I have gotten used to time itself being a currency of the galaxy.

So, when the Fabricator of Angstrom tells me he might need 80 years just to reduce the size of an engine from 10 kilometers battleships to 7 kilometers like a battlecruiser, it appears natural and a short time.

I nod wisely, and advise him to use 20 years just to train a conclave of tech-priests by building big engines and selling those to the Imperial Navy. More minds and brains are better than just a few, and the Imperium will need these specialists anyway.

He agrees, after a minute of silent deliberation. "We shall do so, Lord Lancefire. So, you have an Astartes Chapter now."

"A very reduced one, Fabricator. No combat-able Space Marines remain for my Lamenters. Most neophytes and aspirants are gone as well, and their gene-seed is still damaged. We don't even have enough crew to man all these captured vessels." I explain in a tired voice.

"And the same for those Traitor marines that you preserved. The Inquisition will arrive for investigation and possibly execution of the survivors." the Archmagos says in a confident tone.

I highly doubt that. In fact, the High Lords on Terra will most likely impose penance and a century of crusade to these failed Astartes. "That will take a few months. Let's make sure the Executioners and the Mantis Warriors get some aid in recovering their numbers, plus a thousand techmarines each. Plenty of gene-seeds can be recovered from the corpses, plus they do have intact stocks in their gene-vaults."

"And what stock of men will they use, Lord Pef? Miners and servants from the planets in this system?" he argues, kinda dismissive.

Well, he does have a point. But I have an answer for that too. "Those, if the miners are healthy and without mutation. Some of your own fresh acolytes for the techmarines, and some of my Catachans and voidsmen. The same for the Lamenters techmarines. For the Lamenters Battle-Brothers we will use Blank recruits in the Eastern Fringe, which have proven to resist the rage curse, in our testing with the Blood Angels. Blanks are such a wonderful and convenient genetic stock, after all. No mutations, no Warp corruption, and that even works for organic parts in Machine Spirits. Forge Estaban makes them already." I announce and detach my vambrace Power Shield, which is indeed made on Estaban and hand it over.

The Mechanicus Fabricator scans and considers the Power Shield for a long hour, turning the orange energy field on and striking it with his portable arsenal. I only recognize a third of his weapons, and I think one of those pistols is a psylancer, something only Ordo Malleus and the Grey Knights are allowed to have. Then again, someone has to produce these weapons, and that is only the Mechanicus.

"It does seem to work, Lord Lancefire. Sure, it is very low-level technology, as it is. Any Forge can make these power shields, and Estaban still uses nanometer-scale forges. The quality is abject!" the tech-priest complains in disgust.

He might puke his guts out, if he learns my Forge Retribution only has millimeter-scale quality control for the cheap infantry vehicles. So I don't tell him. See, I'm smart like that!

"Want to check my savant implants while we're not busy? I may need a better implant, and more functions if I have to lead an Astartes Chapter. Never been a Space Marine before, you see?" I ask in a wry tone.

My skull gets shaven and cut open in a minute, and I hear grumbling and more quality-control expletives. A few hours later, my skull is put back together, and a whole new world opens to me. I can see the datasphere now, hear the machines constant droning and hear electric currents and taste infobytes on my tongue. And there's something else, a feeling of control over my armor...

"I have given you a Mind Impulse Unit, Lord Lancefire. You will certainly be able to pilot any human ship or vehicle, up to Knight suits. I have also cleaned some blood clots and silver particles deposited on your right brain lobe. A tech-priest has made a mess in there, so you were right to request a new implant. Silver and gold! Cheap materials like that will not sustain battlefleet-scale computations, nor resist stronger Machine Spirits like an Astartes Battle Barge has, via the Captain's command throne." The Fabricator explains in a weird tone, while holding out my old implant in a mechadendrite.

"Is the implant defective?" I wonder out loud.

"Not exactly, no. You would be brain-dead, if it was. But it was deformed by some type of Warp phenomena, as you can see here. Where it was not covered in cerebral fluid and your blood, the golden eagle sigilium that shines, without bio-electric impulse. I think you had a relic in your head, Chapter Master Lancefire." The Fabricator says in an awed voice and sprinkles some incense on the implant. The glow fades.

"... I had an active Warp emitter in my head? Would that even work on a Blank?" I asked in confusion.

"Not directly, no. But a powerful Primaris_Psyker or a skilled Navigator, might be able to track the emanations of this relic. An Alpha-level psyker, at least." he mused while tinkering with the exposed and slightly corroded sigil, slicing it off and placing it in front of me for inspection.

The nail-sized twin Aquila still shined, very faintly.

Would Gyron even know this tracker was there? Probably not. He wasn't a psyker.

I powered up my better implant and began running simulations and timelines. Gyron took care of me for Justine, in exchange for some Inquisition job on Antax.

Is that where he got this implant from? The Inquisition did use henchmen known as a Sage, and they would like to keep track of them. Valuable knowledge in their brains, after all.

Somewhere up the chain a command, there was a Lord Inquisitor with Alpha-level psyker powers, who could track my movements from a sector away.

Then of course...whatever the Angel did to me, which activated the relic during the time when the sacred Astartes blood reached my brain.

The Red Thirst followed, or was induced. Was this kind of Thorian plot? Some faction of the Inquisition keeping tabs on potential Divine Vessels?

The Eldar Avatars and their potential incarnations as an Eldar Deity...and my Rose was an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor.

Avatars, Enslavers, Psychneuein or Vampyrs they could all transcend the barriers of the realspace and the Immaterium, and the Thorians searched for a similar method which could allow the Emperor to return to a flesh body.

And who was best friends with the Eldar, among the Lord Inquisitors? Was it perhaps Bronislaw_Czevak ?

Seemed the most probable conclusion, from the facts I had. Of course, I might be paranoid and nobody was actually looking at me like the next flesh-suit of the Emperor of Mankind.

But it made sense to be paranoid, especially if the Emperor himself was the one behind the scenes, pulling strings and arranging lucky accidents and Angels showing up. I have seen that Angel three times, which was a trillion times more than anyone else.

'Oh Adam, my friend. Things must be really bad out there, if you rely on me to save you. What's next? You transform my lovely Sisters of Battle into Living Saints? Canis into a Holy Wolf? Maybe Janice?!'

I murmured in my mind, holding the tiny golden eagle in my palm.

Other potential plots ran in my mind, Inquisitors searching for Sensei, Emperor's flesh children and Eternals just like the Emperor, who they sacrificed ritually to grant their Master extra strength via bloodline infusion.

I doubted this was the case, as Eternals did not get old, while I needed life extension and that rejuvenate treatment to recover my youth.

Anyway, there was little I could do, that I didn't do already.

I had Space Marines, and ships and tanks and a good relation with the Forges in the segmentum, even had a small Forge World of my own. I had my Warrant of Trade and an unauthorized Rosetta, and then I had heretical xeno tech that helped change the odds of any battle.

It was time to return to my kingdom and expand and expand again. My captured ships will need to be 'discovered' abandoned among distant Fringe stars.

A dozen nearby jungle worlds will need to be colonized, by importing more Catachan infantry regiments, tech-priests and millions or billions of indentured women from any Hive World in range.

And after this stage, gather more strength, build more units and attack again. Wave after wave of colonization, growth and expansion, til my private empire outnumbered the dispersed Imperium a thousand to one.