Herald of the Stars: Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Seven

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Relaxing in the beach biome is absolutely glorious. Ever since I found myself in this ghastly future I have been worried about the Inquisition. The anticipation of the first meeting, and thinking about all the things that they could do, was a constant worry floating in the back of my thoughts. Now, however, it’s all over.

The Inquisition will always be a concern and I don’t begrudge them that. It’s their job to be unpleasant. They’re not a monolithic entity though and each inquisitor has their own agenda and methods, so there’s no guarantee that because one has, I hope, decided to let me be, that another won’t push hard.

However, the Lyre and Raphael’s reports will propagate throughout their Order and if the Inquisition has to deal with me again, I will be able to do so on equal footing, whether they like it or not. Especially with my new Warrant that they don’t know about and that I made a big enough fuss to distract them from asking about.

The brain reader I provided was a loss though as it means I didn’t get any crown kills for taking out the head of the fleet, nor did I get anything for disabling Sciéno after the Solitaire took her away. That doesn’t stop me from idly pursuing my options though.

Last time I bought Warp Infrastructure. That gave me access to data structures: artificial Warp entities and objects. I use these to access the Warp, E-SIMs true body, and grow the ritual ingredients required to cure Quaani and treat all the new navigators in my Fleet.

Back then, I also considered Krork Energy Harvesting which would let me harvest Waaagh! energy from dead Orks to power my implants, rather than just pure Warp energy taken directly from the Warp or destroyed demons. Taking Krork Energy Harvesting unlocks subspace technologies, like Subspace Anchor, that would give me a game-like inventory to rapidly deploy turrets and other machinery around me in combat, or use non-Warp teleportation.

As useful as that would be, the warning of unlisted side-effects from harvesting and using Waaagh! energy leaves me somewhat leery of choosing it. Options in the Ritual Alterations category are safer, like Data Syphon, and Soul Harvest Range Ⅰ.

Data Syphon would alter the ritual so that I can acquire the knowledge of the deceased. Soul Harvest Range Ⅰ would double the range of my Warp Tap. I didn’t actually get any of the souls from the cruisers because they were too far away and only the escorts, the xenos on Ardent Bane were added to my kill count. The Orks on Cobalt are also contributing as they are purged. So far I’ve collected a hundred and fifty thousand kills.

I don’t want to miss out on kills again, but there’s some really good options for crown kills in External Tools too and I could always make more effort to be closer to the action, dangerous though that would be. The STCs in External Tools are really pricey. While I can buy most of them separately, some are bundled up under survival gear in the Universal Series: set categories that provide both everyday and miraculous items.

Categories like Universal Hazards contain things that I already have, like the Hyperweave Undersuits everyone wears. There’s also a huge range of other artificial fabrics, including variants of Imperial flak weave, that likely provide all manner of improvements hidden within the designs. I wouldn’t be surprised if acquiring the proper STC for Hyperweave Undersuits, rather than the one I cobbled together using my Research Module, has a superior way of making them. Even a single percent boost in, for example, weaving speed, would be a big deal.

Universal Fabrication has a better version of my nanyte mechadendrites. Universal Personal Defence has a large range of exotic pistols and blades, like volkite and hellfire weapons. Sure I have these things already, but it’s almost certain that, like the STCs in Universal Hazards, that the originals are a lot better and contain lost knowledge which would have knock-on effects in the production of other items and materials.

What stands out the most, however, is the Universal Medicines category. It contains the crazy items like Resurrection Serum and Stasis Injector, items that sadly aren’t in the bundle and remain E-SIM production only. Glitterworld Injector however, does come in the Universal Medicines bundle. The injector contains an advanced version of the medichines used in the Vitae Supplement and Auto-Sanguine implants which the Stellar Fleet mass produce.

The Imperial versions can rapidly stop bleeding. After which they slowly close and heal wounds over several days. They can also boost the immune system and aid the transition between flesh and machine. They’re absolutely essential if you have a large amount of implants as they prevent flesh from becoming sore, inflamed, and infected.

The Glitterworld Injector does far more and is a better, non-Warp based version of the medichines created by my Life-Support module, capable of rapidly healing both flesh, bionics, and cybernetics as well as hunting down infections, toxins, and anything else that could harm the body. It is medicine for both man and machine, not just flesh.

This ultimate cure-all likely requires a vast set up and rare materials to manufacture. Such medichines will require a highly advanced Machine-Spirit to function, one possibly bordering on sapience like E-SIM. Buying Universal Medicines before I complete my hexagrammic programming and cogitator research would be a risky gamble. Corrupted nanites could wipe out the whole crew in seconds if everyone has them so I don’t want to use them until I can be absolutely sure they are as safe, if not more so, than the ones we already use.

Better medichines are also a possible counter to the Drukhari Splinter weaponry and a potential upgrade or supplement to the Sacred Blood that many of my Servitors and crew use. I would also like to use the medichines as well. While I have managed to create a non-Warp energy mode for most of my implants, the Life-Support module is not one of them, nor are the nanites that E-SIM uses to create my implants and alter my environment.

As fun as it is looking at things I could have, it doesn’t help me choose what to spend my current kills on. I have a servitor bring me a suitably ridiculous looking fruity cocktail and sip on it while I review my current implants to work out what I want next.

The two I started with, Warp Tap and Life Support are my two most fundamental implants. I’d literally die without them as the Warp Tap gathers power for my implants and helps me gather kills. Life Support keeps my body in perfect condition and functions as a secondary heart.

Rather foolishly, I still don’t fully know how they work as they were free, but other things always seem to take priority. I could find out, and if I want to take the Multiplicity upgrade, that would give me a secondary body in the Warp, I will need to buy them so that I can actually build a new body. I am still not sold on the idea of doubling the cost of all my implants though, no matter how important a full body back up is.

There is an alternative, an upgrade to my Concurrent Conscious Cascade, called External Core. The Concurrent Conscious Cascade creates multiple subordinate simulations of my primary mind that sync perfectly with my brain. External Core does the same, but the core is a large cogitator in the Warp, rather than a tiny implant.

Taking External Core would drastically increase my multi-tasking, research, and learning. Unlike Multiplicity it does not split my soul, so if I die, it can’t function as a back-up. Nor is it quite the same as the Concurrent Conscious Cascade.

The External Core does not allow for intuitive leaps in understanding as its simulated intelects are not piggybacked off my actual brain. The Savant Learning Accelerator can help mitigate this shortfall slightly, but the difference is minor as the Savant Learning Accelerator is usually maxed already by my own brain and the Concurrent Conscious Cascade; I can’t have another Savant Learning Accelerator without another brain.

The benefit of an External Core is that it doesn’t double my costs and I would still get a large boost to my Research Module, a module that is likely the closest thing to an Adaptive STC, an STC with an AI that can make new designs, that remains within the galaxy. If you don’t count the damaged STC lurking in the underhive of Necromunda, or those locked away and undiscovered in every Ark Mechanicus, or all the ancestor cores that the Kin own, that is.

That’s a rather long list of exceptions! It’s almost like the galaxy is as shit as it is because someone wants it that way.

Continuing my grand list of implants is Machine Integration, an advanced MIU that provides a higher bandwidth connection with all my implants, including E-SIM, than my nanites do, as well as a secure external connection to other machines.

My Savant Learning Accelerator helps me memorise and understand data at an accelerated rate and the Rapid Decision Engine calculates optimal decisions at a rapid pace, much like a Machine-Spirit. Despite its name, it only provides a selection of options using all the data that I know or am observing. It can learn from previous choices I’ve made, but it doesn’t make choices for me.

Inference Engine might be a better name for it, a little whisper in the back of my mind that helps me interpret everything that I see. It can be quite unhelpful if it’s fed bad data, so I have to be careful how much I let it influence me. Paired with the empathic feedback I get from Navigator Conversion, the Rapid Decision Engine is particularly good at interpreting what people are thinking.

I also have an Auto-taskmaster, a subroutine of E-SIM that assists in the mass control of Automata and Servitors from whole regiments down to the micrometre swaying of a single mechadendrite on Brian, my favourite servo-skull. I can precisely control billions of machines if I really want to.

It was useful when my crew was small and Fleet Command didn’t exist, but I don’t use it as intended often. Instead, I use Auto-taskmaster to help me monitor absolutely everything and gather data, providing limited omniscience within the Stellar Fleet. It’s an absurd amount of data and E-SIM spends a significant amount of power sorting, compressing, and optimising all the information Auto-taskmaster collects. Some might consider it Heresy, but a lot of the data is thrown away as too much information clogs up data search and retrieval functions, nor is a lot of it really necessary or worth keeping beyond a set length of time.

My integrated Auspex isn’t that special, though the Full Bionic Conversion I underwent enhanced it considerably from when I was just flesh and blood. It’s still within Imperial specifications though, rather than some Dark Age of Technology bullshit. For now.

The Integrated Grav Skates that I added to the Full Bionic Conversion were purely so I could skate with my kids and were not part of the original design. They’re not strong enough to use while I’m in power armour, but they are still handy if I’m rushing about Iron Crane, or want to hover about just for the fun of it.

I’m still using the Black Skeleton, a complete version of the Imperial Black Bone Bracing and one of my first upgrades. Void Skin and Warding Electoos, two more designs based on Imperial technologies, remain after my Full Bionic Conversion.

My Nanite Constructor is the module I used to build an Inquisitorial rosette in advance of the meeting, just so I could make it look like I’d rapidly recreated Lyre’s rosette after dissolving it with my Warp and Weft module.

The Nanite Constructor breaks down everything I consume and produces the nanites that E-SIM uses to maintain and build my modules, or expel to use with the Warp and Weft module. The nanites also let me produce a powerfield from my hands or along objects I am holding, something that saved my life several times when I was on the Federation station.

Warp and Weft is an area of effect constructor and deconstructor that lets me alter anything within five metres of me. I could do that before I had the module, but it was much slower and less efficient.

While Warp and Weft makes my nanites rather fast at destroying things, it is much slower at building them, and quite useless if you need clean room conditions for an object. It is good at emergency repairs though, like armour breaches, or heat damage. Warp and Weft is far more power hungry and less precise than using my Imperial made nanyte lathes, a pair of specialist mechadendrites I usually keep in retracted inside my Servvo-Harness. If I could, I would have gathered the dust of Lyre’s rosette and reformed it in my hands in front of him. Alas, such showing off was beyond me.

I am pleased with my Advanced E-WAR suite. Not only does it defend me from hostile data connections, it also lets me attack enemy cogitators and disrupt sensors. It’s no holofield, but is far beyond similar Imperial technologies.

When fully ramped up, it can use a lot of power, draining my ten main power batteries and two emergency power batteries within a day or two. With so many power hungry implants, the External Battery module would be really helpful.

The Advanced E-WAR suite has its limitations. It’s no good against the Orks or any other Mark One Eyeball, and of limited effectiveness against the Necrons. Everyone whom I’ve faced who is of similar tech levels though, like the fallen Eldar and rising Tau, often miss me when I’m targeted at range with electronic senses and it’s easy for me to compromise most data networks.

Should the Advanced E-WAR suite be insufficient to protect me I have a rather good conversion shield and displacer field that’s fully integrated via Full Bionic Conversion as well as an even more powerful conversion shield in my power armour.

Hyperweave Musculature, Armoured Organs, Artificial Sinews, and Reinforced Vascular Network don’t offer much additional performance for me these days, nor does Body Tuning. They’re all part of Full Bionic Conversion, but I don’t have many fully organic parts left, just a small collection of some of my original organs, separated into the cyborg equivalent of canopic jars and hidden within my chest. They act as backup for my organic brain should my bionic organs be compromised by excessive haywire grenades and other anti-cyborg weapons.

Regenerative Hormones and my Rejuvenat Gland are still incredibly useful though. I might not have much to regenerate, but maintaining high neural plasticity and being able to rapidly heal what organs I do have, like my organic heart and brain, will likely always be valuable.