Getting Warhammered [WH 40k Fanfic]

193 – Some Things Never Change

“You abducted fifty million people?”

I took in Aun’Saal’s dubious expression with a carefully crafted disbelieving frown sculpted onto my face. 

“I did not,” I said testily. “I didn’t force anyone to come with me, it was their own choice.”

“Not much of a choice when you upturned the world they lived in, pushing it into a death spiral towards utter chaos,” he retorted, though there was little heat in his tone. If anything, he sounded thoughtful and calculating. “How long ago did you say this was? Would I find a planet full of petty, warring warlords or a radioactive wasteland by the time I arrived there?”

“I’d bet on the prior,” I said. “They had no nuclear weapons, and I’ve taken care of the most … problematic warlords. Only the small fry and perhaps those with stellar survival instincts should remain. I’d seriously doubt they could have bombed themselves back into the Stone Age in just these few weeks.”

With that said, I made a sheet of white carapace with the pulsar map carved into its face and slid it over to the Ethereal.

“And this is?” he asked in mild curiosity, peering at the primitive carvings.

“I’m unfamiliar with how you navigate space or record interstellar locations.” I shrugged. "That’s a pulsar map. Knowing the planet is within a handful of parsecs from here, it shouldn’t be too difficult for your scientists to find its location."

“Ah- … pulsars? So these would be … I see. Yes, I think this will suffice.” He handed the plate over to a waiting guard, who carefully stashed it in a pack. “And these fifty million humans you’ve taken possession of, am I to understand you intend to keep them?”

“I do,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“Not unless you intend to treat them as possessions and not the people they are,” Coldstone said. “I already had to use my veto to keep the sector council from ordering some … heavy-handed solutions to the problem your existence poses to the Tau Empire. Try not to make my life harder or make me regret going so far.”

“Is that how it works?” I mused, making sure to appear nonchalant. Well, shit. It seems the Tau of today are a bit more paranoid than I thought. I might have to speed up my plans or implement some of the more drastic ones. “You have regional councils and vote on things?”

“For most issues that don’t warrant getting sent to the high council or to the High Ethereal’s table.” Aun’Saal shrugged. “But I as the one personally responsible for your ‘handling, ’ am allowed to veto most decisions. Though even that has its limits, hence my request not to make my life more troublesome than it needs to be.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I said. I saw the underlying message, too. The Ethereal was establishing his power over me, saying that he was the only thing standing between me and an orbital bombardment or a Tau kill-team. Two things he likely thought could prove counterproductive to my continual well-being. “Handing a new planet over to you on a silver platter should help, shouldn’t it?”

It will certainly convince some of the council of the benefits of keeping you around," he said. “But it’d only reinforce the belief of others who think it too great a risk.”

“I don’t need all of them to be my fans, do I?” I hummed. “Just enough so no vote goes through. No?”

“I suppose that’s right,” he allowed. “It would also go some ways convincing the fence-sitters if I could take back evidence of your benevolent governance of the fifty million you took possession of.”

He stared at me, daring me to weasel my way out of an inspection. I just shrugged, having little reason not to allow him to have a look around the arcologies.

“We can take a tour if you wish,” I said. “It’s only been a few weeks, so they are still settling in, but I see no reason to refuse.”

I might as well pick his brain about setting up my government and the bureaucratic system. Ethereals were supposed to be purebred rulers after all, these sorts of things should be in his blood. 

“A tour,” he repeated, thinking for a moment before giving a thoughtful nod. “Yes. I think I’d like that.”

“There is just a single problem,” I said, and he once again raised his hairless eyebrow. "These humans had never seen any aliens … ever. I haven’t the faintest clue how they’d react to you and your guards. I didn’t submerge myself in their history and culture enough to give an accurate prediction. The best I can promise is that I’ll stop any harm from coming to you or your guards from being forced to intervene.”

“That sounds fair enough,” he said, then pushed himself to his feet. “Let us go then, we can talk on the way. I heard you constructed a slew of new rather sizable structures across the globe, I take it that’s where we’re going? I admit to some curiosity, your architectural style is rather novel.”

“Is it?” I raised an eyebrow, gesturing to him to follow as I led him back up to the landing pad we’d just left a short while ago. “I haven’t had the pleasure to experience a lot of diversity in architecture so far. I hope to get better at putting a bit more artistry into my buildings in the future, but these were a bit rushed, so there wasn’t really time for it.”

“I see,” he said. “What are your intentions with these people you have taken in, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Not using them as test subjects or slaves, if that’s what you’re asking.” I rolled my eyes, ignoring the flash of relief blooming in the depths of his tiny little soul. “I have no need for the latter, and only the ones foolish enough to do some of the more heinous crimes around will find themselves volunteered for the prior. No, I think I mainly just wanted to prove that I could do better than the Imperium. It’s just fifty million people in contrast to the untold billions living under the Imperium’s yoke, but I want to make a difference, make the world just a little bit better.”

“Is the goal making the affected people’s lives better, or proving that you can do it?” Aun’Saal asked conversationally, but I heard the underlying question anyway. I had hoped he’d be too pleased to find my goals aligning with ‘the Greater Good’ to notice the distinction, but oh well, it wasn’t that important.

“The latter.” I chuckled. “You might think me petty for it, and you’d be right to, but the results are the same either way. What does it matter for the people involved whether I make their lives better out of the goodness of my heart or because I want to spite the Imperium?”

“I believe spite is finite. Your motivation will run dry once in the future,” he retorted. “But altruism? If the well-being of the people is the only reward you seek and not merely self-satisfaction, I’d be more willing to believe your drive would last.”

“You underestimate how petty I am,” I said with a smile. And you wouldn’t have believed me if I told you my real reasons for doing this. “Should we take your shuttle?”

“It would be convenient,” Aun’Saal said. “Where are we going exactly?”

“I have fifty arcologies spread out across the globe, with each housing around a million inhabitants at the moment,” I said. “The only difference between them is how well each took to living there and the systems I’ve put in place.”

“What systems, if you don’t mind me asking?” He asked curiously.

I waved him off as I took in the futuristic Tau shuttle. It was a bit ugly, to be honest, coloured like a rotting peach and with nonexistent artistry to its construction, but it had the bulky flying coffins of the Imperium. 

“I wanted to have them governing themselves for the most part,” I said. “But I might have been a bit hasty in letting them elect their own representatives. It worked out in some arcologies, but in others … Well, growing pains were inevitable I suppose. Time will mend those wounds and a bit of guidance and pruning will handle the rest.”

I somewhat expected him to reprimand me or show some displeasure at my words, but if anything, he looked pleasantly surprised.

“Self-governance, hmm?” He tapped his chin. “Do take a seat inside wherever you wish, by the way. The inside of the shuttle is insulated so we will be able to continue our conversation.”

I hopped into the vessel, scanning it with my aura and all of my available senses — which numbered in the dozens with all the additional sensory organs I’ve incorporated into my avatar above the base five human senses — to get an idea of how it was built and how it worked.

I loved working with Tau technology, I decided with a barely concealed grin. It had no Warp fuckery making it work, no ephemeral spirits that made no sense to consider, and it also wasn’t so damned advanced that I couldn’t even get started on understanding it—like the Eldar, Human, and Necron equivalents did, in that order. The only thing I couldn’t immediately see the inner workings of was the software side of things, and I held off on it since I knew the Tau made liberal use of AIs and I wasn’t confident in poking around in an active AI’s code without it detecting my intrusion. I had some experience breaking digital security measures from my play-fights with Zedev from a while back, but I doubted that’d translate to breaking Tau security and doing it without getting detected.

The most interesting part of the whole shuttle was the anti-gravity propulsors built into its belly. The shuttle’s contour reminded me of a fat pigeon, or one of those dumb-looking LAAT dropships from Star Wars just coloured vomit-orange and with a bit more sleekness to it, but that was more than likely due to the Tau’s unnatural aversion to using straight edges where a slender curve could do than a sudden and brief bout of good taste from the designer. At least it didn’t have skulls on it.

Anyway, I focused on those propulsors and made sure to have at least a basic idea of how they worked. I had organic alternatives to anti-grav hover technology — more than one Tyranid bio-forms could float their lazy asses around the battlefield after all — but as previously discussed, inorganic, old-school technology was much easier to mass-produce and to delegate the making of to my future underlings. I could use these things, even if they weren’t anywhere near powerful enough to propel a shuttle by themselves into the air.

Like how the Tau seemed to use them to dampen landings and to keep the shuttle levitating as it turned in place, I already had a few ideas for implementing them in other tools. Every vehicle was cooler when it hovered instead of rolling around on boring old wheels after all.

I found myself a nicely padded seat on the side; the shuttle had obviously been built as a dropship but had been refitted with all the luxuries they could reasonably shove into it without making it look cramped or distasteful to make it a somewhat worthy ride for the Ethereal. Velvety cushions practically swallowed me whole as I lowered myself into them and smiled contentedly. I’ll have to get my hands on whatever they used to make these cushions. They have my softest pillows beat by a mile. 

“Should we wait for anyone to accompany you?” Aun’Saal asked as he settled into a seat across from me. “Guards, perhaps? I couldn’t help but notice how empty your building seemed today.”

“It’s a bit large for just the handful of us living in it at the moment,” I said ruefully. I doubted the fortress would ever be truly filled up with people like the surrounding capital city would, but at least the top few floors should look more lived-in, given a few years. “And no, no need. We’ll meet with the overseer of the arcologies and proceed from there. Is a random one good enough, or do you want to choose?”

“I don’t know whether to be touched by your trust in us or worried,” Aun’Saal said, and I wisely kept my mouth shut. He didn’t need to know I could rip this little shuttle to shreds with a thought along with everyone in it. “Is there a metric to choose one by?”

“I suppose you could treat ‘how well they adapted to life here’ as a metric,” I said. “It’s either that or rolling the dice.”

“Rolling the dice?” He asked.

“A metaphor for leaving it up to chance,” I said with a shrug. “Random. Don’t you have dice games here?”

“I … suppose we might,” Aun’Saal muttered. “I’m not too knowledgeable about such activities. Especially about the ones prevalent among our Gue’la allies. I’d wager it is a thing if it was in the Imperium. Such things tend to stick around.”

“That they do.” More than you know. Forty thousand years, and they still play dice. The more some things change, the more others stay the same.