Chapter 105: Second Phase (1/2)
Every year, a lucky ship Captain from my clan gets the honor of discovering another flotilla of abandoned destroyers, mostly intact if in bad repair.
It seems the systems around our core worlds are littered with pirate ships, the crew vanished and ship logs showing no clue.
Then again, there are strange Warp things like the Maelstrom and the Hadex Anomaly which often cause the same results to unwary explorers.
Soon enough, the eager Navigators and my officers get to fly their new ship to a Forge World like Metalica or Tigrus, to get it upgraded for Fringe operations, in exchange for xeno artifacts or even a rare STC pattern of lesser value.
Then a heavy cruiser gets found, and sent to Triplex Phall to receive a Nova Cannon, right as Primarch Guilliman begins his own enormous Crusade, creating a hundred new Fortress Worlds in the path of the Tyranid Fleets, and mustering a million Guard regiments all over the Ultima Segmentum.
That's the real power of a Primarch, and there are few who dare say no to the Son of the Emperor.
Primarch Khan is doing something else around the Solar Segmentum, cleaning up corruption on the larger Hive Worlds, with an ever-increasing horde of Astartes and a few Mechanicus Legions. Hive World Necromunda gets mentioned a few times by the astropaths, which doesn't surprise me at all. Khan really is a pointed sword, and I did point him at Necromunda.
A dozen Astartes Chapters get founded at his demand, to safeguard those Hive Worlds, after the tech-priests have scoured the under-hives for extra servitors and hidden STCs. Cults get investigated and butchered, corrupt Governors burned alive, just business as usual in the Imperium. No mention of Reality Cages being installed anywhere, which is troubling.
The Siege of Forge Hypnoth ends in a Pyrrhic victory for Cult Mechanicus, as the Necrons unleashed a few advanced infocyte viruses on that Forge, destroying many of the defenses and the robotic defenders.
But it is still a victory, as Hypnoth is not conquered, while the attacking Necrons lose two Tomb Ships and a dozen Harvest Ships to the combined might of the defenders. Massed torpedo volleys and archeotech weapons from the Ark Mechanicus cruiser are the principal methods that worked, plus Nova Cannon cruisers supporting the fleet from afar. Knights and Baneblades with Ion Shields prove devastating on the ground, just like Fury Interceptors in void combat.
Soon after, a certain Warp Rift in the vicinity, called the Van_Grothe's_Rapidity closes unexpectedly. I suspect this was Lord Trazyn, playing with his Blackstone Fortress and testing its capabilities. A Chaos strike force that departs from the Hadex Anomaly towards Solemnace disappears mysteriously, which only hints at more anti-Warp weaponry being experimented by the insane Necron wizard.
Sadly, I am banned from Sotha for several more years, so I don't get a clear confirmation, except reading astropathic telegrams and my own logical deductions.
Larissa does get a special mission afterwards, and sneakily blows up a Necron World called Cthelmax, which seemed to be a dead world but really wasn't. The star system is now littered with fragments of Necron tech and entire asteroids made of blackstone, so we have another salvage and mining spot only known to my clan and Forge Retribution.
My daughter Andrea travels to Forge Megyre, and sells them the tip about the melted Space Hulk on Gorkamorka, and gets promised another fleet carrier filled with torpedo corvettes, and a dozen more Catachan regiments, provisioned to our own specifications. The STC dataslates and warning about Necron and Tyranid invasions spur the Fabricator into a massive defensive buildup, which will be constructed from the recovered adamantium and blackstone from the burned world.
It will take a few decades for a solid result of this trip, but Andrea did tow a large Dark Eldar cruiser after her, which is filled with advanced xeno tech. Our Favor is guaranteed now.
Forge Antax gets the same and more, as I donate to them the old Grand Cruiser I confiscated in the Magog Crusade, and they immediately begin repairs and refit to create a true Ark Mechanicus from the casino ship.
My mentor Gyron is away though, and it wouldn't surprise me if Forge World Palomar simply gets expunged from all records.
Finding an intact STC is the Holy Grail of Cult Mechanicus, and the culmination of any Magos Explorer's life. Sadly, I can't really help my mentor directly, but I did point him at the right path.
I also whisper a rumour to Forge Ryza, via my daughter Ginea. She went there with another Dark Eldar cruiser in tow, and more blackstone and adamantium, to propose the Macharius-Omega tank pattern, based around an atomantic reactor and a simplified Plasma blastgun, covered by an Ion and a Flare shield.
There was also a Sentinel variant with an Ion Shield and a Melta gun, for anti-necron work, but we didn't have miniaturized plasma reactors and plasma weaponry. Only Ryza or Mars could make these, and we only wanted a thousand Macharius tanks and ten thousand Sentinels.
She came back with our second fleet carrier called Daedalus and ten Catachan infantry regiments, plus a small Explorer expedition to be based at Forge Retribution. And by small expedition, I mean five cruisers and 20 destroyers, plus a few million tech-priests and enginseers on a Mobile Forge ship containing most of their advanced technology.
The Ork Invasion on Ryza was still going on, although a single continent remained infested with greenskins, and the Ironclad battleship on the moon had been breached and raised, to be converted in a powerful Ark Mechanicus, armed with the best technology of the Cult. That would take perhaps a century, so it was a long project. Still much faster than building an adamantium hull from zero.
The colonization into the second wave of expansion continues with this influx of hardy pioneers, and also immigrants from nearby Hive Worlds.
It will take a decade to produce the first Reality Cage at Forge Retribution, because we do have too many projects going on. Like repairing and upgrading the Vitrix battleship, which takes megatonnes of plasteel, adamantium and blackstone for example.
But the Fabricator Dominus is also training millions of new acolytes which will take over the job of servicing tanks and fighters and Sentinels, as well as mining machinery and colonial infrastructure.