Rising up from a Nobleman to Intergalactic Warlord!!

---Next Day---

Once the festivities came to an end, my subordinates tore down their stations and began relocating to Terra's Hive Cities. As we would be handling the sale of our food products directly, I wanted to get things ready for the morning rush. Ensuring that each level of the Hive Cities was amply staffed, it was imperative that we took care of everyone in a timely manner to minimize potential scuffles amongst the locals. While the relief team kept the masses preoccupied, the Special Operations Division would begin eliminating problematic groups and individuals from the cities. Leaving the operation in the capable hands of Commander Yoma, I told her to contact me if things got out of hand.

Heading to the Golden Palace for my first meeting as a Primarch, I greeted the gatekeepers and guardsmen as I passed through the front gate. Quickly setting their breakfast down, the men snapped to attention and saluted me almost in perfect unison.

"Good morning, Lord Stark!", the head gatekeeper spoke up. "The meeting room is just down the hallway, first door on the right-hand side."

"I understand; thank you for the directions.", I replied, retrieving a large thermos of hot chocolate from my inventory. "This is for all of you; it should help keep you warm on this bitterly cold morning."

"Pardon me, my Lord, but what is this device?", a guardsman asked, having never seen a thermos before.

"This is an insulated container that keeps beverages cold or hot, depending on your preference.", I answered, retrieving a few Styrofoam cups from my inventory as well. "All you have to do is pump this lever a few times to fill your cup; observe."

Demonstrating how to operate the thermos, I handed the beverage to the guardsman. Noticing the steam rising from the cup, he blew on it a few times before taking a sip. Going wide-eyed the moment the sweet beverage touched his tongue, the guardsman chugged half of the cup down before forcing himself to stop. Letting out a blissful sigh as the cup parted from his lips, he gave his comrades a thumbs up.

"This is probably the best non-alcoholic beverage I have ever had!", he remarked, before gingerly setting the cup down. "While I am grateful to have something warm to drink, I cannot help but think this beverage is expensive. I have had an opportunity to sample a sliver of chocolate before, and this tastes just like it."

"Your taste buds are correct; this drink is called hot chocolate.", I confirmed. "Do not worry about the price; chocolate is widespread in my native homeland. I intend to make luxury food items readily available to the public once the food deficit has been resolved. You can look forward to seeing chocolate and many other delicacies in the markets within the next couple of years."

"Really!?", he gasped, looking forward to that day. "I cannot wait to share this with my wife and children! We will be one of the first people to buy it!"

Helping themselves to the hot chocolate, I left the men to their duties and headed down the hallway they indicated.

---Five Minutes Later---

Reaching the indicated meeting room, the Custodies guarding the entrance to the room turned their heads in my direction and gave me a curt nod. Walking past them, everyone inside the room welcomed me and motioned for me to take a seat. Noticing that my designated seat was directly to the right of the Emperor himself, I could not help but think something was amiss here. Knowing that the seats directly next to a ruler were meant exclusively for his most trusted advisors or their heirs, it made me a bit hesitant to take a seat. Given that I had only recently joined their ranks, I honestly felt his sons were far more deserving than me.

"Do not worry about it; it is what our father wanted.", Lion remarked, sensing my hesitation.

"I see…", I answered, 'Too late to back out now; I have to just roll with it.'

Before taking a seat, I dispersed specially made, ruggedized tablets to all those present today. Taking a moment to look them over, as they were very different from the computers they were used to, everyone seemed rather pleased with them. Giving them a few minutes to mess around with the pre-installed software, the Master of the Administratum saw the potential they had almost immediately.

"Lord Stark, would it be possible for me to keep my computer?", Violeta Roskavler inquired enthusiastically, "This spreadsheet software could potentially be very useful for my daily duties."

"I concur; it appears that it has financial applications as well.", Guilliman agreed, already messing around with it.

"Of course, I specially made these tablet computers to decrease the difficulty of your workload while simultaneously increasing your efficiency and productivity. In addition to that, these devices are connected to the subspace network I am deploying throughout the Imperium of Man. Once it is completed, in a few months' time, you will be able to communicate with each other in real time from anywhere in the territory.", I informed them. "With the Emperor's blessing, I would like to move the planetary and military communications to the network as well. This will allow us to receive crucial reports and updates instantly instead of days or weeks later."

"Anything you can do to help reduce our reliance on the Warp has my full support. Just ensure you inform me first, so I am aware of it.", the Emperor agreed with a nod.

"Understood, I will work with the Mechanicus to ensure the equipment is installed in a timely manner.", I stated as I took my seat.

Settling in for the meeting, I retrieved a pot of coffee from my inventory and poured myself a cup without thinking about it. As I went to take my first sip, several sets of eyes fell upon me as the room fell silent. Looking at my grandfather and uncles with a concerned look, my initial thought was that beverages were not allowed in here. Before I could confirm that with them, though, the Emperor spoke up first.

"Victor… Is that coffee by chance?", Guilliman asked in disbelief.

"It certainly smells like it!", Dorn said, staring at the pot longingly. "Might you consider sharing that with us, nephew?"

"I have plenty to share with everyone, but why are you acting so weird?", I inquired, "The Imperium of Man has coffee too; your people call it Recaf, right?"

"No, Recaf is a form of highly caffeinated tea.", Dorn corrected me as he poured himself a large cup. "The coffee plant, along with a great many other things, went extinct during the Horus Heresy. Our supply of coffee was used up during the Siege of Terra to keep morale up during that bloody conflict. We did not discover that, though, until the dust settled once it was all over."

Eagerly taking a sip of the extinct beverage, the four men let out blissful sighs as memories from long ago came to the forefront of their minds. Recalling the days when the Emperor and his twenty sons roamed these halls together in relative harmony, they could not help but lament all that they had lost. Giving the men a few minutes to recover, my grandfather and uncles thanked me for sharing with them.

"Can I assume you would like to reintroduce the plant to the Imperium of Man?", I questioned.

"Yes, please do.", the Emperor confirmed as he looked to the High Lords. "Come, try this once staple beverage of our ancient past."

Happily obliging his request, aside from Fabricator-General Raskian, the High Lords of Terra were pleasantly surprised with the quality of the beverage. Settling back into their seats, the Custodies outside the room shut the door, signaling the beginning of the meeting.

Starting with Violeta Roskavler, the lords began updating us on matters within their governmental departments as well as the Imperium at large. Picking up some interesting tidbits of information from their reports, when we got to Fabricator-General Raskian, his head caretaker stood up and said they had nothing new to report. Having already foreseen this ploy, I came prepared with several questions for the head of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

"Before we move on to Abbess Vahl, I have a few questions I would like answers to from the Fabricator-General.", I said, stopping the head caretaker before he took a seat. "While I was reviewing various reports last night, I discovered some very troubling reports buried in petabytes of data. To begin with, is it true that only sixty-seven percent of all Imperial Worlds have clean water available to their citizens?"

"I… uh… one moment, please.", the head caretaker said, conferring with Raskian.

After a few moments of consultation, the head caretaker looked back and slowly nodded his head in confirmation. Upon hearing this, the Emperor, Guilliman, and Roskavler all shifted in their seats with discomfort.

"Raskian, why was this not brought to my attention directly?!", Roskavler snapped. "While many in the Mechanicus require little to no water, the rest of the Imperium's citizens require it to stay alive. Why would you bury such information in your weekly reports!?"

"It is not as if they are completely without water…", the caretaker refuted, purposefully leaving out a critical piece of information.

"Sixty-seven percent have clean water, twenty-one percent have unsanitary water, and twelve percent must import water to sustain their people.", I spoke as the room began to shake. "If you believe that the Fabricator-General and all of you are untouchable, think again."

Forcibly taking over control of their computer systems, the tech-priests began to short-circuit while the Fabricator-General's life support began to shut down. Pleading with me to stop, as three of his comrades fell to the floor, the head caretaker swore to be upfront with us from now on. Restoring their normal functions again, he fell to his knees as he gripped the edge of the table to steady himself.

"The Emperor of Mankind's desire has been and always will be the betterment of humanity, yet the Adeptus Mechanicus seems to have other ideas. Your organization is more than happy to craft weapons of war but seemingly cares little for the mechanisms necessary to sustain day-to-day life. Do you deny this fact?", I pressed him.

"Lord Stark… the Fabricator-General has been working diligently to rectify this grave situation. Several thousand years ago, the High Lords ordered the Mechanicus to focus most of our resources on keeping the Imperium's military might at maximum readiness. The order was only rescinded a short time before Lord Raskian took his position.", the head caretaker stated. "We have been doing our best to maintain things, but... most of our diagrams and schematics were lost during the period following the Age of Apostasy."

Discovering that the Adeptus Mechanicus knew far less about the Imperium's infrastructure than they had been letting on, the room fell silent. Putting two and two together, the Primarchs began to understand how the Imperium of Man became a nation of religion and superstition. Without diagrams and schematics to fix key parts of the Imperium's infrastructure, the Mechanicus had to rely heavily on their Omnissiah to keep things working. Their beliefs quickly spread among the populace, and once enough people believed it, just like with the Orks, their beliefs turned it into reality.

"This goes without saying, but I forbid anyone from sharing this information with anyone outside this group. If the public were to hear of this, it would cause a great deal of civil unrest and potentially collapse our government.", the Emperor commanded as we all nodded in agreement. "Victor, I hate to thrust this upon you, but can you address the water situation? Remaking the schematics will take a great deal of time that we do not have right now."

"Of course, but I will need additional manpower from the Adeptus Mechanicus. If we are to turn things around in a timely manner, my manpower alone will be insufficient.", I said, being forthright with everyone.

"The Adeptus Mechanicus is ready and willing to render as much assistance as we can.", the head caretaker assured me.

"Many apologies… Omnissiah… ", Raskian said in a static-filled tone.

"I cannot fault you for the actions of others, but this information should have been made available to the High Lords of Terra long ago. Work hard to fix the mistakes of your predecessors, and all will be forgiven.", the Emperor assured him.

Having answered my other questions with his prior answer, I told the caretaker to have a seat and continue down the line. Thankful that his part was done, the head caretaker took a much-needed seat so Vahl could have her turn.

"I am still waiting for updates on many matters from my people in the field, but I am happy to report that the Order of Divine Lamentations has been rebuilt and is under the leadership of Canoness Superior Ionica. At the behest of the Emperor of Mankind and Lady Ritira, she and her Order will serve under Primarch Stark directly.", Vahl proclaimed, with a smile, "Ionica and her people look forward to serving under you. Please treat them well, Lord Stark."

"They are in good hands.", I assured her. 'So it looks like we will be working together again; this will be interesting.'

With that, our meeting ended. Getting up to leave the room, I asked everyone to wait a moment as there was something else I had to say.

"As previously discussed, I will be headed to Mars within the next hour to survey the pylons. After that, though, my next destination will be the Great Rift itself.", I spoke. "From the reports I read, only forty percent of the populace that was living in that territory managed to make it out. The remaining sixty percent have likely all but been captured or culled by the forces of Chaos, but there may still be some pockets of survivors left. Using the Force to help guide me to the survivors, I will rescue them and ferry them to safety. Some of you likely believe the risk is too great, but they are Imperial citizens; we owe it to them to at least try to save them."

While saving the survivors was high on my list of objectives in the rift, there was something that stood above that: locating the loyalist Primarchs within the Warp. I knew Corvus and Leman were in there, but I also believed Vulcan might be as well. Given his desire to protect the Imperial people above all else, it made sense that if he were to be anywhere, it would be protecting the survivors within the rift. If I brought all three of them home, that would further swell our morale and make the pending operation to reclaim Cadia significantly easier.

"You want to do what!? We cannot risk losing a third Primarch in the Warp!", Ritira shouted vehemently against my plan.

Before anyone else could voice their disapproval, the Emperor of Mankind raised his hand to silence everyone. Rising from his seat, he placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me his blessing to proceed with my plan. Looking at him in shock, many of those present here felt my risky operation could cost the Imperium greatly.

"While I give you my blessing, I want to send additional forces with you that have experience dealing with Warp entities.", the Emperor said with a smirk. "I will be sending with you ten Custodies, forty Grey Knight Paladins, one hundred Salamanders, one hundred Raven Guard, and one hundred and fifty Space Wolves."

"That is an odd choice…", Dorn remarked, caught off guard by the assortment of supporters he was sending. "The Custodies, Grey Knights, and Salamanders make sense, but why send the other… OH!!"

"You cheeky bastard, were you also planning on finding Corvus and Leman while you were in there?", Lion laughed.

"Corvus, Leman, and Vulcan, yes.", I acknowledged with a sigh. "I am not certain if I will find them, so I did not want to give anyone false hope."

"If anyone is going to locate them, it will be you, my dear grandson.", the Emperor remarked. "Since they are still on Terra, I will have the men join you in Adepta Sororitas' training grounds."

Nodding my head, Vahl and I promptly left the room to find Ionica and her rebuilt Order.