Before jumping at the rail gun, a thought popped into my head that had my curiosity in thrall: what would that pulse rifle do to a human?

  Thankfully, that was a rather easy thing to test, and the answer was quite predictable holy. Humans had even less natural defehan a humble ripper, so the psma bolt went right through. When I switched over to the quick-fire mode that shot bolts about a tenth as powerful as the big ones — with the added be of shooting them in full auto and not melting the barrel after two shots — I had a much more iing, yet gruesome answer.

  The bolt this time didn’t have enough power behind it to ght through and stopped on the spine of my target dummy. Now, what happens to a human body if it has a glob of psma hotter than some industrial furnaces lodged deep within the body?

  The answer was still sizzling at my feet, in a melted heap of flesh and skin with a few charred bones poking out of it. The smell was atrocious, somewhat like grilled pork mixed with the smell of melting rubber and hair. It was enough to make anyone who couldn’t trol their own bodily impulses vomit after a whiff.

  It would also be an excellent on to horrify my enemies with. By my estimations, the enhanced power cell — which was also a brainchild of my deranged primate drone — could hold enough power in it to fire about 15ur bolts if slotted into an unmodified pulse rifle, 20 big ones with and about maybe 100 of the little ones on full auto.

  The regur pulse rifle could ruin your run-of-the-mill Space Marine’s day something fierce, this new one could probably do the same to Terminators and maybe even Dreadnaughts and lighter APCs. Damn, I’ll have to give that monkey a raise …

  Well, si was teically a part of me with it being one of my drones, I’d have to give myself a raise. Hmmm.

  “Hey?” Selene poked her head into my testing chamber, taking a moment to g the slug that had once been a human, with her nose sched up. “What are you doing?”

  “Testing my oys,” I said, disiing the smelly remains with a thought and sweeping the lingering st away from us. “I have some rail guns still needing to be tested. Wanna help?”

  “I should really keep track of how things are going on down on the surface,” she said, though her hesitant void her gaze lingering on my slew of guns said otherwise.

  “I’m keeping watch.” I gri her, levitating the inal rail guo her as she fully stepped into the room. “If anything ued happens, I’ll tell you. You more than deserve a little break.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Selene mused, grabbing the floating gun. She ran her fingers over it, along its sharp edges and the length of its barrel, her fingers finding their way over to the trigger underh before she shouldered it and took aim at a wall. “I do deserve a break. I just shoot it at the walls?”

  The rail rifle looked dht ical in her hands. Selene etite woman, and the gun was taller than I was. Hell, if I pced it down with its sto the ground, I would have had to stand on my tippy toes to tap the top of it.

  “You could,” I said, then snapped my fingers and the lumbering form of a Tyranid Tyrant Guard grew out of the floor. “Or you could shoot that guy. I’m keeping it still, but it’s just as tough as a regur Tyrant Guard. Also, once you’re doh that gun, you try the enhanced rail gun on something that’ll actually stand up to it.”

  Tyrant Guards were specifically grown for being tough. They were the apex of their little niche. Which was being a meat shield, and they were damned good at it. These things were what would surround some more important Tyranid units like Hive Tyrants and Zoanthropes. Meaning, they were the perfect shooting targets for testing the peing power of a on. If somethihrough the armour these things had, it would blow holes into Dreadnaughts and Banebdes.

  “This is a Tau Rail Rifle, isn’t it?” Selene asked distractedly as she fiddled with the on a her stao withstand the kick that she no doubt expected a on of that size to have. “Never seen one in person before, only shitty holograms and crappy picts.”

  “Yep,” I said, standing at her shoulder and sed the on along with her. It was based on a simple cept — one even humans ba the 21st tury had shitty prototypes for — but the Tau had elevated that simple cept into something outstanding. Really, I knew Ne tech was leagues and bounds above the Tau stuff, but I could actually grasp the base principles these ons used to funeanwhile, Ne stuff might as well be magie.

  After a few more seds, Seleook in a deep breath, set her shoulders and aimed the rifle right at the tre of the Tyrant Guard’s torso. The rail rifle hummed with power, its length lightning up as electricity gathered along its barrel and the loose with an eg thrum.

  The projectile it fired was a dart tipped with some exotic meta-material, not that any human would have even a smidge of hope of catg sight of it mid-flight with the dart travelling at hypervelocity. A thousares per sed crossed.

  The Tyrant Guard smmed into the wall, the sheer force of the dart having not only punched right through its armour but also sent it flying. It crumbled to the floor, and I walked over to i it, flipping it over and grinning as I found a deep hole punched into its chest.

  It didn’t go the whole way through, but that was to be expected. These Tyrant Guards were thick sbs of corded muscle covered in carapace that was inferior only to a Swarmlord’s natural defences in a Tyranid army.

  “Nice,” I said out loud, grinning as I turned back to Selene. “Alright! Time to try the new one!”

  “The one your weird monkey made?” Selene asked hesitantly, gng at the other on. There was little outward differehis time, though it did look somewhat sleeker once more, but not to the extent the enhanced pulse rifle did. “Won’t it blow up in my face or something?”

  “I’m … pretty sure it won’t,” I said encingly, tinuing to grin as she gred at me. “But hey, even if it does, I’m sure you’ll survive it!”

  “And if we don’t t it survival if you have to fish my soul back out of that realm of yours and stick it into a new body?”

  “Then- … hmmm.” I tapped my lips with an exaggerated thoughtful expression worn on my face. “I’d give it a fident … maybe. Nothing the monkey made so far blew up!”

  “Did it make anything beyond that one rifle you were testing when I came in?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, you blow yourself up by testing this thing then,” Selene said with a huff, crossing her arms under her chest and giving me an impatient look.

  “Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes as I pulled the on into my hands with a telekiic tug. It snapped into pce, its stock pushed firmly into the nook of my shoulder just as the Tyrant Guard stood back up with its wounds mending and its carapaapping bato pce with a siing crack.

  I pulled the trigger, gently pulling it in and taking a moment to appreciate the rapid buildup of power in the guricity crackled i, the dart was already slotted and all I o do to let it loose was to release the trigger.

  The moment I did, I watched a basketball-sized k of the Tyrant Guard’s torso disappear. Behind it, even the wall had a simir-sized hole in it, showing me a brief glimpse of ay room oher side before it meself.

  The kick I expected never came, whatever the monkey had do eliminated almost all of the recoil.

  Then there was the tiny little upti the damage doo the target. A well-pced shot with this damhing might even take down an Imperial Knight.

  “Holy- Wow,” Selene excimed, sck-jawed as she stared at the obliterated Tyrant Guard flopping over. “And you mass produce that thing?”

  “Not a clue,” I said, looking the on over more thhly this time. There were bits and pieces I uood, but the ws of the majority of them escaped me. “Probably not. Not by myself anyway, but that’s a problem with an easy fix to it. I’m sure a few Tau Earth caste stists who usually work with Rail onry would be able to reverse engi.”

  “You’d have to have some Earth caste stists willing to work for you first.”

  “It’s a work-in-progress idea,” I huffed. “Anyways! I also have a pulse rifle. Wanna try that o too?”

  “Sure, why not?” Selene said with an eager smile.

  *****

  The days went by in a blink. While I pyed around with Selene and the fruits of my experiments, the situation down on the ground had developed further.

  I maintained partial ht of most happenings, my drones were hiddeh Lictor camoufge and outfitted with the best auditory ans I had on hand having proven their use beyond doubt.

  Their calming pheromones were also an addition I had patted myself on the shoulder over. Sure, it wouldn’t fly ba 21st tury Earth t civilians, but I wasn’t oh and this p had been a breeding ground for cultists for possibly turies. So fuck them. It wasn’t like they’d get hurt, just … well, the pheromones made them sleepy and boosted their serotonin levels.

  All in all, it was far more ethical than shooting the protesters and rioters with autoons in my humble opinion. Though I did still permaly remove anyone who tried to set up some sort of violeance group. Those warlord types would have to wait with their little plots and coups until I hauled my ass away from this System, if any still remained by that time.

  Who was I kidding? The p was full of humans; it ractically a certainty that they would devolve into some manner of infighting the moment I left. Oh well, the Tau would deal with that once I let them know there was a huma left undefended and in dire need of their help.

  In terms of media sure, I now let most things fly. The only news works that caught a surprise power out had been the scarce few radicals calling for armed resistao anything alien and advog for the ‘shoot first, ask questions never’ approach,

  I hoped the sure wouldn’t be gringly obvious to the locals. It’d work best if they thought there was no actual sure after all. Humans loved to do the ohing they were told not to do.

  Selene had mao calm her nerves somewhat. Shooting things and watg things explode as a result had a therapeutic effe her, just as it did on me. By now she’d gone back to watg over the proceedings on the surface through the quick surveilwork Zedev had thrown together without a word.

  Val was still busy meditating on … stuff. I could feel his emotions having stilled and gone calm a while ago, at least. Now he was likely just resting and perfeg his trol.

  Meanwhile, I had a much more ii ing up. Through the telepathiodes I’d left behind, stuck to various members of ’s ente, I kept track of their movements as they travelled across the sparsely poputed tryside. The 48th hour was ing right up in just awenty minutes and soon I’d get sights on that Inquisitor.

  I guess where she was, what with only one Psyker being down on the p the moment and me knowing she had one in her ente, but I hadn’t actually spied on them yet. They had been keeping to vilges and small towns, ohat had no cultist uprisings in them, and as such, hadn’t earhe attention of my initial terstrike.

  They probably think I have none of my drohere. I mused, amused at the severe uimation of my abilities. I was swimming in bio-energy, and the stealthy anti-riot/surveilnce drones I had spread around didn’t cost even a fra of the proper bat drones. Every sitlement with a popution above two thousand had one of them watg over it from the shadows.

  With everything else in order and nothing requiring my immediate attention, I Blinked and appeared a kilometre out from and co. Another five kilometres out, deep into the forested mountains, I felt the other Psyker’s presence. Soon, the two groups would meet and I’d hopefully get an ao the nagging question of ‘what exactly urged an Inquisitor to travel beyond the borders of the Imperium, and to this p in specific?’

  And some fun. Yep. Having some fun, likely at the expense of everyone else involved, was also a tiny little part of why I even bothered with this farce. I could have kidhem all aracted everything I wao know from their minds, redug them to sl vegetables as a result.

  But I didn’t want to. retty close to being a good person, and I hoped his Inquisitirlfriend wouldn’t turn out to be a gender-sed version of that asshole Thrace. From what little I remembered of her, I retty sure I wasn’t in for even more disappoi.

  P3t1