It was pretty handy that all my Arcologies were mostly made of organic materials. It meant I could take control of them from afar, grabbing the seed of eldritch flesh I’d left behind in each to shape the Arcologies as I wished, letting me add in extra things I’d forgotten without having to tear down parts of it and rebuilding it the old-fashioned way. 

Some of the Mayors or their general staff who’d gone through the blueprints I’d provided were probably scratching their heads, or suspicious, at a brand new room that seemingly didn’t exist a day before just popping into existence. 

They’ll get over it. Now every Arcology had a Holo-Conference room which was outfitted with hard light projectors and my best communication array to make sure there was no transmit lag. 

All fifty-one rooms were identical, with the final one being located in my capital, in my Fortress. Standing on a raised podium, I watched as holographic forms flickered to life one after the other in the room before me. 

Fifty desks, all with four chairs behind them. One for the Overseer, one for the Mayor, one for the Ambassador and one for a free choice I’d left up to the Mayors. 

In the future, the Ambassadors would be here in person, but for now they were just projections too. 

I stood before them, showing off a little as I hovered a bit off the ground with my bare feet just barely not touching the floor. I wore my regular garb of flowy white pants and a silky shirt, making it look like I was wearing a Roman toga at a glance at how its folds rested on my body. 

I had Selene and Alpha to my sides, with the rest of what I was going to call my Council — Val, Zedev, Selene, Alpha and maybe Fae, Bob and Zara too if I felt like it — missing for now. They all had jobs to do, or would have a mental breakdown in Zara’s case. Selene’s job was standing next to me and being my emotional support human — though her human-ness was starting to grow questionable with the recent enhancements I had given her —, unquestionably the most crucial job of them all. 

To a lesser extent, she also helped me look all regal and authoritative, giving me little suggestions through our Bond whenever I did something undignified in her opinion.

“Welcome,” I said, the chattering fading instantly as my voice resounded in the room. I gave them a smile. “To the first of hopefully many of our still-forming nation’s Grand Assemblies. I am Echidna, as I’m sure most of you’ve learnt by now, and I rule this world.”

There were some murmurings at that, some dissatisfied looks, some obvious scheming but most of them just looked intrigued or eager. Then there were the very few who I knew bullied my cute daughters into telling them what this meeting was about.

I’d let them off this once, because none of them got too mean and they were understandably stressed, but I was going to punt them through a wall if they did it again.

It wouldn’t do for them to disrespect my daughters, and while I wouldn’t kill a sitting Mayor — that was a slippery slope I knew I would slide right down into the abyss if I took a single step onto — I was going to curse the shit out of them. Literally, since making a laxative Biomancy curse was child’s play.

I’d also notify Alpha about who’d need help to reign in their assigned Mayors, I was sure they could handle them if they all worked together.

I’d keep an eye out, though. If any of them got the guts to actually get violent or try to threaten my daughters, the gloves would come off and their asses would be punted into the nearest star. Fuck consequences. Actually, those would be the consequences, and they had better remember them. 

“Like always, let me set some ground rules for this Assembly,” I said. “You may ask any question you may like, I’ll try not to take offence even if it's impolite, but I promise even the most outrageous question won’t have any consequences. I may pass on answering, but that’s just how it is. Do try to be polite, though. I may levy the consequences for being rude today, but I have a perfect memory and I will remember it for centuries to come. You do not want the first impression I have of your entire bloodline to be a poor one, or it will haunt your descendants for generations to come. As for the topic of today’s rather rushed meeting, we have a bit of a situation on our hands.”

I snapped my fingers, and behind m,e the holographic replica of our Star System sprang to life. Helpful little titles floated above the sphere representing Vallia itself, and the moon we stood on. 

With a wave of my hands, the hologram zoomed out, and a group of blinking crimson dots appeared further out into the void. The title above them simply read ‘Invading Imperial Fleet’.

“We have something good, something nice in the work here,” I said. “Which, of course means the Imperium of Mankind couldn’t keep itself from wanting to ruin it. We have a fleet incoming with around fifty warships and plenty more smaller escort ships under the command of Lord Militant Solomon Tetrarchus. Before asking any questions, read the informative document I’d sent over. I am the head of your government, not an encyclopedia. Try to look for answers yourself before bothering me with questions.”

I didn’t want to spend the next two hours parroting voidship specifications or general knowledge about Imperial battle doctrine. I nabbed some documents detailing those from the Machine Spirit’s database instead. They could nose through the 9000 page long lexicon if they wanted to find out what type of screws were used in what type of transport shuttle or whatever.

Everyone who was in attendance had the highest level of clearance available to anyone outside of my Council, so it was fine. They could nibble on these crumbs of knowledge and feel important.

“May I ask a question then?” One of the Mayors asked, raising a hand with a neutral look on his face. I gave him a nod, and he continued. “The documents describe what this … Imperium is, how it works, its reach and power, but it doesn’t say why they would want us dead. Is it just the fact that we are supposedly the vassals of these ‘Tau’?”

“No,” I said. “That’s a part of it, they loathe all aliens with a burning passion, almost as much as they hate daemons and cultists, but I suspect the primary reason for their invasion is to kill me or enslave me.”

“Can we negotiate with them? Surrender? Would they spare us if we disavow you?” The same man asked me with a carefully crafted facade of neutrality. He may have suspected I was a Telepath from some of the information in the documents, I had made sure there was some information about Psykers in them after all, but he probably still felt safe enough sitting halfway across the world from me. Not that I needed Telepathy to read his nervousness, the micro-expressions and the stiffness of his fingers all too clear to my eyes even through his holographic projection. 

“You probably won’t believe me when I say this, but no,” I said with a wry smirk. “You have grown up under the rule of a Daemon Prince, then willingly submitted to me, a very dangerous Psyker in their minds, while also indirectly coming under Tau control. You might have had a chance in any other Sector, but the Imperial commanders of the Jericho Reach — the section of space we are in — are extremely paranoid and loathe everything even mildly stinking of Xeno or Chaos influence. You can very much expect them to go with the ‘shoot first, ask questions never’ approach.”

The man sat back, giving me a polite nod and had a thoughtful look on his face. He really did try to act like a professional politician, but I felt his heart trying to jump out of his chest. He had more questions, but feared angering me or annoying his peers by hogging my attention too much to ask them. 

“How prepared are we to fight off fifty warships? Can your power really match theirs?” The next Mayor I pointed at asked, looking visibly nervous. He probably hadn’t been a politician before coming to this world. 

“I’m reasonably confident in our chances of victory,” I stated calmly. 

“What do you expect from us and our cities during this conflict?” Another asked, and I smiled at the matronly woman. 

“Nothing,” I said. “Unless something goes horribly wrong, like things tend to do in war, you should not even see any sign of combat from your Arcologies. Even if by some horrid twist of fate the enemy fleet arrives above the world and begins an orbital bombardment, the Arcologies should hold out unless they do something extreme.”

“What happens if we lose?” The next one asked, this one Rachel’s Mayor, looking visibly sick as he did. “Alternatively, if we survive this … are we then at war with the galaxy?”

“If they somehow manage to kill me,” I said with a distasteful frown. “The world will probably be given an Exterminatus order, so utter obliteration of the surface world and the erasure of civilisation. They really hate me and would not want a single echo of my ‘taint’ to remain in the galaxy.”

That was true too, I understood how little Solomon’s mind worked well enough to tell what he’d do if he found out about my millions of citizens. They would get bombed to shit, and when that didn’t work, he’d order the planet’s core to be cracked open like it was a coconut. 

“And if we win?” I continued, giving him a dark grin. “We’d be at war with the Imperium of Mankind, though nothing would come of it. Lord Militant Solomon Tetrarchus is the Supreme Commander of the Achilus Crusade and the highest-ranking officer of the Astra Militarum in the Jericho Reach. If he died here, the entire Crusade would be reeling from the loss, doubly so if the First Fleet under his command never returned. They would be left scrambling to defend themselves as their many enemies smelled blood in the water and pounced on them in their moment of weakness. The Imperium may just end up entirely pushed out of the Jericho Reach if they fail here, and we’d not have to worry about them for a long while if they do.”

They made for a tough crowd, looking dubious and doubtful, some allowing them to look hopeful while others clearly saw my words as grandstanding. Others looked for scheming, wondering whether I’d just made up the invading fleet to make them scared.

I couldn’t hope to beat an actual fleet by myself if it were real, after all. Right? So I had to be lying. No one was that powerful; that would be ludicrous. 

Heh. They’d see for themselves just how wrong they were, maybe not just yet, but in time. 

Talia’s Mayor had a very different look in his eyes, though; there was an intelligent mind behind them, already swirling with a dozen schemes, but what made him different from the rest was his goals. The others wanted to build their influence, to sink their roots into their Arcologies and make sure they could keep the power that fell into their laps.

He, Kastor Dross, wanted to help me. I peered into his mind and almost grinned; he was no fanatical believer, but he saw the good I did and wished to help me. He wanted to make sure my changes stuck, that the growing pains were minimised, and that society thrived. 

Nation building, eh? Can’t say I’ve put any thought into how to form a unified culture and society for my empire beyond making sure some of the worst Chaos-adjacent tendencies were kept in check. 

I’ll see how well he does in his own Arcology. I decided. If he does well, he might just earn himself a position in my Council once his term is up. I need political advisors if I want this Empire I’m building not to be a smouldering train wreck.

I could feel that he appreciated me; he was smart enough to look at the benefits of my rule and do an objective pros and cons comparison. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot more pros to his people becoming my subjects than cons.

Honestly, the ‘loss of freedom’ should not even be there on the 'cons' list. These fuckers were ruled by a Daemon Prince, a few more years and their very souls would have been enslaved, chained to the dark will of their ‘Eternal Queen’. 

Oh well. Better he saw some clear downsides instead of starting to think ‘this is too good to be true, what’s the catch?’. There would be no catch, but paranoid people saw schemes and shadows where there were none. 

I knew that from experience, though I also knew Tzeentch was a scheming bastard, so there were always schemes abound that I couldn’t ever hope to see coming no matter how paranoid I was.

“What exactly gives you the confidence to say you can beat an entire fleet?” One of the dubious Mayors asked, getting a nasty look from my cute tomboy daughter sitting next to him. He jumped a little, returning her glare, and I can tell she’d just kicked him in the shin rather hard. Heh. “What even are you? You are no regular human, or even just one of these … psykers.”

“A reasonable question,” I said calmly, sending a brief note of amusement and soothing emotions towards Cassie, the tomboy daughter in question. For some reason, she picked Cassie Cage as her role model after nagging me about what my home was like and getting me to give her the majority of my memories from my pre-Warhammer life. Oh well, she was cute, so it was fine. “I am quite possibly the most powerful mortal psyker alive, though I’m only top five if we count the Emperor of Mankind as alive, or if we include Daemons. I am a master of Biomancy and Fleshcrafting, every piece of organic matter is clay for me to mould. I am what the Tyranids wish they were, what the Hivemind dreams of becoming. With enough biomass to work with, I can build anything, and it just so happens that I have more than enough on hand to build an entire fleet of my own Bioships. In fact, they are being built as we speak and will be ready to engage the enemy in a few days. They will be manned by me, and the Orks under my command who will handle boarding the enemy ships and slaughtering the invaders.”

That was closer to the truth than the bullshit I’d fed to the Tau, but I’ll convince Aun’Saal that it’s actually the opposite. It wouldn’t do for my citizens to think they could overthrow me if they could somehow steal the mysterious Artefact granting me my powers. Even if it’d be funny to see their faces when they realised the Artefact in question didn’t exist.

I’ll just tell him I didn’t want my pet humans to get ideas. Yep. He’ll eat it up.

Plus, it’d do well for my subjects to know just how powerful I was. Fear and respect went hand in hand, and in this galaxy, having a powerful ruler who would ensure the protection of your way of life was extremely important. 

If I were strong, I could protect them. Sure, they would fear me as I proved the truthfulness of my words, but they would be glad, because my enemies would be their enemies. They would learn to love having me rule them.

A magnanimous, super-powerful, and a bit eccentric Psyker Queen. That’s the image I wanted to project. 

They didn’t believe me. Not yet.

But they would learn in time. 

P3t1

I have 10 Advanced Chapters on Patreon. You can read 2 advanced chapters for 1$ or all of them for 5$ here: Join Now!