“Twelve,” Dorva stated, looking over to Philia, who nodded the same.

“Fifteen,” Bluma stated firmly, shaking her golden head. She had looked a bit incongruous in Umbran blacks, given her appearance, but right now the aura of authority around her made that black the only color that was appropriate.

“Fifteen,” agreed Vala, her golden cloak a contrast to her black hair and olive complexion... and yet, like Bluma, it was the only thing suitable for her.

“You have all the dead?” Briggs asked, and both of the Ducal Ranthas nodded affirmative. “They are all yours. Do as you wish, and organize what you need. If I call you the Dukes Coronal and Umbran, nobody is going to say otherwise, even if you are Guards now. Rebuild your Orders... if the Empire won’t back you, I will. We’ll see what happens, Your Graces.”

“Corunsun,” the Dukes nodded to him, and turned to go, trailed by their respective retainers.

Briggs was pretty sure there was going to be some long and involved amour between the pairs of corresponding Ranthas matched to one another, but considering they’d just assimilated the men whose souls they’d been grown from, with the physical bloodline from the other, it was totally believable.

There was knowing who your precarnation had been, and being them for real. The six of them were totally unique among the Ranthas in that respect.

The Dukes going from two of the most adept psions in the Empire to Nulls was going to be a big change. Happily, the Stat boosts for being a Rantha, and being an unkillable cockroach of a murderqueen were definitely going to help with that, as the girls had been for the past decade...

And seriously, who could possibly hope to stop the daughters of the Dukes Twilight from taking the places of one another’s fathers?...

------

While the arrival of the Corunsun fleet saved the world and the system, it was hardly mentioned in the days, weeks, and months that followed.

The Last Stand of the Dukes Twilight of Janus III went from one end of Khagan Sector to the other.

Mindblades out, Coronal Knights going into the fire, fighting the mad machine and dying. Their shieldmen Guards taking the blows meant to kill them, sacrificing themselves to see them to the end.

Umbrans, saying nothing, dark and lethal and skilled, executing and completing their job at any cost, no protest, dying silent and unknown.

Turning the tide, and breaking the Omega Sanction indubitably with the death of the mighty Caliper. Taking out that mighty Mechanist Expedition-class ship, saving the planet, and dying as they walked back into the fight, even as the Mekkers were forced to kill the ship themselves.

The brilliant delaying fight and defense of Admiral Ontif and his Threshold stations. The valor and morale of the Imperial Fleet engaging in a fanatical slugfest with the Mekker’s Second Fleet, with System Admiral Colos’ flagship Vindicated personally claiming four kills before suicide-ramming a Mekker dreadnought as atomic fire was spreading through the ship, and taking out both ships.

Those who survived could celebrate. Those who died would be remembered!

What nymphal witches? What brutal Ancient savages? Those who fought and died to defend Janus III were men and women like any other!

Across the whole of Khagan Sector, fear gripped the Mechanists at the horrible defeat, the valiant display playing on thousands of worlds.

And even on replay, that one phrase rocked them every time they heard it.

You have failed the God of the Machine...

------

“The readings are unmistakable. We have corroboration from nine hundred and fourteen different sources.”

“Impossible...”

“Do you wish to review it yourself for discrepancies? Perhaps you’ve more time at proper data analysis and statistical analysis than I?”

“Archproctor, it is the pure magic! Do you understand how insane that sounds?!”

“I do not care for other’s measures of sanity, only data. It is the pure magic, and it is wielded by the God of the Machine.

“For a period of three seconds, every electronic and mechanical system in the employ of the Mechanist attackers on Janus III locked up. The losses they suffered during those three seconds were the statistical tipping point of the battle. If you analyze all the dogfights, attack runs, planetary defenses, and especially the melee inside the Caliper, it was THE crucial moment. One second later, or one second earlier, the effect would have been reduced at least fifty percent. Seventy-four gun batteries, four hundred and eighteen drones and cyberwings, two picket ships, and two minefield ablatements were lost.

“There are far too many variables to calculate such a thing in the midst of a battle. No logic engine could possibly have calculated it. Even something with temporal manipulation could not possibly have found such a critical moment and executed it so perfectly.

“There is no technology we have ever been exposed to anywhere that can possibly duplicate the true magic without prompt Warp corruption. We have already investigated the remains of the fleet and those involved, and there is no such corruption.

“Only a non-finite intellect could have predicted the precise moment to strike, and only the pure magic could have accomplished what it did without leaving corruption behind.”

“That means... that means...”

“That the God of the Machine is unquestionably real.”

“But... what do we do if there’s a real god around watching us?!”

“My suggestion is that we pray. I confess I do not wish to fail Him...”

-------------

-The Faith energy coming in has started to grow by Orders of Magnitude, especially from the Mechanists,- Ronnie /reported, bemused by the whole situation. -The number of people praying is exploding.-

-Is this something you can use to get planetary coordinate fixes from? We need to start getting your girls out into the fields of the planets to have that power available for use.-

-That’s... dammit, Mom!-

-Hey, you’re the tech genius, not necessarily the biggest thinker. You need to recruit Kwan. Her Theologian Talent should work perfectly for this new church.-

-And we need a good Marketing plan...- she /observed cynically.

-All you godlings, so practical.- She blew a raspberry my way. -Oh, use some of that Faith energy, and set up a unique font for the great GM.-

She paused again. -Dammit, Mom!-

I /whistled. A unique font, something that could not be duplicated, because a god said so. Even the Warp gods wouldn’t be able to, if it was anchored in the human akasha... at least among humans. If something came from the God of the Machine, everybody would know it was real, because only the GM could act in that font.

Simple, practical, uncontrivable proof. This was going to be a god unlike any other, because this god was a machine.

If everyone bowed to the great GM, wouldn’t that just be par for the course!

-I bet you want the holy symbol to be a d20, too,- she /groused.

-If you make it a gear or something, I’ma hit you,- I /replied directly. -We aren’t in THAT game.-

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.-

-How goes things on Hulkamania?- The living world had been quite lively as of late. Naturally it didn’t want to give away parts of itself for our use... at least without getting something in return. It had started organizing all its metal veins for use in profound circuitry, and had already helped put together its own World Ward. It definitely wanted a Solar Screen that could protect the whole system from the Warp, and was helping with all the computations to that extent.

It was our second big datacenter at this point, and definitely the most sophisticated and largest computing network we had access to.

Still, it was a living world, very big in scale, and it had its own motivations, even if its goals were pretty ambivalent, beyond surviving in a very cruel universe.

One of Ronnie’s side projects was duplicating the effect of that massive Rune structure on Qim’Bai III intended to teleport a planet into the Abyss. Hulkamania wanted the ability to run, and was devoting computing power and evaluations that would bankrupt several ecumenopolis-class worlds to the problem and finding a solution. When it did, it would start growing the tech needed to solve the problem.

We were still trying to figure out a way to hook it into Markspace. Grandmother could probably chat with it, as well as the Great GM. Oh, wouldn’t that be a trio...

If it could make a Solar Screen, could it bring magic back to itself? Wouldn’t that make it, like, a magic power battery?

Hee!

Still, useless outside the system, but inside the system, that would be utterly terrifying.

-You need to start removing Hulkamania from all records. It’s entirely likely we’ll be rebuilding the essence of a magical civilization there once you get the Sun Screens up there.-

-Ah. Yeah, good idea. We should have a conversation matrix available fairly soon. Mechanical non-finite, apex sapient, and world-mind chatting away. I think the Emperor would be flipping off his throne if he knew about it.-

-Conniption fits to the Warp Gods, too.- Hulkamania would definitely be a target for the Warp if they couldn’t get the Sun Screen up properly and make it vanish.

-How goes things in the Sargasso?- Much of my time was spent wandering ghost hulks, killing undead things, Possessed corpses and machines, and tormented souls, generating a lot of vivic energy doing so... which incidentally would make this system a less attractive place to form a Sargasso. So, the Warp might start dropping things somewhere else... but it wasn’t like we cared.

-The Vivic Screen is working perfectly,- I /admitted smugly. Unrestrained horror waves of psychic misery? Burn ‘em! We’d erected a miles-wide umbrella vivic screen, and just parked the Solar Furnaces behind it. The waves came in, and fwoosh!, burned right up, preventing them from messing with the factories and refiners being put in place.

We’d already fed a hundred different vessels into the furnaces, after explorations and technology salvaging, a lot of which went off to Hulkamania’s research labs for study. The geniuses in the labs there would have horrified any organization on Tellus, were they to learn of them.

Hulkamania just /sniffed at any mention of Tellus.

The refinements in cutting beam technology we’d put into operation were also pretty significant, and we definitely had the most advanced pressor and tractor beam tech in the galaxy working here. We were still pulling our first cluster of ships apart and sending them to slag and be refined in the Solar Furnaces. They came out as raw materials ideal for building up the Corunsun Fleet with incredible speed... on both sides of the Rift.