More than 3,5k views and over 100 followers already, thanks everyone! Now, on with the show. Here's chapter 4!


Chapter 4: Because, because, because (1,8k words)

Damn, damn, damn it all to hell.

Warhammer 40K.

I'm in the freaking Warhammer universe.

I glared at the symbol of the Imperium of Man from where it hung innocently on the wall on the other side of the screen. Of all the places I could be it had to be Warhammer. I am so screwed. So very, very screwed. How am I even going to-

Right. Never mind that. What do I do now that I know where I am?

Well, it all depends on when I am in the timeline. Normally being on a wreck of an Imperial ship would indicate that the Imperium is already around, but warp-shenanigans could have catapulted the ship to literally any point in time imaginable.

Well then, let's forget about humanity for a moment and focus on all the other horrible things in this universe.

To begin with, the green menaces: Orks. An engineered race meant only for waging war and nothing else. The problem was that the war they were originally made for was long over and they're still joyfully fighting anything and everything in their path. At least, I hoped the War in Heaven was long over, because if it wasn't Orks out there but their non-degenerated ancestors the Krorks then I was just going to make the fastest ship I could design and nope straight out of the galaxy. I wouldn't be stopping a long way past it either. In short, as a combination of fungus, bio-engineered instincts and skills wrapped in a psychic gestalt that made things work even when they really should not and a total, overriding lust for war to top it off, Orks were an infection on the galaxy that was almost impossible to get rid off. If I could figure out some more Forerunner tech, though, I was going to try to kill every single one of them, and their little dog too! Mad bastards would enjoy it too.

Speaking of the War in Heaven that-was-long-over-pretty-please-with-a-cherry-on-top, ahem, anyway, the other side of the conflict was probably also still around. The Necrons, who were the Necrontyr but lost their souls when they transferred their minds to their new, shiny metal bodies, had collectively decided that taking a nap for a couple million years was a good idea. Their technology was very impressive, and completely science based to make it even better. So, if I found any Necrons I was going to -carefully- look at what made them tick and see if any of it could add to what the Forerunners know.

I snorted at the mental image of the plump, squishy Huragok that my mind inhabited sneaking up on an armed Necron warrior from behind and clubbing it over the head with a branch, then pulling all sorts of gears, plugs and other mechanical doodads out of its chest.

Regardless of whether there were humans out there right now there was another faction that I had to watch out for. The Eldar. Based on the magical space elves trope or not, they were no joke. If it was still before the fall of the Eldar Empire, then they were not only very strong, very fast and exceedingly long-lived, but also armed with technology that basically personifies the 'sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'-expression by virtue of being magitech, oh, excuse me, warptech. Something I have very little to no defence against, and as such, scared the shit out of me.

Of course, because I'm in the Warhammer universe it was even worse than that. The Eldar were seers. very, very good seers. So, they most likely already knew I was here and were probably planning to kill me, for the simple fact that the knowledge I had was so very dangerous. I glared at the blueprints for the Halo devices that popped up every so often as I scrolled through my database, constantly reminding me that I have the knowledge of how to build a weapon meant for galaxy scale mass murder. Something which even Darth Sidious would have found a tad excessive.

With that happy thought in mind, if time outside this wreck was after the fall of the Eldar Empire then the pointy eared menaces would have split into three major factions and a couple small ones that didn't really matter right now.

The Exodite Eldar were those who saw where their empire was going and decided that they would prefer going camping a long way away, thank you very much. Since they were basically still camping out, Eldar-style, on some very nice planets as out of the way as possible I'd probably ignore them. I might even protect them, depending on what I can cobble together and what was attacking them.

The Craftworld Eldar saw the way the wind was blowing too, but instead of going camping they basically packed everything up into the largest campervans the galaxy had ever seen and skedaddled. My response to them would depend entirely on what they were doing, and could go from ignore them to stop them to wipe them out.

The final big faction of Eldar were the so called Dark Eldar. When the Eldar Empire fell because they literally murderfucked a Chaos God into existence, which promptly ate their race's previous gods as well as the core of their Empire, these guys were outside of the immediate zone of dying horribly. Unfortunately for everyone else, they never really learned anything from the Fall and happily went back to enslaving, torturing, murdering and backstabbing anyone that was close by. Sadly, close by for the Dark Eldar meant doing all those things that most sane sentient beings find horrifying to absolutely anyone in the entire galaxy they could get their hands on. If I came across any Dark Eldar I was going to shoot anything I had on hand at them until they were vey, very, dead. I'd go so far as to say that I'd keep shooting until they were exceedingly, very-tiny-pieces dead.

Two other factions that I would like to never meet but most likely will, because Warhammer equals grim-and-horrible-forever, were the Tyranid and Chaos forces.

The Tyranid were a wonderful combination of the Zerg and the Flood. They ate everything they came across, leaving behind worlds that no longer have atmospheres, or oceans, or plants, and certainly no animals of the two-legged variety. To make that nightmare even worse, they were extra-galactic, and from everything I remember from Warhammer were travelling to this galaxy in numbers that are best defined as 'yes'. Uncountable trillions of their ships were coming with the single purpose of eating everything biological in the entire galaxy. They weren't so much a race of beings as a living galaxy-sized tsunami that planned to nom your face when it hits. With the Tyranids it really depended on how long I had to prepare for them. If they're already here, well, I heard the Andromeda galaxy was a nice place, right? Or maybe I'd go somewhere a little further than that. If they're not here yet, then I'm going to have to get over myself and start building Halos. Lots and lots of Halos. So very many of them that when I activate them I can hopefully get all of them in one go, then scoop up all that dead biomass and check -double, no triple, quadruple check- that they were all very very dead, lest they learn to somehow resist the Halo activation, because Warhammer. If I'm lucky I'll be able to do that outside of the galaxy proper, but I'm honestly not holding my breath for that, because y'know, Warhammer.

Sheesh. I only just learned where I am and I already hated this place with a passion that goes straight passed the thousand suns and headed to 'billion supernovas'-levels.

Right. The forces of Chaos. The last faction of importance in this ridiculous galaxy except for the humans. They're basically the forces of hell; demons, corrupted idiots who made deals with them, doing everything as evil as possible because being evil is what they are. They come from the Warp, the place humans use for FTL-travel as well as where all the psychics draw their power from. Not much to say about them, nor do I want to say or know anything about them. Well, except for one thing: If I come across them, I'm going to kill them, then kill them some more to be sure. Then I'll burn it all to the ground and vaporise it all from orbit to be doubly sure. There would be no talking, no deals, no second chances. If its Chaos I'm gonna kill it until even the Orks would tell me I'd used enough dakka.

Now then, to finish this litany of factions that wanted to kill me, or torture me, or break open my mind, or plain eat me, or any other form or combination of actions that were horrible and ended up with me dead or wishing I was dead. I really hate this galaxy. Anyway. I present to you: the humans.

Ah, humans. My former race. A tenacious bunch of two-legged mammals that got surprisingly far in basically no time at all. Humans went from thinking the world was flat to dominating the galaxy in ten to twenty millennia. A very impressive show, especially when you realised what sort of hell this galaxy was. The little I know about the so-called Golden Age of humanity was surprisingly similar to what little records I had from the humans of the Halo Universe. But like happened there, when both the Flood and the Forerunners basically wiped them out, the humans here fell as well.

Now, if that Golden Age hadn't ended yet, I was going to do my very best to make sure it never did. How I was going to do that I didn't know, yet, because that human civilisation was no joke. Their technology was rapidly going from 'impressive' to 'holy-hell-what-did-that-planet-ever-do-to-you!?'.

Their fall wasn't as total as that in the Halo Universe, where they were reduced to stone age savages on their homeworld, but they still fell. Out of the ashes of that fall came the Imperium of Man. It was based on a good idea, but that idea burned with the Horus Heresy. The Imperium survived that, but ever since it just trundled on, already dead in spirit but the body didn't know it yet. Assaulted from all sides by every faction I've listed, a heap of other minor ones and sometimes even itself, humanity was pretty much doomed.

Because Warhammer.

I really hate this place.

Everything and anything wants to kill you. Most don't even need a reason. As the saying goes: 'in the grim darkness of the far future there is only WAR'.