The Longest Short Bus. Chapter 47

I kept strictly away from the Inquistor's goons, and they likewise kept a respective distance after the Custodian rather firmly told the Mechanicus member that it's job wasn't 'inspecting and delivering holy rites' to the machine spirits of the power armor being built.

But in the meantime, I had claimed a merchant vessel, though the circumstances were complicated to say the least. In this universe ships couldn't travel the Galaxy remotely safely, and when they did. They did not go with light cargo holds.

So all the ships were to put it bluntly, fucking massive. And in wanting to stick with a ship most Rouge Traders would have as either their starting ship, or more specifically so I could blend in more easily.

I took on the damned task of outfitting, fixing, and cleaning out a Vagabond Class Merchant Trader. The ship was 2 kilometers long or 1.2 miles long, with its widest point being almost half a kilometer wide.

Cleaning every nook and cranny of that damned ship was a fucking horror show, everywhere I looked, there were mutants under the metal grate floors, and there were gene stealers inside the bowels of the ship waiting for the crew to return to continue their infectious shit.

I even found the Gene Stealer Patriarch of the Gene Stealers while my ai controlled machines cleaned out of all the redundant shit that required a crew of eighteen thousand damned souls to man this spaceship.

Said Gene Stealer Patriarch quickly was dealt with extreme violence along with all the other infected gene stealers, mutants, and all the other issues.

My AI-driven machines weren't all big clunking machines also, they were mostly a swarming mist of countless nanomachines that were dealing with the issues as they had micro disintegrator rays that allowed them to break apart targets and weld things back together.

So first! The ship was outfitted with its own energy shield so A- No one would get on it while I was working. B- Its god fucking awful plasma generator was replaced by a micro Singularity Core with its resulting gravity emissions being captured to fuel the ship's energy needs.

With the power system track replaced that opened up a great deal of space, and then the space within the ship grew far larger when I got fucking rid of the Warp Drive, and the Warp-based bullshit as I had zero interest in zooming through literal hell.

Hell, mind you that would be actively hostile to me due to the amount of Emperor blessed stuff I had on my person and my retinue.

Then for the last obvious question besides the weapons which were outfitted to the ship which could only be answered with a simple 'yes'. Either way, the method for FTL which would allow the ship to travel faster than light speed?

The method I ended up relying on, which of course there were dozens if not hundreds of options I could pull from in the many... Many fictional worlds I could pull form. But I decided to stick with the tried and true Spatial Folding FTL technology of Dune.

As I could just grow vat brains and even make the spice to feed to the brains to do the needed calculations needed by the Spatial Folding Engine to collect the coordinates I needed for the spatial coordinates.

So the ship was well armed, it was cleared out of all its bullshit, and tens of thousands of systems issues were removed so the crew size needed was as minimized as possible.

"Ok... Got a decent ship, even if I would prefer to go the Ork path and make my own attack moon." I muttered as the thought of having my own IIum to act as the base of my operations would be fantastic to say the least.

But I needed to keep a lower profile for now... If I could even do that.

"The Lord Inquisitor's power armor, stable plasma rifles, power armor-sized laser blasters, and twenty power swords have been completed," I spoke to the man who was part of the Inquisitor's retinue... And I still never got his name honestly.

A part of me even doubted he even knew my name as he only called me 'Lord' due to my elevation in status as a Rogue Trader.

The man who had been inspecting the supplies swiftly nodded as several unaugmented Ogryns and servitors began loading up the goods. And after he turned back to me he said calmly. "Rogue Trader it has been good doing business with you... And the food you have provided is also of something to note."

My lips twitched at the reminder I didn't feed the man and his people just slop or literally just corpse starch, I actually fed him good food and vat-grown meat products that were made into real fucking meals along with vegetables and other goodies.

"Indeed," I said simply before I took a deep breath and continued. "Send my regards to the Lord Inquisitor and hopefully these weapons help his cleansing of this world."

The man gave a grunt of agreement and then he was off, with him walking with a small contingent of highly well-armed guardsmen. And several of what was likely the Inquisitor's Acolytes acting as the honor guard.

There was a shift to my side as the Custodian moved his guardian spear slightly and his voice came out bluntly. "The Mechanicus agent had its laser attachments aimed at you several times." 

To which I replied with some amusement. "That's why I had you between me and that abomination. It's laser's can't hurt either of us... But if it attacked a Custodian? The Inquisitor himself would string it up and see how much agony in its last remaining bits of human flesh he could take from it."

With that, I got onto my wrist computer and sent out a message to all the group leaders of my five hundred superhuman guardsmen, Ogryn's and the hundred Sisters of Battle I had. [Collect all personal effects, all weapons, armor, and all other things and load them up into your group's anti-gravity barges. Load up for our new home in the Artemis will be finished within six hours and the ship will be launched within eight hours.]

It was time to get the fuck off this damned planet.