Damn, Afa's on the Ship

Chapter 8: Damn, Afa's on the Ship

The bustling construction site was alive with activity, heavy machinery operating everywhere as Fourth Legion warriors, fresh from a month of rest, supervised the work.

The Innate Concrete-Pouring Physique certainly lived up to its name. After the Fourth Legion took over, construction on Alicia sped ahead. One sturdy, artfully designed building after another rose from the ground, and the planet's major projects were all completed in a remarkably short time.

The Fourth Legion, still eager for more, even wanted to take on additional jobs. But the Great Crusade was the Legion's real duty. Before setting off, the well-rested warriors had another huge feast, stocked the warehouse with mountains of cola and trial Combat Serum kits gifted by the Primarch, then began their journey to find their father.

"Good luck to them. What a shame to lose such excellent tools," Hogg muttered from the bow of the Blacklight.

After two years of repairs, a message from the Astropathic Choir reached Hogg. The expedition was beginning. The Blackwatch had been tasked by the Emperor to seek out the Primarchs.

Perhaps the Great Crusade had kept the Emperor occupied. For the past few years, Hogg had been left to his own devices, just like the other Primarchs. The Emperor still checked in from time to time, though, to inspect Hogg's increasingly heretical body.

At Alicia's starport, the massive Blacklight and its accompanying ships headed into the void. Near the edge of the system, they entered the Mandeville Point and plunged into the Warp.

For humanity in the Warhammer universe, corruption by Chaos was a dark fate set in stone. As an interstellar civilization, humanity relied on the Warp for long-distance communication and travel. The moment you made use of it, you had to take a bite of the Warp's shit.

Some might ask: couldn't they develop technology that didn't rely on the Warp? They could, but it would be difficult.

Perhaps that would have been possible in Hogg's old universe. But in this one, living beings had souls. You had to give up your soul, like the Necrons, or play on a local network, like the Greenskins. If you didn't want to enjoy the Warp's convenient sea of filth, everything would become far less efficient.

Because this was a goddamn fantasy world—and not everyone could even feast on the Warp's shit. Smaller species like the Tau could only skim its surface, leading to the ridiculous situation where Imperial warships arrived before Tau communications did.

Hogg had also asked Psykers what his Shadow in the Warp looked like. According to them, it was a mass of tentacles that mindlessly devoured the surrounding Warp energy. Any Psyker who saw it would feel horrified and sickened.

That Psyker later chose to undergo memory-erasure surgery, and the matter was classified as a Legion secret. No one was allowed to mention it.

On his first trip into the Warp, Hogg felt no discomfort, only curiosity. Huge tentacles stretched through the Warp, as if celebrating the arrival of their other half. As they swayed mindlessly, some unlucky Warp creatures were snatched up and dissolved.

At Hogg's command, the tentacles stopped moving and wrapped around the Blacklight. As they closed around it, the people aboard stopped fidgeting, and a deathly silence settled over them.

Only Navigators could rely on the Astronomican on Holy Terra to find their way. That was one reason the Astropathic Choir was a pillar of the Imperium.

Travel was dull. Many people might spend their entire lives without ever setting foot off the ship beneath them.

Take the Blacklight, for example. It was 21 kilometers long. As the ship's master, Hogg was not only a Legion Commander but also a mayor.

After consuming a shard of the Void Dragon, Hogg had acquired some C'tan traits. Drawing on the knowledge in his mind, he could cobble together all kinds of bizarre black-tech devices. But even with his current abilities, he couldn't perfectly monitor every corner of the ship.

"So, am I supposed to become a shipgirl?"

As emerald Dimensional Lightning coursed across the Blacklight, the flesh beneath Hogg's feet transformed into tentacles and merged with the warship. A joyful consciousness reached out to the Primarch's own, sharing fragments of information with him. Hogg realized that the consciousness belonged to the Blacklight itself.

Humans lived and died aboard the ship, and the enormous machinery around them made the formation of a Machine Spirit inevitable. The good news was that the Blacklight liked Hogg very much. It was a newly formed, fully developed consciousness—and incredibly powerful.

The Blacklight sent a sliver of light into Hogg's body. According to her, once he had it, he could communicate with her and control the ship's functions, like using a television remote.

Let's see what my warriors are up to.

The view shifted, and a cabin came into sight. Some Blackwatch warriors were honing their skills in the fighting cages. Their moves were a little underhanded—good. Some were playing cards and taking a break, even cheating—not bad either. My daughters were praying to my statue. Fine, let them be. This was Emilia. What was she doing in bed? _〆(Д｀) No! Don't do that! Don't use my figurine for something weird!

Hogg hastily switched views and explored every corner like a ghost. Some people were resting, some were browsing intelligence reports, and some were devouring food like there was no tomorrow.

Thanks to the crew's preference for a tidy environment, the lower decks weren't in disarray. Squads of Imperial Guard patrolled the pipes. No contamination, no bald purple people, no Greenskin trouble.

"Good! Hm? Wait, that's not right."

He quickly shifted the view. The figure of a Blackwatch recruit appeared before Hogg again, then was projected onto the bridge.

"Father, what's wrong?" asked Lyla Lynn, commander of the Primarch's honor guard, along with the other Blackwatch warriors.

"Think about it carefully! Browsing classified intelligence isn't the problem. You might not be able to sense it, but I can tell at a glance he absolutely isn't one of us. Even though his disguise is exceptionally convincing, it's still a clumsy one." Hogg's eyes sharpened.

"Are you all blind? His behavior is far too normal—nothing like you bunch of idiots. And his hair! Where's our Legion's signature, flashy hairstyle? That guy's obviously bald, isn't he?" At the Primarch's words, everyone noticed what they had missed.

Rossmanderson shouted, "Exactly! Our hair is part of the Legion's culture. Even recruits fresh out of surgery get sent to pick a signature hairstyle. There are barely any bald people on the whole ship."

One minute later, a squad of the Primarch's guards in Terminator Power Armor stormed into the archives. The staff sorting documents were all placed under guard, and everyone's identity was checked. But the Blackwatch warrior who should have been there had vanished.

That didn't faze Hogg. Emerald lightning flashed, and a shadow in the corridor shattered, spitting out a figure: the infiltrator who had posed as an archivist. He had changed into a white staff uniform and stood conspicuously in the corridor.

The moment he was discovered, the target bolted. He smashed straight through a sealed bulkhead, and the others couldn't keep up with him.

Perhaps smashing through the bulkhead angered the Machine Spirit. Hogg sensed the target's location, and emerald lightning flashed. Metal softened, and liquefied Plasteel and Adamantium flowed over the fleeing target like a blob monster.

A crackling sound rang out. A massive surge of blue-white electricity struck the figure, who had already managed to push half his body out of the metal sphere.

Twenty-seven seconds later, the guards escorted a figure before the Primarch.

Hogg, his flowing white hair out of the fusion, looked over the fake Blackwatch warrior before him. The others drew their Bolters and aimed them at the impostor, while the fake on the floor looked back at him.

"How did you find me out? I'd like to know why, brother."

The fake Blackwatch warrior—or perhaps Alpharius, the Emperor's twentieth son, the most incomprehensible Primarch—asked his brother.