I granted Angron and his battered legion a whole system next to my Sol for them to call home, at least for the time being. It sounded extravagant, but that system only had two rocky pnets little bigger than Mars circling around a small K-type star, protected within a thick asteroid belt my astronomers specute was the result of a few outer pnets getting cracked somehow.

  Anyway, a small horde of terraforming megacrawler factories were sent down to both worlds, both to give the legion a serviceable home and to see if the improvements we made to the Mechanicum designs would live up to expectations. While atmospheres and magnetospheres were being brought up to habitable standards, portable hab domes were set up on the more tolerable world, currently given the pceholder name War Hound I.

  Yes, the system’s name was called War Hound as well. At least temporarily.

  A few fabricators were also loaned to help produce the necessary spare parts and tools for the World Eaters to repair and rebuild, while some bots were tasked to help them build up a simple base on a reasonably habitable world. And with Shroom Doom going silent, a few star forts there would be transferred over to give the system some security.

  For their part, the World Eaters seemed more than happy to be given a quiet corner to recover. Communications between the legion and the Nexus Unity was minimal, mostly scheduled reports and the occasional request for additional supplies they overlooked in the preliminary request sheet, like furniture and weapon oil. They were down to just under 50,000 legionnaires, though the serfs and auxiliaries that followed them pumped the final tally of defected souls to something like 400,000. Stupid numbers, but when each Imperium ship uses chain gangs to manually reload their macrocannon shells or repce turboser heat sinks, it’s considered suboptimal numbers.

  Stupid Mechanicum monopoly over technology.

  I swear, if the World Eaters actually fully align themselves to me, I’m going to automate as many of their systems as I can. Autoloaders, computing servers, coffee brewers… I’m going to force them to redirect their menial bor into something healthier and more productive. Like flower arrangers or something.

  Just to spite the Imperium, and to scratch that annoying itch of knowing such madness existed.

  It’d need confirming whether the World Eaters would pledge themselves to me in the first pce, of course, but that’s why I had a meeting with Angron.

  Sans the Nails, Angron seemed sociable enough, even with his primarch aura on. The whole empath schtick made him seem far more reasonable and approachable than even Sanguinius (haven’t met Vulkan yet, so I can’t compare). If not for the metanatural defenses in pce, I could very well imagine him giving off an extreme version of the ‘everyone’s hyper dependable almost-best-friend’ vibe.

  “I must thank you once more, Sev, for your aid.”

  “De nada,” I quickly cut in before he could break into the whole spiel of gratitude again. “The reports say your legion’s recovery is going…as well as it could?”

  The not-quite Red Angel nodded grimly. “The losses sustained have been heavy both on fleet and personnel, but we are at least recovering and repairing what men and materiel we have left.”

  “50-kay legionnaires still isn’t that small though, compared with the other legions.” They’d lost about two thirds of their original strength, but that only put them at a deficit of around 30k compared to the smaller legions like the Raven Guard or Thousand Sons. Granted, those legions tended not to rely on post-human wave attacks, and used more specialized doctrines.

  Angron only nodded in silence, understandably not just seeing it as a numbers issue.

  “So, once you’ve recovered, what’s next?”

  It took a few seconds of thoughtful frowning before the primarch answered. “The Imperium has beled me and my sons traitors. I understand that…defecting to the Nexus might be a diplomatic issue between the Imperium and Nexus.” His body slowly rose and fell as he let out a silent sigh. “We will likely find ourselves a new pce in the gaxy, hopefully far enough away to stave off retribution from my father’s Imperium.”

  Considerate, noble. Resigned.

  Still a bit more elements to be considered the perfect marks for a prospective hire, but I’ve gotten the Doomgeese to py nice in the Nexus, so the World Eaters might as well be saints compared to them.

  “Hm. Let’s say that diplomatic niceties aren't a problem?” I suggested, and Angron gave me one of those disbelieving blink-stares.

  I gave him a shrug. “It can be argued that by intervening with the Vhalix Unitary Government, the XIIth Legion provided most valuable aid to a new friend of the Nexus Unity. I’m sure there would be Vhalix survivors who might beseech us to lend aid to the World Eaters, just as the legion has aided them.”

  There was silence from the primarch, so I continued. “Pax Nexus does have extradition provisions, but it is overruled by Nexus Laws. Considering that the legion’s ‘crime’ is to intervene in the callous destruction of a race friendly to the Nexus, and we can personally vouch for the nature of the Vhalix to not be malicious to the Imperium before this mess to warrant the extinction of their species… I’d comfortably say that the Nexus Unity is obliged to at the very least provide shelter for the World Eaters for as long as they do not become a nuisance. And if they behave enough to allow for integration into the Nexus? Well, Nexus Laws says we give them that chance.”

  I finished with another shrug. “Besides, what’s a little diplomatic tit for tat between states? If your Emperor and his council think I’m going to just forget their little ork stunt…heh. Fucking too bad.”

  “That… I… Thank you, Sev.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” I replied, giving him a specutive look. “You still haven’t answered my question: What is your legion going to do?”

  The primarch did not hesitate now, drawing up on himself with clear resolve before bowing slightly, which meant that he still loomed over me like a mountain of very restrained violence. “The XIIth Legion would request to seek a chance at proving ourselves to earn a pce in the Nexus Unity.”

  I grinned as I offered him a hand to shake. “Considering the facts we’ve gleaned thus far, I will accept your sincere request. I’ll have some people brief you on Nexus Laws shortly. If there’s no problems, then we can move on to discuss…improvements.”

  *****

  The cleansing of Commorragh by the Nexus Unity had been utterly thorough. With gateways to pocket dimensions and other sub-realms severed, and the great spires and byrinthine undercity leveled, the once great port city within the Webway was now a sterilized realm of shattered buildings and broken spacecrafts, offering scarcely any intact architectural remnants of its previous rulers.

  A colder, less lethal darkness would have fallen across great cavernous space if not for the reconnection to the sub-realms containing the Ilmaea, the ensved dying suns that fuelled and lit Commorragh for most of its life. But gone were the twilight illumination from the tamed, fading stars. Through use of the Commorrites’ own cache of forbidden weapons dating back to the War in Heaven, the Nexus Unity turned pnet-melters and moon breakers onto the bck stars, instigating new life into that now bathed Nexus Commorragh in warm, purifying light.

  Though most of its great cavernous space was nothing but a great mountain range of debris and wreckage, Commorragh still teemed with activity. From a clearing centered around the Nexus Unity’s main portal, new, distinctly non-Eldar buildings arose. A criss-cross of transport networks spread out, linking rising skyscrapers to factories to hab complexes. The Nexus’ fleet of Mobile Construction Vehicles crawled further out each day, converting the broken ruins around them into building material that would feed the expansion of the Nexus’ hold in the sub-realm.

  Clouds of many-eyed and many-limbed Sentinels flew across the skies, mostly circling around the gateways that linked Commorragh to other satellite realms. Broken or deactivated, the automata held ceaseless vigil over the potential invasion sites. There was thus far only one case of a gateway opening; the shadows grew and parted to bind Commorragh to the ancient city of Aelindrach. In any other time, such an opening from the sub-realm of utmost darkness into the subjugated, vulnerable port city might have seen the living shadows of Aelindrach flood out and consume Commorragh.

  Instead, with revitalized suns literally burning back the darkness before it could spread, the Nexus had unched a counter-invasion, the Sentinels ferrying glowing green and blue crystals into the shadows.

  It took little over two standard Nexus months for the pitch darkness of Aelindrach to be filled with a warm, pcid glow of green and blue. The living, hungry shadows were themselves devoured by the Nexus’ crystals, and now the sub-realm of Aelindrach has become an endless field of crystals, creaking and glowing as it feeds off the st breaths of the realm’s eldritch properties. Occasionally, the ndscape shifts and something audibly crumbles as the ancient domes and towers of the city give way under the weight of growing crystals.

  The gentle glow that spilled out from a simple archway served as a potent reminder of the Nexus’ abilities, especially for its current guests that now gathered within a great hall only recently erected just a few miles away.

  Eldrad stood at the back, content to simply watch the leaders of craftworlds and not a few Exodite Maiden Worlds witness for themselves their returned goddess. Sat on a throne of vines and branches and leaves, the small form of the goddess Isha looked down at her trembling, weeping children.

  Despite her young form, the goddess’ eyes still held a deep maternal compassion, and her pained yet hopeful smile inspired a great many grizzled survivors of the Fall to break down into wracking sobs. Though greatly reduced and reborn under the new, foreign pantheon that was Sev of the Nexus, her followers who now wept with renewed hope did not care at all.

  That the Eldar as a race was now bound to the Nexus through their worship of Isha also meant little to a race that had lost almost everything. If anything, news that Sev was researching ways to repce the soul-leech of She Who Thirsts with a bond with Isha was greeted with great joy. To be able to return to their divine mother instead of being dragged into the gullet of the Lord of Excess was a much preferable option, whether their goddess was a mere ‘vassal god’ of Sev or not.

  Just as their goddess did, Isha’s priesthood would no doubt be seeing a rebirth now, though Eldrad winced at the thought that his race would now have to uphold certain norms in their temples that were dictated by the inhuman Sev. Though the eldritch being was loose with his proscriptions, the constant reminder that such a simple thing as an act of worship would have to fall within certain guidelines would no doubt start to rankle the Eldar as time wore on. Certain sacrifices like newborn livestock would no longer be allowed, because Sev did not wish Isha’s new incarnation to retain the darker aspects of her past. Shrines to Kurnous, god of the hunt and Isha’s mate, would have to be situated farther away from the main altar so as not to taint the ‘metanatural energies of worship’.

  These small but not insignificant compromises might be accepted now, but it would be likely that the seeds of resentment would sprout much ter on, and perhaps even become a problem.

  Still, it was a price that Eldrad and the rest of the council had deemed worth paying. Better to have a goddess liberated and returned under the guardianship of a greater being, than leaving her in Nurgle’s clutches.

  The Eldar had a real chance to escape the specter of extinction now. The skeins of fate had shown a great many possibilities of the rise of an Eldar dominion. Though far from the great peaks of its old empire, and practically a vassal to the Nexus Unity, the Eldar would still thrive. In some strands of the future, Eldrad and the other farseers have even seen their pantheon restored, their avatars seated within great temple complexes in worlds recimed from the mon’keigh and greenskins.

  They were all under the aegis of Sev, of course. No matter what the future held, all paths of the Eldar thriving relied on their unworldly ‘metanatural’ assistance of Sev.

  All futures where the Eldar and its gods tried to turn against the not-god all quickly converged into a single terminus: obliteration.

  Again, it was a fact that Eldrad and the others had accepted. Sev was, and in all futures, a generous and lenient enough being. He has returned Isha with the loosest of chains imposed on her. If the skeins of fate held true and events could be nudged to unfold at the right time, then he would also break free the rest of the Eldar pantheon and cripple the Dark Prince. Eldrad might even live to see it with his own eyes.

  It would require time and further discussion with his peers.

  For now though, Eldrad contented himself with basking in his goddess’ radiance, and taking in the reaction of the greatest of skeptics and despairers...

  And right on cue, the moment was dampened as Sev materialized right beside Isha. Her faithful knew better than to dispy their disdain as the mon’keigh that was not being so close to their goddess. And even Eldrad had to struggle with the instinctive pang of jealousy as Isha quickly got up from her throne to run towards and fondly embrace Sev.

  Before the begrudging faithful, the goddess and her eldritch guardian shared whispers for a moment, and then Isha gave a nod before backing away with a skip, her body shuddering as she giggled while Sev affectionately patted her head.

  Eldrad let out a slow, calming sigh, and he had to remind himself that this was a price he willingly paid.

  *****

  I should’ve thought of getting Isha to help with terraforming much earlier. Converting Tiberium into divine fuel for a goddess to practice her powers was damned obvious now that I thought about it, but hey, better te than never, no?

  “Eva? Cabal? Contact Vault Gesserit, I’ve got a new project for any occultist that thinks they’re up for a challenge…”

  Also, note to self: make sure to ruffle Isha’s hair a bit more aggressively. The spike in resentful worship I harvested off the spectators was novel, and could be worth harvesting for further investigation. Plus, it’s damned amusing seeing the Eldar act like jealous otakus, even if they can’t help it.