I woke up with the dim light pying ay fad with a deeply satisfied smile on my lips. The bed was divine, and the naked form of Selene curled up around my own bare body was even more so.
A warm breeze blew through the window and with a thought I cooled it into a refreshingly chill gust that ruffled my hair and made Selene snuggle in even closer uhe b.
Adorable. I thought, barely restraining myself from squeezing her with a squeal like some overly cute kitten.
The girl needed some rest after tiring us both out so thhly. I let the marks of yesterday linger on my body even as I shifted my body bay Psyker Form without rousing my lover.
Today was a good day.
Vallia itself was … a curious beast. I couldn’t really put a finger on it as I’d expected I would, but that just made it all the more iing.
I had thought wrestling trol of the maliind anding Vallia would be child’s py, after all, it was just a budget hive-mind made ur beasts’ intelligence, but while it couldn’t hold a dle to the Tyranid Hive Mind, this one was tenacious if nothing else.
Also quite sneaky, like a thin mist as pared to the all-pervasive darkhat the Shadow of the Hive Mind is.
Not that any of those things stopped me from finding it and poking at it in fasation. It was strange, alien in a way I’d never seen before and it was holy making me want to study it.
Its most iing property thus far had been how I could prod and poke, even bst bits of it to shred with psychic attacks, only for it to bounce right back to perfect health.
I had thought that destroying the mist around me would have had the surrounding flora ba realspace ected to it wither in moments, but that didn’t happen. My current standing hypothesis was that the Mist — as I was going to call Vallia’s malicious hive mind — came from the flora and fauna and not the other way around.
Attag the mist was like trying to kill someone by stabbing their refle in a mirror. Taking trol of it would be more difficult than just crag open the mental defences and iing some trol structs like Val had taught me to do with regur humans.
No, I suspected if I wao make any perma ges to this Mist and its ws, I had to modify the entire ecosystem spread over Vallia to do so down to the geic level.
I had to find what exactly made pnts and animals here different, what made it so they were all linked up in this psychic web.
As, that would have to wait for ter. The gravitational sensors bay moon — which I really should find a better name for than the Imperial Vallia Primus — just notified me that a slew of voidships have breached the outer asteroid belt of the Star System.
Now what could this be? I mused, taking a gnce down at the softly sn Selene in my arms. Question was, would this new problem be wetting out of bed and waking my adorable lover over? ’ll take a week at least for them to reach us at the speeds they are going at. I’ll let her sleep.
*****
“Any guesses?” I asked, a hint of psychic power flowing into my voice making it so it travelled through the void of space as if it were air. “I’m thinking … pirates!”
“Pirates?” Selene raised an eyebrow with an amused quirk of her mouth, then turo look back at the half-dozen dipidated ships ambling through space a few thousand kilometres away from us. “Whatever could they be wanting from a System that’s known to house nothing but a single Death World in it? I’m saying they are the bottom-of-the-barrel Chaos Worshippers some Warlord is throwing at you to test the waters. Look at those pointy bits and bobs stig out of every er of the ships, if that doesn’t scream Cultist, I don’t know what does.”
“You make a good point,” I said, scratg my in thought as I ighe weary sigh ing from Valenith oher side of me. The ships indeed looked as if someone had taken some half-serviceable mert ships, spped some ons batteries onto them and then built the appropriate amount of pointy spikes and suto them to make the floating scraps they called ships look mildly terrifying tur Imperial citizen. “But that would mean this is going to be b as hell. Val, any ideas?”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to agree with the Lady, Selene,” Val said, shaking his head in mild admonishment at my taking this atta jest. “At the same time, it might just be a veil to hide the true i of the attackers. Or the true attackers themselves, even. I’d reend thhly scouting out the assets and capabilities of this outwardly dipidated force before taking any further steps.”
“You think there is something nasty hiding on those flying garbage bins?” I mused, simplifying his speed I caught a satisfying twit Val’s brows.
“In essence,” he said. “Yes.”
“Well, seems like the prudent thing to do,” I said, tilting my head as I squi the ships. My eyes might not have been able to pierce the thick hulls and the still-funal Void Shields around the ships, but my more esoterises washed over the small flotil like the protes weren’t even there. “Hmmmm. Those ships stink of the taint of Chaos, and I think I’m even feeling some Sorcerers onboard … nothing too nasty though. Do they even know we’re here? I’d assumed some Daem to be smart urged them to e our way for shits and giggles, but perhaps not?”
“We may craft theories all week, but the only way to know for sure is to scout out the ship and ask the leaders of this pathetic force ourselves,” Valenith said, lips pulling ba a toothy snarl as he watched the ships like a wolf watg a herd of sheep.
“I really don’t feel like getting into close quarters with Chaos worshippers,” Selene whispered, shuddering slightly. “You never know what lengths they’ll go to for survival. I say we crush them with quid overwhelming power … well, you crush them Ea, I don’t thiher me or Val is powerful enough yet to crush twelve ships with any speed. Not yet … maybe not ever.”
“Val is well on his way to that level of power,” I said, squinting at the now preening Eldar as my soul observed his for a moment. It was by far the most powerful thing in my Realm beyond my own soul and it wasn’t even close. He had not only recimed all the stifled potential Sanesh had kept under her thumb, but grown beyond that … somehow. I shook my head, my thoughts snapping back to the haunted look Selene had on her fad I turo her with a hint of worry. “You met Chaos cultists before? Of course, you sit this out if you want.”
“I have … “ Selene shrugged. “My ship and crew had been … “ she hesitated, gulped, then shook her head with a scowl on her face. “I don’t o care about her orders anymore. My crew and ship had been asked to assist an Inquisitor in rooting out a Chaos cult on Viridia. The memories of what I’d seen there stayed in my nightmares for years.”
“I see,” I said softly, floating over to her and giving her a gentle hug. “It’s fine. I’ll hahem myself … I teleport you back to the fortress right this instant. I heard Bob just fihe bathhouses I’d asked him to make! Making the thermal water reservoirs had been a pain it, but it’s done now. Wanna go there after I’m done here?”
“I’ll stay and at least watch,” Selene said, huffing in amusement as she gnced up at me with adoration dang in her grey eyes. “I’m not a fragile flower pot you o treat with mitts. Just don’t needlessly drag this out, is what I wanted you to take away from what I’d said. If you give them time, the Cultists will whip out the most abhorrent ritual they have even if only to spite you.”
“Alright,” I said, feeling her ck of actual fear and resolve shining in her aura and through our Bond. Stepping back, I patted her shoulder gently before turning a narrowed gaze on the ships. “So if we scout, they ’t know we are doing so.”
“That should be beyond easy,” Val said haughtily. “The few Sorcerers on board are pathetic weaklings. The only way they could prove to be a nuisance or cause you trouble, Mistress, would be if they took to attag not your physical well-being, but your mental oh some daemonic ritual. I know they are capable of more thahat transmits the dread, horror and torturous agony of a sacrificial victim into the minds of all who’s near.”
“Why?” I asked, frowning as I didn’t know whether to be curious or worried. That would be the exact kind of ritual that’d take advantage of my inability to pletely shut down my passive Empathy. I’ve beeing much better tely, being able to ighe stant stream of Orkish WAAAGH! Energy and glee practically dripping from the air around Vallia Primus, but I wasn’t sure I could just as easily ighe kinds of emotions Val eaking of. Selene’s suggestion of crushing them quid fast was making more and more sense by the sed. I still had one hangup though. “What use is a ritual like that? Doesn’t it affect their own troops too?”
“It does,” Val said with a scowl towards the ships. “But the debased degees only draw power from the suffering, especially if they are minions of She Who Thirsts. For them, the otherwise debilitatiions only serve as a source of supernatural and nearly unending power.”
“I see,” I mused, thinking. “Well. Fuck that, let’s just throw some bio-ships at them. I wouldn’t want to dig around in the deranged minds of those lunatiyway.”
“It would be prudent to learn why exactly they chose this system though,” Val said. “Is this just an advance force, or the whole warband? We might learn something useful from just listening in.”
“Alright,” I said, gng at Selene who just gave a shrug of agreement. I turned my gaze back to the ships and started w on a makeshift prototype for what I’d need. “Let’s throw some Lictors at them then. Once we know enough, I’ll let a few bioships loose. Three or four should be enough to hahis ramshackle force.”
“You could try out your au onry,” Selene suggested, but I was already shaking my head.
“It’d be a waste,” I said. “I have limited ammunition for those and these few ships are really not worth spending them.”
“Fair enough,” Seletered, shrugging as she kept a watchful eye on the ships like she was half expeg a Greater Daemon to e tearing its way out of o any moment to turn our insides into outsides.
“Well then!” I cpped happily, the quickly thought-up blueprint materialising into a tempte in my mind as my palms spat out small spheres of writhing eldritch flesh oer the other. “Let’s begin!”
*****
“A hull breach?” Jed mouthed sourly, sending a scowl towards his idiotiander’.
“Get going already!” the ander said, his voice a near screech as he gnced over at Jed and his ‘squad’. “I have things to do! Fuck off already.”
“Yes ander,” Jed said with ehusiasm, sending a lingering gowards the nude sve tied to the ander’s table with half its arm fyed of skin. A euphoric shudder ran through Jed at the delicious agony still flickering in the man’s gzed-over eyes. Maybe I’ll get a sve if we get this ‘job’ done quickly.
“Boss?” Marv asked from behind, tugging at Jed’s shirt roughly with his wiry hand.
“Yes, yes,” Jed said, turning quickly to tear his gaze away from the half-dead sve only kept alive and somewhat scious by the thick mixture s pumped into its veins. His mood bolstered by the hope of getting some fun of his owrolled off, breaking through the mob of his underlings with a spring in his steps. “e. We have a hull breach to check.”
P3t1
