129 – Fishies Come Knocking

129 – Fishies Come Knocking

"Identify yourself, Gue'la," he demanded, the word spoken like a curse. "You are trespassing in T’au space."

Well, someone’s having a bad day.

“Am I?” I smiled back at the hologram with the best amicable expression I could manage. “The System seems pretty dead to me, but alas, this is the only place we could reach. You see, we’d been attacked on the way by dreadful creatures of living metal and had to stop to repair our ship.”

"It is indeed T’au space," he said. "Even if the infrastructure and population are still developing. As for your tale, I care not. Leave immediately."

“I’m afraid that would end with our death in short order,” I said apologetically, while my gravitational sensors worked in overdrive. There. Found you. “Our ship is still a few days away from being serviceable.”

The fish head had the gall to harrumph despite my best attempts at diplomacy.

‘Tell him why we are here,’ Selene’s voice whispered into my mind. ‘He thinks you are a standoffish human merchant captain at best. He’ll probably change his tune once he knows you want to join his glorious civilization.’

“You see, good Sir,” Who still didn’t bother to introduce himself- Fuck. I didn’t either. “Me and my crew were just on our way to seek employment under your Empire. So if you would be so kind as to allow us a few days to repair our ship, we would be well on our way to the nearest populated planet.”

"Employment?" he asked dubiously, looking me up and down with what I suspected was a frown. "Are you seeking asylum? No. What is your true intent, Gue'la?"

“We are mercenaries,” I said. His ship is locked in. If need be, I can blast him into oblivion ... but that would be the end of the diplomatic approach, which would be a shame. Let’s brown nose a bit more. “We heard your empire employs various races as auxiliaries in their armies, and we decided it would be our best option. Since we’d be hunted down and burned for our presumed ‘heresy’ in the Imperium, our only hope was to escape and hope our services would be enough compensation to take us in.”

"I ... see." he squinted his eyes, long fingers thoughtfully stroking his chin. He glanced to the side, as if receiving input from his drone before giving a nod. "If you speak with sincerity, you will be welcomed into the Greater Good with open arms. We do not discriminate. That is, provided you are being truthful about your intentions."

He seemed to smile before continuing. "We will need to verify this before transporting you to the nearest sept world. After all, we must ensure that no infiltrators or saboteurs threaten our harmonious society."

‘Val,’ I connected to the Eldar currently flip-flopping between amusement and seething. ‘Can I trust you to make sure any of them that come to board us think this a regular imperial ship aside from the passengers?’

‘Of course, Mistress,’ He said. ‘As much as I’d love to have you test your psychic finesse by influencing an entire group of them unnoticed, we would have to start much smaller first. I will handle them easily. Do you want them to be impressed by the ship, or have them think it archaic and inferior to their own?’

‘Go with the second,’ I said. ‘It’s better for them to underestimate us.’

“Well, when can we expect your arrival, then?” I asked the hologram. “We'd very much appreciate being escorted to safety.”

The Tau straightened up, his arms clasped behind his back as he gave a single arrogant nod. “You can expect us in ... 15 Terran minutes?”

I returned the nod with an amicable smile on my face, one which quickly disappeared once the hologram fizzled out. “We should have gone with stealth. I’m going to strangle that blue fucker if he keeps up that attitude.”

“Novel challenges are good for growth,” Val noted, though I didn’t for a second think he didn’t murder the Tau captain a hundred creative ways in his mind while that conversation played out.

Selene hesitantly patted me on the back, still looking a bit sheepish over our last conversation. I sent her a smile. She was trying to cheer me up, and that was what mattered to me.

“Throgg,” I glanced at the hulking Ork poking his head in through a door. “Make sure your little brats behave. I don’t want to fight the Tau just yet. Beat as many of them acting out into a pulp as you have to if it means keeping them in line. Also, assemble a small contingent that’ll act as guards.”

"Undastood, boss!” He nodded eagerly. "Dey'll behave demselves."

Okay, fifteen minutes, let’s speed up this shipbuilding. I rolled my shoulders before letting my power loose. I wasn’t creating anything too out there, I was just remodelling the ship to look like a run-of-the-mill Imperial Light Cruiser. With my mind-core’s help, making materials that looked like the ones the Imperium used in the few schematics Zedev had was not that much of a challenge.

Unfortunately, most of them were ... trash. Garbage. Sure that thin sheet of bark sure looked like the metallic material they used for the hull, but a regular human could peel it back with their bare hands.

Look and function were much harder to accomplish in tandem. Oh well, Zedev was working on that. Hopefully. I hadn’t peeked into his mind in quite a while and wasn’t really sure what he had been up to lately.

Oh well, he wouldn’t have come along with me if he wanted to be a pain in my ass or the like. Plus I think I would be able to feel if he had any sort of animosity towards me. Throgg certainly doesn’t hide how much he wants to beat me up, but I guess I shouldn’t really compare an Ork and a Magos.

Bio-energy flowed through the ship. It was already about one-third done and the schematics and templates for the materials were also almost done, so when I pushed my mind-cores to the limit with a quick infusion of bio- and soul energy; I had the finished blueprint in mind.

From there, it was just a matter of throwing enough bio-energy at the problem. It pained me to waste it, but I’d hopefully be getting most of it back later. Plus, regular materials like these barely cost a thing, even when I had to make a ship’s worth of them.

The Tau’s mouth opened for a retort, but no sound came out. Instead, he visibly calmed down as the angry lines on his blue face slowly disappeared. Anxiety and suspicion drained out of his aura, not entirely, but it went down to a level where logic could win out over emotions.

“I see,” the cadre commander said. His eyes still roved the towering Orkz, but now took note of the fact none of them moved and none of them even had their weapons pointed at his men. “You will find railguns make short work of an unshielded vessel, should you fail to restrain them.”

He waved his hands, making a hand sign meaning something along the lines of ‘lower weapons, remain alert’. Me catching that from their surface thoughts meant Val surely caught it too. The old Eldar might be a master of throwing lightning bolts, but his mastery over Telepathy was leagues beyond my own.

As the squad of Tau lowered their rifles, pointing them at the ground, but not taking their fingers off of the trigger, the cadre commander stared at Val for a lengthy few seconds before speaking up. "Should you keep your word, though, you have nothing to fear from us. We are here to ensure your captain spoke sincerely and to determine the best way to transport your ship to the nearest planet with a shipyard. My sincere apologies for not introducing myself earlier; my name is Shas'El Sha'draig Korvash."

“Welcome aboard, Shas’El Korvash,” Val said with a smile I almost believed was sincere and gave a nod, having maintained his amiable demeanour even through the blue cunt’s continued threats and posturing. “Now, where would you wish to go first? I understand imperial ship designs are much different as to your own, so feel free to ask for my help in reaching whichever part of the ship you wish to see.”

“Your assistance is much appreciated,” Korvash said and stepped up to Val, giving wary glances to the Orkz. “I believe starting with the generators would be appropriate.”

“Follow me please,” Val said, then spun around and strode through the line of Orkz who jumped out of his way like a bunch of frightened cats. I let out a snort as I caught a faint sign of what he did there. A simple burst of induced extreme fear, implanted right into the mind. “You two came with me. The rest of you disperse.”

The Orkz obeyed, much to the wide-eyed amazement of the Tau.

“And off they go,” I hummed, leaning back into my newly made fluffy sofa. “That went well.”

“They were unnaturally antagonistic,” Selene noted from my side, arching her neck to stare at the Illusory hologram floating before me.

“Yeah, tough luck for us, I guess.” I narrowed my eyes, glancing at the tight grips they had on their rifles. “Though I suppose they must be mighty confused. They just saw a crew made up of a Human, and Eldar and a bunch of Orkz work together. The unknown can be terrifying and that is what we are to them right now.”

“Or they just had some horrible experiences with humans,” Selene countered. “That cadre commander was Fire Caste, based on his name. And a high-ranking one at that, a Battlesuit pilot. Those aren’t supposed to be sitting around on spaceships.”

“So a military transport ship had to be the one to stumble upon us,” I said. “Oh joy. Could be true. Fighting against the Imperium, especially defensively against an invading crusade, certainly wouldn’t endear Humanity to them.”

Selene just gave me a nod, frowning at the screen. “He influenced the Tau, didn’t he?”

“I think so,” I scratch my cheek.

“You think so?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I couldn’t feel his energy moving at all. I don’t think he even drew on soul energy from my Pool, he just used what he had naturally stored in his body.”

“I see,” Selene murmured, and a moment later felt tiny tendrils of energy play on her fingertips like questing snakes. They thinned further as her face scrunched up in concentration. She glanced up at me, then back at the threads of energy. “How far away do you think these are from being imperceptible?”

“Depends on who’s doing the sensing,” I shrugged. “For me? I think Val is doing something fucky with space to hide his own energy when he uses it stealthily. So he is kind of cheating.”

“So you’re saying thinning them is never going to be enough?”

“Not for me, no.” I rapped my fingertips on her thigh. “Want to do something I wouldn’t notice, do you?”

“No,” she sighed, and let the threads dissipate. “But what better measure to use than the detection of the strongest Psyker I know?”

“I think working smarter and not harder is the way to go with psychics,” I hummed as my fingers ran up and down her thigh. “Though finesse is certainly a must. Having some spatial manipulation unravel on your head could end badly.”

“Mhmm,” Selene gave an affirmative sound, visibly restraining herself from squirming as my touch travelled further up her thigh.

“How long do you think it would take for them to find their way up here?” I wondered aloud, resting my cheek on a closed fist as I traced the side of her torso with my fingertips up to her bra, then back down to her hips.

“An hour, maybe?” she said, her voice trembling the slightest bit. “Long enough.”

“Long enough, indeed.” I grinned, then sent up a soundproof wall and separated the two of us from the rest of the room. “I think both of us had much to make up for, so let’s see how much we can squeeze into this hour.”

“You have the best ideas,” she purred, now leaning into my touch as her own hand found its way over to my knee.