A small, and rather sleepy looking young boy pokes his head around the privacy curtain. He’s somewhere between five and seven, but it is hard to tell as he has a hunched back and his arms and legs are twisted. A dark blue and white headband covers his third eye, embroidered with a stylized eye that looks like a half closed red sun.

  A quick search tells me the young boy is a member of House Benetek, a Magisterial House whose ancestor, ‘Mad Abenicus’, was the first navigator to suggest a possible route through the Maw to the Koronus Expanse.

  The boy glances about the room, takes one look at me, and starts trembling. His alabaster skin flushes slightly blue, and he topples over in a dead faint.

  I catch him with telekinesis, walk over, pick him up, and put him back at his mother’s feet leaning him upright against the bed’s foot rest. I kneel on the floor so I’m not looming so much, then wake him with a small jolt of warp energy. His eyes snap open and he stares at me, trembling. Suspecting that he’s had a lot of etiquette training, I decide on a formal approach, hoping to give him a reference on how to interact with me.

  “Good day, Scion Benetek, I am Magos Issengrund.”

  I hold out my hand and the boy stares at it for a moment, then gingerly shakes one of my fingers.

  “Hello Magos Issengrund, I am Benedict Benetek, navigator of Red Knoll. Are you here to help my Mum?”

  “I could do, but she already has you looking out for her. Your mother is asleep and will wake in a few days. Are you and your sister going to wait here for her?”

  “Yes. We are not allowed out of the room without supervision but Mum is asleep, so we can’t go home. The Space Marines are too busy to escort us around the ship.”

  “What about your house troops and servants.”

  “The guards are dead and the servants only obey our Honoured Father.”

  I frown at Benedict’s choice of words, “Do you know what happened to him?”

  “Mum said he had an accident and isn’t coming back.” Benedict hugs his knees, glances at me from side, and trembles slightly. “Mum can play with us now. When she wakes up.”

  Displeased with the conclusions my mind is jumping to, I say, “Could you help me see exactly when your Mum might wake up?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Alright, do you think you could squeeze in next to her, opposite your sister? All you have to do is hold your Mum and she will wake up. If you need any help, you can ask the other people in the room. That means you can ask them for food and water, or help you wash, so you look extra handsome when your Mum wakes up. That will make her smile.”

  Benedict crawls up the bed and I tuck him in. I glance at his sister. While she has a third eye, she looks far too normal to be a navigator. A quick scan from a mechadendrite reveals she is a standard, ten year old Human, though she has several hidden genetic defects that will cause her much trouble in later life. Her third eye is a Warp mutation, not a navigator mutation. To my disgust, her back is scarred and there are bruises on her arms and legs.

  “What’s your sister’s name?”

  “Gloria.”

  “Aren’t there supposed to be four navigators on this ship? Do you have another sibling?”

  “My sister is right there!”

  “I understand. Now close your eyes and count out loud to ten. When you open your eyes again, your Mum will be a lot better.”

  Benedict closes his eyes and he gets as far as two before a small spell knocks him out cold. I release a cloud of nanites and send them into Gloria and the Benetek Matriarch. I check the woman’s hospital tag. Reina Benetek, it declares.

  Over the next hour I carefully catalogue and correct every poorly set fracture and heal every bruise and scar Reina possesses. The girl by her side isn’t her biological daughter, but Gloria is Benedict’s half sister.

  Brigid investigates at one point, and quietly chats with me about what to do about the navigator family.

  At the same time as my nanites are healing Reina, I delicately warp Gloria’s cells, correcting her genetic issues and heal her body of years of beatings. Following Brigid’s suggestion, I remove the fake third eye, though it takes a small blessing to make the correction set properly.

  I don’t tamper with Gloria or Reina’s memories. That isn’t up to me to decide, neither are memory adjustments precise or without hidden consequences. It will be far better for them to heal from the mental half of their trauma more naturally.

  This bizarre plot and vile abuse is likely why these navigators have been staying out of sight, barely interacting with the rest of the Stellar Fleet’s navigators. I will no doubt find out how it came to be at a later date, but with the Benetek family free of physical pain, I leave the Medicae Deck and hunt down Captain Leith Madra to tell him what I have discovered.

  It’s not uncommon for navigators to get up to all sorts of dubious and disgusting behaviours in their gilded cages. I do not investigate if Leith was aware of the abuse as this is not my ship. I would not be surprised if he was complicit in some way as he would be unlikely to pick a fight with the head navigator for Red Knoll. He is quite furious that there was a fake navigator on his vessel though. After some discussion, he agrees for me to remove House Benetek from Red Knoll and replace them with House Lafiel.

  I can only hope the House Ortellius navigators meet us sooner, rather than later. Not only to boost our numbers, but also for me to complete my bargain with House Lafiel and find them compatible wives.

  I try to talk Leith down from turning House Benetek servants into Servitors for being part of the fake navigator deception, as the servants’ degree of guilt is unknown. This proves unsuccessful. He is willing to send them all to Raphael though and wash his hands of the matter. I message Brigid and Raphael, then return to Dying Light.

  A day later, riots break out on the Receiving Yards as half the gangs and syndicates go to war with each other for supplies and territory, while the other half literally batten down the hatches.

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  Rather than let the whole mess play out, Maeve sends in two regiments, one battle automata regiment and one mixed regiment, and butchers every looter. Then she wipes out every stronghold, all with minimal casualties on our side. Meanwhile, Distant Sun is deployed to help patch the Receiving Yards, capping the damage with plasteel and ferrocrete.

  The Receiving Yards are massive and take three months to subdue, but by the end of the short campaign, all other factions have been wiped out or assimilated, my plans for subtle integration chucked out under the auspices and expediency of Imperial Compliance.

  I could have retreated from SR-651, but without my assistance, the Imperium may lose what little control it has over the Koronus Expanse. When Raphael asked for aid, I did not want to assume his ongoing cooperation without helping him in return, nor abandon the junked remains of my plans, so I agreed to stay.

  I also feel rather responsible for the disaster, as while the Ruinous Powers launched the plot, and would have done so no matter what I did, I could have approached the fight with far more caution and potentially avoided any collateral damage. Clearing up my own mess is essential to maintaining my peace of mind. Whether it brings me fortune or woe remains to be seen.

  In order to cling onto the station and legally claim the system in my name, rather than that of the Mechanicus, I choose to reveal my Rogue Trader status.

  I had to wave my Warrant of Trade in Raphael’s face to prove my status. That my Warrant was signed by the High Lords of Terra and the Emperor himself, and included his psychic signature, means that Raphael had no way to dispute the Warrant. However, there is a big difference between having an Inquisitor’s cooperation, as opposed to his begrudging acceptance, so no matter what happens, swiftly reinforcing SR-651 will earn me at least one favour with Raphael.

  I have no doubt that over the next year, most of the ruling caste of the Koronus Expanse will discover that their only independent shipyard is now owned by an individual who is a Magos, Navigator Novator, and Rogue Trader. Everyone is going to want to test us and we are not ready for such a conflict.

  My Rogue Trader status did not endear me to Raphael as he was, amusingly, unhappy to see so much power concentrated in one man. He did, at least, agree it was a valid way to complete his request.

  I didn’t show Raphael the conditions of the Warrant of Trade, just its signatures and traditional statement of intent, so he doesn’t know that it is arguably in conflict with the Treaty of Mars, and maybe the Navigator Accord too. Possibly the Ecclesiarchy as well, given that my Warrant is a holy object.

  He’s not blind to how many interests all coalesce on my person though and agrees that I should not be showing the Warrant to anyone, another reason why he was willing to use his name to back me up so that I don’t have to show it off and accidentally trigger a religious schism. He was rather smug after feeling vindicated on his decision to follow me, as I attract just as much trouble as he thought I would.

  Subduing the Receiving Yards is just the beginning of the conflict over SR-651 as we have no control over the Breaking Yards; the area explodes into anarchy as new gangs rise up from the old, and the three thousand kilometre cloud of junked vessels is ravaged by famine and disease. We do, at least, gain control of the system’s haphazard defences, but production of salvaged components and hulls is completely halted.

  Other events relevant to us occur simultaneously.

  My family and I move our quarters to Torchbearer, my Lunar-Class cruiser, as do the Beneteks and Fleet Command. JK-404 moves to Red Knoll to assist the Space Marines with a series of complex surgeries.

  Once the regiments are deployed from Iron Crane to the Receiving Yards, Quaani departs from SR-651 to pick up Charon and he returns around the same time that the Receiving Yards are finally subdued. Torchbearer still contains two regiments in reserve, as does Ardent Bane. They are untested and have trained for much less time, but are perfectly adequate for occupational duties and replacing losses in more experienced units.

  We also salvage the Nova Cannon from Dying Light, as well as all the Machine-Spirit cores. The rest of the vessel, and the knights within, are consigned to scrap. I would have to take apart the whole vessel anyway to ensure it is not trapped or tainted, so I’d much rather replace it and use my limited skilled labour to disassemble and reconsecrate the Nova cannon.

  The Nova Cannon is fitted to Torchbearer. It will be many more months before it is functional though as there are billions of parts to examine for corruption. The weapon has two shots remaining. I do not have the STC for new Nova Cannon shells. At least I can be sure Machine-Spirits salvaged from Dying Light are clean. They are placed in storage as I do not have a specific plan for them.

  Personally, I work on my Data Syphon implant, and once it is complete, I destroy the two Drukhari brains and absorb their souls and memories. I partition my minds to sanitise the data, and plan for them to delete themselves before rebooting, once the data has been collated and uploaded to my primary ego.

  Hopefully this process will avoid any corruption and I won’t be traumatised by the memories of the Haemonculi. It does feel odd to command a part of myself to die though, even if it is artificial. I am unsure how I feel about the process, other than incredibly uncomfortable, but I do not have time to consider the philosophy and emotions behind my unusual form of self-sacrifice.

  I have yet to decipher Life Support, Warp Tap Ⅰ, and Hyper Intelligence from my previous round of purchases. The Rogue Pattern Power Armour (Environmental Suit) is already in use, but I don’t know exactly how it works yet. Unlike my implants though, it is not beholden to E-SIMs rules so not knowing won’t hold up my acquisition and use of other External Tools.

  By the time Dying Light and the Receiving Yards are subdued, I have three hundred thousand standard kills remaining, and one crown kill to spend. I don’t need to worry about spending a crown kill Soul Harvest Range Ⅰ anytime soon after the soul bonding hack I discovered by accident, but there are plenty of other options.

  Immaterium Bastion and External Resource Silo are next on my list for standard upgrades, followed by Warp Tap Ⅱ and Internal Weavefield Projector. Then I may bite the bullet and save up for Multiplicity to get a back-up body.

  There is one crown upgrade, however, that I decide I cannot delay, one that I consider far more important than anything else, nor given much thought to before: Reality Anchor.

  Reality Anchor ensures I will still exist in the present, even if someone time travels to erase my past. It also makes me highly resistant to entropic weaponry, like chronophage swords and other paradoxical devices.

  Given I just killed Bad Penny via a form of time travel attack, and demons are timeless entities that can apparently both exist and not exist simultaneously, I don’t want to come across an enemy in the future that can mess with time enough to instagib me with a ritual, or any other nightmare fuel.

  I do not hesitate to purchase Reality Anchor and after a brief examination of the data realise this is not a project I can rush into. To my shame, if not my surprise, I immediately realise I will need to decipher Hyper Intelligence first, before I can learn Reality Anchor.

  Fortunately I have a helpful Magos Biologis, JK 404, so organise a visit. I am curious to see what she has been up to with the Space Marines.

  Warhammer 40k Lexicanum, , and . I've also enjoyed opinion pieces such as: , The via Gamespot, and . While not strictly 40k, they are good for inspiration and IRL explanations.