful in their given task and it is reasonably safe for them to use their powers.

“For each new skill they learn, a navigator risks mutation. While most are benign, if inconvenient, cosmetic changes, some can be debilitating or beneficial. A navigator does not get to choose their mutation, it is a random response from their engineered navigator gene that lets them channel their new power safely.

“Mutations do not always occur and navigators with a gene strain closer to the first navigators suffer from fewer mutations and are called navigator scions. Quaani is a navigator scion which is what makes this situation so unusual.

“Psykers are generalists, they can do almost anything, but are weaker and at constant risk of possession and madness. They rarely suffer from mutation. Like any skilled role, psykers often specialise in different disciplines. These are biomancy, divination, pyromancy, telekinesis, and telepathy. These disciplines are by no means exhaustive, but they do cover the majority of known and practised skills.

“There is some crossover between psykers and navigators. Technically, they are interchangeable, but a psyker who tried to navigate would, in almost all cases, go immediately mad, and a navigator who tried to learn a psyker skill rather than one of their engineered abilities, is unlikely to reach the heights of a psyker in that discipline. Why bother when they can learn a different skill with a similar effect? There’s more than one way to blow shit up, afterall.

“There are a few crossover exceptions, like warpfire, or witchfire as it is sometimes called, and most navigators and psykers can at least sense emotions, glimpse the future at random, or levitate minor objects.”

Quaani sits up a little straighter and nibbles on a biscuit, “It’s like those story games you played with me when I was little. A navigator is a sorcerer and a psyker is a wizard.”

I chuckle, “That does sound more familiar to me. Thank you, both of you, for the explanation. So what’s up with Quaani? I see he is still struggling with his appetite.”

“It seems like my family, House Rey’a’Nor, has been keeping secrets,” Quaani smirks. “While that’s like saying orks like a ‘gud’ fight. We think my appetite comes from my body building energy for a mutation.

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“Normally, this should have happened years ago, as I’ve learned a lot of things from the Clubhouse and Aileen has been helping me with the few books on navigation that you found in my stasis capsule and data slates in hidden compartments around the spire.

“So far, my only mutations are my third eye, my increased height, long limbs, and large clawed hands and feet. These are the most generic and benign mutations a navigator can hope for, but even the most elite of scions should have more mutations for the number of skills that I have.

“This appetite of mine has been a problem for long enough that I should have the energy for whatever mutation I am supposed to have and you’ve reconfigured my auto-sanguine enough times it no longer interferes as much as it used to in preventing navigator mutations.

“Headmaster Sop and I theorise that Rey’a’Nor scions can choose, or at least guide their body towards specific mutations, but neither of us know how to do so and we can’t test it without significant risk to my life, leaving me stuck in this limbo that is gradually worsening and will no doubt result in a truly horrendous mutation, or death, if I don’t give direct it in some manner.”

Quaani hugs himself and shivers, his voice dropping to a whisper, “I was hoping you would know what to do.”

“I’ll see what my archeotech has to say. It has some good scanners,” I point at the machines on the wall and frown, “and I don’t know how to use those ones. They look like artisan work for Rey’a’Nor.”

My everyday auspex isn’t intended for this type of work, instead I move a nanyte lathe over Quaani and spray his body with a thin, dull silver mist. The nanites flow into his body, directed by the exotic field projected by my Warp and Weft module.

“Now we wait.”

Aileen leans closer, “What is that grey dust?”

“Exceptionally small machines. There are many types as each one is so small it can only do one thing. The ones I am using now are called medical nanites, or medichines if you are feeling trendy. Right now they are collecting every known measurement multiple times a second, building up a picture of Quaani’s body.”

“They are warp based. It is the first time I have seen such a thing,” says Aileen

“Arcanotech is a rare and poorly understood technology. These are the end goal of those psychic hoods you made for our twist catchers.”

“I passed that work on to some of my students. Once you acquired more resources from your moth class vessels, we were able to make a couple hundred of them. I confess, I got bored and delegated.”

Shaking my head slightly, I say, “I do that too. Still it is good we can now have thirty squads of six and a few spare, rather than thirty soldiers total. Power armour production is ramping up too.

“The twist catchers should be fully equipped within five years now. At least the psycho-indoctrination trial with them was a success, though it does make personnel a little inflexible and prone to anger and violence. We’re trying to fix that before treating the officers as doing so right now would wreck the work culture we’ve been cultivating.”

“Any luck?”

“Not yet, it’s the same technology the imperium uses on its political officers, the commissars, and the space marines. I always wondered why they are all so trigger happy and I fear it may be a limitation of the technology.”

“You’ll find a way.”

“I appreciate the confidence.” I pass the nanyte lathe over Quaani and retrieve my nanites.

Quaani grips his hands together over his chest, “What did you find out?”

“There is a lot of potential energy in your body, Quaani. Enough to be hazardous not just to you, but the whole vessel.”

“How bad?”

I take my helmet off and hold it on my lap, then look Quaani in the eyes, “You will need to say your goodbyes, then I will place you in stasis in the chapel.”

“I really don’t want to go back in there, Aldrich. Will I ever wake up?”

“Yes. It won’t be forever. I do have a way to fix you, and it will likely require both Aileen and you to help me at the very least. I will likely need to establish a special research group if we want to do this in a reasonable time frame, but it is possible.”

“What if you need a navigator?”

“We’ll have to do a cogitator guided journey and pray, pray endlessly. We’re far too far from the astronomicon for it to be safe or reliable.”

“How are you going to fix me?”

“Round up all the tau and capture them. They were close enough with their hybrids that I expect they can research how to fix you.”

“Really?”

Well, no. What I really mean is I am going to have to personally slay a thousand tau, or other threat, to unlock the navigator conversion and hope that by studying it I will learn how to fix Quaani. I don’t want to say that though as it sounds like the ravings of a psychopath.

“Yes, really. Even if I have to take a thousand years to research it from scratch, I will cure you, though hunting down house Rey’a’Nor for a cure would be faster. If they have one.”

Quaani sniffles and wipes his eyes, “Thanks Aldrich, for not, you know, just purging the mutant.”

I chuckle, “You’ve little to worry about there, you’d be taking us all with you if I did that.”

Aruna’s voice rumbles from the walls, “That’s what the airlock is for.”

“Thank you, Aruna, for your encouragement,” I say.

“Aruna is ready to contribute at any time. It has a better cogitator than you do, Magos.”

Quaani laughs then chokes up, “Thanks, Aruna.”

The machine-spirit doesn’t reply and I sense its primary conscious refocus on other tasks.

“Do not fret, Quaani. Aldrich and I have this well in hand.”

Quaani nods slowly, “Could you read me one last story, before you put me to sleep, a final memory, just in case?”

“Sure. It would be my pleasure.”

“Alright, I am ready. Let’s just get this over with.” Quaani sits up, turns and rests his feet on the ground.

“You don’t want to say something to your friends from the psy-errants?” I say.

“I’ll send a few messages. I don’t want it to seem so permanent. They’ll still be there when I get back, right?”

I smile, “That’s the plan.”

“Then let’s go. Thank you for your help, Headmaster.”

“You are welcome, Quaani. I look forward to your recovery.”

Quaani shuffles out of the room.

“Thanks, Aileen,” I say.

“You lied, you know. Quaani noticed. He knows you well and while your mechanical shield protects your thoughts, it does not hide your emotions. I can taste them on my tongue. I recognise that you do have a plan and I would prefer you shared it. Hidden agendas make cooperation inefficient at the least, and far more likely, a total disaster.”

“We’ll all be working from the same book once I get it and the requisition of knowledge will require the blunt and bloody approach you so despise. Is that enough?”

“Yes, Aldrich. That’s just fine. Now, go and read your adopted son his bed time story,” he smiles then shakes his head, “even if you both prefer to pretend he isn’t. You really shouldn’t let pride, blood, and politics obstruct family ties.”

I stand and shake Aileen’s hand, “Until next time, Aileen.”

“Good night, Aldrich.”

As I walk to the chapel, I realise I have become an imperial. Tomorrow I will commit xenocide.

For the greater good.