The new planetary governor of Kinja personally greets us on our arrival on the planet. We've decided to join Mattias in meeting the governor, our status as imperial nobles essentially makes us VIP guests.
Our arrival on the planet is announced all throughout the palace through the vox. "Praise the emperor! Justiciar Mattias of the adeptus arbites has arrived!"
Joline and I's presence is announced next. "Lords Krauss Hircus and Joline Hircus of the navis nobiliate have arrived on our noble planet!"
The planetary governor has waited patiently for the planetary announcements to be over before greeting us. "Emperor protects! I would li-"
Mattias interrupts him. "Let us go discuss the tithe and its future. Have you started the appropriate breeding programs?"
The governor begins to lead Mattias to his office, the stress of having the grimdark IRS after his ass making him forget about us. "Of course! One out of three fertile wombs have already been forcefully fertilized! We will soon reach a ratio of half fertilization!"
The voice of the governor grows weaker as he leads Mattias to his office. Joline, Janna, Dol, Flakey and I are left a tad baffled, as are the servants around us, by the attitude of the planetary governor. Joline turns to the head buttler, who's still staring at the shrinking back of the governor in mute horror. "I assume that there's a welcome party prepared at least?"
The butler is shaken out of his stupor. He turns to Joline and gives her a practiced elegant, deep bow. "Of course your ladyship! May I lead you to your welcoming party? we have been awaiting your arrival before truly starting the festivities."
I give the man a nod. "Go ahead."
The butler rises from his bow and begins to lead us through the palace. Most of the candelabra have been replaced, each giant candle now holding a blazing flame at the end of a man-sized wick. Dol is mostly uncaring about the palace around us. Janna and Flakey however are looking all around us in wonder, having never before seen architecture this cyclopean, luxurious and wasteful.
In the sanctum we have to contend with the issue of free space, so the size of our quarters is limited. On the other hand I'm about thirty percent sure that the precious metals in our pool are more expensive than this entire palace, since most of it is just rockcrete and steel. Anything actually valuable was stolen during the rebellion.
A maid hands all of us, including the twelve year old Flakey, champagne glasses. Joline, Janna I slowly drink ours on the way, Dol just downs hers as if it was water and Flakey takes a single ship before making funny faces and giving it back.
The welcoming party is not far from our landing zone. We are greeted by the chaos of a gigantic imperial ballroom. In one part of the room ten nobles are literally skinning their slaves alive, before healing them and doing so again. There's a stage with musicians playing lewd bawdy songs right next to another stage of musicians playing religious hymns.
A cherub flies by Joline's face, rapidly whispering hymns under its breath. "-enunciationisthemorningstar;Throughdarknessandwar.Forhew-"
They've hung an absurd amount of cages from the ceiling, littering the space above us with them. A large cage holds three ogryn fighting to the death while a smaller nearby cage holds two nobles making out. One of the cages even has a naked servitor that's leaking oil pole dancing.
Janna manages to cover the stupefied Flakey's eyes once she gets her wits about her. I turn to the head butler. "Just take us to our quarters."
A drop of motor oil falls down from the dancing servitor, landing right on the butler's shoulder. "Follow me, your Lordship."
—
With nothing practical to do Joline and I decide to stay on the balcony and enjoy the feeling of the sun on our skin. Joline is lazily leaning on me and I'm holding her by the hip as we are looking at the hive-world beneath us. The view from here puts the sheer scale of this planet into focus.
Rows upon rows of skyscrapers are haphazardly littered throughout, tunnels and bridges between them make seeing the ground impossible. The denizens of the hiveworld are moving about, most of the women are in various stages of pregnancy.
Joline whistles. "Looks like mr governor might not get the bullet just yet."
I shake my head. "They have much more control over this area compared to the rest of the hive-world, it's right next to the palace after all. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone here was specifically chosen to give this impression."
Joline points at an arbites agent trying and failing to blend in. "He does realise that everyone can see the arbites symbol tattoo'd on his bald head, right?"
I stare as everyone gives the confused man a wide berth. "He's probably doing this on purpose to make people let their guard down for the actual agents."
This does mean that the arbites are almost certain to find out if there's any chicanery going on. Checking whether a third of the women on this planet are actually pregnant is going to be much easier than actually impregnating them by force.
If the governor had actually tried doing something like that throughout the whole planet we would have been greeted by another open rebellion. The PDF doesn't yet have enough armament and bodies just yet to put down an insurrection at that size.
Flakey forcefully pushes her head between the two of us. "Do you wanna play uno?"
Joline rubs Flakey's hair. "Sure, just give us five more minutes."
—
It doesn't take long for an agreement to be settled between the arbites and the planetary governor. I stare at the hologram of the planet, Mattias points at the imperial palace. "We will begin with a tactical orbital bombardment on the imperial palace, cutting off their chain of command right at the head. Afterwards the forceful collection of the imperial tithe can proceed unhindered."
The governor had lied, the arbites found out that only 21.11% of the female population is pregnant, instead of the 33% that was promised. Mattias continues. "All of the nobles are to be executed for lying to imperial authority. The governor will be executed for failure to meet the tithe and lying to imperial authority. Any surrendering locals are to be temporarily spared, any resistance is to be systematically purged."
All in all, a pretty merciful judgement. Others would have executed the locals too. I turn towards Mattias. "Is it acceptable if we send a force to collect some of the population for ourselves?"
As the highest ranking commander in charge he's the one calling the shots. He blinks. "Feel free to take whatever it is that you wish, so long as they do not interfere with the arbites tithe collectors your forces are free to join."
Dol has almost finished building the final set of tools required to begin creating implants for our household guard, having some test subjects to work the kinks out would help her a lot.
—
We don't personally join the attack this time, anything of actual value in Kinja has already been looted. Joline places down a red two with a mechadendrite. "UNO!"
Dol, being the first one to win, continues tinkering with a prototype cybernetic eye. Anesh looks at her cards, before calmly drawing a card from the deck.
Flakey telekinetically places down her last card, a red five. "YAY! I WIN!"
Khaeyl gives me a sadistic look, before putting down five +4 cards and two red +2 cards. "Get fucked."
I look at the three remaining cards in my hand and sigh, before placing down another red +2. Khaeyl and I stare at Janna. She looks at the single remaining card in her hand and sighs, before picking up twenty six cards. Joline puts down a red eight. "I win too!"
—
It doesn't take long for the arbites to fill their entire cargo holds from the seemingly endless population of Kinja, allowing us to begin the warp jump to HK47. The jump will take us a month and some change in real space, shiptime it's going to be just three days.
Joline and I don't spend much time resting after the jump, since the jump only took three days this time. We've just finished discussing the matter of our payment with Mattias.
Mattias takes out two small, heavily encrypted data disks. Everyone has a different way of keeping track of favors. The arbites and imperial guard use the 40k equivalent of cold storage crypto. He offers me the disks and I gladly take them.
Mattias gives me an eagle salute. "The emperor protects!"
I simply give him a nod instead. With our trade complete Joline and I head on over to our sanctum, before detaching from the arbites ship and attaching to the explorator's fleet head vessel. Joline will be the one plotting our course for this contract.
Our destinations are the KHA007 and KHA009 systems. The admech doesn't really care about the order, they only want us to take them there. Joline takes a deep breath. "It'll take us three months shiptime to reach KHA007 and another two months to get to KHA009. Realtime will be a week to KHA007 and two years to KHA009."
I give her a nod. "That's fine, so long as we don't pass through any warp storms we will be okay."
—
KHA007 is a xenos held jungle world. Their technology is basically the equivalent of world war two era earth, with a small exception. ACM002 begins the strategy briefing. "We cannot utilize heavy artillery, the risk of damaging the STC fragment is too high. Our informant confirmed that the stc fragment is present and in use."
ACM002 is, predictably, the son of ACM001. They are the explorator lord magos in charge of this expedition. ACM002 is somewhat more human than his father, with them just being a three meter tall murder blender instead.
The hologram changes, this time displaying an esoteric plasma rifle pattern. "The xeno military makes heavy use of this plasma rifle. Its design suggests that it is a long range variant of the standard imperial plasma rifle, recovering the STC fragment is our paramount priority, afterwards the xeno scum can be cleansed and the world repurposed for the glory of the omnissiah."
There is one thing that worries me however, something that has not gone unnoticed by those aware. ACM002 has clearly done so, going by the way his eyes keep getting drawn to the eight pointed star built into the plasma rifle's handle. These xeno are chaos worshippers.
—
Joline is sitting once again on the navigators throne, glyphs written in bloody chalk surrounding her and the throne. She takes a deep breath. "Sanguis mihi visum ultra tempus dat"
"Sinistra oculus mihi praeteritorum secreta ostendit"
The light in her left eye dims.
"Dexter oculus mihi praesentis secreta ostendit"
The light in her right eye dims.
"Tertius oculus mihi secreta futuri ostendit"
Her navigator eye widens, showing a clear picture of the sea of souls.
I slit my wrist, taking care for the resulting blood to pour only into her mouth. I begin chanting.
"Sanguis mihi visum ultra tempus dat"
The pouring blood slows down, as if gravity had lessened.
"Sinistra oculus mihi praeteritorum secreta ostendit"
My left eye loses vision, becoming blind.
"Dexter oculus mihi praesentis secreta ostendit"
My right eye loses vision, becoming blind.
"Tertius oculus mihi secreta futuri ostendit"
Countless lives are sacrificed. Knowledge is given. The price is being paid. A pact is made. Failure leads to sacrifice. Mediocrity is spared. The wild ones are unassailable. Success leads to sacrifice. Prayer is made obligatory. The world is controlled. Conquest is assured.
Lore is compiled. The wild ones have hidden. The spirits demand more blood. More. Pleasing the spirits is impossible. More. Boons are received. More. More is always demanded. The spirits demand more sensation. The master is pleased.
Knowledge. Corrupted knowledge. Slaughter. The wild ones are slaughtered. Treasure. Corrupted Treasure.
Slaughter. The wild ones are slaughtered. Treasure. Corrupted knowledge. Corrupted Treasure. Knowledge.
I'm going to vomit. "I think I'm going to vomit."
"Please aim away from me."
I vomit right on her. "KRAAAUSSS!"
—
"Krauss, Joline. Anesh wishes to inform you of a matter regarding KHA007."
Joline and I turn to Dol. Anesh is right behind her, hesitation plainly visible on her face. "So U- Uhm. This planet is occupied by exodites."
Joline and I stare at Anesh in surprise. An eldar informing humans about something like this is extremely odd, as most would just genocide them without further questions. Anesh continues. "We can talk to them, we have a wraithbone transmitter. Please don't kill them?"
That makes more sense. Joline claps Anesh's shoulder, making the fidgety eldar jump. "Don't worry, we don't get paid if they die. We'll trade with them and give them a warning to hide until we get out of the system."
Anesh gives a sigh of relief as tension exits her body. "Thanks, I- I don't want them to die."
I give Dol a look, to which she shakes her head. So she hasn't tried to contact them behind our backs. That's a good thing, it means that she's pretty much integrated herself with us to some extent. This is probably only possible because she is much younger compared to her peers.
I clear my throat. "Like Joline said, we'll trade with them before giving them a heads up. The admech isn't aware of their presence yet, so they can just hide away until we leave."
—
Since we will be spending some time on this planet Joline, Dol and I can begin assembling the system ship that our parents left for us. Some of the pieces are recognizable. Joline hands Dol the archeotech void abacus.
A void abacus is a device capable of warp travel. They can range in size and strength from colossal and ridiculously weak all the way to fist sized and absurdly strong. This one is in the latter category. Some of them could probably even be researched and replicated, there is however a reason that that will never happen.
The instant one of these is found, the navis nobiliate is going to find out and either destroy or steal it. The mere knowledge that such an artifact is possible and exists is a threat to the influence of our kind.
Some of the pieces are unrecognizable. I hand Anesh, who at this point has basically become Dol's shadow, a panel of overly complicated circuitry.
It takes us a total of two full days of work to assemble the whole thing, even with an instruction manual provided. By the end we're left staring at a ten meter long and five meter wide blocky ship. Dol gulps nervously as she is looking at the finished ship. "I still cannot believe that your house holds such a relic. A transport ship from the dark age of technology…"
Even a lord inquisitor would kill for such a ship. The good news is that its true nature is unrecognizable without looking at its insides. "The two of you have been successfully keyed into the ship systems as well, right?"
Joline and Dol nod. We'll key in Anesh after we can trust her some more, until then we're not going to bring up that subject. A mental nudge makes the ship's doors open, forming a platform for us to go inside.
The inside of the ship is decorated and styled in the manner of our house, so no one can recognize it for what it is even from the inside. Joline opens the door to the inbuilt bedroom. "Is it me, or is this space bigger inside than on the outside? I don't remember there being this much space when we were assembling."
Dol confirms Joline's suspicion. "The inside of the ship is 146.31% larger than the outside. I did not recognize any form of power generator during assembly, nor any equipment capable of such an effect."
I glance at Anesh, who is currently staring at the control panel that Dol is playing with. I turn towards Joline. "Do you want to go to the planet in this ship? Or should we just take an ordinary one?"
Joline throws herself on the bed. "Let's go with this ship. We should probably try to get used to using it."
—
In the end almost all of us go to meet with the exodites. Joline, Anesh, Dol, Khaeyl, Flakey and I all leave the DAOT ship and are greeted by five armored exodites.
Their leader, or someone that I assume is their leader, greets us. "Monkeigh scum. You will never compare t-"
Dol drops the closed chest of spirit stones. The shock of the landing opens it and throws about some of the precious stones. The exodite leader stares dumbfounded at the filled chest. I point my thumb at Dol. "We're going to want psychic training as well as the list of… stuff that my friend here has."
That takes the exodite leader out of their stupor. They take some time to think this encounter through. A thoughtful glance is given to the armored Khaeyl, before a longer one is given to the armored Anesh.
Dol passes me a scroll with the list of demands. I hand it to the exodite leader, who takes it from me only after giving me an apprehensive look. They begin to read the scroll, unrolling as they progress through. It doesn't take long for the scroll to reach the ground, by the time that they're done reading there's a smile pile of paper on the ground.
The eldar gives both Anesh and Khaeyl a thoughtful look each, before finally giving me a response. "Most of the list is already in our possession. There are some objects that will take some time to get a hold of. The psychic training I will need to get approval for before giving confirmation. Who is it for?"
I point at Flakey first, before pointing at Anesh as well. "These two and me."
The eldar shakes his head. "The monkeigh child and eldar are a possibility, it will need to be discussed beforehand. We cannot train you as you are not yet awakened."
—
AN:
Here's the translation for the latin in the ritual:
Blood gives me vision beyond time"
"The left eye shows me secrets of the past"
"The right eye shows me secrets of the present"
"The third eye shows me secrets of the future"
"Blood gives me vision beyond time"
"The left eye shows me secrets of the past"
"The right eye shows me secrets of the present"
"The third eye shows me secrets of the future"
The lines are in the same order as the chap.
Hope you've enjoyed the read.