On the periphery of the void battlefield, where countless shards of broken hulls drifted through the freezing dark, the Adeptus Mechanicus fleet from Lucius was a boiling cauldron of activity.
Every Tech-Priest and Magos was locked in frantic calculation over the events they had just witnessed. Errant torrents of data surged through the logic-cores of every Planetary Ark. Communing via hyper-dense streams of binary cant, they exchanged hundreds of theoretical conclusions within seconds, falling into endless, looping theological debates over the mechanical parameters of what they had seen.
For a considerable duration, the entire Mechanicus armada remained completely stationary in the void.
They only aborted their diagnostic arguments when the long-range augur arrays of their flagship chimed, picking up a massive cluster of fast-moving contact runes rapidly closing on their coordinate vector.
Fortunately, this new arrival did not portend hostility.
Having pushed their reactors to the absolute limit across the Maelstrom, Axion's mechanical fleet finally translated into the local sector, dragging the war-weary fleets of the Ultramarines and White Scars behind them.
Surveying the vast field of frozen corpses and shattered starship bulkheads scattering through the silent void, both Marneus Calgar and Jaghatai Khan were momentarily struck with grim astonishment. When they noted the distinct silhouettes of the Adeptus Mechanicus fleet holding position nearby, their surprise deepened into outright disbelief.
Under the direct order of the Great Khan, a secure vox-channel was established.
When the Magi of the Lucius Synod beheld the face of the genetic demi-god manifesting on their viewing screens, they were briefly paralyzed by processing errors. The return of a Primarch was a monumental event deserving of segmentum-wide celebration, and the High Lords of Terra did indeed aggressively disseminate such tidings to bolster the flagging morale of the Imperium's countless worlds.
Yet, the logistics of the Holy Domain dictated a cold reality: if one resided within the solar core of Segmentum Solar, such news might arrive within a matter of weeks. Outside those gilded sectors, it required months. And if one were marooned across the Imperium Nihilus, the processing lag stretched into chronological ambiguity.
Indeed, should a servant of the Emperor find themselves stationed on a sufficiently isolated frontier world, more than a decade might pass before the joyful decrees of Holy Terra finally trickled through the warp.
Lucius was situated in the distant expanses of Segmentum Obscurus, and this specific Mechanicus fleet had weighed anchor to answer Belisarius Cawl's tech-exchange protocols long before Jaghatai Khan had formally broken his long absence.
After executing a grueling, hazardous crossing of the Nachmund Gauntlet, they had burned directly toward Segmentum Ultima without respite. Subverted by the chronological distortions and temporal dilations inherent to warp transit, their progress had been painfully sluggish, forcing them to chart a shortcut along the hazardous littoral fringes of the Maelstrom.
As a consequence of their isolation, they had completely missed the Terran declarations heralding the resurrection of the Great Khan.
Jaghatai, showing the practical nobility of his bloodline, did not dwell on the administrative lapse. Instead, he commended the Magi, praising their perceived martial prowess for obliterating such a significant concentration of the Emperor's foes and cementing the stability of the sector.
Yet, before the Great Khan could even conclude his formal commendations, the command deck's primary Astropath suddenly shrieked, thrashing against his brass restraints as he clawed at the air, screaming that an urgent distress psychic rune had just broken through his consciousness.
The Khan, already nursing a simmering fury after failing to personally run down Huron Blackheart, welcomed the prospect of a fight. If someone was crying for aid, the White Scars would answer instantly.
However, when the Khan demanded the spatial coordinates of the supplicant, the Astropath froze in a state of visible, pathetic bewilderment. Slowly, his trembling, cybernetically augmented finger rose, pointing directly at the viewing screens displaying the Lucius Mechanicus fleet.
The massive, stylized variations of the letter L iconography encrusting the hulls of the nearby warships were plainly visible.
The emergency distress code had originated from none other than the Lucius fleet itself.
Deep within the volatile core of the Maelstrom, astropathic communion was a near-impossibility; the howling psychic gales of the warp rift effectively jammed all conventional long-range vox and astropathic frequencies. The Mechanicus had broadcast their emergency binary runes during the initial ambush, and before they had even possessed the tactical bandwidth to rescind the signal, the Red Corsairs had already been systematically butchered into non-existence by the sudden manifestation of the Titan's Spear.
An oppressive, absolute silence fell across the active vox-channel.
Despite their complete lack of organic facial features and their clinical, unblinking augmentations, a palpable wave of baseline human embarrassment seemed to ripple through the assembled Magi.
"Most revered Son of the Emperor, Lord of the Lightning and Master of the Plains of Chogoris, Jaghatai Khan," a high-ranking Magos synthesized, his vocal unit clicking as he attempted to correct the record. We must formally clarify a tactical misapprehension. The destruction of these pirate vessels was not achieved by our hand. Though we did engage the enemy, trading minor losses for a calculated attrition rate upon their vanguard."
On this point, the Magi were speaking the truth.
Among the drifting fields of shattered plating, the distinct silhouettes of Forge World hulls were indeed present. Debris bearing the unambiguous cog-and-skull icon of the Mechanicus was a far cry from the chaotic scrap-craft of the Red Corsairs. These were the frigates and destroyers destroyed in the initial clash, right before the arrival of the ironclad Guardian-class escort automata.
As if to substantiate their statement, the Magi transmitted their vessels' recorded pict-captures of the battle to the joint fleet. They then immediately redirected their focus to a fresh round of observations and data-analysis regarding the heavy assault cruisers and long-range strike cruisers of the newly arrived automata, vessels the like of which they had never seen before.
As he scanned the battle logs, even Jaghatai Khan found himself momentarily stunned. In his memory, the Imperium had never possessed behemoths of such immense scale and devastating firepower.
Calgar, by contrast, while intrigued, showed no outward shock. The Ultramarines had witnessed these monolithic vessels on more than one occasion. Whether in Segmentum Pacificus, the Pariah Nexus, or across the numerous war zones of the Dark Imperium, the ironclad automata had left their mark. As the Chapter with the most extensive records in the galaxy, the Ultramarines meticulously logged and analyzed every battlefield pict-feed, and Calgar, as Chapter Master, reviewed them personally.
Calgar had even seen pict-captures of the automata's other two Titan-class vessels. The sky-blocking, suffocating dread of those macro-ships had shaken him initially. Yet, through the tireless efforts of the Lord Regent, these terrifying sapient machines had been forged into the Imperium's greatest current asset.
Recalling the countless tactical feeds he had studied, Calgar knew precisely how terrifyingly efficient these mechanical legions were. Virtually every engagement they fought was a masterclass in absolute devastation, leaving many to wonder just how glorious mankind's apex must have been in the forgotten depths of antiquity.
The battlefield data released by the Lucius fleet was also received by Axion. Though unclear on the Magi's intent, Axion silently broadcasted a supplementary battle record from a different vector.
It was a panoramic holographic projection captured from the Titan's Spear.
The massive holographic theater was projected directly into the void by the combined arrays of the three assault cruisers. It perfectly detailed everything from the moment the Titan's Spear translated out of the Warp to intercept the fleeing Red Corsairs fleet, right down to the final pursuit vectors. Concurrently, Axion synchronized and displayed the complete, uninterrupted combat feeds from the three destroyed Guardian-class warships.
This only served to deepen the embarrassment of the Mechanicus Magi, who had been attempting to salvage some semblance of tactical pride.
After all, the three automata ships had thrown themselves directly into the teeth of the enemy fleet, inflicting catastrophic casualties upon the Red Corsairs. Meanwhile, the Lucius fleet had been caught entirely off-guard by the ambush, managing only to trade a few escort-class hulls across two brief salvos.
Sensing the tension, Calgar smoothly interjected into the channel, offering words of reassurance to the Tech-Priests. He had encountered far too many Imperial warriors who, after fighting alongside the automata, had been left questioning the very purpose of their own existence.
Jaghatai, who had been on the verge of rebuking the Mechanicus Magi for their tactical shortcomings, found himself thrown off by Calgar's diplomatic intervention.
The Magi, receiving such uncharacteristic validation, were deeply moved despite their logic-driven minds. Buoyed by the Khan's earlier commendations, the emotional Magi extended a grand, formal invitation to both Jaghatai Khan and Marneus Calgar to visit Lucius when circumstances permitted, promising substantial requisition discounts as a token of their esteem.
Jaghatai, sensing there were deep undercurrents here that he had yet to grasp, chose to let it play out. Had this been Lion El'Jonson, the Lord of First would likely have chastised Calgar along with the Tech-Priests. But the Khan possessed a different wisdom. The White Scars were in dire need of material resupply, and the armaments forged by Lucius were renowned throughout the galaxy. Without hesitation, the Khan accepted the invitation.
Once the Mechanicus channel cut out, Jaghatai opened a secure vox-link with Calgar. Confronted by the inquiry of his gene-brother's son, the Chapter Master provided a thorough explanation.
The automata's doctrine of war was fundamentally alien. They functioned entirely without regard for self-preservation, executing terrifyingly cold calculus solely to maximize the enemy's destruction. Any Imperial force deployed alongside these mechanical legions or fleets risked a severe degradation of morale, as flesh-and-blood warriors watched their own tactical worth eclipsed by the horrific perfection of unliving iron.
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