‘Why?’ That was the question rolling around in my head for the following couple of days. Why would a Daemon of Tzeenteak into my ship and why would it reveal itself to me in a seemingly idiotic bid at sending me spiralling down into the abyss?

  The ‘How’ didn’t even matter that much. Did it really think I would just … break? From that little of a push? Do I seem that unstable to a Daemon specialising in manipution and sowi?

  Was it right? Am I still that close to the edge?

  Did that thing really think it would succeed or was it just fug around for shits and giggles, thinking there wouldn’t be any sequences even if it failed? I was leaning towards the tter, even my mind-cores were, which meant it wasn’t just make-believe to calm myself.

  As for how I was going about speeding things up? Well, I utting a little bug in that uppity Tau captain’s ear. Nothing much, it wasn’t even real mind manipution, I was just giving him a slight urge to ‘hurry the fuck up’.

  That, bined with Alvash pushing him from the outside to get on with it, bore fruit just two days ter. I smiled as I felt the ship lurg; we were finally leaving this asteroid field and heading wherever the Tau led us.

  I was about 99.99% sure they wouldn’t just lead us into open space to blow our ship to bits. Still, I repared to shield the entire ship should the need present itself.

  As for hoere moving? Well, the blueys attached some sort of energy … ropes? To the prow of our ship and were dragging it behind their own at a good hundred kilometres away, but we were also ‘using ur drive’ to take as much of the burden off of their geors as possible.

  Meaning, I was running the gravity engine, but on lohile also making a fake exhaust plume behind us with some low-power bio-psma emitters. Teically, those would work as propulsion too, sihey were throwing mass behind us, hence pushing our ship in the opposite dire: Forwards.

  As, that was slow as a snail in my personal opinion, especially pared to the gravity drive. So I wasn’t really pushing it. Could be a suitable alternative for ships that others could see iure though, if only to distract them from the actual means of propulsion.

  In the meantime, I amused myself by watg … and maniputing the Orks fights. To say Throgg was a bit put out by ch’s, well, existence was underselling it. The twoing at it, beating on each other every other hour.

  There was no winner yet, sinone of them died and none of them would for the foreseeable future. Why? Because I had a little experimental toy sitting ih of them. A small bead-like an loaded up with bio-energy that boosted their regeion to the high heavens.

  It even replenished bio-energy from the food they ate, so I didn’t even have to refill it myself. A little induced hunger whe was running low was all it o keep them topped off most of the time, and it also had the curious side-effeaking ch double down on his cooking hobby.

  It was iing to see how the Orkish food industry built up in the span of days. They were sending hunting parties out, making them travel down to the lower levels for newborn Squiggy Beasts. Lately, they even started throwing parts of them bato the birthing pools at the lowest floors to make sure more of them were born.

  If my hair wasn’t already white, I’d turn white by the time we arrive at that damned p this speed we’re going.

  I chewed on my lips in thought, rapping my nails on the armrest of the and chair. A little bit of help couldn’t hurt them. They probably won’t even notice space bending around them.

  I started gently, just slightly bending space with the gravity engine deep in the ship’s belly. It made a slight grove in space, then just ever so slightly ed the spa front of the two ships so that the retive distance stricted.

  Letting my mind-cores monitor the Tau for any sign of them notig my meddling, I leaned bad rexed. It would take a day or two still, but I could maybe half that if they cked any manner of gravitational sensors.

  Strahings happen in space, getting to your destination a bit faster than expected shouldn’t freak them out too much.

  I kept my eyes peeled for the , feeling slightly paranoid after the geling debacle. I noted any bumps, roiling currents and rger daemonic things just uhe surface, but none ever came close enough to break through the veil.

  “I don’t suppose I vince you to take a few minutes of rest?” Selene asked, leaning over my and chair like a zy cat.

  “If the geling was just a scout for an ambush, they are going to strike now. Every sed could t with Greater Daemons.” I said, gng into her steely grey eyes aing my expression soften. “I’ll take a night off once we get there. I’m sure Alvash will need some time to get those iations over with. Would you want to keep me pany?”

  “Always,” she gave me a beatific smile that subsciously tugged the edges of my lips into a smile.

  Hours flew by quickly when I wahem to. Letting myself sink into my thoughts, or even my mindscape was a good way of letting days or even weeks fly by without me notig.

  As I focused oasks I’d given myself, the moment I felt a new system e within a few AUs of us arrived soon enough.

  I focused on it, leaning on the gravitational sensors heavily. Red dwarf, five ps, one gas giant, the rest rocky, one of which was in the goldilocks zone, barely inhabited.

  “We are closing in on our first stop,” I called out. “We are just about … 60? Or so AU’s out. Get ready, whatever you need.”

  *****

  “They don’t want the ship?” I asked with a frown.

  “Well, not quite. While they would indeed love to take the entire ship apart, they couldn’t in good sce trade for it a Tau ship.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because to operate a Tau ship, you’d require a well-trained crew of Air Caste officers.”

  Okay, you dumb fish, don’t look at me like I’m an idiot.

  “I suppose they gave an alternative?” I asked, leaning my cheek into my palm as I tilted my head.

  “They did indeed,” Alvash nodded. “They would trade the noional ‘’ geors you have for a Cruiser’s worth of Military grade Tau onry. Railguns, turrets, rifles, whatever you wish for within reason. And of course a Tau-made geor to allow you some FTL capabilities.”

  “Wouldn’t operating those also require engineers of your Earth Caste to maintain and make them funal?” I asked.

  “They would, but I believe their point is for your ship to require regur maintenan a Tau shipyard,” he said, getting slightly nervous as he went on. “The Governreed that should you agree to this trade, it would be enough of a show of … itment to accept your request to be sent to the ‘Jericho Reach’ as a merary with his blessings.”

  I have literally nothing to lose, and it would have been a pain to have a bunch of Tau onboard, anyway. This should work out just fine for me.

  “Send over whatever user manuals you have for the equipment to Zedev,” I said. “Also, give me a list of which ons and equipment are avaible for my choosing. I’ll have what I want back with you within an hour.”

  “Of course, Captain.” He gave a slight bow, then pced one of those holo-tablets down on my table before turning to leave. “I will deliver yreement to this deal. I will be back for your list and have your selected items ready by the end of the day. Until then, farewell.”

  “See you ter.” I waved at him, and the blue fucker finally ambled out of my quickly structed offi.

  “Is this an … acceptable oute, Mistress?” Val asked, a dangerous glint in his eyes as the veil of invisibility he had around him up until then faded away. “They would not be able to keep those ons to themselves if you wao take them. Say the word, and I’ll get them for you.”

  “It’s fine,” I waved him off. “And I told you I don’t want to be heavy-handed here. Or did you fet already?”

  “I did not,” he said, a smirk pying across his lips. “Merely thought you might have had a ge of heart. As, it seems not. I suppose that’s … good?”

  “It is good,” I gave him a half-hearted gre. “Now do get back t on those Daemon-weakening charms you told me about.”

  “I have a prototype,” he said, an amulet with a five-poiar engraved upon a nail-sized disc appearing in his hand. “A simple pentagrammic ward in the form of an amulet. It has some effects against daemonifluend increases resistao their attacks, based on my prior observations.”

  I took it from him with a telekiic tug, pulling the amulet to float just a bit above my palm as I spun it around a bit for show.

  Small inscriptions, runes and shapes were engraved into the amulet on an almost microscopic scale with only the five-poiar being clearly visible to a human eye.

  “How effective is it really? Against something strohan a Pink Horror?”

  “You’ll have to test that yourself I’m afraid,” he said. “My experiences with daemons are blessedly sparse, so I had few opportuo test these things. And even when I had, they proved to be much less helpful than my own psychibat prowess.”

  “Fair enough.” I shrugged. “We’ll have to see. I do wohough, how much of a headache we could cause to a daemon if we structed aire building with a pentagrammic foundation.”

  “The material it is inscribed upon matters,” he said. “I used silver and bone dust. I don’t personally know what other materials would work.”

  “Another experiment added to the list.”

  *****

  “What a strange pce,” Selene murmured o me, blinking up at the t buildings around us with wide eyes.

  “Never been on a Tau world before?” I asked curiously, making sure my own gawking was much less apparent.

  We were down on the p's surface, in the domed city the Tau structed here as the base of their mining operations. The p wasn’t habitable by nature, its atmosphere wasn’t breathable and the temperature left some things to be desired, but the little ingenious blue men made do.

  “No, not one built by them from the ground up,” she said. “Only some outer worlds that used to be Imperial and were just modified. Now I know why all of their architecture was so weird. It’s like they are allergic to anything pointy.”

  Sure enough, every building was circur and round without ers or any sharp lihe Tau walked about oreets, with their strange vehicles rolling around on the nearby roads and some hovercraft even flying by above us.

  Holy, if they weren’t so blue, the city would have been a pretty for some futuristic cyberpunk story. As, they were blue, and had questionably looking hat looked like vertical slits across their faces.

  “You know, when you mentioned keeping you pany tonight, this wasly what I was expeg,” Selene said with a twinkle dang in her eyes as she elbowed me in the side.

  “Even I know that you should take a girl out to date before dragging her into the bedroom,” I huffed. “I’m not a savage.”

  “Oh, so that’s what this skulking about uhe cover of your illusion is? A date?”

  “The start of one,” I said, rolling my eyes as she exaggeratedly looked around the little alley we were standing in. “Soooooo, sihere aren’t any of the usual date sports on this killjoy of a city, want to break into the Governor’s mansion with me instead? Should get our blood pumping just well enough.”

  “A spar would have dohat just fine,” she squinted up at me, tilting her head in that adorable way she knew sent my heartbeat stuttering. “But sure. Let’s break into the Governor’s mansion. I’ve never dohat before. Why are we doing this again? Just so I know.”

  “I want a nibble,” I said, scratg my cheek awkwardly as she gave me a half-lidded gre. “What? He’s supposed to be ahereal. I want to know how those work. I already took some tiny nibbles out of a Fire, Water, Earth and Air caste Tau. Ahereal is all I o finish the colle.”

  “I didn’t know you were a kleptomaniac,” she said amusedly, raising an eyebrow. “Is that why you like that strange Ne that kidnapped you?”

  “I mean, it would be useful to have,” I said, tapping my lips with my index finger as I stared at the sky. “Maybe I could even have some soft-mind trol over nearby Tau with ahereal in me.”

  As Selene groaned, I frowned a bit, only reising my silly innuendo a moment ter. Well, while a normal person might have backed dht about there, I was far from normal.

  “You know, I could just eat one up, there is this need deep inside my core to just push that Ethereal to the floor and devour him whole.”

  Selene zapped me on the hip, and I jumped away with a yelp. I shuddered, feeling the electricity run through my body for a few more seds like I was jacked up to a high-voltage outlet.

  “Hmmmmm,” I closed my eyes, a rush of goosebumps running down my spine as the st echoes of the zap faded away. It left my whole body warm, tingly aive.

  “Masochistic Kleptomaniac.”

  “e on now, that was … enjoyable,” I murmured, turning a heated gre her way. “Hardly painful. Just a little shock therapy. Hmmm, you do that again?”

  “Didn’t we have a Governor to nibble on?”

  “Hmmm, yeah, we did,” I said, rolling my shoulders with a sigh. “Then I have someone else to push to the floor and devour. Hmmm. Yep. Let’s go.”

  “Lead the way,” Selene said, rolling her eyes with a smirk as I strutted off towards the distant spire reag for the grey skies up above. It was a strae, but I was already loving it.

  P3t1