Chương 210: Chapter Two Hundred and Ten

A week flitters by without any unwanted excitement. I continue to spend two hours with my family every day. The kids have mostly bounced back. The House Benetek navigators have settled in and Reina Benetek and Annette Issengrund née Ortelius have struck up a friendship with Alpia.

Raphael continues to make trouble, so I stuffed him with new implants, which should keep him from finding out about the Tau until we leave as he's now stuck in recovery for ten weeks, and will then have to undergo training and physiotherapy. That hasn't stopped him from reviewing data about the Breaking Yards though, or trying to sort out the mess with the Imperial Navy.

I don't have any specific tasks other than my research and I'm in no great rush now that I've extracted the data from the Haemonculi; I need to coordinate with JK-404 on Hyper Intelligence and she's still busy with the Space Marines. I do some work on my E-SIM purchases, Life Support and Warp Tap Ⅰ, as it's about time I learn how my two 'free' starting modules actually work, but I don't put too much focus on it as I should be able to understand them much faster once Hyper Intelligence is in place.

I still have misgivings about messing with my brain, but that isn't going to stop me from implementing the upgrade. Most of my time is actually spent assisting the rest of Fleet Command with their own tasks. There is a certain irony in having delegated a bit too well, that now I'm the one helping with their jobs, rather than the other way around. With the extra time I have available, I take a stab at working on my mental health and go to Lonceta's concert at Distant Sun's Melodium.

She plays once a month, piping her grand organ music over the vox for all who care to tune in, but it's significantly more impressive in person. Originally, the Melodium was a fairly small facility filled with sliding panels, gilded pipes, and other instruments played by Servitors that could provide a near infinite number of hypnotic morale boosting and loyalty inducing tunes. It is an odd mix of live music reproduced via recorded data.

At first, I used the Melodium to slowly temper the people of Marwolv and improve their resilience to Warp travel, then I used it to brainwash the Tau, and now it's a traditional gilded concert hall and a part of Thorfinn's media studio. After turning it into a concert hall, the instruments can be played manually, as well as automatically. It still plays uplifting tunes, boosts loyalty, and drowns out demonic whispers.

With Thorfinn at the helm however, it can do that in so many more ways than just piping music through Distant Sun and the rest of the fleet, pushing its hypnotic tunes through holovids, vox shows, and noosphere games. There's a private box for Fleet Command to enjoy the music, high above the other seats. When I turn up to Lonceta's concert halfway through the first piece, I find Maeve there as well, her seat fully reclined and her eyes closed.

A rather large cybercat is curled up on her lap, purring up a storm as Maeve gently strokes its artificial fur.

"Good afternoon, Maeve. I didn't know you had a cat. I didn't even know we made cats."

"Hello Aldrich, this black and brass beauty used to belong to one of my officers. I've adopted her. She's called Xena." Meaning her owner is dead, no doubt.

"A lovely name for an expertly crafted specimen. Apologies for interrupting your nap."

"For the best, perhaps. I do actually want to listen to Lonceta's concert and some company will keep me more focused."

"You do not mind if we talk then?"

"A little Fleet gossip? You could turn that down no better than I can, no matter how fiercely Lonceta is banging out tunes." I laugh and sit next to her, "True. The mistakes of the younger generations are always amusing. We can hardly find joy in our own, given the stakes."

"Aye, there is that. Are you still beating yourself up about the massacre on Dying Light?"

"A bit, yeah. We lost a whole penal regiment and four percent of the Heralds who participated. Another thirty-three percent required extensive prosthetics, not that many were too upset about the free upgrades." Maeve snorts, "There's been a fair bit of bragging going on, for sure. Best not to mope too much though, Aldrich. The Heralds will take it as an insult and we've updated our boarding procedures. We can't do more than that. No victory is without cost and our victory was great.

It stands to reason that our losses were just as bad." I frown. Maeve continues, "I know you're thinking that 'But I was the one in charge of that disaster!' Sure you were, but everyone followed a pre-approved plan using tactics that were developed entirely by mine and Lonceta's branches from centuries of simulations and millennia of Imperial and Mechanicus records, as well as the experience of the Barghest Chapter.

"I will readily admit we approached the assault with far too much confidence in our equipment and training, against what we thought were going to be a bunch of pirates in a barely powered voidship. Still, it was that equipment and training that got us through that mess relatively unscathed, by Imperial and Mechanicus standards. Even the Space Marines were impressed. Taking faith in our competence was not misplaced and you do everyone a disservice by shouldering the blame."

"I see that, Maeve, but I've never been good at separating emotions from logic." Maeve hands me Xena, who glares at the movement, then turns a few circles fiercely patting my legs, before returning to sleep,"There, pet therapy. Look Aldrich, none of us have experienced a scenario like the one we encountered on Dying Light before, nor even thought of such outlandish rituals and tactics. Being suspicious of everything can only take one so far. One must act, or be made to act. You know this.

Now we know what to look out for and will not make the same mistake again. Take the win, Aldrich, and honour the victorious dead." This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"I will, I am, even! It isn't going to stop me being pissed about it though."

"Nothing wrong with a little fire in your heart."

"Ah."

"Ah. What? You hit some personal revelation?"

"That was what my Dad used to say."

"Wise man." I burst out laughing, "Oh, throne no. He was a bit of a lad."

"What does that even mean?"

"Right, culture and language drift. I mean he was a man who lived in the moment, with nary a thought for the consequences of his actions, a ready smile, and a poor temper."

"How so?"

"Well, for example, when he was sixteen, after some ill-advised adventures, vehicle theft followed by some exceptionally bad driving, he was given a choice of joining the local PDF or extensive community service. He stayed in the PDF for six years, before budget cuts lost him his job." In other words, after getting caught joy-riding, he joined the British Navy, never got anywhere with it, and because he was a dumbass, if a rather popular one, was always the first on the chopping block for whatever job he took.

"How odd! Must have been some noble pilfering the coffers." I shrug, "Some cronyism was probably involved, yeah."

"What about your mother?"

"She left six months after I was born and moved to another Hive. I did visit her once, for a couple of days, when I reached eighteen and finished my schooling. She was nice enough, but she never reached out herself after I contacted her the first time, or the second for that matter. I didn't bother again." She moved to Spain to work for a telecommunication's company rather than stay anywhere near my Dad.

"Wow. So what does this personal history have to do with your realisation?"

"The one good thing about my Dad was that he was surprisingly self-aware. Despite never considering the consequences of whatever hairbrained scheme he cooked up, he never complained when he had to face them, and saw them through, if often with lacklustre enthusiasm. That includes raising me."

"This isn't going to be some tragic backstory is it?"

"Nah, nothing of the sort. He was an alright Dad, even if he thought beans on toast and kebabs was a suitable diet for a child. Once I turned ten, he even started spiking my lemonade with beer to 'learn my limits' if I didn't keep an eye on him."

"Hmm, more cultural drift there, I think, but I understand what you are trying to say from the context," says Maeve.

"Right. Anyway, I guess I see losing my temper, or being annoyed about something as a personal failing. My Dad used to get in shouting matches with everyone over the stupidest of things, usually over sports, and not only did it get him into trouble, it was massively embarrassing.

"I'm annoyed about fucking up, because it reminds me of his poor planning, even though we made plenty of plans. I feel the need to take responsibility for my mistakes, because it was the only worthwhile lesson my Dad ever taught. Kinda dumb, now that I think about it, but like my Dad, I've no great desire to change my behaviour. I'm happy about who I am. I'm a right bundle of contradictions."

"You shouldn't turn yourself into a Machine-Spirit by accident then, or you'll implode from a logical paradox."

"That is distinctly possible! Anyway, enough about me. What about you? I know you ended up with the Stellar Fleet because I was headhunting for high level administrators, but how did you end up as Mayor of Pearroc back on Marwolv? Going from civilian mayor to military general is quite the change as well, though none will argue that you did not earn it."

"I appreciate that, Aldrich, thank you." Lonceta continues to play, her concert moving on to some quieter pieces. Maeve's eyes glaze over as she gets lost in thought for a few minutes. During the gap between pieces, Maeve starts speaking again, "My parents were low level clerks. The sort of people who work hard their whole lives, but never get properly rewarded for it. I wanted to change that, so I climbed the ladder, kissing ass and sabotaging my rivals until I was at the top.

Not so that I could change the work culture, though I certainly tried, but to make sure Mum and Dad received their due for their diligence.

"As for becoming Herald Primaris, Aruna assigned me to the military after a bunch of tests and you kept promoting me from there. While we were building up our military forces, it was an administrative role. I learned my martial and command skills alongside everyone else. Keeping the role requires the same skills as the ones I learned to become Mayor of Pearroc," Maeve smirks.

"There's something a little tongue-in-cheek about you telling your boss this."

"An ass-kissing joke? If you're feeling introspective, could you at least improve your humour? That was awful. Also, for the record, I am exaggerating. I don't actually screw over my rivals anymore. There's little need to do so when you cycle the leadership roles no matter what anyone does."

"You're fine, Maeve. I knew you were joking. Let's change the subject before I get accused of flogging a dead grox. I'll chat to Owen and my family and get my head sorted in my own time."

"That's OK. I don't mind chatting to you about this. That's what friends are for, eh?"

"I appreciate it, but why don't you tell me about your next play anyway? I am still paying for the afterparty of those things and your crew has grown rather big over the years."

"Not much to say, really. The next one is about one of the Barghest campaigns on Seldon's Folly, one of the Ragged Worlds of the Koronus Expanse. It used to be called Pastorus, but Rogue Trader Marrius Seldon has been fighting on it for decades against the local PDF, a dispute that started over his mistress of all things.

"Some dipshits turned to the Ruinous Powers for an advantage and the Barghests stomped that out, then left the idiots to it. Those fools are still fighting each other. A lot of Rogue Traders sell to both sides at outrageous prices, not only for the cash, but because maintaining the war keeps Trader Seldon from competing with them. At this point, the two factions on the planet hate each other so much that they'll likely keep fighting until one side is wiped out to the last child.

"We're trying to raise awareness in the Fleet about the sort of scraps our allies get into while hammering in the folly of pride. Most of the newbies from Torchbearer and Ardent Bane thought that Space Marines were a myth. Eoghan, one of Odhran's honour guards, is playing as one of the marines, the other four marines in the story are faking it in some knock off power armour, but it's still great to have a proper marine in the cast."

"How will you be depicting the demons?"

"We're not. Not really, anyway. Just a bunch of people in cloaks with clawed hands, some dressed as cultists, and others hidden in fancy uniforms. We actually have three mutants who have agreed to pretend to be demons in the cloaks. I'm honestly surprised they went for it, rather than get fixed up. It takes some serious commitment to play something similar to a hated minority while being part of that minority. Never thought I'd see the day, but they work harder at being actors than anyone else.

Hopefully the audience will take away the right message, rather than whip out their pistols, but you can never be too sure with Imperials."

"Like I said to Eire, we are Imperials!"

"Uh huh, pull the Inquisitor's other leg. Talking of Raphael, did he ever get around to telling you about the mess he pulled me into with the navy?"

"Yes, I put him in time out in a healing tank. Still, I'd rather like to hear your version of what went down."

"It's no Seldon's Folly, but it is similar. If you squint." I tut, "Stop hyping up the mystery and just tell me!"