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Here's chapter 9, hope you like it!

Chapter 9: Mise en place

The hangar I'd picked to start the next stage of my plans was one that opened out to a stretch of contorted metal. At a guess there were once dropships or bombers stored here, as far as I could make out from what little remained of the ships. Now it contained a massive machine that was almost ready. Once the Constructor was in the room it didn't take long to finish it, and it activated with a low hum.

I stared at the massive laser cannon with a grin. The weapon was an upscaled infantry weapon, but no less deadly for it. The fact that it had to be powered by a dedicated fusion reactor proved that. I was quite proud of it, and very happy that it was under my control, pointed away from me and that there were some very substantial walls between me and it, just in case.

The deep scans I had made of the cocoon of armour locking me in had shown me that this was the weakest part of it, with the normally meters thick armour stretched like taffy, somehow. I had absolutely no clue how that had happened, except for 'the Warp did it', which was both very likely to be true, while being very annoying and worrying. Either way, this was the place I was going to break out. As far as my scans could tell on the other side of the armour there were corridors, passageways and hangars a-plenty and I could barely wait to explore it all.

Happily, I gave the command. The turret of the cannon turned to where it calculated the beam would do the most damage before with a crackle of lightning it fired. A brilliant spear of light connected the muzzle with its target for several long seconds before it cut out. The result was impressive. The rough outer surface of the armour was melted for at least a meter deep at the point of contact, and molten metal ran in rivulets from the impact. Also impressive was how much the plating had dispersed the energy of the laserbeam. The entire area around the hit glowed red with heat, with smoke sizzling up lazily in the heated air.

Squads of Mantis and swarms of Locusts with Cicada support prepared to surge in once I had made a breach. There were plenty of Drones and Constructors waiting to go behind their more martial cousins, as well. After a short cool down period, the laser cannon fired again. And again. And again.

It took eight shots, but a hole was made.

Like planned, my robots surged forwards. The swarm of Locusts went first, spreading out as best as they could. Immediately on the other side of the newly made entrance was a hallway, so they split up with half going either side. Every door was investigated, every vent pried open. Locked doors were chewed through. It didn't take long before the first corpse was found. It was human, to my surprise. The man was wearing what looked to have been quite impressive power armour, but was now rent and torn. The sleek design and unknown insignia as well as the complete absence of any skulls made me doubt that he had ever been part of the Imperium. Intrigued, I ordered some Drones to bring it back while my other robots moved on.

About an hour after my troops first entered through my newly made door I sat back from where I had been peering at the multitude of screens projected around me. There were still nooks and crannies to be searched, but the majority of the ship -which was what I had discovered it to be- was now under my control. Like the human corpse I had first found indicated, and a great many others I'd encountered scattered all over the place, this had once been a human ship. It had once been a ship of the line of the Terran Federation, in fact.

At a bit over eight kilometers long and mostly still intact finding this ship would be every Tech-priest's dream come true. A mostly intact warship straight from the Dark Age of Technology was a big enough prize that I was pretty sure that whoever found it could ask for a restitution measured in planets. I wouldn't have even been remotely surprised if even in that currency this little baby would go up to double digits.

While Bold Wolf was an incredible find, and one that I was going to scour for any useful bit of tech it contained, I had no intention of ever handing it over to anyone. No matter the prize. Finding the name of the ship had been a stroke of luck, as it had been plastered on a plaque on the devastated bridge, one of the few things still in one piece there. Well, mostly. I hadn't been able to set up everything that I wanted to before I took a crack at its sole surviving computer core, so for now I wasn't going to touch that. I did not want to lose the data on there.

On the other side of Bold Wolf away from Piercing Courage was what I had half feared and half expected; more asteroid bits intermingled with starship parts. I hadn't just emerged in a couple of crumpled up spaceships, I'd come out inside a spacehulk, a vast conglomeration of space debris that shifted in and out of the Warp at random on an equally random course.

This was both a benefit and a problem. The benefit had already been shown: there was a lot to be learned from everything on Bold Wolf, and I had only checked out two ships out of potentially hundreds. My worry about scraping together enough material from Piercing Courage before I had to brave a slipspace jump was now gone. Even with only Bold Wolf I was sure to have enough to create a ship. The problem was that Spacehulks were often occupied. Whether it was Orks, Genestealer cults or Chaos cults mattered little. Occupied meant others, and in this universe others equaled to enemy.

Squads of Mantis were positioned at each of the holes in the hull of Bold Wolf, securing it for me. Constructors were hard at work fortifying them with entrenched heavy weapons, preprepared kill zones and even closing some of them off completely. While I really wanted to take a long look at the tech of the Federation it would have to wait. Not only was making sure I had everything secure more important, I had another ship to access.

At the other side of Piercing Courage was another wall of armour blocking my way. It was equally distorted, but intensive scans had shown a distinct difference in composition of the alloy used in its production and in internal layout. I hoped that it was just a different type of Federation hull armour, but in this galaxy hoping for the best was folly. Another lasercannon was set up with an even larger breaching party. Ten shots later molten metal made way for my bots and they streamed in.

It didn't take me long to be sure that this was what I feared it might be.

Man of Iron.

Oh boy.

The Men of Iron were the AI's of the Terran Federation gone full-out Skynet. They had attempted to murder everyone and came damn close to succeeding. They were the reason the Terran Federation was too weak to withstand the birth of the Fourth Chaos God. They were why the Imperium called it the Dark Age of Technology, instead of the Golden Age it had been until the Men of Iron Rebellion. They were the reason that the Martian Cult of the Machine changed the definition of AI from Artificial Intelligence to Abominable Intelligence.

If finding anything from the old Terran Federation could see you rewarded in planets, finding anything from the Men of Iron could see those same planets burned to cinders to keep this dark part of humanities history as lost as it had become. Clearly, even if I for any reason told anyone about the Federation ship, I would have to keep incredibly quiet about the Man of Iron vessel. Getting into a better position -meaning having more guns to point outwards- was even more important now. Even having seen this AI ship could be enough for me to be declared anathema. It might even be bad enough that Bold Wolf would be seen as tainted, too.

Of course, it still depended on when I am. If I'm prior to human expansion in the galaxy, than the Eldar won't care about what human things I've stumbled upon; that I've got the Halo designs will be more than enough for them to want me dead. If humans have arrived on the galactic scene than it will matter whether the Iron Revolt has started or not. In case the Imperium of Man is around already, then I'd be right: they would want me very dead for even having seen the Man of Iron ship.

Phew, every time I got a bit more positive about my situation, I'm reminded that this galaxy was an absolute and total heap of steaming- well, something. Something that Nurgle, Chaos God of disease and rot probably found pleasant. That parasite existing at all probably explained a lot about how bad this whole universe was.

Y'know, that vacation I was planning to take in Andromeda might not be close enough. I'm sure I can traipse over to somewhere quite a bit further than a mere two and a half million lightyears…