Chapter 4: Chapter Four
His Glorious Aspirations. Unknown System.
I'd been right as it turned out, the Dark of Technology Drive did allow access to other dimensions as I'd somehow known (If I had part of the Emperor within me then perhaps I knew because he knew) it would, and as hoped I'd used the drive to escape the nightmare realm of Warhammer 40k because no remotely sane person would hang around in the galaxy unless they really had to. I would have to go back to make use of the Forge-World docks, but I could limit my exposer. One day I would hopefully find something to protect myself and the ship from any taint caused by The Warp. However, that was part of my long term plans.
Right now I needed to deal with other issues, such as figuring out where I'd brought us as I couldn't be certain we were where I'd wanted us to be, and what we would now that we were here. No matter where we'd ended up I needed to find some way of making a profit while here as otherwise, I would lose my ship. I would not be parted from my vessel, it was too much to lose. My ship and my warrant were my freedom. I would not go back to working a dead-end job on some Hive World.
Running a Dauntless-class cruiser, even one that's been stripped down of many of its weapons and doesn't have hanger bays full of fighters and bombers, is not cheap. Imperium of Man warship is more mobile city-fortresses than anything else. This ship is 4.5 km long, masses at 20 megatonnes and has a crew of about 65,000 people, and that's without counting the nine thousand guardsmen and women, and all the people who supported them. They all needed to be supplied.
While the ship was well stocked, we might be able to spend a few months out in the unknown before we would have to return to civilized space, but with more than seventy thousand people onboard just feeding everyone took massive amounts of resources every day. Then you had to take into account keeping them all equipped, busy with work, entertained when there was no work, and on top of all that I still had to pay anyone who wasn't a slave and since I'd recruited a proper crew for my ship they would need to be paid well. I needed to find some way of making money while out here.
As such if this solar system, the one I'd brought us to, didn't contain a way for me to make a lot of profit in the next couple of months, I'd either have to resupply out of my own pocket, which I couldn't do since I'd spent everything I had on this ship, or I'd have to take us back the forge-world and hope that the Ad-mech would be pleased enough with the test run to keep supporting me.
With that in mind, I'd called a meeting so that the senior member of the Ad-Mech, a man called Archmagos Del Arx who was an Explorator, who are a class of Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus that focus on the exploration of space to gather knowledge, often in Explorator Fleets. He should be able to explain to me what was going on in the system I'd brought us to and if it was the system I hoped it was.
Unlike the Engineseers who kept the cruiser going, the Archmagos wasn't under my authority in the strictest sense because of the strange way the Imperium works, but since I had the Warrant of Trade I was considered to the God-Emperor representative when we were beyond the borders of his domain and since the Ad-Mech believe that Big E is the physical avatar of their machine god or something like that, the Archmagos would agree to go along with what I wanted as long as my plans served the interests of the Ad-Mech. If this was a lifeless system we might just end up mapping it and doing a little mining. This might be enough for the Ad-Mech as a star chart of an unknown system is useful information to them even if it contains nothing profitable, and they liked to control information, any minerals we picked up would also be nice.
"Lord-Captain Maximinus Thrax," said my First Officer.
That wasn't my real name, and it wasn't the name I'd been given up arriving in the 40k universe, but when I'd become part of the nobility it had made sense to get a more important sounding name. There had been a family of Rouge Traders called Thrax who had vanished centuries ago so reusing the name made sense and the Ad-Mech, who had assigned me the name and the ship, weren't exactly known for coming up with anything new.
"May I present Lord-Inquisitor Inquisitor Allectus Jacobus of the Ordo Mallus his bodyguard Sister Brigicia of the Adepta Sororitas and Sanctioned Psyker Suzan" said my XO.
I wasn't shocked to discover that the Inquisition had someone on board, they'd gone to the trouble of mindwiping me rather than just shooting me so they must want me for something.
"We did not expect the Inquisition," said one of less ranking Magos who'd come with the Archmage.
Upon hearing this the psyker, a small blonde woman in clothing that wouldn't look out of place down in the gun decks, stepped forward and I could see the big grin on her face.
"No one expects the His Imperial Majesty's Holy Inquisition! Our chief weapon is a surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency! Er, among our chief weapons are fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and near-fanatical devotion to the God-Emperor... no wait I'll start again".
Had she just fused Monty Python with Warhammer 40k? I didn't know if I should be scared or to start falling in love with the crazy blond girl who I couldn't help noticing had a passing resemble the actress who played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films.
"Forgive Suzan" requested the Lord Inquisitor "her abilities prove useful when seeking out the those corrupted by the Warp, but they strain her mind".
Given how The Warp worked it wouldn't surprise me to find out that poor Suzan was haunted by the spirit of Graham Chapman. As for the Inquisitor, he was a tall man in rather simple black clothing no more decorated than my own. If he'd been a native of Earth back in my time I'd say that he was either from some Middle-Eastern country or descended from the natives of one such land, but given the sheer number of human-hed planets in the Warhammer galaxy, he could be from anywhere.
The battle sister at his side who he introduced as Sister Brigicia of the Adepta Sororitas wore something that wouldn't look out of place in a Catholic Church back home, although I'd been raised as a Methodist so I was no expert, only she didn't cover her hair, which was a vibrant red and tied back in a ponytail.
"Also we have Lord-General Segean Holam" informed my second in command "and Lady-Navigator Praxana of House Praxo".
General Holam looked like a grizzled veteran, he had a clean-shaven face and a short hair cut that drew attention to the scars he'd acquired during many services to the Emperor. His uniform was also rather plain, free of any needless ornamentation such as medals. Even the Navigator wore a simple red robe and a red headdress, to cover up her third eye which could kill with a look, and this confused me as I'd been under the impression that high ranking members of IOM liked to try to upstage each other with finery and that they all carried arms all the time that we were needlessly large to show off their prowess. Maybe they only bothered with stuff when someone was likely to take a photo.
"While the Lord-Captain was resting I took the liberty of scouting this system," the Archmagos told us in an unexpectedly human-sounding voice "And this is what we have learned so far".
My cruiser had navigators, however, due to the special nature of the warp drive we were using I somehow guided the ship, the navigators were only to take over guiding the ship through the warp if I somehow failed. Since the drive could not be replicated didn't threaten the Navigator Houses and if it was one day they'd be the ones to use the drives. If anything they could profit from my ventures as I also had to pay them with some of my profits while they didn't little to no work due to ancient laws. Still, it would be worth it if only to stop them from interfering with my operations and if I did pass out during a warp jump they might be able to save us from being consumed by daemons so I didn't mind having them here.
"This is a map of this system," said the Archmagos.
He'd just done something that was part technical and part mystical, at least in his mind, to make the round table that we were all standing around emit a very detailed hologram. This system had what one would imagine a solar system would have. Rocky worlds, gas giants, a sun, that sort of thing.
"So far we have found only one word that holds any interest to us," said the Archmage who altered the image so that one world floated before us in the centre of the table "All our fact-finding supports that this is a world that can support human life. We have detected no signs of any intersystem travel or vox signals, so until we make orbit and perform a planetary scan we won't know if it is inhabited by anything more advanced than simple animal and plant life".
Suzan again spoke and did so with a big smile on her face.
"A song of ice and fire!" she yelled "Death marches on The Wall!".
No one was more shocked than me to hear those words and I had more reason to react than others. At least I knew that we were in the right place and if the psyker was making any kind of sense the White Walkers were on the move. Not that I worried, they could be dealt with via orbital bombardment. Besides the ice demons would be the Inquisition's problem.
"My psyker does not speak without good reason," said the Lord-Inquisitor "There must be something on that world of great importance for her to say such things".
Now the hologram had slowly spun around to show me a recognisable landmass I knew for sure that I'd brought us to the right part of the multiverse. The continent that I looked at just had to be Westeros. I'd been write about the drive and while it had been taxing for me to bring us here it could be quite profitable if I played my cards right. There was no one on that world to stop us and so it would just be a matter of exploiting its people and resources as effectively as possible.
This would be a good first world for me to visit as a Rogue Trader in action as I had much to learn about conquests and making massive amounts of profit. If my life was a game, and it sure felt like that at times, this could be considered a fun first level to start with. A way to learn what I could do and without putting too much strain on myself or my ship.
I had to wonder if this Suzan woman was like me from Earth in the past, around about the early 21st century or if in her universe life on Earth had been the same at that time as it had been in mine, and she was somehow tapping into the pop culture of that era via The Warp. Either would make sense to me given how downright nuts the 40k verse could be. If she was a SI of some kind then she should be able to sense the same about me and if so she'd likely make contact at some point. If not then she just an oddity and it would be best for my sanity not to pay her too much attention.
"There is a concern we should address before anything else," said the high ranking Navigator "While the psykers on board this ship, be they Astropath or Navigator can still feel a faint trace of the God-Emperor's light we have lost sight of The Astronomicum. To avoid a panic this news had been allowed to spread"
Despite how bad that sounded, and it was bad since it meant we were very far from Holy Terra, I wasn't too concerned about this.
"I should be able to retrace our journey and take us back to the forge-world," I told everyone.
You didn't need psychic powers to sense how well everyone took this news. Now it would be possible to tell the crew that we would be able to make it back. In theory, any psyker should be able to guide the ship back to the forge-world it just wouldn't be possible to leave the Warhammer universe unless you had an idea of about somewhere to go.
With that issue dealt with a discussion began about the habitable planet that we would soon venture to. Suzan muttered something that her boss took to mean that we were heading towards a feudal world, what I would call a medieval setting. If this was the Game of Thrones world and Suzan's words could be trusted then I suspected that we'd arrived at some point in the timeline that I saw on the show, which made sense since I'd been thinking about this fictional universe when connected the drive while picturing events from the show, and when The Warp got involved, and the drive did use The Warp in some way, then time and space didn't always have to make sense.
"If this world is feudal in nature then conquering it will not prove difficult even it might be time-consuming," said the Lord-General "We can't take on the native armies all at once, but if they are divided into warring states we can conquer them one at a time".
Thanks to the teaching engines and my own knowledge I knew that a Feudal World is a planet into which the Imperium has not seen fit to introduce the most advanced technology to keep its people in an easily controlled state. Sometimes the people of that world will have access to more advanced medical technologies than expected for such a society, this can include basic antiseptic agents and antibiotics, this is not done out of kindness, rather than to ensure that the worlds' population, which can be drawn upon to create guard regiments, isn't lost to an epidemic, and make sure the raw materials or food paid in tribute to the Imperium keeps coming.
Feudal Worlds are defined as those planets of the Imperium that have developed late Iron Age civilisations that are moderately technologically advanced while remaining pre-industrial, having usually progressed as far as to discover or re-discover rudimentary gunpowder weapons. These planets often possess widespread and advanced farming economies and typically have a population somewhere between 10,000,000 to 500,000,000 people. Feudal Worlds are similar culturally and technologically to Terran societies in the European Late Middle Ages or Renaissance periods of the Age of Progress.
Generally, Feudal Worlds will have little direct political or economic interference from the larger Imperium and be required to pay only low planetary tithes. Imperial Planetary Governors of Feudal Worlds will generally live on a space station in orbit of the planet to avoid altering the cultural balance, only descending to the surface to deal with heresy, rebellion or rampant mutation.
These planets are populated by folk who have lost access to all but the most basic of technologies and maintain Iron Age or early Gunpowder Age societies. Farming, simple labour-intensive machines such as pulleys, windmills and the like are known but propelled flight, automatic weaponry and powered vehicles are likely to be rare or non-existent. These words are often said to be the most politically harmonious of all the planets of the Imperium because their peoples know their place.
Feudal worlds are self-sufficient, and due to dependence on agriculture, a large part of the populations of these worlds are peasants, usually ruled by warrior aristocracies. Feudal worlds are of relatively little use to the Imperium's military as you have to deal with culture shock when recruiting guard regiments, but it does happen and given time you can train medieval warriors into guardsmen you just have to account for the higher failure rate during training. This was something I would keep in mind
When the Inquisition had mindwiped a lot of my recent memories they had implanted me with some greater knowledge of this galaxy that I could access when required to help guide me as a Rogue Trader. If only to decrease the chances of me screwing something up and making a mess that they'd have to clean up later on. This knowledge would come in handy during my career.
"We should hold off on any plans until we make orbit and get more detailed readings of the world," I said to the VIPs around the table "If humans are living on the planet we'll need to abduct some of them to find out more. The same goes if they are some kind of aliens who will need to be destroyed".
It amused me that I was about to send ships to a world to abduct people.
"Hopefully without the anal probing," said Suzan all of a sudden.
Thankfully the people here pretended that she hadn't spoken. Perhaps they were simply used to Sanctioned Psykers saying odd things at times.
"That would be wise," said the Archmagos "It will take a further 37.2 hours for the ship to enter orbit. At that point, I will entrust the Magos under my command to begin gathering information. Once I have a report, which should be possible in an estimated 51.8 hours, the Lord-Captain can decide our next course of action".
Already I was thinking about how I, or more likely the Lord-General, could conquer most of the feudal world with only nine thousand guardsmen and whatever men and women I could afford to excuse from duties on the ship to support the regiment. In the show, The Mother of Dragons proves to anyone watching how the Free Cities around Slaver's Bay could easily be taken by a big enough force and that could be a good place to start. But first I needed more information, such as knowledge of recent events and a plan for dealing with the White Walkers, assuming the Inquisition didn't take care of that for me.
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