During the trip back to my distant empire, I focused on creating a host of rugged but simple and cheap machinery for my own people.

Here, I wasn't limited by the crazy regulations of the Imperium, which forbade innovation and invention. Not that I would even be able to create something like a Rift_Cannon to bend reality with every shot, or even a Graviton_Singularity_Cannon which fires tiny black holes for fun and profit.

No, my weapons and machines would be very familiar to someone from M2 or M3, because these machines were just that.

Reconnaissance drones, made of flimsy steel sheets with a twin pict/infrared passive auspex sensor, using a propeller and solar panels recharging a lasgun-type power pack for propulsion, to survey a hostile area from high altitude in near perfect silence. The auspex's Machine Spirit should suffice to glide the drone over a designated zone. Servitor brain if really needed.

Cheap attack drones, with a slightly more durable structure of steel with plasteel ribs and two propeller engines, to support 6 krak missiles or even one incendiary bomb. An active LIDAR/ultraviolet sensor to detect concealed targets under foliage or fog. Servitor brains to be used as pilots, for better accuracy.

Ground attack aircraft, made of plasteel with a few titanium ribs for load bearing, with an Assault Cannon in a mobile turret underneath, and 8 hunter-killer missiles in free fall slots, but guided by a single logis-engine installed in the cockpit. Unguided rockets and incendiary bombs could be used as well, against massed infantry or wooden cities. Again, servitor brains would make their loss less expensive, as pilots were valuable. Much smaller and a thousand times cheaper than a Marauder_Bomber.

High-altitude interceptors, of plasteel and titanium, plated with a centimeter of ceramite over the jet engine and wing edges. This fighter had a lascannon fixed solidly underneath for direct fire, and 8 long range missiles to engage enemy air units like zeppelins, bombers, droships and drop pods. Wouldn't stand much chance against a true starfighter, but that Fury_Interceptor is 5 times larger and maybe a thousand times more expensive. Pilots might be needed, as skills and reflexes would make a big difference.

I already had the light Weasels for infantry support and suppression, but I made a Chimera variant with a twin autocannon and krak grenade launchers for backup and elongated the troop hold by 6 meters, to allow the carrier to carry 50 guardsmen in relative safety. The upper tracks were lowered in height by half, to allow firing ports on the upper hull, for the infantry inside.

Heavy stubbers, or classic machine guns would be easier to make, but also quite irrelevant against almost any enemy. Tyranids, Orks, Eldar or Necrons would just shrug off normal bullets, so I didn't see the point of trying to build them.

Perhaps for police units, against fragile humans.

You may think those flying machines are easy to design, being many eras older than the current times, but the original makers had thousands of engineers and years to work with. I finished everything in 2 months, saved them on different dataslates, and marked them as ancient STCs from Old Terra. It was almost true, anyway.

Just in time, as we arrived at Illevar the next day, so I got some sleep.

The Vox channels instantly filled with a thousand urgent requests from everyone with access to a phone. Radiophone.

I waited for an hour and filtered through the transcripts. Years have passed since I last ruled from my capital, and many people seemed to have forgotten me.

Others had grown rich and powerful, especially the merchant and nobles houses allied directly to me via bloodlines.

It seemed Larrisa made it to Forge Incaladion just in time to cash in a Favor, blowing up two Ork Battleships and supporting the Mechanicus to contain a large Ork Waaagh.

The adamantium of those enormous warships would be melted and reforged into new destroyers and a fleet of missile corvettes, plus a hundred Doomhamer heavy tanks, just like I needed. The tanks would have to be converted into the better variant at Antax, but such is life. Can't win them all.

Wentian was still guarding Forge Shenlong, and their fleet was growing. The next two Lima-class hulls should be finished in a year or two.

And Veryon was still crusading to the north, his fleet increased with 4 more destroyers and an older cruiser captured from the locals, who used it as an orbital fort and trade station for lack of repair.

He did manage to lose 4 corvettes somehow, so the total numbers were much the same.

But I couldn't expect everyone in the clan to have my cheater luck, although Larrisa seemed to have inherited that trait, instead of the Blank gene. Fate is a fickle mistress, right?

I immediately dispatched three thousand tech-priests on the Litany light cruiser to Natale, the location of Veryon's outpost, to repair the cruiser hulk enough for a single Warp trip to Antax. Old ships wouldn't help us directly, but a Forge World could indeed create another amazing vessel like the refurbished Lament cruiser. It's hard to imagine, but consider finding another Great Pyramid somewhere, with a treasure of gold and bronze relic weapons inside, or another Sistine Chapel. That's how the Mechanicus view old ships being found, cleansed and lovingly restored as the Omnissiah's armored fists.

Old ships might also contain forgotten cogitator codes and rites, logis-engines with sacred data-engrams never seen before and so on. Lost star charts, hidden vaults buried in walls, some rusted unpowered weapons that in fact can one shot demons or planets...the archeotech from the Dark Age of Technology might be lost, but could also be found.

With my Canticle here in orbit over Illevar as defense, the Litany could be spared for other duties, such as supporting the Hymnal in the northward expansion. There were still some 20 human feral worlds out there, free for the taking, til we would meet the Orks.

A Catachan regiment and two armored battalions departed on the Litany, with 2 corvettes as escort and an Astartes bodyguard for my daughter Finona, the new Captain of the Litany. His name is Alactus, and I'm glad he didn't have to die this time.

Then I landed at the Blank Valley, which had grown again, and got welcomed with a dozen more Blank girls prepared to become my concubines. It wasn't just duty, as they were pretty and eager to contribute to the salvation of mankind. I tried to make it quite clear to every Blank what we meant for humanity, as our genes would protect our descendants from Chaos and demons. To be part of such a grandiose plan was enough for most of them, and having a life of safety and luxury in this quiet valley was a better life than most of the humanity could hope, in the grim 40th Millennium.

My wife Serena summoned a huge welcoming ball for the next week, where all the big shots would send daughters and sisters to entice me into becoming closer linked to the high classes.

She even marked one of the noble women as a potential wife, should Decima agree. I glanced at her pict capture and kinda agreed.

But pictures were not everything.

As I got close and took her hand for a dance, Grindelle screamed in agony and fell to the floor. Blue smoke started flowing from her eyes, and my Astartes quickly formed a defense perimeter.

"Lord Pef! The woman is a witch!" Rafen shouted and drew his special bolter out. The one with phase-iron munitions.

I held my hand out for calm. A psyker no doubt, and perhaps a telepath, making her way up the noble ranks, with more ease than simple womanly deceptions and wiles. Reading people's thoughts and perhaps influencing them to her will.

But a witch? That meant something else. I have seen Chaos servants, and they had a certain smell.

Couldn't marry the woman anymore, not if she fainted from a single touch, but I had other jobs of similar importance.

Astropaths of my own perhaps. Another mother for Navigators. Battle psykers...if only I knew a good psyker that could help me. Wait, I did.

"Lord Hulburn. Meet me at the medical labs on the south spire. Astartes Rafen will wait for you." I asked on the vox channel to the Canticle.

"So you have met the blue soul woman...her light is blinding me." his reply came as if he was dreaming. He probably was, I just realized. Navigators didn't see time like all of us.

"Bring an astropath and a Biologis Magos with you. You know which one...the scary one with twelve scalpel arms that hangs around the nursery." I continued without letting his tarot cards scare me.

I made my own fate. Better send the woman to Terra, and avoid the worrisome prophecy.

I should give that tech-priest a name. The Juggler, maybe. He made the kids laugh, by juggling his scalpels with unfailing accuracy and grace.

Better not think how fast those blades could exterminate all the nursery and guards. Possibly all the crew with some virus...

"... As you say, Captain Lancefire. Beware the 13th hidden blade." he muttered prophetically and closed the vox channel.

I was now quite certain he didn't mean a hidden scalpel, but the Black Crusade to come. I wonder if he knew what his visions meant. Probably not. The words would come true, but they wouldn't mean what you thought when you heard them.

And likely make you turn on an ally, and make him become your enemy. Damn seers.

That's why I hated the crazy Eldar. They would always point you in the wrong direction, at the wrong the target.

If they were so wise, how come they created Slaanesh then?

No, I would trust my own judgement. It hasn't failed me yet.