Alone in the meeting room again, my head swelled with the idea of being responsible for the direct death and misery of close to a quarter-million people and indirectly affecting the lives of millions more. On the flip side, logically speaking if we do not end this swiftly that number will balloon upwards with no end in sight, so this would be the best way forward.
But... deep inside I was just a gamer geek, not some imperial heiress of a galactic spanning empire who might be able to casually disregard that sort of numbers with a contemptuous scoff.
For reasons unknown, when Kryptorer told me the number of estimated casualties, it made me recall the vague, horrible scenes I saw back in the activation chamber when pressed by Thaberus.
Now that I think about it, ever since coming to this world everything I had experienced could be recalled with absolute clarity... all except for that moment. The strange implications sent crippling fear down my spine.
So many questions, so little time. I had promised Kryptorer to get back to him within the next twenty-four hours should I want any revisions done with his plan or he will just proceed with the planned massacre with me involved as the main catalyst. Somehow, my instinct was telling me that going down that path of mass casualties was to tread the path of eventual damnation.
Getting a grip on myself, I reexamined my current predicament and realised I needed to know exactly where I was in the timeline to exploit my knowledge of the universe.
<++ Received and ready to serve, Authority. ++>
<++ 999.M41.++>
As soon as I heard 999.M41, the reason why Astronomican went offline became apparent to me. This must be the time when Chaos Warmaster Abaddon’s Thirteenth Black Crusade had concluded with the destruction of the Fortress World Cadia, resulting in the Great Rift known as the Cicatrix Maledictum being unleashed unto the Imperium.
It was a galaxy-shattering event with three books released in conjunction with it, foreshadowing the return of Roboute Guilliman, primarch of the poster boys of the grimdark universe, the Ultramarines.
I took a deep breath, organised my thoughts and asked again.
<++ Complying. ++>
There was a delay before a 3-dimensional map of the galaxy materialised in my mind and my jaw dropped. I saw it, an indicator on a slowly spinning galaxy pointing in the middle of nowhere at the edge of imperial space, at an area that seemed to be one of the farthest frontiers at the end of the great crusade.
Location: Sub-sector Terminus Obscura, Externus System, planet Nusquam.
A spec of unremarkable dust on the edge of the imperial stage. We were so far off from any major imperial system that the whole subsector might have died off for centuries before any central administrative staff would notice.
Those implications made my blood run cold. The Imperium will soon enter one of its most turbulent times in history. It will be so occupied by its troubles during this period, even if we did successfully get a message out ...no one will be coming.
Cut off from the rest of the Imperium, suffering from a civil war with a decisive apocalyptic battle happening soon, not to mention a looming renegade space marines threat and more, even if we survived all that, this world will be so weak it will just fall over if any more horrors from the hostile galaxy came forth, and my instincts were screaming just that - more horrors are coming.
Running away was also out of the question, assuming I could even convince Kryptorer to abandon the technological wonders just in front of him to pack up and leave, I questioned the odds of us getting back to any major imperial system in one piece with the Astronomican offline here.
Why am I in so much trouble? What did Syrine tell me on that foggy road? I searched my mind and her words came clear as day, “Help me and the others. In exchange, my abilities, my body and my soul are yours,” she had said the words with such sincerity when I promised to help but... I didn’t know she meant it so literally.
Darn it girl, why do you run away from all these. Why did she ask for my help when she had this much power? Was there anything I can even offer up when compared to a literal minor demigoddess like her? I have got nothing but a heap of cheesy gaming experiences and a boatload of pop culture stuff to show for Throne’s sake.
I felt cornered, my core shaking at the looming crisis, a sense of existential dread started creeping over, making me want to curl into a ball and cry. This feeling was eerily reminiscent of a familiar anime scene, where this boy who was the pilot of the most powerful mecha in his world, despite the power he wielded always succumbed to his emotional weakness and did not pull his weight. I remembered scoffing at such a scenario but now that I was smacked right into one, it sure isn’t fun is it? Baka Shinji!
Am I losing my mind? What if I had been Syrine all along and my gamer geek life was a dream instead? Do I have any proof that my old self ever existed? Suddenly doubting both my past and present, I tried recalling the details from my gamer geek life and found that while my memories of them were vivid, they felt somewhat faded from my current point of view.
Was it because of my current transhuman level of senses? This world seemed so vivid, so beautiful. A beautiful yet grim world… wasn’t there a song from that anime with the title of “Beautiful World”?
Feeling depressed about the grim situation, I tried to mentally recall that song in my head. First, the theme came back slowly, then the melody, bit by bit it gathered and before I knew it the song was perfectly replicated and repeating itself in my head. “Beautiful world~ beautiful boy~” the song went.
Somehow hearing the music in my head calmed me down. Since this song exists, so should my past. Can I play it in the physical realm? Will this count as piracy across dimensions?
Desperately needing a distraction, I looked for solutions for the technical challenge at hand and the formidable intellect locked within me started working. It seemed like I had an instinctual level of understanding of the technologies in this world. After some tinkering, I linked up with the cogitators of the fortress and did the data processing of converting thoughts into sound, a myriad of tweakings and data conversions later, a digital record of the song was successfully created and stored in my pendant.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
<++ Complying. ++>
Will it play? Suffice to say this was not a real mp3 file, I just labelled it as such for ease of self-use. If this worked it might be the first known case of plagiarism across dimensions and time, I held my breath. The speakers came to life and as if magic, a remastered copy of the music started playing perfectly in the meeting room. “Beautiful world~”
It played, IT PLAYED!
I sighed and slumped on my chair, losing myself in the familiar song that echoed in the meeting room, letting my intellect work to passively optimise the acoustic quality until it hits the right spots. Warm tears would be flowing down my cheeks now if not for [Regalis] keeping my composure in check.
After calming down, my survival instinct kicked in and my mind started moving again. I realised now was the rare precious moment I could sit down and think. From my experience, once something massive in life starts you will just get sucked right into the centre of the maelstrom without time and space to reflect on what to do.
So I did exactly that, abusing my ability by spamming thought acceleration to review what I had known so far again and again. A lot of critical questions began to surface as I took an in-depth review of the current situation.
Take the opposition forces for example, both the armed men and marines who attacked us did not look tainted by chaos by any stretch, I had also by this point dug into the available reports inside the database of the fortress on them and found no clear evidence of the rebels renouncing the Emperor or pledging their allegiance to ruinous powers, so while working with a suspicious group of space marines might be their biggest sin here to label all the people on the opposition as heretics without reserves might be too hasty of an action that left no room for any other recourse.
As to why Kryptorer was directly calling them heretics … well, he is from the Mechanicus, and anyone who deprived a member of the Mechanicus of new toys is a heretic from their point of view.
I chewed on the situation, digesting and looked closely at it until a rough way out of this dire predicament could be seen, but it was riding on so many knife edges I winced by just looking at the end product.
First I will need to work on minimizing human and hardware casualties in the upcoming battle, as massive as this planetary civil war was, a sense of foreboding told me it will be nothing compared to what was looming in the future. My best odds of moving forward would be having as many layers of stuff between me and the cosmic horrors which were no myths in this universe.
After all, being cut off from the rest of the Imperium with an active psychic beacon would be like walking alone in the middle of the night in a death world forest infested with apex predators with a huge lantern in hand - you are basically expediting your own demise. On the other hand, shutting down the beacon presented too many complex questions and would need a thorough review.
I needed to leverage my position and knowledge of this universe to engineer an optimised outcome or else I might suffer a fate worse than death. That scenario was again not a myth in this world.
With my mind made up, I accessed the fortress’ communication network. After some guesswork, I connected myself to the vox unit that most probably belonged to Niandra.
It connected, but no reply came.
‘Niandra?’ I asked on the vox.
‘Syrine? How did you… nevermind, what do you need?’ Somehow I was enjoying the assassin sounding flustered more than I should, a good thing was with [Regalis] none of my smugness will ever show.
‘I need to talk to Inquisitor Thorn, kindly arrange for me a vox communication with him.’
‘That can be done. By the way, the representatives of Adepta Sororitas are still here and they wish to talk to you again at your next convenience.’ Niandra replied.
‘Didn’t they leave some time ago?’
‘They had a change of plans at the last minute, only their shuttle had left the fortress to fetch more of their people over.’ So Alicya and her companions were still here, guess I was blindsided by the message log their Aquila lander had left the fort.
‘Very well, when can my vox call with Inquisitor Thorn happen?’
‘Hold on, attempting to get him now.’
A moment later, Thaberus’ stern voice entered the chat.
‘Yes?’ asked the inquisitor, as ever he cut straight to the point.
‘Sir, Syrine is on the line and she wishes to speak with you. Niandra out.’ Her exit of the vox was signalled by a system chime.
‘Well?’
‘Inquisitor, I have some critical information regarding our situation and wish to discuss them with you.’ I said.
‘Interesting, I am with the governor now to formally endorse her legitimacy as the sanctioned ruler of this planet and review their actions to regain control.’
That would mean he would be at where Kryptorer would be.
‘Are you aware of the arch dominus’ plan?’ I asked.
‘We had a brief talk, I was pleasantly surprised he did have something concrete to show way before the promised dateline.’
Thank the Throne for competent allies, this saves so much time!
‘So, do we discuss what I have to share now?’
‘Better not, security issues aside I have a few matters to attend to now. Either way, I plan to see you tomorrow morning.’
‘In that case…’ I hesitated a bit before asking, ‘may I enquire are those psykers orbiting the planet your people? If so, can I please ask you to bring one to see me? Preferably one who is familiar with the perils of the warp.’ There was a slight pause before he answered. ‘Very well, I will see what I can do.’
That knowledge was acquired when Arradus and I were making contacts with other imperial worlds, back then I had sensed some peculiar existences that were too near to be on other planets. But then I disregarded it because of the “this dream will end soon anyway” mindset. A while later, it struck me that both Thaberus and Kryptorer should still have their starships nearby, which meant the inquisitor should still have a few psykers on-orbit for whatever reason.
We finalised the details before ending our conversation, then I went to look for Sister Alicya. With my direct access to the fortress’ digital map and security system, I located the young palatine in no time, she was seated in an open area talking with her companions.
‘Lady Syrine.’ Alicya saw me from a distance and stood up, prompting the other two sisters to hastily stand up as well. Something about how they looked tenser just by my mere presence did not sit right with me, but there was little I could do about it.
‘Alicya,’ I said, intentionally skipping her title in an attempt to make things sound more casual, ‘you were looking for me?’ Alicya nodded before replying, ‘Yes, we wish to inform you that Canoness Diadinah, the highest office of my Order is coming to see you, she should be here before nightfall.’
Yet another appointment. I got a feeling things will get a lot busier before calming down.