I had my Space Noodle head for one of the largest ships, a cruiser floating right besides the flagship. The flagship itself had too many ‘protagonist’ grade people on it, along with good old Solomon, who I wasn’t quite done with yet. Still, I wanted the space snake to be too close for comfort to them.

Plus, there were also a few people I was keeping an eye on among the ones aboard the targeted cruiser. Heroic Guardsmen, rugged veterans, determined Space Marines … even some Space Marines with their helmets off. 

Space Wolves almost always had theirs off, either because they thought their skulls were just a thick as ceramite or because they were of the mind that the ability to make use of their bestial senses was worth more than avoiding getting shot in the head.

I could safely conclude that for them, there was no Plot Armour, no mystical force to protect them. Senses or no, they got their brains aired out at a rate that made me wonder how the Chapter survived the last ten millennia. 

The few of them that had some proper ranks had refractor fields around their heads to have the best of both worlds, but the regular Marines just … didn’t give a fuck. Still, somehow, Space Wolves were still a thing this far into the Imperium’s reign, so maybe they knew something I didn’t.

Whatever. They didn’t matter. Nor did the few Marines I managed to bait into taking their helmets off through a few Ork puppets — I didn’t take control of my Orks, just made new meat-puppets to beat on suspicious Astartes — and so far I found no sign of any of them being reality-breakingly lucky or something.

I still had my eyes on a few though, especially on the Squad that had been assigned to guard Inquisitor Thrace once upon a time. Taking revenge on the Big Bad Evil Girl who killed their charge would be suitably epic in my opinion for them to be the ‘heroes’ of this story.

If they died in the attempt? Then it was even better, because people couldn’t have nice things in this Galaxy and everything had to be Grimdark. Stupid depressing galaxy. I wouldn’t let it take what nice things I had from me. Not Selene, and not the shred of peace having a place of my own to fortify against all threats and build up my power gave me. 

Some might say that wandering the Galaxy as I gathered my strength would have been smarter, since it would have left my enemies no fixed location to strike at. But that failed to account for the fact that one, I didn’t want to live as a cowardly vagrant, and two, that I would have walked into a trap sooner or later. 

The Vallia System was free of Daemons, and soon I would know everything that happened in it. Not a single ant could so much as take a dump without me knowing.

It was safe…-ish

. A fortress where I could feel at least somewhat safe. And I could still run if I had to. It would be a pain to leave behind everything I’d built here — arcologies, Dyson swarm, biomass farms, citizens — but I’d do it in a heartbeat if I had to. 

The only thing I had that I couldn’t bear losing was Selene. And … maybe my daughters, but even them, I barely knew even now, despite my attempts to build up my bonds with them. I would survive losing them. It’d hurt, but the person I am now would survive it mostly intact.

Losing Selene would … kill a part of me, and likely, send me into a spiral into the abyss. I’d become just another grim monster, finally fitting into this shithole of a Galaxy in truth.

She was my anchor. To my humanity, to my positive emotions, to … myself, even, in a way. 

I felt a tug at our Bond, just before positive emotions flowed into my mind from halfway across the System. Smiling to myself, I banished my darkening thoughts and sent back a wave of affection and appreciation.

She really was too good for me. I’d have to do something nice for her once all this was over and done with, maybe take her on a date? Hmmm. Would a noble girl from the 42nd millennium even appreciate a date like I understood it? 

I thought back to our walk on Vallia, then decided that … partially, yes. She had enjoyed the scenic walks through nature, but she had enjoyed slaughtering the interesting beasts we came across even more. 

So then something sweet and nice first, then something to satiate her bloodlust? … I did promise to take her to hunt down a Void Kraken, didn’t I? That could work. A nice dinner, a scenic flight through the stars, then a battle against a colossal space monstrosity that ate starships for dinner. 

Not what most people back in my time would have called romantic, but they were all too dead to judge me. Forty thousand years dead. 

Aaaaaaaaand I am getting depressive thoughts again. Let’s change gears. Fuck being depressed. I’ll … rebuild a proper society anyway, it’ll just take some time. 

My Arcologies were a work in progress, but in time, they’d flourish, and I’d have a place that wasn’t horribly depressing, something of an extreme rarity in this era.

Anyway, back to business. “What do you think of my space noodle?”

“Query: Are you referring to the colossal Void Serpent?” Zedev asked, not even bothering to glance at me as the old Magos sat hunched over a holo terminal. I nodded, taking a peek at his progress slipping into the Deathwatch’s comm-network, then grinned. A few more minutes and we’d be in. “It is a subpar piece of void warfare, but it serves its own purpose well. It is intended to strike terror in your enemies, I assume, and it does that perfectly, even if most Imperial Navy officers are desensitised to fearing things like it from having to face Tyranids with some regularity.”

“True,” I mused. “I’ll have to give it something extra to make them properly terrified of my little pet. Though I think its effectiveness should be terrifying enough.”

As I spoke, I zoomed in on the ‘little’ snake as it curled around the Void-Shield of a heavy cruiser, its gigantic fangs sinking into the elliptical shell and piercing through with some effort. 

Good, it seems I’d made those and the scales resistant enough to Warp bullshit. I thought, watching as corrosive acid flooded out of those fangs in thick gouts, splattering across the hull of the ship. Zooming in even further, I watched as the metallic armour covering the ship softened, then started bubbling like a boiling pot of stew. 

The other ships spread out a bit, and it only took the Lord Militant a quarter of a second to decide to throw the unfortunate ship under the bus, so to say. Broadsides opened up and lance batteries opened fire, letting loose a devastating barrage on my poor pet. 

I could feel its mental shriek of pain and rage as the concentrated bombardment punched holes into its scaled hide, tearing into the flesh beneath and turning it into tatters. It was livid, not at the prospect of death, but at the idea of dying without accomplishing the task I’d given it.

Gathering what remained of the soul-energy I’d given it, the creature drew all it could out of the rest of its body and concentrated all it had on its head and fangs. That of course made the rest of its body even more susceptible to damage, and even the Void Shield started to eat into its flesh, teleporting building-sized chunks into the Warp.

I felt the beast roar in defiance, though the sound didn’t travel beyond its lungs, and then grinned as it lurched forward, its head punching through the Void-Shield in a last hurrah. 

Once through, it had mere seconds before the ship’s weapons or the Void Shield itself would do it in by cutting its head off, but that proved enough. Its jaws opened wide, hundreds of metres apart, fangs gleaming in the flickering light of the lance batteries splattering their payloads across its face, ineffectual.

Then its maw clamped shut around the ship, massive fangs sinking into the thick hull and punching through with some effort. The smart noodle didn’t bite just anywhere, one of its fangs going right through the command deck and the other punching into the Warp-Drive from underneath. Then, with its final breath, it released all its remaining reserve of acid.

With a thought, I retrieved the black-box containing its mind and patted it idly as I continued watching, a grin tugging at the edge of my lips. The four massive holes in the ship all started melting under the effect of the acid, which now flowed freely through the interior, turning massive chunks of it into molten slurry. 

The Warp-Drive flickered, then failed, quickly followed by the Void-Shield generators nearby, which itself precluded the death of the final ship. Without the shields to protect it, the barrage from the rest of the fleet struck not only the tattered remains of my Jormungandr but also the wounded ship. 

If I was in any other sci-fi setting, the admiral leading the fleet would have ordered a stop to the bombardment, likely in horror at what he had done. Here? Here he told them to not stop firing until the ship was turned to scrap, to avoid any chance of anyone on board ‘contaminated’ with whatever the space snake released remaining alive. 

I could see where he was coming from — I could have instead given the snake a breath weapon that spread some horrid plague — but it was just paranoia in this instance. Oh well. All those people came here with the sole intention of killing me and turning what I had built into a smouldering wreck. 

Fuck them. Sure, not all of them enlisted willingly, and even less took part in the decision to attack me, but the majority did, and all of them were okay with offing a random Psyker in the ass end of nowhere. The vast majority were in some way happy, even, to take part in eliminating a threat to the Imperium before it could become a true threat.

So, to reiterate: Fuck. Them.

I had no room for mercy or pity in my heart, not for them. The only ones I kinda pitied were the Psykers, but only because they truly didn't have a single choice in the matter. Just like they didn’t have a single choice in anything in their lives. Very few Sanctioned Psykers had the privilege of choosing what they did, as in, most of them were little better than slaves. 

Not the kind like Zara and Mara were, abused, broken and exploited until they had nothing left to give, but slaves nonetheless. Navigators were the exception, along with the precious few Psykers that lucked out and became Inquisitors like Eisenhorn and Ravenor. 

“Statement: I am in,” Zedev said, straightening his mechanical spine with an air of grumpiness about him, annoyed that I’d taken him away from his lab for so long — aka, thirty minutes. “Request: return me to my laboratorium, my task here is done.”

“Not interested in watching the fight go down?” I asked, waving a hand at the projected Illusory screens. “Or in the mysterious relics they want to use to kill me?”

“A foolhardy attempt,” he said disdainfully. “They do not understand what they are up against, I doubt those relics are anything outstanding. They will end up on my desk sooner or later anyway, once you’ve murdered them all.”

I shrugged at that while waving my hand superfluously, creating a portal leading back to his precious lab. The Magos gave a last buzzing goodbye in Binary, not even bothering to translate it to Low Gothic before walking through with clanking stomps. 

“If I may?” My new blue friend spoke up a few moments later, hesitance audible in his tone. I nodded affably, urging him to continue. “What was that creature?”

“It’s a ‘him’,” I said, smirking as I gave him a glance, only now recalling how he had hidden in the corner of the room in silence ever since Zedev had lumbered into the room. “Never met a tech priest before?”

“Tech-priest?” He blinked at me slowly. “I did, the engineers of your kind, yes? But … but they didn’t look like that thing. Was there even any flesh left in him, or was it all machine?”

“They never go full machine,” I said with some amusement. Tau being horrified at the grim darkness of the rest of the galaxy never gets old. Furthermore, I was feeling pretty miserable about the state of the galaxy myself just minutes ago, and as they say, misery loves company. “I think Zedev still has part of his brain left, about 60% of it, I think? Plus, his skin, of course, but even that’s just treated skin patched back on top of more cybernetics to make him look vaguely human. It wouldn’t do if the normies mistook him for an AI after all … that abbreviation stands for ‘abominable intelligence’, by the way. That should tell you all you need to know about their design philosophy and beliefs.”

His look of disbelief and horror was like a balm to my soul, and as he fell silent again to ruminate on my answers, I went back to my task at hand. I had a pair of relics to grab and a few Space Marines to bully in the name of researching Plot Armour.

In the meantime, I could also work on designing Jormungandr’s next iteration. Patting the fist-sized sphere that was its black-box, I hummed thoughtfully.

If I wanted it to actually last and be viable long term, I’d have to come up with a way for it to sustain itself indefinitely. Without any prey to feed on anywhere close to its size, it would starve to death in days without me pumping it full of bio-energy every day. 

A low-power mode would be prudent too, then some way to charge itself. Hmmm. I could probably make it solar-powered by sticking on some solar panels onto its hide. I already had the designs to use from my heat-absorbing pylons and my solar-panels orbiting the local star. 

Those weren’t made to handle active combat, but I might be able to figure something out. Maybe a plume around its neck that it could pull under its scales when heading into combat?

Food for thought.