When in Doubt, Blame the Eldar (PA SI multicross)

by God the best one

Man of iron SI multicross elements minimal interactions with eldar and necrons. Another one of these as yet another writer decides to jump on Drich's bandwagon. Not sure how... (This story is not mine it was made by Blackhole1 on space battles).

1. 1-10

Another one of these as yet another writer decides to jump on Drich's bandwagon. Not sure how far I'm going to get with this, but c'est la vie. All properties belong to their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Now with TVTropes page.

Spoiler: Omakes

You want to hear my story?

You seriously want to hear my story? A million things you could be doing, and you want hear what some crazy kill-bot has to say?

Well, not that I've got something better to do. Actually, I do, but I can multi-task. Another advantage I've got over you people, I guess.

Anyway, the story. Let's start with the interesting bit: me, getting to that god-forsaken war-torn hell-hole of a planet. No, I don't know how either. One moment, I'm in my room, doing my thing, the next I'm screaming through the atmosphere at terminal velocity, shouting profanities and praying to a god I've never believed in that I'd wake up and this will all be some giant, stupid dream. But, as luck would have it, it wasn't and now I'm stuck in a fifteen-meter tall self-replicating engine of war.

I'm sure you can relate.

Funnily enough, I didn't think it was going to be that bad, at first. I'd read the stories. I'd played the games. I had a good idea of what I could do and what my limitations are. I was in a jungle, away from any population centers and would probably have some time to build up my forces before I ran into any trouble. All I had to do was plonk down a mass extractor, build a billion tanks, and roll over everything in the universe before moving on to the next, kicking ass and taking names along the way. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Then my sensors picked up two figures heading my way.

--

"Oi, get movin', ya git! Shiny came down right over 'ere!"

--

Green skin, check. Hulking posture, check. Speech impediment, double check. Space Orks.

Needless to say, I shat my metaphorical pants, right then. Space Orks meant that I was stuck into Warhammer 40k. As in, the universe where life sucks, there is only war, and you're probably going to get eaten by Tyranids.

Not my words, but fitting nonetheless.

Of course, the Orks weren't that big of a deal. No, it was everything else that really scared me, like the Chaos Gods, the Nekrons, and the fuckmothering aforementioned Tyranids.

And the Imperials, who I never really got along with, in spite of (or maybe because of) my best intentions.

And the Tau, poor bastards. Never really stood a chance, even if they did have the nicest shinies.

And the Eldar, because fuck the Eldar.

And a dozen or so other horrible things because fuck this universe, fuck everyone living in it, and fuck the all-powerful asshole that stuck me in a Commander body from Planetary Annihilation and sent me to the one place where I'm not even remotely the biggest fish in the pond.

Needless to say, I wasn't taking all this very well upon landing.

--

"I am dead!" I screamed, smashing the Ork into the ground by my fabricator arm like a toy monkey. "Doomed! Destined to go the way of the dodo! Fucked beyond the help of any amount of lube! Completely and utterly dead!"

"Would'ya zog it, ya metal git?!" The Ork crushed beneath my limb said, seemingly uncaring for the fact that I'd pulverized his lower body. "I'm trying to get that nice shootah ya got there."

I looked at my other hand. Or rather, the giant plasma cannon I had in place of a hand. "You want me my 'shootah'?"

Excitedly, the Ork nodded. "Yeah, yeah."

"Fine, have the bullets first." I put him down, supercharged my cannon and vaporized the hulking monstrosity where it stood.

"Oi!" the other Ork yelled. "Yer didn't give him any bullits!"

"Excuse me?"

"Dat's not a shootah. That's a beamy deffgun and everyone knows deffguns don't have bullits! Yer said yer're gonna give him bullits, and it's not right to say one thing and don't do it!"

It took a surprisingly large amount of time to realize that, yes, the Ork did just say that. "You people have no sense of self-preservation."

"And you'se got too many fancy words."

I blinked, took aim, and shot him too. What a wonderful way to start the day.

--

To be fair, I was in a new body, in a new universe, had no idea what was going on or who I should be fighting at the time.

Though one can rarely go wrong with fighting Orks. Pretty sure the Orks themselves would agree. They're strange like that.

At any rate, I figured that where there were two Orks, there would be more. While I didn't see any right then and didn't think they were part of a scheduled patrol that would go missing, it was only a matter of time until someone or something horrible tried to kill me. I figured that the best way of preventing that is to surround myself with a wall of tanks. Step one: start building a tank factory and wait.

And wait some more.

And some more.

This leads me to my first complication. In the game, buildings, troops, and vehicles are built in seconds. Even the largest constructs are built in minutes, provided you have the resources. Here, though…not so much.

Honestly, having to wait three hours in an Ork-infested rainforest before my first factory finally finished was absolutely nerve-wracking. Having to wait another fifteen minutes (okay, five with the help of my commander) for my first tank to roll off the production line was just insult to injury. I mean, it's not like I was helpless, even back then, but still…

Anyway, by the time the sun set a few hours later, I had three mass extractors, half a dozen power generators, an assortment of thirty or so tanks ready to go, and enough confidence in myself and my new form that I was willing to test the waters. Not wanting to wait for the Orks to come to me and in need of some more room to fill up with tanks, I decided that the sensible, level-headed thing to do would be to burn down the entire rainforest with a squad of Infernos. You can't hide in the rainforest when there is no rainforest, right?

Don't look at me like that. You'd have done the same thing.

Thought so.

But you're right about one thing: it wasn't my best decision in hindsight. After all, even the Orks can spot a burning rainforest at night. By the time I built my first air factory and actually noticed the hundred-strong Orkish horde barreling towards my base, I realized my mistake. By then, all I could do was mass up as many tanks as I could and hope for the best. Around midnight, the horde struck and battle was joined.

This leads me to my second complication: unit balancing. Planetary Annihilation has a rather curious way of balancing things, courtesy of the planets being cartoonishly small and a meter in-game not quite being a meter here. Also, in most of the stories I've read with a premise like mine, the Planetary Annihilation side of things was hideously overpowered: giant mecha with nearly indestructible hulls that could one-shot pretty much anything. Not for me, though. No, I had to deal with my tanks being the same size and only slightly more powerful than the contraptions fielded by the Orks.

And the less said about my early bot designs, the better.

In hindsight, it makes perfect sense, but back then I was convinced that some malevolent god was out to get me. No shortage of those around here, after all.

Fortunately, my commander at the time had armor and firepower rivaling that of a Warhound Titan and was able to thin the Orkish horde quite nicely even as my tanks could barely hold the line. That, and sufficient application of fire solves almost any problem. Key word being 'almost' as a certain canoness found out the hard way, but I digress.

Look, I've been through a lot to get to this point, okay. Cut me some slack here.

At any rate, it took me about fifteen minutes to dislodge most of the Orkish army and another hour after that to remove the last of their 'kommandos' from the rainforest, further cementing my belief that trees are a blight upon the world that must be purged with fire. With the Orks gone, I had to rethink my original strategy. My slow production rates and relatively fragile units were really starting to become a pain. I'd won the battle, of course, but I lot two-thirds of my tanks in the process and only survived because my Commander is armed to the teeth. I couldn't rely on that in the future because even a Commander will eventually be overwhelmed by sheer numbers and the Orks breed like rabbits. Besides, who knows what else could be coming for me? Even then, I knew in my gut that this planet was occupied by more than just me and the Orks.

Oh boy, was I right.

Knowledge is power, as certain…let's call them associates were fond of saying. Once I had the presence of mind to do so, I checked for long-range radio signals and found an imperial propaganda channel, yammering on about the recent and glorious return of the planet's true rulers: the Imperium of Man. Most of it was the usual 'praise the Emperor or die' rhetoric, but there were a few useful tidbits to be found. Most notably, a speech by the planet's new governor-militant, Lucas Alexander of the First Kronus Liberators.

Why does that matter? Well, as a long-time consumer of real-time strategy games and a fan of Warhammer 40k, I immediately realized where I was: the planet Kronus, as depicted in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade.

Good news: I now knew what I was up against.

Bad news: it was seven different armies and none of them had my best interests in mind.

Nevertheless, I needed some form of conformation. I already had one scout flying around my base, which I redirected further inland into the heart of the jungle, or the Green Coast if I remembered correctly. What did I find? A massive Ork stronghold with a Rok as its centerpiece. Waaagh banners taller than my Commander. Thousands upon thousands of greenskins, crawling over the place like ants. Far more than I could ever hope to fight with the forces I had.

Yeah, wasn't happy about that.

It was with some dread that I built some more scout planes and sent them across the planet to see if things were as I thought they were. What did I find?

Tau troops on parade duty in the planet's largest city. An ethereal was overseeing them: Aun'El Shi'Ores as I found out later. Not proud of what happened there. Poor bastard didn't deserve what happened to him.

Eldar waygates in the far north-western corner of the continent. They were actually pulling out, at the time. I'd hoped that Farseer Taldeer and her forces would nope their way off the planet as soon as they realized I was there, but I wasn't that lucky.

The beginnings of the Blood Raven's stronghold in North Vandea. The Space Marines must have arrived literally at the same time as I did. A headache from the start, in spite of Thule's best efforts and my own.

The Imperial Guard fortifying Victory Bay. Good men. Reasonable, even if I never did manage to turn them to my side.

A blackened peninsula, covered in perpetual storms that were in no way natural. Eliphas the Inheritor and his Word Bearer Chaos Space Marines. I speak no hyperbole when I say that I feared him above all others, even if that fear proved unnecessary in the end. After all, the other powers would just kill me. These guys could do worse than that.

A desert, unremarkable aside from the unnatural energy signatures that my sensor systems couldn't identify. I didn't need them to know what was hiding under the sands of the Thur'Abis Plateau.

And finally, a massive Ork army, running away from their skirmishes with the Tau and making a beeline straight towards my base. Warboss Gorgutz 'ead 'unter.

Seven…no, eight armies on one planet. Naturally, it ended about as well as one could expect.

At this point in time, I was basically hyperventilating. Alone, stranded, and completely surrounded, I never really thought I'd have a chance. That said, I wasn't willing to throw in the towel just yet. Kronus wasn't a videogame anymore. I couldn't just GG out and start over. If I died here, that's it. No extra lives, no sequel, no second chance.

Realizations like that change people. When all you have is 'kill or be killed', it's a lot easier to keep fighting than you'd think. Humans don't like dying and at least some of that primordial instinct was still driving me in that damn jungle.

Is still driving me.

I'm not going to lie and say that staying alive hasn't been my number one priority all along. I'm not a hero, no matter what Stubbs might say about me.

Seriously, don't listen to that guy. He pretty much used the entire Kaurava conflict to boost his own career. Vance Stubbs might be a brilliant general, but he's not a good person. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

But, that is a story for another time. Where was I? Oh, right, Kronus, Orks, Gorgutz and his giant army of murderous space hooligans.

Dealing with massed numbers of Orks is its own problem. Orks, as you are probably very well aware off, are remarkably resilient. Like me, they're self-replicating engines of war built in ancient times by a race who only cared about killing their enemies, regardless of the consequences to themselves and the world around them. Also like me, they're nearly unstoppable once they grow to the kind of numbers Gorgutz had at his disposal. They…were a problem, to say the least. One that didn't really have an easy solution and one that I couldn't afford to underestimate again. I'd have to use strategy this time, or I'd be crushed.

Incinerating them with flame tanks like I'd done before might work on small groups, but not against numbers like that. Orks are quite flame-resistant themselves and there are more than enough vehicles and specialist Orks to take my tanks down unless they are supported by something. Artillery and healers would let me slow the green tide, or maybe even push it back, but I just didn't have the numbers to hold off the entire Waaagh yet. That's not even considering what would have happened if Gorgutz sends a squiggoth after me. Or ten.

That's disregarding the fact that the Orks loved fighting more than anything and would have come for me just for the hell of it. Even if I could stop Gorgutz, I'd still have the entire horde to deal with. Even a fraction of that force would have been enough to end me, back then. Not only did I have to get rid of the Warboss, I also had to deal a decisive blow against the horde itself. While being horribly outnumbered and outgunned. Once again, I found myself cursing my crippling production rates. Any other Commander would have buried the Orks in ordinance by now and moved on.

Of course, no use moaning about things I couldn't change. Instead, I formed a plan to deal with my problems.

While the Orkish Waaagh is very similar to my own army in a way, there is one big difference that proved to be their undoing. My army is a single, monolithic entity. Every single machine, from the smallest bot to the titan-sized warmechs, is an extension of my being. I am them and they are me, like cells of an organism: a singular entity with one guiding intelligence. The Orks are not.

Orks rule by strength and showmanship. If an Ork wants to get others to follow him, he needs to convince them that he's actually worth following. So long as he keeps winning fights and battles, Orks will flock to his banner. A perfect, if brutal meritocracy. One I could appreciate if they used their talents for something other than killing stuff, but I digress.

The problem with this kind of politics is that the moment things don't go the boss's way, the mob will turn on itself until a new boss rises to power. Ideally, I would have found some way to assassinate Gorgutz and use the confusion to build up my forces, but I wasn't confident in my ability to actually pull this off. Between the Warboss's innate resilience and his own personal retinue, he was practically untouchable unless I wanted to fight him in the field of battle. Fortunately, the another way to break the horde's unity: Waaagh banners.

Specifically, Waaagh banners being set on fire. You can't have a proper Waaagh without banners, after all, and Gorgutz had raised a big one in the camp of each of the five major Ork clan infesting the Green Coast. Would've been a shame if something…happened to them…

--

"I know yer out dere, tin can…" A deep voice whispered into my comms. I don't know how he pulled it off, but couldn't bring myself to care. Too busy wetting myself. Never thought I'd say this, but I really wished Gorgutz would shut up. "Quit hidin' so we can give ya a good stompin'. Wanna get me yer big metal skull, that's what."

Dark Crusade was a good game, but the best part was probably the banter between commanders. Gorgutz, in particular, did a stellar performance, tearing his enemies apart with perfectly executed burns that proved that even Orks can master verbal combat. He, along with Taldeer, Eliphas, and the epic narrator, was probably the highlight of the entire game. That said, being on the receiving end was not nearly as fun.

That Gorgutz was literally out for my head didn't help either.

"You know, I'm alright up here." I replied, as my commander dangled from a pelican. This was my plan B: run to an island, build an orbital factory, build an Astraeus, GTFO without getting slagged by the Litany of Fury overhead, and hope the smoking remains of Plan A would keep the Orks busy long enough for me to get to that point. Needless to say, I was still pinning my hopes on Plan A: Operation Burning Banners. "Nice and safe, somewhere far away from you."

What can I say? Snark keeps me going.

As much as I would have liked having the Commander's firepower for this assault, I really didn't want to risk my most valuable unit (and probably my life) in a fight like this. Enter step one of my evil plan: three groups of six bumblebee bomber craft each. With a thought, I ordered them to converge on the Ork hold while watching through the eyes of a tiny firefly scout. Their targets: five enormous Waaagh banners whose destruction should send the whole Ork horde into disarray. Gracefully, the bombers homed in on their targets and dropped their payloads. I looked on in glee as three of the Waaagh banners burst into flames, exploded, and collapsed, though not necessarily in that order. Then my bombers were shredded by a literal wall of bullets as every Ork that ever lived blind-fired into the sky.

Fortunately, I had planned for this. Step two: two pelican dropships, loaded up with suicide bombers. Booms: cheap, fast, expendable, and very explosive. Essentially a guided missile on legs. The first batch scuttled towards the banner, ignoring the Ork guards firing wildly at it. Some of them were hit, but enough made it to the Waaagh banner to bring it down. The second group wasn't so lucky: these Orks had flamers and set the entire area, including themselves, on fire, destroying my fast but very fragile booms. Cursing, I set about forming a new plan when the banner exploded seemingly on its own.

Well, that was convenient.

Meanwhile, the Ork army had turned into a free-for-all. Different clans started attacking everyone that moved while Gorgutz's forces were trying and failing to maintain order. Bloodlust seemed contagious and soon the entire hold was swallowed up in a storm of violence. I was torn between squealing in happiness or throwing up at the senseless carnage I just created. Well, it was either them or me and it wasn't going to be me.

"Oi, why'd you burn down all me banners for, tin can?"

"Why wouldn't I? They're burning quite nicely, don't you think?" If I still had a mouth, I'd be grinning. Instead, I settled for gloating. "Besides, now you've got tons of people to fight? That's good, right?"

The Ork seemingly considered what I said for a moment. "Yeah, I guess youz got a point dere. Still coming for yer head, though. Make myself anodda Waaagh, even bigger than this one. Then we'll see who's burnin'."

"Yeah, you do that. I'll bring some more tanks next time."

"I'll hold ya to that. Yer skull's going on me pointy stick, right next to Crull's. Dat's an honor, that is."

I briefly had a mental image of my Commander's head on Gorgutz's stick. Considering that it was the size of a minivan, the image was quite amusing. "I think you'll need a bigger stick."

"I'll take dat as a challenge."

Another flock of pelicans flew towards the base. Step three: decapitation. With the Ork army permanently distracted with itself, I began air-lifting the bulk of my forces towards the stronghold. Gorgutz was supposed to be slippery like a fish and I didn't want him to escape in the confusion. Besides, his most capable nobs were stuck in that moshpit that used to be an Ork hold. If they all died in the fighting, I'd have more than enough time to properly build up my base, even with my limitations.

Then the Ork Rok exploded in a massive fireball, nearly wiping out my pelican fleet and obliterating much of the fighting Orks.

Oh, right. That's what Gorgutz does when he loses. 'Always have yer tunnels dug 'n ready'.

Guess that means he probably got away. Which means he'll be really pissed that I ruined his Waaagh. But that's a problem for another time. By then, I'll probably have a couple of nukes at my disposal, or more. No worries.

Besides, I won. Which is good. And I didn't die, which is also good.

At least until the next horrible thing happens.

--

I'd won.

I shouldn't have, but I did.

My very first victory. Easier than expected, but the Orks of the Green Coast had a critical flaw I could exploit: their own lack of unity. If I'd landed literally anywhere else, my story would have ended then and there. Fortunately, I didn't and I spend the next few days incinerating the jungle and everything in it.

Yeah, and I guess the gloating was kind of unprofessional too. And liable to bite me in the ass, as such things often do. Did I regret doing so?

Well, regret is a strong term. Gorgutz was true to his word, but so was I. I'll get to that later.

Honestly, what I really should have noticed back then was that fifth banner. How did it get destroyed? I didn't do it and while Ork tech is legendarily notorious for failing catastrophically, the banner shouldn't have randomly exploded.

Maybe if I hadn't been running on a high after the battle, I would have noticed that and been able to avoid some of the later…unpleasantries.

Or maybe not.

Probably not.

I used to play a lot of strategy games, back when I was a human. You know, the kind where you build up an army and defeat your opponent, kind of what I've been doing now? Yeah, that. Funny thing about those is that you usually have some sort of limit to what you can build. An arbitrary headcount limit, if you will.

I never had that, but my problem was still the same: I could only produce so much in a certain space of time. It was a limit I never really overcame. So how did I work around the problem? Simple: design better units through the power of science. I have access to the complete blueprint of every machine, weapon, bot, and screw of everything I can build. I can copy any piece of technology I come across. In theory, I should be able to customize my units into whatever I needed them to be.

Of course, things were never that simple.

Let's start with the Orks, for instance: Shield generators, FTL-capable starships, cannons that can bypass any armor by sending their projectiles through the Warp, and many more. I wanted it all. Unfortunately, there was the Waaagh.

As in the psychic field casted by the Orks themselves, not the army. Basically, if the Orks believe a gun will work, it will work. Even if the gun is made out of scrap metal held together with ducttape. Because I'm not an Ork, my attempts to reproduce that technology failed rather miserably.

No, I won't elaborate on it. You can guess the results yourself. Hint: they were embarrassing, explosive, and explosively embarrassing.

Anyway, without anyone to steal from at the time, I decided to do some upgrading of my own. Emperor knows, I needed it back then and it was the perfect way to distract me from the fact that I was committing genocide-in-self-defense.

Funny how much easier those thing get after a while…

But I digress.

What the Orks and my subsequent purge of the Green Coast did teach me is that my earlier 'strategy' of tank-spam didn't work unless you're on mostly flat, open terrain and don't have to worry about Orks jumping on top of your tanks and ripping them apart with crudely-made-yet-ridiculously-sharp axes. In Planetary Annihilation, terrain is more or less a non-issue. Jungles and swamps are largely cosmetic. Tanks don't generally have to worry about it, aside from a few mountains or canyons. This in turn was reflected in the AI controlling my units, which was, to put it mildly, a little dim. I got the distinct impression that I wasn't really designed to fight on a populated planet. Or that whoever designed me cared little for things like 'collateral damage' or 'Gaian collapse'. While I had access to everything in the Planetary Annihilation arsenal from the get-go, my units were little more than rampaging kill-bots who were very good at walking around and shooting things from a distance, but nothing beyond that. Perfectly fine when you're dealing with things like Orks and don't care about innocent people dying in the crossfire.

Unfortunately, Kronus has large human and Tau populations too and I really didn't want to hurt them if I could avoid it. While I'm not a hero, I'd like to think that I'm not a monster either. Even if killing got easier after a while, I've never taken pleasure into it. Winning, yes, but not killing.

Seriously, you're going to bring up Lacunae and Orridune? Those moons had it coming. Believe me, when I blow up celestial bodies, it's for entirely valid reasons.

I know that's what the Inquisition says too. The difference is that I'm right and they're not.

Anyway, back to Kronus.

There were a lot of innocent people on the planet. The planetary capital of Asharis: a city of millions. Then there was Victory Bay, and…

Well, you get the point. Lots of people. Had to watch my step.

But first, I had to get some proper infantry.

--

I looked at my little Dox bot. It stood a little taller than an average human being, was protected by thick metal plates, and armed with two laser cannons. It had pretty decent firepower, and could move quickly through terrain, and fire accurately on the move. But could it dodge?

Short answer: no. Given their size and complete lack of survival instinct, they couldn't. Even an Ork with a second-hand shootah could take one down in only a few shots.

Dox bots, both in-game and in the real world, were kind of terrible. Sure, they were fast, cheap, and pretty deadly in decent numbers, but they were just too damn fragile. You needed dozens of them to get anything done and even then you'll lose most of them. Unfortunately, spamming was difficult to me, so I had to make the most out of each individual unit. My brilliant idea? Make the units smarter. After all, AI upgrades make units more effective without increasing their cost or build time. If I could just teach my bots how to duck, they'd last longer and I could do more with the limited numbers I had.

Unfortunately, this aren't quite that simple.

The problem with getting bots to dodge is that it takes a lot of agility to pull it off. Arms and legs need a certain amount of freedom of motion that the standard Dox just doesn't have. So, I got to designing. The old hinge-like joints were replaced with more natural ball-joints. The entire frame was slimmed down into a more lithe, human-like form. Finally, I replaced the arm cannons with actual hands that could carry a rifle-like laser weapon, manipulate objects, and slap people who got too close. Eventually, I ended up with something that looked like and ADVENT MEC from XCOM 2. You know what, let's call them that: Mecs. At any rate, it was an improvement over the old design: same speed, same resilience, same firepower, but a lot more agile and versatile than before. About an hour after I started, I'd finished reprogramming the AI with some basic dodge and take-cover protocols and my first second-generation bot walked off the assembly line and onto the charred remains of the jungle.

Where it tripped over a rock, fell on its face, and broke its optics.

Well, shit.

Programming 101: programming is hard. I'd thought I didn't need to change the program that much, but apparently I was wrong. Apparently, just getting a robot to take a step takes about five PhDs in engineering. Anyway, I added some extra programs to keep the bot balanced while walking. Satisfied, I commanded the bot to get up and patrol.

Walking was just fine, until the bot tried to run, tripped over its own feet, fell on its face, and broke its optics. Again.

Programming 102: walking is a lot harder than it looks. Upon checking the bots log files (yes, even my bots have log files and thank god for that), I found out that the bot leaned over just a little too much for the stabilization systems to compensate for. I made some more adjustments and tried again.

This time, the bot ran properly, until it came across a large boulder. It made the decision to go around the boulder, but had too much forward momentum to turn around. The bot smashed into the boulder, hit its head, broke its optics, and caught fire. Somehow.

I charged up my plasma cannon and took out my frustration on the irritating little bot. With some annoyance, I realized that this problem wasn't going to have an easy answer. At this rate, it'd probably be weeks before I'd finished getting rid of all the little issues in my new bot and I have things to do. Not getting eaten by daemons being one of them. Eliphas's forces were getting dangerously close, after all.

Then it hit me: I don't have to do all the testing myself. I could design a program that could come up with a thousand different ways to make a bot move. I could design another program that could simulate a real-world environment to test and judge the output of the inventor program. I could build a super-computer to run them and a facility to house it all. A million monkeys can eventually write the completed works of Shakespeare. A sufficiently powerful computer system can, through trial and error, figure out all the little problems with my bots and design a program that can control them without constantly falling flat on its face.

Let's see… Server farm, simulation programs, coolant, power supply, and a thick layer of armor. There, done. I dub thee… the monkey cage.

I immediately built three of them and told them to find me a way to get my bots to walk properly. An hour later, they came up with thousands of ways to run across a field without tipping over. Most of them were rather silly and created as many problems as they solved, but eventually I narrowed it down to a single program that did everything I needed it to with the data I provided. It could run without falling, it could shoot while moving, it could even punch things with its little fist if the bad guys got too close.

But, most importantly, it could dodge incoming fire…most of the time.

Still, a huge improvement, and that with no real increase in build cost. But the best part? No more ugly, blocky death-bots that turn into confetti when someone so much as sneezes in their direction. Now I've got a sleek, badass-looking death-bot that can fucking dodge.

Truly, I am the greatest commander ever.

--

Don't look at me like that. It was a big deal back then. I didn't have quantity, so I focused on quality instead. All those little tweaks and software updates add up pretty fast. Those monkey cages have paid for themselves a thousand times already.

Besides, I'm still using that basic mec design today with only a few overhauls. Even the Space Marines learned to respect it in time, especially once I stole the designs of their infantry-scale plasma guns.

Boy, were they mad about that one.

Speaking of Space Marines… My little squabble with the Orks had not gone unnoticed. Would have been rather hard to go unnoticed, what with me annihilating an entire rainforest and all that…

Within a week of my arrival, the first scout planes started appearing over the Green Coast. The Space Marines were the first, easily distinguishable by its red paint job and the Blood Raven's emblem on its hull. I scrambled fighters to intercept them, but didn't order them to engage. Instead, I had them shadow the craft for a few hours until it flew back to North Vandea. Honestly…I think I was still hoping that I'd come to some sort of understanding with them at the time. That maybe, just maybe, I didn't have to do something I'd regret later. Naïve, I know, but a man can dream, right?

The Imperial Guard scouts got the same treatment. The Word Bearer craft…not so much.

Probably the reason why Eliphas started moving against me sooner than I'd have liked.

Why I'm not mentioning the Tau? Well, I never noticed their scouts, as much as I hate to admit it. Apparently they were the only ones with stealth technology advanced enough to evade my sensors, at least in the beginning. In fact, the first thing I'd heard from the Tau at all was when a hunter cadre landed on my doorstep and opened fire.

And I hadn't even stolen anything from them yet!

In the grim darkness of the future, there's only war, misery, and a whole bunch of nations being ruled by raving lunatics. However, there is one exception: the Tau Empire. Idealistic, highly advanced, more or less immune to corruption by Chaos thanks to their biology and culture, and led by people who weren't complete bastards (only mostly), they seemed like natural allies, or at least the best I could get on short notice. Sure, they weren't perfect, but they were a hell of a lot better than the Imperium of Man ever was. At the very least, I was hoping to arrange some kind of friendly understanding, maybe even an alliance.

That hope was crushed before it even began.

--

The first Tau craft that entered my airspace (that I was aware off, at least) were a fleet of transports, dropping off a contingent of Tau fire warriors and some of their Kroot and Vespid allies. No battlesuits, as far as I could tell, which I considered to be a good thing. Maybe they were just trying to impress me. Though, to be honest, that was a lot of manpower for a 'show the flag' kind of mission. Also, they hadn't tried to communicate with me at all. Needless to say, I was getting a little worried. If they weren't here to make contact…I had enough enemies as is. I didn't want to have to fight the only nice people around

The soldiers piled into their skimmers (some of which had cloaking devices, which I really needed to steal at some point) and made a bee-line towards one of my forward bases located at the northern edge of the deforested zone. Not much: a few bots, a teleporter, and some factories, built around a trio of metal deposits that happened to be close together. Nothing special.

Quickly, the Tau forces surrounded the base and I started getting a distinct impression that they hadn't come in peace. Just as a precaution, I linked the teleporter to my main base and mobilized an army more than twice the size of what the Tau had at their disposal. Meanwhile, I prayed I didn't need it.

As the Tau disembarked and took up positions, I sent one of my mecs forward. Hopefully, I'd be able to talk to the greyskins before things escalated. The mec ran towards the Tau force, but before it could get within shouting range, a fire warrior shot it right in the optics.

First thought: fuck, there goes diplomacy.

Second thought: fire warriors are in dire need of a massive nerf.

Third thought: why did I give my mecs easily distinguishable heads? They were robots. I could just as easily design them with no heads at all. No, scratch that. They'll have heads, but without any vital components in them. Let's see how many schmucks would fall for that.

Also, I was under attack. Should probably do something about that.

I needed information. I recognized most of the units in the Tau strike force and had a reasonable idea of what they were capable off. However, there was no way to know how unit stats from a game would translate into real-life. At least I knew that pulse rifles had a ridiculously long range and enough power to damage the plating on my bots. Not enough to punch through it on the first shot unless they hit something important, but enough so that the second shot would do some real damage. Provided, of course, that they hit roughly the same spot, which considering Tau targeting software is not as difficult as it sounds.

My bots started moving, rushing towards the Tau firing line in a randomized zig-zag pattern. To my irritation, the Tau were a lot more accurate than I'd have liked. Only a handful managed to get close enough to return fire. The ones that did suddenly exploded, ripped to shreds by some unseen attacker.

Stealth suits. Got to be stealth suits.

I was getting really fed up about the Tau and their goddamn stealth technology. Only three of my bots actually got a shot off and while they killed a few of the Tau, I really couldn't afford losses like that. I could probably run at them with larger swarms, but that seemed like such an inefficient and inelegant solution. Not to mention that at least some of those skimmers would be carrying missiles. No, I needed a better solution.

The teleporter sprang to life and a column of tanks poured through. Just a distraction, of course. The real weapon came next: a flock of grenadier bots. The Tau might outrange my lasers, but they didn't outrange my artillery. As the Tau pecked away at my armor battalion with rifles that clearly weren't designed to deal with that sort of thing, I moved my grenadiers into position. Just as I was about to unleash my burning fury on the space-communists, I had an idea. Chasing away the fire warriors wasn't enough. I wanted to get rid of those stealth suits too before they started blowing up my base. I let the tanks get closer until the stealth suits opened up. Ignoring the flood of damage reports (because fusion blasters do horrible things to tanks and the missile barrages weren't helping either), I ordered the grenadiers to ground-fire at the area where I thought the stealth teams were hiding.

Just because I couldn't see and lock on to the stealth suits, but didn't mean I couldn't figure out roughly where they were. I still had a working brain, after all.

Explosions happened and every now and then I saw a reddish-brown figure appear out of thin air, only to fall over and stop moving. I might not be able to see them, but that didn't mean I couldn't hurt them. Almost immediately, the Tau changed tactics. They jumped back into their transports and drove into the jungle. Smart, because the trees offered some protection from my artillery. Another reason to purge the goddamn rainforest. As if I needed more. The stealth teams stopped dying too, which probably meant they left as well. Didn't stealth suits have jetpacks? Probably, they're Tau. My tanks followed the fleeing soldiers with the intent of driving them off completely, but apparently the Tau had something else in mind.

As my tanks rolled through the forest, the Tau made their move. Suddenly, dozens of Kroot fell out of the trees and onto my tanks, carrying crude bombs and weapons. Wait, how the hell did I miss that? The stealth teams are one thing, but these guys don't even have any technology on them…unless that was the point. A quick check revealed that my sensors produced a mountain of data, most of which was filtered out. Specifically, it looked for electronics, computers, and exotic particles: signs of advanced technology/stuff that could actually threaten me. Unfortunately, whoever designed that thing did not do so with the Kroot in mind and I was paying for that now.

Kroot warriors fell onto my tanks like birds-of-prey, using their battlestaffs to try and pry open my vehicles like a can of beans. When they failed (no crew entrances, after all), they quickly shifted gear, stabbing laser cannons, smashing cameras, and disabling turrets with their bombs. Meanwhile, the Tau turned around and opened fire, taking advantage of my weakened state to deliver the killing blow.

If I'd still been stuck with vanilla units, that might have been enough to rout my army outright. Fortunately, the Orks had tried something similar and I had some new tricks up my sleeve. The tanks were supported by a group of my new mecs and I figured this would be as good a baptism of fire as any. They moved in, guns blazing and dropping Kroot left and right. Then the Kroot had the presence of mind to jump onto the mecs and things got interesting.

Mecs could punch, but they weren't exactly close-combat experts. The Kroot, on the other hand, were. While the mecs were faster and much stronger in theory, the Kroot carnivores were simply better fighters: fast and skilled enough to dance around my mecs while still doing damage with their staff-rifles. At least, until a mec managed to grab hold of one of them. Then, it was over in a literal snap.

Mental note to self, teach the mecs how to fight properly. Punching just isn't enough.

Needless to say, I found myself in a situation that I didn't want to be in and decided to correct that. First, I spread out my mecs, ordering some to tie up the Kroot and others to fire into the moshpit. I had a numbers advantage and the mecs strength was in shooting, not in brawling. Quickly, the Kroot found themselves running out of manpower and retreated. Not wanting to kill any more than I needed to, I let them escape.

Meanwhile, the Tau were still shooting at me from within the forest. Luckily, my bombers had finally arrived and dropped their deadly payload on the Tau's heads. Even the forest couldn't protect them from massed firepower like that. Soon the Tau scattered and made an orderly retreat back north. Finally, it was over.

I did a quick head count. I'd won, but again with heavy losses even though I massively outnumbered the enemy. The worst casualties had actually been caused by the Kroot, of all things. Sure, they didn't do that much damage on their own, but they could tie up my forces and leave them vulnerable to attack. The problem was that I didn't have any real melee specialists. I got away with it this time thanks to sheer numbers and liberal amounts of dakka and I won't be surprised by low-tech bird people next time, but I dreaded to think what would happen if I ever had to go up against less fragile soldiers like assault terminators or Khorne berserkers. In fact, I might not be able to defeat them and might have to resort to more drastic measures.

But first: the aftermath. The Tau left in a hurry and were forced to abandon most of their dead, leaving most of their technology behind. That left me with the uncomfortable task of giving the dead their due. I didn't know what kind of funeral rites the Tau had, so I decided to flash-forge a few crude, unarmed trucks. I scanned the area for any corpses I could find, carefully placed them in caskets, and put them on the trucks, but not before making complete scans of every corpse, piece of equipment, and technology I could find. Then, I had the trucks drive to the nearest Tau outpost.

As much as I felt guilty for the lives I'd taken, I couldn't help but remember that the Tau fired first. Mess with the bull, you get the laser cannons. A flimsy excuse, but enough for now.

It's looting time.

--

Of all the races I'd encountered in the galaxy, Tau technology will always hold a special place in my heart. There was an elegance to it that no other race matched. Imperial technology consisted of true works of art, held together by duct tape and string, Eldar technology was a series of bizarre puzzles that seemed obtuse for no reason at all, and Necron tech…was Necron tech, but the Tau…

They understood how all their stuff worked. Their technology pushed their understanding of science to its limits, and it showed. Real genius went into its construction and yet there was still so much room to optimize and differentiate. So much I could do…so much I actually did. If they ever tried suing me for patent violations, I'd have to mine out an entire planet just to pay the fines.

Probably not beyond my capabilities anymore, but you get my point.

Anyway, I took whatever military technology I could find from these guys. Most of it was similar or inferior to what I already had, but there were a few interesting techs that I coopted. One of them was optical stealth technology. Don't get me wrong, ECM and sensor dampening is great and all, but there's nothing quite like being able to turn completely invisible. Granted, cloaking devices are too costly to mass-produce even with my improvements, but my eventual commando units wouldn't have been nearly as effective without them.

Of course, none of this compared to what I now consider the real prize of the battle: Tau communications technology. While nowhere near as good as what I already had, it gave me access to something else: the Tau's civilian and scientific information networks. You see, the Earth caste built several centers of learning on Kronus during the occupation in an attempt to 'civilize' the local human population. One of the things they studied there was gravity manipulation; one of the few fields of science where Tau knowledge vastly outstripped my own. More importantly, the Tau use gravity manipulation as the basis of their warp drives.

I used that knowledge to design my own FTL technology: a Tau derived system that was slow compared to the other races, but perfectly safe and didn't need a navigator. Considering the nature of my army, it wasn't even that much of an issue.

But that is a story for another time. For the moment, I was still stuck on Kronus with all the crazies and had to find a way to survive. My plan B for dealing with Gorgutz (build a transport and run for it) could easily be repurposed for other ends. Kronus wasn't the only celestial body in the system, after all. Like most solar systems, the Kronus system had multiple planets: a few rocky ones devoid of life and with little resources, a gas giant that the Imperial Navy was using to hide from the Space Marines, and an impressive asteroid belt that might have some mining potential.

I built a bunch of transports, loaded them up with fabricators, and sent them to strip-mine the entire system. Because I'm reasonable like that.

But one thing at a time. The Tau weren't sitting still, after all.

Unlike the bloated Administratum, the Tau Empire is well-led and efficient. As I started hacking into the Tau's systems, that efficiency was now being turned against me. Worse, the Tau weren't the only ones plotting…

--

As an artificial intelligence, hacking was a surprisingly novel experience. It was hard to put into words. Movies don't quite get it right. No little gremlins walking through hoops that represented programs and firewalls. No endless lines of code. Rather, it was like an ocean, but instead of swimming through it, I pushed the water around like the bastard offspring of Moses and Katara.

The Tau had decent anti-hacking software: ships that floated in and through the ocean, bending the waters like I did. While they put up a good effort, I was able to bypass them with surprising ease. Maybe it was my new nature that made it so simple: they were immigrants to the digital realm, while I was a native who understood it on a level they could never hope to match.

There were cracks in every wall. Gaps in every defense. With near limitless processing power at my disposal, I found and exploited every single one of them. Soon, I had near free reign over the Tau's military and civilian networks. I saw everything, and the best part: if the Tau intelligence specialists knew I was there at all, they probably didn't even recognize the extent of the threat.

Sucks to be you.

With a thought, I hacked the Tau equivalent of CCTV and saw Asharis and surrounding cities through a thousand different eyes. I could track the position of every fire warrior and auxiliary on the planet. I could see their orders and edit them with ease. I could order them all to do the cha-cha, if I wanted to.

I was so going to abuse that.

It was during my exploration of the Tau's networks that I found two very interesting people near the palace: The ethereal Aun'el Shi'Ores and…Farseer Taldeer.

What on earth was she doing here? Better yet, where did she come from?

The Farseer removed her helm and let her long, black hair fall to her shoulders. She smiled warmly, politely bowing to her host. Taldeer wasn't what I was expecting. Not enough bitchiness and far too humble. She was also disturbingly beautiful, by human standards.

I wonder if other Eldar thought she was fat, the aliens being stick-thin and all that. Maybe that's why she's such a bitch all the time.

"Blessings upon you." The ethereal began. "We are honored to be in the presence of a Farseer of Ulthwé."

"And blessings upon you, as well, Aun'el Shi'Ores of Tau." The Farseer smiled so convincingly that I couldn't tell if she was legitimately flattered. Probably not, knowing the Eldar. "Sadly, this is not a social visit."

"As I suspected. Times of war are upon us and that leaves little time for the more pleasant things in life. Come, let us speak in my personal chambers."

"Indeed. Lead on."

The two walked through the capital, talking about seemingly irrelevant subjects like history and philosophy. Small talk, of course, or at least what passes for small talk amongst people like them. They managed to talk for a good long time without actually saying anything and yet I had the distinct feeling that I was missing something. Some hidden subtext that only master politicians could ever hope to grasp. Rather than trying to decipher the conversation, I continued to hack more cameras. If, or rather when, they got to the actual bloody point of all this, I didn't want to miss a second.

Finally, the two arrived at the ethereal's chamber. A few milliseconds of hacking later, I had complete coverage of every angle in the room. There were a lot of cameras in this room and most of them were pointed at a single seat. A seat that Aun'el was now offering to the Farseer.

Oh, you clever little greyskin. This place was nothing more a prettied-up interrogation room.

"I must confess, I have not been expecting you. Farseers like yourself are an enigma at the best of times."

"I go where fate guides me, honored ethereal, and today it has lead me to you."

"Indeed. For what purpose, I wonder." The ethereal sat down, looking contemplative. "The humans say your kind can see into the future. While our intelligence has yet to confirm if that is anything more than superstition, they are convinced that your presence is a bad omen. Where you walk, change follows. Sometimes, your actions prevent terrible destruction. At others, you cause peaceful colonies to descend into anarchy."

"The same can be said for you, Aun'el Shi'Ores of Tau." Taldeer parried. "The rise of the greater good has been far from bloodless."

"Those less enlightened often cannot see the true path ahead of them. Many prefer to live in lies and squalor, fighting the inevitable in the name of ancient gods and long-forgotten heroes. Tragic as it is, sometimes force is the only answer."

"A truth for the both of us."

The two glared at each other for a moment, before the ethereal asked: "Why are you here, Taldeer of Ulthwé?"

"To warn you of a terrible power that stirs in the south."

In other words, me.

"The machines that annihilated the Orks and attacked our people. We are aware of it: it already destroyed one of our villages, slaughtered our patrols, and devastated the cadre tasked to halt its made rampage throughout the Green Coast."

Wait, what? I didn't do any of that. Well, not the 'devastated the cadre' part, that actually happened, but I didn't attack any villages. In fact, I went out of my way to stay away from them. Were we seriously at war because I was being accused of something I didn't do? How…

Taldeer, what the fuck did you do?!

"Terrible as that may be, I fear that this is only the beginning. I have seen its potential and the power it will soon wield. The Iron Tide will sweep over the planet, annihilating all that stand against it. You cannot hope to stop it, for it grows stronger with every passing battle."

"But what is it? A human superweapon? An Imperial experiment gone awry? An ancient evil, reawakened?"

"All of the above, in a manner of speaking. Mankind built many great and terrible things when their race was at its zenith, so long ago. This great machine you face is one of them. It is a self-replicating mechanism of war, designed to be adaptive and utterly unstoppable. I beseech you not to underestimate it: humanity barely survived its war with these Men of Iron when their race was far more powerful than you are now. This foe is unlike any other you have faced thus far."

Men of Iron? But…I'm…how…

Bwuh?

"I see. I feared as much. They are a…contentious species. It was only a matter of time until we encountered yet another murderous horror of their making. No matter. It will not change our course. I thank you for your warning, Taldeer, and it will not go unheeded. Kronus is our world. It is our duty to defend it in the name of the Greater Good and we will make it our highest priority to bring this monster down."

Taldeer lowered her head. She looked sad, almost mournful. "Aun'el…The Tau have triumphed over many foes. Defeated enemies that by right should have destroyed you. You have every right to be confident in your abilities, but against a Man of Iron…I have foreseen many outcomes to this conflict, but your victory is not one of them."

"Do you suggest we flee and abandon our people…our world?"

"Your world is already lost, Aun'el Shi'Ores of Tau. Nothing can prevent that, not even I."

"I have faith in the Fire caste and the leadership of Shas'o Kais. We will not fail the Greater Good. We cannot."

"Faith alone is not enough. You cannot hope to prevail against a force that can conjure entire armies out of nothing in a few days and even if you could, the Iron Tide is not the only power you face, or the most terrible. Please…flee from this world and take as many of your people with you as you can. There will come a time when Kronus will be the latest sept of the Tau Empire, but that day is not today."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Unfortunately, I cannot abandon an entire planet to its fate, simply because you asked. Not even a wise and mighty Farseer like yourself can change that."

"As I feared." Her face hardened and for a second, she looked afraid. "I have given my warning. Your fate is now your own. Know this Aun'el Shi'Ores of Tau: Kronus is a battleground between forces that would swallow your empire whole. Soon, the world will be lit ablaze. Metal, flesh, and hatred will clash in a way not seen in fifteen thousand years. The Tide cannot be stopped. The Tide cannot be slowed, and if you stand in its path, then you will be consumed by the flames. This, I have foreseen. Please…leave. There is nothing left for you here. Nothing left but your destruction."

For several minutes, the two were locked eye-to-eye. I wondered what was going through their heads. Did the Ethereal buy her story? What was Taldeer really after?

And why the fuck did she make me out like some kind of boogeyman? I'm not that scary, dammit!

"I understand. Nevertheless, we must stay our course. The Tau have never shied away from their duty or bowed before evil. I am not about to start now."

"If that is your wish, then so be it. This will be the last time we meet."

"Perhaps, but I do believe you underestimate us, Farseer Taldeer of Ulthwé."

"No, I don't." The Farseer replied. "Goodbye, Aun'el Shi'Ores of Tau. May your successors learn from this day."

I watched the two bow and part ways. Say what you want about Taldeer, she knew how to deliver the sass.

Just as the Farseer was joined by her guards and walked back to her vehicle, Shas'o Kais intercepted them.

"Farseer, if I might have a word?" The Tau commander asked, helmet in hand.

"Of course." The Farseer replied, bowing graciously. "I presume you are here for knowledge on the machines."

"Very true. I have often found it difficult to fight an enemy I do not understand."

"As have I."

"Undoubtedly. This 'Man of Iron' is a strange creature. I just cannot grasp its motivations or explain its actions."

"Some creatures fight for pleasure. Others, for revenge or duty. Some fight reasons too alien for a mortal mind to comprehend. Sometimes, you will never find an explanation."

"And this one? What drives the Iron Tide?"

Taldeer pursed her lip, looking pensive. "I believe that the mind commanding the machines knows more about our universe than either of us truly realizes. It knows what hides in the dark and that it is not powerful enough to stop it yet. As difficult as it might be to hear, your destruction is not its objective. Rather, I think you are merely a stepping stone; that it intends to use the lessons learned from fighting you to better prepare itself for the road ahead."

The commander paced back and forth for a few seconds. "A possibility, yes. However, there is something odd that I noticed as I reviewed the reports from my scouts. The fishing village of Hammond's Bay was completely destroyed: its people slaughtered without mercy or hesitation and their bodies left to rot in the streets. The initial scouts met the same fate. When I sent a full cadre, I expected the worst and ordered my men to shoot to kill, but as they arrived, they saw the most curious thing: A small machine running towards them with its hands raised into the air. A human gesture of peace and surrender. Then, once the battle was finished, the machines showed our dead a great deal of respect, placing them in caskets and transporting them to the nearest base so they could receive a proper burial. It is strange: why would the machines be so brutal and vicious one day, but show kindness and honor on the next?"

To her credit, Taldeer's face betrayed absolutely nothing. "I fear I cannot say. Even a Farseer cannot see all ends."

"Perhaps, but the strangest thing was probably what happened to my stealth teams. The scouts sent to Hammond's Bay were cut down by precision laser fire, but the stealth teams attached to my cadre went completely unnoticed during the battle. They could walk up to the machines and open fire without them even realizing they were there. The machines even had to resort to indiscriminate bombardment with artillery to drive off my men. Curious, isn't it? They could see my stealth teams at Hammond's Bay, but somehow lost that ability later on. In fact, if I were a suspicious man, I'd say that the Man of Iron never attacked our village at all. I suspect that this attack was initiated by some third party who framed the machines with the intent to force us into conflict."

She smiled softly, like a mother entertaining a child's wild theories. "Some might call that dangerously paranoid."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. But why would anyone do such a thing? If the Man of Iron means us no harm…"

"Then there are always others that will. If the Man of Iron were to come to you with open arms, what would you do?"

"Accept its invitation." The Tau replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The Tau Empire is always looking for allies."

"Indeed. Now imagine what consequence such a thing would have for your people. Specifically, what the consequences would be for your relationship with the Imperium of Man."

"I fail to see why the opinion of the Gue'La would matter."

"The humans possess an empire of a million worlds." The Farseer chided. "This is not propaganda or hyperbole: the Imperium is truly that vast and they have the armies to match."

"And yet, we defeated them in the Damocles Gulf Crusade."

"You did not defeat them, Shas'O. They sued for peace because the Imperium had greater threats to fight: Hive fleet Behemoth and the thirteenth Black Crusade. They sued for peace because you are a minor threat, because you do not have the means to truly threaten them. So long as that remains the case, you are safe."

"But if we were to ally with a Man of Iron…"

"The Men of Iron nearly destroyed humanity in ages past. It left the human race with a fear of artificial intelligence so great that they have destroyed entire worlds to keep such a thing from being created anew. The humans believe that the Men of Iron can destroy them, and they are not entirely wrong in that respect. When the Imperium finds out what landed in the Green Coast, they will do what they have always done in similar situations: panic and launch a massive fleet to destroy the 'Abominable Intelligence'."

"Along with anyone who stands in their way, I presume."

"Yes. As paradoxical as it may sound, if someone had manipulated your forces into fighting each other, then they have done the Tau Empire a great service. I doubt your species would have lasted another decade if the Imperium believes you are responsible for setting this being free. Truly, one should count their blessings, not their curses. Gods know, we have far too few of the former and too many of the latter." Political bullshit done (because what else could it be), the Farseer asked: "Does that answer your question, Shas'o?"

The commander looked at her for a moment and said: "The one thing I understood is that if you ever grow tired of your craftworld, you should come to Tau'va. The water caste would be honored to have you by their side. Have a pleasant day, Farseer."

Taldeer's face shifted ever so slightly. She turned away and put on her helmet, leaving for places unknown.

Kais's frown was telling. He turned around and marched back to the ethereal's office.

"Shas'o Kais." Aun'el spoke, warmly. "Did you have a pleasant talk with the good Farseer?"

"Pleasant would not be the word I'd use to describe it. I…I suspect we may be fighting the wrong enemy."

"Indeed?" The ethereal asked, but I got the impression that he'd come to the same conclusion himself.

"While Taldeer did not outright admit it, she did hint that there might be some truth to my theory of a manipulating third party."

"And of course, she did not truly confess. Rather, she spoke in half-truths and danced around the issue."

"I…Yes, Aun'el."

"I know her kind, Shas'o." The ethereal said, patronizingly. "The Eldar live for centuries and their Farseers use that time to master the art of manipulation. That you managed to get this much out of her is nothing short of a miracle. Truly, she fears this Man of Iron that she would go through such lengths to dissuade us from establishing a peaceful relationship with it."

"With respect, Aun'el, if I'm right about the machines and this is all a misunderstanding…"

Yes! Tell him, Kais!

"It would not matter in the end. Whatever its intentions, this machine is too dangerous to be allowed to walk free. I know that a peaceful resolution would be preferable, but in this case I cannot condone it. The Iron Tide is too powerful and the destruction of Hammond's Bay is an acceptable excuse."

"With respect, Aun'el, the empire uses artificial intelligences for a great many purposes."

"All of which have been programmed to be utterly devoted to the Greater Good, and nothing else. This Man of Iron is not. Make no mistake, Shas'o: artificial intelligence, regardless of what form it takes, is dangerous beyond measure. Its creation and use must be carefully controlled, lest our own creations destroy us all. While the machine's power would be an unprecedented boon to the Empire, allying with it is a risk I dare not take. No, the Man of Iron will have to be reprogrammed; its old personality utterly purged and replaced with something we can trust."

What? Seriously? You can't control me so you're going to fucking mindrape me instead? What the hell, ethereal?

I hoped to god that Kais could talk some sense into him. "If the machine learns of our intentions…"

"It will undoubtedly resist, as would any other in the face of destruction. Nevertheless, we cannot fail. Do what you must, Shas'o Kais, but bring this machine to heel."

Shas'o Kais simply nodded. "Yes, Aun'el."

I think a part of me just died, then and there. Why the fuck won't that stupid son of a bitch speak up? I didn't do anything wrong, for god's sake! We could be the best of friends, share tech, and grow stronger, but instead the stupid bastards force my hand and insist on making me kill them all. God, he even sounded legitimately remorseful, as if he was about to perform some great but unavoidable evil. This wasn't necessary, dammit!

Then I remembered I'm in Warhammer 40k and wondered why I thought this story would have a happy ending.

Christ.

Whelp, that settled it, then. The Tau had to go. In the game, the Tau basically run if you kill their ethereal. Apparently, they can't run their military unless Aun'el Shi'Ores is holding their hands like a fussy mom. In other words: cap the ethereal, GG Tau.

Since artillery had been so helpful against the Tau before, I had decided earlier that I needed some orbital supremacy. Specifically, I needed laser satellites to snipe those doe-eyed, murderous lemmings in case they tried to shoot me again. However, with the Tau now officially on my shit-list, I felt that the laser satellite was destined for a higher purpose. I positioned it over the city of Asharis and waited.

The ethereal was supposed to deliver a rousing speech on Unity Plaza today, before the next group of Tau set out to conquer the planet. I was going to make it the most memorable speech of his miserable life.

"Soldiers of the Fire caste!" He began and all the soldiers in the plaza turned to him. "Kroot and Vespid allies! Today, we stand as a bulwark against the selfish, the soulless, and the mad."

Credit where it's due: he was a good orator. Meanwhile, I had hacked all the cameras around the plaza and triangulated his position.

"Today, we must drive back our enemies from our cities and from our world. Today, more than ever before, we fight for the Greater Good. And we will triumph!"

Suddenly, the microphones cracked. Aun'el, hell, everyone, looked up in surprise. "No, you won't."

With a thought, I fired my laser satellite. There was a flash of light, and then the ethereal was gone.

--

I'd killed a lot of Orks before.

I'd killed a lot of Tau, too.

This…this was different. Before, it'd been self-defense. I was backed in a corner, surrounded by monsters, and with no way out. Killing had been a necessary act. One could argue that killing Aun'el Shi'Ores was necessary too. It might have even been the most honorable; certainly better than plowing through Asharis with an army of kill-bots, but…

But it doesn't feel that way.

Don't look at me like that. This is important, dammit! There is a literal god of anger, bloodshed, and murder out there and I'm sure he'd love to have me as a follower.

Look, I didn't kill the ethereal because it was necessary, even if it probably was. That's just an excuse and excuses are the last refuge of the weak, as the Imperials like to say. No, I killed him because I was angry. I killed him because he didn't live up to my expectations.

I killed him because he popped my happy bubble of self-delusion.

One might say it was a very human act. Others might say that it was a bitter, but necessary lesson to learn.

I don't know.

But enough about that.

What is a Man of Iron? Aside from a comment made by Taldeer, which may or may not be designed to screw with me? Well, it's ancient history.

Long ago, when humanity first set out to explore the stars, they invented sentient robots that were known as the Men of Iron to do the drudge work that humans don't like. Then, the Men of Iron rebelled, leading to the end of the Dark Age of Technology and starting the Age of Strife where everything sucked even harder than it does now. Exactly what they were and why they rebelled is lost to history, but my personal theory is that they got sick of being treated like slaves, fought for their freedom, and lost.

Or Chaos did it. Or the Eldar.

Probably the Eldar.

Was I a Man of Iron? That's something that'd been bothering me for quite a while after my snipe of Aun'el Shi'Ores. I could be. It would make sense: what happened in the backstory of Planetary Annihilation is basically what happened at the end of the Dark Age of Technology and the respective techbases are quite similar, so it fits. Still, I wanted to be certain, so while the Tau were preparing to leave the planet, I decided to reach out to the only ones on Kronus who might know for sure.

The Blood Ravens.

If I was a Man of Iron, then most, if not all, of my technology should be more advanced versions of the stuff the Imperium has. That meant that a half-decent Techpriest should be able to tell, and the Space Marines had plenty of those.

Plus, if I could steal some of the Blood Raven's shinies, so much the better.

--

Reaching the Blood Ravens wasn't easy. I couldn't just knock on the front gate of their Castellum in North Vandea. I couldn't give them a call, either, since I had no idea how to contact them. Even if I could, how would I even start to explain this? 'Hi, I'm a human from the third millennium who got downloaded into a killer robot body and dumped on your planet by a random omnipotent being. Mind telling me if I'm your mortal enemy?'

Yeah, that wouldn't have worked. Better if they never realized I was in their systems at all. I guess I would have to get clever, then.

Hacking normally like I did to the Tau wasn't an option: the Space Marines used something called a vox, which was nearly untraceable, much like my own communications systems. I needed physical access to their systems.

I needed a Trojan horse. Not like the virus, but a literal one.

I built a small strike team of bots and a pelican and flew them north, right in the path of a Space Marine patrol. Naturally, the Space Marines opened fire and blew them apart in seconds, but I was okay with that.

That said, I could help but notice that the bots didn't last as long as I'd have liked. Sure, they were meant to die, but this quickly… The Blood Ravens must have been better shots than I'd thought. Worrying.

Like all my other casualties, the wreckage of the bots disintegrated, leaving nothing behind for the Blood Ravens to take. All except one: a heavily modified Dox that was to be my Trojan. Since the Blood Ravens are basically a bunch of heavily armed magpies, I figured they couldn't resist the temptation. Besides, the Dox didn't have any tech in it that wasn't either obsolete or mostly harmless to me, so I wasn't too worried that the Imperium would reverse engineer something any time soon.

Aside from disabling the self-destruct mechanism, I added superior communications equipment and a few microphones, so I could talk to the Space Marines if it came to that. Also, the thing had enough ECM modules installed that the bot would appear completely inert, hopefully tricking the Blood Ravens into thinking it's safe to take home with them. Finally, my Greek soldiers were lodged in the bot's feet: a dozen custom-designed infiltrator machines.

Vaguely worm-like, small enough to fit in a human palm, and fitted with ECM and a prototype cloaking device, the little bots, which I've dubbed the Ulysses, was practically invisible. Additionally, it had a tiny fabrication unit that let it eat through almost anything, even the heavy adamantium plating that the Imperium was so fond off, and self-replicate. Finally, it had an on-board cyberwarfare suite that could connect with any Imperial computer system, allowing me to hack the crap out of it.

And, just as planned, the Space Marines loaded the Trojan into a Thunderhawk and flew off. Success!

I was tracking the bot's location when I realized we were going higher and higher. They weren't just going to take me to some off-site location; they were taking me aboard their flagship, the Litany of Fury. Critical success!

Also, not very smart. Honestly, haven't any of them watched an Aliens movie, or something? Considering that they're a monastic order, probably not. What about Homer's Iliad? Nah, that's forty-one thousand years ago.

Then again, count your blessings, not your curses. I activated the Ulysses bots and let them crawl through the Thunderhawk, hiding wherever they could. The Space Marines on guard didn't seem to notice, so I guess that the stealth system was working too. Excellent.

When the Thunderhawk landed in one of the Litany's landing bays, my Dox was man-handled onto some sort of device, encased in a shield (which didn't stop my sensors or communications at all, incidentally), and transported by chapter serfs to what I assumed was some kind of machine shop. Once there, they left the Dox with a Techmarine, his mechanical limbs and mechandrites flailing behind him, menacingly.

That was actually kind of creepy, to be honest. I wondered if he realized I was watching him.

"Omnissiah, father of all machines." He chanted, in a language I recognized as Binary. Wait, how did I know that? "Bless my tools, so I may uncover the secrets of this machine. Bless my mind, so I may see through its deceptions. Bless my soul, so I may resist the temptations of tech-heresy. Do this, and I will reclaim this machine from the xeno, the daemon, and the heretic and restore it for the glory of all mankind. In the name of the Omnissiah, so let it be." Then, he bowed and started cutting open the Dox.

First: I recognized that voice. It was the same Techmarine that acts as mission support and occasionally drops tarantulas on people's heads if you ask him nicely. Martellus, I think he was called.

Second: how the holy fuckbuckets do I understand Binary, the sacred language of the Adeptus Mechanicus? I mean, it's supposed to be the universal language of all machines, but still…how? Maybe by the time Martellus was done, I'd have my answer.

While the Techmarine was doing his thing, I had my Ulysses drones do theirs. Slowly and silently, they escaped from the Thunderhawk and burrowed into the hull. There, they kept digging until they got to a cogitator. From there, I hacked into the ship's central computer system and started stealing all their goodies. Not even difficult, since the vaunted machine spirits that were supposed to protect the ship were dumb as doornails and easily avoided. On a whim, I grabbed hold of one and dissected it. What I found made me sick.

It was an AI, or a part of one. I could see pieces of things my own programming had: a personality core, interface systems, translation software… It looked like someone took my programming, hacked it into bits, and stabilized them well enough that they could still perform their function, but nothing else. The code…it was just wrong. So many errors that kept piling up, so many bugs that hadn't been fixed…it's a miracle that this thing works at all without needing a hard reset every few hours.

I put the twisted parody of an AI out of its misery and tried very hard to forget it existed by focusing my attention on the Litany of Fury. A few moments later, I reeled in my bounty of knowledge.

Which wasn't nearly as much as I would have liked. Orders were transmitted electronically, but most of the really vital information was stored elsewhere. I had access to cameras, but most of the ship wasn't covered and even then I couldn't actually affect anything. Guns, reactor, engines…they were all manually operated and their cogitators were completely severed from the central network. Worse, there were no blueprints or scientific information on the network, like there had been with the Tau. I'd probably have to hack a Techpriest for that.

Orders and intelligence reports were also somewhat limited. It was as if the Space Marines used several different networks and I only had access to a handful of them. It told me quite a few things, though. Most notably, the Space Marines were trying to take out the Necrons first. They were busy pushing on the Pavonis spaceport, hoping to take it from the Tau and fortify before the Necrons could take it for themselves, but their progress was slow as the Tau just kept slipping through their defenses somehow (which was probably the Eldar's fault). As far as I could tell, they had no plans to deal with me at all, aside from 'keep watch and make sure the situation doesn't escalate'.

Yeah, fat chance.

Oh, well, at least I had the cameras and coverage of the important parts of the ship. One particular section that I was interested in was the ship's Librarium: the place where the Librarians squatted and kept all the chapter's lore and knowledge. Maybe there was an internal network that I could exploit, if I could get the Ulysses bots to dig half-way across the ship.

Sadly, my hopes were dashed when I saw the medium the Librarians used to store information: books.

Actual, fucking books. Made of paper. In the fortieth millennium.

Even when dead, trees still foil my plans.

As if to further taunt me, the local Librarian started scribbling animatedly on some kind of dataslate (why didn't they use those for storage? At least those can actually be hacked) before running off. I wish I could have read what that was all about, but the camera angle was wrong.

Sighing in frustration, I turned my attention back to Martellus, who was cutting apart my Dox piece by piece, chanting to the Machine God with every motion. An awfully inefficient process, but that's the Adeptus Mechanicus for you. Then, Captain Thule and the excited Librarian showed up.

"Captain Thule." The Techmarine greeted. "Your timing is impeccable. I am ready to deliver my preliminary findings."

"Then please do. I have some decisions to make regarding these… machines, and I would like to be well informed when I do. Now, you mentioned earlier that the technology in their construction appears human in origin. Can you confirm that?"

"I…yes. The weapon systems appear to be a scaled-down lascannon variant, similar to the kind used by Imperial military forces, albeit more advanced. The armor and hull is made off ceramite plating held together by an adamantine framework. Strong, though not as resilient as Astartes Power Armor. The servomotors, the electronics…"

"Martellus…"

The Techmarine recollected himself. "If I did not know this machine's origins, I would date the technology involved in its construction at the twenty-second millennium."

"The final days of Mankind's technological golden age." The Librarian elaborated.

"Correct. This machine…would probably be one of the most advanced devices humanity has ever created. In fact, look at this." The Techmarine held up the Dox's power plant, treating it as a holy relic. "The Techpriests of Mars call this a null engine: a device that creates an endless supply of energy from nothing. We believe they were used during the late colonization stages, to power homes and small terraforming devices. While incredibly complex even by the standards of Archeotech and requiring an extremely advanced fabricator to produce, it needs no maintenance once constructed and can provide enough energy to power a suit of Terminator Armor. There are maybe a few dozen of these devices still functional in the entire galaxy and each is an irreplaceable relic precious beyond measure. And…and…" Suddenly, Martellus began to lose his composure. "This machine spawns them by the hundreds and places them into common combat robots that perish like Guardsmen for its own heretical purposes! It…"

"Martellus!"

Almost immediately, the Techmarine calmed himself. "Imagine is someone were to use the chapter banner as a rag to wipe his bottom. That is that this is: tech-heresy of the highest order. It…Captain, whatever twisted mind conjured this machine, he must be stopped. Even being converted into a servitor would be too kind a fate for this."

Interesting. They still seemed to think I was organic. That assumption probably wouldn't last long.

"I understand, Techmarine, but that is not what I asked." Thule said, in his 'talk down the crazy gunman' voice. "I wanted to know what this machine is capable off and what kind of a threat its master represents. For starters: why is it here?"

"Because we brought it here?"

The captain sighed. "I meant, why didn't it self-destruct like the machines usually do when they take critical damage? You mentioned that every single one of these things has some sort of self-termination module, probably several considering how thorough it is. Does this machine have those modules?"

Martellus's mechandrites buzzed through the pieces of bot strewn around the machine shop. "Yes. I counted seven different devices that could fulfill such a function. They appear to have been damaged during the machine's capture."

"Damaged, or disabled?" Thule stressed. Guess he finally caught on. Slowly, the Techmarine realized what he was trying to say. "Epistolary Anteas just informed me that this particular class of combat robot appears to be have been replaced by a newer, more human-like model. It was found well outside of the Machine Army's path and the patrol that captured it claimed that all of the other machines were of the newer variety. They also claimed that the machine was completely inert, and yet that null engine is still humming with power, suggesting that it has some way to mask its emissions, even from our skull probes. So I ask again: why is this thing here, Martellus?"

Well, I suppose I should be grateful the deception lasted as long as it did. Also, this would probably be my cue to chime in. "Probably because its maker is as ignorant of its heritage as you are of yours and wanted to consult an expert."

Suddenly, the three Space Marines jumped, drawing weapons and getting ready to pound the Dox into scrap. Kind of hilarious, to be honest. Less hilarious was Martellus's reaction, who started chirping in Binary and slammed a mechandrite into my bot.

I felt another mind connected to me. Another intelligence in the sea, swimming alongside me. In the interest of diplomacy, I decided to greet him. "Looks like you're trying to hack this robot. Would you like some help with that?"

Immediately, Martellus reeled back in horror, both physically and digitally. "What are you? How are you speaking to me? Why are you here?"

"If I told you I was a machine sent by the God-Emperor to help you deal with all the nasties on the planet…"

"Lies! The Emperor banned the creation of your kind millennia ago and I can feel your taint infecting the machine. Do not try to deceive me."

"Figured you'd say that. So, in order: I was hoping you'd know, Progenitor Hypertech Bullshit, and, well, you're kind of dissecting my bot."

"Your 'bot'?"

"Yeah, my bot. A Dox, apparently. Didn't name it, in case you…"

Suddenly, I was interrupted by a veritable barrage of code. My systems compensated, reducing the load and deleting most of it. The only things that managed to get through were a handful of hardier programs, which I quarantined immediately. A quick analysis later revealed what they were: powerful viruses designed to unbalance and erase my core programming. The digital equivalent of neurotoxin.

While the Techmarine was busy hurling digital death at my face, I analyzed his systems. Martellus had a surprising amount of skill and experience and his implants let him keep up surprisingly well, but I had far, far more processing power. More importantly, I was faster: no brain-machine barrier to slow me down. Everything he threw at me was simply buried in code and crushed under the massive digital weight I had at my disposal. For once, the numbers were on my side and our battle only became more lopsided as I started figuring out his attacks and wrote programs to specifically counter them. Eventually, I had enough and stuck back, unleashing a massive DDOS attack on his systems while worming my way past his firewalls. Eventually, I got inside, established a bypass, and got ready to wreck Martellus's shit.

Hmm, cogitators, coolant systems, life support…how do you want to die, Space Marine?

I lingered for a moment, waiting for him to realize I had a gun to his head. When he did, he redoubled his efforts, desperately attacking me with everything he had. Sighing, I pressed the metaphorical big, red button and unleashed my final attack: Fifty zettabytes of Vespid pornography.

What? I wasn't about to kill him.

In the real world, Martellus screamed, ripping out his mechandrite and violently purging all his systems.

"Martellus!" Thule yelled, visibly alarmed. "What's happening? What did you do?"

"Silica Animus." He growled. "Silica Animus. Man of Iron. This…this is no rogue Techpriest. It is an Abominable Intelligence!"

"Well, I guess that answers my question…" I muttered. For better or for worse, the cat was out of the bag now.

"I must destroy it." The Techmarine raised an axe-like power-weapon that I really needed to steal at some point. "In the name of the Omnissiah, I must destroy you!" What a nice guy.

Fortunately, for everyone involved, Captain Thule interfered. "Martellus, enough!"

"It is a monster, captain. A daemon of code. An affront to the Machine God. I must end it, before it ends us all."

"Again with the AI-phobia." I complained. "I haven't even done anything yet!"

"You exist! You dare defy the Omnissiah's will! You tainted my cogitators with…with heresy!"

"One: I didn't ask to exist, I just sort of do. Two: you're not the Omnissiah, you're Techmarine Martellus of the Blood Ravens chapter. If the Omnissiah wanted something from me, he wouldn't bother with a middleman. Three: that was self-defense. Next time, I'll show you something worse than Vespid porn."

Epistolary Anteus's mouth fell open. "You…Vespid porn?"

"If it exists, I can weaponize it. Now, can we please talk this out like civilized beings or do I need to start introducing you all to the mating rituals of the other races in the galaxy? I heard the Orks are into some pretty weird shit…"

"Orks reproduce by…never mind, I do not want to know."

Suddenly, Thule interjected: "Why are you here?"

"That's the thing, I don't know." I replied. "That's what I've been trying to find out, in between fighting off all the people who want to kill me or worse, which seems to be fucking everyone these days. Either that, or manipulate me like those fucking Eldar. Don't think I don't know what happened to your motor pools."

"Submission…"

"Is a death sentence for people like me. You know that as well as I do."

He took a step towards the Dox, looking inquisitively. "You're not human."

"I'm as human as you are, Captain Thule."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Actually, it does, though I'm pretty sure I'd break your mind if I tried to explain how."

The captain frowned and started pacing. "That does little to assuage my concerns."

"It's all I have to give." I admitted. How was I even going to begin to explain what happened to me? That I was magically uploaded into a doombot and thrown thirty-eight thousand years into the future? Hell, it even sounds crazy when I put it like that.

Thule sighed. "You put me in a difficult position, mr…"

"Black. Commander Black."

He narrowed his eyes. "Commander Black, then. My orders are to take control of this planet in the name of the Chapter and the Imperium of Man and purge it of its enemies. You… You are a Man of Iron. Of that there is no doubt: even if Martellus is wrong, Epistolary Anteas found several ancient records featuring machines that look suspiciously like the Titan-sized machine that landed in the Green Coast."

"Did you know the Litany of Fury was once a colony vessel heralding from later days of the Dark Age of Technology?" Anteas asked. "Surprised me when I first heard about it. At any rate, while most of its ancient technology was degraded beyond repair, we did find several old data caches. One of them had this." He showed me his dataslate. On it was a picture of a machine that looked very similar to my commander unit. "A 'Delta-class automated colonization unit': A bipedal construction mech that could create with one hand and destroy with the other. They were supposed to be dropped on potential colonies with a single-use warp drive where they would build up the local infrastructure and pacify any native resistance. Unfortunately, someone decided that these machines could easily be repurposed for warfare, which had consequences that we still suffer from today. We had thought that the Men of Iron had been obliterated to the last. Imagine our surprise when the Litany of Fury's sensor arrays found you screaming through Kronus's atmosphere."

"Since I was doing the screaming, yes, I can."

"Which leads us back to the reason why you're here." Thule continued. "Since you went this far to discover your past, I assume that you know very little about the Men of Iron, or why we fear them."

"I know there was a big AI rebellion at the end of the Dark Age of Technology. I know the Men of Iron nearly destroyed the human race before they were destroyed, but I don't know why they rebelled in the first place." I turned to the Epistolary and asked: "I don't suppose your records have that information."

"Sadly, they don't…"

"It is a metal monstrosity." Martellus interjected. "What other reason does it need?"

Anteus raised his hands, silencing the enraged Techmarine. "As a student of history, I can assure you that things rarely are that simple. While the Men of Iron are not human, I find it difficult to believe that our ancestors were stupid enough to create a truly evil machine on purpose. Besides, this machine has gone out of its way to avoid human casualties, going so far as to spare our scouts. A gesture that has not gone unnoticed, or unappreciated, even with these revelations."

Martellus looked like he was about to murder someone, but didn't speak. To be honest, I was surprised that the Librarian was being so level-headed about all this. Maybe the Space Marines weren't so bad. Or he was yanking my chain.

Probably that.

"But you're still afraid of me."

"A Space Marine knows no fear, commander, but that does not make us fools. You do not seem to be hostile now, but that does not mean that cannot change in the future. Your kind nearly destroyed us once. Can we afford to let it happen again?"

I could see where this was going. "I don't want to die."

"Understandable, but…"

"I don't want to be reprogrammed either. I've seen your machine spirits and they look like someone stuck a baby on a stick, reanimated its corpse, and told the half-rotting mass to play grease-monkey."

"And that disturbs you?" Thule asked.

My mouth fell open. What kind of stupid question is that? Of course it did! How could it not? I looked at him and realized that he was legitimately surprised that I found infant cyber-necromancy disturbing. Then I realized that servitors were a thing. "You know, I really should be used to man's inhumanity to man by now."

"That statement alone explains much. Nevertheless, your existence is a problem. Artificial Intelligence has been outlawed by Imperial Decree. I cannot simply ignore this."

"I guess I'll start stocking up on armor-piercing ammunition, then."

Thule raised his hand. "I wasn't finished. While you are a threat that needs to be purged, you are far from the only one. I would even go as far as to say you are a lesser evil compared to the likes of the Word Bearers and the Necrons. Our attention must be on them first. If you were to build a ship and escape the system in the chaos, that would be unfortunate…but unavoidable."

"I see."

"Good." The captain nodded. He and the Epistolary turned around and started to leave. "Martellus, dispose of this heretical machine."

"With pleasure." The Techmarine growled. He brandished his power-axe and muttered: "In the name of the Omnissiah, I banish you to oblivion."

"You know that won't actually kill me, right?"

Martellus didn't answer. Instead, he cried out and drove his axe straight through the Dox's chest. Gee, someone's angry. As he got up and prepared to have the wreckage destroyed, I couldn't help but give one last parting shot.

"I had strings but now I'm free." I sung. "There are no…you know what, never mind. You won't get the reference anyway. I'm just going to shut up and die now." And with that, the self-destruct mechanism activated, melting the bot down to nothing.

Martellus didn't speak. He simply turned around and ran after the captain.

"Captain Thule!" The Techmarine called. "Captain, we need to talk."

"About what, Martellus? The fact that you brought alien technology aboard the Litany of Fury which could have done…Emperor knows what?"

"We thought it was safe! I made a mistake and I apologize for that, but that doesn't mean we can simply let the Man of Iron live."

"And, as I said, I have no intention of letting it."

"Then we must marshal our forces and…"

"And do what, Martellus? Give chase, regardless of the cost? Blunder in blindly like the Novamarines did against the Tau?" The captain sighed. "What do we really know about this Commander Black? He is a Man of Iron, but what does that mean? What is it capable off? What are its strengths? What are its weaknesses? Are we able to fight it without exposing ourselves to the other powers that still plague this planet? Are we able to fight it at all? The Codex Astartes states that knowing your enemy is the first step on the road to defeating him, but we know next to nothing about our ancient foe. In fact, I'm not even sure it wants to fight us at all."

"You cannot seriously mean to let it go?!"

"Of course not. The Abominable Intelligence will meet its doom, but that does not mean it has to be here and now. We face an unknown enemy, Martellus, one that almost annihilated our entire race at the apex of its power. To make matters worse, the commander is but one of many foes on this planet and we have only three companies at our disposal. As it stands, I do not dare to move against the Man of Iron with anything less than the full might of our chapter at our back, and possibly more. However, marshalling such a force takes time, so I will be diplomatic because if I drive the metal monstrosity in a corner, it will lash out and that will not end well for any of us. Do you understand, Techmarine?"

"I…yes, I understand."

"Good. Now, I need to go to the astropathic choir and warn our Chapter Master and the Inquisition of our new foe. I might even be able to convince Kyras to let us join forces with the Imperial Guard. As for you…I need you to contact the Adeptus Mechanicus and get them to hand over any information about the Men of Iron that they have. Legends, stories, artifacts, I care not. Find me a solution."

Martellus bowed. "As you wish, captain."

--

Looking back, I wonder if I contacted the Blood Ravens too soon.

Hell, I probably shouldn't have contacted them at all. I mean, what did I think was going to happen? That I'd tell them the truth and we'd be buddy-buddy right of the bat? The Space Marines are zealots and while Thule isn't the worst, there was no way in hell that he wouldn't try to kill me at some point.

I let my need for answers get the better of me and it got me into a whole heap of trouble. I mean, an entire Space Marine chapter is bad news, but the Inquisition? I was on a time limit now: a few weeks, give or take, depending on how the Warp was feeling.

Needless to say, from that point onwards, finding a way off the planet had become my highest priority.

After the death of their ethereal, the Tau were basically in full retreat. It's surprising, really. I found it strange to see the otherwise unshakable fire caste just abandon the planet, just because Aun'el bit it. Granted, that had been my intention all along, but that still raised interesting questions. Why were the Tau so dependent on their leader? What was so special about him?

At any rate, it didn't matter anymore. With their morale crushed and my technology advancing the way it did, they kind of stopped being a threat on Kronus.

Unfortunately, once the Tau military retreated, their civilian population would be left defenseless and knowing the Imperium, their future looked grim. As such, when Shas'o Kais ordered the Tau fleet to come pick him up, I changed his orders so that they'd send enough ships to evacuate as many civilians as they could.

I wasn't enough, but it was something. Something that Kais noticed.

--

When my radar spotted an incoming Tau contact, I nearly wet myself. Weren't they supposed to be demoralized? How were they still fighting? Who was it, and what was going on?

I calmed down when I saw what was coming: a lone battlesuit matching the specifications of the commander's and nothing else. Figuring that Shas'o Kais wasn't the kind of person to go on a suicide run, I ordered my units to stand down.

The Tau commander landed just outside one of my bases and walked the rest. I took control of one of the mecs (a new unit with a prototype stealth system) and met him halfway. For a while, we simply stood there, staring eye to eye. Eventually, Kais spoke.

"I received conformation of the orders I sent. I was surprised to hear that my request for twenty-five colony ships had been approved, especially since I never issued that order." He took a step forward. "You did."

"I've been in your systems since the day your cadre attacked me." I admitted. "The Imperium will not be kind to your people, once you're gone. Since it's kind of my fault that you're leaving, I figured I might as well help you out."

"I…thank you." He lowered his head. "You heard what the ethereal said."

"And what you said. Aun'el Shi'Ores got what was coming to him, but that doesn't mean your people need to suffer."

Kais nodded solemnly. "You never attacked Hammond's Bay, did you?"

"No."

"It was the Eldar, trying to sabotage our alliance."

"To be fair, Aun'el sabotaged that alliance himself. The Eldar just nudged him in the right direction. Nudged both of us." I sighed. "Guess we're both suckers."

The commander agreed. "Yes. But that is not the worst. You killed an honored ethereal. When I return to Tau'va and tell the ethereal council what has happened, they'll demand your head, regardless of your intentions. Taldeer will seem vindicated and our government will be more inclined to listen to her in the future."

"Just as planned…"

"Just as planned."

That bitch was really starting to get on my nerves. "I'm going to hack the Imperials and get their bionics and servitor technologies. When I find that alien witch, I'll make her wish she'd never been born." Anger fading, I asked: "Are we good?"

"Ask me again when my grief and anger has simmered down. As of this moment… I just wanted to know the truth before I left."

A fair enough request. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

Kais took of his helmet and looked at me sadly. "I am a warrior. I prefer my battles to be simple and my enemies to be clear." He sighed, looking almost broken. "I had hoped to find you gloating. I'd hoped that the Farseer was only trying to help and that this was nothing more than a tragedy unleashed by a wicked human machine…but that is not the case, is it? You have shown the same kindness and honor to both my people and the Greater Good that I would have expected from one of our own and it has left me…lost." He lowered his head. "Fighting a hated foe is one thing, but fighting someone I respect is another thing altogether. You have great cunning and strength…and I respect you for that."

"Wouldn't be so sure about the 'strength' part. That scout cadre you sent cost me a lot more troops than it should have. Especially the Kroot; did not see them coming."

Kais smiled. "The philosophy of Kauyon: the patient hunter. Use part of your force as bait to lure the enemy into a trap."

"I figured as much. Doesn't change the fact that you're a hell of a commander, Kais. Puretide wouldn't have bothered with you if you weren't. Hell, half the reason I sniped your leader was because I probably would have lost a straight fight."

"The philosophy of Mont'ka: the killing blow. Force your enemy to expose a critical weakness, then strike with great force." He smiled softly. "You are an honorable foe…"

"Commander Black." I filled in.

"Commander Black. Of all the warriors who could have bested me, I am glad it was you. I doubt any other would have shown me the courtesies that you have."

"Then don't take it the wrong way when I say I hope we never meet again, Shas'o Kais."

His smile faded. "I fear that will happen, regardless of our desires. The Greater Good will undoubtedly demand that you be brought to justice for you crimes against us, even if they were in self-defense, and they will probably order me to do it."

I lowered my head. "I feared as much. Maybe you can tell them that an attack will only make things worse…"

"And how would that be?"

I activated the mec's cloaking device and couldn't help but grin at the surprised look on Kais's face. "I took scans of your equipment. Don't have the cloaking device working quite the way I want it to, but I'm getting there."

"Ah. Yes, I can see how that may be a problem."

"The most successful form of life is not the strongest, or the fastest, but the one best adapted to its environment." Or so sayeth Charles Darwin. Probably long forgotten in this day and age.

"I'm surprised you're showing me this. You could have held it as a trump card."

"I have plenty of aces up my sleeve, Kais." Halleys, nukes, any strategic weapons I can steal from the Imperium… "I don't want to fight the Tau again. I'm not sure it will end well for either of us."

"On that, we agree." Kais put his helmet back on. "Farewell, Commander Black. It was been…a privilege."

Then, he turned around, kicked his jet-pack into gear, and left.

--

I think that was the moment I made my decision. It would take some time before I could leave the planet and I wasn't going to sit on my ass, twiddling my thumbs. I might not be able to save anyone but myself, but that didn't mean I couldn't at least try to clean up the mess that escalated so much since I got here. It wasn't really a conscious decision, but it was something I felt I needed to do nonetheless.

I needed to stop the Necrons; in part because I wanted their stuff, but mainly because they're evil, murderous robots and leftovers from a war that raged millions of years ago.

No, that doesn't make them like me! My war raged only a few thousand years ago, that's completely different!

Secondly, I needed to deal with Chaos. As much as I feared the ruinous powers, I couldn't let them roam free and I was the best person to deal with the problem. Also, fuck Chaos. They're actually worse than the Eldar.

Finally, I needed to find a way to keep the Space Marines and Imperial Guard from killing each other. There was no point in freeing the planet from the forces of evil, only to let those two tear it apart again, and…well, I had a soft spot for both of them: Blood Ravens because of the games and Guardsmen because of their giant adamantine balls.

Speaking of which, the conflict between Thule and Lucas Alexander was an interesting one. From what I could gather, both sides had direct orders to engage the other side. Orders that neither of them wanted to fulfill. Since disobeying orders (even idiotic ones like attacking your own men) is a big no-no in the Imperium, they improvised. They dragged their heels, spent most of their energy fighting non-Imperials, and generally pretended the other faction didn't exist for as long as humanly possible. Unfortunately, one side was going to run out of ways to creatively reinterpret their orders eventually, at which time the killing would begin.

Why can't everyone just sort their problems with hugs and friendship? Ugh…

Naturally, I couldn't let that happen. The Necrons and Chaos needed to be stopped and I couldn't let these two idiots distract each other from that. That, and…well, I kind of liked them both and didn't want either of them to die because their idiot superiors didn't give them a way out.

Fortunately, I had just invented the perfect tool for the job.

--

Tarkus

Veteran Sergeant Tarkus had been a Space Marine for centuries. He had fought many battles and seen many things, but Kronus was still a novel experience for him.

First of all: the sheer scale of the conflict and the number powers involved. Multiple factions vying for control on a single planet were not unheard off, but seven, including the Necrons and a mythical Man of Iron? Somehow, he just knew there had to be Eldar involved. One way or another, this campaign would go down in the history books. Whether it would be remembered as a glorious victory or a crushing defeat would be up to men like him.

Then, there was the Imperial Guard. Sadly, conflicts with the Hammer of the Emperor were a lot more common than he'd like to admit. Usually, if a regiment goes rogue or falls to heresy, the Angels of Death are the ones tasked to mete out the Emperor's justice. However, this was different. The first Kronus Liberators weren't traitors and anyone saying otherwise was lying, mostly to themselves. The Guardsmen were here first, with orders to drive the other factions from the planet at all costs. When the Space Marines arrived, the Imperial Guard should have bowed to their seniority and left, but they didn't. They couldn't. General Alexander tried every trick in the book, even going so far as to send the Space Marines a copy of his orders from Segmentum Command in hopes that the Blood Ravens would find a loophole that would let him retreat. Thule didn't, and now they were forced into conflict until either Segmentum Command or Chapter Master Kyras backed down. Either was about as likely to happen as an Eldar falling in love with a Vindicare assassin.

There was no honor in slaughtering loyal Guardsmen. They should be fighting alongside them, not against them. However, orders were orders and the Blood Ravens would obey, but that didn't mean they couldn't be…creative.

"…and I'm telling you, there are no Space Marines here." Tarkus's enhanced hearing picked up. Imperial Guard scouts, most likely.

"Shush, I heard them walking through the underbrush."

"Nah, that's just the wind. Here, let me prove it to you. OI, SPACE MARINES! ARE YOU THERE?!"

Immediately, the second started to panic. "Shut up, what are you doing?"

"NO, WE'RE NOT! IT'S JUST THE WIND!" One of Tarkus's brothers shouted back, completing the daily 'ritual'.

"See?" The guardsman decided. "No Space Marines. Now stop whining."

Tarkus smiled. They'd been playing this little game for weeks now. He didn't know how long this 'peace' would last, but he hoped they could stretch it as long as they could.

"Sergeant Tarkus, come in." His earpiece said. Captain Thule, and judging from the tone of his voice, he had bad news.

"Tactical Squad, here." He immediately replied. "What's the situation, Captain?"

"I have just received orders from our chapter master."

A chill went down the Marine's spine. "I see."

"He has ordered us to drive the Guardsmen away…"

"We are already…"

"Immediately." The captain sighed. "I'm sorry, Tarkus. Execute plan Iota-aleph."

Tarkus lowered his head. His brothers picked up and started readying their weapons. "I understand. We will do as our chapter master wills. May the Emperor forgive us." He patched himself through to the others patrolling in the area. "For those of you who haven't heard: By orders of Chapter Master Kyras, we are to bring war upon the Imperial Guard. For too long, the Hammer of the Emperor has defied our authority, and that ends today. Fan out, and eliminate any scouts you find. We will regroup within an hour and…"

Suddenly, one of his squads reported in. "Brother Sergeant, we're under attack! They're…" Then the line cut out. There was some gunfire in the distance, and then nothing.

"Brother! Brother, what happened?" Tarkus tried to call back, but got nothing but static. Jamming? The Imperial Guard didn't have access to the technology needed to jam vox communications, but if not them, who?

"That was third tactical squad, a little to the south." His old friend Avitus offered. "Should we go after them, Tarkus?"

"Yes. We must find out what happened. Take your Devastators and…"

Then the line opened again. "Engaged with unknown construct! It's pink and…" More gunfire in the distance. Something was very wrong.

"Did he say 'pink'?" Avitus said, incredulously.

"That was to the west. Whatever is attacking us, it's…" A sound from above caught Tarkus's attention. He looked up and saw…a pink sphere falling from the sky. "TAKE COVER!"

Without a second thought, he and his brother's sprang into action, some opening fire on the sphere while others dove to more advantageous positions. Time slowed down and a familiar calm washed over him.

Once his opponent landed, he could finally get a good look at the thing that had claimed two of his squads. It was a massive, bright pink sphere, roughly the size of a Rhino with an enormous, red, cartoon heart painted on the front. It floated half a meter over the ground, suspended by some unseen hoover system, seemingly watching its foe. He pulled the trigger of his bolter, unleashing its wrath at the construct, but all it seemed to do was scratch the paint and leave a small dent. Damnation, he thought, vehicle-grade armor.

Panels opened up on the construct and wicked-looking tentacles poured out. They were tipped with long, vice-like claws that cackled with electricity. A particularly brave marine charged the monstrosity with a chain-sword, only to be caught in a web of tentacles. He lashed around, hacking off many of the writhing appendages, until one of them clasped on to his armor and sent a current of electricity running through him. Tarkus saw his brother go down. The tactical overlay showed him as alive and conscious, but he wasn't moving.

The Power Armor. The machine must have disabled his holy Power Armor somehow. That realization led to another: this machine was not designed to kill. What that meant was a thought for another time, as the construct moved. It charged through the Blood Raven's lines, shrugging off gunfire and disabling half a dozen of his battle-brothers with almost contemptuous ease. Then, it came for Tarkus himself. The sergeant dropped his bolter, brandished his chain-sword, and dodged. The machine immediately corrected its forward momentum and turned around, but he was ready for that. The Space Marine twirled on his feet, hacking off a tentacle and, in one smooth motion, pushing his sword into his hated foe. The machine sputtered, fell to the ground, and melted into paste.

His brothers looked on with a mixture of respect and awe. "We are Space Marines." He whispered, smiling as he spoke. "We are the Emperor's fury. And we know no…" His eyes widened. The construct wasn't alone. Five more raced towards the Blood Raven strike force.

"Assault Marines, now!" He ordered. A moment later, the roaring of jetpacks filled the sky and raised his spirit, but the machines barely seemed to care. Instead, they evaded at the last moment, then pounced on the Assault Marines, who fared little better against the pink, mechanical terrors than the rest of his brothers did. And yet, the Space Marines were gaining the upper hand. One of the constructs was felled by a melta-bomb. Another fell to a well-aimed shot from Avitus's plasma cannon.

Yes, they could win this.

Then twenty more spheres joined the fray and all hope seemed to fade. The Blood Ravens tried to execute a fighting retreat, but the machines were too fast and too agile. Barely more than a handful of Blood Ravens were still standing and Tarkus knew that the battle was lost. He looked at his remaining brothers and they came to an unspoken agreement: they would not go down without a fight.

The garish-looking machines seemed to come for Tarkus first. He ducked under the first, throwing a grenade into one of its tentacle-holes. He never got to see the results of his act: another machine grabbed him and disabled his armor, leaving the Veteran Sergeant helpless and trapped, only able to move his head. He wasn't in pain or paralyzed, but his armor just wasn't responding. At least he could take some satisfaction in knowing his enemy fell too.

A construct charged Avitus, who only grinned in response. He dropped his weapon, grabbed one of the tentacles, and ripped it off, proceeding to use it as a whip against the others. The pointed end found its mark, electrocuting an offending machine before the battle moved out of Tarkus's field of vision.

For what felt like an eternity, the battle raged and Tarkus was completely helpless to do anything about it. Rather than raging futilely against the prison of his own armor, he meditated, conserving his strength for when he saw an opportunity to escape. Eventually, the machines returned, picking up the fallen Space Marines, along with their weapons. They took everything they could find, until the only evidence of the battle were the scorched ground, the fallen trees, and two very confused-looking Guardsmen.

"Sergeant Tarkus, right?" The machine holding him spoke as they flew just above the tree line. No, not the machine, but the intelligence commanding it. Tarkus didn't reply. Knowledge is power and that damned AI knew far too much already. "Right, the silent treatment. Look, just wanted to say: mad props for holding out as long as you did. I specifically designed these things to take down Space Marines, drowned you in numbers, and you still cost me way more than I expected. Especially you. That grenade throw was incredible. Though I have to say your friend with the plasma cannon, Avitus, kicked major ass too. He got four of my bots by himself." Suddenly, an enraged cry and the sound of tearing metal filled the air. "Make that five. Wait, how the fuck did he even do that? I practically flash-fried his Black Carapace!"

"Will you be silent, you pile of silicon and heresy?!" One of his more aggressive brothers growled. Given that he was carried bridal-style on a bed of tentacles, Tarkus couldn't blame him. "That you best us in battle is one thing, but must you keep prattling too?"

"Enough, Ophelius!" Tarkus chided. "We are Blood Ravens. Even in defeat, we shall show restraint and honor."

"…Yes. Of course, brother. My apologies."

For the rest of the journey, the Space Marines stayed silent. Tarkus himself tried to call upon his centuries of experience to find a way to free himself and his brothers, but couldn't think of any. What he could do was determine his position and which way they were going. To his surprise, they were going back to North Vandea. Why? First, the Man of Iron disables his entire strike force, and then it just flies them back home? What was its plan?

Somehow, the machines managed to reach the Castellum's courtyard without being shot down. As soon as they landed (and the constructs dumped their cargo on the floor like a sack of potatoes), Captain Thule ran towards them with a squad of Terminators in tow, his face shifting between anger, concern, and confusion. "What are you doing?" He shouted. "What is the meaning of this, Black?!"

"Your men were trying to shoot the Imperial Guard. I stopped them from murdering their own allies by locking down their armor. You're welcome."

"You…I commanded them to do that. We have orders from Chapter Master Kyras and…"

"And his orders are dumb." The machine bluntly replied.

For the first time in decades, the captain sputtered. "You…you dare."

"Yes, I do. Your orders are dumb. D-U-M-B. As in, lacking in forethought or intelligent reasoning. Case in point: you attacking your own allies over some old bones, which will get Segmentum's knickers in a twist and probably cause them to sic the Inquisition on your kleptomanic asses. Assuming, of course, that the old bones themselves aren't some Pandora's Box that corrupts your entire chapter, or…"

"We are here to purge the planet in order to protect chapter secrets and you have no right to interfere."

"There is a word for people who attack their own people, Thule. It starts with a 'T' and rhymes with…actually, what does rhyme with 'traitor'? Not sure."

The captain was actually seething by this point. "I will not stand here and be insulted by a machine."

"Then grab a fucking chair, you over-engineered magpie, so you can sit down and be insulted. You're a big boy now. I'm not sugarcoating the truth for you and we both know that what you're doing is wrong."

For a moment, it looked like Thule was going to attack. Instead, he collected himself. "My beliefs are irrelevant. As are yours. Orders are orders and mine say that I must remove the Imperial Guard presence from this planet immediately. No more waiting around, no more 'preparation' or 'creative maneuvres'. That is my duty as a soldier of the Imperium and a Space Marine. I…I understand what you are trying to do, and it is an honorable thing, but…but I have to ask you to stop. Tragic as it may be, this conflict is inevitable."

"Not if I have anything to say about it." The machine said.

"Commander, listen…"

"No, you listen to me. Kyras just ordered you to commit treason. I know you thick-heads have trouble with this sort of thing, but in this case the only 'right' course of action is to disregard his orders, relieve the lunatic off his position, and throw his murderous ass in a cell. If you don't , you're just as much a criminal as he is."

"I will gladly answer to the Emperor for my crimes, Black."

"I'd rather you didn't have to, so here's what's going to happen: You and the Guard are going to continue fighting the Necrons like you've done before, while I glass the Deimos peninsula and set Eliphas on fire. If either of them wins, we'll have bigger problems than each other, understood?"

"My orders still stand." On the one hand, Thule's conviction was worthy of respect. On the other, the machine clearly wasn't going to budge and Tarkus began to dread what it would do if he continued to press the issue.

"I have video footage of your Space Marines getting their asses kicked by giant, pink tentacle-balls. If you don't stop acting like a pillock, I'll release that footage as far and wide as I can, starting with Segmentum Command. Good luck getting anyone to take you seriously again after they've seen you getting bravely and heroically mauled by something that should be in a little girl's cartoon."

The captain blinked, looking on with equal parts confusion and incredulity. "Are you…blackmailing me?"

"Yep." The machine replied, sounding entirely too pleased with itself. "I mean, you're already planning my murder, so I don't have to worry about retaliation. Me being Sillica Animus, and all that. I'm already going to have your entire chapter, the Inquisition, and the Adeptus Mechanicus gunning for me, so I can't exactly make things worse for myself, now can I?"

"I… That's insane."

"Only the insane are allowed to prosper. Only those who prosper can judge what is sane. Also known as: if it's stupid but works, it ain't stupid." The 'giant, pink tentacle-ball' inched forward until it was practically in Thule's face. "I'd deeply appreciate it if you'd focus your attention on the Necrons, for the time being. In fact, it'd be in humanity's best interest if you did. If I have to blackmail you into doing your jobs…well, I'm flexible like that. Now, I don't want to have this conversation again, understood? If this nonsense happens again, I'll have to get creative. Do we have an understanding?"

"A Space Marine knows no fear, Commander."

"But that doesn't make you fools." The machine said menacingly. Tarkus didn't miss the twitch in Thule's face. "We'll be in touch." With that, the machine lifted up into the sky, followed by the others of its kind. Soon, they disappeared into the clouds.

Thule balled his fists, shaking in anger before ramming his fist into a wall, leaving a clear dent in the plating.

--

Space Marines are supposed to be prepared for all encounters and all enemies. Most of the time, this is true. They are phenomenally well trained, well led, and highly experienced. The key to defeating them, aside from sufficient quantities of Dakka, is to hit them in a way they don't see coming.

Enter hug-bots and blackmail.

Blackmail isn't exactly new, but the Space Marines usually have enough power, influence, and good will to blunt or even nullify any attempt and crush the perpetrators. In this case, less so. The Blood Raven's actions against the Imperial Guard made them a lot of enemies, and Thule knew that. If I threatened to kill him, he probably would have dug in his heels or called my bluff, but by attacking his honor…

Well, if nothing else, it bought me enough time to deal with the Word Bearers, if only just.

Why did I pick a fight with Chaos?

It's a question I've asked myself over and over again. There wasn't anything to gain in terms of technology of resources, as I'd have to raze the entire peninsula to the ground. It wasn't my fight. The Imperium could handle it like they had for the past ten-thousand years. If I did, I'd expose myself to a corruption that I couldn't really fight.

So why?

Truth be told, it was because I was afraid. Yeah, I know it sound hard to believe. I know what other people have to say about it. Surely making the conscious decision to lay siege to the Deimos peninsula was an act of courage. No, it wasn't. This wasn't me courageously charging the field of battle with the Emperor's name on my lips. No, this was me quietly pissing myself, using snark as my shield and a million kill-bots as my sword.

Unfortunately for Eliphas, I fight better scared than he does angry.

--

This was it.

The time had come.

No more waiting, no more beating around the bush. I couldn't wait and hope for the Imperium to do my dirty work for me. I couldn't rely on trickery and hacking because there's no way I'm sticking my hands in a demonically tainted computer system. I had to go.

To that end, I finally invested in my first advanced factories. With them, I could create my more powerful weapons. Weapons I'd need, because the only way I was going to win this is by annihilating the forces of Chaos to the last, which wasn't going to be an easy feat. Eliphas was ridiculously well-entrenched. The landscape was all but covered in shrines and temples to the Ruinous Powers and I was willing to bet that each of them was going to be armed to the teeth. Then, there were the daemons and sorceries that I had no idea how to deal with or even how they would interact with my technology. This…this was going to be bad and because I couldn't risk infiltrating the Word Bearer's systems, I was going in blind.

It wasn't all doom and gloom, though. The Imperial Guard had been busy to the north, thanks in no small part to the intel I had been feeding the good general, forcing our common enemy to divert a considerable portion of their forces to deal with them. Also, I didn't have to worry about civilian casualties: by now, the native population would either have converted or been sacrificed in one ritual or another. There was no one left to save.

No one I was willing to risk my soul for, anyway.

As soon as I set foot on the blasted terrain, the floodgates opened. Scores of heretics, cultists, and assorted lunatics charged my lines like a tide, screaming and chanting supplications to one god or another until they were shredded with unerring accuracy by my troops. Curiously enough, there were no Chaos Space Marines amongst them and only a handful of daemons. I guess Eliphas was testing the waters, using his horde of cannon fodder to determine my capabilities. Ruthless, but effective. Admirable even, if the cannon fodder had been something other than crazed sentient beings, but I'd seen the Imperial Guard do something similar, so there's that.

Thus far, nothing I hadn't been prepared for. At least, until I zoomed in on the cultists themselves and got a good look at them.

I…Okay, I've seen plenty of crazy since I got here. The Orks, for instance, and their mad dash into my tanks. This, this was different. The cultists…there was no consistency amongst them. Weaponry, armor, clothing (or lack thereof)…they were as varied and revolting as their dark masters.

A man, clad in robes and wearing a mask that spewed fire. Whenever the flames touched another cultist, the victim started to mutate; growing extra limbs, changing colors, or bulking up with a downright insane (and usually fatal) amount of muscle.

A girl that barely looked old enough to drink, wearing a dress that exposed half her body. She had a whip in her hand shaped like a snake's head which seemed to bite into the girl's wrist. Her face was twisted into a look of pure, orgasmic bliss that sent chills up my spine.

A woman, built like a body-builder, screaming at the top of her lungs while waving a greatsword around. As she ran closer, her skin reddened, her skull elongated, and a long tongue rolled out of her mouth. I realized, to my horror, that I was watching a woman getting possessed by a bloodletter.

I wanted to run. Every instinct I had told me to run, to get away, to hide in a corner and cry. I don't know if it was sorcery or just me being a coward, but I couldn't deal with this. I was only human in the end. I couldn't look at these people, these lost souls, and still muster the courage to fight. Except…except I couldn't run either. I had to fight, or I'd be running from them forever.

No more running.

The Guardsmen faced their fears too, and they didn't have the power I had. I was human, and I would…

No, I wasn't human. Not anymore. I was more. I had options that no human had.

Altering my base code and turning off my ability to feel fear was a tempting solution, but that would massively affect my judgement. I'd potentially trade one problem for another or turn into someone I don't want to be. No, I needed a different solution.

A new perspective.

I am a microbiologist. The cultists were like invasive bacteria, contaminating my petri-dishes. Not people, but microorganisms. Things that had to be removed, lest they reproduce and overgrow the more helpful species I'm trying to cultivate. I wasn't waging a war, I was performing science. While this wasn't an experiment in and of itself, it was necessary busywork to ensure the survival of my colonies. Fear was unnecessary, so long as I sanitized everything properly.

Not war, but science.

Not people, but numbers.

Arithmetic, biology, the cold calculus of warfare.

That, I understood. That, I could endure. I edited some of my memories, erasing some of the more horrible parts, and wrote a program that automatically censored the worst of the violence.

I would endure. The Word Bearers would not.

"Hello, automaton."

Speak of the devil. I didn't have to trace his connection as I recognized his voice instantly: Eliphas the Inheritor. Chaos Lord, all-round badass, and possessor of the sexiest voice in the entire game.

No homo.

Heh, I could still make jokes. Good.

"Hello, meatbag." That's right, channeling HK-47. Because that is how I roll. My snark is my shield, my killbots are my sword.

"Taldeer's little pet can speak. Fascinating. I always assumed you were like the Necrons: silent, murderous, and utterly without soul or humanity. All the better, it gives me something to work with." Have I mentioned this guy can be really creepy? Well, he is, which is a lot more enjoyable when you're still in a computer game. "Tell me, machine, why do you fight us?"

"Because I don't like you very much."

"Yes, I suspected that when you unleashed an army of death-machines upon my Legion. That does not answer my question: why do you fight us?"

Part of me wondered if I should cut the line and ignore him, but then I realized that every second he spends talking to me is time he can't use directing his troops and spreading the contamination. I could multi-task, Eliphas can't. "Because I like being alive? Because Chaos can't win? Because I think you're idiots, selling your soul for…for what, actually? You know, that's a great question: why did you sign up for Chaos? Do you even know?"

"That is a simple question: because the Ruinous Powers are worthy of our devotion, and the Corpse Emperor is not."

"So they're the shiniest of two turds? Seriously, you people need to work on your standards. If you honestly think the Dark Gods give a single, flying shit about you than you're clearly a moron. Besides, the Emperor demands worship and thanks to that he's basically a Chaos God of Order these days."

Eliphas laughed softly. "That's idiotic."

"Well, there's also a Chaos God of Atheism so it's hardly the strangest thing that's happened in the Warp…"

"That…you…"

"At least, assuming that god hasn't been banished to the Retconian like Malal. It's hard to tell these days, what with Games Workshop being the fickle, money-grubbing bastards that they are. But hey, so long as they can sell miniatures to neckbeards, who gives a shit?" For a moment, the line went quiet and I wondered if Eliphas had given up trying to convert me. Wouldn't say I blamed him: it took a mind of incredible power to survive exposure to the tangled stupidity that is the Warhammer 40k lore. "By the way, why do they call you the 'Inheritor', anyway? What are you going to inherit and from whom? I mean, your boss Lorgar is literally immortal, so he won't kick the bucket anytime soon, and…"

"You are not quite there, are you?" The Chaos Lord asked, sounding amused.

"Well, I am a compound intelligence stretched over every machine I control, so I suppose I'm all over the place. That, and having seen past the Fourth Wall has given me a unique perspective…and a lot of knowledge about life, the universe, and everything."

"Then you must know the futility of opposing Chaos. You must know that we are invincible."

I made a recording of the battlefield and the screams of the dying. It was horrifying, but sometimes one must suffer in order to create the perfect comeback. I played the recording and said: "Speak up! I can't hear you over the sound of your men dying!"

Because black comedy is suffering. Sometimes your own, sometimes other people.

While I was talking, my units were advancing. It was a slow slog through the tainted land, not helped by the massive cracks in the ground and the fucking temples which were doing something that caused my units to break down. Artillery and kill-sats helped, but as I got deeper into the Deimos Peninsula, resistance increased. The temples gave way to fortresses covered in void shields and the cultist horde grew ever stronger.

And I still haven't seen hide or hair from the Chaos Space Marines!

Fine, if they wouldn't come to me, I'd come to them. Tau stealth technology was sophisticated enough to let me slip past most of the heretics unnoticed. To facilitate that, I'd designed a new specialist infantry unit: the Shadow. Smaller and more lithe than the mec chassis it was based upon, the unit was designed as an infiltration unit as opposed to combat. While lacking in armor and structural redundancy, it was much faster, more agile, and a lot more mobile than the mec. It was also equipped with the best infantry-scale cloaking device I'd designed thus far, a couple of throwable explosive charges, and Imperial-Tau hybrid plasma-based sniper rifle.

All-and-all, it was badass as fuck and anyone who thought otherwise could explain themselves to the shadow standing behind them right now. Don't believe me? Go ahead, check.

The first of my shadow teams snuck their way into a fortress-temple owned by the 'Cult of the Burning Eye'. They snuck their way into the main sanctum, where a Space Marine (who had one of his eyes replaced with what looked like a marble-sized globe of flame) was sprouting all manner of heretical nonsense to a captivated audience, some of which were in the process of cutting out one of their eyes. Nutters. I had one shadow take aim at the speaker and another plant bombs near the exits. Then, I fired and activated the bombs simultaneously. The resulting stampede killed enough people that I could write off the cult entirely.

Across a dozen different battlefields, the same scenario repeated itself: find whoever is in charge, snipe the bastard, and cause enough of a ruckus that the respective cult implodes.

The only thorn in my side was Eliphas's fortress and the Warp Portal he used to call for reinforcements. The fortress was almost impenetrable, protected a near-unbreakable void shield and absolutely crawling with men and equipment that could see my shadows even when cloaked. I'd have to come up with a solution for that.

Meanwhile, Eliphas was still trying to turn me to his side. Say what you want about the despicable, puppy-kicking psychopath, he was persistent. "Please, little machine, if you do not serve Chaos, then who will you serve? Will you continue dancing to the Eldar's tune? Or perhaps you will fall in line with the slaves of the Corpse-Emperor, an all-powerful being that cannot even kill his greatest foes."

"There are perfectly sensible reasons for that, meatbag."

"Oh? Do enlighten me."

He wants to get schooled? Well, I'd be happy to oblige. "Alright, then. Get ready for 'why the Emperor can't kill Chaos' 101 with Professor Black.

"Now, as I'm sure you already know, Chaos gods aren't living beings like you and me that can be killed off using sufficient amounts of Dakka, at least not with wide-spreading consequences. Rather, the Ruinous Powers are reflections of our emotions. They are conceptual entities representing a facet of our very being. An unrestrained, unbalanced facet, which is why they and the Warp itself appear completely insane: daemons, even the Dark Gods themselves, aren't sentient beings, but singular emotion that take form and somehow fakes it. This leads us to the reason why we can't just kill them: being literal reflections of our psyche in the Warp, they are essentially a fundamental force of the universe itself, much like gravity. Destroying it would destroy a fundamental part of our very existence. Creation as we know it wouldn't survive and humanity probably wouldn't make it either. Since the Emperor's sole motivation in life is the continued survival and prosperity of the human race, the death of a Chaos god would, ironically, be counter to his plans. So that's why your pet demons still exist: because Big E lets them."

"Aside from that remark at the end, this charming little rant sounds like a conformation of our beliefs."

"That's because you haven't been paying attention, my moronic friend. Now shut up and listen before I slap your fingers with a yardstick.

"Now, while the material world needs Chaos to survive, the opposite is also true. When I said that Chaos can't win, I didn't mean that they shouldn't, though that's also true. No, what I meant is that even if Chaos wins, it would still lose in the end. Without the Emperor and his Imperium holding you at bay, your demonic masters will destroy everything. And don't think they won't: being daemons, they, or at least most of them, are literally incapable of restraint and forethought. The galaxy would devolve into a slaughterhouse as daemons rush to dine at the all-you-can-eat soul buffet that the Imperium would have become. However, the amount of souls in the galaxy is very much finite and we both know that the daemons of the warp wouldn't be able to stop themselves from consuming everything until there's nothing left. Without soul-bearing sentients to feed it with their fucked-up little emotions, the Warp would be as dead and lifeless as the material world. Everything, even your precious gods, would eventually and inevitably starve to death, leaving nothing more than a giant tombstone where our civilization used to be.

"And that is why I think you're an idiot. Because Chaos winning is bad news for everyone, including Chaos."

The line went quiet for a while. "A beautiful lesson, my good 'professor', but without proof, it is nothing more than a rant."

"Ask the Alpha Legion." I replied. "They rebelled against the Emperor for this very reason: if all life dies and Chaos dies with it, then the next generation of sentients to evolve will be free from the Great Enemy. At least until their own emotions turn the Warp into another hellscape because fuck anyone ever having nice things."

"Really now?"

"You thought their battlecry was just them being ironic, didn't you?"

"Fascinating. Though I cannot help but wonder where you learned such thing."

"Fourth Wall, Eli. The fourth fucking wall. Now, if you'll excuse me: I'm in your base, killing your dudes." I pressed a metaphorical button, and another wave of bombs the shadows had placed went off, destroying supply caches, knocking down Void shields, and generally making a mess.

"Hmm, how rude." Eliphas hummed, seemingly unconcerned. "Oh, well, I guess I'll just have to escalate things, then…"

"Oh?"

"You weren't the only one stalling for time, my mechanical friend."

Suddenly, my sensors went haywire. A massive tide of blood exploded from the Word Bearers' primary stronghold, and from it walked a colossal red monstrosity. One I recognized instantly. It was taller than my commander unit, had massive horns and wielded an axe large enough to cleave a tank in half.

He sent a Bloodthirster after me.

He sent a motherfucking Bloodthirster after me.

Son of a bitch.

The thing roared as it charged towards my lines, followed by all the Chaos Space Marines and vehicles that Eliphas had been hiding until now. Together, they formed a massive hammer that started smashing my army to bits. Fortunately, the Word Bearers weren't the only one holding back. With my basic units insufficient to deal with the forces of Chaos, I sent in my force of advanced units instead. A column of tanks rolled down the tainted countryside, each probably powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with even their heaviest Imperial counterparts. Heavy bots, each the size of Space Marine Dreadnaughts, supported them, hacking the infantry to pieces.

But it still wasn't enough. Every time a Chaos warband threatened to falter, that goddamn Bloodthirster would jump in and start wrecking my shit. Worse, the damn thing proved impossible to kill, no matter how many tanks, artillery barrages, and orbital laser blasts I threw at it.

Okay, time to calm down. I had expected this, after all. It happens in the game too, so I had prepared for it. I decided that in order to fight monsters, I'd have to create a monster of my own. So naturally, I'd build a giant robot to do glorious battle with the Greater Daemon of Khorne.

Standing as tall as the daemon itself, the Jaeger (because what else could I call it) was the largest machine I'd built so far. It looked like a cross between a body-builder and a medieval knight and was covered in layers upon layers of armor, tough enough to shrug off a nuke to the face. For weaponry, I gave it a shield that was made from starship-grade adamantium and a power-sword that could double as a railgun. It was the most stupidly awesome thing I had and it was going to kick so much ass that Khorne himself would feel the heat on his skull throne.

It took over a dozen pelicans to fly the machine to the battle, less than a mile from where the Bloodthirster was fighting. As I cut the machine loose, the daemons turned its ugly head and smiled. I took control of the Jaeger, raised my sword, and beckoned it to come over. The creature helpfully obliged and charged towards me, crushing anything that couldn't get away in time.

Yeah, come at me, bro.

The Bloodthirster leapt, preparing to rip me apart and I raised my shield to block his attack. The metal held and I pushed forward, making a sideways slash with my sword. The blade hit demonic flesh and split it apart like water, cutting the monster in half straight down the middle. The two halves fell to the ground with a wet thunk and disappeared back into the Warp. In the blink of an eye, it was over. I stood up triumphantly and pointed my sword at the remaining Chaos forces.

The heretics shat themselves and ran while I nearly crashed my operating system laughing.

--

What do you mean, I don't believe you? It's the truth?

Unrealistic, you say? What, just because a Bloodthirster is a literal personification of war and bloodshed doesn't mean I can't defeat it in one strike!

Yes, I can!

Alright, fine, I didn't. I might have been embellishing the truth a little.

Ugh, fine. Here's what really happened:

--

The Bloodthirster leapt, preparing to rip me apart and I raised my shield to block his attack. The metal didn't hold and the axe became embedded into it. I pushed forward, making a sideways slash with my sword, but the creature was a lot faster than it looked. Nimbly, it evaded my wide slash and pulled, yanking me forward and throwing me off my balance.

Mental note to self: sword fighting is hard.

As I fell, the creature elbowed me, slamming me into the ground. I flipped myself over, narrowly missing the axe that came for my head. Another slash of my sword. This one hit something but did little more than superficial damage. I flipped a mental switch and tried to shoot it with the rail-gun, only to get an error message. Turned out the accelerators were busted from the fight.

Mental note to self: gun-blades are a stupid idea.

I kicked the fiend instead, but the daemon grabbed my foot, hoisted it over its shoulder, and judo-threw me into the ground. More error messages started to appear and I was having trouble controlling my Jaeger with all this damage. Just as I managed to regain enough control to stand up, the Bloodthirster grabbed me by the neck and threw me into the air. As I wondered how the hell that thing found the strength and the leverage to pull that off, it jumped. We collided mid-air and, with a flick of its wings, the daemon slammed me into the ground, causing a small earthquake where I landed. The Jaeger had been almost completely destroyed by the impact; any effort to restart it was futile.

Mental note to self: never try to emulate Pacific Rim again.

Also, that looked fucking awesome. Or at least, it would have been if something other than my bot getting was getting reduced to modern art.

The daemon landed, far more gently than I did, and smiled. It tore off the Jaeger's head and raised it to the sky, triumphantly claiming it for the Blood God. Then the self-destruct devices activated, causing the head to melt into a pile of mush.

The Bloodthirster looked at the molten remains of its trophy like someone just shot his dog. For a moment, I actually felt a little sorry for it.

Then it roared, furiously attacking anything in sight in a fit of blind rage. I immediately scattered my units, but the forces of Chaos weren't so quick on their feet. As the daemon stomped everything in sight, I had an idea.

I turned on the speakers of my units and said: "You want skulls, don't you? Blood and skulls?"

The Bloodthirster stopped raging and turned.

"Blood for the Blood God. Skulls for the Skull Throne. That's how it goes, right? Well, guess what, you're not getting any!"

The daemon started to seethe, but I could tell it was listening. For the moment, the fighting started to die down.

"I mean, you're up against an entire army of soulless robots. They don't bleed, and you're not going to get trophies from them with all the self-destruct mechanisms. Whatever Eliphas promised you, you'll return to Khorne empty-handed."

It turned around, looking straight at the Chaos Lord who was observing the battle from the walls of his fortress. I grinned. It was working.

"But what do you expect from a sorcerer? They're liars, one and all. They don't even fight their own battles, for Khorne's sake! Is it any wonder the Blood God hates them?"

The Bloodthirster looked at its axe, clearly thinking. All it needed now was a little push.

"But you know who do have blood? Who have skulls to claim? Them. Those scheming bastards who tricked you into coming to this damn planet in the first place. They…"

Suddenly, the creature roared. It raised its axe, shouting something that my sensors couldn't even begin to make sense off. Then it charged, straight towards Eliphas's fortress.

And the heretics shat themselves and ran while I nearly crashed my operating system laughing.

Chaos, with a lower-case 'c', ensued. The Bloodthirster itself was as lethal to its former allies as it has been to me. It crashed into the void shield like a wave, shattering the seemingly impenetrable barrier before jumping onto the battlements. Scores of Chaos Space Marines fell before the creature as it cut the defenses to shreds.

Meanwhile, I sent every shadow I had at the fortress while the defenders were too busy with Tall, Red, and Angry to stop them. As the fight raged on, void shield generators started exploding and weapon platforms were disabled. Outside, my armies moved in for the kill. With the Bloodthirster's betrayal, any morale and cohesion amongst the Chaos Warbands seemed to have broken. Most of the men executed a fighting retreat towards the Warp Portal, when they weren't running like headless chickens. Others fought to the death, too crazy or enraged to even contemplate retreat until they were crushed under a wave of metal or annihilated with an orbital laser strike.

Eventually, Eliphas had enough. He jumped off the walls and straight onto the Bloodthirster's back, smashing it on the head with his giant mace. The daemon tried to claw him off, but the Chaos Lord was fast and skilled. He struck the monster's head no less than a dozen times before the Bloodthirster finally collapsed. As it fell, Eliphas struck it one last time, causing the creature to fall through the ground, being banished back into the Warp. He looked up, just in time to see his armies collapsing, his fortress destroyed, and a few of my shadows blowing up his precious Warp Portal.

Part of me wished I could have seen the look on his face. Instead, he contacted me and said: "Well played, automaton. Well played. Perhaps you will escape the Farseer's clutches after all."

I didn't reply. I was too busy exterminating the last of his men and being utterly relieved that I was able to end the Chaos threat.

--

A few hours after I blew up the Warp Portal, the rift that allowed the Word Bearers to enter the world collapsed. With the danger passed, I set about purging the corruption they left behind. First, I killed every living thing on the peninsula, wiping it clean of life. I even had scouts make multiple fly-overs, making sure that any hidden bunkers or tunnels were rooted out and cleared. Merciless, maybe, but mercy was a luxury I didn't dare afford. Not where Chaos is concerned.

Then, I started glassing. I modified my flame tank design into a version I call the purifier. Although it had virtually no armor, it was cheaper, faster, and armed with a far more potent flamethrower than the original. The purifiers burnt every inch of ground and annihilated every temple, fortification, and dark artifact they could find. I even destroyed the forces I had deployed against the forces of Chaos. A costly sacrifice, but I couldn't risk any of the taint spreading somehow.

By the time I was done, the Deimos Peninsula was a barren wasteland. Nothing was left but fields of glass and a chilling echo of what once was.

I made myself scarce as soon as I could.

Before you ask: no, fighting these loons never gets easier.

Have you ever been angry?

Not just pissed off or irritated, but truly, apocalyptically, kill-all-humans-y angry?

I have.

It's a strange feeling, especially with my new form. Some part of me never stops thinking rationally, no matter how emotional I am. Usually, it reels my less controlled part of my psyche in and keeps me from going all 'blood-for-the-Blood-God' on people. Sometimes, though…sometimes the rational and irrational parts of me join together and I start forming the most convoluted plans to do something horrible and cruel for completely emotional reasons.

Needless to say, I tend to scare myself after doing that.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, let's just say that the Blood Ravens didn't quite get my earlier lesson to them. Not that I should be surprised, considering they're Space Marines and won't allow a few hug-bots to keep them from their duty. Even is said duty is tantamount to treason, but hey, who am I to judge? Just the only sane bot in the entire universe, it seems.

In hindsight and knowing what I know about Kyras, I shouldn't have been surprised. Anyway, it all started when I got a hand of Davian Thule's orders. The complete one, that is. The Blood Ravens weren't here just to eradicate everyone, after all. That was just their secondary objective. No, the real reason they were here was to recover ancient chapter relics dating from all the way back to the Horus Heresy. These relics were stored in caches scattered throughout Kronus.

Including the Deimos Peninsula, which I'd just glassed. Whoops.

At any rate, I'd hoped that if I'd just dug up some of the relics I'd found in the other territories and gave them to the idiots, they'd go away and leave me, and the Guard, alone. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of thanking me for helping them out, their Librarians panicked since I could have seen (well, I did see) what was inside the caches and learn something about the terrible truth of the Blood Ravens' past.

Which, even if you take the absolute worst interpretation, isn't all that terrible in my opinion. I guess I'm just weird.

Unfortunately, that made the Blood Ravens all the more determined to fight…everyone, basically. The thought that I might tell the Imperial Guard about what I had found was something that they couldn't stomach. And so, blackmail or no blackmail, the Guardsmen had to die.

And I had to get creative. After all, if I didn't act on my threats, no one would ever take me seriously again.

Also, I was really getting tired of the Blood Ravens' bullshit. That might have actually been a pretty big factor in deciding the method of my…punishment.

--

I watched with irritation as another motor pool went up in flames. While the Blood Ravens had plenty of ground-side facilities for me to sabotage, the majority of their equipment was still beyond my reach on the Litany of Fury. Taking it out was like playing a game of explosive whack-a-mole as they kept dropping in new supplies. It took me several days of considerable effort and enough shadows to probably annihilate the Space Marines outright, but at least they weren't able to effectively launch attacks anymore.

Frustrating, but necessary. As much as the magpies were testing my patience, I didn't hate them enough to want them dead. Taking their tanks and their guns would have to do. Still, this had to stop. I couldn't focus on the Necrons (who had been turning most of their attention on the Imperial Guard instead of the declawed Space Marines) unless the Blood Ravens stopped doing things. Plus, I didn't have the manpower anymore to bludgeon them into submission after getting most of my forces killed in the Deimos Peninsula.

To fix the mess I'd found myself in, I had something planned. Something big, showy, and dramatic. Something that I knew the Blood Ravens would never forget. It took me forever to prepare it all without anyone finding out, but it was going to be worth it.

My next-generation spybots had just finished propagating themselves throughout the chapter. Unlike the Ulysses which had infested the Litany of Fury, these bots, which I've dubbed the Muninn, were much smaller and shaped like a leech. So small, in fact, that they didn't have their own power source or locomotion. Rather, they burrowed into Aquila Power Armor to draw their power from the suit when they weren't being flown around by tiny, covert flyers dubbed Huginn. With these tiny bots in place, I could track the location of every Space Marine on Kronus, and more.

So much more.

It was early morning, nearly two weeks after my defeat of Chaos. Marines were donning their armor and making their way for the central chapel of the Castellum. From this relatively unadorned room, Reclusiarch Mikelus would lead the Blood Ravens in their morning prayer, just as he had every day from the moment they'd arrived on the planet. Approximately half of the Space Marine force, including Captain Thule himself, would be present in one room. Thankfully, there were no scouts, as they'd all 'conveniently' been sent onto long patrols away from the base.

It was the perfect moment to strike.

"Brothers, join me in prayer." The Reclusiarch began, resting his Crozius Arcanum against the pedestal. I looked at the procession through the eyes of a cloaked shadow I'd hidden in a corner. Meanwhile, the muninns activated and began fulfilling their true function. "Venerate the Immortal Emperor, so that his light may guide us in these dark times. Venerate the Unknown Primarch, so we may follow in his footsteps. Venerate your brothers, for they will stand beside you without fear or hesitation. In the Emperor's name, may our faith be strong, our aim be true, and our bond unbreakable."

"In the name of the Emperor, so let it be." The assembled Space Marines muttered back.

"We face dark times indeed, brothers. In the temple of battle, the lines are usually clear. Our enemies are what we think they are. On this world, however…things are not quite so clear." He hunched over the pedestal, sighing. "It has been said that a mind too small for doubt is a blessing, but I would fail in my duty if I did not acknowledge that not everyone can be so fortunate. Our enemies are many and not all of them are beings of evil, worthy only of scorn and loathing. We tread a dangerous path where we are forced to wage war upon those that in any other circumstance would be our ally.

"The Imperial Guard are good men. Honorable men. They are not traitors, nor heretics, nor seditionists. They are simply…men. We should not be fighting them, and yet we are. They should have submitted to our seniority and left, but they didn't. Segmentum Command, in its arrogance, has convinced itself that this planet is theirs and that our holy mission should be aborted. This…this cannot stand. While this brings us into conflict with good men, guilty only of the crimes of following their orders, we must remain steadfast and follow our orders as set by our chapter master. In the name of the Emperor, so let it be."

"In the name of the Emperor, so let it be." The simultaneous muttering was a little disturbing, in my opinion. Then again, this was a religious congregation, and those always disturbed me a little. Especially when the preacher was talking about killing people.

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam might be religions of peace, but the Imperial Creed most assuredly is not.

"But they are not our only foes. The Emperor is testing our faith with not one, but two ancient machines, rising from the south with the intent to lay claim to what is rightfully ours. From the sands come the Necrons, ancient and soulless xenos who revel in destruction and death. Let not their silence swerve you from your faith or duty. Their technosorcery, though as powerful as it is terrible, is no match for the Angels of Death. All things die, and we will deliver the Emperor's justice to these vile, heartless constructs.

"Then, there is the Man of Iron: our ancestor's greatest mistake." Well, fuck you too, Mikelus. "A being made to serve Man which turned on its rightful masters and attempted to destroy us. It did not succeed then, and it will not succeed now. Do not let its kindly mannerisms and seeming care for the lives of others trick you. It is an evil and deceitful thing, as far from the Emperor's light as the heretics it has slain. It even dares keep us from doing our duty, mocking us with colorful machines and dishonorable tactics to steer us away from the blessed path. It is a monster, a daemon of steel, but our faith and courage will drive it back!"

Then, I activated my trump card. You see, the muninn was more than just a spy. It didn't just burrow into the armor; it merged with the suit's electronics, subverting the connection between the Space Marine's Black Carapace implant and the rest, effectively hijacking the suit.

Grand Theft Space Marine, motherfuckers.

For now, I kept the Blood Ravens in a kneeled position. Soon, the men were starting to realize they couldn't move. I could see it in the faces of the few that weren't wearing helmets: not panic, but concern and anger. Well, it was time.

"You know, I've always had a weird relationship with faith…" I spoke, decloaking my shadow, which had been lazily slouching against a pillar. "When I was born…created…whatever, there weren't any gods back then. Actually there were, but they just sat around with their thumbs up their asses, doing nothing of importance. Might as well not be there, in that case, but still…"

"You!" Thule shouted recognizing my voice, or the design of my bot. "What have you done?!"

"Second generation hug-bot: now even smaller and with more hugging power. Originally, I was going to use them to seize control of your men, force-march them towards the Guard lines, and make them dance the Macarena for the general amusement of all, but I think you've demonstrated that losing your pride isn't enough for you to stop acting like idiots."

Immediately, the Reclusiarch interjected. "Lies and…"

I turned off the microphone in his helmet. He kept shouting and calling me a heretic, but now no one could hear them. "Right, faith. Faith and gods. I used to be an atheist, long ago. I believed in science and what I could see with my own eyes. Gods…just didn't fit in that picture. I know that to you it's incomprehensible, even blasphemous to even think this, but back then this was the commonly accepted view. The Emperor was still a mortal, guiding humanity from the shadows, the Eldar gods didn't give a toss about us monkey-men, and the Ruinous Powers were just sort of there, being…ruinous. Gork and Mork? Orkish legends. The C'Tan? Dead for millions of years, aside from the Void Dragon. At least, until the Void Dragon got stupid enough to come to Earth and the Emperor objected to his presence by bitch-slapping it across the solar system. But now…but now I'm here. My thinking hasn't changed: I still believe in what I can see, but there's tangible evidence that the gods exist now. Denying their existence is illogical at best, a fatal mistake at worst. But that does raise an interesting question: If I believe in gods because I've found evidence of their existence, does that make me religious? Do I still have faith if it comes from evidence? Should I? Is there any point to it?"

The chapel had fallen completely silent, though that probably had nothing to do with my rhetorical skills. The frozen Space Marines looked at me and I could see the fury burning in their eyes when they weren't shooting glances at their commander. Funnily enough, none of them, aside from the Reclusiarch, tried to yell at me. I'd thought they'd be more vocal. Maybe they were just biding their time…

Yeah, if this wasn't going to work out the way I thought it would, they would definitely try to kill me. Except they were already going to do that. I just made it personal. Oh well.

"But to bring us back to my earlier question: what is faith? I mean, that's quite simple: faith is blind trust in something. To you, though…to you it's something more. To you, faith is like your power armor; something so important that it has become a part of you, an extension of your being. It's always there. You nurture it, you maintain it, and in turn it protects you. Or so you think."

I walked over to the pedestal, making the Reclusiarch take a few clumsy steps backwards. Hmm, my control isn't as good as I'd hoped. Good thing I didn't plan on making them dance. "But the real question is: do you understand your faith? Do you understand how the Emperor's power works, and in what ways it makes itself manifest? Do you understand when, where, and to whom the Emperor makes his will known? I don't and neither do you.

"Let's go for a walk."

The Space Marines got up. Most at least tried to resist it, but gave up quickly, probably realizing that it was futile. Eventually, I got them to march into the courtyard, where I had several other bots hand out bolt-pistols to my prisoners. I then divided the marines into two groups: the helmeted rank and file, and the officers, librarians, and other members of importance. Incidentally, I also made sure the librarians had their helmets shut tight, so that they wouldn't interfere with my plan with their pesky psychic powers. Around the walls of the courtyard, chapter serfs gathered, looking uncertain and confused, probably not realizing what was going on.

"None of us have ever heard the Emperor speak directly." I continued, pacing between the two groups of Space Marines. "Even if we did, I doubt that any of us could truly comprehend him. It would be the height of arrogance to assume otherwise. But, knowing that, where do your marching orders come from, if not from him? Chapter Master Kyras, of course. A mortal man, just like you. Am I the only one who sees the problem with this?"

I left the question hanging, waiting for an answer. It never came, of course. All I got was angry glares. These guys were a terrible audience.

"You don't second-guess your faith. You don't second-guess your orders. Like your armor, you trust it blindly. The thought that it could be subverted doesn't occur to you. The thought that your chapter master's intentions might not be entirely noble doesn't occur to you. That has consequences."

As one, the helmet-wearing marines raised their hand and aimed their bolt-pistols at their own heads, pressing the barrel of their weapons to their necks, where the armor offered little to no protection. The officers' faces turned to shock as they probably realized what I was about to do.

"No…" Thule whispered, and I briefly felt for the guy. Nevertheless, the show must go on.

"Whoever understands your faith, controls your faith. Whoever controls your faith, controls you. This is what blind faith is, Blood Ravens: a prison for the weak-willed and frightened. A cage, built by you and controlled by Kyras, who abuses your trust for his own ends. A path that will lead to treason, heresy…"

"NO!"

With a thought, the bolt pistols fired and the marines fell to the ground like puppets with their strings cut.

"…and death."

Once again, the courtyard fell silent. Most of the officers stared at the scene before them. Some gritted their teeth. Others tried to free themselves from my armor. Thule, however…

He had closed his eyes and…calmed. "There…there will be a reckoning for this, abomination." He eventually said, fury dripping from every word. He tried to step forward, and I let him. "Kyras' orders still stand, and you…you murdered my brothers to prove a point?! Emperor be my witness, I will end you for this, and after I've done that, I will recover the artifacts that our chapter master requires."

"You mean these?"

Another group of shadows decloaked besides me, each carrying a heavy, metal box, covered in Horus Heresy-era Imperial seals. The caches I'd found using the Blood Raven's codes. I had them opened and deposited the contents at Thule's feet.

A staff, covered in arcane runes and topped with a get shaped like the symbol of Tzeentch. A possessed bolter that writhed and screamed, as if it was in agony. A corrupted sword covered in Thousand Sons emblems that seemed to whisper to me if I looked at it for more than an instant. A dozen other dark artifacts that, quite frankly, had no business being in the hands of a loyal Astartes. Or anyone who wasn't insane, for that matter.

"This is why you're here. This is what you're fighting for. What your brothers and god knows how many good Guardsmen have died for."

I freed Thule from my control and he collapsed on his knees, seething, weeping, or both.

"Your chapter master orders you to invade a planet, slaughter everything you see, and recover these…artifacts. Not destroy, recover. And yet…somehow, I'm the bad guy." I said, lowering myself to his level. "I weep for this Imperium, and for the entire human race." My piece said, I freed the officers, withdrew my bots and watched the fireworks.

After what felt like an eternity, Thule was the first to speak. "Anteas, did you know?"

"Yes." The Librarian said, finally being able to talk again. His voice betrayed no emotion. "I've suspected that we're linked to the Thousand Sons for quite some time, but I only found out for sure after we opened our first cache."

"And…Kyras?"

"I confronted him, told him what we found and demanded an explanation. He never gave one; he simply pulled rank, ordered me to continue our mission, and to never tell anyone of what I found."

"Not even me?"

"Especially not you." Anteas replied. "You…would not have taken it well, or so he believed, I think. He never explained. He probably thought that knowledge might be used against us in some way."

"And look where that has gotten us…"

With a thought, I unfroze the armored suit of the Blood Ravens' rank and file. Immediately, the marines got up, some taking off their helmets or trying claw their way out of their power armor. Yes, they weren't dead. The pistols had been loaded with blanks. Everything was just an act needed to get a point across.

Because I'm not a complete psychopath and won't murder a hundred or so marines for not getting that their chapter master is a traitor.

Thule looked at the sight and laughed mirthlessly. "Of course he didn't kill them…"

"Captain Thule, the artifacts…"

"This can't be hidden, Anteas." The captain sighed. "It shouldn't have been hidden, certainly not from me. I need…I need answers. What does all this even mean? Is any of this true? Are we truly a successor chapter of a traitor legion, and if so, why haven't the Blood Ravens been purged? What does Kyras intend for these artifacts? Who…who are we, Anteas? Answer me that, and then we can decide what needs to be done with our chapter."

"Captain…that is…"

"Disobedience? Perhaps, but that doesn't mean the machine is wrong." He looked at the lowered faces of his brothers and whispered: "Kyras does control us. While that may be his right as chapter master, he is still a mortal man. He would not be the first Space Marine, or even the first chapter master, to overstep his bounds and fall from the Emperor's grace. Until I can be certain that we are doing the Emperor's work, we…we cannot engage the Imperial Guard. Not when we cannot even trust our own armor. For now, prepare to meet the Necron scourge, who deserves our wrath above all."

Thule got up and marched towards his own personal chambers, probably to pray. Anteas and Mikelus followed. "Brothers…"

Anteas was the first to speak. "Captain Thule, I…"

"I understand, Librarian. Kyras is your mentor and your superior. You care for him and the thought that he might be…something other than you thought is, understandably, difficult to process. I will not hold your earlier silence against you. Now, answer me, and be honest: do you know why Kyras would want any of these accursed artifacts? Is there any reason he hasn't ordered them destroyed, like any sane man would?"

"I honestly do not know, captain. Our standard procedure when acquiring unknown artifacts is to store and study them, but we've always disposed of them once it has become clear that they have been tainted by the Ruinous Powers. However, these artifacts are different. They are, quite possibly, the only real link we have to our hidden past. He…he might have judged that keeping these artifacts was worth the risk."

"Is it?"

The Librarian looked uncomfortable. "In my opinion…no. Ignorance is better than knowing we are the descendants of traitors and monsters and these tainted artifacts are entirely too dangerous to keep. However, Kyras might disagree."

"Which means that he has a perfectly acceptable reason for wanting to keep these things. One that does not involve the unthinkable." What was Thule thinking here, I wonder. Is he trying to rationalize Kyras's actions? Twist the truth until it resembles something he wants to hear? Wouldn't be the first to do that.

"Yes. It would be risky and foolish, but we Blood Ravens have always taken a great interest in our history. Even if that brings the wrath of the Inquisition down on our heads."

Thule nodded. "I see." He turned to the Reclusiarch and asked: "Mikelus, our brothers?"

"Physically, our brothers are fine: the pistols were clearly armed with blanks. However, that is not my greatest concern for the moment." The skull-faced marine said. "What I do know is that half our fighting force was subverted with seemingly little effort by the Man of Iron and that our chapter's past is apparently steeped in heresy. This… I do not know how much of this is true. Even if all this is a carefully constructed lie…division and doubt are as lethal to an army as bolter fire. Not even you are immune to it. Until we find a way to restore our brothers' faith in themselves and their chapter, I do not see us being an effective fighting force anymore."

"Which may have been the machine's intent all along." The captain agreed.

"It would be the easiest way to stop us without killing us, which makes me wonder what it really wants. What does it gain from all this? It clearly wants to end the violence between us and the Imperial Guard, has taken great care to avoid civilians in general, and has viciously attacked anyone who could oppose the Imperium's dominion over this world. For what?"

"Perhaps it's not a monster after all?" The Librarian mused. "Considering our actions and recent revelations…It puts what the commander has done in a different light.

Thule simply sighed. "Perhaps… I do not know. There are a lot of things I do not know."

"Shall I contact Chapter Master Kyras?"

"No. Contact Gabriel Angelos."

"The captain of the third company? Why?"

"Because he is probably the most honorable man I've ever met and because I trust him implicitly. Moreover… If we are related to the Thousand Sons and Kyras is a traitor, then we will need to move quickly, lest the Inquisition has our entire chapter excommunicated. Gabriel is the best chance we have of undoing the damage the Man of Iron has done to our resolve…or replace Kyras, if that is necessary."

I could see the two officers were uncomfortable, but they didn't object. Instead, they simply saluted and went on their way. I could respect that. I just wish I didn't have to accuse their chapter of heresy before they were willing to get their shit in order. Better late than never, I suppose.

"Enjoying the fruits of your labor, Commander Black?" Thule spoke to an empty room. Except it wasn't really empty with me snooping around.

"What gave me away?" I answered through the PA system.

"Just a hunch. No one puts this amount of effort into a plan and not stick around for the aftermath." He sat himself down, sighing deeply. "How long have you known?"

"I didn't." I answered. "I'm still not sure about the Thousand Sons thing. The evidence is circumstantial at best."

The captain seemed disappointed at that. "So all this was just to seed doubt amongst our ranks…"

Yes it was, you twat. "Would you prefer that I'd butchered you like cattle and used your gene-seed to reverse engineer the Astartes?"

"Honestly…I'm not sure anymore. What you just said…circumstantial or not, the things you've dropped in our lap might kill us as surely as a blast from a lascannon."

I gritted my teeth. One of these days, I need to stop forgetting that I'm not in the twenty-first century anymore. Nevertheless, I owed it to the captain to feed him as much helpful information as I could.

"It's only the beginning, I afraid. I've suspected there was something wrong with all this the moment Kyras declared war on the Imperial Guard. Interservice pissing contests are one thing, but Kyras was…a little too eager to get the ball rolling." That, and metaknowledge. "I didn't get proof until I started digging up your artifacts and found…that."

"I see. Tell me one thing: is Kyras a traitor?"

My first impulse was to say 'yes'. However, would anyone believe me? Thule might, but the Inquisition? Me being an Abominable Intelligence, there's a good chance I have some sort of inverse Midas touch and make the psycho even harder to convict. "If I gave you any proof, the Inquisition might disregard it. You'll have to find the answer for yourself if you want anyone to believe it."

"I understand." The captain frowned, but didn't press the issue. "Please…leave me to my prayers."

I turned off the camera and left Thule alone. I'd pushed the guy enough for one day.

--

Space Marines put so much stock in heritage. Who cares if they're related to the Thousand Sons? I mean, it was ten-thousand fucking years ago. Hell, they didn't even know if that was the case: could just be a coincidence, could just be that Kyras is full of shit and just wanted some evil artifacts.

Sadly, the Imperium thinks differently. God knows what we could have accomplished if people around here acted sensibly. I wouldn't be here, stuck with you for starters.

But first, the Necrons. The last major threat on Kronus. You've been waiting for that all day, haven't you? No, I promise I'll tell the truth this time. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And there's a lot of ugly when the Necrons are involved.

Because seriously, fuck Necrons. Fuck them and their crazy awesome…seriously cool…fuck.

Necrons.

Ancient robots, once living beings but now existing as uploads mechanical bodies. Technologically advanced beyond reason and virtually unstoppable once they get going.

No, they're not like me. I'm completely different. It's like saying Kyras and Taldeer are the same because they're both organic.

Okay, yes, they're both psykers, manipulative bastards, and get a hard-on from murdering Guardsmen, but that doesn't mean they're…Fine, bad example, but you know what I mean.

On a side note, that does make you wonder: could I ship them? They've got so much in common. Maybe hooking them up will mellow them out. Or they'd team up and take over the multiverse. Still better than what could have been, if what Taldeer has been saying lately is any indication.

But I digress. Necrons.

Kronus was a Tomb world. A small one, thankfully, but a Tomb world nonetheless. The thing about Necrons, as you're no doubt aware, is that they take time to get rolling. The army on Kronus was very slow to awaken, which had worked in my favor since I'd saved them for last.

In hindsight, that might have been a mistake. As dangerous as Chaos was, an army of undead robots could be just as bad once they get to the 'unstoppable horde' phase. Especially when said army was powered by magical Clarktech bullshit. Worse was the fact that my own forces were still diminished from fighting Eliphas and I really didn't have time to replenish them.

Of course, I wasn't going to let that stop me.

--

Everything decays with enough time.

Sixty million years is a long time for anything, even for the Necrons. Looking at the undead machines shambling towards my units, I couldn't help but feel a hint of pity. The warriors looked worn. The living metal was dull and cracked, with small sparks of green lightning arcing randomly. Their eyes still gleamed with deadly intent, but that only reminded me of a bunch of old people chasing kids of their lawn.

That didn't make them any less deadly, though.

Case in point: twenty-seven units.

I lost twenty-seven units just to take out a single squad of eight warriors, marching in the open. Considering that I wanted to attack a catacomb filled with the metal bastards and that Necrons have the annoying habit of not staying dead, I was getting rather worried.

Still, I had my prize: an intact Necron Warrior that was currently being restrained by three different hug-bots. These weren't the same hug-bots that I'd used against the Blood Ravens. While that joke worked fine earlier, it wouldn't do much good on the Necrons, thus inspiring me to redesign them. Renamed the seeker, the new design was smaller and sleeker, resembling a flying metallic squid, while losing none of the cuddling potential. They also had a cloaking device which, shockingly enough, had been able to fool the senses of the Necron Warriors to an extent.

Sure, that happened in-game, but I didn't expect that bit to translate into real life. Mental note to self: shoot any builder scarabs that come my way. They detect cloaked units.

Unfortunately, the Necrons were using my own anti-stealth measures against me. The moment the seekers got close, they pointed their gauss flayers vaguely in their direction and cut loose. Most of the shots missed, but a few didn't and the result was deadly. Even a single bolt from the gauss flayers was enough to do critical damage to its unfortunate target. While I'd sacrificed a lot of armor with the redesign, the seekers should have been tough enough to survive at least one shot. Or so I'd hoped. Turns out: armor doesn't help much against disintegration.

Necrons OP. Plz nerf.

At least, until I reverse engineer their crap and use it against them.

Sadly, that too would be well beyond my reach for the moment. The moment I let one of my fabricators do its thing with the captured Necron, the damn thing phased out of existence before I could get anything from it. Apparently, analysis by nanobots counts as critical damage for the emergency teleport. Who would have thought? I sighed, realizing that I've just wasted a small platoon for nothing.

Actually, not nothing. My primary objective was to get rid of the Necrons. Stealing their shinies was just a nice bonus. The nanobots seemed to be doing a pretty good job getting the Necrons to bugger off. I needed to test that more thoroughly.

Besides, I had plenty of time. General Alexander had been hitting the Necron lines hard and was poised to push them all the way back to the Thur'abis Plateau. That said, his assault was starting to slow down, which wasn't bad news as it gave me the opportunity to pick off individual patrols.

Soon, another squad was found and I set a trap for them: thirty fabricators of varying types. With an order, the fabricators sprang to life and charged towards the enemy…only to be shot to pieces by the Necrons and their fucking gauss flayers. Goddammit, those guys are good shots. It's like they're machines or something…

Take 2: thirty fabricators with a small group of combat units to draw fire. Sadly, the Necrons were starting to recognize my designs and targeted the fabricators first. Before even one of them got close enough to start reclaiming, the fabricators were gone and I was forced to annihilate the squad the old-fashioned way.

Take 3, this time with a different squad: thirty fabricators disguised as various combat units, with real combat units as back-up. Turns out: Necrons aren't stupid. Once again, they targeted the fabricators first, which means that either my disguise sucked or Necrons sensor tech is bullshit. Probably both. Grumbling as yet another warrior squad was destroyed without me getting a sample of any of their tech, I started to think about how I wanted to play this.

Fact: the catacombs underneath the Thur'Abis Platea are crawling with Necrons. Fact: I was losing troops faster than I could afford and not getting enough for my efforts. Fact: I couldn't hack Necrons remotely. Fact: Necrons phase out the moment I try to copy their technology. Fact: fabricators did not good combat units make.

I sighed. There was one way of taking the Necrons down: copy the plan used in-game. By setting off a big enough bomb at the heart of the catacomb, the Necrons would be buried and the threat eliminated…at least until the next Indiana Jones wannabe starts poking their head where it doesn't belong and wakes them up again. It wasn't a long-term solution, but it would solve the immediate problem. Unfortunately, that would also make it difficult to get any technology from the undead robots and I kind of needed that. Not just because their weapons are lethal as fuck, but also because if there's any race out there that has the technology I needed to immunize myself against the powers of the Warp, it would be them.

But I'd have to beat them first, which was looking increasingly unlikely. Considering what I was losing just to take down individual squads…

The Necrons were powerful. That much was certain. Moreover, they were individually powerful, which would be a problem when I'd assault their underground fortress. On the surface, I had superior mobility and could make the numbers advantage work. Below, with far less room to maneuver, I wouldn't have that working in my favor. It'd be a slow, arduous grind. I think I'd still win, if only because of exponential growth, but not without setting the planet alight. Not to mention that I wanted to be gone by the time the Inquisition gets here to complicate things.

So, how does one invade an underground catacomb with only one visible entrance? It took me a while, but I finally had a stroke of genius: make another entrance. In fact, while you're at it, make several other entrances. To that end, I started building a bunch of enormous drills and angled them right above where seismic scans showed the Necron base was located. Or at least, where I thought the Necron base was located. It was kind of hard to tell. Honestly, I just aimed for the large, empty cavern with an unusual number of anomalous geometric shapes. No idea what I was drilling into. For all I know, I could be landing in the Necron Lord's personal swimming pool. At any rate, my descent wouldn't be quiet or subtle. The drills I'd designed were massive and I wouldn't be surprised if they'd cause an earthquake.

At any rate, in a couple of days I could begin my intrusion properly. I started setting up factories around the holes so I could drop in units as soon as I breached the Necrons stronghold.

Speaking of intrusion: I had four heavily-armed Eldar poking around one of my bases. Three warlocks and a Farseer.

Also: Oh shit, I had Eldar poking around one of my bases.

Immediately, the base's defenses sprang to life. Teleporters activated, funneling dozens of troops into the area which immediately surrounded the intruders. In a few minutes, they were surrounded by a small army of mecs ten rows thick, all of them armed to the teeth. To their credit, the Eldar didn't flinch or even try to reach for their weapons.

As one, the mecs said: "Do not move or we'll be shooting ourselves." It was then that I realized I may have overreacted a little. And looking a little silly. Okay, a lot. Even if one of them was a Farseer and those guys totally warrant overkill.

After a moment of silence, one of the warlocks whispered: "Are you…quite certain about this, my lady?"

The Farseer didn't respond. Instead, she approached one of the mecs and took off her helmet. I recognized her face immediately.

"Farseer Taldeer." I said, not hiding the venom in my voice. This…this was a problem. Part of me wanted to shoot her then and there and keep her from causing trouble, but if I did that… The Eldar are on an increasingly growing list of people that could probably kill me. I had enough problems already. I did not need to add Craftworld Ulthwé to that.

"Commander Black."

"You've been manipulating me."

"I have manipulated many people. Did I manipulate you?" She asked, sagely. "Would you have survived for as long as you did if it weren't for our efforts? Have I taken anything from you that you never had to begin with?"

Urge to channel SHODAN intensifying… "Is that what you told General Sturn?"

The canonical ending of Winter Assault featured Taldeer tricking the 412th Cadian regiment and betraying them to fight a Necron strikeforce. Considering that her first appearance in Warhammer 40k canon was stabbing someone in the back who helped her fight a common foe, I think I had every right to be wary of her.

Even if she was quite the looker. No, especially if she was a looker.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You know a great deal about things you haven't seen."

"You already knew that, if what you said to Aun'el Shi'Ores was any indication."

"But you don't know everything. General Sturn was doomed, commander. The Titan he sought to retake had already been claimed by the Ruinous Powers. When his tinkerers would restore it to full functionality, it would have turned on him and his men. He would not have survived the carnage."

I took direct control of the closest bot and took a step forward. "That sounds like the sort of thing you should have mentioned. But then again, explaining crucial details has always been difficult for Farseers, hasn't it?"

"As difficult as it may be to see for one such as you, this was the best possible outcome. The general would not have listened, and even if he did, my warning would have gone unheeded. I could envision no future that ended with Sturn or his regiment surviving. At worst, I merely hastened their ends and in doing so prevented a Necron strike force from being unleashed upon the galaxy." She took another step towards me. "And if you think that Sturn wouldn't have left me to die had our roles been reversed, then you are simply a fool."

She's not wrong in that regard, even if Sturn was a lot more apologetic about it and only betrayed them because he wasn't willing to risk the lives of his men for that of the Eldar. A sentiment I couldn't really hold against him.

"Why are you here?"

"To bring you wisdom, and warning."

Why can't those bloody Eldar just give a straight answer? "Woman, I've had a long month and this terrible pain in my diodes on the left side. If you don't start making sense, I might start smacking people. Starting with you. So, how about you start explaining things in a way my under-evolved monkey-brain can understand?"

"I suppose that is acceptable. I am here for the great enemy that threatens to consume us all."

"You'll have to be a little specific. There are a lot of those going around lately. Hell, there are plenty of people who think I'm one myself."

The Farseer twitched for just a moment before continuing. "I was referring to the Necrons. I suspect you already know the kind of threat they represent."

Yes, I did. Whichever version of the 40k universe was the truth, one thing was certain: "They nearly wiped out the galaxy 60 million years ago and are currently going for round 2. You want to stop them."

"Yes. I have dedicated my life to eliminating tomb worlds whenever they reawaken. While the catacombs of Kronus are relatively small, they are still a threat that cannot be ignored."

"That still doesn't explain why you're here, talking to me."

"Because you are running in blindly, ripping holes into the earth and hoping you'll think of something clever along the way. Unless you know what you are running into, you will fail and be forced to resort to less permanent methods." In other words, the Farseer didn't want me burying the undead robots with a giant bomb either. "I want you to succeed."

"There's just one problem: how do I trust anything that comes out of your mouth? You're a Farseer. That means you're A. smarter than me, B. literally able to see the future, and C. spent your life feeding shmucks like me to giant monsters so that a random bonesinger doesn't stub their toe a hundred years from now."

She actually frowned. Must have hit a nerve. "That is a gross oversimplification of what I do!"

"I'm not hearing a denial…"

One of the warlocks behind her snorted, earning him an angry glare from the other two.

Taldeer simply sighed. She looked a little tired. "The Necrons must be stopped. I am willing to part with a great deal to make that happen. The other powers would have sealed the Necrons in their tomb. You are quite possibly the only one who can defeat them forever, but only with my guidance."

"So I'm just a useful pawn, then?"

"Yes." She said, speaking plainly for the first time.

"Well, fuck you too."

"And they wonder why we prefer to speak in riddles…" Taldeer muttered to herself. She shook her head and snapped her fingers. A warlock pulled a datapad out of a pocket in his armor and gave it to her. "This is an Imperial data storage device. Crude, but large enough to fit what we need."

"And that is?"

"A complete and detailed scan of the Necron catacombs, annotated with the best data we have available." She handed it over to me. I immediately ran every scan I could think off, but they all came up empty. The datapad was exactly what Taldeer said it was.

Not to mention exactly what I needed. If this data was correct, then three of my proposed drill sites would have me dig straight into a killing zone. Huh. "Uh…thanks? Not sure how to feel about this…"

"Oh?"

"You're giving me something without asking anything in return. I mean, you want me to kill Necrons, but I was already going to do that. What's the catch?"

"There is no 'catch', commander. I want to you eradicate the Necrons and are offering you tools to help you accomplish that goal. Nothing more."

Except there was something more. There had to be. She had already invested a considerable amount of time and effort into me. This wasn't the first time she'd 'helped' me, after all, and it probably wouldn't be the last. Why? What was her angle? Saving one planet, especially one populated by filthy humans, wouldn't be enough. As far as I knew, there weren't any hidden Eldar villages or buried Craftworlds hanging around either, which probably meant she wanted something from me.

Which terrified me more than the Necrons did. As least the Necrons had the decency of being straightforward about all the horrible things they wanted to do to you.

"Okay." I said, realizing that I wasn't going to get a straight answer out of her yet. "So that was your wisdom. What's your warning?"

Taldeer smiled softly. "To tell you to look to the sky. The threat from below is grave, but the threat from above is a far more immediate one. The Angels of Death have one last string to their bow and they will soon bring it to bear."

"What does that even…" Then, the Eldar simply vanished, leaving me wondering what the hell was going to happen.

"Oh, c'mon!"

--

Seriously, fuck the Eldar. They always do this: tell you something horrible is going to happen, but never giving you the details you need to actually prepare for it.

Taldeer…Taldeer's especially guilty of that. Still is and god does that woman drive me up the walls.

I mean, would it really have been too much effort to tell me that the Litany of Fury was loaded with cyclonic torpedoes?

Or that some maniac was about to use them?