The ground battle footage came back through the logic engine in real time.
Iron Circles and automata were tearing through the Exodites in a relentless sweep — the roar of their heavy bolters almost seemed to carry across the vacuum. The once-proud Exodites were fleeing in chaos, being ground apart by the iron tide, and the armoured companies and Titans hadn't even deployed yet.
Virasius's particular guilty pleasure was watching xenos burn. Nothing quite matched the satisfaction of hearing alien screaming — especially from this particular species, which had spent so long being a thorn in humanity's side.
The elderly Exodites were especially gratifying. Don't let the age fool you — they were formidable — but watching the melta crystallise their bodies and hearing the results was genuinely rewarding.
Virasius had always considered this a minor quirk that barely counted as unusual. Because the Imperial Crusade fleet commanders he'd encountered had, on average, kept upward of fifty mistresses aboard their vessels, occasionally brought expensive xenos pets and slaves to watch enemy routs for entertainment.
By comparison, he'd briefly worried his own habits would embarrass Olympia — then made that comparison and felt like a contemplative monk.
Since then, Virasius had stopped concealing it. Almost every deployment saw the Resentment Intelligence units loaded with extra fuel cells. Couldn't have the melta running dry at an inconvenient moment.
Look at those Contemptor Dreadnoughts putting in the work!
The way the chassis moved with the sweep of those weapons — if there were actually a pilot inside those iron coffins, Virasius might have imagined the old veteran laughing heartily.
"Commander."
The logic engine spoke.
"Ground forces are progressing well. Estimated full elimination of the Exodite population within fifty-four hours."
Virasius gave a small nod. He was about to order additional Resentment Intelligence units deployed when the holographic display suddenly registered a new contact.
"Anomalous energy signature detected."
"Explain."
Virasius's brow drew together slightly.
"Irregular psychic fluctuation on the planet's dark side. A large portal is forming. Craftworld Aeldari vessels are emerging from it."
White Eldar.
So that's where the Dark Eldar had come from earlier as well. What exactly was on this feral world that interested the Craftworld Aeldari enough to mobilise like this? Something that made their xenos kin show up in force.
Virasius felt the beginning of a headache. He was strong — his fleet was strong — but against enemies that gave even Astartes Legions pause, there were real limits.
Hundreds of frigates and Ghost-class cruisers poured out of the Webway gate at speed, immediately accelerating toward the Olympian fleet.
Then a massive warship followed them through.
Its hull was long and elegant, cast from bone-white wraithbone, its surfaces covered in complex runes and energy conduits. Its silhouette flowed like a piece of sculpture. At the stern, four great solar sails radiated brilliant blue light — beautiful and lethal.
A Void Stalker battleship.
Virasius identified it without needing the logic engine to tell him. Perturabo had pushed a great deal of knowledge into the logic engines for his commanders — any Olympian officer needed at least a working understanding of major xenos force compositions.
"What does this feral world have that's worth this kind of response from the Craftworld Aeldari?"
Virasius's pupils contracted slightly. This was not a situation he could handle alone.
"Signal all ships — void shields to maximum power, weapons systems track the Aeldari vessels, fire the moment they enter optimal range."
"Automata and Iron Circle units to full alert. If the Craftworld Aeldari try to board, they get the same treatment as the Dark Eldar. No one walks back."
The Craftworld Aeldari were psykers — that was Virasius's primary concern. Olympia had anti-psyker equipment and countermeasures, but his fleet hadn't been allocated much of it. If this force included powerful Farseers, things were going to become complicated very quickly.
He could only hope support arrived before that became the deciding factor.
The Aeldari warships swept into the planet's orbital space at speed — but they didn't open fire. They also stopped short of closing further with the Olympian fleet.
Virasius was still working through what they were planning when an incoming communication forced its way onto the holographic display.
Psychic in nature — he identified it immediately.
A female Aeldari appeared. Elaborately engraved rune armour. A staff set with soulstones. Features with the precise, sculpted quality of a carved figure. Silver hair pulled up into a tall crest. Eyes that carried nothing but cold.
Ivieria — the Farseer. She had foreseen a disaster threatening their Craftworld. The source had led her here, to this feral world with which the Iyloer Craftworld had maintained a relationship. So she had come to see what was happening.
A world's worth of kin was worth the effort — even if Exodites weren't particularly powerful, many of the people on this world were exiles who had left her Craftworld generation by generation.
She had not expected to arrive to this.
"You are massacring my kin."
Her voice was cold.
Virasius looked at her without any particular expression.
"Your kin?"
"I don't see any kin. I see a group of xenos giving me a condescending look and saying things about 'nobility' and 'monkeys.'"
"But they don't look like much to me. In front of bolt fire, they still get blown apart. In front of a Dreadnought's siege hammer, they still get reduced to paste. No different from any other xenos. They're enemy aliens. That's what they are."
Ivieria's anger ignited immediately. Monkeys — daring to be this arrogant, while slaughtering her dwindling kin—
"Is it a prophecy that brought you here?"
"And did your prophecy tell you that you nearly had a Dark Eldar raiding party arriving before you did?"
Ivieria stopped.
"Dark Eldar? They were here?"
Virasius gestured toward the three captured Dark Eldar warships visible through the viewport.
"The bodies are still floating. Feel free to go look."
"I've also got some paste and one prisoner who's been reduced to a staff — eyes gone — and I don't know how he's still managing to look that satisfied."
Those wretches. Naturally, come to take advantage.
Ivieria had no fondness for that faction of her species.
"You lot actually enjoy being abused, do you? Xenos truly are a lesser breed — apparently you only behave when someone's hitting you."
The next line out of Virasius's mouth ignited her again.
"Monkeys — I'm giving you one opportunity. Leave this system immediately. I will let this transgression pass. Otherwise—"
Angry as she was, going to war with these humans right now was not rational. Their firepower was not ordinary — taking them down would cost real blood. Her people's birth rate was already in negative decline. Pointless casualties were not acceptable.
Iyloer's population was small, and shrinking — this feral world had functioned as their largest sanctuary. But the situation had already reached this point. Pressing forward would only accelerate Iyloer's destruction.
"Humanity does not negotiate with xenos, you wretched creature. Leave. Even if we die here today, our lord will tear every last one of you to pieces and scatter the ashes in vengeance."
A cold light passed through Ivieria's eyes.
Giving her a way out, and she didn't take it.
The communication cut.
The Craftworld Aeldari fleet began accelerating.
If the Dark Eldar were wild, the Craftworld Aeldari were elegant — their every movement calculated to trace the most perfectly optimised trajectory available to them.
Pulsar cannons and pulse lasers fired from their hulls, precisely locking onto the Crusade fleet's void shields.
The layered void shields absorbed everything.
Virasius wasn't surprised. The Aeldari were formidable. But his fleet was no soft target.
"Fire."
Hundreds of Nova Cannon beams discharged simultaneously, sending a dense fire web toward the Craftworld Aeldari fleet.
But the Aeldari warships were simply fast — weaving through the fire at angles that should not have been achievable, evading every beam.
Occasionally a graze — wraithbone armour generating a burst of sparks, damage negligible.
These Craftworld Aeldari were considerably more capable than the Dark Eldar.
"Electromagnetic Nova Cannons — prepare to fire. Restrict their manoeuvre space."
Dozens of electromagnetic Nova Cannons discharged together.
Blue-white energy beams formed a massive energy field across the Aeldari fleet's projected manoeuvre envelope, forcing the cruiser elements to reduce speed.
"Continue firing. Give them no time to recover — electromagnetic Nova Cannons and plasma macro-cannons maintain interference at all times."
The Crusade fleet's sustained firepower exceeded what the Aeldari Farseer had modelled. Several Vyper and Howling Banshee boarding craft were destroyed in the opening exchange before they could reach their targets.
Some of the fallen warriors' soulstones couldn't be recovered to the spirit circuits.
That sent a wave of pain through Ivieria. Her people were genuinely few — recovering these losses could take ten thousand years.
"These wretched monkeys—"
But the Aeldari fleet was fast. However fierce the Olympian fire, it couldn't stop the boarding craft from breaking through.
The Howling Banshees who came aboard wore exquisite armour, carried power weapons and power swords, and moved like striking wind.
Fire Dragons and Dire Avengers followed them in.
Not for sport. For vengeance.
But this time, they encountered resistance.
Iron Circles and automata were already in position — with Contemptor Dreadnoughts waiting alongside them.
The same truth applied: fighting these machines in confined spaces was simply not viable.
The reason Iron Hand boarding actions had always been so effective was that the warriors were superbly equipped and possessed physical advantages that translated directly into power in close-quarters frontal combat. Howling Banshees and Fire Dragons were elite. But what they were fighting this time wasn't human.
A power sword punched into a Dreadnought's iron chassis. It accomplished nothing.
Bolt and plasma fire cut through the Craftworld Aeldari boarding parties at a rate that shocked their expectations. Human fleets weren't supposed to be like this.
The casualties were mounting far faster than anticipated. Ivieria couldn't understand it. Didn't humanity prohibit Resentment Intelligence? Why was it deployed this openly throughout their fleet?
The Howling Banshees' speed was real — weaving through bolt fire, rolling, dodging individual rounds. Their Banshee masks produced their shrieking sonic waves, attempting to stagger those metal giants.
But they had chosen the wrong targets.
One Banshee reached a Dreadnought's head and drove her power sword into it with full force. The blade went in, and lodged fast in a vacant sarcophagus. The Dreadnought shook. The Banshee's strength couldn't resist the motion — she was hurled clear. She was recovering her legendary body control when the adjacent Dreadnought's siege hammer reduced her to paste.
Fire Dragon melta fire left scorch marks on Iron Circle armour. The Iron Circle felt nothing. Its heavy bolter continued firing.
Dire Avenger shuriken catapults scattered sparks off automata armour plating. Meaningful damage: none.
In confined ship spaces, speed and technique simply didn't matter.
When the enemy outnumbers you, outguns you, and won't retreat — you just die.
This was precisely why Astartes boarding parties could so consistently paralyse enemy command elements — and why a Terminator squad inside a narrow warship bridge was the encounter nobody wanted.
The boarding going poorly made Ivieria increasingly agitated. She could feel her kin dying clearly and precisely, and there was nothing she could do about it.
"What's happening on the surface?"
She turned to the Warlock beside her.
"Badly. Our kin's settlements have been destroyed by at least two thirds. Those human war machines—"
He didn't finish. Ivieria understood.
She was beginning to regret coming. But she'd come this far — she had to at least save whoever was still alive. Otherwise the losses already taken had been entirely wasted.
"Can the Webway gate on the surface be opened?"
"It would take a day to reach it, but right now we—"
"I'll lead the party myself. Take command here while I'm gone."
"Farseer—"
"Stop arguing. Save whoever can be saved."
The Warlock was quiet for a moment, then nodded.
The Craftworld Aeldari fleet accelerated again.
Virasius watched the closing contacts on his holographic display, a thin smile on his face.
Did they think he was made of clay?
Aboard the Void Stalker, dozens of Warlocks cast simultaneously. Powerful psychic force surged toward the Crusade fleet like a wave — attempting to paralyse weapons systems, disrupt communications, tear at void shields directly.
The lights on the bridge flickered once.
"Anti-psyker teams."
Across the fleet, dozens of specially configured Iron Circles activated. Their armour was engraved with anti-psychic runes. Mounted on their chests were anti-psychic generators. Their internal power cores were blue crystals, now blazing with intense blue light.
The generators produced a low resonant hum and formed an invisible barrier around the ships.
Psychic power struck the barrier, burst into cascades of sparks, and could not get through.
Virasius laughed.
"Father's technology. You actually thought you could break this?"
"Continue firing. Don't stop."
The Crusade fleet's output intensified.
For Ivieria, this was the longest day of her life.
Wraithbone warships detonated in human fire. Elite Aspect Warriors were torn apart by Resentment Intelligence during their boarding attempts.
All of this because of her prophecy.
This was the disaster she had foreseen — she had come to prevent it, and instead had walked straight into it from a direction she hadn't predicted.
Nobody could have imagined a human fleet this powerful.
Even trading at roughly one-to-one casualties, that was catastrophic. Aeldari couldn't afford one-to-one.
"Release the Phantom Titans. We need to cover our kin's evacuation."
After considerable effort, she finally reached the Webway gate on the planet's surface. Ivieria quickly activated the entrance, and ordered the Titans forward.
Eldar Titans were rare beyond reckoning — even the pilot standards were extraordinarily demanding. These days, losing one was losing one that couldn't be replaced. The Aeldari couldn't build them anymore.
Two Phantom Titans stepped out of the Webway gate. The scattered Exodites beyond the perimeter, running and fleeing in every direction, began to reach the gate under their covering fire.
Eldar Titans were genuinely superior to Imperial Titans in several respects — Virasius acknowledged that. More agile without sacrificing striking power. Ranged weapons entirely competitive. Heavy shielding.
Watching only two Titans shred through the pursuing Iron Circles and automata, even Dreadnoughts falling within seconds — Virasius concluded it was time to commit more.
Two Titans and you think that's enough?
He was about to order Imperial Titans deployed to show these Eldar what a real surprise looked like when a figure appeared at the Webway gate below.
The order died on his tongue. His mouth curved upward.
"Xenos — your end has come. Enjoy the wait."
Ivieria was directing her kin's evacuation when she felt something.
An overwhelming, terrifying presence — emanating from the Webway gate.
Cold as iron. Heavy as a mountain. A suffocating pressure.
She turned.
At the Webway gate stood a tall figure, looking at the two Titans. Around him on the ground lay Aeldari bodies.
He was human. A human well over six metres tall, wearing a simple white robe. Black hair fell loose across his shoulders. A green laurel wreath sat across his brow.
His deep blue eyes looked at the assembled Aeldari with absolute calm — the way someone might look at ants, deciding whether to step on them.
He raised his right hand, opened it slightly, and the two Phantom Titans — which had been devastating the battlefield moments before — were seized as if by an invisible grip, struggling and thrashing against forces that wouldn't release them.
They were lifted from the ground in an instant. Their pilots and the souls within them were erased.
"Are you their Farseer?"
Ivieria hadn't finished recovering from the shock when the enormous human was already standing in front of her.
His shadow swallowed her. She could barely breathe. Her body was trembling without her permission. The alpha-plus psychic strength she carried felt like it offered not a grain of safety.
"I — I—"
She tried to speak, found she had become too terrified to form coherent words.
Perturabo paid this no attention. His deep blue pupils had fixed on the enormous Craftworld behind the Webway gate — a vessel the scale of a planet. A Craftworld ship comparable in mass to Terra.
The excitement this produced in him was considerable.
Not because of its raw power — that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was the technology it contained. The value was incalculable.
An unexpected windfall.
No matter how many times he thought through this scenario, he couldn't have predicted that a single feral world assignment would put a Craftworld into his hands.
He lowered his head slightly, looking down at the trembling Farseer.
Ivieria had no idea what to do. Every psychic impulse in her body had nothing to push against — the pressure coming from this human had no gap in it.
She looked into those deep blue eyes. They were calm. No killing intent. No anger. No emotional signal of any kind.
He was simply looking at her. The way a person looks at an ant, considering whether to step down.
"You — who are you?"
She asked, trembling.
"Take me to your Craftworld. If I'm in a good enough mood afterward, your kin might still be alive at the end of this. If I'm not—"
He glanced sideways at Ivieria. The terrible psychic force emanating from him erupted.
The fleet in planetary orbit was seized and held in place. Every Aeldari moving within it was snatched up and brought to the immediate vicinity.
They hung in the air, struggling, faces flushing as though hands were closing around their throats.
"Let me play a game with you."
"Do you know what decimation is?"
Ivieria shook her head, terrified.
"I will randomly select ten of your kin. I will make them choose one among themselves. The other nine will then attack the chosen one together — until that one is dead."
Perturabo's psychic power extended through the Webway gate, taking hold of the entire Craftworld at once. The Daemon Factory moved quickly, surrounding the Webway entrance, and began drawing the entire Craftworld into itself.
"What do you say? Trade your kin's lives for a tour of your world and your Webway — hand over your technology — and while you're at it, give me the locations of the other Craftworlds—"
"In your dreams!"
Where the courage came from, Ivieria couldn't explain. Her alpha-plus power detonated.
For an instant.
Then the explosion of power was compressed back into her body. Her frame was squeezed. She felt as though she was being pressed flat. Breathing stopped. Her mind went white.
Crystallisation spread across her body rapidly. Blood appeared at her lips and nose.
Then the crushing pressure quietly released.
Ivieria sucked air in great gasps. The blood from her burst vessels had turned her eyes completely red, leaving bloody tears streaking down her face.
"I don't like being interrupted. Since you've decided your kin's lives don't matter to you — let's begin."
"Shall we start with the fleet, or with your people on the ground?"
Perturabo moved a finger lightly.
In the sky above, Exodites and Craftworld Aeldari alike began falling, then were rapidly pulled into sealed spaces of no clear origin.
Within each small space: ten Aeldari, staring blankly at a dark chamber, disoriented.
In an instant, their minds were invaded. Like machines receiving instructions, they processed the command — selected one among their group — and the remaining nine began attacking.
Ivieria watched her kin fighting above her. She wanted desperately to stop it. She couldn't move her body. Her eyes were forced open, her consciousness remaining entirely sharp and aware.
"What do you say — shall we make a wager? Guess which one breaks first. Guess correctly and I stop. How about it?"
"Don't—please—"
"Sorry, didn't catch that."
"Please — let them — go—"
"Wrong answer."
In the chamber above and to the right, a small, thin Dire Avenger was the first to be beaten to death. The psychic control released from the others. The sensation of mechanical compulsion faded.
By the time they understood what they had done, it was too late.
More and more Aeldari died at the hands of their own kin. The survivors were merged into larger groups. The process resumed.
The dead died in anguish — Aeldari vitality and heightened sensory perception meant their suffering before death exceeded anything a human would experience. Contorted bodies fell from mid-air.
The sound of each impact fell into Ivieria's heart.
But the thing that finally broke her last line of resistance was a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh.
This was one Perturabo had seized from Slaanesh long ago and deposited in the Factory — where, regardless of whether it was subjected to thunderous consecutive punishment or mass simultaneous beatings, it experienced nothing but overwhelming ecstasy. So Perturabo generally dealt with these by stuffing them into Hell-Talos engines or Daemon Engines directly. Greater Daemons specifically were nailed to their stations and force-operated by Vashtorr in a production-line capacity. Now they were coming in useful.
Just as the Greater Daemon was about to extend its long, fang-covered, indescribably appendaged tongue toward Ivieria's face—
She broke.
"Please. I'm begging you. Let us go."
She was on the ground. Her armour was shattered. Her eyes were empty. She was covered in blood, curled into herself, arms wrapped around her own body.
The elegant, flawless lines of her form, carrying an expression of broken vulnerability — the kind of sight that would drive anyone with a powerful compulsion toward domination entirely out of their mind.
"Only a small sacrifice, in exchange for so many of your kin surviving. Shouldn't you be relieved?"
Using psychic force to lift Ivieria back to her feet, Perturabo felt something that could only be described as perverse satisfaction. The Craftworld was already in his Factory — he had no concern about this group of Aeldari attempting anything.
"Show me around."
Ivieria looked at the expressionless figure before her — a demon wearing a human shape — eyes gone blood red, and understood with absolute clarity: Iyloer was finished. A world home to thirty million Aeldari was gone.
This was the disaster she had prophesied. She hadn't known what it was.
Now she did.
"Is this the interior of your Craftworld? It doesn't look like much."
Perturabo was faintly disappointed. He had expected something considerably beyond human paradise worlds. Beyond being somewhat more pleasant environmentally, nothing here struck him as particularly remarkable.
He reached out and extracted the shards of Khaine, casually compressed them into two small energy spheres, and turned them over in his hand idly.
The Exarch and Ivieria followed behind him in a state of anxious terror, not daring to say a word.
"Where are your spirit circuits? How many soulstones and wraithbone reserves do you have? What's the production capacity for wraithbone? What's the efficiency rate? And what about the—"
Perturabo asked many questions. Ivieria and the Exarch answered with great difficulty — their fierce pride making every answer feel like a fresh humiliation.
If not for the survival of their kin, both of them would have charged at this demon with their last breath right now. Death before this would have been preferable.
Looking at the enormous construct whose wraithbone framework flickered with the luminescence of bound souls, Perturabo decided the technology was genuinely interesting.
Better, at least, than his current method of collecting his sons' and warriors' souls into the Daemon Factory — where reappearing in the material universe was prohibitively difficult.
"Does this only work for Aeldari?"
"...Yes."
A shame, Perturabo thought.
Otherwise, some clone body production wouldn't have been particularly challenging for him at this point.
"I have a proposition. Would you like to hear it?"
Perturabo looked at the two blank-faced Aeldari, and a bold idea surfaced.
"After death, your souls are claimed by She Who Thirsts. Correct?"
At the mention of Slaanesh, both Aeldari's faces changed to something very close to terror.
Everything they had spent their lives suppressing — every desire, every impulse denied — all of it had been for this one reason. Keep the hunger suppressed. Keep the desire invisible. Don't let Slaanesh notice.
Their birth rate was already in negative decline. The alternative was far worse.
"My lord — what do you mean?"
Ivieria asked carefully.
"What if I told you I could ensure you never face that particular disaster?"
Perturabo didn't make vague promises. He pulled both Aeldari directly into the vast interior of the Daemon Factory.
The roaring production lines running without pause. Weapons and warships emerging in continuous output.
Lightning crackling across the lines at irregular intervals. Daemon screaming rising and falling in chorus — hands moving faster because of it.
The Daemon Engines with their bound, howling passengers. The mechanical arms reaching in and depositing fresh arrivals—
The enormous warships and Titans burned themselves into both Aeldari's minds.
Ivieria and Exarch Dikter were completely stunned.
"This is my domain. Within the Warp, Chaos cannot interfere here. Your souls after death can be contained within this place, and serve as overseers — like them."
Perturabo pointed to the towering iron figures that were clearly considerably larger and broader than the other overseer classes — armoured in power armour, each holding a whip that crackled with vivid red lightning. Every crack of those whips produced howling from the production-line daemons. The Bloodletters in particular — one strike each and production efficiency went up noticeably.
Both Aeldari also noticed the Dark Eldar souls. The Lord of Iron had turned them into daemons — a long spike driven through their bodies from base to crown — and continuously electrified them. Their production output was terrible, because they were too busy enjoying the suffering.
Perturabo led both Aeldari back out and interrupted their processing time.
"So. As long as you can render service—"
Before he finished the sentence, Ivieria and Dikter were already on their knees.
"My lord — from this day we are your sharpest blades. You point east and we will not go west. You want us to—"
"That's enough. Stand up."
Perturabo had no patience for elaborate declarations. They produced no sense of satisfaction.
"One simple condition. Render service to standard, and when you die you come to my Factory as overseers."
"Fall short — I think you've already seen the alternative. It won't be meaningfully better than She Who Thirsts's attentions. If you want your afterlife to be tolerable, behave."
"Yes, Master."
"Call me 'my lord.'"
"Yes, my lord."
"From this day forward we will honour you as a god — in the Pantheon—"
"I am not a god."
Before the now fervently devoted Ivieria could finish, Perturabo cut her off.
"And I do not extend my protection to Aeldari who don't follow my instructions. Understood?"
"Yes."
"Stand up. Show me more of this place. I want to understand your technology."
"Father — is this actually wise?"
The nearest First Fleet had been summoned by Perturabo directly. He intended to have Ferrix lead this group of Aeldari into campaign.
They were, after all, exceptionally effective assassins. The Imperium's longstanding fondness for decapitation strikes and boarding actions existed for good reason — both tactics were resource-efficient, resolved engagements quickly, allowed the reclamation of territory with minimal damage, and kept casualties low. Extremely practical.
Ready-made assets, free to use.
When the various fleet Iron Warriors learned their father had recruited a group of xenos — and then learned those xenos were Craftworld Aeldari specifically — the emotional reaction was layered and complicated.
Their fleets were formidable, certainly — they would help address the Iron Warriors' relative weakness in mobility, and they'd brought wraithbone and advanced technology alongside them. But Ferrix felt no excitement.
"Ready-made labour. Don't waste it. When you encounter worlds that don't require a full-force deployment, stop burning that much firepower on them. Use simpler and faster solutions when they're available."
"But these—"
Ferrix looked at the faces of the Craftworld Aeldari — expressions of absolute, burning devotion and loyalty — and felt as though reality had developed a slight lean.
"No 'buts.' Use them freely. They won't betray us."
"And the Imperium? How do we—"
This was collaboration with xenos. A serious crime. And his father was a gene-father and Primarch. The penalty escalations alone were terrifying — the Emperor might choose to handle this personally.
"Don't worry. I have a plan. Take them on Crusade. More Aeldari will join us before long — you need to get used to it."
If the pull of their genetic bond hadn't confirmed to Ferrix that his father was unharmed — combined with the sheer intensity of devotion on the Aeldari's faces — he would never have accepted this under any circumstances.
"Adapt quickly. Develop operational plans as soon as possible. Within a hundred years, I want to see half of the Eastern Fringe brought into my territory, properly administered and managed. Can you do that?"
"Yes."
Whether we can or not, we have to. We can't disappoint Father.
Watching the great fleet — now interspersed with several sleek and fast Aeldari vessels — pass into the Mandeville point, Perturabo turned his gaze back to the Webway entrance.
"Ivieria."
"My lord."
"Is this Webway gate stable?"
"Completely. And the Webway gates throughout the surrounding star sectors are equally stable — no damage, no Chaos contamination detected. We have the route maps. We have the complete Eastern Fringe Webway route maps, actually."
"Yes — this is what our previous Grand Farseer spent generations exploring and charting. Additionally, we also have—"
Listening to Ivieria and Dikter speak, Perturabo's eyes carried excitement he couldn't conceal.
People say fortune never falls from the sky. Apparently it does.
"You did WHAT? You had the nerve to collude with xenos, Perturabo, I think you're—"
"WHAT? You're saying they're also willing to pledge loyalty to the Imperium, hand over all their technological developments, and bring multiple Craftworlds with them?!"
"WHAT? They're willing to share the Webway with humanity — and they have the complete route maps for the entire star sector?!"
"WHAT? They're also—"
"My son — nothing must happen to those Eld— to those psychically-specialised abhuman beings. I'm coming there personally right now."