After yet another deific spat in our presence, Quaani and I do not resume our conversation. Instead, we fall to our knees and pray for twelve hours. It is not faith in the Emperor that brings me comfort, for I have never had the disposition to worship another. Instead it is the comfort of familiar words, the gentle drone of my voice providing a focus for my meditations, that bring me a small measure of peace.

During our prayers, Quaani and I take turns to cast purifying spells upon each other and the chapel. There is no corruption to be found, yet we persist, just to be sure. Our words to each other are few, yet terribly heavy.

“Aldrich, I am so sorry,” says Quaani.

I shake my head, “You couldn’t have known and I should not have asked. We both know better.”

Quaani’s face is heavy with guilt and remorse as thick incense billows across his tight lips and furrowed brow.

“That does not make my behaviour acceptable. Trying to circumvent saying their names was foolish. I know I am cursed. It seems no matter what I say, they will hear.”

“I believe that all deities can speak and listen as they please. The only difference is that now you have their attention.”

“Such is my sin. What must I do?”

“Pray until you are ready to face yourself once again. Do not linger over long. Annette needs you.”

Quaani winces, “Can I even hold my son when he is born? I cannot judge aura for myself.”

I spend several minutes contemplating the question.

“You can hold Annette. Your son will have to be kept a few rooms over. Depending on his strength you should keep your distance until he is at least six, the same as the youngest Ortelius navigator who has been in your presence. Your aura is not for the faint of heart.”

“A penance of my own is the least I can do. I am only sorry it will affect Annette and George.”

“You’re calling him George, after my grandfather?”

“We are.”

I smile, “For that alone I would offer forgiveness, yet that would be pointless for you would not accept it. I shall keep you busy with duty instead. We leave for Footfall in a month.”

“I will be ready.”

Eventually, I rise, ready to return to my duties, leaving Quaani's disinheritance unresolved. Quaani remains in prayer, sweat trickling down his purple brow and making his blue, feathery eyebrows shimmer.

Just before I depart, I rest my hand on Quaani’s shoulder and say, “Oh, and Quaani, you can always pilot a Servitor. I’ll make a proper body double. I know it’s not the same but you can stop looking like the world just ended.”

“My judgement has been terribly clouded if I could miss something that obvious,” Quaani sighs. “Please let Annette know I am recovering.”

“I will. You should call her yourself though.”

“Right. Of course. I will do so.”

I leave the chapel and send orders to have Quaani watched at all times. I do not think his is suicidal, but I do not trust whatever lingering Warp malaise he has not to push him in a unfavourable direction.

Twenty-four hours after the detonation of the bombs, the first merchant vessel departs. By the time they reach the Mandeville point, the last of the Warp storm will be long gone.

Most vessels are quick to follow, including Chapter Master Lir on Grave’s Bite, yet a few captains remain. Calligos’ fleet and the black ship linger on, as does Petitor Veritas and Inquisitor Lyre Hamiz, all of whom plan to accompany us at least as far as Footfall and possibly beyond.

Three weeks into our preparations, a Carrack Class transport arrives from Haddon’s Throne, Cobalt. They carry the first cargo from my new colony, a mix of hydrocarbons, and plastics. They also ship water, seafood, and exotic gasses from Cobalt on behalf of Governor Mattius Stigstaff.

Mattius, according to his missive, is delighted about the new trade route and to finally have a proper, reliable market for his planet’s goods. He’s so confident that most of his produce is used to recruit and provide passage for twenty thousand colonists from the cramped depths of the Receiving Yards. Many are keen to take up Mattius’ offer, what with the void station being smashed in half and under new leadership.

I could cling onto such men and women and refuse his request but I see little need to do so with the influx of unneeded soldiers from Caligos still causing trouble and my agreement with him to import new colonists. Despite the casualties, there are still millions of people in the system.

For the remainder of his funds Mattius has requested metals so that he can establish a new city upon the back of one of the wild leviathans that roam his ice locked ocean world. He’s even commissioned a hydroponic void station and a flight of D-POTs to improve the diet of his serfs beyond krill and algae paste. Perhaps his tour of Iron Crane inspired him.

I am pleased to hear that the Orks have not resurfaced on Cobalt after the last purge and that the development of Haddon’s Throne is as on schedule as one could hope for. The penal workers have done much to defray the costs of using more valuable workers, like Servitors and Tech-Adepts, making the losses due to accidents near inconsequential.

It remains uncertain if it is the guns of ancient voidships trained upon the moon of frozen methane, or that we actually pay our prisoners and don’t feed them corpse starch made from the remains of failed work gangs that keeps them in line. For now, incidents remain minimal and morale among both penal workers and settlers is adequate.

I have no doubt that trouble will occur eventually, if for no other reason than Chaos will seep into the settlement at the slightest of unintentional invitations. I can only put my trust in the systems and people I have left in place. Well, that and the first of my astropathic relays that are finally online. Nothing like knowing your boss is watching and reinforcements are barely a month away.

Much of our time before departure is spent reorganising the Heralds and integrating the troops that House Ortelius gifted to us, boosting their numbers and fitting them into our order of battle.

It would have been more efficient to do so earlier, but my mind was on purging the Zombie Plague and herding Penitents. Brigid and the rest of Fleet Command were already busy with their own administration work. Maeve with running the purge, Eire with repair and integration of the Receiving Yards, Lonceta repressing religious riots and so on.

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Existing Herald regiments are also enjoying an overhaul as adjustments for more power armour and the increase in Warforged and Battlesmiths requires some changes in the order of battle.

New equipment is coming online too, with the Mark Ⅲ versions of our lasguns, void carapace and MOA shields undergoing significant revisions. The revisions include Luminen Barriers and shields getting added to the MOA shields and carapace armour.

The lasguns have been given a bit more independence and have their own energy packs as well as the feed from the armour through their gloves. They’ve also gained limited self charging. Initially, the independence of the guns was limited to make theft inconvenient. That turned out to be a bit excessive when once can use other software and hardware tricks to achieve the same effect.

This has the added benefit of not having to produce a different line of weapons for our light infantry regiments, which is where we put all our penal soldiers.

I am unhappy with providing penal soldiers with self charging guns, even if it’s only one powerpack per hour, and would love to give them stubbers, but that would mean carting around large amounts of ammunition for a regiment that’s supposed to be quick on its feet.

Sixty-Five percent of our new light penal regiments are light infantry battalions, each of which ninety-eight percent are penal soldiers and two percent officers. It’s sixty-five percent penal battalions to regular battalions because I wasn’t going to allow criminals to drive their own tanks, run logistics, or be part of the regiment command structure.

In any other force, this would not be a problem, but I do not trust explosive collars to keep people in-line when some of our criminals have been through my education system and their primary role is to defray casualties for more valuable regiments.

It was pointed out to me though that if such individuals want to cause trouble, those with advanced knowledge and implants do not need a fancy gun to wreck everything. They can manage just fine with a few lines of code or a box of scraps if they really know what they’re doing. In the end I issued power armour to the officers commanding the penal battalions and closed the issue. I can only pray that I have made the correct decision.

There was some discussion about replacing the Chimera chassis with the Leman Russ chassis for our Chimeras (IFVs) as the Russ is slightly larger, by four cubic metres, and this would enable us to cut a production line. However, the proposal proved untenable as the Russ hull is poorly shaped for carrying troops as it is tall, thin, and long, rather than short, fat, and wide.

This, once again, ignited a furious debate between Maeve, Lonceta, and Major General Domhnall Noake, commanding officer of my Void Assault regiment, about the utility of the Rhino chassis as it can be both an IVF or fitted as a Predator Tank.

Noake put together an impressive presentation arguing that using our ‘E’ versions of Imperial guard armour is a case of penny pinching, and thus ‘Bit smart and Byte dumb’ as the primary cost of these vehicles isn’t making them, or even maintaining them, but getting them to the battlefield in the first place.

Maeve fired back, pointing out that the Rhino is an over-engineered exploration vehicle repurposed for the military, one that is approximately two thirds the size of the Leman Russ and Chimera. That would require us to produce more vehicles and more importantly, more of our D-POT shuttles to get the Rhino’s on the ground if we want to continue our current doctrine of being able to land a third of a regiment at a time, which we do.

Shuttles require hangars, lots of space, and many other supporting services, which would skyrocket our transportation costs, the exact opposite of the ‘bonus’ of using the Rhino and moving to a single chassis was supposed to provide.

Sure, on paper, we would have more reliable and resilient vehicles, but after Rosin’s upgrades there isn’t much difference as anything that can take out one of her vehicles could also reduce a Rhino to scrap while if it can’t take out a Rhino, it isn’t going to overly trouble an ‘E’ variant either, especially with our new armour mix from the Rogue Pattern power armour STC.

Maeve argued that even though the base Rhino is a far better chassis than the original Chimera and Leman Russ, and moderately better than the E variants that we use, upgrading to the Rhino Chassis wouldn’t make a practical difference.

I tried my own hand at trying to create a protocol that would let us manufacture all our ground vehicles while on approach to a planet, either from stored parts or from scratch, saving us from the trouble of preparing hundreds of completed vehicles for storage and allowing for more efficient use of space.

In the end Fleet Command settled for continuing with both E-variant chassis, due to the space constraints of the Rhino, and keeping two thirds of our ground vehicles disassembled. Even without the Iron Craneto accompany us, we will still have a good industrial base.

Fleet Command’s final decision has not stopped the HiveSim battles to settle this debate with Stellar Fleet MANI and the departing Stellar Fleet SOL personnel arbitrarily dividing between the two points of view and engaging in some epic simulations to ‘solve the debate forevermore’ under the excuse of a shake down as reorganisation continues.

I considered putting a stop to the nonsense and decided otherwise. Some fun and games before we split is a good way for people to work through their emotions. So far, neither side has acquired a significant advantage over the other.

Torchbearer has undergone extensive internal refitting and work is still ongoing, not that I ever expect it to finish. A Lunar Class cruiser is five kilometres long and zero point eight kilometres wide. One does not simply stop working on such an edifice, though work upon it does ebb and flow as crews and major projects come and go.

One thing that won’t be happening anytime soon is replacing the engines with the Jovian variant we have from the Origami. One does not simply cut off a third of ship and slap on seven new thrusters each bigger than the Burj Khalifa without years in a shipyard and I’m not waiting that long when there’s six Black Crusades preparing to run about the Imperium and blow up all the stuff I want to acquire.

To make up for the inadequate engines, we’ve installed the single set of Scartix Engine Coils we have. They’ve been scanned and refurbished, so while we’ve yet to replicate them, there is much to be gained from studying them in action, rather than leaving them in pieces in a laboratory.

From the brief shake down cruise around the Breaking Yards, Torchbearer managed just over three gravities of acceleration, leaving our slowest ships in Stellar Fleet Sol the two Carrack-Class transports at two point three gravities.

We have, at least, replaced the Gellar Field in Torchbearer with a mechanical one, as opposed to the organic, Psyker reliant version and added Displacer Fencing to it, protecting Torchbearer from enemy teleportation.

Extensive manufacturing has replaced thousands of empty rooms. Like all Stellar Fleet vessels, the pointlessly large officers quarters and unused passenger facilities have been rebuilt and combined with the crew quarters and a promenade to make a miniature hive city.

The hangars have been redone in the Cathedral and Castellum super structures into the usual double ended hangar and had our looted Gravitic Accelerators added to the runways. Strike craft and shuttles can now launch and be retrieved much faster, but more importantly, in whole squadrons one after the other, rather than individual launches of single Strike-Craft.

We still can’t replicate Gravitic Accelerators. However, our understanding of gravity from the Cargo Container STC means it’s more a matter of time. I expect that within the decade all our hangers will be equipped with them.

The transferred Nova Cannon is in working condition too. We’ve also replaced a portion of the armour with the lighter, more resilient mix from the Rogue Pattern power armour. Redoing the armour lets us upgrade the hull to a Warpsbane version at the same time, though neither the armour or the hull will be finished by the time we reach the Mandeville Point.

The gifted Carrack Class transports have had almost nothing done to them. All we’ve done is prepped them to carry our penal legions in sleeping pods and added micro-factories so that the crews can bring them up to Stellar Fleet standards, not including the engines, as we travel. It will be much slower without Iron Crane, which is frustrating, but unless I throw all my plans out of the airlock, that’s just the way it has to be.

They’ll also be carrying the newly integrated House Ortelius troops that they arrived with. The Ortelius troops will be going back into stasis for the journey, sans the twenty thousand Heralds that have been added to them, but I hope to get them all into sleeping pods and simulations as soon as possible.

As for exactly what and whom we’re taking, there’s been a few changes since I last discussed it with Eire, for when I began breaking down exactly what was required to make two separate and self-sufficient fleets, I soon realised I’d made a horrible miscalculation.

Like just about everything in this blighted galaxy, the problem begins, and ends, with Chaos.