Kopernikus Station, Warhammer orbit

"Kopernikus Control, this is Morgenstern. We have achieved holding position at 3000 meters."
"Morgenstern, this is Kopernikus Control, copy holding station. Be advised we have one more tug coming in, we will release approach in 20 minutes."
"Morgenstern copies 20 minutes at holding position."
"We will advise Morgenstern. Welcome back and congratulations."
"The last one, who would have thought it."
"Left it in enough pieces Oberstleutnant?"
"No problem at all, this tub makes it easy."
"Better than old Polarstern, isn't it?"

"Not in the same league. We should never have attacked Sage 9 with that tub, it was too close to a fair fight. Morgenstern ate that thing for lunch."
"Think they still need it?"
"As long as there are Warpstone meteors, for sure."
"From your mouth to God's ear Oberstleutnant. Tug should be docked in 15, then its your turn. Please make it snappy, there is another tug coming in with the aux tank of the last Phoibus launch."
"Morgenstern copies Kopernikus Control."

Nathan Alpers shook his head a bit before pulling up the next menu on the TFT before him.

"What's up Nathan."

"Manfred, we are in a space warship, waiting bloody queue before a space station because there is so much traffic that we need a Control Center to handle it. Don't you sometimes think you are dreaming?"
"Now that you mention it."

Günther Koch's kitchen, a few kilometers from Kaiserslautern

The egg before Aeolus was near-perfect, boilt for roughly five minutes so the interior would run all over his spoon. It was also the color of Silva's eyes before he closed her lid and if he touched the food it would be pliable and too hot, just like she had been.
Yesterday that would have sent him into a fugue where he would be back on the Glade of Kings, holding her in his arms, today he intellectually knew he should be there and was hungry enough to put his spoon right in. He waited for the memories to kick in, for the desperation to seize him, and they did not. It made him giddy with relief and nervous to boot.

"Master Koch, don't get me wrong here, I am more than grateful for your help. But I still need to ask: what in the name of the Nine Hells did you do in my head?"
"No offense taken, this is usually the first or second question you all have. Now, let me ask what do you know about PTSD."
"What they used to call Shell Shock. A bad reaction to traumatic experiences."

"Not bad. A couple of factors promote PTSD. One is the feeling of helplessness, of not being in control. The other is the lack of a social network that allows you to deal with what you experienced. I understand that most of what you went through is classified, but from the little Ottokar let on it fits the bill. Well, if that happens the brain writes the memories of the event in the wrong way. It is much more vivid, much more impressive then normal and it is usually triggered when you are exposed to a stimulus that you connect with these memories. Many of the Skavenblight veterans that I treated could no longer stand the smell of fired pork as their comrades had been burned by the rats. What I did in the end was to rewrite the memories in the normal way and remove the connection to this stimulus."

"Is this why you confronted me with that cooked meat when we arrived?"
"Yes, sorry about that, I had to see the memories and for that I had to trigger them. Will be the last time you had them like that."
"I very much hope so."
"Most of the veterans I treated were fine after two sessions like you had. If there is a need you can come back at any time."

"So you believe that Aeolus is fine again?"
"At least with regards to that yes Ottokar. He no longer has the flashbacks when confronted with the correct stimulus. I am no expert on Asur, but I do believe he should get a few good meals under your belt, sleep a bit and he should be right as rain. A bit hard to say so early."
"Hmm, I think my budget stretches to a fine dinner for all of us. As for a bit of diagnosis, do you know any good brothels around here? Kaiserslautern and Ramstein are not far, there should be no shortage."
"Err..."
"Ottokar!"

Beach, French-Guyana

It was the perfect beach, full of white, fine sand, bordering a sea so blue that it hurt and it ended with a palm forest. The afternoon sun shone through scattered clouds and painted anything in radiant colors.
The four deck chairs were the only ones as far as the eye would reach, a small boat providing the answer how they and their inhabitants came to this secluded bay.

Two chairs were taken by swarthy women who basked in a full-bore sun while their two male companions preferred the shade provided by a palm tree. The two women sported the fine lines around their eyes which indicated they were a bit older than their fit bodies led to believe. One of the men matched their apparent age, was lanky and kept his long blond hair in a ponytail. He rummaged inside an icebox and extracted two bottles of beer, one of which he handled to the last member of the group.

Despite being slathered in copious amounts of sun blocker his skin had started to redden a bit. There was a lot of skin, stretched taught over bulging muscles and a bit of a paunch. The chair was filled to overflowing, at least as far as the width was concerned, the huge bare feet barely reached the end of the footstool. The frosty beer bottle nearly disappeared inside a huge hand and a bushy, dishwater-brown beard.

For him being in so much sun, travelling in a small boat when not necessary and swimming when there were other alternatives to drowning were acquired tastes. Him companions were more at ease with those, but that beer was appreciated by all of them.
Beer had been one of the few things left from his old life, a life that sometimes seemed as real as last night's dream. So much had changed, some important things remained constant. Friends, whose respect had been won in combat. Good beer. The need to defend the clan, even when the clan had changed considerably as had the fighting style.

Gotrek found life on Earth surprisingly agreeable.

Kopernikus Space Station, Orbit

The strange face reflected in a window that gave view to magnificence and the spider. The face was full of scales, of many sharp teeth and disconcertingly human eyes hiding behind nictitating membranes. The spider was boxy, moved on many-limbed metal legs and spun a girder across the stars.

That the Zwilling that had brought the face's owner to orbit had launched from Lustria had allowed him the chance to fly to orbit in the first place. A state-sized plot full of plants with miraculous medical effects had paid for the trip. Offering German scientists a chance to examine several Old One's relics made DLR develop a seat that provided space for the tail and a space suit that fit a Skink. That Tehentoto had been specially bred as a sleeve, so that Lord Mazdamundi could see and act outside of his temple had selected him for the ride to the German space station.
The spider was one of five existing and it was an important factor in Germany's future in space. It moved as if in slow motion and from its aft end a silvery girder extruded over the field of unblinking stars.

"Why do you call thisss, thiss thing Thekla Nathan Alpersss?"
"It looks like a spider and I suspect that whoever named it saw too much "Biene Maya" when at an impressionable age. Actually, I am pretty sure about as, as KUKA named the drones that assemble the components that attach to the girders Thekla makes "Willi" and "Maya".
"Sso, what do they do?"
"They all use components that we have refined or recycled in orbit and produce structures from them. Currently they erect a new solar power station for us, as our energy needs are ever increasing. We finished a solar smelter last week, this is a photovoltaic array."
"What materials are up here?"

"There are a couple of Trojan asteroids at the Lagrange points, the points where the moons, the sun and the world's gravity cancel each other out. We have used unmanned tugs and a spaceship to bring some of them here and render them into their components. We recycle as much as we can from the fuel tanks the Phoibos launches leave in orbit, from older projects that have run their course and the derelicts left by the Old Ones."
"You dismantle the relicsss of the Old Onesss?"
"Those who are definitively broken, yes. We restore some of them, like the fueling station we call Sage 17 or some of the KEW satellites, those designated by Nathan we use for their raw materials."

"You mean the Oracle of the Old Onessss?"
"Yes, Nathan the Wise as he calls himself. And we do a lot of the recycling by the nanites used by the Old Ones provided for that very purpose."
"That sssems acceptable then."
"The two AIs think so and our treasury doubly so. This is the second year when the materials we process in orbit exceed those send from the Warhammer World. It saves enormous money.
Ssso, what will you do now that the threat of the old killers hasss ended?"

"Oh, we have restored some of the old KEW sats and their weapons to serve our needs. We track the orbits of all warpstone meteors and if needed change them. For the foreseeable future any type of modern communication outside the Reiksbund will involve satellites. We are currently upgrading this net and in two years we will be able to have decent communications, including internet, from nearly any point on this world. There are satellites who monitor the weather, giving warning before storms strike. Others support science, be it astronomical or ground-based. We receive such spacecraft here, whole or only parts of them, we assemble them and be bring them to their desired orbits. We manage the transportation of He3 from Mannslieb. We also try to keep tracks of this word's armies from up here."
"I hear you, even if I do not underssstand everything Nathan Alpersss."
"You are not alone in that Tehentoto. Let me put it like that: We see a great lot of what is going on down there and up here. We warn before things become a real danger and in some cases we can prevent things to become real disasters. We help others to learn about the world around us and we help shaping it. And if things really get out of hand, we decide who lives and who dies."

"Yes, you do all of that for now."

The German turned to his guest who sounded rather differently now. Tehentoto's eyes, which had been disconcertingly human in a reptile face were now hidden behind nictitating membranes.
Such a small body should not be able to have such a deep, rumbling voice all of a sudden. The station's air condition should have been able to keep the temperatures even and acceptable, not allowing for sudden chills.
Should have.

"Watch the gate."

Nathan Alpers' gaze followed the scaly arm that ended in sharp claws. Claws that pointed to the sun and beyond it. To the star gate that was on the other side of the sun.

Skarsnik's office, World's Edge Mountains Autonomous Zone

The human would have towered over Skarsnik by at least a head if the Goblin despot would be standing, which he was not. He out-massed the diminutive greenskin twice over.
Instead he was sitting, staring at the diminutive Skarsnik. He did glance at Gobbla the Skink though, who eyes him hungrily and seemed to test his chains at times.

"Let me explain this to you again Administrator. We have an order from Aldi Süd for 300.000 pairs of squiqleather working gloves. Aldi is a very strange store in some ways, they offer only 1500 items as part of their standard range. But as they only have two kinds of butter instead of twenty, as they have three different toilet paper rolls instead of a dozen, they are the biggest buyer on planet for each item. That was already often true on our old world and it is certainly true on this one. This allows Aldi to have rock-bottom low prices.

Now, they offer items like these gloves only for promotions. Every German household and about 25% of all Imperial ones will have a leaflet with the promotions of this week in their letterboxes. They have two promotions per week, one from Werktag to Markttag, one from Bäckertag to Wochenend. These promotions are planned one year ahead and once you agreed to them there is no shifting the shipping date. These gloves will be sold in three days. It does not matter if you ship one day late or six months. Aldi will not take your merchandize, will not pay and sue both of us for loss of profit, which usually amounts to 33% of retail value.
Skarsnik, if you cannot sort out these problems we are facing a loss of 2.5 million Marks here, and any chance of future orders is gone."

"That is more than the order is worth, they cannot do this to us."
"It is in the very order we both signed, oh yes, they can. The Empire and the Office for Greenskin affairs will enforce compliance, you signed that two years ago to attract investors such as me."
"Humie, this is fucked up."
"Greenie, this is a fact of life and we have to deal with it. So let us discuss our two little problems here, shall we? First off, there is this BSCI audit. Business Social Compliance Initiative, what a lovely pile of shit and Aldi still insists on it."
"We made sure there were no chains and whips around, just like you told us to."
"Yes, but you did not control your workers well enough. They told the inspectors such stories and they had the bruises and scars to back them up."
"Liars, all liars. I will make sure they do not tell such lies again or else."
"It would be far better if you do. But you also need to get them working again and soon. Even if we manage to speed up production most of our time buffer is gone now. We are already planning with priority train freight, that will cost a fortune. If we have to use an airship we'll both loose a lot of money."

"I have ways to make them work."
"And exactly these ways have backfired so badly in the first audit. We have to pass the second one, the one after that would start at Adam and Eve. We do not have the time for that, not at all. So why did the workers stop working?"
"They ask to be paid in Marks or Imperial Crowns, can you imagine that?"
"Yes, I can. I am paid in Marks, and I pay you for the order in marks as well. You have the cash, use it."
"That is expensive."
"Far cheaper than losing that Aldi order."
"They will ask to be paid in Marks later on as well."
"That is a problem for later. Now we have an immediate problem that can bite our asses right off."
"I do not like it humie."
"Me neither, we still have to take care. Why do we have this problem now, it went much more smoothly last year?"
"There are traitors who want to sabotage what I have built up for all Goblins. They seduce my honest workers and make them tell lies and want things they cannot have."
"They way you treat them I would not bet against that Skarsnik. So, will you pay in Marks?"
"Fuck this, yes, for now."

"Maybe you should consider allowing workers councils in an advisory role. That way you have somebody you can negotiate with, it will speed things up. And it will look good in the BSCI audit."
"The fuck I will, ah maybe there is wisdom in your words Herr Luchs. I will think about it. Do not worry, I will get the laggards to work again."
"You do that Administrator."
"Can you tell me a bit more about these Workers Councils?"

Skarsnik thought the idea just great now that he had thought a bit more about them. The Councils would show him who his enemies were and where to find them. There had to be one or more Greenskin who wanted what was his, that was the way of things since there were Orks and Goblins. The trick was knowing who orchestrated this campaign against him in such a cunning manner. Such a brilliant idea from these soft-seeming Germans.

Meinigen Railroad Works, Meinigen

The conference room was modern, as behooved the second largest locomotive maker in this world. Having expanded more than tenfold after the Weltensprung, the Meiningen works had grown from a barely-for-profit workshop rebuilding steam engines to an economic powerhouse building steam-driven marvels. The room held several Germans and others whose garb and features marked them as something else.
Most of them looked aghast at two of their number. An elderly German, who had spiritedly argued until seconds ago was now having problems wording anything at all. In fact he seemed to have a hard time getting any air inside him. Astonishment and pain held an uneasy balance in his face while his hands grabbed his throat.
There was a sardonic smile on the face of the being on the opposite side of the table. Only two drops of sweat on a pale brow indicated the strain he was under.

"I find you lack of belief disturbing Herr Müller."

The target of his doing started to cough deeply and things went into his handkerchief that nobody wanted to look at. There was too much black and red in there to be a pretty sight.

"Now that we have taken care of this "cancer" thing Herr Müller, can we maybe discuss the building of steam locomotives to our specifications intelligently?"

The frail, elderly man who had been the target of his efforts. He wheezed several times, breathing deeply to refill his lungs with the oxygen they had been denied for a while. And the more he breathed the more he waited for the coughs to come. They did not. A smile appeared on Sir Kurt Müller's face and became more firm with every passing second.

"Master Teclis, do not get me wrong here. I am not saying it cannot be done, I am just saying we cannot make the boilers that would be best suited for what you need. If you can indeed heat metal tubes to the temperatures we need, then a fire-tube boiler is a waste. It can be done, but it not efficient and will need too much maintenance. We should use water-tube boilers and they are not made in these workshops. We will have to contact companies like AEG or Siemens who make such boilers and work with them. And by the look and feel of things I will be able to help with that."
"Will you help teaching our new Engineers then the first ones are ready?"
"If I am still about then I will Master Teclis. I am in your debt."
"That you are Sir Kurt. It will be interesting to see what you will come up with."