Micholi and Valus
Before he had the chance to join up with his brother Rubbai and his family, the arrival of another, mechanical voice announced that another of the Emperor’s sons had arrived.
Turning to face the new arrival, Micholi made the effort to politely bow his head and respectfully answer “Valus, I must admit that I am surprised you were able to come with so much of your legion. Last I heard, you were engaged with at least three major campaigns. I trust they are still going well?” Small talk was not Micholi’s strength, but he was willing to at least make the effort.
At any rate, he was actually surprised that Valus had arranged for so much of his Legion to come to Terra. Sure, he was aware that the Knights of Iron outnumbered his legion by a margin of about three to one, but to risk so many campaigns by bringing so many of his marines to Terra spoke either of great confidence or arrogance.
Valus, entombed in his hulking battle plate listened to his brother. It was true the campaigns were not concluded when he had been ordered back to Terra and taking the vast majority of his marines was a risk, but a small risk. Valus laughed, but the mechanical filter made it lifeless and without a sense of joy. “Micholi, There are still twenty thousnd Knights making war on those worlds, the army regiments and the Titan legions from my home fight on those worlds. It is a messy thing but the worlds shall be… conquered by the time I return.” Valus said, but he really meant razed with the population scoured to grow his legion once again. “Besides, Father demanded my presence… one must make a good show for the Emperor” Micholi could hear the attempt at the joke and that the display intended to show respect and honor for the Emperor, but he could still hear the contempt behind Valus’ words.
As much as a part of Micholi would have liked to consider Valus to be arrogant for his decision, he couldn’t help but acknowledge that the man had a fair and respectable point. While twenty thousand marines might not have been able to be split into a full legion, it was a respectable foundation for an invasion force. Even more so with regimental and Titan support.
“So who or what are you currently fighting?” He asked, slightly curious as to who or what his brother would be leaving as nothing more than bones and ash in his wake this time around. Extermination had its place in the grand scheme of things, but it would have been nice to learn that it was an orkish empire being put to the torch for a change.
The comments about the Emperor was noted, but even if the scar that consumed half his face might have made facial expressions difficult to read it was clear that he wasn’t judging Valus for not holding their ‘father’ in great esteem. “If you don’t want to call him father, you don’t have to for my sake. I respect the man and acknowledge that he created me, but I already have a family who loved and raised me. I don’t need a father now.”
It was… something of an olive branch. Even if he disagreed with Valus’ tactics and methods of pursuing the Crusade, the man was still a brother… if a distant one he hadn’t grown up with.
Valus shrugged, “Well, the orks have a few outposts in the dalus system and a world infested with them, Legio Victorum and the bulk of my marines that are off Terra are razing the planet. The other two systems are old human empires who have… disagreed with their new place within the Imperium so we must educate them.” says Valus clearly not as interested in the topic of war as some of their brothers would be.
Then Valus laughs with what seems to be genuine amusement though touched with something that Micholi couldn’t quite place through the mechanical filters. “I understand that you do not need a father, but i was raised on a forge world… my parent i suppose you could say was a Magos. Nurturing and loving as cold steel, the Emperor was the first person to show compassion and caring, but… Well, that does not matter. I was one of the first found and i have had many years to learn from him and calling him Father is not for your sake. It is a term that fits.”
Valus sighs in an almost obvious release of emotion and tension, “Enough of the tedious family matters, I heard rumor of STC data found by your crusade fleet though not of its exact nature. Tell me, was it something useful? Or yet another design of water pump?” he says with notable interest.
Opening his mouth, Micholi was about to offer a quick apology for his mistake about the relationship between Valus and the Emperor, but the sudden change in subject was clearly an attempt to prevent that from happening. Well, he wasn’t about to insult the man by changing it back. “Hard to say. We made a couple of discoveries rather recently… “ The half of his face that emotion could be read on seemed to wince a little as he admitted “...some of which we’re better off knowing can exist, but shouldn’t.”
Shaking his head a little, he chuckled softly as he admitted “That said, my first division did recently come across some STC data that has been of great interest. It was incomplete and parts of it were corrupted, but from what they’ve been able to work out so far it appears to be a brand of lasgun with a flamethrower attachment under the barrel. They suspect the lasgun itself was designed for close quarter, underground fighting at this stage, but it’s still early days yet.”
Valus stood and listened with rapt interest as his brother explained. “Well, if a copy could be made I would be very interested in helping crack its secrets, The mechanicus only shares what they must with me and I am still using an old pattern of lasgun for my Army regiments, Now what is this forbidden discovery? Some xenos artifact i suspect?” Valus asks, before Micholi can speak he leans down so his helm is quite close to Micholi, “I have a number of them myself” he says somewhat quietly, The Primarch’s private workshop and manufactorum were rumored to make a great many unique things like strange xenos weapons.
“Knowing my first division, by the time I check in on them again they should have uncovered as much from the data as might be possible. They take their duties when it comes to STC’s very seriously after all… but I’ll try and get you a copy made when I make a copy to send back to the Kirk system. Even if you can’t uncover anything new from the data itself, I confess I am slightly curious to see your take when you try to fill in the gaps. See how your end result will differ from the ones my people make.” It was no secret that the Kirk system, the heartland of Micholi’s legion was a haven for those of the Cult Mechanicus who were open minded enough to experiment with xenos technology or progress and experimentation in general. Hell, xeno scientists from the various races Micholi had managed to bring into the Imperium were there as well.
His question about the forbidden knowledge caused him to pause in thought for a moment. While he tried to keep a poker expression, it was clear from the delay that he was debating sharing that knowledge… before he let out a quick breath as he came to a conclusion. “There isn’t any harm in warning you about its existence… truth be told, I intend to inform all of our brothers about it so they might be prepared in the event they find an enemy that figured out the secret behind creating such things…”
The pause that followed wasn’t him debating if he should talk, but where to start. “About a year ago, we encountered an alien race called the Laer. At first, they seemed perfectly reasonable for a xenos race and early trials were started to investigate their race and culture in depth to see if bringing them into the Imperium was possible. As a diplomatic gesture they even offered myself and several of my legion a collection of swords they had made.”
His tongue clicked a little as he recounted the story. “They were absolutely beautifully made… and after some minor testing they proved on par, if not deadlier than most power swords. They cleaved through tank armor like a hot knife through butter. Naturally, I decided to send the sword I was given, plus several others of the collection back to the Kirk system so that my people could investigate them and try to uncover how they were made and possibly recreated so that such weapons could be supplied to the Legion on mass.”
A sigh escaped him as a frown appeared on his face. “We found the source behind the weapons shortly after one of our scientists picked up the sword that had been given to me and went completely insane, slaughtering his co-workers, a number of armed guards and two marines before he was put down. You know the strange entities that often plague ships traveling through the warp?”
It was a leading question: One didn’t travel in the warp for long without encountering interesting things “The Laer discovered some means of pulling some of those beings out of the warp and bound them inside the blades… effectively making them sentient weapons that could enforce their primal wills on the wielder. Their ‘gift’ was a ploy to try and corrupt myself and key members of my legion… by the time we uncovered their ploy, the marines that had kept their swords had already been consumed by them, little more than puppets of the Laer that I had to put down personally.”
“We exterminated the Laer after that, but if one planet figured out that vile practice it’s not unthinkable that there is another out there that did the same. I know you like to tinker with xenos weapons and gear, but this really isn’t something you want to mess with Valus.”
As Micholi spoke Valus’ demeanor changed slowly from simple rapt curiosity, as if his brother were speaking of some interesting bauble to one of profound fascination. “Truely?” he paused for a fraction of a second as though he were going to ask another question but decided against it “you had to lay low your own due to madness?” Micholi’s grim expression was answer enough, Valus nodded his huge helm slowly “the monsters in the Immaterium are terrible enough but to bring them into the material world? Locked into a weapon? That is monstrous. It is best the Laer were exterminated.” said Valus though his tone suggested his mind was working elsewhere, gnawing on some new problem “That is ominous news to consider and one i had not even considered a possibility.”
“It makes me think of Orkish technology, I am sure you have examined it yourself and your researchers do the same. How it simply does not work without Orks to man it, i have disassembled an ork tank down to the treads and its function was impossible yet I had seen it driving not hours before. Perhaps it is some kind of sorcery like that of the Laer and their blades.” Valus pauses for a moment “they are different naturally but what you say about the blades invading the minds of their wielder sounds equally impossible you understand.”
Micholi nodded his head in agreement. “I do actually, though I have to admit I didn’t consider the comparison with Orkish technology. It was due to having a psyker examine the blades which helped us uncover their true nature you see, so we made it part of the examination routine to have new technology examined in such a way. While we did find a dozen or so more such blades during the purge of the Laers, it seemed only the blades housed bound entities which suggested to us that however they were binding the entities, they could only do it into simplistic objects like a sword.”
“...Though now that you’ve raised the comparison, we might just have to try a few new tests on orkish weapons and technology. We tend not to examine their tech much these days due to it either being completely impossible for it to function or its habit of exploding, but it might be worth having a psyker poke at it… if only to rule out the orks having this kind of knowledge.”
A serious expression appeared on his face as he spoke to Valus, taking a brief break from the talk about tech as he said “For what it’s worth, I do understand the curiosity. How the Laers created such dangerous weapons is a mystery that they took to their graves… but this might be a mystery that is better off unsolved. All it would take is one slip up and your mind would no longer be your own.” That sounded like actual concern in his voice… largely because it was. “I would hate to lose a brother that way.”
Valus nodded gravely, that the mystery was lost and better left lost, though he did not speak as he did not want to lie to a brother by saying that they knowledge was best erased from the universe. However as Micholi spoke of losing one’s mind Valus laughed uproariously, even the Custodes turned and watched curiously as the Primarch of the Knights of Iron was not known for laughter even at the best of times. “Micholi, I should be insulted, you think so lowly of us Primarchs that we could be so taken like the mortals who examined the blades” though he made no mention of the Astartes taken by them the implication was clear, Primarchs had no equal save for the Emperor.
“Come brother, let us be off this grim subject until the meeting.” Valus lightly slapped his brother on the back with his enormous gauntlet strongly enough that he very nearly had to take a step to avoid losing his balance, a gesture to walk and talk as they proceeded deeper into the imperial palace. “Now tell me of the material the Eldar use for their weapons and armor? Its understanding escapes me which is a rare thing in itself.” Valus began as they walked to the chambers in the Imperial palace.
