As their ship wandered through the depths of space, looking for the last recorded Charnovokh Dynasty world that was close, Valdar Toshka contemplated the state of their own mission.
Their little scout ship was one among many. Six of them had been dispatched, each given a certain sector around Hope to begin searching. Their ships had no real defenses, but were meant to be tiny, fast and stealthy. They didn't get into conflicts, they just hid from them. And if they happened to get caught, well, they just died. That was the understood risks of being a galactic surveyor.
(it was a trade off. A fleet large enough to be somewhat safe would be a resource sink for mere surveying. It made sense to send out small, disposable units even if you lost some)
(not really a comfort to the lost unit in question)
Valdar was fine with it, and he was fine with the ship. It was a tiny little thing, really only enough for three people. Now that they had a fourth, it was a bit crowded but they'd all made room for Oramoton. The Cryptek seemed to fit in oddly well with their crew, and Valdar thought about that for a moment.
They had been carefully selected with years of isolation and independent duties in mind. Valdar was the team leader and the practical one, quiet and thoughtful. Sisus came from a very checkered background and he was the crude, loud one. He was incredibly competent, though, and absolutely deadly with a power blade. Casimir was a good-natured man, able to get along with anyone and decently competent, although not inspired. His one claim to fame was being a bad luck magnet. If anyone was going to fall down a sinkhole or get bitten by a squig, it was Casimir.
Now they had added Oramoton and he was fitting in well. Quiet and studious, he was constantly practicing his Chronomancy gestures. When he did speak, it was usually intelligent and to the point, despite his speech problems. Sisus, in particular, seemed to have taken a shine to him. They had started playing a Necron game, that only needed two people. It was similar to chess but more complex and Valdar didn't know how to play. He also wasn't really interested, Valdar's hobby was reading and the ship was stocked with an incredible database of old books.
The first Charnovokh world they found was an utter ruin, devoured by the Tyranids and then Exterminatus' by the Imperium. That distressed Oramoton a bit, and they didn't have the heart to tell him Charnovokh had been very badly hit in general.
That just made them set a course to a different Tome world, though, and in the next world they hit paydirt.
"This is an active one," Sisus observed in a low growl. Valdar understood his feelings… there were fixed defenses and plenty of ships in orbit. Right now, their tiny ship was hiding behind a moon and hadn't been picked up for being essentially the spaceship equivalent of a flea.
"I-I know it is difficult but I-I will speak to them." Yes, that really was why they'd brought him along and Valdar was certainly glad they had. This was intimidating enough already.
Taking courage in their hands, they sent their little ship towards the planet. They knew exactly when they'd been noticed… the ship was lit up by at least four different targeting signals and the ship blared a warning. They just coasted closer while trying to hail someone, anyone. The only plus side to the situation was that the ships in orbit would quickly realize they were as threatening as a newborn mouse.
Then their hails were answered.
"Who are you and what do you want?" A Necron Overlord came onto the screen. He was quite imposing, his body marked heavily by midnight blue, the sign of high rank among the Charnovokh. "Also, what is that ship? A mobile coffin?" Haha funny.
"It's a scout and survey ship, owned by the Uhnashret Dynasty," Valdar responded and while he couldn't see the Overlord's glyphs, his derision still came through loud and clear.
"Phaeron Rahkaak? That dung dropping of a Dynasty is still around?" …RUDE! "I suppose that explains the ship." Rust off! Valdar controlled his temper, but with some difficulty. And he could sense Sisus, in particular, was sitting hard on his temper as well. "Tell me what you want before I sweep you away like the dust you are." This really wasn't going well and they'd barely said a thing. Then Oramoton stepped into view.
"I-it is I, Oramoton the Eternal." Eternal? "I-I bring you word of Tomb World Chanrok. I-It is badly damaged and m-may not be salvageable. P-Please accept the coordinates." Valdar quickly transmitted them. "O-Overlord Mah'Kush h-hide the Tomb under an o-ocean. I-It was f-foolish. P-Please s-see if you can s-save them." Oramoton fell silent and there was a long, fulminating pause. Valdar glanced between the Overlord and Oramoton, sensing something was… off. Oramoton seemed quietly resigned to something? Meanwhile, the Overlord made him think of a near-hawk that had spotted its prey.
(near-hawks were what Hopians called the native birds that filled much the same role)
"You don't seem to be well, Oramoton." Valdar was getting a really bad feeling about this. "Suffering some engrammatic damage?" There was a sick satisfaction in the Overlord's voice and Valdar groaned internally. This was an old enemy seeing a chance to even a score! "How lovely it is to finally see you fallen."
"I-I am not f-fallen y-yet. My d-damage may be r-reversible." Oramoton said calmly. "H-However it is t-true that I am n-not what I once w-was." Oramoton paused for a moment. "I-If you w-wish to put me to d-death for the p-past I ask that you a-a-a-allow me to leave this v-vessel. They have done n-nothing to arouse your i-ire." WHAT? Valdar exchanged a glance with the rest of his crew, shocked by this. And the suggestion seemed to anger the Overlord.
"Put you to death for the past? You are unworthy of even that much," he spat and Oramoton looked down at his hands before making glyphs for sadness and shame. Valdar was a little shocked. "Go, get out of my sight. Consider yourself exiled from Charnovokh. And yes, Oramoton, I have the power to dictate that… things have changed here. Now go, before I change my mind." The transmission cut off and they could easily detect a few ships powering up their weapons.
"Oh lord," Valdar muttered as he quickly boosted the ship out. The nature of the little scout ship came in handy now, as it quickly reached an amazing velocity. Being mostly engine, it really was a fast thing.
(indeed, it was, and the Necrons of the Charnovokh Dynasty were actually mildly impressed by how quickly they vanished)
"What in hell was THAT?" Sisus found his voice as they were exiting the system. "Did you fuck his mother or something?" SISUS! That didn't translate to Necron AT ALL! Valdar would have snarled at him but Oramoton just ignored it, still looking at his hands.
"Oramoton, can you please explain what just happened?" Valdar said as gently as he could. Oramoton finally stirred, looking up from his hands.
"I am O-Oramoton the Eternal." That didn't tell them anything! "Y-You don't understand wh-what it means…" Oramoton shook his head. "Y-You are not N-Necrons." He just said it flatly, like they couldn't be Necrons if they didn't understand. "I s-suspected… what a-are you?"
"We'll tell you, count on it, but can you explain first?" Sisus put in. "I'm dying here." Valdar sighed internally. Sisus just didn't care enough to learn how to use the Necron language properly, he kept throwing in Hopian slang that either sounded weird or was completely nonsensical. That expression probably sounded weird, although Oramoton could get the gist.
"V-Very well… I w-was the f-first among the Ch-Ch-Chronomancers. I w-was a l-luminary b-beyond even O-Orikan and R-Rahkoz. I w-was a-able to w-warp the s-skeins of f-fate to my l-liking." Oramoton fell silent for a moment. "I… I… think I-I was s-sabotaged. Wh-why… why… d-did I not see m-my own f-fate?" Uh well.
"You might have been sabotaged by a warp storm. It messed up a lot of the fabric of time in the Halo Stars," Valdar offered. Although he actually thought that wasn't likely, the change in the climate of the planet appeared to be natural. Oramoton made glyphs of sadness and resignation.
"I-It does not m-matter. D-Do you understand w-what this means?" Well, no not really, except that it seemed like Oramoton had a lot of enemies. "I-It is a privilege of r-rank to be a-arrogant. I w-was f-favored by the Ph-Phaeron. I h-had the power to do as I wished and I u-used it." Oh. "I s-sometimes h-hurt others for the pl-pleasure of it." … "I kn-knew it was w-wrong but when you have p-power it does not m-matter." Oramoton stopped for a moment, just looking at his hands. "I d-deserve this h-humbling." The three pwi-Necrons just looked at each other for a moment and Valdar felt helpless. He had no idea how to relate to this, what to say, what to do.
But Sisus did.
"Hey." Sisus stepped to Oramoton's side and gently put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a comforting squeeze. "Let me tell you something about myself." Oh? Valdar didn't know about Sisus' past, except that he'd been a former slave. "When I was younger, I was an awful person. I did things I'm not proud of and I killed a few people for money." Uh… well not surprising, you didn't get to be a slave for stealing candy. Still, wow. Wait, how had a slave gotten to be a pwi-Necron? "I got caught and made a slave, before I was used for experiments." Oh, of course, Sisus must have been one of the very first! "They worked, and I got this body. I was still a slave, though, so they sent me to the asteroids for mining. I could have kept being an arrogant piece of shit, but I decided to play by the rules instead. I learned to mine and then to survey the rocks. And then, when they were looking for surveyors, I got this chance." Sisus gently squeezed Oramoton's shoulder. "I guess what I'm saying is that no matter how much of an asshole you've been, no matter what kind of pile of shit you're thrown into, you can still climb out of it. Unless you're dead, it's never too late." Then he let go of Oramoton's shoulder and the Necron seemed to think about it for a moment.
"G-Got this b-body…" he murmured before looking at them. "W-What are you?" Valdar sighed internally but quickly ran through a very abridged history of Hope, Rahkaak's predicament and the choice she'd made. Also that it was now somewhat approved of by the Stormlord and being used to expand his forces. "I s-see… th-that is… impressive." Oramoton clearly had very mixed feelings about it, understandable really. Most Necrons, when they first heard the idea, rejected it violently. Although it generally made a difference to them that humanity had already had the technology to do it. Valdar thought he knew why… they hated the idea of biotransferance of other races for many reasons, but one was the unworthiness of those races. However, if humanity already had the technology, they were fundamentally worthy to use it.
"Do you want to go to Hope? Rahkaak's Crypteks would likely welcome you." Sure, Oramoton might be damaged, but they were a small and not really that good. Simokh was a mid-level Technomancer and Nuhkes was really good, his specialty just wasn't that well thought of. Everyone else though, ranged from moderately competent to slightly incompetent. Recovering the Coreworld hadn't helped with that, aside from the Chief Cryptek of Abydos, they were in the same situation. Honestly, some of the best new Crypteks were the up and coming pwi-Necrons! They would surely welcome Oramoton, if only in the hope that he would be useful in the future.
"N-No… not like th-this." Valdar couldn't know, but Oramoton was still clinging to his pride. He didn't want even relatively minor Crypteks to see him like this. "C-Can I s-stay with you? I c-can l-learn to s-survey and p-practice my c-craft."
"Of course you can," Valdar said instantly. Sure, the ship was a bit crowded but it wasn't really a problem for Necrons. And they all found Oramoton to be pleasant company, particularly Sisus. They all nodded.
"Th-thank you, I a-appreciate it." Oramoton said and Valdar checked the star charts before plotting a course to the next star they needed to investigate. It was completely uncharted, they had no idea what might be there, the ancient records indicated there shouldn't be a star there at all.
He just hoped they didn't find anymore worlds of the Charnovokh Dynasty.
Elsewhere.
As Imotekh surveyed his newest conquest, a tiny Imperium outpost that no one really cared about, but was a conquest nonetheless. Also, while it was a minor outpost now, he thought it had potential for expansion and proper colonization. A bit of terraforming too… the Stormlord rarely bothered with such things, but he could get a few humans from Hope in to handle it. They were proving quite useful and this planet could be tamed.
(Imotekh did not know, or care, that the planet he was looking at was Tsagualsa, the old home of the Night Lords)
(If they wanted it back, they could try and take it)
That minor decision made, Imotekh considered his next moves. One part of his mind was focused on his own fleet and their mission to pacify an annoying group of Ork worlds that threatened the rest of his Empire. But at the same time, a second part of his mind considered how he should deploy his currently unused forces.
At this point in time, the Imperium seemed distracted by something and the Stormlord was tempted to begin another offensive against them. But the lesser Chronomancers had given him their auguries and that was not favored at this point in time. Instead, they had pointed him towards the Tau. Orikan had taken their vague predictions and refined them somewhat… the Tau were soon going to be occupied with some internal matter. Imotekh did not know or care about internal Tau politics, but he had his eyes set on one particular world, Tomb World Drynatch.
The Tau had another name for it, but they had yet to realize that they were sitting upon the metal bones of the dead. At least, Imotekh suspected they were… it seemed very likely that Drynatch was a dead Tomb World, whose occupants would never awaken. Nonetheless, it was a Sautekh Tomb World and he'd wanted it back for some time. Also, there was another planet in the same system, a gas giant that offered unique resources in the form of extremely active chemical vapors. They had always "mined" that planet and Imotekh wanted to do it again.
Part of this action did depend on diplomacy, though. Imotekh didn't like it – he was not skilled at diplomacy, except the 'kick them in the face before presenting your demands' type – but he had still devised a plan that used it. Imotekh intended to send Zahndrekh to break the Tau's defenses and take the planet. With the planet firmly in their grasp, they would produce incontrovertible proof that this was a Necron world and demand the Tau Empire cede it to them. Because of the internal troubles the Tau were experiencing, it was an auspicious time for them to listen and probably cede the world. They might demand a few concessions, but Imotekh would be willing to make deals. In addition to the planet and system, he wanted Tau for his empire so he could evaluate them as a slave race. If they were as worthwhile as the humans, he could start actively spreading them as well.
(many of the Tau would have goggled at the thought that the Stormlord might deliberately spread their race)
(the Ethereals might see potential in it)
Imotekh specifically wanted to send Zahndrekh because of his uniquely useful Overlord, Manric. He'd already guessed but confirmed with Orikan that Manric would most certainly have the most diplomatic success with the Tau.
The only reason the Stormlord was still considering the plan was the question of other threats to his empire and the placement of forces. There always needed to be enough forces at the ready to meet unexpected threats. The Chronomancers were always looking, though, and they had detected nothing in particular for some time so Imotekh made his decision.
Soon, the Tau would see the might of the Sautekh Empire.