Manric gazed over the battlefield from the commanding position offered by his floating platform, enjoying the vantage point. Being able to see the battle this way was a huge advantage, and the platform itself had many shielding and deflection technologies to ensure that attempts to target it would meet with failure.

They were in a fierce battle with the Imperial Guard, buttressed by the Astartes. Which chapter? Manric wasn't sure, but they were wearing blue and gold. And unless something went radically wrong, the Necrons were on the path to victory. Zahndrekh and pulled off a beautiful flanking maneuver and they were currently being rolled up. If Manric had been in their position, he'd have attempted a retreat but instead, their enemies were fighting with grim determination. To him that either meant they were trying to hold out for reinforcements, or just felt they had nowhere to retreat to.

Manric was in command of all the pwi-Necrons on the field and was looking for problems that required his personal attention, champions of the Astartes or powerful weapons that a good blast from his spear could take care of. Psykers, in particular, were his targets since their warp powers could cause recall failure and Necrons had little defense against them.

Sure enough, among the Astartes was one without a helmet, which Manric had come to realize was the sign of a psyker. He was using telekinesis and also blasts of odd warp fires, things similar to what his spear could do but different. The Lion Hearts were trying to take him out, but not having much luck. He was deflecting the gauss flayers?

(Manric had no idea that this was a particularly powerful Librarian. He also wouldn't have cared)

Manric quickly and smoothly joined the battle, dipping close before leaping off his command post and into the frontline. He'd practiced it many, many times and his men were used to it, parting easily for him to take the front. Manric immediately launched a vicious attack on the Librarian, aiming to take him down as quickly and efficiently as possible. Other Astartes interfered, but paid for it with their heads and the Librarian realized he was facing a dire threat. He tried to launch a powerful attack of warp fire, but Manric deflected it with his spear, sending it screaming into the heavens.

Then the Librarian made a terrible mistake. Assuming he was facing a Necron who was armored against the Warp with technology, he held out one hand, the other at his temple as he tried a psychic attack. He placed perfect faith in his Battle Brothers to protect him as he crushed the mind of the Necron he was facing. And against a normal Overlord, it could have worked.

Manric was not a normal Overlord. He was a potent psyker, and his greatest power was empathic telepathy, an ability he'd had long before he'd picked up the aeldari spear. Manric would never dream of initiating such an attack – his empathy made the idea repulsive – but when daggers of fire assaulted his mind, he responded in kind and mirrored it back. Their minds grappled together and Manric's was the stronger. The Librarian was locked in place, sweat on his face, but Manric could still move. Ignoring the dreadful emotions tearing at his mind, Manric took step after step, closing the distance. He was also trusting to his men to protect him and he was vaguely aware of screams and fighting, the battle continuing around them. The Librarian's eyes were wide as he saw his doom approaching, and he understood the dreadful truth of the matter.

"You are human. You are human!" He rasped out, transmitting the message to the rest of the battlefield. Manric just nodded.

"I was," he agreed before his spear lashed out. The lack of a helmet made it very easy and the Librarians head separated from his shoulders in a gout of blood. Manric felt only relief, as the psychic assault stopped and he was able to regain his balance. A quick glance around made him realize that the battle had moved past him… his men had beaten back the Astartes during their confrontation, and he was now a bit behind the frontline. Quickly getting back onto his command post, Manric was able to overlook the battle again and saw the Guard and Astartes were finally admitting defeat and pulling a retreat. Well, mostly the Astartes… it looked like they didn't have the transports for the Guard. That was… awful, but Manric understood that they would want to save the higher value Space Marines over the Imperial Guard.

"Nemesor, we should give them the option to surrender soon," Manric sent to his superior. Zahndrekh cheerfully came back a moment later.

Yes indeed, but this is a very stubborn Dynasty! They won't surrender just yet. No? Manric would have in their shoes. But then, he'd also have pulled out sooner. Don't worry, I'll know when. Well, Manric was more than willing to accept that. He just wanted as many of the Guard alive as possible. They had a plan for them, approved by Imotekh, and the new hybrid ships built by Hope were waiting to be used. Then, they would see how well it worked out.

For the sake of the prisoners, he hoped it went well.

The survivors of the 254th Imperial Guard unit were both confused and frightened.

Borin Zaul, former conscript and private, now prisoner of war, sat glumly in the hold of the ship. The rest of his unit was dead, except for himself and Zatana, and she was a crazy bitch. She kept hissing about making the xenos pay and he honestly wished she'd taken a gauss flayer shot.

There was no way they were ever going to make the Necrons pay. They'd been implanted with something called a Mindshackle Scarab that kept them from attacking anyone, even each other. (from some of the dirty looks Zatana was getting from the others, that was the only reason she hadn't been slapped yet) And they definitely couldn't attack the crew of the ship who, weirdly enough, were human. The ship had loaded up on supplies looted from the planet before taking the prisoners to go… where? Borin didn't know and thanks to Zatana, the crew wasn't talking to them.

"Shut up! Just shut the fuck up! If you hadn't been such a whore to that man, maybe we'd know what's going on!" The sanctioned psyker, Rafeef, finally snapped. He was very lucky to have gotten out of the battle intact. Zatana glared at him.

"YOU shut up, warp spawn!" Oh Throne. Borin wanted to die. How long would this trip take?

As it turned out, almost a month, and the rations were getting a bit thin before they arrived. A crew member even quietly apologized for that, and reassured them they would be arriving soon.

When they were finally unloaded, it was on an alien world. Borin looked around, curiosity overriding fear for a moment. The planet itself was nice enough, with a blueish-green sky that just barely peeked out from behind dark clouds that promised rain. It was very warm and slightly damp, high humidity in the air. Glancing around the landing field, Borin confirmed that they seemed to be somewhere tropical. There were plenty of insects in the air and someone behind him cursed before swatting.

They were herded from the landing area to an open-air bunch of tables, shaded with umbrellas, and a lovely spread of food. Borin's stomach growled as he looked at the loaves of bread, the cold cuts and cheese, along with platters of fruit and vegetables. That was for them?

"I'm told you all need a good feed up, help yourselves," one of their guards invited and they needed no more invitation. Borin quickly grabbed a seat and a piece of bread, although he wondered what was going on. Thankfully, Zatana was glowering and loitering insolently, so she didn't get the chance to sit anywhere near him.

"What's going on?" A man he didn't know, another conscript he thought, said in a low tone. Borin just shrugged helplessly.

"I think we're going to be put to work," someone else said and Borin nodded, his mouth full. That was the only explanation he could think of. "Well, it could be worse." Hopefully. The tropical nature of the place made him a bit wary. Fortunately, this didn't look like some crazy jungle planet like Catechan. The crew from the ship were joining them at some of the tables, he noticed. But they'd been shorting their own rations too, from what he'd seen.

When everyone was well fed, they were gathered up again and a man who looked like a military officer, but from a planetary defense force Borin didn't recognize, addressed them in heavily accented but fluent low Gothic.

"You're probably all wondering why you're here. This is the Serf World of Hope, in service to the Uhnashret Dynasty." Huh? "Our ruler is Phaeron Rahkaak. The Necrons, for anyone a bit slow." Oh. "You're going to be working the cocoa plantations, and the coffee plantations." Cocoa? What was that? Coffee though, Borin did know that, although REAL coffee made from actual beans was a luxury for rich people. "You will be slaves to start with, in the sense that you are spoils of war. However, this does not have to be a permanent status. Work hard, be diligent, and in five years your status will be changed to serf. Then you can choose to either stay and continue to work for wages, or see about a transfer to a new Noble house." This sounded like a Knight World. "Continue to work hard and maybe someday, you can buy out the serf contract." From what Borin understood, that usually didn't happen, serfs didn't get paid enough. Still, being a serf was a better life than being an Underhiver.

"We're not going to work for Xenos!" Zatana burst out. There was shifting among the other Guard and Borin knew no one agreed with her. They liked living and this was a surprising chance at survival, they weren't going to throw it away. "You boot licking traitor! Your soul will go to the void!" She kept ranting and raving until a guard stepped up and neatly pistol whipped her. Borin winced a little as she hit the ground like a bag of grain. The officer just lifted an eyebrow.

"I see someone just volunteered to work on the asteroid belt instead. Anyone else?" There was dead silence. "No? That's a shame, it's hard to find enough slaves for it." Well that had to be absolute shit. Borin wasn't surprised though, he'd heard before that asteroid mining was an awful job. The officer walked down the line of them and suddenly paused. "What's this?" He was staring at Rafeef. Or rather, the brand on his forehead. "What does this signify?" He… didn't recognize a sanctioned psyker brand?

"I'm a sanctioned psyker, sir." Rafeef said after a moment of hesitation. Probably worried he'd be put to death, which might indeed happen. The officer raised his eyebrows.

"Oh really? Well, none of this applies to you. Any psykers are to be taken to Hope's Landing for processing." Rafeef gave them a helpless look and Borin felt bad for him. "That's not a bad thing. Our planet has barely any psykers at all, you'll be a priceless resource." Yeah well, astropaths were priceless resources too, that didn't work out great for them. Rafeef was taken away though, and there was nothing they could do. Not that most of them would anyway, they weren't fanatics like Zatana but no one was really fond of psykers. Still, Borin felt badly for him as they all got herded off to a shuttle to be taken to the plantations.

Hard labor in the sun wasn't great but it might be much better than what Rafeef had in front of him.

Santioned psyker Rafeef was cautiously fearful as he was loaded onto a shuttle and taken to Hope's Landing.

He was a pretty good psyker. His main power was telekinesis, and he was good enough at it to be a serious military asset. The only reason he was alive was because he'd gotten hit by a bit of stray shrapnel that had happened to knock him out for a bit, but by some miracle hadn't killed him. By the time he'd come to, the battle had been decided and Rafeef had had the common sense to not continue fighting. If it hadn't been for that, he would certainly have been killed.

The city he was taken to was easily recognizable as a large, industrial hub. There were dozens if not hundreds of factories, and great skyscrapers in the centre. Around was spread a wide area of settlement with great suburbs, hab buildings and little homes. It was incredibly small compared to a Hive city, of course, but for a moderate Civilised world this was a large city indeed.

They settled down on a private landing strip, in the heart of the city. Rafeef was taken from the top of the skyscraper, down what seemed like an endless series of elevators, until he was sure he was deep underground. It took so long that he dared to ask some questions.

"What is going to happen to me?" He asked one of the guards with him. One of them shrugged, but the other tried to answer.

"Well, I don't know exactly but I would guess your psyker powers will be evaluated and you'll be put on a project." What kind of project? Was he going to be a participant or the subject? "I hear they're working on improved biotransference." …What?

"What's biotransference?" Rafeef asked and the one guard might have answered, but the other made a short wave of negation.

"That isn't for us to say. But if you're any good, you'll be valued." That really wasn't the least bit reassuring. He was valued as a Sanctioned Psyker too, and he'd always been under threat of a bolt in the back of the head. And Xenos experimental subjects were "valued" too.

Rafeef was finally brought into a deep underground complex that was actually surprisingly nice. It was a bit damp and cold from being so deep underground, and the walls were made of cold steel, but some effort had gone into making it pleasant to live in. The lighting was good and there were plenty of little plants, hanging in small baskets and watered by… by servo skulls lacking the skulls? Rafeef wasn't sure what to make of that, any normal place would have been using proper servo skulls, not naked mechanisms. To his further surprise, the doors and security systems were fully automated. He felt a deep bewilderment as one of the guards leaned into a scanner to flash his retina. This was the kind of thing that should be done by a servitor, not machines! That machine had to be perilously close to a forbidden AI!

Worrying thoughts of technical heresy fled, though, as he was brought into some kind of working area. It was a large room, with slightly raised platforms surrounded by some kind of force field? From the sigils at the bottoms of the platforms, it was Necron technology. Most of the platforms were unoccupied but inside one of them, a man was wearing a strange piece of headgear and gloves. Rafeef's witchsight showed him a tiny rent in the fabric of reality and he stared, petrified, as he watched the psyker – that man HAD to be a psyker – draw out a bit of pure warp energy. Then he started to sing and somehow, the alien song made the warp energy solidify? Rafeef watched, open-mouthed, as it became an actual material like a piece of wood.

(any aeldari would have recognized it as similar to, but also different from, wraithbone)

When that was done the man suddenly collapsed, and Rafeef noticed the floor of the platform was padded. No one went to help him though, until they finished checking some instruments and did something. The markings on the platform switched from green to red, and to Rafeef's witchsight, the tiny rift to the Warp was completely sealed. Actually, more than sealed… it felt like it had been bricked up harder than regular reality should be. He felt fervently grateful for it. No one in their right mind would take chances with a warp rift, even a small one! Then the force field dropped and two women who looked like medics hurried in. They checked the man's vitals and also ran some other tests, using equipment that Rafeef didn't recognize.

"He needs a rest, sir. Possibly a week or more," one of them said and there was a gusty sigh from the person in charge. Rafeef turned his attention to him and saw a middle-aged man with dark hair and dark skin, wearing a lab coat. He seemed entirely unremarkable to be running a place like this.

"It is what it is. Take him to the recovery rooms," he said and the two women nodded, gently helping the man to his feet. He was conscious now, although wavering badly, and they maneuvered him to a floating gurney. As they did, Rafeef noticed that one of the women was holding his hand. Then the scientist noticed him and the guards. "Oh, what is this?"

"A new psyker, sir. Prisoner of war from the Imperium, he's a Sanctioned Psyker." That made the man's eyes become very bright and he regarded Rafeef with what he could only call an air of covetousness.

"Oh really! THAT could be useful. We'll have to test your abilities, can you please come over here?" Rafeef steeled himself but came over obediently to what looked like another helmet and a chair. This was probably going to hurt. He still remembered what had happened on Terra in his nightmares.

Surprisingly, though, nothing hurt. Instead he just had to wear the helmet and demonstrate his abilities, which was easy enough. Not the way he would use them in combat of course, but just picking up objects with his telekinesis and manipulating them. And for some reason, that made the researcher very happy.

"Oh this is wonderful! Amazing!" It… it really wasn't… "You are at least twice as powerful as any psyker we currently have!" He was? "Well, except for General Duleth, of course, but he's a special case." Who? "You might have met him, hahaha… oh probably not, or you wouldn't be here." Uh what? "We'll have to train you to make the ghost wood. But for now, I think this is enough. Can you take that off please?" Rafeef obeyed and then was offered a black object that looked like a collar? "You'll need to wear this when you're not using your abilities in a safe environment. It's blackstone, it can be negatively or positively charged against the warp. Put it on and see." Rafeef hesitated but the Mindshackle Scarab ensured his obedience and he carefully put on the collar.

And he almost gasped as he completely lost touch with the Warp. It was shocking yet also blessed, as the idiot ramblings that he always endured were suddenly silenced. Rafeef savored it with a sense of awe, wondering at how this was what normal people felt. No noise in the back of his head, no distant screams, nothing but pure and beautiful silence.

"Ah, are you well? Some psykers don't like it…" The researcher seemed unnerved by his reaction. Rafeef blinked, coming back to himself.

"I love it." And it baffled him that there were some people who DIDN'T like it. "I wish we had this…" If the Imperium had anything like this blackstone collar, they'd be using it constantly.

"Really? General Duleth absolutely hated it, the one time he wore it. Said he wanted to commit suicide." …Really? "But then, his main ability is empathic telepathy and you're a telekinetic. I suppose that might make a difference." Well, maybe? Rafeef thought that being assaulted by everyone's emotions around him would be worse though. "Either way though, I'm glad you like it since you'll be required to wear it most of the time. Oh, I'm Researcher Zivon, by the way."

"I am Rafeef van der Dahl, but please call me Rafeef," he replied and Zivon smiled.

"Well Rafeef, let's get you set up with a room!" Rafeef went along with him and soon found he was actually being assigned a suite that was the size of a small hab block, and one from the good part of town. He would even have his own plants. As he looked over the startling luxury, he came to a conclusion.

Rafeef wasn't entirely sure he could trust all of this yet, but he was willing to give it a try.