The massive shuttle decelerated with ponderous grace, banking its thrusters as it backed into the hangar bay stern-first. Its gargantuan dimensions claimed three docking berths simultaneously.
Vormay Roskora stood with arms crossed, flanked by a squad of house guards within a reinforced transparent viewing gallery. She watched the unfamiliar craft deftly deploy its landing gear and cycle down its engines. The hangar's exterior blast doors ground shut, and the chamber began a rapid atmospheric pressurization.
As the green indicator light signaled pressure stabilization, the party stepped out of the gallery.
Whoosh!
As the shuttle's rear ramp cracked open, the vacuum-sealed cargo hold violently inhaled a massive volume of air. A localized atmospheric gale surged through the hangar.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
The sudden pressure drop triggered the hangar's decompression alarms. Startled, Vormay's guards assumed a mechanical failure; they instantly crowded around their Matriarch, roughly ushering her back toward the safety of the gallery. However, the ship's automated systems detected no hull breach and performed a dynamic pressure rebalance, forcing fresh air through the vents with a low, mournful howl.
Inside the hangar control pulpit, a duty Tech-Priest overseeing the operations identified the culprit. He stared at the massive shuttle with a look of deep, bionic bewilderment.
As the shuttle's rear ramp slammed fully onto the deck, the clatter of metal resounded from the shadows of the hold. Bathed in the cold, white glare of the hangar lights, mechanical forms stepped into the open. These humanoid figures, forged entirely of cold alloys, reflected the overhead luminescence with a dull, predatory sheen.
From his vantage point, the Tech-Priest adjusted the magnification of his optical implants, his mechanical eye whirring as it zoomed in on the scene.
"Omnissiah preserve us... Necrons? No, this is not the work of the soulless ones. What is this?"
A surge of uncontrollable curiosity drove him from his sealed booth. He hurried through two pressurized bulkheads and took a position silently behind Vormay's guards, his obsessive desire for data compelling him to scrutinize the machines before him.
Vormay looked at the towering mechanical entities with an inscrutable expression. She craned her neck, trying to peer past the Automated Sentry-Troopers and Sapient Machine Automata into the shuttle's hold, searching for the metallic face that had appeared on her vox-screen.
"Initiating identity verification and logging. Vormay Roskora?"
A Sapient Machine Automaton stepped forward from behind the Sentry-Troopers and voiced the query.
"Uh, yes. That's me. Where is Axion?"
The automaton did not immediately answer. A green bio-metric laser swept over Vormay, recording her physical parameters and performing a swift genetic identification.
"Identity registration complete," the machine announced in a flat, synthesized drone.
Vormay, unsettled by the scanning beam, gave a subtle hand signal to her equally nervous guards to stand down.
"The Command Core may manifest at any time. Do you wish to establish a link with Command Core Axion?"
Vormay, in her first dealing with an Iron Man, had no frame of reference for what the automaton meant. Likewise, Axion's archives contained no protocols for this, for the Iron Men as a race, this was their first foray into such a primitive, face-to-face barter.
For a moment, the scene was thick with an awkward, static-filled silence.
"I... I wish to speak with Axion," Vormay finally managed.
The automaton gave a sharp nod. A shimmer of data-light flickered within its optical sensors. A familiar synthesized voice emanated from the machine's vocal emitters. Directly controlled by Axion, the automaton raised its head to regard the woman.
"Vormay Roskora. You seek direct communication? My data indicates we have not yet initiated a material exchange."
Vormay's lip twitched with embarrassment. "I felt it... appropriate to greet my trade partner in person."
The automaton's optics narrowed, focusing its gaze. "Data logged. Primitive trade protocols necessitate direct interpersonal communication with the counter-party."
"Any mechanical entity I dispatch serves as my proxy. As the Supreme Command Core, I monitor all inputs. Each Sapient Machine unit possesses independent heuristic levels; their processing is governed by adaptive control, and they retain the standing authority to seek assistance from higher intelligence at any time."
The string of technical jargon left Vormay feeling uncharacteristically out of her depth. However, a highly inappropriate voice whispered from behind her.
"Praise be to the Omnissiah! Independent sapience in a machine? A design unseen in any archive... what wondrous artifice!"
A Sentry-Trooper stepped to the side. Through its shared sensory feed, Axion saw a small, red-robed figure at the back of the group, muttering in a state of religious fervor. The priest's cataracts, aided by bionic lenses, were locked onto the automaton and the sentries with terrifying intensity.
Axion had no doubt this fanatic was seconds away from breaking into a binary canticle.
His prediction was correct. The Tech-Priest, consumed by a mix of awe and greed, pushed through the guards. His mechadendrites flailed in a frantic, disjointed dance, and his vox-grille began to emit a series of piercing, discordant squawks.
This instantly extinguished Axion's nascent curiosity regarding the "ancient trade experience."
Finding himself being stared at by a dozen mechanical eyes, the Tech-Priest seemed to feel as if the very gaze of the Omnissiah had fallen upon him. He became even more hysterical. The others looked on in shock; though they considered the Adeptus Mechanicus to be little more than eccentric, black-hearted arms-dealers, they had never seen one lose their composure so completely.
Axion forced himself to ignore the "oil-brained" zealot. He refocused the automaton's gaze on Vormay.
"Let us commence the trade. I believe the cargo I have prepared will more than suffice for my requirements. Show me these navigational organisms."
"Ah? Yes. Right. Lord Axion, please follow me."
Vormay led the way, with the Axion-controlled automaton walking at her side. The other mechanical units remained in place, transitioning into sentry mode to guard the shuttle and its cargo, specifically keeping a watchful eye on the unstable Tech-Priests.
Though Axion hadn't expected to find the Adeptus Mechanicus in such a remote reach, he knew well that where one Tech-Priest was found, an entire coven was likely lurking.
The Mars-class Battlecruiser was no small vessel, but Axion possessed the standard structural schematics for the class, data scavenged from Belisarius Cawl's own sub-processors. As they walked, his internal mapping confirmed they were heading for the bridge.
Vormay remained silent throughout the transit. For the first time in her career as a merchant, she found herself at a total loss for words.
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