136 – Reservations

136 – Reservations

I almost planted my face into the hard gravel ground as my consciousness split in two, the second half racing back to my soul and out on another cord of psychic power into my once again active secondary avatar.

My hands shot out just in time to stop my fall, then to push me back on my feet with a heave. I huffed as I dusted off my poor white robes.

“Greetings, we meet again.”

I turned to the tall metallic skeleton standing a few minutes off to the side, gazing out across the grey wastelands.

Blinking, I took in my surroundings for the first time. Dark grey gravel covered the ground and the rolling hills as far as I could see, which wasn’t much with the same coloured dust-storm twisting around us and bolting out the sun.

“Hi, Trazyn,” I said, rolling my shoulders and checking over my vitals with a quick burst of bio-energy. “I wasn’t expecting to be meeting you again so soon.”

Everything is in order. He didn’t poke at my avatar while it was in stasis. I concluded. The only problem is going to be with the bio-energy stores of this body. I’m basically in power saving mode until I can get some biomass.

“I assure you, I have not been expecting to be placed in a situation where I would be needing your services either,” he said, sounding slightly sour at the notion of getting pushed this far. “Alas, it is an opportunity for another meeting either way. As such, I am not too angry with these ... rats.”

“Well, happy little coincidences are what make life worth living,” I hummed. I’m quite far from my other avatar, almost a quarter way across the galaxy ... this should be around ... fuck. “Where exactly are we, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“In the belly of the beast,” he said, amusement clear in his artificial voice. “Or rather, we would have been if I wasn’t forced to flee. Alas, it seems those Terrans are a bit too cagey still. Which puts us in the Vulcanis System, just a short way away from the beating heart of the Imperium of Man.”

“Oh,” Stupid skeleton, if he took me out on Terra I might as well have blown myself up. Fuck. We’d have been swarmed by Shadowkeepers within minutes. “Thank fuck. Please, if there is one place I never want to step foot on, it’s Terra. Leave me in your Labyrinth wherever you go there, if possible.”

“Very well,” he said, though sounded confused and curious. “How come? Bad memories?”

“More like a pack of angry dogs sniffing me out if I come too close to their warren,” I said, shaking my head in amusement. “Too much risk. Too little to gain.”

“Inquisition?” he asked. “No, I doubt they would cause you much trouble. What else could it be?”

“Shadowkeepers,” I said, not too concerned about sharing that little factoid.

“Ah, I see.” He nodded. “A despicable lot. They hid so many wonders of the bygone ages in their dusty old crypts ... have you perhaps come into possession of one of their misplaced artifacts? I cannot imagine anything else would cause them to act.”

“Supposedly ... I ate one,” I shrugged.

“That’s a bit wasteful, isn’t it?” Discover new chapters at novelhall.com

“I can recreate it whenever I want,” I said offhandedly. “Or I believe I can, I wasn’t really in the right mind space at the time to record how exactly it worked before it merged with me.”

“Ah, hunger,” he nodded. “A dreadful affliction, some wretched members of my kind also suffer from it. Alas, you at least have a way to quench it ... do you not?”

“I do,” I said. “But since biomass fuels me, I need a constant supply of it. Like right now, if you want my help with anything more than fighting off some rabble. My reserves are running low.”

“Any sort of biomass would work, I presume?”

“The more genetic potential and complexity there is to the source, the better. Tyranid is the best, then Eldar and Ork come in tied for second place with the rest lagging somewhere far behind.”

“How well would a Space Marine work?” he asked, looking thoughtful. “And could you take on its form afterwards? I believe that is something you should be capable of.”

“Why would you believe that?” I tilted my head.

“Are you not?”

I snorted, not quite sure whether he was just bluffing to fish for information or if he really knew something. But, oh well. Whatever. It wasn’t like I was planning to hide some shapeshifting from him if we ever worked together like this.

“It is what it is,” I shrugged. “Plus ... I don’t want any new Primarchs popping up if I can help it. Not yet, and not in the near future. Hell, even just the two we have now in the Imperium are going to be a pain. If they get together and start another Great Crusade, we are all fucked.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“There is a prophecy,” I said, groaning as her dexterous little fingers massaged my scalp. “That when the sons of Vulcan recover the last of his Artefacts, the Promethean will live once more.”

“And you believe in that ... prophecy?” she scrunched up her nose.

“Meh,” I shrugged. “Prophecies don’t work when you depend on them to do, and they come true when you depend on them not to. I won’t take chances, if I can help it. This is a great opportunity to lock away one of those Artefacts in one of the Galaxy’s most secure vaults.”

“Solemnace?”

“Yes,” I said. “The Primarch I want to meet the least is Vulcan. He fell into a globule of pure WAAAAGH! Energy when he was last seen. I doubt even a Primarch can come out of that entirely sane.”

“I see,” she said thoughtfully. “Thank you. For sharing your thoughts, it’s much easier to digest your rather ... honestly chaotic and thoughtless looking actions.”

“Anytime,” I hummed. “Plus, being unpredictable is a good thing. If my enemies can’t predict my actions, they can’t set up countermeasures for them.”

“You make predictably whimsical decisions one after the other, dear,” she said, caressing my head gently. “You might want to become careful and methodical for a change if you really want to throw a wrench into your enemies’ plans. Maybe you could even try to be inconspicuous for a change? It doesn’t do you much good to ‘lay low’ in the Tau Empire if half a dozen systems know your name in a few weeks because your ‘army’ rolled right over a few planets and conquered them in weeks. Hmmm?”

“Urhhhh,” I groaned. There was certainly truth to her words, but restraining myself from acting could slow down my plans massively.

“You are supposedly smart, Echidna,” she said, flicking my nose. “Use all that brainpower for planning for a change. You told me you had the brainpower equivalent of thousands of humans mashed together. What are you using all of that computational power?”

“Making my new sword?” I averted my gaze. “Deciphering samples? Trying to work out how the hell Blank genes work?”

“I’m sure you could spare a dozen minds to work on strategy, couldn’t you?”

“But they’ll just tell me to fake being weak,” I whined. Then let out a sigh. She was right, of course she was, Selene was always right. Except when she was not, but that was pretty rare. Anyway. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

“I am,” she said, amusement twinkling in her eyes. “I’m sure we can find ways to let out the steam even if you can’t just brutishly beat everything in your way into submission, hmmm?”

“I couldn’t imagine just what you might be thinking,” I hummed, leaning into her a bit more.

“For once I was not thinking about that. Actually.”

“Yeah right,” I rolled my eyes.

“Do you think there are Void Krakens in the Jericho Reach?” She asked, a dreamy smile on her face. “I really want to hunt one. Do you think I’m strong enough?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know much about them. So I couldn’t tell. But don’t those eat whole-ass military Cruisers like snacks?”

“They do,” she purred.

“And I’m the impulsive one,” I shook my head sadly. “At least I don’t have a thing for giant octopuses, or things with far too many tentacles.”

“Shut up, you!” She flicked my nose again. “It’d be fun. And the perfect way to let out some steam without news of our rampage spreading over the stars. Let’s hunt one, once we get there.”

“Alright,” I said. “Until then though, we have to make do with watching my avatar I guess. We still have a month or two of travel time till the Jericho Reach with all the stops we must make.”

“At least we are on our way already,” Selene said. “That pet Tau you got is proving to be quite useful. I think he halved our travel time by ignoring most of the bureaucratic procedures. Quite the catch, that one.”

“He better be, with how annoying he is to talk to.”