11 Astronaut experience

I tried not to hyperventilate. I was in a recovery room, and my every heartbeat, respiration and additional vital signs I wasn't even aware of having were likely being recorded by the Genetor. I just would put it out of my mind for now.

I put my Willpower to the test and was able to just ignore it for the half hour or so that the Genetor left me to rest. Pretty good, if I don't say myself.

[SELF-DISCIPLINE has gone up a level.]

Thank you, Numbers. I'm glad that you agreed. I would have preferred the Willpower statistic, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and I had been doing a lot of self-discipline training lately. This was a skill that was really hard to level up, unlike some others, so this must just have been the feather that broke the trixit's back. I had noticed that things seemed to work like that.

It wasn't that I had to necessarily perform some great, singular feat to increase something, although that did sometimes work. It was more like I got varying credit for each action that exemplified the statistic or skill, and eventually, this credit exceeded a threshold, and I got a "level up." I think it worked very much like the "DVP" or "devotion points" in the game where my brother and I had played, which allowed you to increase your character's statistics based on how well you served the God-Emperor.

Genetor Neurosage swept back into the room, carrying a thin black puck, about the same radius as one of the tall glasses I used for juice back home. He nodded at me and said, "First, I'm a little bit interested in your body now. Please take off your shirt. I will place this device on your body, and I'd like you to keep it here for the next two weeks."

I eyed it suspiciously. It looked sort of like an agoniser except a little bit smaller. I shot it an Observe while I asked, "That isn't an agoniser, is it, Genetor?"

[Custom Psi detector, excellent condition, Zephyr Neurosage created this device in the hopes of detecting certain Aeldari artefacts. It proved a failure; however, it can detect and gauge the power levels of psykers using the minute perturbations in the Empyrean when a psyker uses his or her power... if it is in close proximity to them. He constructed it using human technology and parts from an Aeldari Aspect Warrior helmet, specifically a Mandiblaster triggering system.]

I hissed in spite of myself but got a handle on it immediately. The Genetor tilted his head to the side, assuming my outburst was directed at my assumption of the device's provenance, not the fact that I just read something incredibly, incredibly shocking. He asked, "Why would you think this is an agoniser? And what experience do you have with them?"

"It looks about the same shape. It also went on my chest, and Sister Lucia used it to help me train my self-discipline a few months ago," I told him truthfully.

He paused for a moment and said, "That is interesting. But, no. This is just a sensor. Now, up, up." He made a disorbing motion, and I sighed.

"I'd prefer to put it on myself if it is all the same, Genetor, sir," I told him.

He frowned, glanced at the puck, then up at me again and after a moment, extended his hand, giving it to me. He said, "It should go just under your breasts, right at the edge of your sternum. It will stick there by itself once it calculates it is in the optimal position."

Although he was a medicae, and I was sure he had seen any number of people naked, myself included, actually, I didn't want him to see me naked any more than he already had. Although his auspex could probably go straight through my clothes anyway, it was just to make me feel better.

At least he spoke of my breasts in the same tone that one might speak of a tool or their fingernails, totally devoid of the creepy desire that I had noticed in a few men when they spoke about my sister Alicia years ago.

While we lived on a farm, Dad was technically the landed noble of the area, and we saw a lot of different people at our house when people came to him to gripe about a neighbour stealing a sheep or land boundary disputes and the like, to say nothing about the four-a-year festivals at the village. I hadn't particularly liked the way boys, and even men, had started looking at Alicia a few years ago when she was only a year older than I was now.

Of course, I would never be as pretty or feminine as she had been at my age, but still... it was nice to have reassurance it wasn't in a creepy way when someone started talking about how interested they were in your body.

I oriented the puck in the proper direction and slipped it under my shirt, finding the correct spot mostly by feel.

I didn't particularly want to wear it, as now I was more than a little concerned I might accidentally Telekinese something, even though I hadn't used that power since I used it on one of the cultists. I felt pretty good about that accomplishment since I always had the urge to use it. It felt like another limb I had, and I had to consciously stop myself from opening doors or grabbing a tool I needed with it on a daily basis.

So I wanted to refuse him, but the fact was that I could not. It would be like one of my father's soldiers refusing an order. He had framed it as a request to be polite, but not only did I not take it that way, but I also thought trying to make a big thing about it would be a bad idea. I'd just have to be extra careful with my Self-Discipline and not use any of my witch powers.

<<Excellent. Telemetry is good,>> he chirped, <<Now, let's go through your cranial circuitry set-up.>>

---xxxxxx---

Setting up my neural circuitry was super fun on the one hand but also disorienting and a little painful. Being able to do things like take notes and communicate with just my brain was incredibly cool, but my heart wasn't in it at the moment. When I was done, I asked if I could return home. Honestly, I was still quite sore... everywhere, but after a brief examination of me, he said it was fine.

Rather than return home, though, I took the Genetor's express elevator down to the first floor of the Hive and then sat on the express belt all the way to the south. This was faster than running back home, and it also allowed me to find a relatively clean room that still had furniture to sit down and think for a time.

'Genetor Neurosage is a Heretek! And I think he knows I'm a witch!' I thought because there could be no other explanation... could there be? The alien mechanism was a perversion of the True Path. Combining a human machine with an alien mechanism would be like grafting a human's brain onto an Ork—an abomination to the spirit of the human parts.

[DOGMA: MACHINE CULT has gone up a level.]

I tapped my foot rapidly on the floor and hesitated to ask myself the obvious question... namely, did I believe that? I had a bit of an odd relationship with the traipsings of faith with regards to both the Church of the God-Emperor as well as the Mechanicum—because I didn't have faith! I had the bone-deep knowledge that the God-Emperor-Omnissiah was real!

Perhaps I shouldn't trust what my numbers told me so much, but honestly, I was way past the point of no return at this point. If they were some trick by the Ruinous Powers, then I was so way past screwed already that I just chose to believe that they did not lie to me. I hadn't detected any lies yet, although it wasn't as though they were all-knowing, either.

I thought about what I knew about the Mechanicum's dogma. It really wasn't that complicated at its core, although there were endless interpretations about both individual mysteries and warnings that it taught.

The mysteries were a lot more open-ended and had a lot more interpretations compared to the warnings. The warnings were more about specific things one should look out for or abjure; for example, the first warning was about alien mechanisms.

'When could an alien mechanism be permitted?' I thought furiously, and came to the conclusion that the answer was... never. Not really.

However...

[DOGMA: MACHINE CULT has gone up a level.]

I blinked as I came to the conclusion that the only way an alien mechanism could be tolerated was if there was some question if it was a xeno machine at all!

I nodded and then said out loud, "Continue this line of logic..."

I thought back to when the Sisters of the Order of the Crimson Oath discovered a few more Volkite weapons and stunner carbines in their first week of searching under my direction. They had also found a number of documents that excited both the Genetor and me at first, but it turned out that they were almost all regular correspondence.

There had been a partial maintenance manual for the Volkite weapons, but Stygies VIII already had a few complete STCs for these types of weapons, so it wasn't the same coup as the maintenance manual for the stunners had been. It was very interesting to me, though, and I had read every scrap of plasfilm document that was found.

Some of the correspondence was from the very beginning of the colony, which I found amazing. Reading the words of our ancestors fifteen thousand years ago when it was already almost the fortieth millennium...

[6456.980.M39 Holy Terra Time. Chronocogitators sync-OK!]

I winced. Some of the user interfaces for my new implants would take some getting used to and functioned on an intent basis. But this way of keeping time wasn't going to work for me.

I closed my eyes and focused on reconfiguring the device to show Orkney IV standard time.

[1311 295D 990Y M39 Orkney IV Coordinated Time. Chronocogitators sync-OK!]

That was better. It was a little after one in the afternoon on the two hundred and ninety-fifth day of the year here. I wasn't used to using fractions of one thousand for the year, plus we were so far in the boonies that the Holy Terra Time was really more of a hopeful estimate.

While the Orkney system never received the depredations of Warp storms that sometimes plagued the sector, it wasn't uncommon for storms or disturbances to exist around Orkney, such that the passage of time wasn't exactly on a 1:1 basis. Although I thought Orkney's clocks were probably more accurate than average, we often increased or decreased our clocks a few hours or even days every time a ship arrived in-system.

I shook my head and went back to my thoughts about some of the correspondence from the very first colonists—specifically from their security officers. The security guys were complaining about the quality of weapons they had available, and a reply from their commanding officer said that they just had to make do. The Orkney Enterprise was only a third-rate colony co-op, and they could only afford those thermal-ray weapons as a lethal option.

While Volkite weapons weren't the absolute pinnacle of Imperial technology, they were pretty high up there in terms of man-portable weapons. These days, only the Astartes used them in significant quantities.

And they had been disparaged like they were barely a step up from a pointy stick by our ancestors. It was clear that these Volkite weapons weren't even second-line weapons—more like fifth or sixth-line if a budget-strapped civilian company sourced them for their security forces.

I let out a long breath. It made my heart ache to see frank proof of how far we had fallen.

How did this correlate to Tech Heresy? Well... I had the epiphany that since we have lost so much that we wouldn't even recognise our peak if it fell into our laps. Perhaps the only way to know a piece of alien technology wasn't human in origin was to study it carefully!

And maybe this piece of technology at the centre of the puck on my chest was based on a human design that the Aeldari themselves stole? That was pushing it. My Observe didn't mention anything like that, but if they had originally stolen the technology so long ago and incorporated it for their own devices for so long, then I didn't think Observe would mention it.

[DOGMA: MACHINE CULT has gone up a level.]

I blinked. Twice so soon? Did that mean that my hypothesis had something to it? Perhaps, at least in part.

I reached my hand under my shirt, held my palm above the cool machine, and mentally spoke a long prayer to all of the facets of the God-Emperor-Omnissiah individually and then one that combined all of his avatars together. I asked for wisdom and added at the end, "...and if I am making a huge mistake, if the machine spirit in this machine is in pain, please give me some sign?"

I peeked open one eye and glanced left and right. Going once... going twice...

I nodded, removing my hand from my shirt. Silence was assent. The Omnissiah was with me in this.

I let out a breath and felt a little relieved, even if I had only solved one of the huge issues I had before me. But it meant I wouldn't make any attempts to report the Genetor. Not that there was really anyone here to report him to, anyway. Tau-Alpha-1000 hated the Genetor and spoke to me several times about how the Genetor had been brought up on charges in the past... and Tau-Alpha was a dick, so I was glad I wouldn't have to go to him with what I knew.

What do I do about my quest failure, though? To me, that implied that the Genetor realised I was a witch. I thought back to when I first received that quest notification and realised that the Genetor could be considered an "Imperial authority." So it wasn't odd that his discovery had caused me to fail the quest, at least in the strictest definition.

Wait... I remembered the exact phrases... very well! I had always had a good memory, and the skill of Memorisation had only increased it, but this was something else. I pulled up my "character sheet", as my brother would have called it, and gaped.

A new list appeared next to my stats called "Equipment." It included some of my augmetics, but not all of them. The cranial circuitry had given me fifteen levels of both Memorisation and Calculation, as well as one level of Intelligence. 

Fifteen levels might not sound like a lot since I had twenty-one in that skill already, but it was one of the skills that had a slow start and then went through the roof in terms of benefits. At level twenty-one, I received over a two hundred per cent benefit, but at level thirty-six, that trebled to almost six hundred and fifty per cent! No wonder my memory felt so much better... it was three times better than it had been before the operation!

My slimline version of a low-duty cybermantle, which consisted mostly of a replaced and reinforced spine, gave me one level of Vitality, and that was it for now, although there was an entry for my bone replacements that seemed to imply that, eventually, I would get a bonus there, too. That was a biological process, according to the Genetor, and was also probably the reason all of my bones ached like I was about to have my monthlies, except everywhere.

My pain sense told me that I wasn't in any danger, but I expected to get at least another level out of Pain Tolerance from this.

Shaking my head, I returned to what was important. The Genetor knew. But how? I thought back and zeroed in on what he had said when I woke up.

Of course. I healed from wounds in a borderline supernatural way. One of those rats had taken a chunk out of my calf, and that was an injury that shouldn't heal at all. You don't regenerate muscle and flesh that was taken out of your body, as far as I knew, but I didn't even have a scar there anymore.

Poop. That was perhaps the worst, at least in terms of me remaining undetected. There was no way I could hide that. Psi Capability was the only of my stats that allowed me to move in either direction, up or down. Although I had thought at one time that my "numbers" or "character sheet" was just an expression of witchery, I didn't think that at all anymore. At least, not entirely.

It was just too special, and the fact that it would let me reduce my Psi Capability without warning me made me fairly certain of this belief.

Honestly, I would like to reduce my Psi stat. I didn't like witchery at all. And it was nothing but a hindrance to my life. However, I could only bring it down to level 20, but I didn't think the levels for this stat were uniform in the amount of "power" they granted. I think adding one level, going from twenty-nine to thirty, would be more than going from twenty-seven to twenty-nine. This was also why I had never even considered raising this stat. Just my present level of witchiness was already a real threat to my soul.

 I hadn't lowered Psi, though, because it was difficult to diminish oneself when you could theoretically solve the same issue by making yourself greater. If I had enough Willpower, then it wouldn't matter what my Psi level was. I just wouldn't feel a strong desire to misuse the ability at the wrong moment or listen to the whispers of the Ruinous Powers if they found me in the Warp.

Granted, a thirteen-year-old girl pondering that might be proof that I had some... hubris issues, but I couldn't discount the logic. If I knew that nine levels would remove my witchery completely, I would do it. But I didn't. Who knew precisely what "level twenty" would mean for me? It was possible it would just make me weaker while still remaining a delicious treat to something terrible.

Perhaps that was how the witch I had met so long ago went crazy. Maybe she increased her Psi level due to quests. Or maybe she was just always insane.

It was moot, though. If the Genetor had discovered me due to my unnatural healing, as I suspected, then that would not change if I lowered my Psi Capability. That came from Gamer's Body, a skill I couldn't effect at all—not that I would, anyway. It was very useful.

I spoke a standard prayer to the Omnissiah to reveal any flaws in my logic, and once again, I did not notice any kind of manifestation telling me I was being stupid.

Nodding, I flexed the mental muscle that allowed me to increase myself with "free points" and immediately added five points to Willpower, as I had always intended.

[WILLPOWER has gone up five levels.]

I didn't use all my points because I still had a desire to perhaps spend some in Intelligence, but I left them there in case I had an emergency, despite the fact that this was exactly what Liam warned me not to do, but I didn't take his discussions about min-maxing very seriously. Life wasn't a game where the encounters and difficulties I would face were designed around a specific amount of resources each character should have, like the game Chain and Bolter was.

While I could detect subtle differences every time one of my stats increased, Willpower was one of the hardest to detect a change. However, adding five points all at once hit me suddenly. It was like I was much more comfortable in my skin. I stopped fidgeting, accepted my decisions, and did not second-guess myself. It was like I was a lot more calm with everything, although that wasn't quite a good way to explain it either. It was more like I instantly understood and accepted the consequences of my decisions rather than fretting about them.

I stood up and walked out of the room. I had already known what my decision was going to be when sitting down. There wasn't anything I could do—confronting the Genetor wasn't a good idea, but now I realised that doing nothing could be a conscious, informed decision on its own, and I felt better about it.

---xxxxxx---

"You'll need a hat, a hairdress, a wig or something," remarked Alicia, peering at my shorn head after I returned home. Then, she asked, "Did you ask to keep your hair?"

Oh. No. That would have been smart, wouldn't it? I often received reminders that there was a large gulf between Intelligence and smarts. We could have maybe made a wig out of it. I had no doubt that it was in the trash unless the Genetor had kept a small lock for the purpose of having a genetic sample of a subject that interested him. My guileless expression made Alicia sigh and shake her head, "No matter, now. I have already started making you something. I'll just need to take measurements of your head... and metal thing. I don't want you to go out looking like one of the outland barbarians scalped you. I'll have it ready before tonight."

Outland barbarians? Did she mean the rebels? I was pretty sure they had the same culture as we all had. From the records I had seen, the original colonists of the Orkney came from three different islands on Holy Terra—islands that had a population with a history of trying to kill each other off and on, amusingly enough.

However, if there was a different culture among the original Orkney colonists, there was really no sign of it today. It had all comingled and shifted until it was all just "Orkney." The closest I could think of was some parts of the continent had a really strong accent. Any accent at all, compared to the neutral Low Gothic of missionaries, was considered very provincial here in Landing, but I didn't bother trying to perfect my diction with all the rest I had going on.

I didn't think they practised scalping, was what I was thinking. I opened my mouth to correct my sister, but my smart-ass self closed it just as fast. I realised that I couldn't exactly say what I had intended because the influence of the Ruinous Powers might very well have made them scalp happy. Scalps were possibly the least of what they might cut off a person, but there was no reason to say that, either.

Instead of correcting her, I nodded, relieved at my sister's grace here. I hadn't looked forward to walking about in front of God-Emperor-Omnissiah and everyone with a nearly bald head and healing surgical wounds, but I had been prepared to do so.

"In exchange, you have to cook dinner for me tonight," Alicia demanded primly. I snorted and agreed. Preparing the family meal was something I did more often than not, although Alicia generally did help me. As an incorrigible tomboy, my Cooking levels had perplexed her, and she demanded I teach her everything I knew, so she, more often than not, assisted me.

I was trying to make my numbers ding while she was training to be a wife. We weren't the same, but I still wrote down all the recipes I knew and tried to teach her one every night. But, if she was demanding that I do everything, that meant she wanted a specific dish and wanted my maximum effort. I asked slyly, "Is Captain Blair joining us for dinner tonight?"

She nodded quickly, just the faintest blush creeping onto her cheeks.

That made me want to pinch her. Did she have levels in the Pretty skill? Whenever I blushed, my entire body turned beet red! How did she have the ability to just barely colour her cheeks? She looked like she had stepped out of a holodrama.

I stopped myself from huffing, checked the time on my internal chronometer and sighed. I already knew what dishes she wanted, as she had told me all about her suitor's favourites, "I better get started."

---xxxxxx---

I adjusted my head covering. The thing Alicia made for me looked a lot like what the Sister Missionaries, like Sister Jorus, wore, except in the colours black and red that Alicia must have noticed that the Genetor and most of our contingent that came from Stygies VIII favoured. I wasn't sure if it was appropriately called a bonnet or veil, but combined with my robes, it made me look vaguely nun-like. My hair was still too short not to wear anything, so I had asked my sister to make several copies, one of which I wore every time I left home.

It was better than having a mostly shorn head, at least.

I had been playing with the noosphere functionality in my implants since I received them. It was hard to describe it. In more developed worlds, it would be an instantaneous, global network. But here, it was off-and-on, with even areas in Landing that had no connectivity. Every device that could connect to it would act as an extension of its coverage area in what was like a complicated webbing.

If you wanted to send a message to a particular person or device and they weren't connected, you could still do so, though. The message would automatically be sent if they returned into proximity of the noosphere, but that wasn't all. Even if they never returned, if some node that received your broadcast did find them, then there was a good chance the message would still be delivered. From what I could tell, it wasn't the most efficient way a network could be designed, as a lot of transmissions could be wasted or duplicated many times, but it was remarkably error-tolerant.

Even if only two Tech-Priests were alive on a barren planet with no other machines, there would still be a noosphere network of at least two nodes automatically.

It was also the domain of what I might have called hazing or bullying. Some prankster had somehow accessed my augmetics and programmed my vox speaker to play a fart sound whenever I sat down. From the Genetor's perspective, I was at fault for not reading every word of the user manual as well as all of the Litanies Against Unauthorised Access.

Despite how mortified I had been, I suppose that it was rather mild compared to some of the things that could have been done to me. I hadn't really considered the idea of another member of the Mechanicum maliciously accessing my cogitators at all, which might have been pretty naive.

I was sure I hadn't eliminated all of the ways someone could get to me, but I hadn't had a fart incident in days. The effort also got me two levels in a brand new skill I hadn't even realised I would be needing.

** Cybersecurity (LV6): Increases the efficacy and thoroughness of any cyber-defence or attack you create by (LV*10)+(LV*(LV*0.1))% [63.6%]. Additionally, every five levels, you will receive general cybersecurity knowledge transmitted to your brain. The level of this skill will receive a penalty if it exceeds the level of the Programming architecture skill you possess (e.g. Programming: Imperial Cogitators).

The skill description was worded oddly, but I took it to mean that if I ever attempted to utilise it on pre-Imperial or xeno computing systems without gaining the appropriate Skill, then it would not receive the same benefits. That would mean that even if I got this Skill very high, I likely wouldn't be able to exploit the huge percentage bonuses it provided to gain unauthorised access to an xeno machine unless I had a little knowledge of their computing architecture, too.

Even with that caveat, it might be one of the most powerful skills I have gotten so far since the bonus applied to attacks. At the fifth level, I got an elementary grounding in both defence and attack, not just in the noosphere but also using hardwired vectors, like my replacement pinky finger, which could connect to most machines past a certain level of complexity.

However, even with the bonus, I couldn't find out who was responsible for the fart incidents. As I started to frown, an e-mail arrived.

<Rho Epsilon-5, attend,> said a digital message, in text, from the Genetor. Since he started giving me a lot more attention, I had been starting to think of him as my Master—in the traditional trade sense, that is. That wasn't exactly how the Mechanicum was structured, but even so, it wasn't unusual to have patrons or benefactors. That was the norm, actually.

I closed the file I was working on. I had been writing up a maintenance guide for the Volkite weapons that I was going to present to the Sisters of Battle's personal Tech-Priests. They were all Enginseers, which was considered a kind of a dead-end career pathway in the Mechanicum.

It wasn't uncommon for such dedicated servants of the Omnissiah to get excessively... specialised... upon the wargear that they maintained year in and year out. So much so that many found it difficult to stretch their spirits around new equipment, especially if it was of a fairly advanced type like the thermal weapons.

I had seen just about every malfunction this type of weapon could have, not just from neglect, but a number had been brought back from the field that had been used heavily or damaged in some way—they weren't designed to be used as clubs, at least not when the person using them as such had the strength of a powered exoskeleton.

I was slowly writing a "quick reference handbook" on Volkite weapon repair. Everything was standard—all approved litanies of repair. However, my intent was to organise it with the most likely malfunctions indexed to the ritual of repair required to fix them.

The actual manuals and hymnals from Stygies VIII were thousands of pages long and not indexed like this in any way, so I wasn't actually surprised that there were some issues where Enginseers that were unfamiliar with the weapons. They may pick repair rituals at random, hoping for the best.

It had even taken me quite a long time to read everything, and I could read at close to fifteen hundred words a minute—fast enough that if I was reading a regular book, I barely had to glance at the page for less than half a second before flipping it, even if it was one of the huge tomes in the schola or church.

I didn't delay any more; I just ran out of my own area, triggering the door to one of the Genetor's workrooms, the one I knew he was in, from the noosphere and sliding into his room as the pneumatic door opened. I opened my mouth, then paused and chirped instead, <Yes, Genetor, sir?>

I still wasn't as quick "speaking" binaric as I was just talking normally, but it was supposed to get second nature after a while. I was also told that my "speech" sounded mechanical, and I had taken that as a compliment proudly for weeks until I realised that, in this case, it wasn't—talk about sending mixed signals.

<Rho Epsilon-5, are you interested in going to Orbit?> he asked me, with no useless small-talk. That was one of the nicer things about my brothers and sisters... they mostly were direct to the point, although there could be just as much small talk, but only if it involved machines. One wouldn't be asked about how they were doing or the weather, though.

I raised an eyebrow, my hand going up to adjust the respirator mask that I wore. <Yes, sir, but I thought that the promethium used for orbital flights was budgeted carefully and almost all taken up with our exports.>

The Genetor exuded an aura of smugness before chirping back, <The first block of the Orkney IV dedicated surface to orbit craft have been produced, and pilots trained. These air spacecraft do not use promethium as a fuel.>

Interesting. Had he mentioned something like that before? My memory indicated that he had, but only in passing. I used my mouth to speak, this time, "What is its fuel and why haven't we been using this type of vehicle before?"

"Hydrox. And because it is, overall, inferior fuel. Energy intensive to manufacture, it leaks out of everything. These crafts will only have half the lift capacity as a traditional promethium-fueled craft of the same weight," he said verbally. But then his mechadendrites shrugged, "But the exhaust for this type of propulsion is H2O in its vapour state, so it is perfectly suited for this unique... ecological concerns on Orkney IV."

I brought up my daily to-do list and added an entry to look up "hydrox", with a fuel context, which probably meant chemistry. I didn't recognise the word, and I didn't like that. Any time the Genetor said a word I didn't recognise, I made a note like this to look it up later.

Something he said made me a bit cautious, though, "Fuel leaking out of everywhere in an aerospace vehicle sounds dangerous."

He waved my concern away and chirped, <I exaggerate. Besides, this aerospace craft should be, on average, twice as safe an Astartes Thunderhawk despite being almost large.>

There was something about what he said there that seemed a bit wrong. By the time I realised that he might be using statistics that included being shot at in opposed combat landings, he had already moved on, <I need you to take half my maniple Orbit, and meet the ship Directed Motion XXXIV. It's already in-system will be arriving at Orbit in a week. It carries sufficient industrial capacity so that we can produce number of things locally from now on, including new hydrox shuttles. But it has seperate consignment for me I charge bring directly back me.>

I squinted, "That sounds like a lot of responsibility, sir. I'm not even fourteen yet, you know, sir."

He snorted, <It's nothing. Besides, an independent assignment while in command of Skiitari will look good on your record. It's important to start accumulating things like this if you don't want get stuck a rut the future. Also, I do not trust any my... assistants.>

<Stuck in a rut? What do you mean?> I asked curiously.

He squinted at me, his mechanical optical sensors zooming in noticeably. He said aloud, "You'll definitely be designated a Transmechanic."

"Why?" I asked, more curious than anything. Transmechanics were very similar to Enginseers, "I do not have any experience with communications technology, yet." Honestly, I was much more interested in studying in the Legio Cybernetica, but it wasn't like we had many blessed robots on Orkney. Or any, as far as I was aware.

He paused and seemed to be thinking before saying, <Your body has an anomaly. All those with this same type of anomaly are designated Transmechanics—if they survive.>

I shrilled, <If they survive? Do I have cancer?> Although after I said that, I was getting the idea that he might mean my witchery. It had been months since I had worn his little sensor puck on my chest, but I remembered it clearly.

He shook his head, <Although it can be considered a congenital disease... I believe you are in no present danger. You do not presently require corrective brain surgery. Do understand now?>

"You're helping me not get stuck in a dead-end job," I said, finally. If everyone with my "condition" was shunted into being a Transmechanic... well, they were very similar to Enginseers. Not where you really wanted to end up if you had ambitions.

He nodded, "Correct. You will have to begin applying yourself if you do not wish to spend the rest of your existence calibrating or quality-assurance testing Gellar field generators... not that this is not a Glorius purpose, but I expect more of you, Rho Epsilon-5."

Gellar fields? I didn't know much about how our spaceships worked, but I knew that was the element that protected ships from the predations of the Ruinous Powers while travelling in the Immaterium. I didn't think that had anything to do with a traditional Transmechanic's core competencies, but the Genetor seemed to be implying, without directly stating, that my witchiness wasn't exactly unprecedented in the Mechanicum. That anyone with psy powers was shunted—if they survived—as a putative Transmechanic while actually performing different tasks.

Maybe every newly built Imperial ship required the efforts of a witch Tech-Priest to "calibrate" the machine that protected them from the Warp. That made... a certain kind of sense if my witch powers came from the same place. Were there other types of machines that directly affected the Warp?

The God-Emperor-Omnissiah's Astronomicon, of course. I rubbed the back of my neck and didn't think they'd let me work on that. You probably had to be specially cloned on Mars for that job.... but perhaps if I became famous, they'd let me? I still wanted to help.

I nodded, "Okay, sir."

---xxxxxx---

Zephyrion Neurosage watched what he was now considering a young protege slide out of his workshop as she ran down the hallway, headed back to her home. She might have to stay in Orbit for a few days, so she wanted an extra set of robes and toiletry items.

The girl never seemed to walk anywhere. And she was fast. Before she got out of the building and perhaps outside the noosphere network, he carefully penetrated her newly developed cybersecurity and programmed her vox speaker to play a recording of flatulence, but not until her onboard cogitators and accelerometers detected a microgravity environment.

He was attempting to push her into developing her skills even more. He had a strong suspicion that she had the rarest and most valuable of all psi abilities, namely what the Mechanicum referred to as technopathy. The most famous use of this type of ability came from the Omnissiah himself, when he famously touched a damaged Titan and spoke, 'Machine, heal thyself.'

There was no sign of this type of power from the girl, and that wasn't surprising, either. However, her capability to learn about machines was unnatural. She was basically an expert on Volkite weapons now, and while she didn't know more than he did, she had only a matter of months to gain this experience. Her hands moved at unnatural speed while repairing them, too. Based on his goals, this type of technopathy was better, anyway.

The Mechanicum was a sovereign nation, and didn't give its members to the Black Ships unless they were incapable of controlling themselves, even with assistance.

There were simple ways to control psyker-abilities mechanically. There were parts of the brain that were known to activate when a psyker used his or her powers, and Psi-Booster implants could be configured so that a neural shock could be delivered if that part of the brain activated without the user intending to. Painful, but much more civilised than whatever the Black Ships did, he felt.

He'd be sure that Rho Epsilon-5 understood the necessity of such implants in the future. The fact that she volunteered to use an agonsier for merely physical training seemed to indicate that she would understand, too.

This girl was important to his plans. He wouldn't be on this planet forever. The girl might have to go to Stygies VIII... his political capital was pretty low, low enough that there would be questions if he tried to certify a psyker in the faith on his own, but he was confident that she would succeed, and rejoin him.

He would have his fleet back, and a psi-sensitive technopath was exactly what he needed in order to fully study certain types of Aeldari technology. A lot of their machines only functioned for psykers, after all. He had seen ruins, destroyed vehicles, and even starships that he was sure were full of the Omnissiah's sacred knowledge, if only he had a trusted and competent assistant with at least a modicum of psy-ability.

A few tons of Aeldari machines in various stages of operation was exactly what he was sending her up to Orbit to retrieve. There was no way he could trust Tau Alpha-1000 with such a mission, as there was over a ninety-nine per cent chance the ass would inspect the goods and report him.

He didn't understand the fool. It was like he wasn't a Stygies VIII man at all.

An internal beep caused him to pull up a message, and he wanted to groan. It was as though if you spoke his name, then he would appear. What was Tau Alpha-1000 doing?

"Wait... you fool, what have you done?!" he screamed. He was going to kill him!

---xxxxxx---

** Name: Piper Eversly (aka Rho Epsilon-5)

** Title: Noble Daughter

** Strength: 9

** Dexterity: 9

** Vitality: 10

** Intelligence: 15

** Willpower: 19

** Psi Capability: 29 (Zeta)

** Unspent Points: 4

** Equipment: Superior Grade Cranial Implants (+15 Calculation, +15 Memorisation, +1 Intelligence), Bone Replacement ((In Progress)), and Reinforced Spine (+1 Vitality)

** Skills: Gamer's Body (MAX), Gamer's Mind (MAX), Reading (47), Memorisation (36), Pain Tolerance (36), Athletics (35), Fatigue Resistance (35), Running (32), Calculation (26), Electronics Repair (26), Cooking (23), Housework (17), Hiding (16), Language: High Gothic (15), Observe (15), Marksmanship - Light (15), Acting (14), Mechanical Repair (14), Dissembling (13), Self-Discipline (12), Sword Mastery (11), Prayer (9), Dogma: Machine Cult (7), Embroidery (6), Sewing (6), Programming: Imperial Cogitators (6), Cybersecurity (6), Marksmanship - Ballistic (5), Teaching (5), Horse Riding (5), Jury-Rigging (5), Telekinesis (5), Warp Resistance (5), Etiquette (4), Lying (4), Archery (3), Eavesdropping (3), Detection (2), Fabrication (2), and Radiation Resistance - Beta (1)

AN PS: In this story, there are psykers in AdMech. This is kind of ambiguous in the source material. There are "Magos Psykana" of course, but it isn't clear if these mean a Magos that is a Psyker or a Magos that studies psykers. Here, the AdMech has a sort of parallel training system for psykers where they mainly use cybernetics to control them and or help them control themselves. If a psyker is too strong for this type of control then they go to the Black Ships, but otherwise they all end up as a "Transmechanic" and generally work on psykic technology, like Gellar fields, Warp drives, Psi-based augmetics, etc. They're intentionally sidelined in a dead-end career path, though, so it takes dedication to escape that fate.