"The star chart for Warp routes... this is definitely valuable."
Solomon turned the storage unit with its glowing blue tracery over in his right hand and spoke with a faint smile.
"Now all we have to do is wait for Magos Lena to come over and project it into our cogitator."
"That guy Mitchell curses me out every single time I ask him for directions. At last I can have some peace."
Unlike Solomon, who was in high spirits, Gaia looked at the device with a meaningful gaze, deep in thought.
She was not surprised by the appearance of a star chart. After all, some pirate organizations had existed for lengths of time that were honestly shocking.
With that kind of accumulation, even if someone claimed they had an STC from the Dark Age of Technology, Gaia would not have considered it impossible.
But the way it was stored felt very strange to her.
If it was a currently usable Warp route chart, then it could not have existed for too long.
And after humanity's decline from its golden age, this kind of electronic storage method had gradually fallen out of favor because it was far too easily distorted by the Warp.
That was also why, in the seemingly highly advanced world of Warhammer, so many records and documents of the Imperium were still preserved on parchment.
Yet this chart had been stored in an electronic data unit. That was decidedly unconventional.
And on top of that, its appearance had come at far too perfect a moment.
That smoothness bothered Gaia.
"Am I overthinking this?"
She found her own baseless concern a little strange.
But based on past experience, this sort of seemingly irrational unease often came from a warning issued by her psychic sensitivity.
"It never hurts to be cautious."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. She had already made up her mind.
"Solomon, I do think the star chart can serve as a route reference, but a Navigator is still necessary."
"I suggest that during our next stage of travel, we first use the star chart to pick a route, then have Mitchell confirm it."
"He may talk like an insufferable bastard, and the way he puts on airs makes me want to rip his mouth open, but his navigation skill is genuinely impressive."
Gaia was not exaggerating.
Even before the Spear of Destiny had reached the Mandeville Point, during their earlier voyage, Mitchell had already repeatedly cursed his way through early warnings about gravity traps and hidden asteroids.
Although Solomon could have carried out emergency evasive maneuvers with his own excellent command ability, without Mitchell's prior warnings he might very well have made mistakes or grown careless under prolonged mental strain.
"That actually makes sense... Fine. One more layer of insurance is a good thing."
Although the thought of dealing with Mitchell gave Solomon a headache, he still chose to adopt Gaia's suggestion after hearing her out.
As the two were speaking, the sound of mechanical gears operating came from nearby, growing louder as it approached.
"Oh, Omnissiah preserve me, I was delayed for a while by the samples in the laboratory."
"Time is an important thing. I understood that very clearly when I was writing my Genetor thesis. But those samples are so fascinating, so please forgive my tardiness."
Lena's emotionless mechanical voice rang out.
Her words immediately sparked Gaia's curiosity.
"Samples? Magos Lena, would you mind telling us a bit about them?"
Magos Lena and the servo-skull hovering behind her both nodded.
"Praise the Omnissiah. Of course. After all, those samples originated from your handiwork."
Gaia froze.
Originated from her?
"Oh, do not be surprised. Perhaps your wetware brain has failed to grasp my meaning. The samples are the pirates who attempted to board this ship."
That answer only made Gaia more confused.
"What about the pirates?"
"To be precise, the pirates, or rather their corpses, began showing signs of drying out and weathering within a very short period of time."
"If it had only been one or two, then perhaps it could have been dismissed as an anomaly. But since almost every pirate corpse exhibited the same phenomenon, there must be a pattern involved."
"Oh, may the Omnissiah guide me. I am currently researching what factor caused this bizarre biological effect."
"Though the Mechanicus likely will not accept my thesis in the short term, that does not prevent me from using it to explore the mysteries of life."
It was obvious Magos Lena was genuinely excited, to the point that Gaia could hear actual feeling in her otherwise flat synthetic voice.
At that moment, however, Gaia had little energy to spare for the priest's enthusiasm. What shocked her instead were the contents of those words.
Those pirates had only just been killed by her not long ago. By all rights, they should not have even reached the swollen stage of decomposition yet, but they were already drying out and weathering?
Was the Warp involved somehow? But the Gellar Field was functioning normally...
Gaia fell silent in thought.
"Lena, I called you here to unpack something."
Grinning, Solomon held the storage unit out in front of the Tech-Priest, tapping it with a finger as he spoke in an easy tone.
"According to the pirate, it contains a star chart of stable Warp routes for this region. I'd like you to pull it up for us."
Magos Lena extended a mechanical claw, lightly took the storage unit, and her bionic eye began flashing at high frequency.
"This is a very old storage format. Even within the Mechanicus, very few people still preserve data in this manner."
"I can extract the star chart. But afterward, may I keep this device for a period of study?"
Solomon naturally agreed without hesitation.
In his mind, Tech-Priests certainly liked to pull all kinds of reckless nonsense whenever they got their hands on strange technology, and most of those projects tended to turn into disasters. Still, this was only a data-storage unit. Giving it to Lena probably would not trigger anything earth-shattering.
Once she had his consent, Magos Lena immediately carried the unit over to the cogitator on the bridge.
After solemnly reciting the proper liturgy, thoroughly pleasing its machine-spirit, and receiving permission to insert the device, she connected the storage unit to the cogitator's port.
With the crackle of current and the hum of machinery, massive streams of data scrolled across the cogitator's display.
Green holographic light flickered over it. Complex lines crossed and overlapped until they finally formed a vista that could only be described as grand.
Countless points of light appeared and were reflected in everyone's eyes, each one representing a planet. Between larger points of light that marked stars, broad lines linked the star systems together.
They represented Warp routes, and those lines shifted over time, accurately reflecting the tidal patterns of the Warp in this region.
Those tides moved constantly, like the cycles of sun and moon, never stopping.
And among those constantly shifting paths, there was one route that remained perfectly stable.
It cut across everything like a grand highway, utterly out of place among the surrounding routes that were constantly being swallowed by the tides.
And at that moment, the Spear of Destiny was positioned right in the middle section of that route.
On the chart, Gaia saw that this stable route had been marked with a distinct High Gothic name.
The Path of Fate.
(End of Chapter)
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