My sciousness lit a million ways, which wasn’t too unusual. However, what was distinctly o me was using my primary sciouso monitor all those split thought streams, each trolling a single droationed somewhere around the p. I’d done simir things before, but o this extent. Even when I was exterminating cultists, I only jumped between the minds of a hundred drones, cyg through them.

  It was … straining. But also good practibsp;

  Not only did I have to manage so many thought streams at ohout letting myself get lost in any single one of them, but I also had to filter out all the rather inteions I could feel from the people around my drones.

  Despair, fear, dread, hope, and admiration were some of the most otions among the people gathering, but I could also feel hatred and anger mixed in with the other darker emotions. I had to pay careful attention to those people. Some dipshit in the capital decided it would be oh-so-smart to throw a greo the gathered croere the ones willing to take me up on my offer and e with me. I almost missed it too, with how thin my attention read.

  Now I had a thousand mind-cores helping me, each double cheg for any simir troublemakers.

  “Ex- Excuse me?” A young man asked one of my drones, looking like a terrified rabbit that might bolt at the first sign of aggression as he shuffled in pce. “Where would you be taking us?”

  “To my p,” I said, the answer almost automatid subscious as I was giving it to hundreds of people every minute.

  They had been scared and too afraid to approay of the armour-cd dro first, but after I failed to bite off the heads of the first few braver and more inquisitive of their group, they all grew bolder.

  “Do I have to pack winter clothing?” An older woman asked. “And are there pollinating trees around? I ’t live near pnts like that with my allergies. Is there a sea nearby? My doctor has been saying I should move to somewhere with fresh sea-air to help with my allergies … “

  But the most oion I was getting overall was: “When are we leaving?”

  By my t, I’d been asked that a thousand times just these st ten minutes with the runner-up being the “How are we leaving?” Question.

  Holy, I was a bit surprised by hoeople were willing to jump ship and e with what was essentially an invading alien force with unknown values. Hell, for all they knew I’d be eating their flesh or just f them to bee sves.

  Oher hand, I suppose I did save a lot of them from murderous cultists ahe chaotic aftermath somewhat orderly by crag down on any violent warlord ang leader.

  I was ting around fifty million people from all over the p. Even with the overall global popution being somewhere around three billion, that was a sizable amount at least to me.

  It was a miniscule number pared to most Imperial worlds, especially Hive Worlds which were home to trillions of humans. Not to me though. I was already w about whether Bob had pleted enough of the city to house even a fra of their numbers.

  I’ll have to help him out. Having my new citizens live is-camps out in the ork-ied jungles would be a pretty atrocious first impression and a good way to make them despise me, especially if some of them ended up as unfortunate victims of the moon’s rather nasty colle of flora and fauna. I’ll o struother few dozen cities like my eventual capital.

  Food would be easy to handle, and while water would be a bit more challenging — seeing as I still couldn’t jure it out of thin air — it shouldn’t be too hard. Worst-case sario, I snuck bato the local Deathworld and stole a few billion gallons of water. A portal at the bottom of an o would do it, I could opeher end in some underground reservoir from where I could el the water through my work of tunnels.

  Springs. I could make a millioiful springs all around the p, and underground kes, limestone caverns … yep. I love this idea.

  While I was busy growing my ramshackle void ship into something actually capable of transp these people to my moon, I was also doing something a bit more iing.

  A pair of my drones were currently busy looking through the vaults aboard Amberley’s yacht as it raced towards the borders of the system. Muy disappoi, no artifact could be found ihat could have paired well with the one I’d already examined.

  I wasn’t left empty-hahough, I found an assortment of Ne onry stashed away in those vaults. War Scythes, fyers, and even the mangled remains of what I retty sure had to have been a Lychguard onbsp;

  There was also a huge assortment of various imperial ons, but they all had icky mae spirits in them so I left them behind. The Ne stuff would be o have and might prove to be crucial in uanding how to replicate their ons with my own neis, while the Lychguard’s remains would bolster my reserves of the livial.

  Before I snuck back out of the ship with my pair of infiltrator drones, I scratched a short message into the inner wall of the vaults.

  ‘Thanks for the toys. - E’

  That done, with the pair of drones on their way back towards my ship, I was left with the b task of remodelling it.

  I took inspiration from one of the colossal Imperial cargo haulers that stretched on for kilometres. It didn’t o be pretty, it just had to provide a semi-fortable ride to my millions of passengers.

  There is no need for food, water, or mufort beyond a bed and some shared unal pce, so they tell I’m not isoting them. We aren’t far; they just have to sit tight for a few hours.

  “It still looks uglier than an Ork’s asshole,” I muttered aloud with a grimace, watg as the pulsing mass of flesh grew and expanded acc to my ands. The void of space would have robbed me of my voice, but I had put in some effort and stole a bit of air from the atmosphere, which I now held pressed around myself.

  “I still don’t know how you’re pnning to expin how you got a new huge ship to those nosey blueskins,” Selene said, spinning idly a few metres away from me.

  “I looted it from the cultists,” I said, shrugging. My eyes lingered on her lithe form spinning around as she threw her body about with telekiic vectors. She was a sight for sore eyes iight body armour, and the perfect remedy to the atrocious thing my poor eyes had just been subjected to before. “Having fun?”

  “Yeah,” Selene said cheerily, her gaze nding on me as a happy smile graced her lips. “It’s still se … being out here in the void of space, just by ourselves. We are in space. Humans aren’t supposed to be here, not like this.”

  She had on, leaving her inky bck hair floating behind her as if she was uer. She could have survived for a while even without the air I was supplying, but healing asphyxiation with bio-energy was … really unfortable.

  I usually just stopped my body from breathing and infused my blood with bio-energy to supply it with all the needed oxygen and other nutrients. If even that wasn’t viable — because I was travelling at extreme speeds where the weight of my own blood became too heavy to circute even with my enhanced body — I could still just let bio-energy infuse every single cell in my body and directly fuel them.

  That retty wasteful though, atrocious for energy efficy. Which was why I went for the other option whenever I could.

  I snapped bato the moment, digging Selene’s st words up from my short-term memory.

  “We are both a bit more than human now,” I said gingerly, not having broached the subject of whether she had any sour feelings about giving up her human body. “Many doors that will forever be closed to humans are now open to us. Going oiful space walks is just the first of it.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Selene said absentmindedly, staring down at the distant p in all its glory. “It scares me a bit.”

  “Space?” I asked. “I suppose being in this infihingness is not for everyone.”

  “Not space, I quite like it here actually, the sense of freedom is addig,” Selene said. “No, I mean this … people already feel like gods when looking dos from the windows of their void ships. You just ’t help but feel superior, look down on all the p-bound people. ’t help but feel like they are just a hive of is crawling around in the dirt.”

  “I see,” I whispered, gently floating over to hug her from behind, resting my on her shoulder. “Afraid you’re losing your humanity? Or just your humility?”

  “If Astartes and Custodes are human, then so are we,” Selene said with vi. “Our bodies might only be human in form, but we are human in mind and soul. No, I’m not worried about that. I’m just … I don’t know. It’s just so unfair to everyone else that only I got to have all this.”

  “Life is unfair, I’m sure you’re more than aware of that,” I murmured into her ears, smiling as she snuggled into my embrad rested her hand on mine locked arouorso. “You’re far too nice for this world. I’m pretty sure any other noble I could as would describe those humans down there as insignifit worms crawling around in the dirt without hesitation.”

  “They are just bigger worms,” Selene said with a hint of dark amusement. “No political power pare to the sort you gave me.”

  “Fair enough,” I agreed. “I’m not opposed to helping people you know. Like I’d doh Bob, I pn to enhance whoever’s loyal, useful and smart enough.”

  “That’s not the same as what you gave me, is it?”

  “No, no it isn’t, and it never will be,” I said, then leaned in and pced a lingering kiss on her cheek. “I reserve the right to spoil you with all the best of what I have. The rest will have to make do with the scraps.”

  Selene remained silent, but I could feel her worries dimming—not quite going away, but covered by a happy haze.

  “Sorry for distrag you from work,” Selene said after a few seds of pleasant silence. She wiggled in my grasp, likely wantio let go, but I just squeezed her tighter.

  “You distract me whenever you want,” I murmured gently, theantly let go of her. “Especially when something’s w you. You’ve always been there for me when I needed you the most, I’d be happy to do the same for you. That’s what being partners means.”

  “Thank you,” Selene said with an embarrassed smile on her lips. It wasn’t because of any of the affe I’d showered her with — she could take any amount of that with a grin and a blush — but more so that she’d shown herself vulnerable. I felt she thought I was supposed to be the vulnerable one in our retionship while she took the role of the steady pilr for me to lean on, at least emotionally. “I’m fihough, it was just a moment of … weakness?”

  “I wouldn’t call it weakness,” I said gently. “Maybe a hint of self-doubt, but that’s to be expected. I’m asking much of you and that’s after upending your entire life and worldview. You are handling yourself extremely well, you should be proud. I am proud of you.”

  Selene huffed, though I could see the edge of her lips quirking up as she spun around and turo watch my atrocious creation that wouldn’t have been out of p a space horror movie. Bio-punk was a very niche genre and a pretty nasty one in my opinion, the few books I've read in it, or artworks I'd seen were ... uo say the least.

  My half-done ship would have fit in perfectly with the worst of it as tendrils of meaty red flesh grew and coiled around each other.

  Slowly, it was starting to take shape. The insides were mostly done and only o be filled with breathable air, plus some aodations for my passengers. It lengtheaking on a rgely … well, phallus-like shape.

  Was there something wrong with me that I couldn’t e up with a better descriptor? … Anyway. After some final touches, adding in the carapad the under armour, the gravitational sensors and engines, along with some bio-ons across its length food measure, it would be done. As the pearlest white carapaed over the bare, meaty flesh, I finally smiled. The ship finally looked more like a proper futuristic spacecraft and less like some Eldritch monstrosity’s wet dream.

  “That … actually doesn’t look that bad,” Selene said absently. “Your style is still so very bare, don’t you want to at least add some colour to them? Maybe a heraldry? Larger ons batteries? I know you probably hid some horrid ons just uhe skin of that thing, but it doesn’t hurt for intimidation purposes if some of that’s shown to your enemies.”

  “This is supposed to be just a carrier,” I said, shrugging. Despite that, I did add visible anti-missile sers and a dozen much meaner-looking bio-ons that could spit out densed globs of psma. “Think that isn’t too much?”

  “It’s just right,” Selene said with a satisfied smile. “Heraldry? Colours? Maybe … I don’t know, some skulls? You ’t g with skulls.”

  “I’d o make a heraldry, or at least some symbol for myself, which I won’t just e up with on the spot,” I said wryly. “And I’m vetoing skulls, no skulls.”

  “But-”

  “No. Skulls,” I repeated, then as a promise added, “What colour do you think would look h the current pearly white carapace? Blue or silver?”

  “I see crimson w, maybe even gold?” Selene said, squinting at me like she was trying to decide whether to hold a grudge over my instant dismissal of skulls as a form of decoration. “But silver would fit you better. Blue would go well as a third colour too, and you really o get your brain w on ing up with a heraldry. You’ll probably have a few million citizens by tomorrow, you’ll o give them ay. try name, p name, city names, sigils, fgs, and that’s ign the further work you’ve just signed up for. We’ll o build up a new culture for them that’ll suit your needs, a gover if you don’t want to do everything, and a million other things.”

  “I’ll … do my best?” I said with a shaky smile, suddenly feeling like maybe leaving the p without the people gathering around my drones might just be the py. That sounded like so much b work.

  Don’t be zy. You finally do some actual good in this shothole of a gaxy. I chided myself. Plus, I just delegate most of the b work to some dutiful mind-cores and only worry about the bigger picture. Eveer, I find myself a slew of useful new citizens who handle most of the work, like copycat High Lords of my owhat sounds more like it.

  If I was lucky, I could evehe Tau to give me some Earth and Water caste minions to help out with the worst of it. The Ethereals might take it as a stelr opportunity to send some surveilo my germinating little nation.

  I’ll have to talk with that stuck-up Captain again and have him request another meeting with a nearby Ethereal. If I don’t send some Tau to e around and spread their Greater Good a bit, this p I just liberated might just self bato the Stone Age.

  P3t1