Thwack.
With a crisp sound, the Planetary Governor dropped straight to his knees.
Death by white phosphorus was one of the most terrifying punishments in the human Imperium. It meant being kept fully conscious while you watched yourself burn away piece by piece.
Of course, measured against what Chaos could do, it almost seemed refreshingly clean. In most circumstances in the human Imperium, at least when you were dead, you were dead.
But in Chaos, death was only the beginning. Eternal pain and torment was the baseline.
For an ordinary human, though, the Imperial version was more than terrifying enough. Tillius was now incapable of a single thought that deviated from this man's will. But the punishment itself had still scared him half to death. His great-grandchild was only a few months old. Was the child included?
Obviously yes. The Imperium had absolute zero tolerance for any association with Chaos. As for consorting with xenos — aside from a very select few like the Tyranid Hive Mind, most of the other alien factions were handled with considerably more pragmatism.
"My lord.... what do we do now?"
"What else. They've come, so we fight them together."
Zhou Ye was thoroughly unfazed. Or more precisely, he had gone thoroughly numb to the situation.
The previous world, he had only gone there to fish for some fries and have a quiet time. It ended in a grand free-for-all. Or perhaps that was simply how things worked in this infuriating Warhammer universe — if it wasn't a grand free-for-all, that would be the unusual thing.
He looked at the intelligence reports in his hands and didn't know where to begin.
First of all, the Governor had gotten it wrong. Zhou Ye had no idea how this man was running his planet.
This wasn't just Aeldari pirates. There were also some Wild Sprouts, and possibly some Dark Sprouts. Commorragh had obviously been here restocking — taking on new merchandise. Though compared to some of the other problems, that was actually manageable.
For one thing, the Wild Sprouts weren't that powerful. For another, the Sprouts weren't Chaos. They generally didn't scour a whole planet bare. And then there were those cheerful Greenskins.
Based on the data he had pulled, it seemed an Ork vessel had passed through the system. They had glanced down at this pathetically weak little world and decided it wasn't interesting enough to bother deploying their main force. They had apparently tossed a handful of corpse-seeds down and let the resulting Orks scratch out an existence on their own.
So the local Ork situation was very limited. By all accounts they were still swinging their big choppas at the planet's Planetary Defence Force — a contingent of local farmers dressed in standard medieval armor and somehow managing to fight back.
Ork threat levels were actually self-regulating. If you were operating at medieval level, they would match medieval level indefinitely. The Greenskins were therefore not the primary concern right now.
The real heavyweights were those undead abominations. On a normal world, Chaos-tainted zombies — as long as they weren't airborne — wouldn't even need a modern military. A properly trained squad of soldiers could push right through them. But this was.... Warhammer.
These things were definitely connected to Nurgle. And Chaos rarely showed up in only one variety at a time. When one of the Four Small Vendors came to play, the others were generally more interested in tripping each other up than in letting anyone else claim the planet.
So what else might be hiding here — that he didn't yet know. Zhou Ye was already feeling slightly overwhelmed.
He processed the documents in front of him rapidly, organized resources, and arranged priorities. Then....
"Wait. Why am I so good at this. Damn it. Right. It's the Gene-seed plug-in."
He had streamlined the entire planet's situation at blinding speed. Resources weren't in short supply for now. Those three STC Templates hadn't been handed over for nothing — in addition to emptying the Tech-Priest's Ark Mechanicus, a substantial portion of the Imperial Tithe had also been redirected. Primarily because those three STC Templates were just too valuable.
They had potential applications for repairing Warlord Titans — three of them, no less.
So the Tech-Priest had gone all in. He had even negotiated with the Administratum Adept to retain a portion of the local Tithe, counting it against the Mechanicus's account — meaning when the Tech-Priest returned to Mars, his order would repay the shortfall at double. The Adept had agreed.
Zhou Ye found the arrangement extremely worthwhile. His plan could continue. Of course he would not tell the Administratum he was designating this as his Chapter's homeworld. As for future Tithe payments, those weren't a serious problem either.
He had a vast stockpile of fruit from Standard Terran M30 cultivars — genuine luxury goods in the 41st Millennium. And with the Authority of Creation, establishing an orchard of terrifying yield was no obstacle at all. That alone could offset a very substantial Tithe.
Besides, who knew when the next Tithe collection was even due. So with everything arranged, Zhou Ye finally noticed what had just happened to him.
"It's all Guilliman's fault...."
He pulled out the Gene-seed he had inserted as a temporary plug-in and felt the strange sensation drain away. He had discovered something interesting about Gene-seeds and their utility for himself — he could slot them in like a game character's class or role kit, gaining a specialized template that helped him handle tasks he wasn't naturally suited for.
What he had just slotted in was the Ultramarines'.... It was something of a fandom joke that the deepest part of Guilliman's psyche in the Warp was essentially a furious blue spreadsheet. Clearly that was an exaggeration. But it did illuminate quite a lot.
"Whatever. Putting it back."
After a moment's thought Zhou Ye slid the Ultramarines Gene-seed back in. He might as well keep it. His self-assigned identity was Chapter Master, after all — having it on hand was fine.
"Ai-chan, how's the Dreadnought print run coming along?"
He reached out to Ai-chan, who was currently operating the fabrication alongside Klein per his orders. The subjects were based on the Emperor's Children Ancient — having Rylanor himself do it was out of the question. He could always fabricate a new Dreadnought from scratch, but a Dreadnought with the kind of intricate detail that came from ten thousand years of wear and history — Zhou Ye simply didn't have the patience to replicate that by hand. Having a genuine ten-thousand-year-old Ancient on hand and not making use of him seemed wasteful.
"Captain, four Contemptor Dreadnoughts confirmed fabricated. The homunculi pilots are ready. What remains is designating their origins — which Chapters do you want us to assign Gene-seeds to?"
"Let me think.... Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Imperial Fists, and Ultramarines."
He had pure Gene-seeds from all four Chapters in his possession, recovered from Istvaan III. After his modifications, they would, in a certain sense, carry most of the full memories of the Gene-seeds' original owners.
He could force-control them if he chose to. But left to operate independently, they would show no suspicious gaps or inconsistencies to outside observers.
He had added a little personal seasoning to each of them, of course. Just enough to make them feel more authentic.
"Hmm, another contact request coming in?"
He had barely finished when a new communication request appeared. And then the banner of the Space Wolves materialized in his field of vision.
"Hm?"