As the Sapient Machine Automaton assisted Belisarius Cawl in synchronizing cognitive calibrations for the newly arrived maniples, the blatant and undisguised data exchange between these fresh constructs and the automaton felt like a calculated affront to the Archmagos.
"His computational architecture appears inferior to that of a Thanatar. Requesting service-subject identity verification?"
"Belisarius Cawl? He appears to be a crude bio-mechanical hybrid."
"Identity verified: Archmagos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Imperium of Man. Classified as a high-priority target within the base-protocol service directives."
"A high-priority target? He seems... remarkably un-prioritized."
Though the physical chamber remained silent, a torrential storm of data surged through the unseen spectrum. Cawl had never imagined he would find himself being analyzed and critiqued by a collection of machines.
Unlike dedicated military intelligences, these civilian-grade robots possessed a surplus of "useless" functions. In their era, they had been luxury assets, with hardware specifications often exceeding low-level military hardware. They were designed to converse and regulate the emotional states of their users; during the Federation era, it was not uncommon for explorers to spend long cycles "shooting the breeze" with their Kastelan Robot bodyguards. Axion's restorations had faithfully reconstructed their original designs, including those redundant emotional simulation subroutines.
This gave the machines a disturbing amount of "personality."
Cawl suddenly found himself yearning for the cold, unfeeling logic of a standard servitor.
Sensing the Archmagos' shifting mood, several automata actually attempted to offer him comfort, reciting Federation-era jokes that Cawl found utterly incomprehensible.
Axion, for his part, was indifferent to how Cawl might utilize these units. The task of delivery complete, his automaton returned with a resource requisition manifest granted by Cawl. The heavy vellum bore the seals of the Archmagos and the Adeptus Mechanicus, alongside a chaotic array of ritualistic stamps.
In addition to this formal document was an encrypted electronic authorization protocol personally signed by Cawl. Soon, a fleet comprised of numerous industrial vessels began moving toward the designated coordinates. Axion had no intention of using standard transport ships to haul the cargo; he intended to manufacture everything on-site, allowing the new Titan-class ships to join the fleet under their own power.
…
However, as the Void Sword began its reconstruction and the third Titan-class vessel entered the fabrication phase, the catastrophes plaguing the Imperium of Man were far from over.
The Iron Men's mechanical fleets and ground legions were peerless, but their numbers were ultimately finite. Roboute Guilliman wielded this formidable power like a master mason trying to patch a crumbling ruin, yet the very foundations of the Imperium remained under constant threat.
Intelligence reports from across the galaxy were converging, and even greater disasters were looming on the horizon.
The Red Corsairs, those persistent thorns in the Imperium's side, had re-emerged. Ever since Guilliman had deployed a portion of the Iron Man fleet to patrol the proximity of the Eye of Terror and the Maelstrom, Huron Blackheart's piratical strength had been steadily bled dry.
These traitors were masters of boarding actions and hit-and-run raids, having seized hundreds of vessels from Imperial patrols. During Guilliman's Terran Crusade, Huron had successfully captured the Primarch and his forces, imprisoning them aboard a Blackstone Fortress. It was only through the intervention of Cypher and the Harlequins that Guilliman and the survivors escaped.
Furthermore, Huron had led his Red Corsairs in an invasion of Chogoris, the homeworld of the White Scars. Though eventually repelled, they had seized numerous worlds in the Yasan Sector and had, for a time, captured and tortured Great Khan Jubal Khan. To make matters worse, Huron had even managed to sway a contingent of Space Wolves to turn traitor and join his warband.
In a mere century, Huron had built the Red Corsairs into the largest Chaos warband in the galaxy, second only to Abaddon's Black Legion. His raider fleets, while lacking an Ark of Omen, were comparable in scale to Abaddon's Balefleets.
But since the return of the Iron Men, those massive metal warships had ignored the Warp-taint of the Cicatrix Maledictum, repeatedly striking deep into the fringes of the Eye of Terror to hunt the Red Corsairs. In the eyes of the traitors, the combat efficacy of these mechanical vessels was indistinguishable from that of the Necron dynasties, nearly indestructible and terrifyingly destructive.
Huron had attempted to resist. He once organized over three hundred raider ships to launch a saturation strike against a single standard mechanical fleet. However, unlike the slow response times of Imperial reinforcements, the Iron Men's Quantum Communication functioned even at the Eye's edge. Other standard fleets quickly converged, flanking and annihilating the pirate armada.
Huron had considered boarding these strange vessels to drag them back into the Warp as prizes. But every boarding party failed; not a single warrior returned, nor could they transmit any useful data.
According to secret reports from the Inquisition, Huron had eventually met with Abaddon, who was accompanied by Khârn. Following that meeting, Abaddon vanished entirely, while Huron began leading Khârn toward Segmentum Obscurus, igniting a trail of slaughter.
As a pirate, Huron was a master of the sudden strike and the swift retreat. Exploiting the limited numbers of the mechanical fleets, they began lightning raids against Imperial assets throughout the Segmentum Obscurus. Within months, over ten Imperial fleets were struck, with more than two hundred vessels of various classes plundered.
This left Guilliman deeply unsettled, but the Lion had once again vanished, taking his sons and his mobile fortress-monastery with him. It was clear that Lion El'Jonson was hunting something unknown to Guilliman.
In his frustration, Guilliman sought the counsel of Vulkan. He hoped Vulkan could journey to the Imperium Nihilus to stabilize the worlds there, specifically to assist Commander Dante. The combination of the Red Corsairs and Khârn was a terrifying prospect, and the Blood Angels had yet to fully recover.
However, when Vulkan appeared on the vox-link, his face was a mask of righteous fury. He demanded to know if Guilliman had any inkling of what Cawl had truly done.
Ever since Axion had provided Vulkan with the Panacea Standard Template Construct, the Lord of Drakes had been working with his Apothecaries to find a way to purge the flaws of his gene-sons. They discovered that by immersing gene-seeds within the Panacea solution before implantation, they could effectively eliminate prior mutations. Furthermore, these treated gene-seeds produced warriors with superior physiques, and their optimized genomes could be passed down naturally.
After treating every gene-seed on Nocturne, Vulkan began recalling his most heavily mutated successor chapters, hoping to use the remaining Panacea to mend their bodies and end their suffering.
Yet, as chapter after chapter returned, Vulkan realized the gravity of the situation. Many severely mutated sons underwent violent transformations upon being injected with the Panacea.
While some sons bore little physical resemblance to him, Vulkan remained willing to embrace them as his own, as clerical errors in gene-seed tithes were not unheard of. But others possessed traits that were disturbingly alien, appearing as a hybrid of himself and his other brothers.
This was most evident in the Dragonspears Chapter. In them, Vulkan could see a distinct shadow of Sanguinius.
According to the Chapter's Librarians, there were several more successor chapters, some yet to return, that had appeared just as mysteriously. And the architect of their founding was none other than Archmagos Belisarius Cawl.