Chapter 499 - 499: Post-Battle Results (II)

Looking at Tech-priest Boothe, who had only half a head left, Kian couldn't help feeling a pang.

"So what are you going to do now?"

Kian knew that Boothe's sister was dead, and that by escorting Kian up into the Titan, Boothe had committed what the Mechanicus considered betrayal.

However unhinged Magos Ferrocore had been at the time, he had still been the highest authority of the local Mechanicus.

What Boothe had done was no different from mutiny. He would have a hard time getting by on this planet from now on.

Sure enough, Boothe sighed and said:

"My lord, there's no place for me on this world anymore.

"In fact, if you hadn't successfully piloted the Titan, and my colleagues hadn't been willing to extend you that courtesy, I'd already be dead.

"And yesterday my superior, a Magos, warned me to leave the planet as soon as possible, or face the consequences.

"So, my lord, could your team use a grease monkey?"

Kian laughed.

"Of course, Father Boothe. If you're willing, you can come with me!"

This was an unexpected bonus. Taking Boothe with him would spare him the local Mechanicus's persecution and give Kian's team another technician.

Then Kian turned to business.

"How's the maintenance coming on my gear, those Knight suits?

"Also, I did save the world here. I kept a huge amount of Mechanicus assets from going up in smoke. Can my value buy me anything here?"

Boothe hadn't been fully dismissed yet and still had his Mechanicus access, so he immediately pulled up the data to show Kian.

"Please take a look, my lord. All the Knight suits you're having repaired will be finished in three months.

"The matching weapons, ammunition, power modules, and replacement parts will all be ready too. They'll keep your Knights fighting hard for twenty years without any worries about supply.

"As for your value, my lord, you saved an entire world! Your value is beyond calculation!"

Kian spread his hands.

"Then I should at least get to take something with me, right?"

Boothe rubbed his chin.

"My lord, as I understand it, you'll be leaving this planet in three months. Why not hand me the authority to redeem your value?

"Over those three months I'll secure as much value as I can. Or if there's something in particular you want, I'll go negotiate for it with the Forge Temple."

Kian honestly didn't have anything in particular he wanted right now. And since he'd be gone in three months, and the Mechanicus was so painfully inefficient, he as an outsider really couldn't say how much of value could be squeezed out in that time.

So he happily agreed and made Boothe his representative to secure what he could on his behalf.

Then Kian asked about something else.

"What about Magos Ferrocore? Where did that damn bug crawl off to?"

A strange light flickered in Boothe's eye.

"My lord, Magos Ferrocore is dead. This is footage from a camera near the lava pool."

Boothe's mechanical eye projected a hologram.

In the footage, Magos Ferrocore staggered up to the edge of the lava pool and stood there, looking down, for more than a minute.

Then, suddenly, he leapt into the lava pool and vanished without a trace.

Kian clicked his tongue. The whole thing made his skin crawl.

"Damn it! He's making it look like I'm the blond chad who stole his Titan girlfriend, and he's the heartbroken victim who went and offed himself! Screw that! What an idiot!"

Kian felt thoroughly grossed out. That mechanical worm was so damn creepy!

Then another thought struck him.

"Oh, right, how's the Titan doing? The missus and I had a little misunderstanding. Maybe I should climb back on and talk things out with her?"

Boothe shook his head so hard it nearly spun off.

"My lord, whatever you do, don't go near the Titan. The Skitarii have it surrounded!

"Earlier, the Titan's Adjutant came out of the cockpit and ordered the Skitarii to bar you from coming within one kilometre of the Titan. If you do, they're to kill you on sight.

"That's the Titan's will, and it's the Adjutant's own will too!"

Kian heaved a sigh. He'd been wondering whether he might get to take the Titan with him this time, and it turned out the misunderstanding with the missus ran way deeper than he'd thought.

But when he thought about it, he let it go. The Titan was a major Mechanicus asset. There was no way they'd let a private individual walk off with it.

The only way would be for a Titan Legion to keep him on as a Principal to pilot it.

Kian stopped dwelling on it. He left the matter of redeeming his value with the Mechanicus to Boothe and headed for the bunker where the Astartes were quartered.

The war was over. There were no more hard fights to be had, and the Astartes were enjoying a rare stretch of downtime. Right now the giants were gathered in the bunker, leisurely working at the forge.

One hundred Astartes had originally come to this planet: the 3rd Company of the Crimson Bite Chapter.

Fifty of them had stayed aboard their ship to lure away the main Ork battle fleet. The other fifty had fought on the ground under Captain Doron.

Of those fifty, twenty-three were now dead, Captain Doron among them. The company had essentially been gutted.

As Kian came down into the bunker, the Chaplain was just finishing the rites of mourning for their fallen brothers.

The twenty-three bodies were wrapped in a kind of serpent hide.

It came from a special great beast native to the Crimson Bite's recruiting world.

Wrapping the dead in serpent hide, storing them in cold storage, and sending them home to the recruiting world was how the Crimson Bite buried their fallen.

Kian found Sergeant Nor'n. "The fighting here's finally over. Took long enough, huh!"

Nor'n nodded in heartfelt agreement.

"Yes. Our company has been fighting on this world for nearly ten years. It has been far too long.

"But at last it is over. We held the planet, the greenskins got nothing, and the Imperium's sector is safe from this threat for now. For now."

Kian nodded, then got to business:

"Captain Doron is dead. He was a good soldier, and I respected him. May his soul return to the Golden Throne.

"The honoured dead go to their rest, but the living still have to keep fighting.

"The agreement I worked out with Captain Doron: who's going to carry it through now?"

Kian meant towing the warship. He hadn't forgotten his dream of owning a warship of his own!

That Sword-class vessel near Agri-World 496b was still sitting there, waiting for someone to come salvage it!

He'd just asked Boothe about it on his way over. The Mechanicus was restoring the planet's production.

One of the major restoration projects was getting the orbital shipyard running again!

Building an orbital shipyard was simple. You launched equipment into low orbit on chemical rockets from the surface, then used the rocket bodies themselves as platforms to build a space station. That station was your orbital shipyard.

Going by Kian's description, Boothe said the Sword-class escort wasn't badly damaged. Repairing it wouldn't even require an orbital shipyard.

All they had to do was park it in low orbit over Forge World 496a and keep launching chemical rockets from the surface to ferry equipment up. After refitting and maintaining its systems for a while, the Sword-class escort would be as good as new.

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