A Change in Management
The skies of Atlas were dark with the many jagged hulls of the Amir-kaan navy. The orbital defences were still intact, but even the president, who was not experienced at all with Naval matters knew that she'd take minimal casualties taking them and taking control of the orbitals. The ground defences looked more formidable, towering forge hives with overlapping fields of fire, and powerful anti orbital weapons. She also knew that the majority of Atlas' titans and Skittari were away, and that she had tens of thousands of Astartes and Psykers ready to storm them. Again, Casualties would be minimal. All of this would be unnecessary though. After all, she had only invited the fabricator general to tea, aboard her personal "Yatch"- actually a possessed archeotech light crusier.
The Fabricator General of Atlas had known they had little choice in attending. The world was surrounded, by a president from a hostile party, by a fleet they couldn't match even if theirs wasn't currently burning in the light of the two stars of the Muspellhiem system. The Fabricator General, therefore, took the only option available, and made ready to attend the tea party. They didn't expect to survive.
The door to Marilyn May Rowe's office opened, and the red clad monster of iron and steel, stepped into the room, flanked by two even larger mechanical bodyguards. They froze, in mid step as they passed through the door, like statues. The link between the Fabricator General and his bodyguards being instantly broken automatically flicked his brain into Survival/Combat setting 0221, but while the targeting systems and defensive counter measures activated the weapons failed, the power blade attached to the arm not energising, the shoulder mounted plasma guns reactors cooling and dying and all the mechadendrites sprouting from the Mechanicus leader went limp. The daemons bound to protect them from psychic attack screamed, and fled, under the presidents influence.
They saw the president. She was lounging on a large, overstuffed armchair, legs crossed over one of the arm rests, back against the other. Her golden curls ran down the back of her neck like waterfall, meeting her dress at her back. Made of simple black fabric, imbued with hundreds of thousands of tiny runes, and sourcerous rituals, the dress cost more than the total produce of some Amir-kaan hives. It also gave the already extremely psychically powerful president even greater ability to enforce her will on the world.
"Well, well, well Mr Fabricator, or is it Mrs Fabricator? I never know with you." The Fabricator general grunted, unwilling to attack while their weapons were dead. "Last time I was here, I remember there being more space boats, don't you? I remember lots of them, all floating around here keeping you and your robot buddies nice and safe on the ground." The Fabricator let out a line of Binary that carried more bile than any words. "Oh wait, I forgot it's you lot who don't like Robots, and the other toaster fuckers who do. Well, silly little me". The president had not forgot this bit of information. She'd worked with progressive mechanicus elements for centuries, always in semi-open conflict with Atlas, the greatest forge in Amir-ka.
"Are you going to tell me what happened to your space boats? No? Good thing I know." The Fabricators head begun to spin, as the office turned into the void, his ships burning amongst the Nomad cities, fleeing from the Eldar. An image of a single man appeared, an astarte wearing a helmet shaped like the head of an anteater. "You were working with Turoq, weren't you? Turoq who you know was both my personal enemy, and the enemy of Amir-Ka. Turoq, who was the biggest threat to our freedom this side of Hydraphur!"
The fabricator general took this moment to strike. A status field, hidden deep in his body deactivated. The brain, held inside, was that of a Psi level blank. The sudden scream of the president tore through the room and the warp, the blank field not enough to nullify her power completely, but enough to cause her immense pain. Immediately she lost her control over the weapons, blades, plasma guns and mechandendrites leaping into life, Marilyn barely managing to deflect the plasma bolts. Returning fire with a great torrent of warpflame she started to move. She knew she was on her ship, with her bodyguards. She only needed to survive 10 seconds before they got here. Leaping over the chair, her desperate use of her powers left small warp rifts where her feet and hands had scrabbled over the chair. The Fabricator leapt forward, the blank brain in his body closing the rifts as he chased her. 5 seconds. Marylin concentrated her power into a shield, to keep the prying blades and blasts away, and kept running, leaping from surface to surface in a display of acrobatics unlike any she had performed in a century, always defeating would be assassins with her psychic might.
Her "bodyguards" arrived. Eight copies of the same beautiful young blond woman. Eight beta psykers with terrifying control. Enough to overpower the one Psi blank. Enough to lift the fabricator into air. Enough to crush the blank brain.
"Did you think Turoq came up with this trick himself? No, No, No. I Talked to the children of whisper too. I did not indulge their crazy scheme to go back to helhielm. I sent them on to Turok in merry hope that they'd lead him onto that awful meatgrinder of a planet. They didn't quite do that though. He, instead lead you, into a completely different meat grinder of a planet. Still one that is part of a polity I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE WELL ALONE!"
The sudden shout, from nine beings that could each individually dominate a hive, broke the fabricator, and gave Marilyn the in on the Atlas noosphere she needed to begin her takeover. The Forge world of Atlas was brought under the control of the presidents traditionalist dark mechanicus allies without a fight. The strongest centre of Abomination worship in Amir-ka, and the origin point for so much of the Abomnite terrorism across the sectors had been conquered. The president did this with only 500,000,000 deaths. Less than a percentage of the population of the world.
500,000,000 deaths for five seats in the senate? Bargain.