They had cheered.
We had killed hundreds of thousands and they had cheered.
There was something distasteful about that, I would have rathered their hatred and disdain. Eventually they should have been pleased once generations had passed. Instead they had risen up and turned on the augmented classes.
It had actually taken the interference of the Dawn Knights to preserve the children of the augmented classes.
With mixed results.
Resentment was a dire thing when unleashed.
I was pleased to return to the Avalon's Apothecarium Primaris and settle down for the simple work of dissection.
The Avalon technically boasted approximately twenty medical facilities of various scales from small crew-deck clinics to what were essentially self-contained hospitals and each was stocked to capacity as befit my temperament.
Beyond those were three Apothecariums to see to the battle-brothers of the legion, each I was proud to say went unrivaled anywhere beyond the gene-forges of Terra and perhaps Luna.
The Apothecarium Primaris was quite another thing. It was a place of dozens of suspension tanks, surgical slabs of every scale, vaults of gene-seed, organs and samples from every variant of gene-stock that I could requisition from Terra to say nothing of the machines and cogitators that lined the walls.
Every Primarch had their sanctums, their workshops where they sought to perfect their own purpose.
The Apothecarium Primaris was mine.
My orderlies and assistants were Servo-Skulls slaved to aspects of Merlin and the Astartes which I had marked for proper instruction in the healing arts.
I worked over one of the cyclopean variants while dozens of automated surgical cutters cut through pieces of grafted hide with care so minute as to give me a precise cross-section when removed.
It was relaxing to look at how the baseline humanity had been altered by the four-eyed scientists. The irony of the name still amused me given my own need for glasses in a past life and the data-processing lenses over my own eyes as I worked.
"This is barbaric," Corvises frowned as he ran an armor-square under a humming scanner. "Readings suggest subject would have been kept conscious throughout the procedure."
I liked Corvises, the Terran had the right mix of loyalty and intellect in his brown-grey eyes. He was a good student but he had the unfortunate habit of letting his distaste distract him.
"It is to be expected," I explained while peeling back the spinal-mount of the armour, a spidery set of hooks carefully pried from the fragile bone beneath. "It would make sensory uplink less efficient and we have established that survival of the subject was not a priority."
The Cyclopean-stock of humanity was surprisingly pure beneath the augmentations forced on their slave and higher castes, the cheering throngs calling my brother's name on the surface in their clicking tongue were perfectly ordinary in form.
I shook my head at the thought.
It was bitterly ironic that they abused their relative purity with such monstrous augmentations.
Say what you will of the Astartes but they are still human in their essentials, they still love and hate and despite supposed claims, could very much still feel fear even if it was numbed to a near-total degree.
The Cyclopeans were not allowed that much.
That was the fifth of their kind which I had disassembled and I had begun to draw my conclusions regarding the modifications.
A subject was flawed alive after being fed a unique strand of narcotic which instigated enough regeneration to keep them alive through mechanized flaying while numbing none of the pain before the first layer of augmentations.
A spinal mount and several joint-anchors were drilled into the conscious subject before they were used to as the initial basis for attachment of bundles of artificial muscle linking the anchors. Thousands of semi-solid pins were then injected to link into the nervous system before a grey sheath was applied.
From the sheer number of irregularities and imperfections I had long since formed a theory of a industrialized process, some of the anchors were misaligned and a number of the nerve uplinks merely drilled into flesh without a matched nerve.
All of that was fairly minor compared to what was done to head.
The upper skull was completely excised and replaced with a machine-apparatus linked to the brain which was sustained by regenerative crimson soup. As near as I could tell the soup could sustain a subject for no more than a decade.
They were screaming puppets, the machinery of their brains directed them and kept them alive in permanent pain while directing them according to programmed procedures.
That would have been cruel and distasteful.
But no worse than what the Mechanicum's Servitors.
But that was not the worst of it.
"Even a basic lobotomy would be better than this," Cobair sighed as he worked over the brain of a subject on another table. The young Astartes of Calengwag's lips curled in distaste.
"Memories might have relevant data," I explained. "They are primarily an enforcement tool and sufficient vocal capacity remains to let them scream as a terror weapon. Distasteful but logical from a perverse perspective."
Which was not say that I did not intend to execute anyone remotely responsible for that perversity.
The people of Four Twelve had as near as I could tell nothing akin to mind-wiping technology as near as I could tell and saw little use in it.
It certainly explained why I could scent fear from those I fought.
They were conscious, in constant pain and thoroughly aware of both who they were and what had been done to them.
It was not an easy thing to make a Mechanicum Magos revolted but the sheer inefficiency of it had managed to anger the Arch-Magistrix when I had begun sending her my findings. I doubted that her offense came from a reason similar to my own but it still spoke volumes of the perversity of it.
I suppose that that was the reasoning for the minimal indoctrination of the masses.
Fear of that fate lost its luster if they were taught to view it positively, that nearly all the weapons on the world were controlled by the brain-rigs made fear of revolution minimal and the rings could be turned on their people if needed.
I swallowed some bile at the monstrosity of it before focusing back on my work and my apprentices.
I could come up with a method of vengeance later.
…
"Four hundred and eighty nine," Alten'lo reported dutifully alongside Trystane later that day as I stripped off my medical garb in favor of a simple tunic, pants and belt in one of the chambers of my apartments. "Not as severe as the Sixteenth's losses by a thin margin but still suboptimal."
"Forward me the names," I sighed. "Any particular formation suffer the bulk?"
"Not as such," Trystane shook his head with a bitter smile as he sat on a chest while rolling with a dagger between his fingers. "A few parties were lost but no Raid has reported losses below half-strength. We were lucky there."
"Over a thousand Astartes," Alten'lo reminded idly while scrolling over his holo-slate. "That is a bloody toll on out brothers."
"I know, Alten," Trystane gave a bitter bark. "And we were not even fighting anything with a soul. We lost them glorified automata!"
"We do what we must," I reminded him. "But at least we can take pride in what their deaths have helped achieve."
"Lord Lupercal suggests that we divide the cost of subjugating the remaining Cyclopean systems," Alten'lo continued while idly wagging his bearded jaw. "He is opting to oversee the compliance of the capital personally and requests that we commit at least two Guilds to the system."
"Well that is lucky," Trystane tossed the knife up and caught in thought. "The bulk of the flagships are still undergoing Authority-repairs if memory served."
"Correct," Alten'lo confirmed. "The Authority-Capable Cruisers and Frigates are still operational, sufficient to carry the Pearl, Sapphire, Topaz and Emerald."
Anything lighter than a Battle Barge had a much shorter maintenance period for their Authority systems even if they lacked the towing capability of the capital ships, a deliberate choice born out of the necessity of any legion to be able to make war on a grand scale.
I nodded while sheathing Calyburne, "Then we will do that, have them rotate the Sects and forward their reports to me. I would have this take no longer than maintenance will require."
Three months.
That was the typical span required for a fleet to achieve basic compliance before moving on and leaving a suitable garrison of Imperial Army Auxilia and perhaps a half-company of marines for particularly troublesome worlds.
Communications suggested that the bulk of their worlds were already beginning to suffer massed rebellions which would be crushed by the lesser military forces present on each according to the records on Four Twelve.
I was not concerned about anymore fleet engagements, their communication systems were admirable at short-range and they had called for a great deal of aid from the eight-eyed governors. So the bulk of their fleets were current tumbling wrecks being marked for salvage by the Mechanicum forces.
By all accounts we had broken them over our knees with minimal trouble.
My equerries nodded and departed without another word to oversee the more detailed planning between themselves and the rest of the Round.
I allowed a great deal of autonomy in my legion for two very simple reasons.
The first was to encourage them to be able to operate on their own but the second was a touch grim.
Primarchs were not immortal and I had no interest in my legion fracturing into pieces should I die.
I shook my head as I walked towards one of my small dining halls where my brother and my wife awaited.
I found them rehashing an old argument.
"Your fixation continues to disturb, my dear sister," Horus chuckled as he leaned over one side of a long table built to Primarch proportions out of steel and stone.
"You don't have one!" Morygen laughed as she popped another berry into her mouth.
"I fail to see how my preferences relate to this matter," Morygen raised a brow as Horus explained with a self-satisfied smile.
"A foot!" She waved in exclamation. "Thirty centimeters! Think of the low ceilings!"
"And we return to that old argument," He rolled his eyes before noticing me and waving with lazy ease. "Speaking of which, hello brother."
"Galtine!" My wife chuckled as she used her enhanced physique to fling herself towards me we a vicious laugh and crashing into me with enough force for me to adjust my footing slightly. "Are you done depressing yourself for the day?"
"Something like that," I smiled down to her before looking to Horus. "I did not expect you."
"No one ever expects the White Wolf," Horus said with bravado before laughing again. "That is the joke is it not?"
"Close enough," I smiled back before sighing.
"I approve of your idea, I will deploy the guilds and remain here," I explained.
"I am glad to hear it," Horus nodded. "It is good to let one's men gain their own blood, we cannot be unilaterally taking all the glory, now can we?"
"I was not the one that took the communication array, now am I?" I pointed out before Morygen swatted me on the side.
"Enough arguing over glory," she laughed.
"So says the woman who insisted on taking the life of every commander she could find," Horus laughed at the nonplussed woman.
"That is unfair," She snorted. "I have to do something to pass the time, I cannot have my children thinking that I am dead weight."
I laid a finger of her head before nodding.
"Well I can confirm that you are alive at least," I joked before getting a jab to my side for my trouble.
Horus gave us an amused look, "I must confess that I did not expect the idea of a mate to involve so much conflict."
"Well of course!" Morygen nodded authoritatively. "Incidentally, I am starving."
