Tanya Russ
"Well, this was not what I expected," I said as I looked at the screen showing a black-haired version of myself sitting in the treatment room down the hall from where I currently sat.
I had just woken up from the party that had gone on the night before. Enjoying that to its fullest had apparently been the wisest choice, because now I had a mess on my hands and it was a massive one.
I had hoped to at least figure out what was going on on Fenris, see what the situation was like, and find out how things were progressing. Instead, I had to deal with this nightmare situation.
Turning to the Apothecary, I asked, "So this person is claiming to have been Lord Wolfen. Any way to be sure of their claims? And if they are provable, what the hell am I looking at?"
Norast Ray nodded his head as he heard my question before answering, "A failure of sorts, that's what they are. If they are Lord Wolfen as they claim is still up to debate, though I would tend to believe them as they have given quite a bit of their history and it does match up with our records on his life before… Well, attempting to ascend to a Space Marine."
I let out a sigh before asking, "Okay, that's a start. What is a failure in this context?"
"Well let's start with our training regimen. Ever since you took Lord Wolfen out into the woods to try and get them to, well, think like you in order to retain their humanity we've taken our Aspirants out there and dumped them in the woods. They either succeed or they fail, those who make it back to civilization can begin their training and receive further modifications. Those who fail either never show up again or," He looked towards the screen, "end kinda like that."
I blinked before saying, "I have heard about the incidents where a few Marines Aspirants switched gender, none of them looked like me before, and from what I heard those all happened before they were dropped in the woods. Have I missed something while I was gone?"
Norast Ray nodded his head before saying, "There have been a dozen or so cases of Aspirants changing gender before being sent in the woods and one other case like Lord Wolfen here, though this is slightly different. In fact, I would say this is really a third order of change."
I blinked before ordering, 'Explain. I've not gone into the research of this situation very deeply, why are marines switching genders at certain times and what does that mean for their full conversion into Marines? Also, since I'm asking questions, is there a way to reverse what has happened to them?"
Norast Ray bowed before sighing and taking a seat at a desk. He reached down and opened up a file before taking several documents out.
"As I've said there are three different cases at this point. The most common happens pre-implantation of some of the final modifications. They end up about as tall as a tall Fenrisian but they've developed female characteristics, lost some male characteristics, and their DNA has just sort of shifted into that of a female. Any further implantation of modifications is impossible once they've shifted, it just would not work anymore. We've actually attempted it with two who volunteered despite our predictions and the implants were rejected by their bodies. Those two, of course, died."
"What about the remaining ones, the ones that had not been implanted yet?" I asked, trying to get an idea of the situation.
As much as they may want to undergo the final procedures I have judged that the risk is not worth it, it's really that simple. We have still a limited store of materials to produce Space Marines and it would be better to only implant in Aspirants that we know have good odds over ones that have… well, currently a 100% death rate."
"Well, that makes sense." I guess I would prefer fewer troops over trying to send not combat-capable troops into combat. Although… Hmm.
"Alright so these pre-modification Marines cannot be modified further once they convert to a female, the genetics just don't work. Most likely because the Emperor keyed it to males, right?"
The Apothecary nodded his head, " I believe, with some work, I could find my way past this issue given enough time. Though most of my time is spent getting those who have been more successful into the field rather than worrying about those who have plateaued."
"Understandable," I said, shaking my head. "What about the ones who made it into the woods and came out female?"
The Apothecary showed another report, saying, "That was an interesting case. He seemed rather normal until they made it into the woods and then they got lost. As in we lost track of him for about a year. They should have been only been out there for 3 months but they seem to have just enjoyed living out in the woods. When we tracked him down they were fully female and somewhat resistant to rejoining the legion. She had apparently been saved by a Thunder Wolf and became friends with it, she apparently have just been partners in hunting out there this entire time."
"Really?" I asked, leaning back as I took this in. "I didn't think Thunder Wolves could be befriended like that."
"It's not so rare, every once in a while a Marine will come back in with a Thunder Wolf partner. There have been quite a few actually and now most Marines, when they go out for their trip into the woods, either make friends with wolves or fight wolves. It depends on how and where they are deployed."
"Well, that's good I guess," I said, nodding my head before continuing by asking, "So what's the state of this post-forest aspirant?"
"Unlike pre-Forest cases they are as tall as a Marine and they have a lot of the abilities of a Marine. But, like pre-Forest, we cannot progress their modifications any further. It seems that as soon as a gender shift happens their potential to become a Space Marine is lost. They have survived a few attempts of implantations but they all ended in rejections."
Pulling out a seat on the other side of the desk I sat down to think about this. Finally I said, "Has their sacrifice of that potential taught us anything about the process of making Space Marines, something that may prevent it from happening again?"
"Yes and no, the trigger for this is still rather mysterious but those cases of gender flipping have allowed us to learn a bit about Space Marine biology when put under a different strain, which has allowed us to progress in our experiments for finding ways of using your DNA to better the lives of our people on Fenris."
"Well… That's something," I said, shaking my head, before pointing towards the screen and asking, "What about Lord Wolfen there? How came he shows such youth in appearance, He's not an Aspirant.
"Very true, he was one of the first volunteers after all. And that status has been very useful for us. I dare say that his appearance may be the missing link in some of our research."
"Okay, start explaining." I demanded with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, to be clear, he does not have most of the implantations that most Marines had. What he's had is a chemical that was supposed to make him more accepting of elements of your Geneseed, ones that would bond with his body to allow him to take up the modifications that would make him a full Marine."
I nodded, showing my understanding but waiting for the punchline.
"That means all he's had is your Geneseed in him but none of the Emperor's modifications, which are the last step before being left in the woods in the current process."
"Okay?" I said, not exactly getting the biology here.
"To make it simple the pre-forest failed Marines do not have a Geneseed gland, the one post-Forest case does have a Geneseed gland but it was created while he was male."
"This Wolfen has a Geneseed gland but it was created at an undetermined period, possibly while they were female."
… I leaned forward a bit, blinking, before asking, "Are you saying that Lord Wolfen produces Geneseed that would be compatible with females?"
"I will need to run tests, of course, but yes. Yes, I think that is what I'm saying. I've got to be clear, this wouldn't exactly allow us to make females Space Marines. If that was all that was needed we could have done that just from your DNA, but we may be able to move the Pre-forest Aspirants into the post-Forest variance at the very least."
"Not only that, this female variant of the Geneseed could be given to your Valkyrie, likely expanding their lives by up to a couple hundred years if not more and making them a bit tougher and such."
If this, of course, worked. That would be rather useful though. Having more specialized troops never hurt and knock-off Space Marines were better than nothing. I had set out a goal to increase my numbers of troops at the front so this would help too. Plus that would definitely increase the survival rate of The Valkyrie, which currently stood at the same rate as regular humans. I was planning to see about getting them some better armor at the very least already, so giving them a bit more rapid healing wouldn't hurt.
"Has the experiments to create female Geneseed from my own DNA not gone well?" I asked, trying to clarify exactly how this one worked better than mine.
Norast Ray winced, answering, "Although we have tested the process the Emperor has given us it always results in male Geneseed. Simply using what the Emperor has given us to turn your DNA into Geneseed will not outright produce female Geneseed. However, it would appear that thanks to Lord Wolfen we now know that, under extreme circumstances, it is possible to create an Aspirant who may be able to produce it. And I'm sure that if we implanted it in other females they too would be able to produce it in time."
"Of course they would need to go through some sort of training regime, devised to make sure they don't have the same reaction Lord Wolfen had."
"Most likely," Norast Ray said, before continuing, "As for why Lord Wolfen turned into a female I think I have a good understanding of why that happened."
I turned to him, interested in what his answer would be on that.
"It has been 20 years, give or take, that Lord Wolfen has lived as some sort of creature in the woods. For 20 years he has been fighting to return to its humanity and the last thing it saw that was human was you. It's very likely that his mind was in a very malleable mental state at the moment you were talking to it."
"You think because it saw me last and I charged him to return to humanity it thought I was humanity… so it mentally forced itself to turn him a girl?"
"Possibly, I would need more research and study on the day and also have an interview with Lord Wolfen to get every detail I can out of him. But that is likely what happened to my mind."
"That's rather disconcerting," I said, noting that not only did I now have to deal with the fact I had sons but I could end up with daughters at this current rate.
"There could be more to it though, I will need to run hundreds of tests and such on the matter." He said, looking at the failed Marine with interest. "At the very least I believe it's impossible to give them any other modifications, not to mention with their size being around five two it would be impossible to start giving him some of the more important ways of becoming a Space Marine."
Yeah, that was probably the weirdest thing about this whole situation when you really thought about it. Lord Wolfen had been around 6 feet 3 and now… Well, I estimated he was about as tall as I was in my last life and he also had my face. He still had his hair color but yeah he basically became a perfect clone of me before I become a Primarch. I was guessing, by the glowing eyes that had been reported, that they also had some psychic potential. Quite a bit of it most likely, they had to have used some sort of reinforcement spell on their limbs during the fighting that they had apparently engaged in at the city's gates.
What other things have been basically cloned from me and adapted to this Lord Wolfen? Hopefully, it was nothing mental and just all physical… Well, I guess if he had taken on a lot of my logical thinking I wouldn't mind that…
Shaking my head, I asked, "Well we've discussed the what's and how's about the condition. now have you asked Lord Wolfen here what they want?"
"What?" Apothecary Norast Ray asked, looking up from a paper he pulled out of his desk.
"There has to be a reason that they showed up today, so why did they show up and what do they want?"
Apothecary Norast Ray shrugged, before saying, "I was more interested in the medical situation of Lord Wolfen and how it could benefit us as a whole. They did mention they wished to speak to you so I guess that's what they want."
"Well, then," I said, standing up, "I might as well go over there and talk to them. What room are they in?"
"Three doors down, we have a two–Marines guard in front of it just in case. They've shown themselves quite able to fight so I thought it better to be safe than sorry."
I nodded my approval before saying, "Good luck in your research, Norast Ray." before walking to the door and opening it, stepping out into the hallways of the Fang.
The thing wore a terrible name, though I did have to admit it did actually look a bit like a fang jutting up into the sky.
While I'd been gone the tallest mountain on the entire planet had been converted into a massive complex of bunkers, storage rooms, barracks, weapon testing ranges and weapon maintenance armories, fighter hangars and ship repair centers. Everything basically, including a massive medical center and Geneseed laboratory and vault so that we could conduct experiments and stabilize the Geneseed more. Something that looked more and more like it was absolutely needed considering, well, the conversation I just had. Not to mention that we hadn't actually spoken about it but the reason that we most likely had Marines who did not return from their little excursion into the winter snows around the Fang for their training probably shared a cause with the fact that there was a small uptick in Wolf attacks around the Fang and surrounding areas after we had those training sessions. No doubt the DNA within the humans had adaptations that were meant to help them adapt to this world but were interfering with aspects of the Geneseed, creating the occasional failure that went full wolf.
Hopefully that would be a minor issue, one that would be worked off as the years went on. They had plenty of my DNA to use for experiments in creating more stable Geneseed, so sooner or later we should be able to find a way to prevent the local DNA from making our Aspirants go full wolf.
Though I did worry about Fenrisian-produced Geneseed, after all if the Geneseed was affecting the humans into becoming wolves… What was the DNA having as an effect on the Geneseed? Would a Marine who had been implemented with Geneseed directly from another Marine have a greater chance of becoming a wolf or less of a chance? That was a concern and a reason why we needed these Gene labs and had to run these experiments.
Experiments into lesser Geneseeds, both for male and female, to give people a better chance of survival or just side jobs was something that I had thrown on the ticket somewhat at random but one of them apparently was showing some progress now.
As for the Fang it was a massive military complex, so massive that I think the legion at its current numbers of around 60 to 70,000 still had room for growth of about double that. Which was good, we were going to need as many troops as we could get. The Orks would wear us down sooner or later and who's to say there weren't other empires making their moves, I already ran into more than a few. now that had tried to do something while humanity was down. We would probably meet more as time went on.
We would probably end up converting the entire valley around the mountain into a training complex as more of it was being carved out and turned into bases as time went on. I already had put in requests for weapon systems to be delivered so that the tips of the nearby mountains could be turned into anti-orbital stations to help prevent any orbital bombardments.
And no doubt some people would always be stationed on the Gloriana battleship Hrafnkel, which was currently docked onto the tip of the Fang which poked out of the atmosphere just enough for it to be converted into a basic low-level space elevator. An impressive thing and it allowed us to ship materials up and down cheaply from low orbit, easier than if they had to travel all the way on transports.
Finally, I came to a stop in front of the door. Two Marines were waiting there, their bolter in hand, ready and waiting for something to happen, I guess. I nodded to them before addressing them, "How's our guest?"
"Our prisoner is quiet, my Primarch." One of the Marines answered, which was odd. I suppose they needed to consider them a prisoner but I nodded again before saying, "Well, then I guess it's time for me to meet them."
"Opening the door I stepped in and closed it behind me, leaving me alone in the room with, in a way, another me. Our current guest was sitting at the table, wearing a light blue jumpsuit someone had found for her. The clothes that she had come in with, including her staff that seemed to radiate power, had been put in a secure room across the hall. I doubted that she'd want most of those clothes back as they were just furs from collected animals and of lesser quality than what could be produced in the cities and at the Fang.
Lord Wolfen looked up from her hands and gave a familiar smile as she saw me enter. "Primarch Russ, I was wondering if they were going to let me talk to you. Ever since I've made myself known all I've gotten is poking and prodding by various testing tools and lots of blood drawn."
Smiling back I moved over to a chair in front of her and took a seat, saying, "Well they had to do some tests to confirm who and what you were, plus I was indisposed when you arrived. Busy with other things."
"Ah, you were enjoying the finer things in life. I can understand that, I used to be able to do that a lot before I signed up for this whole Space Marine program."
I nodded before saying, "Yeah. You're looking good though, looking human is a better state than what you were in last I saw you."
"Looking like you, you mean." Lord Wolfen replied.
"Yeah, that's a thing. Weird but a thing we're working on. We have a few theories on why that could have happened."
"Really doesn't matter to me now. Used to back when I first got my humanity back but I've come to be used to my lower stature in the world."
I chuckled at the short joke, there was not much else I could do and it was a good sign that Lord Wolfen seemed to have maintained a sense of humor about their situation.
"Well nice see you, Lord Wolfen. It has been a long time since we've talked, care to fill into some blanks on where you've been and why you came to the city today? I'd also like to talk about what you want."
"Where I've been…" She began, tapping her chin before saying, "I've been in the woods, fighting for my life against wolves, Ice Wurms, and other monsters. Including things below the woods, things deep underground in caves, though I only visited down there when I believe I was half human half wolf I think."
Okay, that was unexpected. I knew that the entrance to the cave was near there where I dropped her off but it seemed that they had found their way into the cave at some point and killed the monsters down there? That was truly unexpected but very interesting. "When did you regain a human form?"
"About five great years ago, I think. Time is a bit weird in the wilderness, and I don't believe I regained fully until a couple years back. Mentally it took even longer, I think I only regained memories of being Lord Wolfen one great year ago."
Nodding, I asked, "If you had memories for that long why didn't you come forward when you regain your humanity?"
She shrugged before saying, "I regained human form then I regained my memories but I had not regained my composure yet, let us say. I'm still somewhat out of it when it comes to that as well. Returning to civilization after spending so long in the wilderness takes time, though I think you might understand that to some extent."
I nodded my head as they weren't wrong. Now I had to ask the question that was still being left open, "And how exactly did you regain human form and start the process of returning?"
She shrugged before saying, "As I said, I went into the caves. And in the caves I found the AlFather. He showed me the light and gave me my staff, which I would like back when I'm finally done here. Though it I was able to slowly visualize myself as something more than a creature of the wilderness and I became more than that."
That was interesting, I'd have to take a look at that stuff before I was done here today. If Alfather was giving out trinkets to try and help people become human it would be interesting to know exactly what those trinkets were and why he was just now revealing he had such items.
"Okay, so that's your history. Why did you come to the capital of Russ today?" I asked, sitting back in my chair.
"Well, that's quite simple: I was called." She said it matter of factly but, seeing my confusion, she continued. "I felt you arrive on the planet. I knew you had returned and I knew I should come see you."
And that was another disconcerting thing, I thought. She could just tell when I arrived on the planet? That was never not weird. Though that did prove that she did have my genes running through her, many of the other Marines had reported in their reports a feeling of something when my presence was growing near. I had for the most part ignored that because it was, well… Not necessary to think much on it, just an interesting side effect at first glance, but it looked like it would extend to anyone with my Geneseed running through them. What other effects did my Geneseed have that I had been not really paying attention to… I'd have to do more research or rather have my Gene Labs look into the situation. I was familiar with the Tanyas that popped up now and again, men who without their beards could pass for me. I didn't count them as much of a problem as I had seen a few similar cases amongst Vulkan's legion and Horus' legion so I knew it was just a standard thing that could happen. But was there something else to it? That was a question that I now was interested in and I would have to do some work to figure it out.
Focusing back on Lord Wolfen, I said, "So you can feel me coming and wanted to meet me. Well, I got good news on both fronts: you are right about your feeling and here I am. Now, what do you want? You've been having a grand old time living in the woods, you have to have a reason to want to come out of the woods other than just feeling me arrive."
"I want what I was promised, King Russ. I was promised that I would go up into the stars and fight for Fenris and the Alfather. This has been so far denied to me but now that I am stable and quite confident in my own abilities I would like to have my chance to do as was promised: to go with you into the stars and kill the enemies of Mankind.".
"Huh… What?" was the first thing that came out of my mouth. I don't think I had expected that, perhaps I had expected a request to return her to male, maybe some kind of refund on this or enough money so she could go live a life of luxury somewhere in the wilderness. Actually demanding to join the Crusade was at the bottom of the list. It really just showed that you can turn a Fenrisian to look like me but it didn't change the fact that they were still Fenrisian. The call of combat still rang in their ears, the crazy combat junkies they were.
Leaning back though, what was I going to say to this situation? It would take a bit of thought, after all I couldn't exactly make her a Marine now could I… Although there were things other than Marines in my retinue now, weren't there?
Smiling I leaned forward and said, "There's a group of female warriors that follow the legion into war and support us in our combat, either as troops or logistic units. If you are willing to put up with having to serve as logistics support once in a while you can join the Valkyrie, no issue."
The smaller me seemed to blink at that before nodding her approval, saying, "Tes, that would be fine. Put me in combat; let me fight and die the way I was promised so I can gain glory for my clan."
"Then you will have it," I said, getting up. "I'll have a few Valkyries come down and escort you to their barracks soon enough. I'll warn you that you'll probably still need to give plenty of DNA and other medical samples to the staff here before that though."
"If I must give DNA for the chance to fight, I will give DNA," she said matter of factly, before adding, "Though I will want that staff back."
"I know," I reassured her, "You'll get it, you'll get it. I see no reason to separate you from it, though I do wonder? I saw reports that your eyes were glowing when my men picked you up. Was that related to the staff in any way?"
She paused before saying, "To some extent. I do feel a power that I did not feel before my time as a wolf. That staff lets me sharpen it and use it as necessary."
"Do you have to mentally think about runes in order to use that power?" I asked, directly this time.
She blinked before nodding "Yes. Yes, I do."
Oh great I thought, shaking my head. My genes had somehow turned her into a Psyker and somehow she probably also gained access to a few of my spells. DNA memory, who could see that coming?
Letting out a sigh, I said, "Well I will probably have to give you a few lessons on how to use that power safely before you leave Fenris. Are you okay with that?" I asked stretching a bit and making ready to leave.
She nodded before saying "If that is what's necessary for me to see Glory then I will do what is necessary, there's no other choice."
That sounded oddly familiar… It was ringing a bell in my old memories but I shook it off,, I would rather not think about the possibility that parts of my personality might have also leached into this person's existence. I did not need to think about the possibility of a full and total mini-me. For now all I said was, "Well, Lord Wolfen, welcome to the Great Crusade. I am glad to have you with us and see you tomorrow when your training really begins."
She nodded before I exited the room, closing the door carefully behind me before turning to the two marines. "Where is her stuff being kept?" I queried.
"Down the hall, to the right," one of the Marines said and gestured, I nodded my thanks before quickly making my way to the room that they had shown me. I noted that there was another guard on that door, probably smart. If somehow the girl in the room broke out it was better to have as many guns between her and that staff as possible on the potential that that staff had some more power than we currently saw.
Nodding I saluted the man before entering the room and moved forward into a small Warehouse of bottles. They had apparently been collected and stored here in a 'lost and found' style area. The staff was sitting on a table at the center of the room and I quickly stepped up to it, looking it over. At first I thought it was wood, some sort of white wood, but on closer inspection I was wrong. Maybe bone? There was also ancient writing on it or… No… These were definitely runes but I wasn't sure if they were Fenrisian or older. In fact, the material kind of looked like the same stuff that Eldar had been wearing… oh! My realization was rather quick as I understood what I was looking at, this was some sort of Eldar staff. Now, why had the Alfather given a relic belonging to the Eldar to Lord Wolfen… The answer was rather easy when you thought about it. This planet had some sort of connection to the Eldar so most likely this was either some relic from when they were attempting to turn this planet into something they could live on or something that had fallen to the earth since then. Touching it I quickly felt a thin trace of psychic power on it, very similar to what I felt when I touched the spear the Emperor had given me though much weaker. What this was and how it worked was beyond me at the moment but I would be keeping a close eye on it and doing a lot of research to try and figure this out.
Tanya Russ
A legion cannot be out of the line for too long. Yes, my legion needed time. Time to rest, to recoup, to rearm and then go back out into the fight but they needed to be able to get back in that fight as quickly as possible. There were plenty of conflicts going on throughout the Galaxy and my legion was needed. So the moment I stepped on Fenris I knew that I had a limited time to do everything that needed to be done while I was in the system.
Which meant I would most likely not have a lot of time to go partying and enjoy the general atmosphere of this place, at most I would have 5 years from my estimate. Which seemed like a somewhat good time scale when you had an infinite amount of years of life ahead of you. 20 years on campaign, 5 years back at home resting and recuperating. So I had a limited time to do a lot and a lot to plan what to do. My first objective once I reached the planet was to find out how everything was progressing and really the world was progressing quite well. They had reached a state of post-barbarianism, almost Classical era, of culture with technology verging on what was known at the end of Earth's second millennium. The Stewards that had been left in my place while I was gone had first brought in lots of nuclear power plants to help produce energy and then quickly figured out how to use geothermal with the help of the Mechanicus. As a result, though most of the world was still rather barbaric, everyone had access to electricity and was seeing a lot of advancement in different ways.
There were greenhouses on the planet now and ways of storing food other than making a hole in the ground, which meant Summer was not as dangerous to people as it had been for the last thousand years and winter was not as bad as it had been for thousands of years as well. The ingenuity of man was conquering this planet. Sure it could still kill us if we let our guard down, but peaole interested in living rarely let their guard down on Fenris.
And I noted that my ideas about possibly using thermal lakes for pools and such had actually been greenlit by the Stewards while I had been on the way here and Were now enjoyable by many Not only did my Valkyries and Wolves of Fenris get a chance to relax in thermal pools of hot water and enjoy the atmosphere of their homeworld, which had become more peaceful and better held together than it had been for the last thousand years but they could also be trained on how to swim now. Which, considering the number of water worlds we'd run into, would always be useful.
Other things of note that happened while I had been crusading was the coalition of the priesthoods and the official military branches. The Iron Priests, a sect of blacksmiths and engineers that had kept their secrets for generations, had been completely integrated into the Space Marines and guard equivalent and now had firm contacts with the priesthood of Mars. They had even adopted the red robes. The Martians had instilled, or seem to be trying to instill, the worship of their Omnissiah but the Fenrisian still believed in their own mechanical understandings of the universe. Still all were working together rather closely. Some of the senior staff did seem to have decided that having an extra mechanical arm was not a bad idea, so no doubt the mechanical biomancy the Mechanicus proclaimed was key to their survival might spread a bit to that priesthood.
The Wolf priests had also apparently been completely subsumed by the military and now the official title of the Grand Apothecary was the Wolf Priest. I wasn't exactly as annoyed as I thought I'd be when I found that out since apparently they weren't spreading any religion, it was more or less a Commissar position. They weren't really spreading a religion but more of a belief in teamwork and how we would all work together and overcome, if we stood together. I didn't mind that as much as I could have another dogma, not to mention they also took care of a lot of healing and tending to the spiritual needs of Aspirants going through the trials so calling them priests weren't exactly wrong.
And the last major priesthood, the Rune Priests, had been fully subsumed by the psykers within my legion that I left behind. Looks like that title of priest would become a major title within our military, no matter what happened, which I guess I would just have to come to live with. We were already on a Crusade which meant the war of the cross so it seemed like we were just taking religious titles and changing them for our own needs.
It may cause some trouble down the line trying to convince people to join who were rabidly anti-religious but explanations should be able to solve that situation sooner or later
As for the rest of the things going on in my sector there had been, as I suspected, a population boom. Peace, food, and trade tended to do that, so much so that there was actually an ability to support military units outside of the Fenrisian Space Marines and Valkyrie so I would be leaving Fenris next time with a couple of divisions of Fenrisian Imperial Guards. They would be no better outfitted than the current Imperial Army, but I hoped in the future that would change. The Mechanicus seemed to have taken my interesting points of view on that one moon to heart and were in the process of converting it into a forge planet and I heard the tank was going through trials at a rather impressive speed. Soon as it had completed those trials it would be available for production on the new Forge World which meant Fenris would have its own production center and its own tank designs. That was the important part, I had spoken to the Mechanicus agents and got for ourselves a bit of a 100-year lease on the design, basically every other planet that produced it would have to send a small portion of either production or money to Fenris's new Forge World to help me grow quicker for the next hundred years. And considering that the talk I was hearing about this Tanya Russ tank implied that it would be produced quite heavily to support local guard units as well as the Imperial Army that would probably be quite a bit of wealth that would be flowing to the planet of Svellgard.
I'd even finagled it so that Ms. Adelheid would be considered the Forgemaster, or mistress not really sure what the title would be for a female, of the Forge World and she was rather ecstatic on the whole thing as well. She was going to use the Forge World to produce a lower class of power armor for my Valkyries, as well as experiments with short runs of the current Mark II power armor so that we would have our own production in the system.
And other good news: whatever production issues that had been screwing with our Volkyte shipments had apparently finally been handled and now we were getting a steady supply of weapons. Either that or all the other legions had been sending all their damaged stuff to be repaired and they decided to ship off all the damaged but mostly repaired stuff to us.
The Iron Priests had gone through the weapons that had been delivered and all of them turned out alright so far. Either way they were holding up to a heavy standard and so we were getting enough weapons to really have an effect on the next Ork problem we ran into, enough so that we could leave a bunch of bolters behind us for training purposes.
Which was a goal that was in my plans now. The military structure of my legion had undergone several stressful situations, from the loss of former legion Master Enoch Rathvin to an attempt to split the legion in three to try and conquer the Wheel of Fire faster. Those stressing situations taught me some interesting things.
Mainly that my commanders could handle the situations when presented in front of them but they needed more experience being on their own in the field. I don't know how some of the other legions would handle their own use of forces but in my mind having commanders able to make their calls in the field and able to do it to completion and victory had priority over following orders to the letter while the situation changed around them.
So, to handle this problem, I was implementing three solutions.
An officer School was the first, based somewhat on my memories of the war college I had attended as well as some other historical information retained from my first life and experiences in this life. The goal of course was to train the candidates' initiative while also teaching them general strategies. As much as intuition was useful, having an idea of what kind of strategies your enemies may use to counter you as well as strategies you could use to counter them could be more useful than luck.
The second was the recreation of the chapter system. Sort of.
As it stood there were something like 11 chapters in total for the entire legion, most chapters being wildly over one thousand strong at this point. Well, most of them had more than 2,000 members which was supposed to be over the number allowed for chapter design. Frankly, as far as I could see, sticking to this one thousand men per chapter thing was kind of foolish. That would also result in something like forty chapters, which would lead to confusion on the ground regarding who was in command of what.
I had heard some people starting to call chapters 'Great Companies', which was a bit better as a title I will admit. It was at least more thematic for our legion so I ran with that idea. I'd set up an end goal of around 100,000 soldiers across twenty Great Companies. With that as the target, I could then work on how to get men trained up for positions of leadership. Ten great companies would always be on the move with me, one of them would be the honor guard that would see some of my most veteran troops. The other nine would be the ones rotating at home to be filled with new recruits needing the hand of veteran troops to teach them how to fight.
The other 10 Great Companies would be split in five and given to the leadership of commanders I judged worthy of running an expedition, they would then set out and find enemies of the Imperium and operate as I trained them to do.
Of course this was just the grand plan. It was hard to say if this would come to pass correctly or not, but that was the hope.
And the leadership of the legion, the current commanders, was all in favor of it, though I could see why as this would create more positions of officers for them to spread around. As well as a couple more ranks that they would be able to obtain, such as mentions of something called Wolf Lords which was a suggested name for the officers who would be put in charge of these more seasoned troops who would venture on their own.
Sometimes it was annoying that my men enjoyed the branding of the wolves, other times it was amusing. Today I was rather uncaring about the subject. It was my own fault, I had basically been feeding into this branding of the wolf the entire time but what could you do? Hell, I even had a helmet that was meant to look like a wolf's head so this was all my fault and I now had to learn to live with the branding being unfortunately effective on my own employees. I could grumble about it but I guessed, in the end, I would just have to come to accept it.
The only other major thing to think about that was politically going on was the Squats who'd come all the way from the Core to the world of Fenris and were having a grand old time in the mountains. I'd heard reports that they were exploring and fighting some of the monsters with rather avid glee and they apparently were getting on well with the Iron Priests. there had even been one report that the priests and the Squats were sharing methods of construction with each other. Where this collaboration would go I didn't know but having them close to us as firm allies was, in my opinion, for the best, especially with how problematic the Mechanicus was with their belief in the Omnissiah.
All in all, as things stood, everything was set up for a good couple years of rebuilding the legion into a stronger Force, prepping units of Fenrisian guard to deploy with us, and possibly deploying new versions of The Valkyrie as a secondary Force along with the Fenrisian guard.
My armor was also getting a slight rebuild as well. The issues with the chest plate were being smoothed out and would be finished by the next campaign I believed, as well as a new device that was being added.
Miss Adelheid had heard of how I had used my sword to freeze enemies and had gone out of her way to create what sounded like some sort of absolute-zero generator on my armor plates, one that could be deployed in a way that would create a small area of freezing cold around me.
Now I had no problem with the cold, that was a skill that I picked up quite quickly while living on Fenris, and most of my Marines seemed to share that ability but I bet most Orks And Shark people had problems dealing with the cold. Not to mention I wouldn't be surprised if Eldar did as well.
So I was in full support of this armor attachment as it was. Basically walking through a winter wonderland that I created would guarantee me the home-field advantage and any advantage on the battlefield was worth experimenting with.
She was also working on more magnetic areas to place weapons since I had grown my collection of useful weapons quite a bit while on campaign.
She was supposed to come by later today with one of the new designs for me to try out and I would probably have to call up some Valkyrie to help me. Which brought up the other situation that I had been thinking about since I had let Lord Wolfen join the valkyrie. I figured I would do the same with all the other failed Space Marines Aspirants, allow them to have the chance to fight for the Imperium. Even if they were fighting in second-line troops, which were useful in some respects, a couple of them had quite a bit of upper body strength which meant they could help me get on my armor a lot more easily than Helga Arndottir.
No doubt I would have to ask Miss Adelheid to build custom armor for all of them since several of them were near Space Marine in size but really couldn't use Mark II power armor.
Well she'd probably be ecstatic about that, really. She had always said that she was one of the few of the Mechanicus who worked on female armor designs so giving her a chance to work on that would be as a gift of the Omnissiah for her.
Oh, I wondered how the former men-turned-women would react to having to wear armor that showed off their female features as much as what I had been forced to wear.
There was no way that she would not build armors similar to what I wore, she enjoyed making female armor. Well, considering how Lord Wolfen had just been demanding a chance to fight no doubt they'd probably just settle with it being okay since well… they'd be given a chance to fight. One thing you could count on the people of Fenris: they enjoyed a good fight and would put up with a lot of things for the chance to get it.
Sighing, I stood up from where I was sitting behind a desk and cracked my neck, stepping out of the office I was in.
I had spent the last several hours going over dozens of reports and information summaries from across Fenris, both the planet and system. I still had to go through a good majority of the information that had trickled from the Imperium but that was for later, I would take a moment to step out of the office and into the main living area of my new home.
I would never have thought I'd have multiple homes and I now technically had three. Castle Russ was still technically my home but was more of a political Capital now and used by the Stewards to organize efforts to improve life on Fenris.
My old cabin still technically existed, I visited it, but it was a lot more inside the city than it had once been and they basically turned it into a museum after it had been subsumed by what could best be described as the growing suburbs of Russ. I had a feeling that if I ever wanted to live out in a cabin in the woods again I'd have to build it much further out, possibly in the valley I first arrived in. Though it had also sort of become a tourist trap but it was far enough away that the only tourists were my Space Marines.
And now I had my new home, an apartment near the top of the Fang that overlooked the mountain ranges on all sides. They had taken one entire level and just made it my apartment, with several different open windowed vistas overlooking some of the grandest sites anyone on the planet would ever see. I did appreciate that. I also appreciated that it had a well-stocked library, bar, and a small heated pool.
And that were just the things of notes that had been there when I arrived. Since I got a good understanding of what the room held I was having more stuff shipped in from Russ to fill it out. Soon enough, it would be rather well furnished. Including a pair of dog houses for my wolves, Freki and Geri.
There had been another interesting situation I had to deal with as soon as I arrived on the planet. In the chaos that had been my Ascension to Primarch I had not really been able to deal with what had once been my whole goal: raising wolves on a little farm. Since my cabin and the farm that had once been there were now a museum dedicated to me rather than working to produce tame wolves. I now had to figure out what the hell had happened while I was gone.
For the most part it just became a decentralized process instead of a centralized process, with wolves founding families alongside their owners, raising them up, so forth and so on. I'd been able to track down the majority of wolves that had been in my care and they were in the hands of nobles who were treating them well so things had worked out for the most part.
Mother Wolf was gone. Not dead, or at least I didn't know if she was dead or not, but she had definitely left civilization and gone back to the woods with several of the wolves she had under her command, including Freki's mate. What they were doing out in the wilds was anyone's guess, probably just living the life of wild wolves but that was the situation as it stood with them. If I ever wanted to rebuild my business of raising wolves for civilization… Well I'd have to go out into the wilderness to start it up again because everything I had built was no longer in a good position to do the job.
I hoped that I would soon be able to return to a peaceful life but I knew it would probably be another hundred years at the current rate of progress before Humanity was reunited and this Imperium duly established. I would just have to get used to that and, until that was accomplished, I needed to keep my mind on the game in front of me. What issues would develop when creating an Imperium that was Galaxy sized, how many aliens would we have to fight, and who would try to cause us problems?
As well as what could stab me in the back.
That's why I was going through all the reports I could get from the Imperial Navy and Army about what was going on, along the campaigns that were underway. Most of them were against pirates, minor powers, and minor aliens. Given enough time even the Imperial Army could overtake them. There were also mentions of various efforts to bring in worlds through peaceful efforts or by using mutual friends or by raising barbarian kings to unite primitive worlds. Apparently, that trick worked quite well and they were trying to use the carrot-and-stick approach to bring people into compliance.
They were mentions of the other legions, associated to new names which were obviously replacements for their old ones or numbers. I did note that the reports that arrived had a tendency to not feature the names of any of the Primarchs. Dear old dad was obviously having his laugh at all of us not knowing each other off the bat and wanted us to discover each other on our own. Well, so be it. The reports still were readable enough and I was finding out quite a bit of information. From what I gleaned, it seemed like most legions were doing a good job of conquering worlds near their original homeworld before pushing out and joining in other aspects of the Crusade.
Obviously every legion was taking baby steps, learning how to work together against the common enemy before making a move. Good tactic as far as I was concerned, a legion needed to learn its strengths before it could take on the bigger enemies out here. Yes, I'd thrown my legion into the grinder but I had a good understanding of them from the first moment I'd read their informational reports and I also had decades of military experience both consciously and unconsciously by that point. I doubted my brothers and sisters would have that ability at hand.
Hmm, that actually would be a good idea for using the two groups of five Great Companies. Securing the space around Fenris would be important for the survival of Fenris and of the Imperium itself to some extent. It would even give them time to train any recruits that entered their units over the years.
A point that was underlined now as there were reasons to fear that there might be something to worry about in the local sector, to the… I guess galactic north of Terra, in the Segmentum Obscurus. There had been a rebellion of several worlds and the legion deployed there had to deal with some sort of messed up situation. The information was still unclear, that or the censors didn't want people to know what exactly had gone down.
Probably a mix of both. Not having an understanding of why something happened and not wanting people to know that there was something they didn't understand could go hand in hand easily enough. From the reports I was able to read through the human population had rebelled and fought the Space Marines, to the point they'd actually forced them to retreat. There may have been psychic powers involved. All in all, a messed up situation that sounded terrible in all aspects.
And it got worse because apparently, a year later, the legion that had been involved returned and found that the humans weren't fighting the Space Marines anymore as they were fighting each other, apparently in some sort of suicidal civil war while whoever was responsible for this had disappeared.
This was north of Fenris, this was a threat, that could be an issue. I'd need defenders so keeping about half my legion in the general area of Fenris, just trying to perform cleanup operations to secure our borders, seemed like a reasonable thing to do. It would keep them fresh and ready if this turned out to be something bigger, something we needed the troops for.
I would hate to take my legion out on the next campaign and get it decimated to a terrible degree, only to come back and find Fenris under whatever effect had taken over the Osiris sector.
Keeping guards on Fenris, as well as a reserve ready to go into action against whatever this was, was most likely the wisest course of action as far as I was concerned.
There was also a report of a conflict between what I believed was the first legion and some species called The Rangdan. Information on that was also apparently either confused or uncertain. It also was in the North and apparently had a Forge World and several other planets along the border.
The scale of the attack had been so great that the first legion had lost 5000 Brothers over 4 months apparently. That spoke of an intensity of fighting that reminded me of the Wheel of Fire, this could mean many things. Supposedly the species had been defeated and their homeworld burned but it did indicate that something to the galactic North of the Imperium had an ability to meet the Imperium in the field and give a good fight in both accounts. Just based off that I had a suspicion that it might be the untamed North that would be a problem for the Imperium. Who knew how many empires were there and how powerful they were, we could be looking at a Europe situation where the constant fighting between several different factions had created several powerful empires that we would have to contend with as we moved into the region.
I should really try and find out who the other Primarchs were at a faster rate. If there was an enemy to my North I should know who would be the closest Allies I could count on to come join me in the defense of the Imperium. Being on the front lines of a multi-state empire was not exactly going to be fun if all I could call upon were various Forge Worlds and infantry from worlds with low technological levels.
That and I also should probably see about increasing the ability to live on some of the other worlds in the system. The jungle world of Midgardia for one was still slowly growing and I needed to see about improving its production of food, to at least handle some problems that may develop in the future unless we get some system-wide self-sustainability.
And planet Frostheim, though rather barren, could definitely see some use if I put some work into it. After all a somewhat more stable version of Fenris just a little bit further out in its solar path? There was no reason why it could not grow to be a rival of Fenris in time. We were already working on producing nuclear power plants and putting a few over on that planet, so seeing about building it up would not harm us in the long term. At worst it would give us a place for any overflow of population on Fenris while we figured out how to be… Well, a modern society.
I also needed to see about building up some defenses around Fenris. Currently all we had was what ships happened to be in the sector at the time but there was always the potential for those ships to be away when the enemy came into the system. Perhaps I could see about some of that wealth and Goodwill we had gathered from our various campaigns to have some space fortresses built, if that was even possible. I would have to hope so as every little bit would help secure our back lines and support the legion when it moved forward.
Sighing again I shook my head and turned to head towards a coffee maker which I had ordered built in my apartment. I had a long day of reading reports and working on sending out orders to deal with various problems across the sector and planet, I was going to need the energy or at least what felt like energy.
Writers note: AH and there chapter 34 or start of planning of the next ark, i'm currently working, if the Supporters ever vote for runt again, lot vote for bleach fic rectly really need to fine way to get some of that out, as i'm now at 6 chapter ahead soon to be 7.
But anyways, little bit reveal of what happen to Wolfen and a bit of info on what going on with the science team taking care of Tanya gene sead, and info on the coming and going of the fenrist system, as well as hint of what conflicts to come. I think done well but you all will be the judges of that.
Also some of you make look at think and say FEMALE SPACE MARINES! And no, only male can be made into full fledged spaces marines what going on here are the are failed aspirants most chapters have some for of failed aspirants they usually ended up and staff helping in keeping their fortresses clean, Space wolves don't have them in canon because they tend to get, well eaten or wolfed before they get full on failed, that explain why they're so rare in this case.
Now others are going to go, but Wolfen gene see can make FEMALE SPACE MARINES! and no it can be used to develop some transhuman abilities but nothing to level of space marines, remember the first batch of vultears had to be given a special drug to make space marines processes work there slightly different then standed marines and wolven from that first batch, there were in essesns proto marines because they did not have lot augmentations full flege marines have. So at best Wolfen gene sead may lead to improved healing and survivability maybe age slowing among the valkyer.
Now that that is cleaned up have fun taking in what that means and playing with the idea in omakes.