237 – FRESCOES AND SILLY SPACE FROGS

“Will your friends be a problem?” I asked Coldstone while we were alone, now peering down at the star chart up on the bridge. It was a fancy map I’d cobbled together from the cogitators of Imperial ships, and filled out the gaps with the star charts I’d gotten from the Tau. I wasn’t deluding myself into thinking it was a comprehensive map of everything important in the Sector, but it was a good start. I was still finding new and interesting things in the depths of my Deathwatch prisoners’ minds every now and then, which I was retroactively adding to the charts. “I get the impression those two didn’t have the sway to be obstructive in any real way, but I doubt a smart Ethereal opposing this little venture of ours would have strode up to me  to convey their intentions to be a pain in our collective asses.”

“Those who hold official command in this offensive over our military assets are all fully on board with finally dealing a real blow to the Imperium,” Coldstone answered wryly. “That does not mean that they believe we will be capable of anything more substantial than that. There are many who doubt the truthfulness of my reports, especially on the topic of your feats and strengths. You should keep that in mind going forward. Even those who should supposedly be fully on board with the plan will want to poke and prod at you, to uncover the truth for themselves.”

“How come they agreed to this offensive if they don’t believe my ‘feats’?” I asked, more curious than offended. I knew Tau were small-minded and stubborn in their beliefs of superiority, but that was just how they were. How could they believe that someone so much more awesome than them — like me — could exist, just based on word of mouth and second-hand knowledge? “The fact that the first fleet is space dust was the thing that gave the opportunity to strike in the first place.”

“Luckily for us, there were tangible proofs of that,” Coldstone responded. “Things our sensors could pick up, and our Earth caste could analyse in gruesome detail. They couldn’t disprove those facts supported by such clear evidence … on the other hand, there was no tangible evidence for your Psyker abilities, and their potency, that I could show them. Aside from some recordings of you teleporting onboard. Unfortunately, doing so apparently sends some sort of static through nearby sensors for just long enough that the scientists decided it was likely doctored footage.”

“My teleporting does that?” I mused, annoyed that there was still a way to detect me Blinking about. I mean, I wasn’t putting any effort into being especially stealthy with that specific Blink, but I thought my basic teleports were good enough that only some of the better Psykers could sense them, and only when standing close enough to my destination. 

Did I release some strange particles or radiation from the Veil, or something? Or maybe the gravitational ripples threw off the sensors, causing artefacts? 

I’ll have to remember to use Valenith’s super-duper sneaky Blink technique if I ever need to sneak onboard Tau ships, or into their more important buildings. 

 There was a difference between the various ways to teleport. I just dubbed all the ones that teleported myself from one spot to another instantly, without any portals or setup needed as ‘Blink’. My go-to method was using myself as a bullet to punch through the veil of reality and pop back wherever I wanted.

It was like skipping a rock across a lake surface, but the lake was space-time, and you were the rock … well, not quite, since you kinda-sorta tunnel through the infinitesimal surface separating the water from air without actually dipping underwater, but that was just wibbly-wobby space magic shenanigans for you. It doesn’t need to make sense; you just have to believe it will do what you want, and if you can believe it hard

enough, it will.

Kinda. Some people explode from thinking too hard, or accidentally lobotomise themselves. Especially if they were Psykers, but it wouldn’t be Warhammer if they didn’t. It was a surprise that rainbows weren’t just gradients of grey over here.

Valenith had a more surgical technique, more elegant and distinctly Aeldari ones that I could replicate, but usually didn’t bother too. They strained my little noggin when there usually wasn’t a need for such perfectionism. 

“Indeed,” he said, his voice not giving away anything, but I was pretty sure they already had a bunch of tau scientists chained in a basement looking into it already to get an edge over me. Being faced with the mere possibility of a freely teleporting Psyker must have had them shitting their pants, even if most of them preferred to stick their heads into the sand and act like I didn’t exist. “Do you have a preference for the way you wish to be deployed?”

That change of topic was not subtle at all. Oh well.

“I’d rather not have too many annoying, stuck-up Tau breathing down my neck while I do my thing,” I said, tapping my nails on the console. “I’d much rather prefer consultants and advisors being sent over. People with some serious tactical experience and knowledge of strategy. I can’t promise I’ll follow an order I find stupid if I don’t have someone on hand who can convince me that doing so is actually tactically sound. Also, I hope you managed to convince your superiors about the fact that I’m getting a slice of the conquered territories.”

“Systems you heavily contribute to the conquest of will be yours to do with as you wish,” he said, a hint of amusement colouring his voice. “The number of which the analysts predict will be nil, since they are under the impression that your Psyker abilities are a sham, and that this ship of yours is unwieldy, and too large to be useful in a proper confrontation.”

“Define ‘heavily contribute’,” I said, narrowing my eyes while a conspiratorial smirk grew on my lips. 

“It means that you need to top the charts of most destroyed enemy spacecraft and combatants,” Coldstone said. “It was either this, or a few guaranteed systems, but those would have been worthless and empty of resources that the Sept didn’t need. I was of the mind that you'd much rather have the chance to conquer systems you choose, even if it was a bit more work.”

“You thought correctly,” I said. “Not that I would have sat back either way. I want the Imperium pushed out of the System and sitting firmly on the other side of the Warp-Gate. Though, the best case scenario would be going through and conquering the fortifications on the other end too.”

“You know where it leads?” Coldstone asked, sounding suddenly far more serious.

“Somewhere in the Segmentum Obscurus, if my memories aren’t betraying me,” I said, zooming out on the star charts with a gesture until we had the Milky Way spreading out before us. I jabbed a finger at the other side of the galaxy from where we were. “Around these parts. It’s a shitty section of space far too close to The Eye for my liking.”

 My star chart was unfortunately rather lacking in the details department when it came to other sectors. It had the most notable landmarks like the Sol system and the Eye, along with some of the vague locations of the most dangerous known Xeno strongholds, thanks to the helpful Deathwatch prisoners, but that’s it. 

Not that I needed more for now. I was plenty happy to stay in the Jericho Reach for the foreseeable future. I could see about compiling a galactic map later. 

“It’s been spoken of,” Coldstone said. “But it was obvious no one expects to get that far. We’ve been locked in a gruesome stalemate against the Imperium for centuries.”

“Did they allocate enough resources to see this through, or will I have to handle the final stretch myself?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. I could totally do it, but I’d probably end up with another few surgical assassination attempts from Imperial forces. There had to be hidden Assassinorum or Inquisitorial forces somewhere in the sector, with how much goddamn Xeno horror bullshit was scattered about the Reach. 

“I believe it should be enough,” Coldstone said after a moment of thought, sounding only somewhat uncertain. “It really depends on how much of the resource expenditure your presence saves us from. I’m not familiar with the true extent of your abilities, so I can’t know for certain.”

“Good enough,” I said grimly, not elaborating at his unsubtle attempt to prod some more information out of me. He’d see more of my capabilities in the coming months, but never all of them. “Well then, let’s talk about the specifics. What system will be my first target? I don’t mind if I can’t choose unless I’m sent over to some insignificant backworld.”

“The first phase of the offensive will have the aim of relieving the Tau forces upon contested worlds, and quickly breaking whatever Imperial presence remains,” Coldstone said, pointing at a gathering of worlds. The Greyhell front was a mere handful of systems, but the majority of them were dubbed either Death or Dead worlds. “It’s been decided that Ravacene should be the planet your forces would be heading to. It is a world covered in jungles and filled with volcanoes, causing ash-filled skies and simmering heat worldwide. Like most of the other worlds on the front, it has long been deemed too dangerous for colonisation. Even just maintaining a military presence on the planet is a chore, which is only lightened by our Kroot auxiliaries apparently delighting in being assigned to the jungle-infested hellscape.”

“An interesting choice,” I mused, then shrugged. “I see no problem with it.”

It was curious why they’d decide to send me there specifically, though. The other worlds had some interesting quirks, like my own Vallia. For example, Baraban was another jungle death world, one which had the tendency to torture anyone stupid enough to settle on it with horrid hallucinations. D'Shas'Ka 4 was another death world, similarly jungle-covered, but this time further made worse by an ongoing assault by what I immediately recognised as the forces of Chaos after reading the Tau report on the world. Some of the others contested worlds held similar curious quirks, but those were the two that caught my eye at a preliminary look.

Oh well, I could always head over to check them out once I was done with my part in this initial phase. I doubted even Coldstone suspected how little of an obstacle a world full of Astra Militarum mooks would prove to be for me.

Or perhaps it was an olive branch? Or rather, a bribe? ‘Look, here is this other fancy Death World like the one you seem to like so much and look, we even gave you the opportunity to earn the one that didn’t even have anything fucky going on with it’.

It could be either of the two, with old Ethereals having thought the plan up. 

“Well, that’s that then,” I said, nodding. “We have some time to relax. When are we expected again?”

“In about a week,” Coldstone said.

“Huh,” I said, then shrugged. “I’ll calibrate our speed so we arrive in six days, then. Now, if that was everything?”

“I’d like to go back and study those murals and frescoes in the hall you’ve received us in,” Coldstone said. “I’m assuming one depicts human history, while the other depicts galactic history?”

“Indeed,” I confirmed. “As accurate as I could manage. The human history side should be accurate enough, but the other one? It depicts things that happened as far back as sixty or seventy million years ago. There aren’t even fossils remaining from those times, just some especially lucky murals and artifacts.”

“Truly?” He sounded intrigued, if a bit dubious. Reasonably so, considering his people were beating each other to death with rocks just a mere … two or three thousand years ago? Or was it more like six? Eh, it wasn’t more than six, that much I was sure of. It was understandable that he wasn’t quick to accept the fact that his entire race was barely a blip on the galactic radar thus far. 

“Let’s head on over, I can explain better what little I know there,” I said, eager to once again put a gobsmacked look on a silly tau’s face. “Selene? You don’t have to come if you have anything else to do, you know?”

“It’s fine.” My lover, who had been doing her best to act like my super serious and broody human shadow, shook her head with a smile. “I enjoy watching you talk about history, even if you’ve already told me much of what you know already.”

“Alright then,” I said, grinning. “Come on. While we’re on the way, let me tell you about how a bunch of silly space frogs are the source of much of what’s wrong with the galaxy today.”