WARHAMMER 40,000: A Thousand Tiny Suns (40k/Exalted Crossover!)

Your brain skitters around something close to theology - you wonder if heresy feels like this...or if this was how 01-01 felt, when he first cast aside his name and became the first Krieger, when he laid down the acts of Penitence. You wondered...were you just being arrogant? Was this just megalomania? Or were you onto something?

Were you a light to lead the Krieg?

Where would you lead them too?

Anywhere I wish.
The thought was one of those crystal clear spikes of some other you, some echoing thought that had come from a past that wasn't your childhood. It was unnerving. No, scratch that, it was downright terrifying - not just for what it was, but what it said.

Anywhere you wish...

You let your brain taste that possibility and almost immediately jerked away as your mind threw out...a blue world, covered in glittering cities, looking up at the light of distant suns and dreaming of humanity everlasting. Heady, impossible visions of plenty and happiness and peace. The idea that no one would have to die. Ever. Not even once. You had to not think about it.

It hurt too much when you were standing in the muck.

How would you say all this out loud? What could you say to 09-19 that would have her see this - and not have her cast you back into the role of heretic, traitor, mutant? Your tongue had never felt fatter and more useless. Low Gothic had never felt like such an imprecise, and useless language. You could show her, you knew, with the schematics and diagrams - motonic reactors and food synthesizers, automated transit systems and manses, clockwork servitors without flesh that needed to suffer - but you also knew she'd never understand. You felt a pang of loneliness. A future where the only people who understood you were...were Tech Priests.

And Kit...

And, ugh, Amberly.

Behind your mask, your lips thinned and you finally spoke, quietly. "12-12 said that being chosen a Medic didn't make me less Krieg. This doesn't make me less Krieg either."

09-19 regarded you.

Then she nodded. "Maybe," she said.

And that was enough.

Amberly, who had been standing nearby, looking increasingly awkward, coughed. "Behold! Yonder recon force hath returned! Let us learn what they have sought so valiantly to recover!"

Kit just kissed the top of your head - which caused you to squeak, splutter, and boil over.

Sergeant M'Kuul was a Catachean, meaning he was roughly as big as you, skinny as a trenchrat, and was perpetually sharpening a knife. The map he had laid out was marked with his infantryman's signaler, and was pretty remarkably detailed - you saw the double rectangle shape of the hydroponics bay, yes, and could immediately see that they had to be functional - there were no damage markers that had been laid down and their shape was entirely unbroken. Based on their size, they had barely enough hydroponic carrying capacity to manage a quarter of your army. That wouldn't matter once you got your hands on them. You were honestly not sure if you should go for something simple and mass production...maybe alterantively, something more wide spread. Recreating the planetary ecology was a kind of craft. Hmm. That was a possibility, actually. Less work in the long term-

That long term is centuries, you thought, like probing a tooth with your tongue.

The thought didn't change.

Less work. Long term.

You felt a cold prickle of fear run along your spine.

"So, um..." you paused, then said, quietly. "Should be easy enough."

"Are you blind?" Amberly snapped. "There's two armored platoons, power armor, and a division's worth of dug in infantry!"

You blinked, then shifted your gaze from the promising rectangles. There were all the force markers.

"Oh," you said. "Right, sorry, I...I meant fixing the hydroponics."

"No need to fix em, m'ld" M'kuul said, contracting m'lady down to a mumble. Catacheans, based on your few interactions with them, ate parts of words that they considered unnecessary, making them feel a bit like malformed, almost Kriegers. Kriegers simply used precise, short sentences, which gave their Low Gothic a certain bevity and wit. Catacheans were just mumblers. "The w'ho thin work j'st fine."

"No, I know, it's just I can make it better," you said.

"So you claim," Amberly said, snorting. "But there remains the issue that it is currently entrenched by a force greater than our own - they, unlike us, did not deconstruct their heavy armor into a lance battery."

"I only deconstructed our earthshakers!" you said.

"Which is all that's left of our heavy armor," Amberly said. "We have better infantry, I think, pound for pound, but look." SHe pointed. "There's at least one marine down here - not sure why he was left behind..."

"Horns," Sergeant M'Kuul said, using his knife to indicate a horn jutting out of his head.

"What color?" you asked.

He shrugged. "Blue."

"Oh my Emperor," you whispered. "It's the guy!"

"What guy?" Kit asked, frowning.

"Um...before this all happened, there was a...well, I suppose he was a sorcerer," you said. "He tried to kidnap and sacrifice me."

A low, angry growl came from Kit.

"But I did throw a lance at him!" you said, nodding. "He was quite badly wounded. Maybe he survived..." You rubbed your finger along your chin.

"Seemed fine," M'Kuul said.

"Hurm," you said, frowning slightly. "What was he doing?"

"Chay stuff," M'Kuul said, drawing his knife along his sharpening stone with a slow scrape, scrape, scree screen. "Tyin' up folk. Cutten' 'em."

You jerked your head up. "We have to rescue them!" you said, immediately.

"While normally, I would hasten to point out that they are traitors, and thus, deserve any fate that befalls them...none deserve the fate of being captured and used by a vile Chaos Sorcerer," Amberly said, her voice so thick with portentous gravity that you had to check and make sure the Lens Lance hadn't been turned on. You frowned at her.

"Not just gonna shoot them?" you asked, angrily.

"I wasn't just going to shoot you!" Amberly said, huffily.

"Wow, sure seemed like it," you muttered.

"Girls," Kit said, frowning.

Amberly hurmphed, and then looked away - her cheeks flushed...and for a moment, there was a flicker of shame that crossed her face. It was an emotion you knew well. It was almost the only emotion you could easily spot on faces. You'd seen it often enough in the creche, when someone hadn't been acclimating to their masks and, rather than asking their fitters to adjust them, had instead tried to take them off. Oh yeah. You knew that look easily. You narrowed your eyes at her behind your mask - but Kit remained focused.

"Can we take them in a straight fight, with us tipping the balance?" he asked.

"Yes," Amberly said, with utter certainty. "Us and the stormtroopers I think make it even enough that if we attacked with valor and skill, we could rout these fiends."

You frowned.

The answer...seemed obvious...

---
What do you do?
[ ] Attack with Amberly's plan (she has War 5, she'll have a good plan.)
[ ] Come up with your own plan! Write in

STATS
Health: Fine
Anima: Dim
Willpower: 5/5
Personal Motes: 13/13 | Peripheral Motes: 28/28 (Committed Motes: 5)
Limit: 1/10 (Trigger: Being stymied by indulges around her)
XP: 2 | Solar XP: 4
Major Projects: 0/5
SXP: 46 | GXP: 15 | WXP: 3