I hand Thorfinn two beads and some ear defenders, “Put this one in your ear, clip that to your breastplate, and put these over your head. The vehicle can get quite loud, these will let us talk to each other and protect your ears.”

Quaani heads to the other chimera, surrounded by servitors.

I take off my helmet and demonstrate with my own set of vox beads and ear defenders, then step up the rear ramp onto the chimera, keeping my helmet off to be more personable.

We take our seats and I show Thorfinn how to secure himself. I order the chimera to advance towards the city and drive on the grass verge to avoid damaging their paved stone roads. We travel at a sedate ten kilometres per hour, so as to allow any messengers time to reach the appropriate authorities.

“Well, you don’t look like an alien,” says Thorfinn.

“I should hope not! I’ve put significant effort into maintaining my humanity. Flesh may be weak, but staying connected to my origins reminds me that all humans matter. It is not good to sneer at others because they come from other places or have less knowledge than I do.”

“I don’t quite follow.”

“The organisation I am part of, the Adeptus Mechanicus, make and honour the machines the Imperium uses to protect and advance humanity. This includes ourselves as we replace much of our flesh with machines to foster communication and understanding between us and the mechanical spirits we worship, as well as withstand the trials of travelling among the stars. We believe a person's worth is weighted by the breadth and depth of their knowledge. Our motto is ‘The flesh is weak’. Does that make more sense to you now?”

“A little, thank you. How about an example?

“Sure, watch my face.” I activate my electoos, lighting my skin with tiny, blue-white lights showing thousands of runes.

Thorfinn pushes back into his seat, his eyes wide and his breathing rapid, “What the fuck is that?”

“Tattoos, ink made of light, painted beneath my skin. They help protect my body, mind, and soul from all the things that go bump in the night.”

“Guess there’s an awful lot of dark in space.”

I let the electoos fade, “There is. Apologies for the scare.”

Thorfinn takes a few deep breaths and gets himself under control, “Well, careful what you wish for, and all that. Why’d you even go if it’s that dangerous?”

“For me? I wasn’t given a choice and now I search the stars for knowledge and safe harbours. For others, they make pilgrimages for their faith, or seek wealth and fame. For the Imperium, it’s as much about wealth, power, and politics as it is grim necessity. Aliens, or xenos as we call them, are universally unfriendly and when our interests compete with theirs, well, its war. Someone has to fight and someone has to get them to the fight. Planets cannot stand alone and so we travel the stars, praying that we make it in time.”

“There aren’t any more xenos coming here are there?”

“It is unlikely. There are over a million known settled worlds in the Imperium of Man, the political entity that claims and enforces sovereignty over all humans and the Milky Way Galaxy.

“While the Imperium is always at war across thousands of worlds, it’s only a small percentage of the whole. The galaxy is really big. You’d have to have something others want and they’d have to know how to get here; travelling in a voidship is like trying to thread a needle in a storm, with a single, dim light to lead the way.”

“Ah, I appreciate the clarification. Do you consider us as part of the Imperium?”

“I do. There is a satellite, a mechanical lighthouse, high in the sky that states the planet’s name and who it belongs to. It also records visitors and there have been no visitors or envoys for such a long time, I would imagine knowledge of your allegiance is sparse or outright ignored. Most of the Imperium won’t know you exist either.”

“That isn’t going to be a problem, is it?”

“From me? No. I prefer a more... diplomatic approach. I’m not here to collect tithes or force tribute.”

Thorfinn swallows, “Glad to hear it.” He knocks two knuckles against the hull, “What sort of self-powered carriage is this?”

“This is a chimera, an armoured personnel carrier used by all of the different forces of the Imperium. It takes soldiers to and from the battlefield, or occasionally into it.”

I glance at the interior. The chimera is six point nine metres long, five point seven metres wide, and three point seven two metres tall, with six jump seats on each side of the hull and an armoured crew cabin for three up front.

Beneath my feet the drive chain chugs away, powered by a ‘vulcanor sixteen’, twin-coupled, multi-burn engine. Meaning a single sixteen cylinder engine drives both tracks at separate speeds and can burn any liquid fuel you care to fill it with from animal fat to peroxide, though it does perform better if you fill it with refined hydrocarbons.

“How much of what I’ve said do you already know?”

“A great star empire is mentioned in passing at school and we have many stories, both good and bad, of visitors from the sky and their great city ships of metal and fire. We do have surviving written accounts and paintings of ships and visitors, as well as a small trade in artefacts of unknown function throughout the country.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“I’m glad you have at least heard of us. A little shared knowledge makes conversation much easier.”

“Oh, I agree. You and your machines are quite scary enough as it is. I’m guessing all the swivelling pointy bits are weapons, yes?”

“They are. You’re a smart man, Thorfinn. I admit the show of force is intentional. It helps speed negotiations and frustrate unruly despots.”

There are dozens of different ways to outfit a chimera and I’ve kept these two fairly traditional, with a multi-laser on a low slung turret on top of the chassis, a flamer sticking out the front of the hull on the left hand side, and six, hull mounted lasguns, three each on the left and right sides, that passengers can operate.

I’ve added all the bells and whistles I could fit on it too: extra armour and track guards; a rack of hunter-killer missiles, long range anti-armour weapons; a pintle mounted storm bolter, a type of double barreled bolter gun on a remote operated swivel; searchlights; smoke launchers, dispensers that create a thick, auspex inhibiting cloud around the vehicle; and last of all, a dozer blade, a big chunk of metal attached to the front of the chimera that can clear debris and adds even more armour, like the ram on a void ship.

Total overkill for people with crossbows and ballistae, but this is the 42nd millennium and I prefer to be prepared; in my power armour I’m actually tougher than the chimera, more mobile, faster, and have at least a similar level of firepower.

Thorfinn quirks his lips, “I don’t think anyone will miss your message.”

I nod, “Let’s put that aside for now. You mentioned more xenos?”

“Right, noticed that did you? You’ll bump into them soon enough. About twenty years ago a hammerhead shaped vessel was chucked out of this big purple swirl in the sky and crashed into the ocean a couple hundred kilometres from here.

“Whoever was in it survived and they visited us on these floating platforms with sleek, curved lines painted in orange and white. They had some real fancy, blocky armour and the commissioner pulled a great face when one took his helmet off and their face was blue. Called themselves the tau. You know about them?”

I frown, “I’ve never met one, but I have heard of them. I am surprised you found them here. The Tau Empire is small and on the opposite side of the galaxy.”

“They made a big splash. I don’t think they expected to come all that way either.”

“Have they made trouble?”

“Naw, they mostly keep to themselves but they do have an emissary and a few staff here. A couple score at most. They like to preach their greater good, but folk ‘round here aren’t the community minded types and hate being told what to do, so it hasn’t really caught on. There’s probably more to it than that though.”

“That’s good to hear.”

I access the Distant Sun remotely and start loading my lone class two D-POT with vehicles, munitions, and servitors, as well as another four class ones. The remaining five D-POTs get queued for a weapons refit and testing.

“Ah, do they not get on with the Imperium?”

“They like to try. The accounts I’ve read on them suggest diplomacy is almost always their first choice, but like any monolithic entity, so long as the gains outway the cost, they don’t take ‘No’ for an answer. It never ends well for anybody.”

“Maybe you could speak first and shoot later?”

“I’m not going to stand and scream at them, Thorfinn, nor shower them in flames.”

“Wonderful.”

“Thank you for telling me about the tau. That is worth a lot to me. Let’s plump up that tab of yours a bit more. Please tell me what it’s like to live here. How safe is it? What do people eat and drink? How does everyone spend their leisure time?”

“Not too safe. All the wildlife has these metal bones, you see, so they’re real hard to put down. Everything breeds fast too, so it can get a mite hairy if we can’t trap ‘em fast enough. Their bones make good tools and armour though, so it’s not all doom and gloom.”

“Keep going.”

“We don’t have much fuel, as we have to make charcoal from plant, animal, and human waste. Downside is that hot, cooked food is a luxury at home, but pretty affordable from a canteen, so most people eat at public kitchens. Plus side is, because our trees don’t burn, on account of it being full of metal like the wildlife, they make excellent building material. Which is good, because low fuel makes cement expensive.”

“To me, that’s fascinating.”

“Glad to hear it, seems normal to me though.”

“I would imagine so.”

“Right, so, one big problem we have around here is earthquakes and big tides. The rabbits dig everywhere too, and they dig deep, chasing metal seams, which just makes the earthquakes worse, so watch out for that.”

“Thank you. I will take extra care.”

“That’s nice. So, for the last thing you wanted to know, entertainment, yeah?”

“That’s correct.”

“Well, people have their hobbies, you know, painting, drinking, carving, singing, but if you’re looking for something special, that’d be the magic shows.”

“Magic shows?”

“Yeah, you know. Psykers. All flame, fury, and sparkles. Why, what do you do with yours?”

Oh dear.

“They are used for communications, espionage, and special military actions.”

Mostly they are hunted or sacrificed. I’m not saying that though.

“What, really? ‘Round here they are healers, entertainers, and artisans. A few go into government, but we never use them for military purposes. It’s one of the few international treaties we have. We have a lot of policies to keep psykers happy and sober. The tau came up with the idea and ever since then there’s been no... incidents whatsoever.”

Posters on a theatre flash by on an external camera as we pass through the city.

Fuck me, they’re using reality warping magic to spice up a children’s musical.

I should return to orbit and flee.

No wait. Nothing bad has happened for eighteen years. I should be fine for a few hours and I really need to trade for new crew, maybe their metals too.

I can’t avoid risk forever.

“Incidents? No, on second thoughts, I can guess and I don’t want to know. That your planet is still inhabited must be by the grace of the Emperor.”

“If you say so. I think we’ve been doing fine alone.”

“How many psykers do you have?”

“Well, ever since that rift opened in the sky and spat that tau vessel out, there’s been a bit of an uptick.”

“How many, Thorfinn. I have to know.”

“Er, like, one in a hundred people, maybe?”

Fuck. Me.