21-28

I reached the damp hall without a problem, my form was made to be an infiltrator. It was forged, tested, and reforged for millions of years in wars all over the universe. It was the epitome of forced and guided evolution, not many things could get better than this form.

I wasn't delusional enough to think it was the best, I could already add things that would make it better, giving it more versatility or power. The hivemind didn't want it to be the best it could be, it wanted an economical tool that could fulfill its purpose to a satisfactory level and that was the Lictor.

It was a baseline, a balance between cost and return at the most primal level.

The hall had around a hundred of the lesser gene stealers walking or crawling around, each had a task and a mission at hand, and none of them ambled around pointlessly.

I'd thought about removing the chaff before striking but that'd take away the element of surprise, I couldn't kill them quickly enough and telepathically knocking them out would be more than enough to alert the patriarch. The only option left was to distract them, not that I was overly worried about them interfering.

From what I saw they barely had any weapons capable of hurting my armored shell and avoiding a melta wasn't too much trouble if I stayed alert and didn't let any of them sneak up on me.

My distraction had to look like it was natural, I shouldn't let them know they were under attack until their leader is dead. Tendrils of soul energy extended from my body, questing through tunnels as my mind searched for easy-to-collapse parts.

I'd practiced this for a bit, making sure the energy threads didn't get tangled up in the web of warp energy was challenging. A challenge that I welcomed wholeheartedly as it was a great way to train my control.

Three of them found what they were searching for, that'd have to do. I pulled back the rest of the tethers as the lucky three got to work. The ferrocrete was archaic, I didn't know how they made the stuff but I was sure it was older than most nations back on Earth and that it still gave me a bit of trouble when I tried to burn through it with pyrokinesis and pull it apart with telekinesis spoke of the genius of the old humans.

If I remembered right ferrocrete was a material based on a damaged STC like many of the technologies in the imperium that were actually useful. Humans from the Dark Age of Technology as they called it were geniuses and mastered science to levels unimaginable to me even now.

I suspected Chaos fuckery in the uprising of their AIs if I'm being honest, people that could conquer most of the galaxy had to have innumerable safeguards and control programs in their AIs. Skynet and stuff like that didn't happen when even a single programmer involved knew what they were doing.

Things like the Destroyer Virus which was somehow a mix of a biological plague and a computer virus existed and I couldn't even begin to figure out how. The Warp was weird and fucked with my common sense and the laws of the universe I learned of.

Three tunnels collapsed one after the other, heads snapped into their directions, and without the patriarch having to move a finger they went out to investigate. Alert and careful but not suspecting an attack yet.

Only half left, the rest from the outside would probably handle most of the clearing work, it wouldn't get much better than this no matter how much I waited.

Psychic attacks were off the table for the ambush, I didn't know how good it was at sensing or defending against those, and so was a brute force attack, the thing was bulky and I knew it was stronger than me.

The scythe-like limbs on my arm were ready, coiled like a spring and awaiting release. I leapt soundlessly, soaring through the air and in a fraction of a second I was descending on the patriarch. It sensed something, I didn't know how but it looked around, alert and its gaze searched the dark hall without finding anything.

I let the limbs go and they flew through the air faster than a bullet, one cut into its torso where its armor parted between it and its upper right arm while the other aimed to decapacitate it. The scythe cut deeply into its neck, tearing into its flesh under the thick chitinous shell but the patriarch barely reacted to the pain.

Four clawed arms moved, elbows bending like no human elbow could, to strike at me as I stood behind it. I used my two arms, similar to its four to deflect the attacks as my scythes still buried deep into its body burst into a brilliant white fire, finally making the creature screech out in pain as its organs and flesh were incinerated.

Tyranids were made of harder stuff than humans though, I could only protect myself for a few short moments before one strike caught me on the chest, cracking my shell and launching me back a few meters. My jagged scythes ravaged its body on their way out and it was still burning as it turned to glare at me hatefully.

The hall flickered like the burning patriarch was the candle bringing light into the dark room. My shell mended itself even before I landed and I reactivated my camouflage soon after, the patriarch stared around warily and I felt it move around a sort of psychic field.

So that's how it noticed me.

Unlike me, it didn't use tethers but it dispersed Warp energy into its surroundings. It wasn't connected to it all at once, it was beautiful in a way, it stood at the center and I now noticed infinitesimal bursts of energy go off wherever the field touched something. It was like a brain, with neurons firing and the bio-electricity leaping between the cells to reach its final destination. In this case, the patriarch.

Let's see how fast it is, an Eldritch Blast snapped out of my clawed finger, blasting straight through the field and scrapping one of its limbs as it turned it tried to pull its bulky body out of the way. Its claws raked through the air and ferrocrete a dozen meters away from its previous position but I was gone by then.

It growled and I felt psychic messages shoot through the web of the brood mind, I tapped into one of the nearby genestealers and heard the message.

*Gather and assist*

I'd have liked to play with it, test and revise until one of my attacks got good enough to tear right through its shell but that wasn't to be, I didn't fear the chaff too much but getting dogpiled would be a pain.

I blasted Eldritch Blasts at the patriarch, putting it on the back foot for a brief moment as it defended itself. I used that brief window of opportunity to blast in with twin beams of white-hot flames, its field burned as the being was coated in a cloak of fire and death.

I depended on its sight to be taken for the moment as I dashed behind it and lashed out with all four of my arms as significant amounts of soul energy bled into keeping the brutish monstrosity in place. It couldn't dodge, I didn't know if it was the Blasts, the Flames, or the Telekinesis but my scythe tore into it.

Citing broke and my scythe chipped as the thick shell was forced open by my brute strength, clawed fingers dug into its limb sockets and tore the joints apart while my last scythe smashed into the back of its head.

Its bulbous brain-like head didn't have the armor the rest of its body had and my scythe brutalized it beyond recognition. The body slumped and fell onto the ground with a thud. The gene-stealers screeched and for the first time my mind registered them, my hyper-focus on my enemy gone and the non-threat chaff once again had my attention.

An errant thought stream merged with the main one and I knew five of them had melta guns and three had melta grenades, each being far away from me at the moment as even if I wasn't fully conscious of it mid-fight I knew where they were and avoided them.

Playing with food is bad, I thought with a sense of dark amusement as my Lictor form exploded into a mass of tentacles, I flowed through the room, my flesh filling it up as I turned biomatter into energy, uncaring whether it was dead or alive.

Three explosions went off and a few bursts of plasma smashed into me, all they did was cost me some energy. Energy, that was more than recovered when I reached the ones that were behind the annoying attacks.

I was like the sea at first, flowing over the floor in a mass of twisting white tentacles but a few of them started crawling onto the walls and running into the tunnels. How cute, they thought if there were more of them it'd make a difference.

Previously I flowed slowly like a tsunami but now I exploded for real, my energy stores burned but held as my hundreds of limbs traveled through the many tunnels like a shockwave. The inorganic matter got eaten through and spat out to make way for the organic beneath it as each and every genestealer met its end.

When I sensed the last die I stopped, my now more than a thousand tendrils stopping like time was frozen, then like the clock was ticking backwards they retreated. Now, slowly, economically. All the energy that could be had was already absorbed, no need to waste energy to make moving faster.

Still, it only took fifteen seconds for all the tendrils to return and coalesce into my human form once again.

The expended energy was more than worth it, information, genetic templates and more than enough energy has been assimilated to make all that trouble worth it.

My senses searched for the oh-so-slowly closing in constellation of souls.

Around three or four more days

Knowing that it'll take at least three days before the ship reaches orbit I have plenty of time to check out some other stuff that I might not be able to do if I decide to masquerade as a normal human.

Before any of that though, I had to see what all this effort rewarded me with, aside from the abundance of energy I now had. First of all, I could make gene stealers with the mind-rape effect that makes them see me as a messiah. I'd have to alter that if I ever want to use it so they don't see other Tyranids like that too and only me.

For now, that was good to have as a plan, well 'X', in case I want to get information out of someone. The slow corrupting and indoctrination that gene stealers tend to prefer isn't something I'd like to do. Not from a purely moral standpoint, it took generations for the corruption to spread.

I didn't have time like that, the galaxy would soon descend into hell, Primarchs would start popping up and the Silent King would start reassembling the Necron Dynasties. Spending centuries turning a single planet onto my side was a waste.

I could maybe change some of these effects, the mental part of turning someone into a gene stealer could be induced with Biokinesis if I got good enough at it and I was sure I could just use energy to make separate beings from myself.

Up until now, that was out of the question, I had no idea how to mold their neural pathways so they'd stay loyal to me and only me ... but now. Still changing an already existing person would be better, clones and manufactured beings barely had souls. Hmm, but if they have miniscule souls I wouldn't have to worry about demonic stuff.

Ah, so much to think about.

On a purely biological point, I could now replicate the Patriarch's form which was similar to a Broodlord, large, strong, and well-armored. It wasn't a heaven-defying upgrade like the Lictor was previously and the two forms decidedly didn't combine well, one focusing on flexibility and stealth while the other on tackiness and pure strength.

The added versatility to my toolkit was welcome though, just like the instinctive understanding of how to form a broodmind. It was a net of constant telepathic communication set up like a pyramid of set hierarchy. I didn't know how I'd use it yet but I knew it would be useful in the future, I could use it like battle meditation from Star Wars, setting up a constant channel of private communication in a battle to let combatants work together seamlessly for example.

The psychic field it deployed was an interesting find, it her neural receptors all around its body and the exhaled gaseous warp energy was directed and sensed through those. I could make some interesting things with that, just the ability to sense warp energy so clearly in my vicinity would be useful.

That Genetic Manipulation instinct I got would need a lot of work, I could tell it wasn't a real manipulation of genetics and more like a genetic virus that went through the victim and altered their genes to fit the Tyranid genome better. If I wanted to make anything other than genestealer with it I'd need to work on it but even now I could tell that CRISPR-cas9 gene editing we had back in the 21st millennium was like a child's toy compared to the masterpiece this thing was.

It was fast acting and caused an immediate mutation in the victim to fit the changed genes. The fact that this was the only way the Hive Mind used the virus was signifying how alien it was, if I could make it spread easily between infected people the effect would be massive.

With that, I've concluded my revision. All powers I've known them to have have been assimilated.

Do they have any loot though?

They did, not that I could think of a reason to take a Leman Russ battle tank with me through the tunnels and up to the surface but the thing was impressive. Somewhat reminded me of the time I saw a Tiger tank in a ww2 museum, kind of pathetic that I could compare our historical tanks with this considering 20 thousand years passed between the creation of the two.

Where were my hover tanks? These fuckers had hover-bikes but couldn't make hover tanks, I was disappointed, to say the least.

It looks ugly too.

Whatever, I was tempted to take meltas and grenades from the stock of weapons these guys had but I decided not to. I was going to be meeting a human ship crew in a few days and appearing armed to the teeth in military-grade weaponry wasn't the best first impression.

I wasn't any less deadly without them either so it wasn't much of a loss.

I was gaining headway on absorbing memories too, with the addition of telepathy into my toolkit it was much easier but I'd still have to test and perfect it before I could eat targeted memories or even all of them. Right now it came through in fragments, without any context of when or where the memory took place.

It was a pain, to be honest, but the ability to just take whatever I wanted out of the mind of my dead enemies was too good to pass up.

Let's see, what else do I need to do before the meeting?

I checked out the rooms the astropathic choir was supposedly housed in and found the place as a molten slag. I guess the demons held a grudge or didn't want any distress signals or messages to leave the planet and something similar happened to all of the Mechanicum bases I found.

Despite my dislike towards the technophile priests I tried figuring out how their cybernetic interfaces work, they had something like a super sci-fi internet if I remembered correctly called the Noosphere and I really wanted to get a connection to it.

Alas, the cybernetic interface was more complex than I thought and I knew anything that could create a link between the brain and a machine would be complex as hell but I still underestimated it. I had to begrudgingly accept that tech priests were actually knowledgeable and intelligent scientists even if calling them that felt wrong.

Scientists researched and strived to invent and push technology forward while these guys worshipped toasters and lit incense as a way to make machinery work. The only reason I somewhat liked the blue fish people was that they actually invented stuff and had futuristic technology, I already knew that I'd have a blast stealing all of their knowledge from them.

Necrons were stagnant, like most other factions but their tech was the apex of what tech could be so it was forgivable. When you had stuff that atomized your enemies and dimensional teleportation tech you could take a break from advancing further, though 60 million years was still a bit too much.

Having phase-blades makes up for their shortcomings, gotta get one of those.

After I finished daydreaming about all the tech and knowledge I was going to steal from various people I got back into the present. There were still things that needed doing and time was running out as I stood around like a moron in this damp and dark cave.

My pose shifted and in the next moment, I was gone, pushing my newly donated muscles to the limit without needing to spend energy to heal them. I felt the wind on my face despite there being zero air movement down here, my white hair flowed in the air like a cape behind me as I let my lips shift into a grin.

A normal human couldn't even see me if I ran into them at this speed.

I'd need Eldar samples to push my speed further but it was already far beyond human, even calling it superhuman was a stretch. Comparing me to humans was just inadequate to describe me. I could murder them without an effort before and after the upgrade just the same.

I was now on my way to rectify a previous mistake, I didn't know how but I forgot about the mutant societies living under hive-cities until recently when on my hunt for the gene stealers I sensed a few of them still stalking through the undercity.

Plus plagues, how could I forget biological warfare? I could replicate anything organic, that included parasites, infections, bacteria, and viruses of any kind. What better place to collect the worst of those than the undercity rampant with mutants, plagues, and everything else people would want to forget?

With all the extra sensory organs and nerves I've implanted into my human form finding the track of some mutants wasn't even a challenge. I appeared on a higher railing, looking down on the male mutant currently drinking from a water source I'd rather not describe the quality of.

Scales covered parts of his skin and his head looked like you stopped a were-wolf from transforming halfway through, the bones were somewhere between a canid and a human skull but the skin was entirely human which made him look so hideous that it was almost impressive considering it came from a tentacle monster such as myself.

I'm grateful, smooth snow white tendrils are elegant unlike whatever this thing is.

I was already tilting forward, almost letting myself fall on top of him to end his miserable life when I had a thought. Wasn't this a good opportunity to get used to fighting in this form? Rather than the Lictor one where it was instinctive.

I nodded to myself as II kicked myself away silently from my perch, launching my body straight at him like an arrow. I formed a dagger as long as my forearm out of Lictor bone material and made it as sharp as I could.

My dagger struck first, sinking wrist deep into his shoulder before my knees bore into his back. He was easily knocked over from the force and I landed on his back without much trouble from me, his spine had some trouble on the other hand, most evidently that my right knee impacted in so hard that it snapped.

I tore my wrist along with the makeshift dagger out of him, rending his right arm off along with most of his shoulder but I didn't let him reorient himself. He screamed in pain in one moment and went silent in the next, my dagger buried into his deformed head.

I stood up, wincing a little as my soft skin was torn in places and I had to restitch it. I didn't find any biological material I could replace human skin with so I had to settle for reinforcing it with my current knowledge of biology. Unfortunately, Tyranids, who accounted for that knowledge, had no care for aesthetically pleasing skin.

Tendrils extended from my fingertips and encased the mutant corpse, it looked like a white cocoon once it fully covered him. I pulled it and the cocoon constricted, eating at his skin, flesh, scales and organs. The thing collapsed upon itself into a small ball before even that was absorbed.

Nothing too good but he was resistant to a bunch of ugly things, first and foremost: radiation

"Scales, bone spikes, tough skin, gigantism, frog tongue, four eyes, fur, tails, bones, exoskeleton, extendable claws, feathers, clawed legs..." I could go on and on, listing every dumb and inconsequential mutation I've assimilated in the last three days but I won't, I know each and everyone down to the genetic level.

Just thinking back on what my palette turned into was somewhat depressed, who wants to eat mutated rats, insects, and what were once humans? I sure didn't but not having to crunch down on them bit by bit and not having to taste them sure helped. Quite a bit actually, I didn't even have to look at the meter-long rats with seven legs and five eyes.

Even if they didn't prove to be much of an upgrade aside from the thousands of new plagues, bacteria, and viruses I've got along with the antibodies to them they were good to have. I've gotten a much better handle on the human genome and how I could change it up to reach the desired effect.

Previously I've been mostly in the dark, instinctually reshuffling DNA and scissoring it together with other genes lie I was copy-pasting functions into a code but with these varied mutant samples, I could now write the functions themselves. Well, kind of. Trying to make entirely new mutations was a hit and miss but I knew it was possible.

Soon, I'd have diamond-hard skin with the same silky smooth touch and look as the one I had now. Goals have been set, now all I had to do was work towards them.

My cells became much more resistant to radiation too, which was a boon as Tyranids didn't quite give a damn about stuff like that, their immune system was so ferocious that it ate cancerous growth before it could spread to more than a dozen cells.

Combining that with the mutant's natural resistance to it was a great combination and I was feeling proud of myself for not lounging about in the last three days. I stood near the top of the governor's spire with a few extras I got since I killed the patriarch.

I knew a Melta or boltgun would be far too much to have so I opted for a pistol instead, this beauty was hiding under a pile of ugly bulky weaponry back in the stash the genestealers had hidden away. I went back after only finding shitty laspistols while hunting in the undercity.

Obviously normal, chemical propulsion pistols are out of the question, I'm in a sci-fi universe.

This gorgeous little thing could shoot plasma. Real, honest to god, plasma and not some molten slag or concentrated flame. I was tempted to pick it apart and find out how it worked but considering the embarrassing number of laspistols that blew up in my face trying to do just that I needed more practice before doing that.

Despite being in this grimdark shithole I felt like a little girl in a candy shop, it was damned hard leaving a lascannon and a mealta grenade behind after I tested them out on some unfortunate mutant. There wasn't even biomatter left of him to absorb after the grenade which was less than optimal but cool.

Both of them paled in comparison to this Plasma Pistol though, this little thing that fits my small feminine hands so well could bore through several reinforced bulkheads. I instantly understood what people meant when they said 'Don't get between a girl and her gun' or something at that moment. I'd murder for this pistol, try me fuckheads.

It sat comfortably on the left side of my waist, strapped onto a utility belt and into a holster I made from Tyranid armor. A bit overkill but with it being in Kraken's blood red color it fit well with my white and black bodyglove. I took to expanding a chitinous shell over it whenever a shot or melee strike would damage it as it was by far the best clothing I've ever worn despite looking quite indecent.

My shame didn't get transmigrated along with me, unfortunate. Well, not really.

I've thought about how to signal to the ship in case they didn't have sensors or decided not to send a shuttle or something down onto the surface. I could reconnect with the Warp, I could always use more soul energy anyway but I could also try sending some other signal.

Unfortunately, the few servitors or what I assumed were tech priests once before were in a far too bad condition to use telepathy on and I had no idea how tech worked here. I was sure there was real meaning behind the binary babble and whatever chanting tech priests tend to do to coax machines into working order but I couldn't even begin to figure out what without knowing said chants and binary code.

The Psychic option was there as a backup plan but I still couldn't make a viable plan to try before that. I stood out on a balcony, it was covered with barely visible glass to protect the one looking out from the violent winds this far up in the atmosphere and miraculously it survived all the battles that took place in this spire.

I fidgeted with the second and last trinket I prepared for this meeting, it looked like nothing extraordinary really, just a simple amulet in the shape of an 'I' adorned with a stylized skull in the middle. In short, it was a replica of an Inquisitorial Rosette, only a replica but I depended on them not even asking for it but then again it was good to be prepared.

I was also ready to grab whatever machine spirit would be checking out its authenticity by the balls and making sure it knew what to answer when people asked whether my trinket was the real deal.

I poured both soul energy and my internal energy into my eyes, enhancing them far beyond what I thought possible even a week ago and my vision shifted, focussed and then it zoomed in. Infra-red and ultraviolet light joined the visible spectrum in my vision.

I swept my gaze around, searching for the material representation of the soul constellation I saw so clearly with my soul's eyes. I found it without much trouble, the distance might be warped in the Warp but directions mostly stayed the same in such close ranges.

My eyes made out a dot, shining with infra-red light as it radiated heat in the void of space and I zoomed in further. I've been frowning for a while now, thinking about how to signal them or lure them down onto the planet but it seemed like I shouldn't have worried.

In original Imperium fashion, the only way to check out a fucked up planet not responding to your signals is to send a landing craft down and check it out with your flesh and blood eyes. Dumb as hell and dangerous but convenient in this situation, or they were just that confident.

I'm just a lone girl stuck on this planet, nothing dangerous on this rock at all.

I observed the small dot of a landing craft drift closer and closer to the planet, it was engulfed in flames as it broke into the atmosphere. When the flames died off it was close enough for me to make out details beyond its mostly black color and blocky shape.

Its side had some remains of painted golden lines and a white blob which I assumed depicted a skull once, it's always skulls and gold.

It was quite unimpressive really, especially to my eyes that wanted to see streamlined sci-fi ships already but had to watch this brutalist block float of metal float around. Its only saving grace was that the thing was probably more armored than nuclear bunkers back on my earth, seeing as it was as large as a two-floor family house despite only being a landing shuttle.

I watched the shuttle approach, flying closer and closer to the city but much to my annoyance it started circling the hive city. After spending twenty minutes glaring at the far-away block of irritation I decided to just wait, I was sure they'd land sooner or later.

I took out my fake rosette and glared at it, I had no idea how every single imperium tech could identify a real rosette and obey the commands of its holder. Well, I had some ideas but none of them had any solid foundation, I only knew that renegade groups could fiddle with the tech and that this made the rosette useless against them, but this took time and most importantly loyal tech priests.

After circling around a bunch of times and even going around the planet once the damned shuttle started to head towards me, probably because they had the same idea as me: if there was information on what happened here, it'd be in the governor's palace.

I watched on as the shuttle closed in on the landing pad located highest on the spire and consequently only a handful of floors beneath me. I had some doubts about its ability to hold that much weight but it was their life they were playing with.

I tucked away the rosette into a satchel hanging off of my utility belt on the right side of my waist. With that done it was time to meet these people.

By the time I reached the floor connected to the pad, they were already out of the shuttle which gave me just enough time to observe each of them before revealing myself. I didn't feel any of the stronger souls down here even though the Warp was a bit more fucky than usual around the people.

No, that wasn't quite right. It was less fucky than it should have been, it was somehow suppressed. What the hell?

Then I remembered the Grey Knights and their Wards, some sort of weird symbols that somehow suppressed demons. There should be Wards for psykers too, I didn't remember reading about those but then again I wasn't a lore nerd and I focused on Necrons when I read books.

Didn't matter, without psykers, I could use soul energy to observe them. My attention was easily drawn to the woman standing at the head of their formation, lithe battle armor covering her form and her shoulder-length black hair getting thrown about by the winds.

The woman had a severe expression that wouldn't be out of place on a military official but the man on her right fit that role much more. With a large burn scar leaving a fourth of his head bald and his gaze snapping about alertly, searching for any danger. He also had a big-ass gun in his arms and was almost two meters tall.

The last figure that stood out of the gaggle of well-organized and obviously well-trained military grunts was the large and unmistakable form of a tech priest. Nah, tech priests weren't three meters tall with only half of their face remaining organic, this was a much higher ranking than a tech priest, probably a Magos or even an Arch-Magos

Even though I disliked the mechanicus as a faction I knew some stuff about them as Belisarius Cawl was one of the best real scientists and inventors in the galaxy and I enjoyed his book.

Okay, a Magos, a VIP and what looks like an Arch-Militant with a bunch of his underlings.

Said underlings wore black tactical gear similar to what special forces wore back home but with weird helmets that had integrated green night goggles. I couldn't tell what sort of weapons they had but they looked to be in a much better condition than anything I've seen so far.

I wouldn't put it past them to be able to off me ... if I sat down in front of them and took whatever they could throw at me with my face

I was only separated by the bulkhead blocking the large gate from the humans, yeah I've met some mutants capable of speech but that didn't put them much above a rate in terms of me wanting to converse with them.

With that said I waited, I was passing the time by eavesdropping on the thoughts of the resident technophile in the meanwhile. Sure they had some Wards that reinforced realspace around them but the soul energy threads I used to probe them were entirely in realspace, I didn't go through the warp to slip into the physical part of his mind.

I had a feeling he'd notice if I went into his 'mind', the mind was a weird sort of in-between of the soul and the physical brain. I could sense it from the material side but knew that it was further into the immaterium than anything else.

Stuff like this has always been rather vague in WH lore as far as I knew, it was interesting though, figuring out the intricacies and tricks to it all. I couldn't wait to pick apart the mind of a sanctioned psyker.

Speaking of picking apart minds, this cyborg dude had one weird-as-hell mind. Some surface thoughts were legible, like his note of the walls being grey and random shit like that but the rest was a mess. It was half unintelligible ramble while the other half was the chirp of beeps and boops, binary code.

Somehow this dude was encrypting his thoughts, impressive to be honest, even if a psyker like me could slip into his mind, without being also capable of decrypting his thoughts it'd still be useless. His image went up a notch in my mind, though it only made me all the more interested in the thick cables running down from his mechanical head like dreadlocks.

An MIU, a Mind Impulse Unit. A high-grade tech used even back during the Heresy that blended the mind with the machine. This was the epitome of a neural interface in the universe as far as I knew. Though I was sure the Tau had something similar.

I watched as the towering Magus came closer to the bulkhead, inserting cables into hidden ports on the wall. It only took him half a minute and I already felt the bulkhead stirring, it shook a bit and then it moved. The gate split in the middle and retreated into the walls on both sides.

All of them stiffened and rifles and guns were raised as my form was revealed with the screech of metal being dragged on metal. I held back a self-satisfied smirk at the moment, this was so cool, just like Darth Maul in the first Star Wars movie. All I would need now is to drop my cloak and light my double-bladed light-saber.

Unfortunately, those didn't exist here, but there were some even better weapons so I wasn't so disheartened. Power swords, Phaseblades, Ghostblades, Croneswords, Fractionblades. So many cool swords.

Speaking of which. My gaze was drawn to the wrist of the VIP lady who was staring at me with narrowed eyes, oh damn, is that what I think it is?

I raised my gaze, re-evaluating the woman. Not just anybody would have the sheer gall required to walk around with a weapon like that, a weapon that is one of the most deadly melee weapons in the galaxy. A Harlequin's Kiss, a small wrist-mounted tool that was loaded with a mono-molecular wire was shot out when the small spike was stabbed into someone, rampaging through the body of the poor sod that was stabbed.

A good stab with that and she can take down a Carnifex, or anything really. I was sure even a Custodian would drop dead if all of his organs were liquified in a single moment. She'd need to stab one first though.

I grinned, the spec-ops dudes fingers drifted onto the triggers, getting ready to load me full of whatever those rifles shot out.

"A pleasure to meet you all," I said, my voice filled with a tiny bit of soul energy which made it resound in the open space like an echo, "Do come inside, I don't bite."

"RAISE YOUR HANDS AND IDENTIFY YOURSELF!" shouted the severe old man with half of his face burnt off, Arch-militant Orion based on my mental probes.

I just opened my satchel with a touch of TK (telekinesis) and floated my fake Rosette up and above my outstretched palm. My face went cold and I glared at the rude dude, despite wanting to just smirk at his suddenly pale face.

"I said I don't bite, didn't I?" I reiterated, "No reason to be rude."

With that, I turned and headed into the spire, no reason to waste soul energy on amplifying my voice when we could just talk in a place without howling wind. The Militant was only stiff for a moment, soon after issuing orders to his men to lower their weapons a bit but keep ready before the VIP lady stepped forward and waved them off.

Unlike most leaders, – ones who had working brains –, she walked at the front, seemingly unafraid of anything that could jump at her and rip her apart without any trouble. I wasn't sure if it was confidence or arrogance as I hadn't probed her mind yet.

The woman wasn't a psyker but just barely, if she was just a bit further on the psychic scale she'd be a Psyker, though a weak one. With how amateurish I must still be I didn't want to risk her noticing my probing.

I felt Orion's trepidation at the casual show of my psychic powers along with emotions further towards fear from the rest of his men but all of them were even more terrified of my little trinket. That's what ten thousand years of conditioning did to people.

"Now then," I said once they all swarmed into a rather large hangar where the wind was only background noise, "Let's Start with introductions."

This was still less than a comfortable setting for civilized discussion but I don't think they'd want to walk much further based on how stiff all of them were. Aside from the Magos of course, the cyborg dude was staring at me with a mechanical eye glowing an angry red color, it didn't blink but then again I didn't think it could blink.

I straightened my spine and looked as imperious as I could while coating myself in psychic energy, I hoped it'd give me an otherworldly feel if nothing else.

"From His Majesty's Most Holy Inquisition," my voice resounded throughout the hall, "Inquisitor Echidna of the Ordo Xenos."

I kept my face neutral during the introduction, there were many different Inquisitors with even more varying personalities but the one thing that tied them all together was their utter devotion to the Emperor. That devotion took many forms but I should never say His name lightly while acting as an Inquisitor.

I kept my telepathy working in the meantime, gauging their reactions and evaluating whether they had any doubts about me. The mind-rape option was still valid, even if I didn't want to do it. This was my first chance to talk with people since waking up here and I didn't want to turn them into knock-off genestealers if I could help it.

Arch-Militant Orion glanced at the severe-looking woman, making her stop forward and bow her head ever so slightly. It was more of a nod really but I felt like it was respectful and so did her men so that'd have to do.

"I am Selene from the House of Voss," the woman stated matter of factually, "I'm the Captain of The Wanderer and a Rogue Trader by the grace of His Majesty."

Well, that's unexpected but then again, not really. Who else would come to a random abandoned rock?

What followed was a rather awkward staring contest, I held her gaze with a small smile while trying to pierce together from the others' thoughts about whether she was being rude. Turns out she wasn't and was just deferring to me to lead the conversation.

"What brought you to this abandoned rock?" I asked, keeping my curiosity in check while motioning towards one of the rooms further back, "This place is a bit worn but I think we could at least sit down over there, much more comfortable than standing here, hmm?"

"Indeed," she nodded, motioning for her men to go forward and scout I assumed, "We were traveling through the warp when a shockwave hit our ship and damaged our Geller Field so we had to disengage it before it failed and this is where we ended up."

"What a coincidence," I said, glancing at the stiff woman now walking at my side as all the black-clad guys spread out. The towering priest was by now distracted by the scars of the battle left on the building and Orion was busy ordering all of his men around but he still kept me in his vision at all times.

"Now then," I sat down in a rather comfy armchair, it only had one of its armrests blown off, "Don't be so stiff, I'm neither on a mission nor do I concern myself with humans."

"Understood," she nodded, sitting opposite me on a half-burned couch with Orion looming behind her, I guessed this was once the office of the dude that managed the comings and goings of this landing pad.

"You see," I started, swinging my right leg over the left, "I found myself in a bit of a situation, so I'd like to request your assistance if you don't mind?"

I tilted my head with a well-practiced smile, channeling all of the overbearing authoritative energy I could. She probably understood that I wasn't actually asking her and she nodded quickly.

"I'll see what I can do," said Selene, "though our ship and most of our equipment need repairs before we can leave this planet, everything is rather damaged right now."

"Understandable," I leaned back with a satisfied smile, "I'm sure the prior residents wouldn't mind you taking some of the stuff here to repair your ship and equipment."

"Why is the planet so empty?" she asked, "If you don't mind me asking of course," she added quickly, oh she is not used to not being the most important person in the room.

"Not too sure to be honest," I shrugged, "it was like this by the time the Warp decided to spit me out here but I assume it involved some rather heretical stuff that the Ordo Malleus would go nuts over."

"What?" her eyes were wide, not sure why she is surprised, I didn't even talk about the splinter-fleet probably on its way to eat us

Orion looked a bit concerned as he glanced between me and his Captain while I was considering how much to share with the woman. What did I want from her? Was a lift to another world enough? Even that would be a considerable effort if what she said about the state of her ship is true and she has no reason to lie to me about that.

"What were these heretics doing here?" she asked, visibly forcing herself to stay respectful.

"No idea," I shrugged, "Crazy fuckers, not my job to work out how their deranged minds work, all I can tell you is that I haven't met a single living human in the two-ish months I've been here."

"I assume you'd want our help with getting off of this planet?" asked Selene, holding my rather languid stare with a firm one of her own.

"You assume correctly," I smirked, "in return — not that I need to give anything, mind you — I will forget it if anything from this planet should go missing, you have free reign over scavenging whatever strikes your fancy."

My smirk widened into a slight grin as her stoic expression cracked a bit as the edge of her lips curved upwards.

Selene Voss

Selene forced her grin down as she noticed the Inquisitor's grinning triumphantly at her. She wasn't sure what to think, in her time she'd met more than one Inquisitors and knew they were all weird in some sense. This one, taking breaking through her apathetic facade like a game for her own amusement was no different.

Weird but dangerous, that described the gorgeous woman sitting languidly on the other side of the broken coffee table. Inquisitor Echidna was unquestionably dangerous, the casual show of her psychic powers without any noticeable cogitators spoke of rock-hard will or high-tier surgeries and hidden implants.

Aside from that the woman looked normal, beautiful yes but normal. The only weapon on her was a pistol holstered on her waist and she had not a single scar on her skin, nor any cybernetic prosthetics. That's what made her weird, being an Inquisitor was a dangerous profession, every single one she met had at least an arm missing if not most of their bodies but this woman looked as natural as a newborn.

"So," she decided to break the awkward silence as the woman seemed content staring at her for another day, "would there be anything else you'd require of us while we scavenge for tools to fix up our ship?"

"Ah," she nodded, like a thought just struck her, "I'd like someone knowledgeable about the happenings in the galaxy at large," she tilted her head then, "Speaking of, what year is it? The last time I reported back was the 350th year of the 41st millennium."

Selene sucked in a deep breath through gritted teeth, fuck, what had she gotten herself into?

"It is 999 of the 41st millennium," she answered after a second, "are you able to tell us what happened to you?"

"Warp fuckery," she gave Selene a sage-like nod, "it's always annoying, you never know when or where you end up when you enter a Warp Storm."

"Wh-" Orion started but a cough from her silenced the experienced man, "indeed." Selene nodded back, doing her best to mimic the thoughtful look of the Inquisitor. Who the ever-living fuck was crazy enough to jump into a Warp Storm? Were Inquisitors actually protected by the Emperor or something?

"It'd be imperative to make haste in your reparations," the woman said with narrowed eyes, "I hunted down a genestealer patriarch and its Cult just a week ago along with a Lictor."

Selene stiffened, she had no idea what a Lictor was but she knew about genestealers. Disgusting little fuckers that slowly took over planets before slaughtering everyone. They venerated some sort of 'star gods' if she remembered right, which always managed to draw the attention of the Inquisition along with other religious orders.

Ordo Xenos is tasked with hunting down Xenos threats, genestealers fit the bill perfectly.

She also knew that they hunted for any sort of Xenos corruption, be it knowledge, tools, relationships, or equipment but most importantly weapons. She glanced at her wrist, feeling rather conscious of the wrist-mounted murder toy she had on it.

"How do you get that by the way?" the woman glanced at the weapon, "That's not exactly a toy you can get in a bazaar, is it?"

Selene gulped despite knowing she hasn't done anything that'd make the woman resort to force, and even if she did so she was surrounded by two hundred of her best men and women. Not that killing an Inquisitor came without consequences, she doubted if even Astartes could get away with it.

"I bought it," she said stiffly, deciding against hiding it under the table and placing it on it instead.

"You know what this is?" the woman asked with a smirk as she levitated it towards herself, making it spin slowly in the air.

"I have tested it and used it in combat so I'd like to think I know its functionality," she stated, which made the Inquisitor snort in — hopefully — amusement.

"You know that's not what I meant," she said as the weapon landed in her hands, how does an inquisitor have delicate hands like that?

"It has rather dubious origins," she admitted, "I know they aren't Imperial at least."

"'Harlequin's Kiss' that's its name," Echidna said, "Do you know what Harlequins are?"

"Yes," said Selene in a whisper, her gaze hardening as she thought up ways to come out on top should the worst come to pass. If the Inquisitor told the truth no one would even search for her.

"Hmm," I enjoyed the way the stern woman almost squirmed under my gaze, "Nice toy," I said as I tossed it back to her which made her fumble a bit as she caught it.

"Did you know that a single stab with that can kill a Custodian?" I asked which made the woman stiffen up once again, even her half-burned bodyguard looked paler than a moment before as his gaze focused in on the small weapon, "keep it safe, some would view you having that on you as a threat by itself."

She nodded a bit jerkily, I smiled and the militant tore his gaze away from the weapon with a gulp, oh he had seen a custodian in action once, interesting.

"As fun as it is chatting with you I think it'd be best if you didn't waste more time here," I sprang to my feet, making the black-ops guys twitch a bit at my speed, "as I assume you don't know I'll reveal a bit of my rather heretical knowledge to you, I'm sure you'll be delighted."

I clapped my hands together, "While genestealers are the prelude to a shitstorm they come decades or even centuries before said storms, Lictors do not, they arrive weeks or months before."

Selene Voss, great Captain of the whatever stood up, her schooled face showing some shock at last.

"Under shitstorm I mean a Tyranid splinter-fleet by the way if you couldn't tell."

"Fuck," she murmured, which was echoed by Orion, though he also had much more colorful curses for our little predicament.

"Now then," I looked between the two, "get to work."

They did so, Selene heading right back towards the shuttle with some of the guards while Orion went about ordering his men to collect some equipment from the hangar or whatnot.

I heard metal scraping on metal as the three-meter-tall cyborg monstrosity ambled toward me with calculated steps. That's one ugly motherfucker and I've seen mutants.

"Greetings: Inquisitor Echidna." a mechanical voice assailed my ears, sounding almost like static.

"Greetings," I nodded at the thing, "who do I have the pleasure of meeting?"

Ah, he called me Echidna, I had to hold back my constant smirk whenever I thought of my new name. Even just naming myself as an Inquisitor was preposterous but one from the Ordo Xenos that was supposed to deal with threats like me? On top of that, I called myself Echidna, an ancient monster from Greek mythology, known as the 'Mother of Monsters'.

If only they'd find my little joke as funny as I do when they figure it out if they figure it out.

"Response: Magos Dominus Zedev, Explorator of the Wanderer."

"Query: Are the remains of the Xenos organisms intact and where can I find them?

Ah, fuck, just had to run into a xenobiologist.

"I'm afraid the remains didn't take well to my melta grenades and as such at most, you'd find ash or a molten sludge if you crawled down into the undercity," I shrugged regretfully.

"Regrettable, Farewell."

And with that he ambled onwards, well that was certainly a conversation.

"Lady Inquisitor," said one of the spec-ops guys after walking up to me rather robotically, "The Captain is going to head back to the ship with the shuttle, if you wish to accompany her I'd lead you there."

Huh, the ship, that could be interesting.

"Lead the way," I smiled, and while he didn't show any outward signs his heart beat a tiny bit faster and I felt his thoughts wandering quite far.

Telepathy could be a curse sometimes, not that I minded his surprisingly reserved fantasies. I expected people who constantly endangered their life to be more animalistic like in the WH books but he might just be an exception.

The Captain is much more interesting though, these goons are rather boorish

I sat strapped into an uncomfortable seat as the shuttle shuddered and screeched in the effort of breaking through the atmosphere, half a minute passed like that, with me wondering whether this junk blowing up thousands of meters in the air would kill me or not.

By some miracle, the shuttle calmed and with a few tendrils of my soul energy passing through its reinforced walls, I sensed no air around it. I was in space for the first time ever, yeah it was on a shit ride and I couldn't watch the enormous planet getting further and further away but I still felt giddy.

When I opened my eyes as the small tendrils retreated through my connection to my... whatever that pond of soul energy was in the immaterial, —I should come up with a name for that, can't call it the Warp anymore— I found Selene staring at me weirdly from the other side of the shuttle.

It was somewhat weird that she wasn't somewhere closer to the pilot but maybe she wanted to keep an eye on me or whatever, not that I minded.

"Something on my face?" I raised an eyebrow at her as I ran my fingertips over my cheeks and lips despite knowing nothing was on them. I found myself enjoying the effort I had to put into reading Selene, unlike the rest who were like open books with my telepathy. Well, aside from the Magos, what was his name again? I'm sure I recorded it somewhere in my mind.

"No," she answered, seeming more confused than suspicious, "I just didn't expect to see an Inquisitor enjoy flying on a faulty shuttle that much."

"Hmm," I narrowed my eyes, "Why have you decided to become a Rogue Trader? Aside from the relative freedom of course."

"Money, Power, and the Thrill of it all, I reckon," she said after a moment of thought, "though I didn't have much choice as I was an only child so I inherited the Warrant of Trade by default."

"I'm not too different," I shrugged, "Money, Power and Freedom are a given as an Inquisitor but I try to enjoy every little thing that sends a jolt of thrill through me," I smiled at the woman, "not knowing whether this junk of a shuttle will explode while trying to exit the atmosphere is quite thrilling, thank you for the experience."

"...you are welcome," she now looked at me even more weirdly but just shook her head as I grinned at her probably like a lunatic. I'd make for a good Ordo Xenos Inquisitor in my honest opinion, I knew more than most of them about the aliens and I got the usual Inquisitor insanity by default.

Being near unkillable by usual methods tends to warp someone's personality.

"Got any Astropaths on board?" I asked a few moments later, my grin fading away with the question.

"One," she shook her head mournfully, "the psychic shockwave sent the rest either into raving lunacy or killed them outright, only the Astropath Transcendent remains, though she is comatose."

"Well damn," I looked at the ceiling, "oh well, whatever, we got bigger problems than alerting others right now."

"A Tyranid invasion would need to be reported," she nodded at me, "but we have to survive it first to do that."

"Right," I shrugged, "Not sure how we are going to get anywhere though, I don't know if your navigator mentioned it but the Astronomican has gone poof a few months ago," I said as I made a mock explosion gesture with my right hand.

"He did," she was looking at me weirdly again, I wonder why? *snicker* "He was also in a bad state when we left the ship to land so he might be dead by now."

"That would be bad," can I act like a Navigator? Maybe if I could eat him somehow, get that third eye thingy for myself.

"We'd be trapped on this planet with a Tyranid fleet coming right at us," she stated with a stony face, "Yes that'd be bad."

"Right?" I nodded in self-satisfaction, I think I like this woman, feisty.

We stayed silent for a few more minutes before I decided to ask something that came to mind just now.

"Would you mind if I exterminated the mutants crawling around your ship?" I was sure to find some interesting ones living near that disgustingly radioactive reactor.

"I don't think you need my permission to do your job," said Selene with a raised eyebrow and I just shrugged.

"It's your ship," I stared into her questioning grey eyes, "I've met some Rogue Traders that'd take me doing that like I've deflowered their daughters or something."

"I see it more as you curing her of a disease so go ahead," said Selene and I nodded back thankfully, a good relationship with her is going to make my life much easier.

Silence returned until the metal hull started screeching again as it connected to the Wanderer. It was an interesting setup, instead of entering a hangar or something this smaller ship that was far too large for a shuttle connected to the underside of the large ship.

Mechanical tubes and limbs extended from both and interlocked until the two were held firmly together. The connecting hallways depressurized as we stood in front of the bulkhead, watching the blinking red lamp turn green. The bulkhead opened with a loud screech, not having seen oil for probably the last century which overshadowed the hiss of air rushing between the two rooms.

"Would you like to go hunting now, or..." Selene looked at me, throwing a questioning sidelong glance at my seemingly unarmed form.

"I want to check on the Astropath Transcendent and the Navigator beforehand," I said with a glance at her before returning my gaze to the hallway leading into the main ship.

"Sure," she nodded easily, an Astropath Transcendent is a psyker soul-bound to the Emperor himself, something like a very binding warlock pact, they should have a small shard of HIS soul in them too.

I stood above the sleeping form of the Navigator, the man who apparently was called Aaron Follanx, he seemed to be in his fifties with his skin pulled gaunt against his skull. I'd have thought he was wearing chalk as skincare with how pale he was but I guess Warp energy isn't the best for your health either.

It is a very addictive and destructive drug, almost as much as the godlike power it gives to psykers.

From this close, it was evident that the Navigator wasn't the source of the radiant light that helped me first notice this ship. That light was coming from a few rooms away, where I'd been told they are treating the Astropath.

Navigators were an interesting breed, while psykers were gateways into the warp, people like this man were windows. They could glimpse into it but couldn't draw on its powers and his soul signified that. He shone brightly but only a bit brighter than the Captain and his little soul floated on top of the dark waves of the warp like a tiny boat.

His mind was calm but active, nothing like what I'd expect from a comatose person. His thoughts raced wildly, dreaming about whatever people dreamed about in this grimdark future. I cared not besides his relative stability, I retreated from his mind and turned my attention towards what was actually interesting.

"Want me to wake him up?" I tilted my head as I threw a glance at Selene standing a few meters behind me with two of her spec-ops bodyguards looming over her shoulders.

"If it isn't too much trouble," she nodded and her gaze switched to the slumbering navigator.

My palm was draped over his skull with my fingers digging under his disgustingly mangy hair. My psychic power didn't need direct control to work but they didn't know that. I glanced at the third eye in the middle of his forehead, now closed to the world but I knew it to be the source of his powers.

It'd be so easy to kill him, absorb him, and assimilate his powers. Just like I'd done with everything interesting so far but not now, I didn't want to be stuck on this rock and only this half-dead man could guide this ship through the hell that was the Warp.

My palm didn't need to touch him for my psychic powers to work but it did help in concealing the hundreds of tiny white tendrils extending from it and into his body. They phased through his body as they felt, touched, and sensed how his body was made up. Even without eating him, with my expanded knowledge about the human genome and mutations I reckoned I'd be able to replicate his powers with a bit of trial and error, especially since he won't notice a few of his cells and hair going missing while sleeping.

His body was weak and without nutrients which I had to restore just a bit with my own stores of bio-energy as I call it, even his pale cheeks got some color to them after a few seconds of me pumping energy into him. I went over his whole body with my microscopic tendrils another two times just to make sure I memorized everything correctly before I sent a tiny pulse of soul energy into his mind.

The man jerked and sat up like a spring, jumping to his feet next to his medical bed like a hyperactive kid as his three-eyed gaze flickered all over the room before landing on Selene and then finally me. His two human eyes were focused but the third on his forehead was glazed over and looking around still like it couldn't find what it was searching for.

"Lord Aaron," Selene drew his attention, "are you alright?"

"Ah," he blinked owlishly at me once before tearing his gaze away and focusing in on Selene, now with all three of his eyes, "Fine? no... PHENOMENAL, I haven't felt this great in centuries."

Selene snapped her head away as she saw his tar black eye starting to turn in her direction but one of the medicae staff wasn't so lucky, a single peek into the abyss of the Warp sent her convulsion on the floor but a moment later one of Selene's Shadows took him away.

The man grinned and I was afraid his skin would crack and flake off under the strain but he even spun around a bit before zeroing in on me with a curious look in his sunken black eyes.

"Do you not have a soul

"I'll take that as a compliment," I smiled at the confused Navigator, "I'm Inquisitor Echidna of the Ordo Xenos, a pleasure to meet you, Aaron."

He frowned at my casual way of calling him, stuck up as Navigators get, but then the cogs in his head turned ever so slowly as the Inquisitor part of my introduction clicked in his mind.

"Ah, my apologies Lady Inquisitor," he bowed his head, "I'm Aaron Follanx, Navigator assigned to this ship."

"We'll be relying on you to get off this rock once the repairs are done," I said as I turned tails and walked out of the room with a wave, "I'm going to check out the Astropath too, see you around."

After a few quick orders, Selene followed me and one of her shadows ran off, fetching people to take care of Aaron as he recovered. His momentary high will wear off in a bit as I already saw the whisps of warp energy that have engraved themselves into his body eating away at the excess energy.

My mere presence burned away some of that warp energy but the effect of my soul was much less in the material universe and I had no idea how to manifest it here, if such a thing was even possible.

I was a bit absent-minded as I threw open the doors leading into the personal room of the Transcendent Astropath, her soul was flickering like a disco ball of brilliant gold light getting swarmed by tendrils of dark Warp energy that didn't let her radiance through.

Not sure if I can do anything about it, and neither am I sure I want to.

If Aaron was a candle she was a roaring bonfire. Even if her light flickered like the bonfire in a drizzle it still shone brightly. I knew I'd fooled the Navigator, he easily accepted the 'She's an Inquisitor' answer to all of his questions but I wasn't so sure a Soul-Bound Astropath would too.

She was laid out, pale as snow but her cheeks still had some flesh to them, unlike Aaron who looked more like a skeleton who decided to wear skin. The Astropath was a woman looking around thirty with blonde hair cut right above her shoulders and a fit build.

I pushed my human emotions to the back that were insisting that I couldn't leave a beautiful woman like that suffering from the Warp like that. I wasn't a human anymore, survival was my primary goal and it wouldn't be obstructed by anything.

"I don't think I can save her," I looked at the woman mournfully, "She is too far gone."

"I see," Selene whispered, probably actually mournful unlike me. If I used my soul and powers I could burn out the Warp energy that has flooded her body, it was rampaging around her as her soul tried to subdue it but she was losing. It wouldn't be quick either but it was clear to me that she wouldn't last more than another week or two.

If I was a human I'd have been disgusted by my choice to let her die, but she'd be an inconvenience to me in the future, an obstruction, a threat, a danger to my life. Unforgivable.

I felt any sympathy fade as I thought of it like that and all I wanted was to kill her right here and now to make sure she wouldn't stay alive by some miracle. She stood between me and my certain survival and safety, nobody else could alert the Imperium at large about me on this ship if things turned sour but she could.

I blinked as I snapped out of my reverie, I found soul energy already streaming through the thread connecting me to my soul and I sent it right back. The Soul Flame that was brief moments away from materializing on my fingers never appeared.

I quickly engraved every bit of feeling and thought that ran through my head in the previous minute for later consideration, this was the first real way my alienness manifested itself and after a brief consideration, I shook my head a little. This wasn't too different from before, any human would do the most heinous of things if their lives depended on it, my line was just much more clear.

That's a positive, no regrets, no death because I was reluctant to kill who needed to be killed.

"I will go hunt down some mutants now," I said and Selene just nodded.

She was sitting in a chair next to the Astropath, holding the unconscious woman's hand as she talked to her in whispers. Reassuring her that it'd be alright, but it would most certainly not be alright.

She didn't even look at me as I left the room.

Despite my clear decision on what needed to be done a sour taste was left in my mouth, it wasn't like I wouldn't kill the woman in cold blood but I wouldn't enjoy it either. It was distasteful, maybe it was my leftover humanity feeling that way but it was still me.

Both the monster that'd murdered her in cold blood and the one that pitied her for it. I would pity her but I'd not regret doing it. What an interesting monster I'm becoming.

I decided to wash away the sour aftertaste with some mutant corpses. The best mouth-water around on the ship for sure.

I waved off some voidsmen and they directed me towards the Reactors, I went down, down and down. In some places, elevators took me a few floors down on others I had to take twisting and turning tunnels that sloped downwards.

The lower gravity here made traveling much easier as it barely took any effort on my part and a good hour or two later I was getting close to the Warp Drive and the voidsmen were showing signs of slight mutations here.

I continued on, these were still workable crewmen and not dispensable mutants but soon I found those too. Pale men and women some of whom shone with bioluminescence as they walked through the eternally dark tunnels with a hunch. Generations of working in a close-to-zero light environment while being exposed to the warp gave them some interesting changes.

I absorbed one here and there to get a good handle on their mutant genome, with a larger pool comparing it to normal humans I could easily spice the useful bits later.

I made sure to only absorb those that were close to dying or already dead, my thin tendrils went unnoticed in the dark and even if some noticed them their minds were wiped of it soon after. Selene had a humongous ship, I knew it was large but even as a sci-fi fan, ships this large were a rarity.

I didn't know how large it was exactly and neither did I remember the Imperial designations of the different classes of ships. Whatever, that I could travel tens of floors and wasn't even at the reactor yet reflected its size well.

Warp-mutants or Warp-Touched as they were called were spread rather evenly, one appearing here and there on every floor since halfway here but I only now started eating them too. The proximity with the Warp-Drive combined with the getting evicted from the higher floors pushed the dregs of them down here.

The hallways were dark and damp, the smell of rust and mold were a constant just as was the pervasive smell of human waste. Light was a luxury, corpse starch a delicacy. Humans hated the different, the lesser they deemed parasites and even more so when these parasites were warped by the antithesis of their God Emperor. As such mutants, even if some were useful, were pushed toward the 'slums' of the ship.

I thought myself rather resistant to radiation up until I absorbed a mutant that was actually able to eat radioactive waste and turn it into nutrition for itself. Its cells caught the decaying atoms and used that as fuel to multiply and feed the body and this was in addition to my previous resistance getting much stronger.

Previously I wouldn't have had to bother about a planet not having an ozone layer or anything protecting it from a sun's rays but now I could walk around a town that got a cobalt Bomb dropped on it a week before.

Then there were some moronic ones that decided that hitting on me was a good idea, they were some sort of celebrities down here as they fought in some gladiatorial pit-fights and that managed to rouse my interest enough to eat all five of the dudes that were surrounding me.

To my disappointment, the half-living Rad-Mutant gave me a much stronger radiation resistance than them and they only provided me with tougher skin that could stop radiation from going further into the body. Useful stuff but I didn't want to look like Leatherface if I could help it, maybe with a bit of testing I could give my own normal skin this property though.

The pale Gloomkin were a nice meal but not too useful in the end as I only got night vision and bioluminescence from them. The Warp-Touched were rather varied but few of them had useful mutations and even those that did paled in comparison to any of my Tyranid templates.

Rad-Mutants were interesting but once I had the near immunity to radiation they had I didn't have much other use for them, just like with those Rad-Warriors that hit on me. Each type had a bunch of them down here, separated into their own little communities but still mostly working together to keep the ship functioning.

From then on I continued toward the Warp Drive, eating non-functional mutants on the side even if only for the energy the action provided me. Soon there were only Rad-Mutants as I was getting very close to the Reactor and I had to start using my bio-energy to keep the cancerous mutations at bay, by then not even the Rad-Mutants were wandering around, leaving the dark and unkept tunnels of the ship empty.

It's time to head back, tomorrow I should check out other parts of the ship

The next few days took me out on sorties toward the tip of the ship and after the fourth day, I was finally satisfied with my gene collection. The waste disposal parts of the ship and the rather decayed sections bore the most fruit outside of the Warp Drive's close proximity.

Groups of mutants that called themselves Waste Nomads developed tough, scarred skin and heightened resistance to toxins while the Rustborne as they called themselves had near immunity to acids and corrosive agents and both groups could live off of decaying matter, now I could just go around chomping down on rusty pipes and I could gain some energy out of it, just like with nuclear waste.

I couldn't live off of radiation yet but this was already much better than having to rely on only organic matter, There was still the option of learning how to grow flesh with Biomancy, ( I learned that it's called Biomancy not Biokinesis but whatever ) and while nibbling on my fingers then regrowing them was somewhat grotesque I'd do it.

My other mind...parts? cores? sub-minds? Cores it is. Let's stay with the CPU analogy if I started out with it. So, my other mind cores were working on splicing and mixing my collected genes and much to my delight, a few hours earlier they managed to work out an enhanced template that would give my skin the properties of most of these mutants.

The gene template was clear and with my eldritch instincts, I knew exactly how it'd work and what properties it had. It was useful in debugging too as I learned as I just knew if a DNA sequence was faulty. Back to my new skin, the hardest part was keeping it both looking and feeling as silky smooth as it was before and that was managed by making it reactive.

It used a miniaturized version of the Patriarch's psychic field nerves to sense when something would touch the skin and then it'd activate, making it stiffer, tougher and overall much harder to pierce or damage either by acid, corrosion or anything really.

The interesting part was that this was barely noticeable if someone wasn't touching me exactly where my skin toughed up so it let me keep my 'biomancy' as low-profile as possible. The radiation blocking and decaying matter absorption were also implemented obviously but I couldn't test those until I went closer to the Warp Drive.

I arrived back to the floors housing the officer's quarters with a spring in my steps, the eternally aware and ready spec ops guys were just a touch stiffer than before I entered, I took to calling them Shadows and it fit quite well with how silent they were and how they followed Selene and Orion around like silent shadows.

I stopped mid-step as I felt the dimming soul of the Astropath brighten for a fleeting moment before exploding in a radiant supernova of golden Warp energy. It swept across the ship, banishing the building-up warp taint from humans and mutants alike.

It passed through me without doing anything but I felt it, a presence, a slight sliver of a fragment but it was unmistakable. Majestic and overbearing. Were I a human I'd have dropped to my knees and started praying but I was not, I walked through the gaggle of confused officers and other crewmembers as they shook each other out of their dazes.

I felt a slight illusion of this presence once before when I dove into the soul of the Astropath Transcendent for a bit, if her soul was a planet it felt like a shard of a star was stabbed into it like a spear and that spear exuded this same sensation of majesty.

I reached the dead woman's room and threw open the doors with a frown on my face but only a single thought was going through the numerous threads of my mind, Why, why did he intervene? Why did he do that?

It was imperative that you wasted neither your focus nor your energy when you were a decaying corpse with a soul fragmented into millions of tiny shards.

"Inquisitor?" Selene's cracking voice broke me out of my staring contest with the peacefully 'sleeping' corpse.

"Yes, that's me," I strode closer to the corpse, not a single sign of injury or death yet, "Tell me, did something happen exactly one minute and 48 seconds ago?"

"What?" the woman asked with a voice that was somewhere between a tremble and rising indignation.

"Her soul detonated like a supernova at that exact time without any outside interference that I could notice," aside from the Big E but let's not bring that up.

I sat down on a nearby chair and let Selene come to terms with the situation, I noticed she had a significant connection with the late Astropath, dare I say she might have even loved her so her rather shaken state was self-explanatory.

"S-She seemed like she had a nightmare before and around the time you s- said she calmed down," she closed her eyes and covered them with a palm, "I thought she was finally getting a peaceful sleep ... getting better."

I held back the 'So nothing then' response that came from my apathetic side and instead took on a morose expression.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I shook my head softly.

She took a deep breath, "Thank you," she took away her palm, revealing bloodshot eyes, "do you know what happened to her?"

Ah, fuck me sideways, what do you want me to tell you, woman?

"There are far worse ways to pass than in a bed, peacefully," I stared into her eyes, imploring her with my look not to ask the question anymore but it seemed like the woman didn't care about social graces at the moment.

"Tell me," said Selene in a voice so grating and malicious that it'd make a Drukhari blush.

"I don't know for sure," I averted my eyes, "but it seemed like 'damage control' to me."

"Damage control?" I couldn't tell whether she was livid under the surface or deathly calm, her face was like a stone mask.

"She was dying already, Selene," I shook my head softly, "I could sense her soul getting tainted bit by bit, she was losing the fight against corruption."

"That's impossible," She shook her head vehemently, "She was a Transcendent, she was soul-bound."

I didn't say anything, I didn't know what exactly happened or why, all I knew was that the big man decided to detonate her soul while he yanked his soul fragment away from her.

For some reason this event in time was important enough for him to exert himself, intervention was few and far between but for all I knew this was just a normal thing that happened when a soul-bound psyker was getting corrupted by the Warp.

It could be a sort of automatic scorched earth tactic. The soul-fragment kept the psyker in line and the overreaching hands of demons away from the psyker but if said psyker were to die or get corrupted forcefully then the demons would be denied their feast without too much of a loss on his side.

Another possibility wormed its way into my mind, it was an alien idea to me but I could see a Psyker that got indoctrinated at the Schola going through with it. What if His presence wasn't so evident to me because he himself acted but just because the protective shell that was the Astropath's soul got blown to bits? What if it wasn't He who detonated the soul but the Astropath herself?

I glanced at the remains of the woman, she slept eternally with a peaceful smile on her lips and now that I looked at it carefully it might have been a smile of relief. If she lost her soul to the Warp, let it corrupt her body and soul that would have left her free for demons to use either as a vessel or a gate.

Which would have been the prelude to a gruesome end for the people on this ship.

A selfless sacrifice for the good of others. The idea felt alien to my eldritch instincts, still, I found myself admiring the dead woman. That was much more likely than the big man handing out divine interventions like cookies.

I stood and Selene's gaze refocused on me, snapping up from the floor.

"If her soul got forcefully corrupted her fate would have been far worse than mere oblivion," I said, having watched one or two bright stars go out as dark maws constricted around them in the Warp. The faster oblivion came, the better in this galaxy. Eldar's got their souls tortured for who knows how long before She who Thirsts ate them bit by bit, drawing out their torturous existence as far as possible.

"The Emperor Protects," I said as my palm came to rest on her shoulder and I felt her stiffen under it, I stared into her grey eyes deeply before letting go of her and leaving the room without another word.

Magos Dominus Zedev

This was the fifth day since he came to the planet, Follax IV was a relatively important world with a major Hive city and several smaller cities spreading around its surface.

Zedev didn't care about either of those, his mind was buried deeply into the mess that was the mechanical record of the happenings on the planet. Tens of tubes and wires connected him to the large machinery that was located near the top of this spire and he was finally making headway in his search.

Locations, directions, coordinates, shipments, registers, and missing weapons all coalesced in a grand tapestry that needed solving and Zedev was more than ready to do so. He has done so more times than he could count, or well, he could count it but the data was inconsequential and as such a waste of precious memory space.

He'd worked on several ways to edit his own memory, keeping only relevant data stored as his many centuries of life have accumulated in such a collection of useless memories that his human mind was getting overwhelmed.

The flesh is weak.

Resets, partitions, encryptions, formatting he tried it all, and all of them were failing. His mind drifted as several species came to mind who could live for thousands of years without such problems, our flesh is weak.

He terminated that line of thought and formatted the entire partition of his mind it appeared on. Such heretical thoughts were popping up more and more in his head as his inevitable end drew nearer but by now he determined that all of his partitions were somewhat corrupted by it.

He learned to live with it.

The worst was that he knew it wasn't wrong either, if only he could substitute his human brain for an Eldar one, he would be perfect. A blend of machine and man just like the Omnissiah envisioned the future of humanity.

His mechanical eye shone as the complex set of calculations finished and a finished report was delivered to his main mind partition, it contained a list. A List of Locations.

If Zedev still had lips he would have grinned, alas he did not, and a moment later his emotional dampeners kicked in and his feelings of satisfaction vanished.

He had to notify the Inquisitor. There were Xenos to terminate on the planet.

Maybe a few of their remains would go mysteriously missing