The ship ordered Evan, the Dancing Great Sage, and everyone else who had been in the room to leave.
After some shaking and a series of strange mechanical noises, everyone was astonished to find that the door opened directly onto the hangar.
The Imperium still possessed this technology, but it was never used aboard warships. Well, this thing hardly counted as a ship anyway.
Several members of the Adeptus Mechanicus saw the Archmagos's condition and hurried over.
"He's fine. He took in too much data and needs time to process it," Evan quickly explained.
The Mechanicus personnel both "loved" and hated the Archmagos. Why hadn't they been the ones allowed inside? This was forbidden knowledge!
The senior Mechanicus personnel who had accompanied them had spent ages scanning the room out of boredom. They discovered that they couldn't even manufacture the material used for its walls, but found nothing else.
Simply put, they had visited a museum, said, "Wow, that's impressive," and gone home. Their only takeaway was knowing how impressive it was.
"All right, don't lose heart," Evan reassured them. "We reached an agreement. We can exchange extremely rare ores for technology here. Ask Gladys about the details when you get back. Now, they've told us to leave. Let's go."
Two small craft wobbled out through the newly opened gap in the opposing ionic stream layer, and everyone finally relaxed.
Chief Librarian Mororis ordered an escort ship forward. Ignoring the fact that it had entered the enemy's ionic stream range, he had it position itself directly between Evan's craft and the enemy.
Both craft returned to their respective warships. Evan was immediately surrounded, and powerful Psyker Power swept over his body as Mororis carefully examined his condition.
"Chief Librarian, why did you come out?"
"Why did I come out? Evan! Act like a Chapter Master! You're a leader, the leader of a Chapter! You aren't some Chapter Champion who looks for someone to duel the moment a battle starts. You're a commander!"
Mororis's roar shook Evan to his core. He wanted to argue back, but judging by the atmosphere, this probably wasn't the right time.
"You're the heart of the entire Chapter. At the very least, you should lead a unit. Risking your life alone is the most irrational choice you could make. Who do you think you are? Even someone as powerful as the Emperor had his Adeptus Custodes guard with him..."
The Chief Librarian waved the mismatched weapons and Lightning Claws mounted on his chassis, making his fury plain.
"This Chapter is only just getting started. These lost young recruits still need you to lead them. You're their spiritual anchor. Stop constantly thinking about..."
Evan received a thorough dressing-down. Fortunately, everything had turned out fine. This artificial intelligence wasn't the rebel enemy they had imagined.
"Do you understand our current situation? Even I can feel how much stronger I've become. The barrier between the Warp and reality is extremely thin right now. We must stay alert for enemy retaliation."
That was true. Leaving the Luna Wolves' gene-seed aside for now, didn't the enemy intend to recover those five STC Fragments? What were the World Eaters doing that mattered more than STC Fragments?
After Evan's soothing words, Morgkin angrily went back to sleep. Of course, before leaving, he made sure to add, "If I wake up next time and I'm still stuck in this cobbled-together Dreadnought, I'll dismantle you first."
At last, they had coaxed the old man back to bed. Now, the leadership and the Blackshield warriors needed to gather for a meeting.
While things were noisy on their side, chaos broke out among the Mechanicus. The Biologis Great Sage had been dancing for so long that everyone was considering forcibly connecting to his data ports to share the load-meaning they would start stealing technology. But just as they prepared to take the Biologis Great Sage to the surgical area, the unfortunate fellow who had overestimated himself slowly regained consciousness.
Nobody knew what happened aboard the Mechanicus ship afterward. In any case, when it requested a connection with Evan, the Biologis Great Sage had sustained considerable damage.
"111001101001001110001101."
"Biologis Great Sage, please remember that we don't understand binary."
"How could you let this magnificent God-Machine leave? It's an inexhaustible treasure trove!"
"How can you be so arrogant as to imagine you can reconstruct its technology from broken mechanical fragments?"
"It's only a matter of time. The research capabilities of our Adeptus Mechanicus..."
"Unfortunately, we don't have time."
"Then you're just going to let it leave?!"
The Biologis Great Sage Gladys looked ready to tear Evan apart and devour him. The Adeptus Mechanicus would never accept letting this treasure, unparalleled throughout the ages, slip away before their eyes.
For a moment, the situation became explosive.
"How about enjoying another blast from its giant beam? It knows which ship you're aboard now."
The Mechanicus were deeply frustrated. He was right, but they simply couldn't accept it.
"All right. Since you don't have the resolve to fight, we're leaving."
Why stay? Were they going to spend New Year here?
Evan's fleet jumped into the Warp again. Nobody knew what happened afterward.
Within the Warp, Evan's massive fleet sailed toward a faint psychic light. If only they could see the Emperor's Astronomican. Navigation was genuinely rather dangerous now.
With nothing much to do, Evan went down to the lower decks to chat with the Blackshield warriors.
"This time, it really wasn't an enemy of the Imperium. At least, it didn't intend to oppose the Imperium. Let's deal with the enemies we already have before tackling these matters."
"All xenos are enemies of humanity, whether they're made of flesh or steel. We should tear it apart and eliminate the threat for good."
"Oh, you still haven't understood what I meant by uniting every possible force to liberate the entire galaxy. Let me explain it again."
The fleet emerged safely from the Warp, and Evan returned from the lower decks to his command position feeling refreshed.
The Blackshield warrior was actually right. Evan hadn't intended to trust that construct. Who knew whether it was a scheme of Tzeentch's? Still, there was no denying the power of that pale green laser beam.
One or two escort ships would be fine, but if those loyal Mechanicus types saw all these cruisers, wouldn't they brand him a traitor?
He needed another way to hide them. But for all those supplies, he would have to find a sucker-no, an employer-to cover the costs.
Evan thought it over. He had already fleeced everyone nearby. There seemed to be nobody left to take the burden off his hands.
The fleet personnel from Atris seemed fanatical about following Evan, but he couldn't possibly spare the time to manage such a huge fleet.
These loyal worlds had already worked very hard, but they apparently couldn't support such a large fleet. In fact, they could barely support the Chapter itself.
Perhaps he should hide farther out between the two Sectors? And if he was hiding there anyway, why not build a secret base? Just as, during his first recruit training, Instructor Fro had taken the recruits to destroy an enemy's hidden base.
Maybe they could cooperate with the Mechanicus? Have them build a few extra docks at their mining sites to use as resupply points?
That wouldn't be easy. He didn't know whether the Forge World Stolov had explored that area, and Mavrek's Mechanicus were probably still sulking. If he asked them, they might throw a few obstacles in his way.
He would call and ask.
"Hello, Ma... hey, hey, don't hang up! This is serious business. Your next step is mining, right? My fleet can escort you. What do you mean, you have enough defensive forces? We all know what your losses were. Besides, look at an icon of the Omnissiah and tell me you haven't sent fleets out searching for that great treasure. Hey, hey, don't hang up! I'm not charging anything extra. Same arrangement as before, just give us a little something to cover the supplies we use. We're practically family! What do you mean, I've swindled you before? You were the ones who said you wouldn't fight. You don't want mercenaries this cheap and effective? They're Astartes! If that still won't do, I'll give you some Space Manta corpses. No, ten tonnes at most. What do you mean, that's only a few? Don't you know what they're worth? Fine, twelve tonnes, then. All right, all right, it's settled."
There. Sorted. A little embarrassing, though.
But Evan's guess had been right. Although they hadn't charged straight in, the Mechanicus had dispatched large numbers of ships to track that great treasure. Their forces at home were now extremely weak and urgently needed protection.
The fleet problem had been temporarily resolved, at least, but plenty of other matters still needed handling.
And he still had recruits to train.
"William, Xiao Lan, come here."
If he didn't want to train them himself, he could let someone else do it. It wasn't as though he was a commander without subordinates.
"William, you'll be the recruits' instructor. Xiao Lan, you'll be his deputy. Any objections?"
"Chapter Master, we don't have enough experience to instruct recruits. Please continue guiding us."
"I'm testing your leadership abilities now. You should know that training you was just as difficult for me back then. If we leave out the time spent undergoing augmentation, I was a little younger than you. I'm asking you to do what I did back then. Is there a problem?"
It was true. Although everyone instinctively walked behind Evan's towering figure, few realized that, in terms of years of service, he was only a little over a decade older than them.
"If this is a test, I'm willing to accept the challenge."
"And you, Xiao Lan?"
"I will obey the Chapter Master's orders completely."
The two Battle Barges got moving again. They wouldn't visit the last of the five loyal planets, an agri world, to recruit. The children there were raised from birth to become the next generation of agricultural workers, and there were practically no elite training camps or anything of the sort.
The Crimson Tide Chapter therefore decided to visit Atris and Taste again for Neophyte Recruitment. These were exceptional times; they had little choice. Since the Forge World Stolov had increased its investment in Astartes biological organs, they could begin another round of Neophyte Recruitment a year or two after completing a batch of Neophyte Transformations.
Both planets desperately needed rebuilding and manpower, but they still responded to the Chapter very "enthusiastically."
The Righteous Vigil and the Light of Dawn set out again after only a brief resupply.
The Righteous Vigil, with only forty places for Neophyte Transformation, would go to the less populous Taste. The Light of Dawn, with sixty places, would visit Atris.
After six to eight years of augmentation, the boys recruited this round could become neophytes.
Now this looked like a Chapter ramping up its troop production. Before one group had finished training, a fresh batch would join the Tenth Company-the Scout Company.
Evan was aboard the Righteous Vigil as they headed for Taste.
Countless dangers lurked in the planet's ancient jungles and swamps, making it an excellent place to hone the recruits. William and the recruits accompanied Evan. William intended to have them map the ancient jungle, marking the habitats of the various beasts and other resource sites.
It would be excellent training for them. After all, he had completed his own final Astartes recruit assessment on this planet.
The ten Astartes stationed on Taste were rotated out. With so few warriors from the first batch, their ten replacements consisted of only three recruits from the first augmentation batch and seven from the second. These recruits would undergo harsh training under the veterans, continuing to develop until the next rotation.
Society below was flourishing. This time, the entire population truly stood united, building their home together.
Although the Astartes' enforced "maintenance" was terrifying, whenever large, ferocious beasts invaded, the Emperor's angels displayed tremendous fighting ability and drove those dreadful enemies back.
Their prestige had since risen to an almost unbelievable level.
Evan didn't go down. The children living on Taste had already proven their toughness, so he prepared only two trials.
With such a small population, only five hundred boys came to participate in selection. They would begin with a Warp resistance test.
Since almost no psykers remained locally, the few psykers aboard the Battle Barge were mobilized.
Only eighty-six children passed, mostly because of the loyalty requirement. They simply hadn't had enough time to develop their faith in the Emperor.
Selecting forty from them afterward was relatively straightforward. They would be dropped onto Taste III and left to fend for themselves. The Chapter would wait in a designated area; the first forty to arrive would pass.
This ancient planet had suffered Exterminatus. The last time living beings had appeared there was during the war between Khorne's fleet and the local Rebel Alliance, when the Alliance's defeated remnants evacuated to it.
There were no supplies on the planet. The children would need at least eight days to reach the final assembly point, but each had only five days of food and water. Some might reach the finish through sheer tenacity, but taking other people's supplies seemed a safer option.
Of course, those weren't their only challenges. They came from the humid, sweltering world of Taste II, whereas temperatures here stayed below ten degrees year-round. To them, it was colder than anything they had ever experienced.
A tangled network of pipes lay underground, where one careless move could leave them hopelessly lost. Aboveground awaited a cold environment and a steel jungle.
The children went down, and Evan left their trials alone.
The Techmarine had made a major breakthrough.
One of the larger STC Fragments under study had finally been decoded. The complete technology for an assault tank left everyone who knew about it tremendously excited.
According to the Techmarine's simulated data, this behemoth stood 8.1 metres tall, 11 metres wide, and 18 metres long. It could fairly be called a battle fortress.
The original Baneblade was only 6.3 metres tall, 8.4 metres wide, and 13.5 metres long, yet it was already considered a giant among super-heavy tanks.
The tank in this STC Template might mark the beginning of a revolution in heavy tanks.
The STC Template fragment designated this heavy tank the Roscoe Ground Sweeper. It seemed to be a "street sweeper" specifically designed to deal with large ground-based xenos.
Its main gun was enormous. Its design resembled the earthshaker cannon mounted on a Punisher-class Titan, making it the core of the vehicle's sheer, brutal firepower.
For now, they could call it a miniature earthshaker cannon.
Its "secondary gun," or fire-support gun, was a specially designed Plasma Cannon. Against heavy armour, this secondary weapon was actually more effective, but its range had relegated it to a supporting role.
An accurate range of twenty kilometres and an effective range of thirty kilometres? That was a bit ridiculous.
(Accurate range referred to the distance at which it could precisely hit a target; effective range referred to the distance at which its shells could inflict meaningful damage.)
The secondary Plasma Cannon shared a cooling system with the Plasma Reactor. Whatever the design was, theoretically, if the tank stood still and kept its reactor operating at minimum output, the cooling system could support sustained fire from the Plasma Cannon for a long time.
The tertiary guns were two six-barrel Storm Bolters using extended-range ammunition. Precision wasn't the goal; they simply had to blanket every area ahead with fire. Even an enemy shield would overload within seconds.
The next set of guns was for air defence. These were an entirely unfamiliar type of cannon, with long, slender barrels and accurate long-range fire, capable of firing melt-cast ammunition and biotoxin rounds.
Both sides of the tank also carried Annihilator machine guns to kill enemies on its flanks.
There was no need to introduce all the other secondary-secondary-secondary~~~ guns. In short, it was a firepower hub.
It even had a missile rack mounted on the rear, capable of launching anti-aircraft missiles and other specialized missiles.
At this point, some readers might ask: although this tank had a little more firepower than an Emperor's Fist, it carried roughly the same number of weapons, so why was it so much bigger?
Because this absurd tank wasn't a heavy Fire Support Squad. It was an assault tank.
Although, for this vehicle, "assault" might only mean advancing into range of its secondary Plasma Cannon.
Its Plasma Reactor appeared to be the compact Power Core system recorded in the previous fragment, paired with a massive cooling reservoir and something most other tanks apparently lacked.
This thing had a shield system, broadly resembling an enhanced version of Terminator Armour's shields. The shield hugged the tank extremely closely, allowing it to charge into battle and approach enemy defensive positions while remaining intact.
It didn't even need anti-aircraft weapons, because there was no room here to mount missiles capable of bringing down the large aircraft that could carry bombs powerful enough to destroy it.
The greatest threat to this tank seemed to be that its own "dangerous" internal systems could easily overload and explode.
Hopefully, its "machine spirit" could stop that happening-if it had one.
Wait. Had they missed something important? The power core came from the earlier small fragment... Had all these fragments originally been one whole fragment?
Damn World Eaters! How dare you beep~~ beep~~ beep~~! Didn't your Brass Throne teach you to beep~~ beep-beep~~? You bunch of beep~~ beep-beep~~!
The Techmarine was furious at his own suspicions. Evan reassured him and suggested decoding another two fragments to check. Perhaps it was only a coincidence.
This large fragment also contained half the technology for another warship. However, possessing it didn't mean they could build half a warship. This portion concerned the ship's interior, including its keel and several important structural components.
It was useless for now. They didn't know whether they would find the other half of the information in the future.
Evan didn't intend to sell this technology to the local Mechanicus. They couldn't absorb any more; their production and research schedules were already booked solid for nearly a century.
In his plans, these things would go out into the wider world-to Segmentum Obscurus, for example-as a "calling card" to open the door to "friendship" with the Mechanicus.
He wouldn't let the Mechanicus in this small backwater overextend their research capabilities.
They definitely had to visit Segmentum Obscurus. Too little of Segmentum Pacificus had been cut off within Imperium Nihilus to support Evan's continued development.
Three batches of Astartes had now completed their augmentations, and the Fourth Batch would begin soon. Strictly speaking, they already had forty-seven neophytes, eighty-two warriors, and the four original veterans. In theory, the Chapter was no longer at risk of being wiped out at any moment.
Although their Chapter had no homeworld, these planets were all recruiting worlds. Round things up, and they were all homeworlds.
Meanwhile, the Mechanicus found themselves in an extremely awkward situation. After finally agreeing on a price with the Ecclesiarchy and selling off all that assorted Ecclesiarchy junk, the Ecclesiarchy personnel had cheerfully headed to Segmentum Obscurus to raise the money.
Just as Archbishop Froes happily prepared to study the treasures they had just brought back, some unpleasant news came up from below.
A Mechanicum Apprentice was doing something with a machine that was, well, difficult to describe.
The Mechanicus personnel reacted quickly, immediately setting up an Anti-psyker isolation field around him.
These personnel were researching the Genestealers brought off the Ecclesiarchy's derelict ship. It was a relatively minor line of research compared with the advanced technology of the integrated harvesting-and-repair machines they now possessed, and they had plenty of Genestealer specimens.
As it happened, when a Mechanicum Apprentice went to the warehouse to collect a Genestealer corpse, Emperor's Children Power Armour from that same derelict was stored next door.
The Power Armour seemed completely empty, but a Slaaneshi daemon was hidden inside.
Nobody knew how it had endured thousands of years without being expelled back into the Warp, or how it had evaded hundreds upon thousands of Mechanicus blessings, prayers, and applications of sacred oils. Perhaps the mystical power of the Mechanicus, who believed in the Imperial Truth, wasn't strong enough? Or perhaps the strange patterns on the Power Armour could anchor it in reality? There was no way to know.
The Power Armour had been stored here awaiting further processing. Then the daemon discovered this "human," who still possessed a fair amount of flesh.
And so, this unfortunate, flesh-and-blood youngster was successfully possessed by a daemon of Slaanesh.
Before you continue