Herald of the Stars: Chapter Seventy-Four (Patreon)

I haven't quite decided on how I view the this chapter and the next two I am working on. On one hand, you can't get much more Warhammer than making an army list and I enjoyed writing it.

On the other hand, the level of detail in this and the following chapters are not vital to the plot, but some down time is needed after several chapters of fighting and knowing what assets Aldrich has before a campaign lets one imagine how he might fight it and why.

I'd love to read what people think of this issue in the comments in this chapter or the next.

I check through my list of possible modules and many that were previously unavailable are now selectable. However, I can’t help but be suspicious that navigator conversion, an absurdly valuable technology, was available for a mere thousand kills, rather than, now that I know they exist, a crown.

The same logic applies for the top tier module that would turn me into a mini astronomicon.

At the scale this universe operates at, that’s like being rewarded for eating a sugared doughnut without licking your lips, with another doughnut. Just because you’re chewing mouth first into obesity, doesn’t mean you know exactly how it is going to affect you personally.

That doesn’t mean I won’t take Homer’s deal with the Devil though, as, with anything but the most vital of E-SIM’s modules, if I don’t learn how it works, E-SIM won’t install one for me and, once I have learned it, I don’t have to install it if I don’t want to.

I purchase navigator conversion and set a trio of minds to understanding it at an accelerated pace.

My next limitation is age as I am approaching my seventies. Even though body tuning will extend my fitness and working life for another fifty years, my dreams will take far longer than that.

I spend the last of my kills on a rejuvenat gland and regenerative hormones. These two work as a pair to extend one’s lifespan to four hundred years while givinging you the neural plasticity of a twenty year old human. They also massively enhance my natural healing, healing that will equal a navigator’s regeneration mutation.

As for the crown, the boss kill, that I have earned, I will need to give it some more thought. I am tempted by some of the survival gear STCs as they would benefit my whole crew and make an excellent trade good, both the STC and the product. I have so many complete, engineering grade STCs right now, however, that it is already a little silly and I have absolutely no idea how I am going to flog them all and get away with all my spoils.

On the other hand, I could begin some of the warp infrastructure modules, or add krork energy harvesting to fuel the subspace technology tree.

I return to Distant Sun’s bridge. I am surprised to find second officer Daithí Quill on the command throne, then I check the time and realise that Eire’s watch ended over an hour ago.

There are two second officers on Distant Sun, Daithí Quill and Nadbroicc Geadais, who oversee the third and fourth watches. Seoras Lùtair is the only third officer and manages the training shift. I oversee the first watch and Eire supervises the second.

The second and third officers change every six months right now as they quickly end up as second or first officer on one of my moth class ships, and from there they have a chance to compete for the same position on larger ships, like Errudition’s Howl and Iron Crane, and work their way up through my fleet as it expands. They always come back to Distant Sun for the first few months of their promotion before returning to their new vessel.

Ideally, all first, second, and third officers would complete the full fifteen month cycle on Distant Sun, but until I have enough spare officers to get a flag bridge up and running, that just isn’t happening.

There’s no way I’m releasing Eire to make space for other first officers to train on Distant Sun either as she isn’t just my first officer on Distant Sun, but my second in command if I am unavailable and that would mess with fleet command if she was working with another captain.

I may, eventually, add an additional officer to perform my watch, but that would impact on my own skills. It would allow me to move between watches more easily though and take a more active role in training my officers, but I don’t want to constantly hover over people while they are learning or working either, nor stand around not doing much.

It’s a little slow to fill in the positions like this, but having all the major officers train on my ship first where I can keep an eye on them has already pruned one despot who escaped screening and gives all my officers a common origin that they can chat about when communicating with each other.

Daithí Quill is an unusual individual for Marwolv as he is short, at one metre sixty-seven centimetres, which is interesting because it shows that the modifications added to Marwolv’s inhabitants do not prevent genetic drift, or overcome environmental factors, like a famine during childhood, for example.

I wave at Daithí as I walk up the stairs.

“Nice hat, Magos.”

“Thank you, Daithí. How did Eire look when you relieved her?”

“Well enough, though her bio-monitor thought otherwise and she went back to the medicae deck, just in case. Eire warned me to not connect to Aruna during combat too, so I should be fine for my full eight hours.”

“Glad to hear it, though now that I am here, a half hour stint to practise with the command throne will help you in the long run. We’re not in a complete crisis anymore, unless something has changed in the last few minutes.”

“No, Magos. The immediate crisis is under control for now. While you were away, Eire coordinated with Commander Muire and Erudition’s Howl.

“Erudition’s Howl is due to rendezvous with the yard in thirty-six hours and, with its ram, plans to push the yard from the otherside. That will give us enough leeway to risk the tethers. Commander Muire will withdraw and we can re-angle our own thrusters for a more direct trajectory and between Iron Crane, Erudition’s Howl, and Distant Sun we will drag the yard back to a more sustainable orbit.

“There is some debate as to the length of time Distant Sun’s tethers will function as our thruster plume will be great enough to scour the yard. This will keep the orks from assaulting from outside the hull, but, over time, will erode the asteroid enough to detach the tethers, likely before we can completely free the yard. Which, as you no doubt know, was one of the reasons why we configured everything at an angle in the first place. Longer tethers would be prone to snapping.”

“Good work, Daithí. How fares Commander Dougal MacCrane and Dimpsy Fortress?”

“He is in contact with Prime Minister Callen Gunn and they are following the Gael Democracy’s major earthquake disaster relief plan. It’s the closest equivalent they have to an asteroid impact plan. Meanwhile, the orks harried the fortress and achieved little, then went on to raid anything that was moving along the roads.

“There have been over five hundred civilian casualties in these clashes, despite the rapid response of Dimpsy Fortress’s D-POT’s who swept across the continent taking out the ork’s air support. Dimpsy Fortress lost one, class two D-POT, in the operation, one which has already been recovered. Two of the sixteen crew died on the downed craft.”

“I’m glad we could at least avenge them. What’s the readiness for the Stellar Corps and local forces across Marwolv? Did Eire have time to assemble the information?”

“She did Magos. I have her report here. Would you like me to send it or read it to you?”

“Do both please.”

“Yes, Magos. There are fourteen line companies of Stellar Corps heavy infantry stationed on the Distant Sun. Four are on board, ten have been deployed to the shipyard. Casualties are at thirteen percent, with seven percent fatalities.

“The shipyard has two companies and these have now been reassigned to search and rescue within the yard.

“Of the one thousand kataphrons we had on board, all were deployed and forty percent have been destroyed.”

Brian, one of my servo-skulls, floats out from behind the command throne. I toss the ork hat onto him and he wobbles then floats over to me, scanning my armour. I wave him away.

“Despite being in a vacuum, so far our casualties are much lower than they were for Operation Sea Mithe.” I poke at the hole in my armour, “Not having to fight through prepared defences makes an even greater difference than I thought it would. Though considering the fight I just had, that really should not surprise me. Carry on Daithí.”

“Armed construction servitors, ten thousand of them, fill out the Stella Corps front line on the yard and Iron Crane, Magos. They have MOA shields, pistols, and their industrial tools, and are commanded to engage the orks in melee when they get too close allowing heralds to pull back.

“Once withdrawn, and if the orks win, defensive installation traps are detonated and, if the assault is halted, the heralds can retake their position. This has happened once so far and we lost fifty-nine construction servitors. Commander Muire has already put in a research request for servitor pikemen, or similar troops.”

“So much for the far future. I’m sure there will be all manner of new tactics born from this scuffle. What happened to the dogs?”

“All two hundred and eighty logistics cyber mastiffs assigned to Distant Sun’s infantry remain undeployed as they are not equipped for void operations.”

“The Soviets didn’t give Laika a space suit either. I feel silly for not realising a dog suit is required.”

Daithí frowns.

“The first animal sent into space was a dog named Laika, thirty eight millenia ago. There’s massive archives of random trivia on the Distant Sun if you want to know more.”

“Thank you for your wisdom, Magos. May I continue?”

I chuckle at Daithí’s sarcastic tone, “Please do.”

“Stellar Corps forces on Marwolv total two hundred twenty-five line companies  of heavy infantry. Each line company has twenty squads of fifteen heralds, five special weapon teams of six, and an officer core of six, per company. Two of the officers are tech adepts. Each line company has eight infantry fighting vehicles and two crassus armoured transports.

“There are ten companies to a battalion, and ten battalions per regiment with eight line companies, one command company and one logistics company per a battalion. Depending on the battalion, some line companies are swapped for tank squadrons, artillery batteries, or anti-air batteries. Anything you want me to elaborate on?”

“Start with the logistics and command companies. How has commander Muire organised them?”

“We have forty logistics companies in total. Compared to line companies, each logistics company has an additional twenty four infantry fighting vehicles, for a total of thirty six IFVs per logistics company. Thirty of their infantry are tech-adepts and two of the six officers are tech-priests. A flight of D-POTs assigned to them from the aeronautica as well.

“Logistic companies don’t have special weapon teams like line companies do and more of their total personnel are required as vehicle crew, but, unlike armoured companies with their tank squadrons and ordinance batteries, the extra vehicle crew required doesn’t affect the number of their heavy infantry squads. They also have three cyber mastiffs per squad rather than the single mastiff that the line and command companies do, for a total of sixty.

“Logistic companies have significantly more mechanisation. Makes sense to me. Have we had any mobility or supply problems?

“We do struggle to move enough fuel, Magos, though no one has proposed a good enough solution just yet. The internal tanks on D-POTs are adequate for now and they can take barrels in their hold as well when needed.

There has also been some call for more specialised vehicles for crossing rivers, rather than air lifting everything. This is a PDF request so that they don’t have to wait for us to transport them and to reduce their reliance on road and rail as well.”

“Alright. I’ll give it some thought. Command companies?”

“Each command company has eight command chimeras for their infantry fighting vehicles, rather than combat variants, though they don’t have custom crassus armoured transports. Their special weapon teams are replaced with tech-adepts and two of their command squad are tech-priests, usually a lexmechanic or transmechanic.”

“No rune priests? I would have thought more flexible thinkers would be assigned rather than data compilers or vox maintenance specialists.”

“The tech-adepts for the engineering companies are often on that career track, or learning to be enginseers, but Commander Muire is fond of a ‘by the numbers’ approach. She likes her commanders to be able to accurately calculate the odds of success for any given manoeuvre and keep a close eye on the accuracy of the logistics companies, minimising loss from theft and error.”

I chuckle, “I appreciate her thoroughness to maximum efficiency. Give me the armour company details next.”