Warhammer: Striving to Be a Grinding Man

Chapter 211 Gerrit's Mission

The cold light of the psionic energy was unlike any other light, whether from stars or illumination arrays. It seeped from space itself, falling on the armor plating without reflecting light or leaving a shadow. Lucien Greit stood at the porthole of the "Ocean Goddess's" bridge, watching the pale enamel slide across the bow armor plating. The bridge's layout possessed an antique craftsmanship that surpassed that of a standard Imperial Navy cruiser, with its brass gear-embedded control panel, the family crest etched on the walls, and the wear and tear on the captain's armrests from generations of use—

Everything silently proclaimed the ship's age. It was older than any heavy cruiser currently in service with the Empire, so old that its blueprints were marked "lost" in the Martian archives. It was the last bastion of the Arcadius family, and the only ship that the Imperial Navy would still give a second glance during inspections; the family's glorious flagship, carrying the family's memories and future.

The ship did not vibrate as it passed through the net gate. The ripples of the void engulfed the bow, flowed over the sides, and converged at the stern as a dissipating silver-white streak of light, the whole process as quiet as a ritual that had been rehearsed countless times.

When Lucius received that commission years ago, he was completely stunned and incredulous. He was sitting in his castle office on his family's home planet, a piece of parchment from the Garros forging world spread out before him, bearing only a single line of text and a sealing wax seal. The text, written in standard High Gothic, was concise and an unquestionable command. Most importantly, the seal was a dark gold gear-and-skull emblem pressed against deep red sealing wax, leaving a repeatedly pressed, slightly metallic-edged mark on the paper. He spent three days cross-verifying the seal's authenticity through three completely unrelated channels. All three channels returned the same answer. He put down the data panel and sat in his chair for a long time. Then he stood up, walked to the safe, and locked it inside. Three locks.

Accompanying them were three hundred highly skilled warriors calling themselves the Storm Assault Team and dozens of mechano-priests. The dark gold power armor of those warriors reminded Lucius of a certain sheen he had seen during a pilgrimage to Terra with his elders when he was young. It was the dark gold shimmering, pressed into the metal, of the Imperial Guard armor under the spotlights in the ranks at Lionsgate Spaceport. He was only a teenager then, standing behind his father, tiptoeing over the shoulders of the crowd to see those golden-armored guards. His father—who was still alive then—pointed at those figures and said, "Before the Emperor's servants, we are nothing." Over a century later, those words remained in his mind. And that dark gold sheen appeared on the deck of his formation, worn by those silent warriors who had barely uttered a word throughout the mission, simply doing their job and then returning to their compartments.

That silence carried more weight than any threat, making him realize that Garros was more awe-inspiring than he had ever known.

This made him realize the importance, urgency, and danger of the mission.

Why was the Arcadius family chosen? He only understood later. The family still maintained a small intelligence network on the edge of Damocles Bay, limited to a few communication channels within the coverage of a remote trading post. That was precisely the supply point for the Tau Water Clan at that trading post. In earlier times, the Arcadius intelligence network could cover three star sectors; now only that one window remained. But one window was just enough.

He began to plan. First, what did his family have left? A unique but aging heavy cruiser, two barely usable cruisers, a few escort ships, a shrinking trading network, and a reputation long forgotten among the wandering merchants. His father had died on a failed investment, his grandfather had lost three ships in the Gulf of Damocles, and his great-grandfather had once held a place at Imperial Navy banquets—but that was centuries ago. On the day of his father's burial, he stood at the edge of the grave, watching the coffin sink into the earth, and the gleam in the eyes of those so-called "friends" who came to pay their respects remained vivid in his memory. He had told himself then and there: Arcadius would not stop here.

He stood by the porthole, listening to the first mate's voice from the flank: "Captain, passage complete. Forward satellite sensors are scanning. The Garros navigation ship has confirmed identity and is guiding the formation into the designated channel."

"Formation status?"

"The Ocean Goddess, the Philright, and the Rosetta have all passed. The heavy tugboat leased from the Imperial Navy, the Aguais-class, is passing through. The Garros service boat is maintaining the attitude of the towed target on both sides."

.

Lucius nodded. The Fairwright and Rosetta bore the heaviest escort loads, each bearing damage. The Rosetta's port side armor had been pierced by a railgun, the weld marks stretching from the bow to the top of the ship like a hastily stitched wound. The Fairwright's bridge top still bore a scorch mark from overheating that hadn't been fully polished.

He tapped his fingers lightly twice on the armrest of the captain's chair, a habitual gesture he made when deep in thought. He recalled the scene before departure when he saw the Rosetta's damaged armor in the dry dock. The damage control team leader, a veteran in his fifties with two parallel shrapnel scars on his face, stood before the weld, tapped the repaired armor with his knuckles, and turned to Lucius, saying, "Captain, as long as the keel isn't broken, it can take you wherever you want to go." Lucius asked him why he didn't replace the entire armor plate. The veteran glanced at him and simply said, "Arcanius's ships never replace unnecessary parts." That incident confirmed for Lucius a fact: he inherited not only a few ships, but also the people bound to those ships.

The Pai Aguais-class transport ship moved slowly forward at the rear of the formation, its tow beam connecting it to the dark gray Tau Ambassador-class cruiser behind it. On either side, a pair of Garros service craft maintained their positions at close range, preventing the towed ship from crashing into the gate frame as it passed through the net tunnel. The exhaust plumes of these service craft left long, thin blue trails in the cold psionic light, like a swarm of parasites surrounding a giant whale.

Lucius watched as the silhouette of the Tau ship gradually became clearer on the sensor screen. An Ambassador-class cruiser, a diplomatic envoy ship of the Tau Water Clan, equipped with gravity drives and deflector shields. At this moment, it quietly followed behind the Paaguais-class's towing beam, its hull surface covered with battle damage and irregular cracks left by boarding cutters.

That boarding maneuver remains vividly in my memory. Three hundred Dark Gold warriors, through family deception and disguise, ambushed the Ambassador-class vessel. Less than an hour after their infiltration, the Tau bridge fell completely silent; no more replies in any alien language came through the communication channels. Lucius didn't participate in the boarding. He stood on the bridge of the Ocean Goddess, watching the Dark Gold markings on the sensor screens advance layer by layer inside the Tau ship. A corridor, a compartment, a control console—each changed from the gray of Tau control to the blue of the Garros markings within minutes. The lead warrior, after the boarding was complete, reported a single word over the communication channel: "Complete." Just one word. No casualties, no extra words. Lucius understood then and there that the combat capabilities of this group had exceeded his experience.

The seizure took place at an abandoned trading post on the edge of Damocles Bay, which had once been a diplomatic outpost of the Water Clan of the Tau.

Following the first Damocles Bay expedition, the Imperial Navy intensified patrols of this marginal airspace, continuously compressing the Tau's forward supply lines. The Water Clan assessed that maintaining this exposed outpost was no longer of sufficient value and withdrew its personnel within decades of the expedition's conclusion, marking it as an "abandoned secondary node." The family's intelligence network spent four months confirming the target ship would stop for resupply during that window, then completed the infiltration, capture, and withdrawal in three days. During the withdrawal, they were tailed by a Tau fast-response squadron, resulting in a chase at the edge of Damocles Bay. The Rosetta took the heaviest hit in that battle, and the damage control team spent half an hour outside the reactor compartment trying to plug the leak. But the family managed to tow the ship out.

Within 72 hours of the capture, the accompanying team of technical priests from Garros dismantled two independent self-destruct systems on the Ambassador-class cruiser. One was located beneath the base of the bridge data core, and the other was in the cable trays of the engine control panel. The third system wasn't discovered until the forty-third hour; it was hidden in a layer within the reactor shield, and was only unearthed after a magnetic field analyzer detected an abnormal signal from three meters away. For those seventy-two hours, Lucius An hadn't slept. He stood on the bridge of the Ocean Goddess, watching the lights of the service boats move back and forth across the armor plating of the Tau ship, asking every ten minutes, "Is it all done?" Only after the leading red-robed priest sent a confirmation pulse did he lean back in his chair and close his eyes for a moment. Then he ordered the formation to turn and begin the return voyage.

The ship followed silently behind the towing beam, like a stunned prisoner of war. The Garros service craft maintained precise spacing on its sides. Tau ships themselves lacked Geller fields; the Tau never entered the warp, using gravity drives to "skip stones" at the boundaries of reality. But to pull this ship back from a system without a network gate, and to tow it back to Garros from its former satellite system, Garros's team of technical priests temporarily installed arrays of Geller field projectors on the ship's hull at specific locations. It was a difficult operation, and the forces deployed had all been rigorously tested.

The entire mission took nearly two years. During those two years, the Arcadius family mobilized all its resources, connections, and available forces. Infiltration, subversion, intelligence trading, and covert operations—from the trading posts on the Tau border to the ancient battlefield of Morcles Bay—every means at their disposal was employed. The family lost a frigate, two intelligence networks, hundreds of highly trained agents, and Lucius himself faced death several times during the mission. But he brought the ship back.

The fleet regrouped in the airspace far above the Gate-class netships, awaiting security checks from Garros. Lucius did not urge them on. The service boats' lights continued to move back and forth across the armor plating of the Tau ships. Squads of Cleric soldiers in red cloaks, guided by Servo Skulls, conducted thorough inspections of each ship, especially the ancestral settlements within the family's three cruisers. The occasional sound of explosive guns could be heard, along with reports that Genestealers and Chaos Cultists had been executed on the spot. Now, all ships destined for Garros were subject to this screening. Lucius noticed that ships that regularly sailed this route were accustomed to the procedure, silently waiting for the Cleric soldiers to board, complete the search, and then be allowed to leave.

During the wait, new signals appeared on the Ocean Goddess's sensor panel. The signal density surged from the edge of the screen towards the center, like a spreading tide. Lucius walked to the tactical console, his finger pressing the edge of the panel. He saw the identification codes for the signals: civilian transport ships, their numbers steadily increasing. In just one standard hour, the signal density on the sensors increased nearly a hundredfold, the outlines of the transport ships forming a dense column in the starry sky.

He had the sensor officer pull up a holographic projection of a nearby transport ship. The ship's side paint scheme was clearly visible in the projection, a combination of gears, eagle wings, and a shield-shaped emblem—the insignia of the Trask family. While it lacked the millennia-old heraldic design of Valancius, recent expansion had made its emblem highly recognizable. Lucius leaned against the edge of the tactical console, watching the transport fleet continuously pour out from the direction of the network gate. Each transport ship's cargo hold was overflowing with immigrants. This scale was said to have continued for several years; Garros's expansion at such a pace was unparalleled in the Empire's history.

The Valancius family also engaged in trade, networking, and expansion. Both families grew rapidly, as if on steroids, their fleets multiplying several times over, their trade routes covering half the empire, and in the world of wandering merchants, they were already true, veritable dynasties.

The Arcadius family, too, had now obtained the pass. Lucius recalled the commission letter buried deep in the safe, and the dark gold sealing wax seal. He knew it was a deal: Garros needed a Tau ship, and the Arcadius family needed to rise again. He had completed his mission, and Garros had given him the pass.

The existence and basic use of the Webway were already a semi-open secret among the Empire's high command and business circles. Those qualified to know—high-ranking technical priests who forged the world, patriarchs of merchant-ronin dynasties, and certain admirals in the Imperial Navy—had all heard, to varying degrees, that the Empire was using some form of alternative warp travel. However, the specific paths of the Webway, the precise locations of the nodes, and Garros's central role within it remained strictly confidential. Any disclosure of node coordinates or access keys would be met with swift and precise elimination by the Assassin's Court. Guilliman and the Assassin's Court's Grand Masters had a clear agreement, though it wasn't documented. Lucius was explicitly informed of the consequences when he signed the confidentiality agreement. He didn't need to know more; he knew his family had crossed this line, and the cost of doing so was as enormous as the reward.

He stood by the porthole, watching the Trask family's transport fleet continuously pour out of the Web. The exhaust plumes of over fifty transport ships left parallel blue streaks in the starry sky. The people on board didn't know where they were going; they only knew they had a ticket, a job, and a place to live under a dome. They didn't know about the Web, didn't know they were already marked as "migrating" in the Empire's census. They were simply crammed into the cargo holds, waiting to reach their destination and begin a new life. The State Religion, the Sector Governor, the Imperial Navy, the Forge World—all the informed powers chose silence. The Trask family only needed to produce the "population migration for Garros" document, and any questioning would be cut off before it even reached a certain level.

He remembered his wife standing at the castle gate, adjusting his collar before he left. She didn't ask where he was going, only saying, "Father walked this way too." As she released his hand, her fingers paused for a moment at the edge of his shoulder blade. He couldn't remember how long ago that had been. He only remembered that as he turned around, his knees felt heavy for a split second.

Lucius withdrew his gaze and landed on his fleet. The Ocean Goddess, the Fairlight, and the Rosetta, three cruisers, were lined up at the front, their armor plating riddled with dents. The Aguais-class transport ship was at the rear, towing the Tau Ambassador-class cruiser. All five ships, all damaged, all exhausted, all had returned alive. He counted every familiar name in the fleet: the first mate, the gunner, the damage control team leader, the chief engineer—confirming that everyone who had accompanied him throughout the voyage was still on board. A few berths away, he saw the location of the weld on the Rosetta's side; the figure crouching beside the weld, tapping on the armor plating, was still there, in the exact same posture he had seen when he left the dock before departure. Lucius withdrew his gaze, not looking a second time.

He recalled the note at the end of the commission: "The Arcadius family will gain access to the Webway. Condition: Complete this mission." This commission from Garros had pulled his family back from decline onto the chessboard. He still didn't know how Garros would handle the Tau ship—perhaps for technical analysis, intelligence gathering, or some other purpose he couldn't even fathom. But he knew one thing: the Arcadius family wouldn't stop there.

Several days passed, and the guidance signal of the Garros navigation ship switched frequencies. Verification passed, and the formation was permitted to continue its advance towards Mandeville.

Lucius pressed the ship-wide broadcast button. "All ships, confirm formation status. Prepare to advance towards Mandeville. Destination: Garros."

Confirmation signals were transmitted back from each ship in turn.

He stood by the porthole, watching the star of the former satellite system burn into a dark orange dot in the distance. The journey to Garros still required a short subspace voyage, at the end of the next leg of the journey. There, a hidden dock awaited them, a great being awaited this Tau ship, and the Garros Forge world awaited to accept the fruits of this commission.

He turned and walked back to the captain's chair. The Ocean Goddess's engines hummed steadily at low power. Behind him, the Aguais-class transport ship towed the Tau Ambassador-class cruiser, while the Philright and Rosetta followed at the rear of the formation, maintaining precise distances. The entire fleet moved slowly and methodically; the mission was accomplished, amidst blood and fire, intrigue and calculation.