Chapter Text
Chapter 1
After the sorrow on Nuceria, He put aside the concerns that had been made manifest upon the discovery of the Primarch of the 19th Legion. It was obvious the Primarch had been altered by her travels through the Warp, but even He cannot see all ends. A tool that has been marred can still be of use. As Primarchs were created without any sexual drive, most would argue it truly did not matter. And yet, if it did not, why had the Warp altered her so profoundly? And was it related to her ardent desire to master the ways of a Psyker? Whatever had been done to the Primarch now known as Tanya Corax had also shielded her thoughts. He has long suspected she is a hidden dagger, and has set watchers on her. As I grew to know her, I began to fear she was not a blade aimed at our hearts, but a beacon – a false light cast by the Ruinous Powers to draw our gaze from a darker truth.
-Malcador the Sigillite
Nasturi's constant companion was hunger. She did not know her own age, but she knew her last name, Ephrenia. It was hard to say sometimes. Her cousin cared for her, though she thought of her more like an aunt. There were no idle hands allowed on Lycaeus, so she went with the rest of the miners. One of the slavers always led them, making sure every moment was filled. The laser drill the adults used was beyond her, so she found time to rest.
Rest was important, because with how little they were fed, too much exertion could be disastrous. It was usually boring, but today something strange had happened. After drilling past an ice wall, they found another person. Another girl, just like he. She even had blond hair like she did! She looked well-nourished. Was she one of the slaver's get?
The overseer advanced due the work stoppage. He pushed forward to see what was uncovered and then stopped in surprise.
"How the…"
Everyone started talking at once. Nasturi thought it would be nice to have a friend her age. She walked forward, ready to say hello, when a rough hand seized her by the hair, yanking her off the ground and dragging her backward.
"Get back," the overseer snarled at her and threw her to the side. She hit the icy ground hard with a shriek of pain, hoping nothing inside had broken. If the overseers thought she was wounded and clumsy, they wouldn't give her the meager food rations she was already getting. The others might help, but they too were always on the edge of starvation.
The well-fed girl was moving forward and the overseer was suddenly on the ground. Nasturi blinked. She wasn't sure what she had seen. The girl had just moved. The overseer snarled, got to his feet, and lashed out with his whip.
"That's a deadly weapon," the girl said in a bright voice. "Now I have no regrets!"
The accent was strange, but the girl dodged the whip strike and then struck the overseer's knee at an angle, snapping the joint and breaking the leg in two. He fell. A vicious jab to the chest followed, and a horrific crunch and squelch could be heard. The hated overseer was dead, killed in two blows.
Nasturi was happy. He had whipped her father to death somewhere in the dimness of her past. She stood up and approached the other girl.
"What's your name?" she asked. "Mine is Nasturi. Nasturi Ephrenia."
The blue-eyed girl blinked. "I am the… no, ah, how strange. You have not caught me at my best. I am Tanya. Tanya… Corax. Where am I, and are there other enemies about? I need information."
Despite the intensity of Tanya's stare, Nasturi felt a kinship with her. She couldn't wait to be friends. Sadly for Nasturi, she realized the adults would monopolize Tanya's time. Tanya was not like a regular child. She was something more – something deadly. But for Nasturi, she would never forget how Tanya had protected her. The fact that ample rations were soon provided to her was another change she welcomed.
***
I had no reason at all to fight so hard to protect the person I had been ordered to assassinate. The death of General Rudersdorf had been the entire purpose of me being with the convoy. It soured my stomach as I remembered how desperate I had been to make the defense look believable. The company I led had used our protective shells to literally body block the explosive formula and the shots fired at the plane. I had underestimated how many Albion elites had been part of the assault, and the wave of fire had torn apart my defenses. Had I been using my normal stratagems; I would have dodged. I should have dodged. But I didn't. Instead, I let fear of my duplicitous mission being found out cause me to take a poor risk.
Occasionally I wonder if my heroics saved the very person I had been sent to kill. There was no way of knowing, as this was clearly a completely different world. Not just a different world, but a different damn universe!
For starters, Being X had not presented himself after my death. I had thought I would face some sort of eternal torment, or possibly oblivion, but instead I found myself cut off from my senses. I felt strange and lacked the vocabulary to describe the experience. I felt myself being observed; my battle-honed instincts told me whoever was watching me had ill intent.
I tried to perceive my surroundings, but I had no eyes with which to see. No ears with which to hear. No nose with which to smell. No tongue with which to taste. No body with which to feel. And yet, I felt things. Mathematical formulae flashed through my mind as I tried to ready myself for an enemy's approach. But what was my target? What were my vulnerabilities? I was adrift, with no way to understand my predicament.
I felt the hunger of those who perceived me. I knew peril. I had to fight somehow, but how? As these presences advanced, I could distinctly detect four of them. Before anything further could occur, I heard laughter with my non-existent ears. I wasn't sure how that worked, but I definitely heard it. A laughter that sounded almost human, yet at the same time, completely alien. I was bewildered, but also comforted – then the strange sensation of not having a body abruptly ended.
It was a strange awakening anew in a body that suggested early childhood, but one altogether different from either of my two previous bodies or my strange not-body experience. The first thing I noticed was that my mind was charged up to a degree greater than I had ever experienced before. Even in the heart of the most frantic aerial duel, with my mind hopped up on the best mental enhancements and reflex heightening effects, nothing compared to what I was now experiencing.
Looking around, I realized I was in some kind of cave, half-buried in rubble behind me. I knew I had crawled out moments before, almost by pure instinct before my conscious mind made me aware. With a cursory glance, I saw shattered glass – and within 0.083 seconds, I had counted one thousand eighty-six independent shards. Beyond my incredible awareness of every detail in my surroundings came an absurd amount of knowledge.
I marveled as I realized I understood a vast array of scientific and mathematical knowledge. It was to such an extent that I could pause for a moment and solve the Three-Body Problem. I innately understood how the physical universe worked; I knew how to calculate turbulence!
Beyond that, I also knew exactly seven thousand six hundred forty-one languages, dialects, argots, and cants from across the galaxy. The information that was somehow innate to me was not like a computer file I had to open to examine; it was ready and available at my fingertips at any moment. It was not omniscience, but it seemed as if this body was a giant step toward it.
Is this Being X's doing? What is this?
Beyond my greatly enhanced neural network and knowledge, I could also sense how much nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide was in the air. The temperature should have had my previous bodies shivering, but mine felt completely at ease. I was female, but pre-pubescent. I could not physically tell my age, as my internal sense of my body told me it was not human. I had more than one heart! The sound of them could be easily heard whenever I wished.
I was still a bit in awe of my newfound capabilities when I met the first humans. Killing had come surprisingly easy, but I immediately deduced that the man I slew had harmed the people who tried to greet me. The young girl had been abused in front of me, and a strong, nearly overriding sense of retribution filled me. I didn't act on impulse, but within microseconds, I had justified my actions as self-defense against someone wielding a deadly weapon.
My strength was not quite equal to that of an Imperial Mage with reinforcement spells, but it was close. That should be terrifying when I thought about it, because I knew I was far from mature. If I assumed the ratio of a child's strength to that of a fully grown person was the same, and that assumption was likely wrong given my unique physiology, a single blow from my future adult self would probably be enough to obliterate any active barrier or passive shell a mage could produce.
As I spoke with the humans and began gaining an understanding of the moon I was on, I was also multitasking. This was something I could now do with utter effortlessness. The multitasking in question was determining if I had magical circuits and the ability to cast spells with this body. I would have no need for a computation orb, as my mind could solve problems as quickly as any digital computer.
Strange. There is something within me, but it is not magical circuits as far as I can tell. Let me see if I can cast a passive shell. It won't be noticeable to these people unless I am touched.
The formula sprang to life as I attempted to will the shell into existence by providing specific stimulation to the physical world from the nascent core of energy I hoped I had. My vision clouded for a moment. I knew instantly something was wrong. I wavered as my supercomputer-like mind was suddenly assailed by sensations from senses that defied logical explanation. Describing it was impossible, other than to say it briefly felt like my no-body experience.
Nothing had happened; no shell had formed. But I refused to be daunted by one failure. I tried again between conversations with the prisoners who had found me. I learned I was on the moon Lycaeus, which orbited the planet Kiavahr. The people were a mix of political dissidents, dangerous criminals, and, most objectionable of all, the descendants of the former two categories. I had never objected to the concept of prison labor, but to assign a form of slavery to the children of criminals was a gross violation of free will. Not to mention, it was economically unsound, as a labor force of slaves was unlikely to innovate or do more than they were forced to do.
While I learned more, I attempted my experiment again. The effort wearied me, but I was beginning to sense something. If I were to describe it with an imperfect metaphor, it was like my will – my attempt to modify the world around me – was water trying to get past a dam. The wall was not moving, but on my third and fourth tries, I sensed that a bit of the water was near cresting the dam.
Further experimentation will be required, but now I sense my superior reflexes and endurance are weakening. Given the low number of rations available, I will need to be careful how far I pursue this.
I was not sure what my goals were at the moment, but I would always have an interest in reclaiming what I had done in my second life.
***
Reqaui had been told of the unnatural and brilliant girl—Tanya, they called her. She defied all understanding of how humans were supposed to grow. In just two years, she appeared to have reached puberty and was already taller than most. He, along with others like Manrus, had come to believe that her superhuman nature might be the key to breaking free from their cruel overseers.
She had the technological prowess to do wonders. His own blemished eyesight could have been restored, but he had declined her offer to surgically improve his eyes, fearing the guards would grow suspicious. For nearly two years, they had successfully hidden her from the guards. All the while, they taught her history and helped fill the gaps in her knowledge.
Tanya was an able and perceptive student, though at times difficult. Strangely, she held strong beliefs about the nature of humanity and government, and her favored subject was economics. While her views occasionally troubled him, he took great relief in the fact that she found slavery abominable.
"I do see your point, Reqaui, but the idea that concentrated power always leads to autocracy is not a universal truth. Power concentration in business rarely occurs without the help of government institutions enabling monopolies to form. Without laws that create barriers to entry…"
Manrus had warned him that she spoke of a perfectly 'free market,' where the government would intervene only lightly – primarily in cases of contract disputes or when negative externalities, such as pollution, resulted from business activity. It clashed with what he knew of the world's history. And while her argument, based on the best records they had, claimed that such a hands-off policy had never been attempted on Kiavahr, he did not believe it would ever be possible.
"You speak of a society that is ideal, but man is corrupt. If there is a vacuum of power, those who desire it will seize it. Governments will be bribed, unworthy leaders will line their pockets, and corruption will exist in all systems. Leaving wealthy entities, such as the Tech-Guilds of Kiavahr, to their own devices will result in tyranny, no matter the good intent of your laissez-faire philosophy."
She had been about to respond, but instead she told him that the guards were coming.
"These particular guards have dealt out punishment more cruelly than most. I will handle them and leave their bodies far from here."
"Wait," Reqaui hissed. "You kill too easily. When you kill a man, it has to mean something."
However, she was already gone. It worried him. She was a blessing, a gift from the stars, but she could also be the worst form of curse. Her stubbornness was a concerning thing, and while she had only harmed a fellow prisoner once, when the man had tried to force himself on someone, she did not abide by their proposed restrictions. Tanya Corax listened, considered, and then acted however she wished.
She returned within the hour. "It has been taken care of. I am careful not to kill too much, but the time will draw near when we throw off the slavers. I have not shared my chosen strategy, lest it be betrayed, but organizationally they have less than ten thousand guards. My own formidable abilities would allow me to kill them all myself, but speed is necessary. We must capture certain components and sections quickly before they can summon reinforcements from the planet or introduce a gas that would kill you and the others."
Unsaid was the unspoken expectation that any form of toxic gas would not harm her.
"Are you really so confident you could kill so many?"
She nodded. "I estimate my strength, which continues to grow by the day, is over ten times that of a well-fed soldier. I have tested their weapons on myself. Stub guns and autopistols do not breach my skin, though based on my calculations my eyes are still vulnerable to them. The higher caliber weapons might be able to, but I heal quickly. My bones are harder than yours, and I do not believe even their highest caliber weapon observed can break them. Though, from the history you have provided, it is certain that better weapons exist upon the planet below."
Reqaui's jaw dropped open at the information. That… that was remarkable. Was there anything Tanya could not do? It added to the pressure on his shoulders. She was powerful, but when the dust settled and they were hopefully triumphant, would the killings stop? Her philosophy suggested she abhorred wastefulness, but her mind was in many ways alien to him.
I must rein in her bloodlust, show her that patience is better. Not every confrontation must end with the slaughter of the enemy. Guile and avoidance are just as useful tools as slaying.
***
I continued to grow in power and stature at an alarming rate. For a brief period I felt a sense of unease, would I continue to grow at this pace and end up dead within a decade from old age? The more I considered it, the less likely that proposition seemed, but it nagged at the edge of my consciousness for a time.
I began to dread the onset of puberty, something I had not experienced in my second life but now had an incredibly detailed knowledge of physiology. I put that to good use in providing medical aid to the slaves and prisoners, often able to make connections between seemingly random symptoms to uncover root causes and issues.
It was that knowledge that made me realize I would not go through what a normal woman would have. My body lacked certain reproductive functions – outwardly, including my breasts and vaginal region, I was just like a woman, but internally the organs and tissue were different. I did not have a way of becoming pregnant nor did I experience a menstrual cycle. Two things I was supremely happy with.
However, my newfound incredible body and mind was also an isolating experience. I had always been comfortable not having close relationships in either of my former lives, but being able to intellectually enjoy another person's company was something I missed. There were only a bare handful of individuals who were interesting to speak with.
In my second life, titans like Zettour and Rudersdorf were people I could learn from, people I could speak with and had to be on my toes for. Now there was no one. I did have a newfound appreciation for Zettour; his genius had been evident in my second life, but only now, with my greatly enhanced mind, did I understand just how far above his peers he was. There were mistakes, I could see that in hindsight, but precious few.
My push to use magic continued. Each time I tried, I felt the waters blocked by the dam splash higher and higher. I also started feeling some of the smoothness of the dam beginning to erode. I was far from breaking through it, but twice I had managed to manipulate phenomena and create a magically defensive film over my body. The effort had cost me, and once I suffered a nosebleed and splitting headache.
Something else odd happened. I was large now, not yet fully grown, but also the tallest person in the slave colony. And yet, when I sometimes did not wish to be bothered with inane gawking and chatter, I wasn't. At first, I was confused. Had I let my features form into some frown or grimace that drove people away when I had those moods? No, that wasn't the case. In fact, when my feelings were strongest, I somehow managed to blend in perfectly, and people did not notice my presence at all.
But how?
I wasn't using a formula, but somehow when I willed it, I could avoid detection utterly. It was a bewildering realization, one I began to test extensively. I varied the strength of my desire to see how it would change. At times, I made clear noise – unlike my usual perfectly silent gait – that should have alarmed people, yet even then, they could not perceive me.
I experimented with showing myself to people and then attempting to use my strange ability. For most, it still worked. However, a few could still sense me if they had seen me before I activated it. Best of all, it worked on the overseers and guards. With my newfound abilities, I was easily able to infiltrate all parts of the various facilities and even access their computer networks.
This greatly accelerated my plans, and the anticipated success of the liberation of Lycaeus rose even higher. The real challenge would come later when I dealt with the Tech-Guilds of Kiavahr. The government of Kiavahr was a fractured oligarchy. Many of the cities with their great techno-forges acted independently and even warred with each other. Foolishly, they had also stored their atomics on the moon for safekeeping. Once those were liberated, I could use the threat of them to force the world to the table and guarantee our independence.
While I had no equals on this moon, I did appreciate the mind of Reqaui. I found the brothers Branne and Agapito Nev to have keen wits and a yearning to be free that I could respect. There was one other warrior who caught my interest. Kaedes Nex was a murderer, a man who had killed for the joy of it. He could use a gun, and I had given him a test; his successful ambush and killing of half a dozen guards with an overseer in their midst was impressive. While it would have been trivial for me, he had none of my advantages.
But of all the humans on Lycaeus, the one I enjoyed spending time with the most was Nasturi Ephrenia. I am not sure why. She was truly a child, and conversation with her was far from stimulating. However, she was one of the few who seemed genuinely awed by me. She enjoyed playing, and I ensured she was well fed. Perhaps it was her initial resemblance to me, or her features reminded me of my second life, or perhaps I simply wanted an excuse to act my biological age and play silly, unproductive games. Regardless, I made sure all knew that anyone who harmed her would face a terrible fate.
As always, I sought to plan my future. The idea of a comfortable retirement had driven all my prior lives, and that goal propelled me forward here, but it was different. I enjoyed intellectual stimulation, so after freeing the moon and the planet it orbited, I had to consider what I would do with my life. The idea of learning more about technology and perhaps expanding the scope of human knowledge appealed to me.
I also knew I would be shoehorned into a leadership role, one I would grudgingly accept. My own history of Earth had taught me that populist revolutions without clear-eyed rational thinkers behind them were doomed to excesses and wanton idiocy. My favorite example was the complete nonsense that unfolded during the French Revolution.
Regardless of the merits of revolting, what comes after is what matters. After they took control, the French became overzealous and wasteful. They changed their calendar and invented new names for the months, which caused confusion and disrupted trade. In an act of barbaric cruelty, one of the radical revolutionaries, Jean-Baptiste Carrier, committed multiple atrocities.
He executed a variety of people, not just 'counter-revolutionaries' but also children and likely many other innocents. Instead of the relatively humane guillotine, he chose to drown them in boats on the Loire River. This method was not only needlessly cruel but also almost certainly caused disease and contaminated the waters.
Remarkably, Carrier was not the only deranged person leading parts of the French Revolution. The brilliant folk in charge also passed the Loi des Suspects, which allowed people to be executed for things like not cheering loudly enough during other executions. Needless to say, as someone who values the precious commodity and resource that is human life, I felt a strong desire to ensure an orderly transition of power once we threw off the shackles of our overseers.
I had spoken with Reqaui about the need for measured vengeance and that I would lead a temporary government after we were victorious. He agreed and suggested I retain power for an indeterminate but substantial time to ensure my vision would come to fruition. I believed he and the other political dissidents saw me as some enlightened dictator with them as advisors. For now, it would work, and during my reign I would also need to make sure we could handle outside threats as well.
My memory and vast knowledge of technology did not include history of this universe, but my tutors told me of savagery among the stars. Of how alien races preyed on humanity. Creatures like Orks, green humanoids significantly bigger than humans who butchered and slaughtered at random. Out there, in the thousands upon thousands, or perhaps millions upon millions, of inhabited systems, there were alien nations, other human confederacies of worlds, and possibly even rogue AI systems. I learned that in the depths of the Dark Ages, centuries upon centuries ago, cataclysmic wars had taken place with the Men of Iron, a rogue AI that used robots.
Threats everywhere, but one thing at a time.