Warhammer: Start with a dog

"This is the memory of the biological sage numbered Fisher-20-β-Aquarius before he fled to the surface with all his possessions eighteen Terra hours ago."

After the contents of the memory storage unit in the data phylactery were read, a dull sound with multiple mechanical echoes came from a seat in the Mechanical Council located on the tower of Belakahn's largest foundry. Commentary.

"What number is this?" A shadow with multiple strangely boiling medicine jars mounted on a huge hunchback asked in a deliberately created electronic sound.

"The twentieth," answered another strange and towering figure. This figure looked like some kind of wrong mixture of flesh and machinery. Only in the deepest nightmares can the interested person get a glimpse of its sinister structure. 2. "Fisher-21-β-Aquarius, the twenty-first biological sage responsible for maintaining Lord Daedus, can leave the culture tank and install necessary equipment after 16 standard minutes to start his daily work. .”

"Very good. I hope this one can last longer. The uncontrollability of multiple replication products has become higher recently."

"How many more of 'those' are there?" Someone suddenly asked abruptly from the data stream using his link ring voice, and all members of the council fell into silence for a microsecond.

"Why are you asking this? Your Excellency, the Great Sage Daedus, issues new production quotas to all factories and networks in the forging world every day. We have been doing this for five hundred years, Sage Brick."

The sound of some gears rattling for a while, "Our planet's food and freshwater reserves are currently reduced to a very dangerous level."

"Let the overseers continue to reduce the daily sleep time of the indentured mining slaves to 4 hours, and at the same time increase the water ice collection requirements for the permafrost and craters."

"Objection. After calculation, this will cause us to lose more than 45% of the contracted mining slaves within 2 weeks."

"Isn't this our purpose? After the food reserves recover, there will never be a shortage of contracted slave ships and losers in the Calixis sector."

The smell of engine oil, promethium, steel and faint corruption echoed in the council room. If a Space Marine with enhanced senses walked in at this moment, it would be difficult to tell who had the smell of a dead body coming from him.

"However." A metallic female voice pointed out coldly, "According to calculations, our 'production' has dropped to a dangerous level and we will be unable to maintain a normal balance of payments."

"What about our other weapons exports, Sage Nilanvilla, you are an expert in weapons, and we have no shortage of trade orders in this area."

"That's right," the sage, who was covered in a mask cast into a serious-looking human female face, replied, and the part below her neck, even under the cover of the mechanical holy robe, appeared to be an artificial artifact without any rules at all. It also has a hundred tentacle claws and melt-eating gel appendages that are even less friendly to organic life.

"May I point out that although the quality of our ship void shields, large defensive force fields, and large defensive weapon arrays is indeed very good, these are non-irreplaceable products. There are at least a hundred forge worlds that can produce them. Taking into account the price and shipping costs, we don’t have much advantage. More than 85 percent of the time, they are signed as ancillary orders for stasis products.”

"We have the most complete near-planet orbit spacecraft maintenance platform in the entire sub-sector. How has its recent profits been?"

"Both long-term and short-term yields have been steadily declining as export quotas for our stagnant products tightened." A relentless, mechanically textured synthesized voice blasted from an electronic speaker amplifier.

"What caused the problem? What are the results of the analysis?"

"Our Forge World's influence in this sector and throughout the Empire has been declining. Unfavorable rumors have become more and more intense. Coupled with the fact that we have been slowly reducing the cap on export orders, the number of trade routes that deliberately detour us has been greatly reduced. As a result, the flow of void ships has decreased, and fewer orders have been placed to repair and install new weapons and defense arrays."

"so."

The oldest of them all, the least organic of flesh and blood, and the closest to the ideal state of a servant of Ohm's Messiah, the Mechanical Magos spoke what they had known many times.

"As the faithful servants of Omnisiah demand it, let us discuss how to politely and kindly get the mortals on this recently arrived trading ship to agree to unload their cargo first on the condition that the order is issued but delivery is delayed. , and return to their starting point to transport more cargo to us again."

"Agree. Since this family seems to be in decline or lacking shelter, I think that if the negotiations fail, it is also possible to detain them at the port and transform them all into our Skitarii and send them back to their home planet to engage in food production. Acceptable handling.”

"The Skitarii are as good as ever, no objections," the ruling sage said using his low electronic voice that rumbled like a cannon.

"The Lightbringer Corps has no objections, but our pilots and newborns need to be given priority in providing high-quality food."

"The explanation document to the Imperial Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Sector Governor will be drafted and submitted after persuading Captain Carosini." The first female voice to speak sounded again.

"Then, notify the orbital platform to prepare for a comprehensive overhaul of their ship."

Sage Nilanvela's gel appendage slowly crawled across the metal surface of the conference table, and the hissing movement of corrosion was subtle and gentle. "The exterior design of that ship is quite special," she said slowly, "Inspection When the time comes, I plan to go up and see it myself.”

The metal mask made of a female human reflected the light of the more or less electronic prosthetic eyes, sensors and servo skulls of everyone around the table.

"I have reason to think that something unexpected may happen on this ship. As the host, I am happy to help these poor, weak and helpless mortal merchants understand the generosity and hospitality of Belakarn."

She, or TA, emitted an electronic sound similar to a monotonously repeated laughter from a sound unit installed on the neck, and the other sages of the Mechanical Council also expressed some kind of smile in their own way.

——————————

100 seconds after the Destiny Steel entered the port.

Even the mechanical believer who is least familiar with the meaning of beauty, as long as his brain is still human, will still praise the name of Ohm Messiah loudly towards the ship that has just entered the port because of his instinctive yearning for beauty. way to express your praise.

The elegant silver-white hull of this ship is very conspicuous in this dark velvet-like cosmic background. Sometimes the gold shining from the gaps adds a sense of luxury, even during the connection after entering the port. The work was disrupted and catastrophically disrupted for about 900 seconds due to unknown reasons - the Belakane Port Control Center received a report that there may be a few unlucky ones who were sucked directly into the vacuum of space by unsealed valves - also Nothing could stop more craftsmen and junior technical priests from rushing towards him with their own servitors or slaves with various thoughts.

Of course, all this chaos came to an abrupt end with the announcement of the visit of a senior sage from the Mechanical Council.

Lamizane and Maatla were enjoying their usual afternoon tea in the office (this time with Brother Sade) when they received the request to visit.

The chapter leader looked very distressed: the racing competition has just begun, and it is not appropriate to create unnecessary variables at this moment.

"So we have to temporarily receive this visitor to stabilize them." The body of the Fourth Primarch spoke.

The border collie didn't even raise his eyelids. Without relying on relay lines and biological cables, his processing speed no longer allowed him to distract himself from chatting.

"Oh, if I may say so," the fearless Power Claw gracefully lowered his vitiligo straw and wiped the port with a napkin. "Although I am personally happy to help with the reception, I think a senior sage from the Mechanicus would be able to tell that I am a Dreadnought as long as there are normally functioning sensors."

"And having a Contemptor Dreadnought aboard our Rogue Trader ship is a little too suspicious, right?"

"I'm glad you understood me, my dear brother Pei..." (the dog suddenly coughed loudly) "...Lami Zain."

"So..." Lamizane's face showed an expression of "I've wanted to do this for a long time when the opportunity comes!"

"Before they take this place, we have to play Rogue Trader, right?"

For some reason, Magnus - both on the Sorcerer and the Destined Steel - suddenly felt a chill.

Gua.

The second one is more coded