“Good evening, warriors.”

I certainly wasn’t going to call these hulking warriors with countless kills to their credit gentlemen, although it would have been rather funny.

The conversations going on faded away as my voice cut through them. Not needing amplifiers to do so was a perk of Marshal and Minstrel levels.

“I regret having to pull you from your duties on your Marshal Worlds, but as for reasons the whole Beacon system is down, a link-conference was not viable at this time, and considering the importance of what we have to lay out for you, it was more timely to bring you all here and disseminate what is needed than arrange for individual meetings with each of you.”

There were only mild displays of discontent. After all, they’d been on all our ships, and indeed we had gathered them from across the Empire with breathtaking speed.

If we’d Riftcut, we could have gathered them all in Gloom in literally minutes, but that kind of clearance and coordination came with Marks, and Marks alone.

“You have listened to the Captains of the Thunder Companies speak of how the Corunsuns have been working with the Imperial Legions, and how we stumbled upon the true power of your heritage.” I swept my eyes over nearly a thousand brutally powerful Tens and post-Tens, Advanced Humans by dint of the Emperor’s bloodline, and gene-engineered for further deadliness. Accent that with power armor, massive amounts of osmotic training and conditioning, and then truly bountiful combat experience, along with a lifespan that at a minimum measured in millennia, and these were definitely the most experienced group of warriors in the entire Empire.

Not that the Ranthas weren’t catching up, but Ranthas tended to take on bigger foes, while Legionnaires got most of their fighting against the militaries of other forces and rebels.

“I regret to say that the tale of the Legionnaires is going to continue with the plusses and minuses.”

There were quiet curses in a lot of accents out there. The words of the Thunder Captains relating their experiences, demonstrating their mindblades, displaying the execution of Sun Strikes and Nimbuses and lesser psychic effects to a man, had indeed convinced these men that they had inherited the psionic ability of the Emperor, to whatever degree was possible by their genetics.

Whether they would vote to be Opened by us was a secondary thing, but bringing these brutal genius warriors into the Markspace was definitely a thing we wanted to do... but we hadn’t wanted to tramp all over their loyalty to the Empire and the Emperor to do so.

That was no longer such an issue. Even in the eyes of the most cold-blooded of the Serpents, the Emperor had gone completely off His rocker, and their loyalty to the Throne had suffered a momentous blow.

“First on our agenda tonight is laying out for you a history of your Legions that you definitely do not want to hear, but given all that has happened, you will have little trouble believing.” I watched the grimaces cross the faces of the more emotional among them with cool eyes.

“First out is the continued tinkering with the Imperial Infusion so as to isolate and retain greater control of and obedience from the Legions.” Teeth were bared at this casual mention of gene-modded slavish obedience. “This has had varying affects, but the inability of the Serpent Legions to empathize to any degree with normal humans is part of this.” The slit-eyed Legionnaires of those nigh-emotionless orders snapped to attention. “Logically, this kind of mindset is obviously a vulnerability. You SHOULD be able to empathize with normal humans when it is to your benefit to do so, Serpent Commanders. You are categorically incapable of doing so.”

There was a BEEP as I dumped relevant files to the Bands they were wearing. Eyes glittered as cyberlinks uploaded. Part of their genetic mods were psi-active cyberlinks that didn’t negatively affect their psionic potential, allowing them a smoother interface with their armor. It wasn’t all that different from Rantha gold-circuited hair.

“We have been doing deep, deep, DEEP investigations into Mechanist files on world after world... especially those worlds where they moved to support the necrofaction of the planet, and were subsequently vivified, with a focus on Throne, Crown, and Forgeworlds.

“The data there is a few terabytes; you can parse it on your own time, but we’ve indicated key elements for you to look at. There are elements that impact all of your Legions, some to a greater extent than the others.

“The Summaries for each section and supposition are marked, and our conclusions and reference sources indicated for cross-checking. I suggest you get together after this meeting, divide the verification process up among yourselves, and proceed with a standard triple-checking of the relevant data.”

Scarred and cybered heads nodded shortly, background com chatter already starting to organize this kind of effort.

“Wayland, put up the breakdown of the standard Legionnaire armor.”

They all visibly tensed inside their robes and uniforms as the holo came up of an untyped, grey Legion Armor Suit, and the brooding mass of the foremost Armorsmith of the Briggses, save for Briggs himself, loomed there before it.

“I’m going to go over the basics you all know and were told of, to make sure we are all on the same page,” Wayland Briggs began in his rumbling voice, suffused with so much casual experience and hints of underlying outrage all these warriors could not help but pay careful attention.

He blew through all the standard features of protection, power, detection, linkages, strength boosting, and the standard and some not-so standard modular attachments to the armor. The Commanders were all nodding with him, especially as he pointed out the upgrades in psychic circuitry on the armor as the suits awarded to Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains, and Commanders was compared and contrasted with the others.

There were a lot of glittering eyes when he finished up. While they had known the differences between their armors as they went up in rank, they had not known exactly what those differences were, as it didn’t really matter. Psicrafting was not their area, and even their own devoted Armorers basically got things back to spec, without knowing why they were like they were.

“Now, the highest tier of armor comes in at QL 35, to support the full +5 Psychic reinforcement,” Wayland went on, and somehow his voice got even lower. “It does all this without actually using psychic reinforcement techniques... in other words, without using Psicrafting.” His dark eyes started to burn slightly, and his hands clenched. “Gentlemen, that in itself is evidence of TL 15 tech, the very best in the Empire... and what is more important, is that all these suits are actually built to that standard, even if they do not have the same kit.”

He let that hang there as the Commanders silently considered the implications. “Obviously, that is stupidity. You aren’t upgrading your armor, you are issued new suits. This is economic idiocy. If the suits were upgradable, that would be fine, but the Axiomatic nature of them means that no upgrades are possible, in return for reduced cost of each suit initially.

“So, why build a suit at 35? Why at TL 15? What... were we missing, that was sitting right out there in the open?

“So, we broke down all that tech.” Four of the suits receded, leaving only the Commander’s suit behind, and then filters began to go through it. “We filtered the tech and the design work at increasing levels, looking for signs... of higher purposes. TL 16.” The whole suit fell into shadow. “TL 17.”

Two sections in the power core lit up. The Commanders all leaned forwards as one.

“TL 18.” Rune circuitry layouts in the limbs of the armor lit up in configurations totally independent of their lesser functions. “TL 19.” The primary body carapace was wound up with Runes once again woven through all the lesser functions. “And TL 20.” The helm blinked on with a sinister webwork of circuits in it, all the Commanders staring flatly at it.

“On the downloaded files, please look at File marked Ultraviolet/Armor Linkages.” Eyes blinked, flicked it open. “Note the genetic markers added to your Life Spiral. Those are the harmonic resonators that allow you to interface so smoothly with your armor.”

The armor faded out, and the genetic markers appeared next to them. The Commanders watched without blinking as one overlaid the next.

Yes, they definitely corresponded...

An array of Runes arose above the hologram. The Commanders glanced up at them, cursed, and with the instinct of born warriors, promptly looked away before those things could do anything to them.

“These are Necrotech resonance designs, combined with genetic harmonics, and divination locks. In short, every one of these suits of armor is a like a miniature psionic Beacon that can be locked onto by someone with the right genetic imprint from across the galaxy without fail, and then negative energy poured through it to instantly necrofy the wearer.”

Even the Serpents felt the blood drain from their faces.

“These patterns have been built into your genecodes. They are completely unnecessary. But it means the Emperor can find you, lock onto you, and if you are in range, he can make you undead with basically a thought.”

Some of the nobler orders looked like they’d just suffered devastating blows to their chests as Wayland finished speaking.

“I was on the team that went to the Imperial Bulls Marshal world and asked to investigate the oldest and most cherished heirloom armors from the founding of your Legions, all of them non-functional now, but naturally revered for the history they represent...”

Another holo came up at his gesture, and went through the recursion as they watched, all of them holding their breaths.

Those incredibly advanced Runes were not present.

“Every one of these suits that we studied were sabotaged so as to be non-functional. Indeed, once we identified the problems, we were rapidly able to get every one of them working in short order. With the exception of the alterations in programming and modularity, they are as perfectly viable as the armors produced and given to the new members of the Legions today...”

The Legionnaires all exhaled together.

“You may have heard that all ranking members of the Mechanists on Bolgrivine were terminated shortly thereafter, especially after it was confirmed that most of the honored dead of the Imperial Bulls were missing,” I took over as Wayland stepped back and away. “The data in their files we managed to recover formed the foundation for what we were searching for on the Forgeworlds and high Loci of their Guild.”

“MOST of the honored dead,” I repeated, and flicked up two more holos. “To the right is the Life Spiral of the Honored Captain of the Sixth Battalion, Holug Ag Mar, a member of the first generation of the Imperial Bulls from over six thousand years ago. To the left is the Life Spiral of the very much alive Captain Iliviar Donnal of the Thunder Bulls. This is all in the UV File Bulls Genetic Alterations, along with genetic samples we managed to recover from several millennia of the honorable dead.”

To minds as sharp and focused as theirs, the additions were blatantly visible, now that they knew what to look for.

“We had to vivify every one of the post-Crystal Throne corpses,” I sighed, and their faces twisted. “Yes. A necroic surge upon any corpse with the right Life Spiral would immediately Animate the corpse into an undead Legionnaire bound to the Animator...”