40 Thousand Reasons

I'm not sure how the idiot Apothecaries thought they could run away and become a new Fallen group, but I wasn't going to let them go.

Not after I was just making fun of Gabriel Angelos for losing so many of his own Brothers to Chaos corruption.

And even less after finding the Lamenter destroyer filled with desecrated and eaten corpses of the crew. Not the Blank Sisters, which were beaten up and thrown into the ship's vault. Probably not good eating, unlike the rest of the crew.

"Having a meal, are we?" I asked after stepping out of the Pharos right in the mess hall.

A dozen pairs of red eyes turned towards me, then looked around as my own escorts appeared around them.

"You! It's all your fault!" One of them howled and jumped at me with fangs bared and claws extended. Damn mutations had distorted these former Apothecaries into vampiric forms, identical to those Lamenters lost in the Badab War, the bodies malformed under the Red Thirst and the Black Rage.

I just stepped back and let my brave Canis grab a bite. Limb after limb, the cretin was torn apart, until only the head and torso remained, and he was taken to the side by Hestia for a crude cauterization of wounds, involving a melta pistol and red-hot deck plates.

"Good boy! Now the rest of the traitors." I commanded in a cold voice.

In a minute, we had the idiots disarmed and nailed to the wall, while I collected the beat up Sisters in my tesseract. These were not Veterans or Null Maidens, and they obviously stood no chance against real Space Marines attacking them by surprise, and even being fed drugs and soporifics in their meals.

Then I patted Chyron on his armored shoulder. "Have the Navigator steer the ship back to the Starfort. I'll collect the body parts and read the ship logs from the bridge."

Canis glanced at me and then at the mangled traitors hooked to the wall. "Woo?"

"Nah, we need to test the omophagea organs anyway. These guys will serve the task perfectly." I explained in a serious voice.

Canis grumbled and dragged a few discarded limbs to the side, crunching them for a healthy meal rich in calcium, while the victims could only stare as their arms and legs were being devoured by my Fenrisian wolf.

I shrugged and walked away towards the bridge. Waste not and all. Plus Canis had worked hard for this meal.

"So you're not going to kill them?" Rafen asked as I sat down in the bloody Captain chair and began examining the ship logs.

"Kill them? How would I train the Lamenters then? They need to taste the truth, and learn from the mistakes of their Brothers. Henna will not be pleased her daughter was eaten though." I muttered holding up my glove, drenched my daughter's blood.

Being a ship Captain was risky, much more so for an Astartes warship. Poor Talia...she was so glad to have finally earned a Captain rank.

At least it wasn't Tyranids. We will probably all get eaten by Tyranids in the end.

Soon after, the Lamenter destroyer reached the Warp limit and began the journey home, estimated to last 3 to 30 days.

Damn Warp travel, I've forgotten how crappy it was. At least my big ships had warp-less engines now, and were not so exposed anymore like the smaller escorts.

As expected we only arrived 28 days later, because the Warp currents were opposed or something like that.

All three backup mechanical Gellar generators had failed as well, and one even caught fire and melted.

The main Gellar field held, just because Hestia and Fidelia took turns sleeping inside the generatorium and protecting the blackbox component from unwanted visitors.

Chyron had to patrol the lower decks and crush hundreds of wailing servitors, exorcising the ghosts in their machine implants.

Damn 40k universe!

I'll have to sell this ship to someone else now, after changing its name to something appropriate like Emperor's Triumph.

Anyway, I had other more important business to take care of, beside creating a Remembrance Hall where the Lamenters would visit each month and scoop live brains from these cretins to train their memory reading organ.

Business like clearing another hull from the Space Hulk anchored in pieces in the asteroid field, giving my troops more live training against Orks and genestealers and even a few Dark Eldar from my own stock.

It would take about two years til the trade expeditions returned, which was just enough time to polish my skills and the Lamenters, plus their Blank Sisters and techmarines.

I also started from level 1, climbing my way through infested decks with only a chrono-sword and a bolt pistol.

I kinda cheated a bit, because the tesseract around my neck did give me perfect vision and denied surprise to the enemy, but I also had to keep watch for everyone else and save them at the last second.

Captain Khan just walked beside me, and commented on my technique and breath patterns, while ignoring the howling genestealers or Orks and allowing me to gain combat experience.

"Keep your stance lower, Lord Pef! Strike at the wrist, not at their weapon! Breathe! Remember to breathe!" he advised me as my lungs caught fire from dispatching five genestealers at once.

What? It was really hard, especially on slippery floors, and eerie blinking lights.

Reaching level 5 took all my energy, and I had to rest and gulp some water and nutrigruel.

It was much easier in my Knight, sitting in a comfortable Throne Mechanicus and having Reason smoothly execute combat stances and perfect cuts with machine precision. Using your own body wasn't that much fun, unlike in bed.

Anyway, by the second year, I had reached deck 10, and needed Canis to cover my back at all times. But my aim with a pistol had become almost perfect, and my lungs didn't burn that bad anymore.

About as well as any new recruit with a full set of Astartes organs, which wasn't bad at all.

I'll have to send Sly Marbo in one day, and learn from him too. I could already bet the man will make it to level 15 without a single scratch. Damn cheater!

But my free time was up.

"No more Space Hulk training, Brothers. We'll depart for Pythos next week, so rest and clean your weapons. There will be Orks, Tyranids and Chaos traitors so only Blank or warded personnel can go. Brother Semnai, you will have field command for our ground troops. Brother Chyron you have the Starfort. I'll take the fleet and some Lancefire units in support. My wife Dae will arrive with some reinforcements from Machine Forge." I explained while pointing at the holoscreen.

I selected three Lamenter Battle Barges and fifteen Drop-cruisers while from the Lancefire fleet I highlighted two battleships, two battlecruisers and two carriers, plus fifteen Heavy cruisers, all with warp-less engines.

The battleships were the real heavy hitters, the Apocalypse-class called Tranquility and the Retribution-class called Vigil for the Vanquished, formerly known as Macharius Vitrix.

Looking at the battleships you could barely distinguish the original class, as they had three torpedo cells each, meaning 300 torpedoes, plus 200 Lance Batteries and extensive armor upgrades, layers of adamantium and blackstone covered with a dozen void shields plus a flare shield and an ion shield. And they also had a Nova Cannon, because those were awesome.

The latest upgrade simply bolted 40 thousand Tarantula turrets on the battleship's outer hull, with a mix of missiles, multilasers and lascannons weapons. Every possible angle had been covered, although the weapons would only be effective against small targets like starfighters and Ork fighta-bombas or Tyranid flying creatures. Maybe torpedoes and assault boats too, in some cases.

Lacking dedicated escorts like frigates and destroyers or even light cruisers meant that heavy ships would be vulnerable, so I took measures. The cruisers also had some turrets applied on the hulls, but not in such large numbers, only a few hundreds.

Of course, these applique turrets were not powered by the ship itself, instead using their own power source, which was more limited. Anyway, much better than nothing.

Now I only had to test the ships in battle, for battle was the ultimate testing ground, when your enemies tried every trick and weapon they had to kill you.

I doubted the logis-engines of the Tarantula would be effective against Chaos demon engines, but everything else should be good.

The techmarines and their Guardian turrets would serve mostly as boarding guards, two aboard each ship and five on the battleships.

We also had 20 Catachan Auxilia regiments and the Lancefire voidsmen, plus three armored regiments ready to land and support an assault.

By the time the fleet was prepared and gathered, Dae arrived from Forge Machine with a million skitarii and our incipient Deus Ex Machina Titan Legion, composed of 30 Titans including one Emperor-class and seven Warlord-class.

We had more Scout Titans, but we lacked pilots for them.

It wasn't a problem I ever expected to have, to be fair.

But I did have 36 Lancefire Knights to support these Titans anyway, plus their own support Armsmen, 4000 Catachans piloting Armed Sentinels, and various light vehicles for skirmishing and recon.

The Knights and Titans had also been plated with blackstone, because that material was fucking amazing, both in durability and resistance against Warp.

Rose and Velayne decided to join me on this Crusade, something I was kinda glad for. Sometimes having a powerful psyker on your side was great.

And they were pleasant company in bed anyway.