“What bes?” Coldstone asked with what I wagered was cautious optimism. He wao be vinced, but wao take baough bes with him to vince every one of his fellow Ethereals too.

  “I have both long-term and short-term ones, let’s start with the tter,” I said, running my hand over the roots making up my chair as I thought of an answer rapidly. The question wasn’t whether I could give him something to vince his friends to leave me well enough alone, but how much was I willing to give. More accurately, what was the lowest I could give to them that would have them off of my bad wouldn’t at the same time be emp possible future enemies. “Let’s start with the easy one, I and am trolling this entire p. From the smallest bde of grass to the tallest tree. The whole world is mine, and will fight for me should anyone i. That makes this p nearly impregnable short of a p-busting on.”

  “Like you’ve exteo me the graot to take my well-meaning words as a threat, I shall do the same for you now,” Coldstone said. “But do eborate please, it would set my heart at ease.”

  “It is just how it is,” I said, shrugging as I gave a superfluous wave of my hand and a trio of trees bowed to me at the trunk like courtiers greeting their queen. “I could also extend my trol over Vallia itself, if you allow me to and suppnt the maliind supposedly trolling its ecosystem with myself. With time, the whole System could be under my trol.”

  “Trees and grass hardly make for much of a foe for modern onry,” Coldstone said evenly, gng over to his guards wielding psma rifles.

  “Make them shoot the white tree,” I said, pointing over at a smaller tree whose bark I’d just ged over to the pseudo-Adamantium-like material. “Let’s see how that mere tree stands up to a psma rifle.”

  After a nod from the Ethereal, one of the guards took stand shot off a single bolt of psma dead tre into the trunk. It melted, searing a fist sized hole into the white-bck structure, but even that left most of them stupified uheir masks. Psma bolts could bore through heavy tank armour, and a random tree only got a small crater bsted out of its side.

  “If you remember,” I said, pulling the Ethereal’s attention bae. “The material that covered that tree was the same ohat made up the outer shell of my still-growing fortress.”

  “Would you be willing to trade that material?” he asked, an edge of excitement in his voibsp;

  “Unfortunately,” I said, sighing mournfully. “It loses most of its toughness when its sourt dies.”

  As I said that, the struck tree withered, branches curling up like a dead i's legs as its vibrant of green leaves turned dark and dead brown. It’s bark fked off, turning into ash-like dust as it fell and revealed the soft flesh of the irunk.

  It was 99% theatrid 1% reality. Sure, the material only worked perfectly when it was alive, but it had nothing to do with that random tree. It didn’t even have a source, it was airely bio-engineered substahat I never bothered to make sure could survive on procreate in the wild. Only I could make it, with the gee in my head.

  Also, it wouldn't turn to dust even if it died, it would just turn less coherent and about as malleable as regur steel. Nothing as extreme as turning to dust.

  “And the sourt ’t be extracted?” he asked, a suspicious squint in his gaze.

  “I’m afraid not,” I said. “Only my power, linking this p up into a single weave with the help of the artefact I’d subsumed into it, allows the specifit to live. Onto happier subjects though, I , eventually, perform the same terraf I’d done on this moon on other ps without the need for my lingering presend careful trol. In time, I make Seeds that would turn previously uninhabitable ps into paradises in a matter of months.”

  “Under your trol?” Coldstone asked, the iiator taking the lead from the amicable versationalist that he’d been a moment before. “You hand us poisoned fruit and expect us to eat it, despite knowing the risk, just because it looks delicious?”

  “I wish,” I said, sighing again. “I’m afraid my power ’t extend beyond a single System from the pce where the artefact has been initially used. I — eventually — make these Seeds that would work without my supervision, they’d only have enough power to terraform a single p and then they’d wither away and leave the p with the new ecosystem behind.”

  That was also bullshit of course, even if I really went through with making those Seeds, they’d stay alive and go into a sleeper mode while sustaining themselves off of the host p’s warmth. If I ever flung by and wanted said po, I don’t know, shed off its surface like a moulting snake, I could just activate the slumbering seed a grow.

  Coldstone was rightfully expeg me to pull somethily like that, so I might be forced to make the first couple of the Seeds actually work how I described them to. It wouldn’t be a huge loss, so I wouldn’t mind if it got me some fancy stuff from the Tau iurn.

  “I see,” Coldstone said, nodding. “I’m afraid we’ll have to … verify that, before making any more long term agreements oter. But that is a decidedly long-term be, what about more … immediate bes?”

  “I grow just about any anic material if you give me a source to replicate,” I said. “I keep alive any pnt, evehat wouldn’t find the pce hospitable. I could also still serve as an auxiliary for your military with my men, especially if you allow me some time to … fix-up that old relic of a ship.”

  “Don’t you o remain on the p?” Coldstone asked, clearly fishing for information, but I was willing to let him have what he might think was valuable information if it meant the Ethereals thought I was willing to py along.

  “I leave ohe terraf is done and the p sustain itself naturally,” I said. “This p is the core, the ey of it has been turned into the Artefad while I o be here to actively trol and guide it, ohe p’s ecosystem is up and running, I let it haself without interfering. Taking part in a battle or two every now and then shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “A battle or two every now and then,” the Ethereal repeated. “Isn’t that a price far below the worth of what you’ve received? A moon the size of a po make your own.”

  “A desote clump of rock with an atmosphere less hospitable for life than the gullet of a Tyranid,” I retorted, giving him a derisive snort just so he knew what I thought of his kind’s generosity. I asked for being allowed to set up a base on Vallia, not even the whole p, and they instead gave me this shithole from where I could watch the p I supposedly wanted. “Poi a p, one close by that you want to rid of enemies. Preferably non-human ones. Let me show you what having me fight for a battle or two for you is worth.”

  *****

  “Aaaaaaa,” I said, the gravity engines of the retrofitted ship dialling our velocity down to physics-abiding levels. The light of distant stars that’d been nothing more than blurry streaks through the bent space tunnel around us, snapped bato pd cleared up. “What are we looking at?”

  “Initial sensor readings show signs of intense void-battles having takehroughout the System. The freshest heat signature is 1.456 AUs away from the System’s Star. Approximately thrice that far from our current location.”

  I Zedev’s dreadfully bored-soundi, promising inwardly to give him some oys for doing his job without pint even if I so evilly dragged him away from his obsession: iing some ‘immortality an’ into his dream body tempte.

  “Look for any voidships,” I said, mentally reag for the gravity sensors spread out around the hull of the ship. “I want to know where every voidship in the System is, along with the retive locations of all celestial bodies, primarily … Calthor IV.”

  I finished once I'd mao dig up the name of the desote, frozen piece of rock I was supposed to help some sorry excuse for an Admiral dislodge the Imperials from.

  This was my first mission, a test from Coldstohat we agreed on after a short bad forth.

  He wanted me to show my ironcd loyalty towards the Tau Empire and the Greater Good by taking part in an active battle against my supposed erstwhile nation. I, iurn, told him I’d really rather not take part in gssing an Imperial p filled with billions ely i citizens.

  As a promise, we agreed on this gcial hellscape. Calthor IV was a shithole with hailstorms throwing around spikes of iearly horizontally so fast that they’d turn a wearing power armour into swiss cheese.

  As a result, it wasn’t settled. But it had a sizable garrison and even a few voidships both in orbit and patrolling the System. Why?

  Because, of course, it was the predominant source of promethium in the subsector and promethium was what voidships, farmers, meltaguns and who knew what else used as fuel. It was the 40k version of oil, and the Imperium wanted every st drop of it.

  The pn was simple. Batter around the Imperials, blow the half a dozen mining bases up to the high heavens and then sod off before reinforts arrived.

  If all went well, it could be the perfect opportunity to test out my new precious little baby- *cough* I mean my new ship.

  It was a slender beauty covered in a pure white carapace-like outer hull with hardly any straight lines and all the gentle curves you’d expect from some futuristic luxury spaceship.

  I was loving it, even though it was the first iteration of the prototype. It had Voidshields, a gravity engine, gravity sensors and a whole slew of ons batteries from the goodies I got from the Tau for my ‘ Engine’.

  Speaking of, that thing should be turning to dust right about now. I felt the urge to giggle and cackle like a loon bubbling up but I suppressed it. I’d have lived to see their faces when it happened, as, we’d crossed the eau Empire sihen, and the distance separating us was signifit.

  “Found them,” I said, the gravity sensors deteg the telltale signs of a dozen voidships clumped up together within just a few tens of thousands of kilometres of each other. “Set course and prepare the boys for a fight. I’ll be ung a lot of them onboard to have a nice fight and see how they fare.”

  This ship was smaller than the fake Imperial light cruiser I had before — not that it was any weaker or less dangerous for that, quite the opposite — so I couldn’t fit all 15000 Orks now under my and so I just dumped all but the ones oop three floors on my new moon to py around. The best ohough, they got to e along with me food old scarp.

  I’ll see how well they do without too strict of an ht or one of my crew hanging over their shoulders.

  Plus, sending in even just Fae with her burgeoning psychic abilities would have been overkill for any one Imperial battleship. Okay, maybe not Fae, but Selene or Val could eviscerate them in minutes.

  Settling in to watch the stars as we coasted over to the battlefield and then to watch over the fight, I hung ba my fy and chair.

  “Did anyone pack pop?”

  *****

  Zara repeated the breathing teique beaten into her very bo the Scho, her Psychic Hood tamping down on her uncharacteristic pse in focus as her rebellious power tried to fre up.

  It didn’t help keep her focus in the moment when Inquisitor Thraced back at her, the thrice-damned hood — that doubled for her sve colr — likely alerting her ‘owner’ of her pse.

  She kept her face from as much as twitg, the man was like a bloodhound when smelling weakness and would have torn into her with the ferocity of a ifex if only she gave him a reason to.

  Zara refused to show weakness, she refused to be his victim. It edream, she knew. Inquisitor Thrace went through the Psykers assigo his retinue like they grew on trees, none of the previous ones having sted more than five years.

  She remembered the day she first met the man, how he sat on his high throh his previous Psyker prostrating on the floor o him.

  Zara still remembered the vat, empty expression in the older woman’s eyes. There was no life in them, no intelligence for both had been burned out of the woman following oiny failure on her part by the very same Psychic Hood Zara had ied from her.

  “Serve well me as you are now,” the man had said, his voice cold with a hint of maliockery barely veiled beh its surface. “Or you’ll serve me as she does, like a mindless dog. Prove to me that keeping your mind intact is worth the effort. Prove to me that you are better than this failure.”

  Zara had been terrified, watg the Inquisitor yank the s ed around the poor woman’s neck like she was a dog.

  That was her fate, aable fate that befell so many of her kind. Still, Zara fought and struggled, never failing, never letting her focus wane. She would beat the odds, she would outlive that Emperor damned monster in human skin. That was the only victory allowed to her as a Saned Psyker of His Majesty’s Most Holy Inquisition.

  If she was especially lucky, she might even be able to py her cards well enough to survive the fallout of the Inquisitor she was supposed to guard with her life dying.

  Unfortunately, luck was out of stock at the moment, and it seemed the both of them would find their end soon as torn apart ks of flesh floating through the void.

  ”Tau reinforts have ehe System,” the cog-head fiddling with some holographic star chart said with only a hint of the panic Zara felt at his words. “ETA … what?”

  “Speak,” Inquisitor Thrace ordered, leaning forward from his and chair. “Now.”

  “It makes no sense Sir,” the cog-boy said, soundiirely unbothered by the Inquisitor's rising wrath. Or maybe he just couldn’t see it as well as Zara could after spending three years with the man, she’d more than learned which twitch of his facial muscles meant what, and the man was livid at the moment. “They are approag us at ielr speeds, far faster than any Tau ship I’ve seen had the gall to use inter-System.”

  “Double check the sensors,” Inquisitor Thrace said, leaning bad appearing mildly mollified. “If it’s the same, give me the damA, I want to know how long we have until we are overwhelmed by their reinforts.”

  “ETA 23 minutes.”

  “Fuck,” Inquisitor Thrace said with feeling, and for once Zara agreed with him. “Prepare to pull away, if we ’t hahe lot we are nding on the p and try to get lost in the mine shafts until the eventual Imperial terattack arrives.”

  P3t1