Every year, a lucky ship Captain from my clan gets the honor of discovering another flotilla of abandoned destroyers, mostly intact if in bad repair.

It seems the systems around our core worlds are littered with pirate ships, the crew vanished and ship logs showing no clue.

Then again, there are strange Warp things like the Maelstrom and the Hadex Anomaly which often cause the same results to unwary explorers.

Soon enough, the eager Navigators and my officers get to fly their new ship to a Forge World like Metalica or Tigrus, to get it upgraded for Fringe operations, in exchange for xeno artifacts or even a rare STC pattern of lesser value.

Then a heavy cruiser gets found, and sent to Triplex Phall to receive a Nova Cannon, right as Primarch Guilliman begins his own enormous Crusade, creating a hundred new Fortress Worlds in the path of the Tyranid Fleets, and mustering a million Guard regiments all over the Ultima Segmentum.

That's the real power of a Primarch, and there are few who dare say no to the Son of the Emperor.

Primarch Khan is doing something else around the Solar Segmentum, cleaning up corruption on the larger Hive Worlds, with an ever-increasing horde of Astartes and a few Mechanicus Legions. Hive World Necromunda gets mentioned a few times by the astropaths, which doesn't surprise me at all. Khan really is a pointed sword, and I did point him at Necromunda.

A dozen Astartes Chapters get founded at his demand, to safeguard those Hive Worlds, after the tech-priests have scoured the under-hives for extra servitors and hidden STCs. Cults get investigated and butchered, corrupt Governors burned alive, just business as usual in the Imperium. No mention of Reality Cages being installed anywhere, which is troubling.

The Siege of Forge Hypnoth ends in a Pyrrhic victory for Cult Mechanicus, as the Necrons unleashed a few advanced infocyte viruses on that Forge, destroying many of the defenses and the robotic defenders.

But it is still a victory, as Hypnoth is not conquered, while the attacking Necrons lose two Tomb Ships and a dozen Harvest Ships to the combined might of the defenders. Massed torpedo volleys and archeotech weapons from the Ark Mechanicus cruiser are the principal methods that worked, plus Nova Cannon cruisers supporting the fleet from afar. Knights and Baneblades with Ion Shields prove devastating on the ground, just like Fury Interceptors in void combat.

Soon after, a certain Warp Rift in the vicinity, called the Van_Grothe's_Rapidity closes unexpectedly. I suspect this was Lord Trazyn, playing with his Blackstone Fortress and testing its capabilities. A Chaos strike force that departs from the Hadex Anomaly towards Solemnace disappears mysteriously, which only hints at more anti-Warp weaponry being experimented by the insane Necron wizard.

Sadly, I am banned from Sotha for several more years, so I don't get a clear confirmation, except reading astropathic telegrams and my own logical deductions.

Larissa does get a special mission afterwards, and sneakily blows up a Necron World called Cthelmax, which seemed to be a dead world but really wasn't. The star system is now littered with fragments of Necron tech and entire asteroids made of blackstone, so we have another salvage and mining spot only known to my clan and Forge Retribution.

My daughter Andrea travels to Forge Megyre, and sells them the tip about the melted Space Hulk on Gorkamorka, and gets promised another fleet carrier filled with torpedo corvettes, and a dozen more Catachan regiments, provisioned to our own specifications. The STC dataslates and warning about Necron and Tyranid invasions spur the Fabricator into a massive defensive buildup, which will be constructed from the recovered adamantium and blackstone from the burned world.

It will take a few decades for a solid result of this trip, but Andrea did tow a large Dark Eldar cruiser after her, which is filled with advanced xeno tech. Our Favor is guaranteed now.

Forge Antax gets the same and more, as I donate to them the old Grand Cruiser I confiscated in the Magog Crusade, and they immediately begin repairs and refit to create a true Ark Mechanicus from the casino ship.

My mentor Gyron is away though, and it wouldn't surprise me if Forge World Palomar simply gets expunged from all records.

Finding an intact STC is the Holy Grail of Cult Mechanicus, and the culmination of any Magos Explorer's life. Sadly, I can't really help my mentor directly, but I did point him at the right path.

I also whisper a rumour to Forge Ryza, via my daughter Ginea. She went there with another Dark Eldar cruiser in tow, and more blackstone and adamantium, to propose the Macharius-Omega tank pattern, based around an atomantic reactor and a simplified Plasma blastgun, covered by an Ion and a Flare shield.

There was also a Sentinel variant with an Ion Shield and a Melta gun, for anti-necron work, but we didn't have miniaturized plasma reactors and plasma weaponry. Only Ryza or Mars could make these, and we only wanted a thousand Macharius tanks and ten thousand Sentinels.

She came back with our second fleet carrier called Daedalus and ten Catachan infantry regiments, plus a small Explorer expedition to be based at Forge Retribution. And by small expedition, I mean five cruisers and 20 destroyers, plus a few million tech-priests and enginseers on a Mobile Forge ship containing most of their advanced technology.

The Ork Invasion on Ryza was still going on, although a single continent remained infested with greenskins, and the Ironclad battleship on the moon had been breached and raised, to be converted in a powerful Ark Mechanicus, armed with the best technology of the Cult. That would take perhaps a century, so it was a long project. Still much faster than building an adamantium hull from zero.

The colonization into the second wave of expansion continues with this influx of hardy pioneers, and also immigrants from nearby Hive Worlds.

It will take a decade to produce the first Reality Cage at Forge Retribution, because we do have too many projects going on. Like repairing and upgrading the Vitrix battleship, which takes megatonnes of plasteel, adamantium and blackstone for example.

But the Fabricator Dominus is also training millions of new acolytes which will take over the job of servicing tanks and fighters and Sentinels, as well as mining machinery and colonial infrastructure.

Slowly, the more experienced tech-priests will return to the Forge and be replaced, increasing the manufacture output a dozen times.

And they do manufacture, by hand and tentacle.

The only concession I could receive was for wood processing and furniture factories, which are being organized on every jungle or forest planet with fewer restrictions and religious protocol. I think the Mechanicus just doesn't see organic processing to have the same value as metal and forging, which kinda makes sense.

Exporting furniture and paper is a good business though, as the huge masses of humanity in the Imperium need as many megatonnes of it as they can find.

Of course, we never sell directly to a Hive World, which would be stupid and costly. We donate our wares to a nearby Forge World, and they sell it, using the cash to recover the cost for the machinery they gift to us. It's a simple but effective tax evasion method, as no money changes hands, thus no value can be asserted to our trade.

The Imperium might catch on in a few hundred years, but by then the infrastructure would be built, and dozens of generations would have used these machines and electronics to create new towns, railways, roads, power grids and many other projects of planetary importance. Even then, there is little the Imperium can do, to a Trader dynasty based beyond the borders.

Well there is, the Administratum can expand the Imperial borders to include my holdings or withdraw my Warrant of Trade, but I also have friends in high places.

And while the first Company of Lamenters slowly gets trained and implanted with their special organs, the next company of Blank recruits is reaching the cutoff age for safe implantation. So they spread their gene-seed into as many women as humanly possible, about 600 every year. It is hard work, as I can attest personally.

I had to stop accepting new daughters and their sisters from the local nobility into my bed, just because my body was still flesh and thus weak. Plus Blank concubines were a lot more effective at producing Blank babies.

One new planet usable mostly for agriculture was consecrated as a Cardinal world though, at the request of my saintly nurses, and then a miracle occurred, as thousands of Sisters of Battle kidnapped by the savage Dark Eldar appeared on the surface, followed by millions of former slaves and captured people.

There were even Order Familious sister among them, and let me tell you those women were not saintly at all. They rapidly took charge of my eugenics project, mixing and matching genetic attributes for extra reliability and durability, first among the new immigrants, then my Catachan regiments, and lastly my own clan.

Even their own Sisters of Battle were kinda harshly ordered to start pumping babies to increase the next generations of female warrior by ten times.

Sadly, no Imperial Cult priests or Administrators were found among the saved, and thus they had to improvise and select leaders from their own ranks. Female Bishops worked side by side with a self-elected Cannoness and her retinue, while my clan and tech-priests provided housing and infrastructure.

And of course, every visit by me or Victor and any of my sons was seen as some sort of day of celebration which ended with a dozen Sisters getting impregnated while singing glory hymns to the God Emperor.

It is a crazy galaxy, but I have learned not to examine the underlying substrates too deeply. Take whatever joy from life you can, because the Tyranids were coming, and the horrors were endless.

The only problem is my slightly overpraised legend, and over-analyzed life, which leads to Lady Justine being declared a Saint for fighting beside the Angel of the Emperor to defeat Fulgrim the Serpent, and myself for killing Lorgar the Traitor.

Well, they surely don't know everything I did, because I would get burned alive as well.

Anyway, this effervescence of religion sentiment spreads among all the worlds and colonies, which increases productivity and reduces dissent, especially in the Hive Cities.

There is even a proposal to begin construction of new Hive City on Salvation, the new Cardinal world. I delay that for a few decades, because manpower and resources are not sufficient. Plus I want that world to produce food, both cereals and meat.

Fisheries are being set up, and millions of grox and local poultry get imported from other agri-worlds in preparation for large food processing plants getting built here, as well as buying tractors and cereal seed.

If this project works, I might duplicate it on a dozen more worlds with slightly better climate. My Hive Cities sure need to receive other food than processed algae, nutrigruel, carboloafs, vitamead and recycled proteins. Already their populations are slightly healthier and vigurous, from vaccines and food imports, but the Imperium is too far and expensive to trade with in large quantities.

At least water and methane are not an issue, due to having system-corvettes deployed in every system, able to drag comets into orbit for processing.

Asteroids are plentiful as well, both for minerals and silicates, so the industry gets a cheap influx of resources.

Defenses get built over every single world, also outposts and listening posts for a hundred light-years all around, which is normal and common sense in my opinion.

Then one day, a Mars-class Battlecruiser and an Universe-class conveyor arrive at Illevar, with a couple of White Scars on board.