Making a compass from the blood in the buckets turns out to be fairly simple. Joline simply instructs the maids to fill glass spheres with the blood and seal them afterwards. The result is a palm sized orb of blood. Most of the blood is a regular red, with a small patch of it being green. The green blood is 'attracted' to the treasure, so it makes a blotch on the sphere in the direction of the treasure. It's currently pointing towards the planet, so it should be working in theory.
We've got four similar spheres made, mostly to serve as backups just in case anything unexpected occurs. We'll need to get some more preparations made, since our first venture in the warzone proved that lasguns are superior to bolters when it comes to fighting massed enemies, mostly because bolters can run out of ammo pretty quick. That might not be an issue however if we can requisition some of the conscripts, in that case the heavy hitting bolters would be the superior choice.
There's also a neat trick we can do with two of the compass spheres and a bit of math. Joline, some maids and I gear up and head down to the planet, Flakey we leave in the sanctum, we'll get her some power armor once she's done growing.
After landing we quickly begin searching for an admech acolyte, we don't need anyone special, just someone really good at maths. We find a kneeling acolyte working on a piece of artillery. I cough, attracting the attention of the acolyte currently working on said piece of artillery. "We're going to be borrowing you for a while, don't worry, we won't take much of your time."
The acolyte stands up, turning towards Joline and I, immediately noticing and recognizing the heraldry of our navigator house painted on the shoulders of our power armors. The man rises. "What is it that you require?"
Joline signals to one of the maids, immediately receiving two of the compass spheres. "These spheres point to somewhere on this planet, think you can figure out the exact location?"
The acolyte points to a building two hundred meters away from us. "Give me a sphere."
Joline wordlessly hands the man the blood filled glass sphere. The acolyte takes the sphere, holds it in place for about a second before moving five meters to the right. After standing still for another second he comes back and hands the sphere back to Joline. "23.11 Latitude 54.35 Longitude. Negative 10532 meters from sea level. Margin of error is 0.1%. Is there anything else?"
I shake my head. "Nope, thanks." Dealing with the admech thus far has been pretty nice, no time wasted whatsoever. We could've tried triangulating the location directly from the ship, but the gellar fields could have made the compass a bit wonky, even if they are currently inactive.
After reaching our sanctum we look over a hologram of the planet to see where those coordinates are leading us. It's underneath the governor's palace, probably a bunker of some kind. We can't go there until the imperial guard disables the air to air defenses near the palace.
If everything goes according as scheduled that's going to be around a year, give or take a month.
—
This is feeling more like some form of vacation instead of waging war. Not having to navigate the ship means that we have suddenly found ourselves with a lot of free time. Joline and I have continued training the course untravelled, since it is an extremely useful ability to have.
When it comes to training Flakey we've put her psychic training on pause until we can gather enough blood from our servants to enact a ritual to aid her. It is going to take one year and three months to gather enough blood for this ritual, so we've put other rituals on hold for now. Instead of having her train her psychic powers Joline is teaching her about sorcerous rituals.
That's not what we are doing right now however, right now we are learning math and tech from Dos Dol, an admech acolyte that volunteered to join my harem on Falgin. Dos Dol is a beautiful, red haired woman, her well kept long hair reaches halfway to her back. She hasn't abandoned her admech roots, as she has continued wearing her admech uniform. Her augmentations are mostly under her skin, save for the steel index and middle fingers on her left hand and the mechadendrites.
Right now Joline, Flakey and I are sitting down crosslegged, A disassembled las-gun is sprawled in front of us and Dol is on the other side of said lasgun, pointing at the power pack. "This is the lasgun, everything else in the lasgun is mere decoration around it." She picks the power pack up. "You can draw more power from it, draw less, make it explode and much more. The quality of the other parts can improve the function of a lasgun, but without upgrading the power pack as well other upgrades will not have significant effect."
Flakey raises her hand. "What's a lasgun?"
Joline ruffles Flakey's hair. "It's the gun that the green men use."
Flakey simply nods in response.
The rest of the lesson continues without much preamble, after Dos Dol is done explaining how exactly a power pack works Joline signals for the maids to bring us dinner. Joline gets her requested steak, Flakey and I get chicken, or something that tastes like chicken, sandwiches and Dos Dol gets- "Why the fuck did you ask for nutrient paste?"
Dol blinks at Joline. "Is there something erroneous with my choice of sustenance?"
Joline waves at the maid bringing the nutrient paste to leave. "Yes." She turns to the maid. "Bring her some sandwiches."
Dol shakes her head. "I still require the nutrient paste, regardless of whether I consume more opulent nutrients."
Joline sighs and waves for the maid to bring back the nutrient paste. "I'm going to be extremely upset if you eat that."
Joline, Flakey and I all wait in anticipation for the maid to arrive with the nutrient paste. Once the plate of nutrient paste is placed on the floor next to Dol she moves a mechadendrite to the paste, slurping it up with it in two seconds. I blink. "You have a mechadendrite for eating food?"
Dol nods. "My mechadendrites are custom made, they can be removed and swapped as needed."
Allright, having mechadendrites as a regular acolyte is unusual, but not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Having swappable custom made mechadendrites without being a magos is an entirely different matter. I take one of the sandwiches and hand it to a reluctant Flakey. "Why did you volunteer to join my harem? Most of the women in it are either regular farmers or workers, you're one of the only ten acolytes to have volunteered to join it and the only one to have such rare implants."
Dol sits down and then slowly takes a deep breath, preparing herself to explain her situation. "Most acolytes focus on a single discipline, hoping to improve their craft enough to become a Magos. I wished to learn all that I could, to study biology, technology, psychic phenomena, anything and everything."
Joline blinks. "So you got people getting jealous of you and undermining you?"
Dol shakes her head. "No, none attempted sabotage. I simply failed my examination to advance as a magos for the ninth time in a row, the magos in charge of my education then refused to recommend me for advancement again if I didn't focus on a single field."
I blink. "And you decided to join the harem of a navigator instead?"
Dol nods. "I did not hesitate when the opportunity to have a patron such as yourself came."
Joline swallows a bite of steak. "That's neat. I wish I could get some of those tentacles too, they look pretty fun."
Navigators aren't really compatible with most cybernetic implants. The data ports at the nape of our necks are specialized implants designed specifically to be used by navigators. Light or cosmetic implants aren't really a problem, it's only if we tried to replace something more substantial, like a hand, that we would start to have issues. The possible repercussions can be anything from our bodies simply rejecting the implants to us instantly mutating into a fish, or in my and Joline's cases snake-goats.
Dol begins eating a sandwich using a claw-like mechadendrite to bring the food to her mouth. "They are quite useful. I could attempt to design a mechadendrite that only links to your data port, it would, however, not be usable in combat."
Joline pauses, taking a second to process Dol's response. She smiles beautifully at Dol afterwards. "I wish that you're the first to get pregnant."
I choke on my sandwich. In the end Dol ends up being the twentieth of my harem to get pregnant.
—
My sparring rapier lightly smacks the side of Flakey's head. "Keep your sword in guard. Keep your blade blocking the line between my blade and you. You don't need to hit my blade to parry, just move yours in the way of my strike."
The training swords that we are using are made out of a sort of soft foam, so getting smacked by one doesn't hurt. Flakey nods and we reset. She takes a clumsy swipe with her sparring rapier at mine. I smack the top of her head with my sparring rapier. "Don't aim at your opponent's sword, aim at their body. The head is almost always a good target."
There's a reason the most used piece of armor in ancient and medieval times were helmets. The head is almost always a viable target, so making sure to protect and guard your head is key to not dying. Flakey and I reset. Joline groans. "Kraaaaaaaausssss, I'm bored."
I take a lazy swipe at Flakey's head, she manages to parry it successfully. Progress! We reset. "Go bother Dol, the two of you have been getting along extremely well lately."
Flakey takes a clumsy swipe at my legs. I parry and counter, she fails to stop my counter. We reset. Joline sighs. "She's still sleeping. Apparently she still needs to get her beauty sleep even with all of her implants."
I drop my sparring rapier and ruffle Flakey's head, she's been progressing really well in her training. "Speaking of implants, have you talked to her about getting implants for our household guard?"
Joline nods. "Yeah, she'll need some rare metals that aren't readily available here to make them. We can buy them for her when we get to a forgeworld."
—
Joline smiles maniacally as she relentlessly tickles Flakey and I with her mechadendrites. "Behold my power! The endless ma-"
I teleport her with the course untravelled. She projectile vomits at Dol, who casually dodges the flying vomit. While she's busy recovering I unplug the link between her and the mechadendrites, making them crash on the ground. Flakey grabs one of Joline's ankles, I grab the other. Joline pleads. "Me-mercy?"
We tickle her mercilessly.
—
I stare at my firstborn child. He stares at me.
He shits himself and starts crying.
—
I was always somewhat conflicted when it came to my harem. The reason isn't really related to the harem itself, if I said that I didn't enjoy having one then I would be lying. My reprehension is related to the resulting children.
I don't want my children to be disposable troops, trained and prepared to die for the most minimal of gains. Right now I am holding my seventh child, a girl named Kasey.
This world is cruel, despite how much I wish to keep my children away from danger said danger will inevitably come to them, regardless of how much I protect them from it.
I don't care what happens to the Imperium, I don't care whether that golden retard shits himself and dies on his golden toilet. What I care about are me and mine. Dad, Mom, Joline, Flakey, Dol and now my children.
If we want to keep ourselves safe then we need power. The only language that this world speaks is violence. If we want to tell people to keep away from us, then we need to speak with them in the only language that they understand.
I hand the baby over to Joline, who takes a good look at her. "You know, this is the second psyker this far. The first time we could assume it to be a coincidence, the second is already a pattern."
A heavily pregnant Dol nods. "Individuals with psychic potential are much more likely to birth children who share their abilities. Is this not normal for your kind?"
Joline shakes her head. "Us navigators use the warp, but we aren't really psykers. We are more like someone using a piece of warp tech than a real psyker."
I switch my gaze to Kasey's sleeping mother, a pretty woman named Janna with shoulder length blue hair. "We've checked most of the harem for psychic potential already, none of them have been either latent or active psykers so far."
Joline passes the sleeping baby to Dol. "We can't assume this is a coincidence anymore, there has to be an explanation for why two out of seven of Krauss's kids have been psykers."
Dol scans the sleeping baby with a mechadendrite, making sure that there's no abnormalities. "I suggest we cease any further inseminations and terminate any remaining pregnancies. This many psykers in such an enclosed space would be a disaster."
I shake my head. "Psykers descended from a navigator are much more stable than even sanctioned psykers. Our genes grant them increased willpower and resistance to warp influence. We are not terminating any pregnancies."
Dol puts the baby back to her crib. "I still suggest that we cease reproduction until we can assess the source of this anomaly."
Joline gives me a thoughtful look. "I have an idea. Krauss, can you try using immolate the soul on this pillow?" She takes a pillow from Janna's bed and holds it up.
I shrug and set the pillow on fire with immolate the soul. Joline gives me a nod. "Now try to move the fire, make it into a ball somewhere in this room."
I blink. I haven't tried manipulating the flames from immolate the soul in that manner yet. I focus on moving the flames away from the pillow. Joline, Dol and I are staring at the fist sized round ball of flames floating between the three of us. Joline takes a deep breath. "You're a psyker. That's why you can use your navigator powers in more unexpected fashions."
Dol blinks. "Such a thing is possible?"
Joline shrugs. "In theory there's no real reason for it to be possible, in practice the chances are extremely low for even a single navigator to ever be one. We are already much more genetically stable than regular humans, otherwise we wouldn't be able to look into the warp without turning into a blob. This and our strict breeding programs prevent us from getting the 'psyker gene' in our family lines."
Joline crosses her arms. "There's about a million living navigators at any one point, it's not really out of the question for one or two to have true psychic potential, but such a case would be an isolated incident. The secret nature of most navigator houses would lead to such a case being kept secret from the world at large."
I should have realised this much sooner. Joline and our parents didn't realise this because navigator souls already look almost identical to psyker souls, as our third eye is already capable of drawing in the warp. The difference in the soul's appearance itself would be extremely minor.
Dol blinks, appearing surprised. "What are the ramifications of this?"
I take a deep breath. "My navigator powers are much more diverse in their use and my psychic abilities are much more stable. I don't need to worry about going mad because of the warp, my mind is genetically enhanced specifically for witnessing the warp."
—
Flakey looks at Kasey. Kasey looks at Flakey.
Kasey shits herself and begins crying.
—
One thing that I didn't expect when I thought of becoming a father was that my sister would be the one to find more joy in my children than I do. After the eleventh one was born I had already given up on keeping track of all of them, on the other hand Joline has started spending most of her time with the mothers of my kids. The one that she's most close to, other than Dol, is Janna. They've gotten close enough for her to have even begun inviting Janna to our dinners.
Joline gives a satisfied sigh, having finished her steak. "Say Krauss, do you know why Janna volunteered to join your harem?"
Going by the way that Janna started blushing it's probably something embarrassing. I shrug. "No, why did she?"
Joline looks at Janna, Janna gives her a clipped shy nod. Joline shrugs. "She had a lot of gambling debt and wanted to get out. Apparently becoming the concubine of an imperial noble was her solution to fixing her money problem."
Most of the harem has stories like this. The majority of the denizens of the Imperium live hard lives, the opportunity to live the rest of their lives in comfort as the concubines of an imperial noble is one that very few would let pass. I point my fork at Joline. "That's not really that embarrassing. With that reaction I expected something more."
Joline points her own fork at me. "She also thought you were a heavily mutated abomination and was really into that idea."
Janna chokes on her food. I sigh.
—
The imperial guard has reached the vicinity of the governor's palace, which means that we can finally begin our assault on the palace. Dol will be joining Joline and I in the assault, as she apparently was also trying to specialise in combat along with every other admech field.
Our household guard will be bringing bolters once again, since this time we have local conscripts to use as disposable meat shields. Anything that the wave of conscripts can't handle can be eliminated with concentrated bolter fire.
Since we are no longer limited to the capacity of a drop pod we will be bringing fifty of our guards, using all of the available power armors.
Flakey will remain in the sanctum, until she gets power armor she is not allowed to go into active war zones.
—
AN: One idea that really sat in my head for a long time was whether or not a navigator could be born as a true psyker.
As mentioned in the fic itself, navigators aren't really psykers despite being able to use the warp. They can set you on fire, but its more like they have an inbuilt genetic 'set on fire' power. A psyker would set you on fire by directly using the warp to do so, a navigator uses their inbuilt 'set on fire' power to do it automatically.