Getting Warhammered [WH 40k Fanfic]

183 – First Steps

Fifty million people, aboard a single ship. I remembered that even the largest city back on Earth in my time, Tokyo, only had around fourteen million inhabitants. How the fuck was I going to build something to house all these people in any human span of time?

I needed something efficient, safe and something that was most importantly compact. I could build the basics of a sprawling city, pull up millions of houses that were the mirror-images of each other, but I doubted my new citizens would like that much. Humans tended to be rather individualistic, and that was not something I wanted to stamp out of them.

Still, asking for a house-plan from every single one of them and then going around constructing them would take ages, ages I couldn’t, wouldn’t give the task. Instead, I’d give them something in the interim and allow them to then work on building homes for themselves.@@novelbin@@

What was compact, safe and suitable to house millions of people in humane conditions? Well, an arcology of course. I even had a few blueprints in my head for how the Imperium likes to construct them on their pleasure planets that I could use as the base.

Yep, that could work. I mused, rubbing my chin idly as I pulled up the arcology blueprint and constructed an Illusory 3d hologram of it in the air before me. Using the exact same blueprint would have been lazy though, and inefficient. I wouldn’t be using the Ad Mech machines, generators and whatever else included in them anyway.

Electricity, I could make easily enough. Getting an organic generator was a thought away, many alien species I’d devoured samples of has ways to generate static electricity and some even had the ability to channel a current through their bodies as a form of defense or attack. A weird turtle ran it through its shell, while a panther-like creature could run hundreds of volts through its fangs to paralyse its prey.

I had to remake parts of the blueprint to fit my needs and then enlarge it to be able to house the quantity of people I’d need it to. A million people per arcology sounded reasonable, minus all the people who would be able to move in to the capital, if Bob was anywhere close to finishing up what he’d started when we left.

“They seem to be oddly calm,” Selene muttered, squinting at the many screens showing the thousands upon thousands of community halls I linked up all the personal rooms of our passengers. “I was expecting fights and rioting, maybe at least some friction … but I guess being teleport up to a spaceship through a magical portal likely curbed their willingness to start trouble.”

“Maybe,” I said absently. “But the calming pheromones I have in the air probably helped even more.”

“The what?!” Selene turned on me with a glare. “Are you drugging our citizens already?”

“A bit?” I said, blinking in surprise at her heated look. “What? I thought it’d be better than letting them run wild and forcing me to beat some of them down. It’s just some calming pheromones, I even toned it down. The original would have had all of them staring into mid-air heads blissfully empty of thoughts.”

“They won’t be catatonic by the time we get back, will they?” Selene asked, now looking worriedly at the projected screens. “You tested those pheromones before, right?”

“I did,” I said. Sort of. “They are in no danger. I’m more than familiar enough with both human anatomy and those pheromones to know just how much is too much for them to handle.”

“I’ll trust that you do,” Selene said, sagging a little as she sighed. “Did you think about what you actually want to do about the eventual government? Or about the other topics I asked you about?”

“I’m thinking of making a bunch of arcologies for them to live in,” I said, making a miniature illustration of how one of them was going to look based on my current blueprint. “I was thinking of letting them vote in a council for each arcology with a representative of each arcology being sent to my version of the High Lords in the capital. Any reason I shouldn’t?”

“I don’t see why not,” Selene said, though she was frowning in thought. So I poked her in the rib, a little zap of electricity jumping off my finger at the contact and making her hiss and swat my hand away. “What was that for?”

“What are you thinking?” I asked with a playfully raised eyebrow. “Frowning so hard all the time will give you wrinkles, you know.”

“You’ll let them rule themselves?” She asked with a dubious tone, a dainty eyebrow raised in apparent doubt. 

“To a point.” I shrugged. “I see no reason as to why I should micromanage their lives. Sure, they will have no military or a say in what I do and I’ll force them to live by my ground-rules, but they can manage themselves. If they fuck that up somehow, we can revisit the issue later.”

“And those fake High Lords of yours?”

“They’ll be as they were intended to be in the Imperium,” I said. “Extra muscle to make my life easier and save me from doing paperwork, but ultimately beholden to my words.”

“I suppose we can see where it goes,” Selene said musingly. “Can’t hurt to let them feel like they have some control over their lives, especially if you store them all in soulless arcologies.”

*****

We received a hail the moment we came within range of the Tau warship stationed in the unnamed System housing Vallia. 

“I’m going to put the asshole on projection,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Put on your meanest expressions.”

With Valenith on my left and Selene on my right, I connected us up with the Tau warship and the pompous Tau Captain’s blue head appeared before me.

“This is T’au space, leave im-“ he started but then paused, squinting at the camera. “Is that you, Captain Echidna? What are you doing in that unidentified vessel? Where were you, for that matter? I received no notice of your departure beyond what my own sensors told me, I was half convinced you ran back to your Imperial masters.”

“Well, if your sensors were as good as mine, you would have noticed the incoming pirate fleet approaching the System and would have seen my ship destroy it,” I said in a tone as diplomatic as I could make it. Which, honestly, wasn’t much. “I’ve said we’d take on the responsibility of protecting this system from intruders, which is exactly what we had done these past few days.”

“Is that so?” He asked, with an expression I took to be doubtful at best. “Where are the wreckages? What took you six Rotaa spent outside the System? And where did your new ship come from?”

“I’m not required to answer any of your questions by my agreement with your government, you were ordered to take an eye on me, but not given the leave to order me around,” I said, mouth curving down in a scowl. This cunt was not someone I had to play politics with. He was just a tool to the Ethereals and a tool that hated me from the moment he first laid eyes on me and saw my skin wasn’t blue. “I’ll entertain your questions just this once, so I trust you’ll report them as they were spoken to your superiors. The wreckages, what remains of them, are floating somewhere among the outer asteroid cloud surrounding the system. It took this long because we tracked down their base of operations and dismantled it. The new ship is my war spoils. Now, I’d appreciate if you sent a transmission to the honourable Aun who I’ve previously spoken to, I’ve news to him and will provide a more thorough report to his ears only. I hope that satisfies you, Captain?”

He stared at me silently for a few moments. Some of that had to be the radio-lag with us being half a system apart, but then I saw his features morph into anger and hate. They didn’t give command of entire warships to reckless idiots who let their anger control them in the Tau Empire though, and he forcefully calmed himself soon after.

“It does,” he finally said in a clipped tone. “We will see how the Aun likes your whimsical ‘pirate-hunting’ and flippancy, Captain.”

The link closed, and I rolled my eyes.

“Was that wise?” Selene asked, frowning.

“Wise?” I snorted. “Maybe not, but it felt good and did nothing to worsen my position. The good captain hated me already and showed me zero respect, so I just returned the favour. The only people I have to care about in the Tau Empire are the Ethereals, only they matter, they have absolute authority. I will not be bowing and scraping for a racist little captain.”

“Rightly so,” Valenith said, more subdued after the lengthy meditation he’d undergone while I was out on my little adventures with Cain and company than I’d ever seen him before. “If you wish to one day rule over these people, you can’t have them looking down on you. Especially if you’re unwilling to use your abilities to their fullest extent to bend them to your will.”

“I don’t want mind-shackled slaves,” I said. “Not on a large scale anyway. I fear some Ethereals are destined for that end though, the ones who’d never accept new leadership.” I hummed thoughtfully, then caught the hint of worry on Selene’s face. “Not that any of that matters in the short term. I want Vallia Prime urbanised and the government running before anything else. Then I want the star-system for myself and without a grumpy Tau looking over my shoulder twenty-four hours a day. After all that, we can start thinking about how to expand our influence.”

“The groundwork will have to be started sooner, if you want results in this century,” Selene said, frowning as if I’d just dumped half a ton of paperwork on her desk. “You’ll need to start scouting out nearby systems, learning the politics of the Tau and getting a feel for who to pay off and who to … subvert more forcefully. All the things you mentioned will be slow-going and have plenty of downtime for you to focus on other things.”

“Fair enough,” I said, tapping my fingers on my chin. “Knowledge is power, as they say, some scouting and information gathering would be prudent anyway. Even if I didn’t want to eventually expand.”

The ship lazily swam over to Vallia, then slowed into orbit around the first moon where I let my aura expand and examine my little ball of rock. The Tyranids keeping the Shadow up were still alive and most importantly, secured in place. The Orks and my slowly growing dragon population below the surface was doing well, though I caught some of the prior riding around on some of the latter like they were mounts. 

“What the fuck,” I muttered, focusing on an extremely self-satisfied gigantic Ork strutting up and down around a war camp, riding one such earthbound dragon. “That’s Throgg, isn’t it? What is that idiot doing?”

He appeared taller than I remembered, which I quickly confirmed by reviewing my memories. It seemed the ork was growing, though I hoped it was not due to some foolhardy power grab on his part where he named himself Warboss or something. I’d hate to have to replace him and educate another ork to handle his kin.

My next object of focus, and examination, was of course the capital Bob was supposed to be busy building. Maybe it were my plans of constructing dozens of arcologies across the planet in the span of a few days, or just another proof of me being out of touch with reality, but I found myself a bit disappointed by what I found. 

A basic road network, the main sewer and water system, and even a few colossal buildings dotted around the central fortress were up and ready. The basics were almost done, and according to my quick inspection, they were done to a reasonably high standard, too. 

Reasonable expectations, you silly girl. I thought to myself. You just gave him his powers five days ago, and he already accomplished this much with them. That’s worthy of praise, not … this. 

“What?” Selene asked, having had enough of me zoning out after a few seconds. 

“See for yourself,” I said, shaking my head as I threw up a projection of the pompous ork and his draconic mount and then added a eagle-eye-view of the current state of the capital. “I’m going to notify Zedev to not freak out, then I’ll go about building those arcologies.”

That crazy tech priest might just start throwing pocket nukes at the weird new ship appearing in orbit if I don’t clue him in. 

After a short back and forth, that was done. The Magos took my return with the stoic disinterest I’d have expected of him, not even bothering to use his organic mind to reply.

“That’s done,” I said, pushing myself off my command throne. “Alright, the two of you are free to do whatever. I’ll be busy with building stuff for the next few days I’d wager, but come find me if anything important comes up, or when the Ethereal gets here.” Then I turned to Selene and smiled at her coquettishly. “Or whenever you want to. I think I can bear with some interruptions if they are as gorgeous as you, my dear.”

“You’ll get little work done if you can ogle me instead,” Selene said, rolling her eyes with a smile as she wrapped her arms around my waist. She then stood on her toes and placed a lingering kiss on my lips, one I eagerly reciprocated until she leaned back with a giggle. “Be good and do some work, then we can see about checking just how distracting I can be.”

“Well, what else could I do but my best with a motivation like that?” I grinned down at her, then placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Really, come see me whenever you want. I’ll get going now though, I shouldn’t keep my citizens locked up in this ship for longer than necessary. See you both later!”