Chapter 349: Magos Robert
Magos Robert was a veteran tech-priest out of Mars, a Magos for over a hundred and fifty years now, just one step short of the rank of Archmagos.
An Archmagos could command his own troops, hold his own fiefdom, even maintain a fleet of his own.
Members of the Adeptus Mechanicus who earned that title had usually achieved the absolute pinnacle of research in some specific field.
Magos Robert's greatest ambition in life was to earn that title, secure a relic-hunting fleet of his own, and spend his days excavating lost technology across the stars.
In a way, his dream and Kian's weren't so different.
The trouble was, in the hundred and fifty years since making Magos, his research had stalled completely.
Robert was the type of scholar who dabbled broadly. A bit of mechanics, a bit of xenobiology, a bit on aliens and xenos-species, a bit of xenotech.
Back at the Mechanicus's home base on Mars, people respectfully called him the Encyclopedia.
That reputation was exactly what had earned him the rank of Magos, and exactly what had capped him there, unable to rise further.
He knew a little of everything and had mastered nothing.
Earning the title of Archmagos meant going deep, genuinely deep, in one single field, to a level almost nobody else could match.
Only then would people call him Archmagos, and only then would he gain access to the resources that came with the title.
Robert had grown lost about where his future ought to go, unsure which direction to specialize in.
So, in search of a path forward, he'd chosen to serve under a young Inquisitor, following him out into the void to begin his own journey among the stars.
He hoped this young, aggressive Inquisitor might help him stumble onto the direction he'd been missing.
He wanted to live out the old Terran-era saying, that a thousand miles of travel taught more than ten thousand books, and find the truth of knowledge somewhere out on the road.
Today, he'd disembarked from the flagship to survey the asteroid's geology firsthand.
Word reached him through the local Mechanicus contingent that the newest member of the retinue was off doing side work, hunting Stealers.
The moment Robert heard that, his Encyclopedia instincts flared up. He realized he'd never actually studied the Tyranids in any depth.
If he could get his hands on a live Genestealer specimen, it might finally be the breakthrough his research needed.
He contacted Kian immediately and offered a deal, requesting a live Genestealer specimen in exchange.
Now that the Count had actually captured one, Magos Robert wanted to see the sample right away.
But the Count told him to wait. He had some money to make off this thing first.
Money?
Robert couldn't make sense of that, and went to track Kian down in person.
"Step right up, step right up! Come get a look at the boss of all these bugs!"
Kian stood in the middle of a plaza belonging to the local nobility, the Genestealer, now reduced to a torso, staked to a post, surrounded by a crowd of local aristocrats.
Kian held up a shock-baton and called out, "One lasrifle battery, one baton! One full lasrifle, two batons! First come, first served!"
"Ooh, give me one!"
A noble tossed Kian a lasrifle battery, and Kian handed over a baton in return.
The noble took the baton, equal parts thrilled and terrified, and jabbed it hard into the Genestealer.
Crackle-pop!
"RAAAAAGH!!"
The baton discharged, and the Genestealer let out an agonized shriek.
"Ohh, that's satisfying! Give me two more!"
Another noble shouted excitedly, digging out a laspistol and tossing it to Kian.
The local nobility had been on edge for months over the Genestealer scare, and now that the creature had actually been caught and handed over to them as a plaything, they were absolutely delighted.
A crowd of nobles rushed forward, throwing batteries and lasrifles at Kian, crowding around with shock-batons to zap the creature over and over while it howled.
Magos Robert froze for a second, then hurried forward.
"Stop, stop! You'll electrocute it to death! It'll die!"
Kian just grinned, counting up the pile of lasrifles and batteries on the ground. A whole company's worth of weapons, right there for the taking.
"Relax, this thing can take a lot more than that."
The Genestealer's screams had gone hoarse by now, and Robert was fairly sure it was about to be cooked alive.
"Count Voss! If it dies from this, its research value drops through the floor!" Robert shouted.
Just as Kian opened his mouth to answer, an adorable little girl walked up and held out a battery.
"Mister, can I have a baton too? Hehe!"
"Oh, aren't you just the sweetest thing. Here, take two."
Kian handed her two batons with a warm smile, and she skipped off to go play with the Genestealer alongside everyone else.
Kian slung an arm around Magos Robert, whose body, unusually for a tech-priest, still carried a fair amount of actual flesh rather than augmetics.
"Don't sweat it, Robert. Genestealers are tough as nails. And look at these people, look how happy they are. You really want to be the one who ruins all that joy?"
He gestured at the crowd of nobles jabbing their batons into the creature, laughing.
Robert looked at the scene, the nobles' faces twisted between excitement and something darker, crowding the maimed Genestealer and driving their black batons into it again and again.
"That joy," Kian said solemnly, "is mine to protect."
Robert had no words. That joy could go protect itself, as far as he was concerned.
"A pack of ignorant fools, driven by fear and adrenaline into raw meat with legs. Once you've finished squeezing out your little pocket change, I need a live Genestealer specimen, or our agreement is off."
"Relax, I drained the charge on every one of those batons beforehand. Good for three jolts, tops. This thing's got Astartes-tier durability. It's not dying from a few zaps."
He then dragged Magos Robert along, insistent, over to a hangar, pointing at the forty-some-meter fighter craft parked inside.
"Give this a once-over for me. If there's anything wrong with it, I'm tearing the Governor's estate apart."
Magos Robert took one look at the massive Fury Interceptor and felt his own curiosity flicker to life. He called over a few Enginseers to run a full inspection.
"Not bad. This craft's condition is excellent, machine spirit perfectly stable. It's fitted with two high-output automatic laser cannons, two 75mm autocannons, and a ventral hardpoint for heavy torpedoes and bombs. A genuinely solid piece of void-combat hardware."
A Fury Interceptor had plenty of uses in ship-to-ship warfare, launching from a carrier to intercept incoming enemy torpedoes, for instance, or forming up in large squadrons to close on an enemy vessel and unload its own torpedoes and ordnance.
If an enemy ship went dead in the water with its shields down, the Interceptor's onboard laser cannons and autocannons could strafe the hull's weapon batteries directly, carving out a safe pocket for a follow-up boarding assault.
All told, it was a remarkably versatile piece of space-superiority hardware.
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