Chapter 112: Cain (1/2)
On Forge Antax, I got to meet a company of my future Lamenter techmarines at their school, and a company of future Blood Angels also training and learning the ways of advanced technology and ritual repairs, plus seeding their large harems with the next generations of possible Blank children.
The Fabricator intended to keep the resulting Blank girls as future tech-priests and Ark Mechanicus ship Captains, which made quite a lot of sense. Plus harvesting their eggs for Blank Machine Spirits, no doubt.
These days, a thousand new craters dotted a moon orbiting around the planet Antax, all results of failed cloning experiments of Blank tissue.
I heard rumours that the Cullexus Temple had figured out the process, but sadly I wasn't in any relation with their temple, nor was I too interested into being conscripted and mind-wiped as a future assassin.
What I was interested in, was modifying the pirate light cruisers into Lamenter Strike Cruisers filled with drop pods, and the drop pods filled with Tarantula turrets of my own design.
And if I had to pay for this with my hard work on heretical STC-patterns, and bits of advanced technology from the Eldar, Dark Eldar and Necrons...well, I did have plenty of that.
”You do have the strangest luck, Captain Pef. Finding so many ships and discovering caches of STC templates, even as damaged as these...” the Archmagos of Forge Antax mused in a soft voice, after taking a peek at my gifts.
He also did not mention anything about the STC on Forge World Palomar, so I didn't ask.
I just smiled and nodded. ”The Dark Eldar did have a large cache of such templates, and even bits of assembly constructors. I'm sure your people on Forge Retribution already informed you.” I answered in an easy going voice, while I scanned the star system for the next Ark Mechanicus, finding it hidden by a scaffold of iron asteroids, almost like a small artificial moon.
I did give Antax a Grand Cruiser hull, like they always wanted, to remake into a true Ark Mechanicus. And since the internal volume was so large, they were also attempting to install a Macharius-pattern warp-less engine on it. Of course, the battleship-sized engine would not fit, so they were actually enlarging the Grand Cruiser to make the engine fit. Ingeniuous, if very expensive.
That unholy fusion of Necron, Tau and human technology was the hope of humanity, and the extra energy from the better plasma reactor didn't hurt one bit.
”I also have to thank you for damaging that Necron battlemoon, and letting me know of where to find it and salvage what we can. So we can certainly try refitting these light cruisers to your Chapter's needs. But I also need you to test them in combat when ready, with a group of Magi specialists overseeing the deployment. Such a strategy might be effective for Cult Mechanicus as well, especially where we need to deploy a Legio Titanica and secure the landing zones in advance.” the Fabricator demanded and poured more wine to weaken my will.
Sadly, the flesh is weak and the wine was too good. I shall have to oblige and test the new Steel_Rain strategy, only with fewer Astartes and more guns.
The two years I spent at Antax while overseeing the production of the new drop turrets, and testing different variants for different missions and enemies was not wasted.
I did have a thousand female Catachans in my armor regiment, all of them Sentinel pilots, and enough time and energy to impregnate them all, as well as training my body with Captain Khan and my bodyguards, and learning more Mechanicus lessons about controlling Machine Spirits with my mind, and piloting my brand-new Knight suit with advice from my step-father, Lord Whitelance.
My own Knight suit had a Volcano Lance for long-range engagements and a Knight-sized Power Glaive, kinda a sword at the end of staff, if anything big got too close. Or just for butchering infantry by the hundred with each strike.
There were of course secondary weapons, like a pod of anti-air missiles and a couple of assault chainguns, but hopefully they won't be needed. This Knight suit, which I called Reason for Peace, also had a nice Ion Shield and a Flare_Shield converted into a Knight-sized Rosarius, and an atomantic reactor adapted from a Fellblade heavy tank.
The reactors made by Forge Tigrus were indeed the smallest and the most powerful of any small reactors, and I was ready to demote a few old Fellblades into Doomhammers just to provide extra energy for my Knights.
So, when news arrived of the impending First_Siege_of_Perlia by an Ork Waagh led by Gargash Korbul I was ready for a showdown.
The PDF regiments I had brought were also armed with new Forge Antax gear, and had nearly finished training with them, everything from Chimera troop transports, Basilisks artillery guns, Armed Sentinels and Weasel-pattern recon light tanks. They will need to be forged on the field of battle, and experience was the best teacher anyway.
Torpedoes were re-stocked, Nova Shells and Nova Mines as well, and of course the drop pods filled with Tarantula sentry guns. 40 thousand drop-pods per cruiser for now, mostly because I wanted to retain enough lance batteries to engage escorts with impunity, much like the old Litany.
Those were a mix of classic twin-heavy bolters and twin-lascannons variants already in storage, and the new Salvation-pattern STCs with quad-multilasers and single lascannons, but with better armor and larger power cells.
I had hoped to use the drop pods' retro-thrusters to provide extra energy for the turrets, but that project would take a few decades to be tested and developed into a working solution.
My 'fragmented' STC template did not provide the knowledge of how to create such a mechanism, because I hadn't the faintest idea. So I let an entire Forge World work on it, and let them claim an Antax-pattern when they did succeed.
Already Forge Antax had climbed the ladder from third level to the second, in Mechanicus rankings, and that meant they were given leave to produce cruisers and Knights, along other more exotic and restricted Mechanicus-only robots and battle-automata.
Plus, the Defendarius Crusade called by Primarch Guilliman against the incoming Tyranids and awakening Necrons obliged the Forges to work harder to produce naval assets of any kind, from orbital defense platforms to torpedo corvettes and destroyers in large numbers, plus cruisers armed with Nova Cannons.
Well, someone was paying attention to successful fleet actions, and the less-successful ones.
And due to a much smaller number of Dark Eldar and Chaos raids in the Ultima Segmentum, the Primarch had an easier task of mobilizing troops and resources. Even the Eldar attacks had largely diminished, only some Corsair bands still being annoying dicks like always.