Deus Pater (Exalted/40k)

Toth's Revenge is a warship in the oldest, purest sense of the word; a kilometres-long slab of metal festooned with every brutal, destructive, reliable way that mankind knows to obliterate its enemies. It is a killer born and made for bloodshed on an interstellar level, and with each thundering chorus of its guns is capable of wiping from the stars more lives than you have encountered in the past year. Doctrine tells you that such purity is to be admired. Your heart tells you it is to be feared.

Still, it is not the vessel's destructive capacity that turns itself so easily to your cause this day, but instead its resilience. Mankind cannot set forth for war without first reckoning with the bloody tally such conflicts demand, and it has been eons since your kin were so arrogant as to believe that the price in blood and flesh would be one paid solely by your foes. Thus, the principle of redundancy. For every weapons battery knocked out of commission, another two rest patiently in secondary storage, and for every power conduit breached a hundred others are there to carry the burden of the rerouted charge. Even if the worst should happen and the enemy score a decapitating blow, severing the vessel's head and obliterating all life and machinery within its bridge, the Revenge would not be entirely defenceless, instead coming to rely upon a secondary strategium buried deep in the very heart of the vessel's core. It is there that you opt to hold audience with the man who calls himself an Admiral.

There is no door that can bar passage to the god-machine, no authority that can override its own. Toth's Revenge flows through iron and adamantium as easily as a fish through water, or perhaps some great beast of the prehistoric era, and in its wake doors spring apart and locks cycle open in rhythmic sequence. You fold your arms within the baggy sleeves of your robes and pace sedately in its wake, holding onto the sensation of simmering rage and righteous effrontery that inspired you to take this course in the first place. The spirit is obeying your will for now, treating you with as much respect and deference as its murderous pride will permit, but even the merest glimpse of its burning eyes would tell you that such regard is the farthest thing possible from control, much less safety.

If you give it cause, the ship will tear you limb from ruptured limb, and there will be precious little you can do to stop it.

If the Sororitas can sense your trepidation, they make no mention of it, marching at your back in a crisp double-file. There were some rather pointed questions, of course, for what you just did looked remarkably like summoning a daemon of the warp to the overwhelming majority of mankind without the perspective to know better, but they were thankfully willing to take your word for it when it came to the permissible nature of these 'machine-spirits'. The crew that you cross paths with on the way are considerably less sanguine about witnessing a boarding party of heavily armed warriors moving in the wake of a massive conglomeration of adamant and wrath, but you are fortunate not to have pressing cause to care about such local reactions.

You will probably have to find an opportunity to speak with the priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus before too long, though, now that you think about it. Mortal souls you know well, the rites and rituals required to guide them through the darkness impressed upon you by over a century of unflinching service, but how does one minister to the soul of a machine? There have been enough stories of grim terrors and mechanical monstrosities in the history books to convince you of the need for such stewardship, but the actual specifics elude you, as much through deliberate action on the part of Mars as by your own lack of real interest.

You don't think you are committing blasphemy by calling the Revenge forth like this, but it would be best to ensure that those possessed of more immediate interest and the greatest amount of firepower think likewise before you try to push your luck any further.

The secondary bridge is, of course, not unattended. There is a junior officer present, along with a crew of enlisted specialists, all working with quiet dedication to keep the systems working in the knowledge that should they ever be truly needed the situation is worse than their darkest nightmares. You give the Sororitas strict orders to be merciful, and as such the Navy are cleared from the room with only the minor cost of a pair of broken limbs and a dose of bowel-loosening terror. Then, with the looming juggernaut of the machine-spirit looming over everything like an angel of death incarnate, you take a seat upon the captain's throne.

The Imperial Navy are, above all else, proud. They are proud of their service, of their deeds, of the way that their actions can reasonably be said to be all that stands between the worlds of mankind and the bleak terrors of deep space. They are proud of their independence, of their ability to travel freely, to venture from one system to another where so many others are shackled in place upon a single point of light drifting in the infinite expanse. Every part of who and what they are reinforces this pride, builds upon it, channels it to ends both constructive and grotesque.

It is time that they were humbled.

You sit there, in the heart of the ship, surrounded by scans of its pulse and thoughts, and study the scene before you. Then you make a single request – and oh, it is a request, never an order, not with something so proud and volatile as this. Toth's Revenge considers your words for a few moments, head cocked to one side in a curiously reptilian fashion, and then consents.

And on the bridge, everything ceases.

You watch, with some satisfaction, as panic takes the crew of this mighty vessel in its steel-shod grasp. At first there is confusion, shouted commands, demands for clarifications and explanations. Then comes the confusion, as men and women in Navy Blue try to understand what just happened, slowly come to acknowledge the ridiculous reality that confronts them. And then, only then, comes the fear, as they realise that their controls have been locked out, that all authority over their ship, their home among the stars, has been diverted to a backup location many of them have never even visited before.

"Strategium, report!" The voice that comes over the vox is clipped and polished, filled with an aristocrat's grandeur and an officer's expectation of command, and you smile thinly to hear the slightest thread of panic beneath the surface, "What is going on?"

You consider, for a moment, not responding. Of letting the Navy flail around in ignorance, of tearing the foundations of their certainty out from beneath them and giving the sensation time to set in before your work proceeds. In the end, however, that would not serve. You don't want them panicked, you want them broken, and that requires a far more direct form of chastisement than simple ignorance can provide.

"Hello, Admiral," you say instead, leaning forwards, trusting in the spirit to ensure that your words resonate across the entire vessel, in their ears of every one of the thousands strong crew, "Your report is as follows; as of this moment, your authority over the warship Toth's Revenge is revoked. By the power invested in me by the God-Emperor of Mankind, I hereby find you unworthy of such rights and responsibilities."

There was never any chance that your words would find a receptive ear immediately, of course, for one does not rise to a position of command in the Imperial Navy without possessing a certain degree of steadfast pride. The Admiral snarls, righteous indignation bleeding through even the brief fuzz of distortion that robs the signal of much of its clarity.

"…you are, but you will regret the day you thought to trifle with His Divine Majesty's Imperial Navy!"

"Bold words, Admiral, but they will not change the facts," you say in reply, making sure your voice never loses its edge of cold contempt, "I await you on the support bridge. Until you come here, alone, and prostrate yourself before me in humble penance for your transgressions, this ship belongs to me. I advise you act quickly."

A single stab of a glowing rune severs the command, and with a grim smile you settle yourself back in the chair to wait. Your confidence lasts for exactly as long as it takes for Toth's Revenge to release a blast of hot air across the back of your neck, its breath rank with ozone and flash-dried corpse.

"Caution, Scion," it says, and out of the corner of your eyes you see the bolters of your escort rise slowly at the naked threat in the machine spirit's tone, "your station only extends so far. You command, not own."

"I shall keep the distinction in mind," you say levelly, keeping your gaze forwards, knowing that if you turn you will flinch and ruin all attempts at projected confidence, "and ask that you forgive a youth's missteps."

Toth's Revenge makes a strange, grinding sound that might be snarl or laughter or both, and all across the bridge monitors flicker through a hundred still images of hostile craft venting their innards to the void. It says nothing more, and you make a mental note of the success found in confessing to relative inexperience; a century and spare is substantial for a human, but to a warship of this calibre it is but a flash of light, here and gone just as quickly. Imperial doctrine exalts the quality and wisdom that age provides, but you have always suspected such rhetoric to be nothing more than another tool of control. Those who believe the best days are behind them are prone to limitations of desire, and such people are more easily subdued.

You really must speak with the Mechanicus before too much longer, however. There has to be some kind of protocol for speaking to a machine-spirit that will prevent it from tearing your spine free over an errant word. Who knows, perhaps you might even be able to seek out a member of the priesthood on this very ship before too much longer… but first, the wait.

Fortunately, the Admiral is a remarkably efficient individual. You watch on a bevy of screens as squads of soldiers clad in heavy carapace are mustered with commendable speed, racing towards your position from every direction in a rapidly tightening noose of plasteel death. They carry large, heavy looking firearms that your Sororitas inform you are apparently referred to as 'shotcannons', weapons apparently designed for precisely this sort of confrontation, and the red-robed priests they meet up with en route bear stranger and more intimidating items still. More than that, the Admiral himself appears to have joined the operation, bringing along a retinue of exceedingly well-dressed officers and their attendant staff to overturn this insult to his ship and person with all the fire and fury that the Imperial Navy has at its disposable.

Were it anyone but you waiting for them, they might even succeed.

Denied their preferred option of engaging the incoming forces several hull sections away from your holy person, the Sororitas dig in as best they can, taking cover behind bulkheads and particularly heavy looking pieces of machinery, their weapons trained on every potential access point simultaneously. Two of them stand at the foot of the small dais that leads to your commandeered throne, solving the conundrum of your refusal to move and their unflinching duty by preparing to physically throw themselves between you and any incoming fire. And all the while you sit and wait, hands resting lightly on the arms of your chair, the monstrous form of the Revenge at your back.

The assault, when it comes, is executed with a professionalism that only deep inequality in circumstance permits you to quash. A series of grenades tumble through the open hatch, the blinding brilliance of their detonation crushed beneath the armoured forms of twin Battle Sisters elected to crush them beneath their heels. Armsmen in carapace storm through the hatch in their wake, weapons up and filling the air with a hail of shrapnel, and are denied by the protective force of power armour and the manifest will of the machine spirit that surrounds you. The Admiral follows in their wake, a glittering pistol and heavy sabre held ready, and Toth's Revenge growls.

The sound echoes, no, originates from every screen and bulkhead, filling the confined space of the chamber with the overlapping snarls of a monster older than a hundred worlds. You feel it in your bones, in your very bowels, and the knowledge that the source of that sound is on your side is the only thing that keeps you from passing out with fear. The effect on the Navy troopers is rather more profound, and before your eyes a full half of them collapse like puppets with their strings cut. The others stagger as though struck, their cries muffled by the void-seals on their armour.

Arms like columns come crashing down on either side of your throne, and between every adamant scale strange spines glitter in the deck light.

"Cease," the spirit of the ship commands, and the crew obey.

"Thank you, Toth's Revenge," you say into the silence, and your will settles across the scene like a leaden blanket, "Now, Admiral, if you would…"

You are, for the first time since your ascension, interrupted.

Through the hatch comes a spindly, humanoid form robed in deepest crimson. Stick-like limbs shine with chromatic plate, and the shadow beneath its hood is lit by a dozen points of blue and green. In one outstretched hand it holds a hotly smoking censer, not unlike the ones that you have employed in countless sermons, and in the other it clutches a heavy bladed axe emblazoned with the skeletal emblem of the Cog Mechanicus.

"Magos…" the Admiral is a slender figure, but next to the tech-priest he looks positively fleshy, and his grey hair and waxy skin are beaded with glittering droplets of sweat. There is tension in his noble brow, and terror in his piercing blue eyes, but also rage and pride and that most insidious, resilient of emotions; hope. "Hurry…"

The Magos, for such it must be, makes no direct reply, but it steps towards you all the same. It speaks in three voices at once, a low subsonic hum and rhythmic chant providing a twin back-point to the canticles of exorcism and liberation that it speaks, and you cannot help but raise an eyebrow at the sight. You had not thought it possible to resist the full force of your attention brought to bear in the strength of pious wrath, but it seems today is full of new developments. Either way, you cannot allow this to continue.

"Calm yourself, Magos," you say flatly, "Toth's Revenge is not possessed, nor is it bound. I lack the will to shackle something so pure, even if the capability was mine to hold."

The cluster of glowing lights snaps towards you, and a fourth voice joins the choir, a shrill demand for explanation. Who are you, how have you done this, what heresy permitted one not of the creed to learn the secret tongues of the priesthood…

"I do not speak your tongue, Magos," you answer the only question that is immediately relevant, though in truth you had not realised that the tech-priest was even speaking in that mysterious tongue in the first place, "but I have witnessed exorcisms before, on flesh if not steel. As for the others, I do not think you would believe me… but perhaps there is one you might."

Toth's Revenge takes its cue well, filling the air with a shimmering data-stream that you abruptly realise is probably not even perceptible to those without your divine gifts. It connects with the Magos roughly a third of the way down its mass, and the Tech-Priest simply stops, every joint seeming to lock solid in absolute unwavering shock.

"No, no this is impossible," the Admiral says, swaying on his feet but managing to force words through all the same, apparently another man of stronger will than you had expected to encounter on this day, "You can't do this, you have no right to do this, you… who the hell are you…"

Well. Never let it be said that you would disdain such an open invitation.

"I am Ignatius, Cardinal of Sanguis, Living Saint and Heir of the God-Emperor," you say, rising to your feet and gathering the light of dawn around you like a cloak, "and I have every right."

It is an interesting thing, to see the light leave the eyes of a man still among the living. The Admiral, confronted with the full consequences of his actions, faced with a Saint and the embodied spirit of the ship he calls home, falls. His spirit wavers, his knees buckle, and all the pride in the universe cannot keep him on his feet. He kneels before you, a broken man, and bows his head.

"I… what is your will, Holy One," he says in a hollow voice, looking at the floor, weapons falling from hands rendered slack and unfeeling. He looks like a man kneeling before his executioner, and that in the end is what gives you pause.

You have broken this man. Now you must bring him back into the light.

"I would know, my son," you say, your words gentle even if your tone is not, your feet carrying you across the deck until you stand before the once-lord of ten thousand souls, "why you did this. Your press gangs descended on my flock, on faithful pilgrims, on the righteous souls we are sworn to protect. What drove you to this point, even in defiance of my office's command?"

"I… there was no time," the Admiral says, softly, questioning his own decisions even as he holds their reasons up for your judgement, "You could not be reached, and none could tell us when you would return from pilgrimage. The enemy presses ever-closer, and even a single day of delay could damn the system… we had to have new crew, to replace our losses, and there were… there was no other way…"

You frown, unconvinced. Too often do men such as this protest the necessity of their actions, insisting that their way was the only way even as they refuse all thought of another path. If warp travel is even half as treacherous as you have heard, then measuring delays in days and hours is pointless busywork at best… but even the most self-serving justifications contain a seed of truth at their core, a foundation around which the reasoning is built, and you would be ill-served by a refusal to deny even the most basic of information on the situation beyond the skies of Sanguis.

"What enemy is this, Admiral? Tell me."

Article:

What threat does the Admiral speak of, that Ignatius finds compelling enough to involve himself in?

[ ] Hereticus. The Agri-World of Palin's Reach has risen in rebellion against the Imperium, and without its harvests a dozen industrialised worlds will rapidly experience food shortages. The Admiral knows little of the purported causes for such rebellion, but he is certain that his fleet is not the only one that the Imperium will commit to see the world returned to the fold.

[ ] Malleus. A Space Hulk has exited the warp in half a dozen systems in a broadly predictable path, and wherever it appears the local worlds and indeed the spaces between them are rapidly beset by tides of daemonic predators. The Angels of Death are moving to cut out the threat at the source, and have called for any available forces nearby to buy them the time they need to find victory. The Admiral knows not how many will be free to answer the call.

[ ] Xenos. The Aeldari are raiding the worlds of the Josophine Cluster, taking captives and sowing misery wherever they go. They have begun to exhibit a noted fondness for striking at sites of faith and worship in particular, leaving butchered bodies and desecrated shrines in their wake. The Admiral expects a strong response to this affront, but also predicts that the aliens would need to be blind to think there would be any other result, and is grimly certain there is more to this than meets the eye.