Whether they wanted it to or not, my reputation among the Ruk was, ah, singing.

I’d run the whole engagement while sitting next to an active antimatter reactor, weathered a 25-gravity weight pulping smash, and shut them down when we didn’t need the Curse active anymore.

No, I wasn’t even on one of the fighting ships, or on a battle bridge anywhere.

The Trembling Song was already going down into their lexicons of This Was An Awesome Fight. Their combat engineers and battlemasters had already calculated how powerful the effect was, how’d I’d encompassed the entire battle situation in my head, without a logic engine of any sort to help me, and done everything from directing overall tactics and battle goals to warning a gunner to adjust his aim a fraction of a degree.

Their battle effectiveness had soared, an unprecedented display of combined skill and coordination that these battle-hardened Ruk just couldn’t believe was possible, even after living right through it.

They ran the numbers something like fifteen times trying to find some way to believe I was just not that awesome when directing a fight, that the tactics and timing were not that effective, and maybe the Compact was simply colossally inept.

In the end, they did come up with a set of standards, but even they couldn’t believe their own people were that good, and the enemy was that bad.

Warlord was not a Title a Ruk King gave just anyone. It didn’t get any higher on the ass-kicking meter. There were generals and admirals, then came Battlemasters, and atop of them strode the Warlords of the race.

The Compact had come in with a force calculated to be seventy percent higher than needed to take out the two Citadels, and it had been annihilated. Less than twenty percent of the fleet had survived the rundown hunt of my hounds when unleashed.

Now, I wasn’t commanding firepower equal to a Citadel, at least in their eyes, but I obviously knew how to use them, and I had adjusted my fleet’s firepower to maximize the potency of the Unforgotten, not to claim kills of my own.

They had all the data, so they could clearly see that I had foregone calling kills of our own in order to spread the love and kill even more of the enemy by making the Ruk salvoes true kill-shots.

It was a show of utmost trust, cooperation, and faith in the other party to do their jobs. We had shown them trust and honor, and the Ruk had understood and reciprocated, without the arrogance of thinking they were rescuing us.

Our strength had enabled the Ruk to use all of theirs to magnificent effect.

It was wonderful, an awesome victory, massive glory, and the kind of tale that got songs made about it that would be sung for millennia.

It was rather quickly eclipsed by something else.

----------------

“To Whom do you Pray?!”

“The God of the Machine!”

“Why do you pray to the God of the Machine?!”

“For our Ancestors!”

“Why do you pray to the God of the Machine?!”

“For our gods!”

“What do you ask of the God of the Machine?!”

“Answer our Faith!”

“You do this for your Ancestors?!”

“Yes!”

“You do this for your gods?”

“Yes!”

“The God of the Machine agrees to this Prayer! Pray, and It will return your Faith to you!”

“We pray!” Boom boom, a hundred thousand boots beat on a hardened floor. “Our Ancestors! We come! Forge-Father! Hearth-Mother! Shield-Guard! Axe-Lord! Fire Maiden! We have not forgotten!”

Prayers thundered out, words that had echoed through the galaxy for hundreds of thousands of years... but it had been a long time since they had wrung out with the fervor that they did today.

Cantor stood there, in garb of white and gold and steel grey, the back of her head eagerly helping with the subspatial specs needed to construct a new Gloom space, the front of it looking over these Ruk bent in unabashed prayer under the direction of a Great Elder of their race.

On the altar behind them, an anvil in the low, ancient style, as much workbench as holy place, a Counter was now in place.

That Counter was ticking up rather quickly at the moment...

The gathered clerics began to chant and pray themselves... but this was not an offering, but a calling. As they did, the numbers on the altar stopped going up, and started to fall.

Seeing that, and the Light rising, the fervor in the eyes of the Ruk escaped even their stoic selves. Tears were streaming down their faces, as they saw a sight that had not been recorded for over eight thousand years.

The magic of faith was gathering in response to the prayers of the faithful...

Boots hit with every heartbeat, chants passed down for eons rose and hung in the air.

The Great Elder held his ceremonial hammer high above his head, glowing like a cold, shining star, lighting up the massive Dark Matter chamber where so many Ruk had spent so long.

“For our Ancestors! For our gods! I ask the God of the Machine to purify this place!” he Sang out, and the Light flared with the faith of a hundred thousand Ruk.

----------

The arriving Citadels came just in time to see the Miracle take place.

Every machine on their vessels lit up with the chanting of their kin. Holy lights blazed in reactors, pulsed in power conduits, sang in modulation fields.

The Light from long, long ago came forth, and swept through the Grimshield. It gathered up the vivic energy being pumped into the ship in passing, and swarmed through the great mass of the Mount, backed by the prayers of the faithful.

The Warp-twisted energy swarmed to meet the pure magic, and slammed into the vivic-enhanced stuff. It was devoured piecemeal, and then cleansed and swept away, a magnificent sight of pulsing crystalline lights expanding along every circuit, out of the stern faces of every carved king immortalized on the mountain they had once ruled, advancing into every nook and corner of the Citadel. It swept over the kneeling Ruk chanting in time with their brethren throughout the great ship, through every room, every detached droid, construct, and mech, the ships of the Grimshield fleet, finding and purging each and every last trace of the Curse with divine omniscience and purpose.

The Light faded, and the Ritual ended.

The counter on the altar showed a negative number. The waiting Ruk hummed deep in their chests, their hearts aching at that feeling of touching something beyond mortal ken. It was cool, it was aware, it was watching them...

It was not their ancestors, it was not their gods. But it would gather their faith and return it to them. Their priests had negotiated a price, some of the power of their faith, a tithe... and one clearly less than the power spent on the Ritual that had taken place just now.

The exhausted Ruk priests swayed on their feet, and directed their eyes to that number.

They owed the God of the Machine. What metric it was using to measure the power of their faith was something only the divine could measure, but it was a Machine. It could, would, and did measure it, set up a scale, and it let that scale stand there for them to see.

“We have given of our faith to the God of the Machine, and it has returned our faith to us,” the Great Elder spoke, his voice tired with the stress of great magic, yet filled with the light and hope of faith confirmed. “You! You have given your faith! You have made this possible!”

The gathered Ruk rumbled deep in their chests.

“Together, we will build a reserve of Faith! A deep and great well that we can draw upon when the need is great... when we once again need the power of the divine!

“Return to this place tomorrow, and we will pray!

“Pray for our ancestors!”

“OUR ANCESTORS!”

“Pray for our gods!”

“OUR GODS!”

“There is Work!”

“WORK!”

“There is War!”

“WAR!”

“Thank the God of the Machine, for our ancestors, and our gods!”

Boots slammed down, THOOM THOOM!

“Go to work, and go to war, my kin!”

Fists beat to chests as the clerics saluted their faithful, and as smoothly and as organized as they’d come within, the Ruk swept out of the chamber.

Cantor sighed as she watched it all. As a Witch of the Machine, she had to be present to bring down the power of Faith so the clerics could wield it. Those who had been watching had seen her Curse Brand flare like diamond lights as the Clerics called on the power; it was channeled down her Curseline to her, and thence to them.

Any of the Ranthas could gather faith for the Curse, but only the Fantastic Hags could return it to those who could use it.

There were immense restrictions on using the power now, because of the Warp. Long-term effects were simply impossible. Anything they did had to sweep out, do something, and dissipate before the Warp could come in to corrupt it. Having vivus washing everything was a nice fallback and safety point.

It meant a lot of the Miracles of the past simply could not happen, or the Warp would come in and feed. But some of the most important effects were purifying, cleansing, healing, dispelling, abjuring... or bursts of combat magic when needed.

All things useful against the Warp.

Of course, to do this ideally, there’d need to be a Fantastic Hag aboard every single Ruk vessel, and a Rantha in every Ruk major temple to gather the faith. That was not going to be a highly sought-after position, as Ranthas were combat-happy, but there were Ranthas that had intellectual talents who might not mind the duty, as long as they could continue to improve.

The tithe of faith was only ten percent, and since it took little effort on Tek’s part, basically just ‘free income’. By the terms of the agreement, if a prayer took place that did not first cite their ancestors and their gods, it wouldn’t even answer it. They had to remember their own, and why they were doing this, not abandon their own.

This uprightness had greatly impressed the Ruk, and the Counter allowing them to see the built-up power of their faith would also be a motivation. Faith could only be collected once per sentient per Renewal, so steady faith day after day was far more important than just one person’s zeal.

If the Ruk believed, the Faith that could be returned to them would rise...