The loss of a portion of his mortal levies meant little to Abaddon.
Across the vast, decaying expanse of the Imperium, countless "enlightened" fools were eager to embrace the "truth" of history and forsake the service of the Golden Throne's rotting Corpse-Emperor. Replacing cultists and traitor auxiliaries was an easier task than tithe-gathering for the Astra Militarum; the Warmaster was not selective regarding the pedigree of his fodder.
The only sting was the death of several Black Legion veterans. For the first time, Abaddon felt the true, jagged edge of the danger inherent to the Ghoul Stars. During the Great Crusade, this region had been far less aberrant.
Yet Abaddon remained undeterred. No foe was truly formidable when faced with hundreds of thousands of Adeptus Astartes, and the quality of these modern traitor rabble could hardly be compared to the disciplined Solar Auxilia of that bygone era.
This minor bloody interlude would not derail the Despoiler's grand design. The sheer momentum of the Balefleet was a force that a handful of indigenous xenos could never hope to halt.
"My Lord, signature correlation is complete. We are transitioning into the target system."
The voice of a daemonic bridge-thrall, a grating, cacophonous rasp, echoed through the command deck. Abaddon, seated upon his throne, felt a rare surge of anticipation.
At a glance, the system appeared unremarkable: a solitary star orbited by five planets of varying distances. However, the mere fact of its existence within the Ghoul Stars lent the arrangement a sinister gravity. As the fleet drew closer, one planet loomed large in the view-screens, a world choked in a shroud of sickly green vapor.
Violent hurricanes occasionally tore through the atmosphere, momentarily revealing a charred, blackened surface punctuated by the jagged silhouettes of gargantuan metallic structures.
Just as the Balefleet breached the system's edge, a Warp-rift tore open nearby. A massive Ark Mechanicus, emblazoned with the perverted iconography of the Dark Mechanicus, slid into realspace.
Seeing the arrival, Abaddon realized instantly that he had been played by the cog-heads.
"Establish a channel! Now!" Abaddon bellowed.
The daemonic crew flinched in terror before frantically transmitting a hail to the Ark Mechanicus. The vox-casters crackled with static as a flickering hololithic projection manifested on the bridge.
Abaddon narrowed his eyes, his features twisted into a mask of predatory malice.
"Magos Pholios. You owe me an explanation, or I shall reduce you and your Ark to scrap."
Click. Whirr.
The mechanical components of the Magos's face emitted sharp, rhythmic noises as they adjusted. His visage bore a haunting resemblance to the soulless death-masks of the Necrons.
"Warmaster Abaddon," Pholios replied, his voice a flat, synthesized monotone. "Everything is according to the parameters of our exchange. You have paid the required tithe in blood; therefore, the lost technological artifacts are yours by right. Tszzz... I have merely arrived to provide necessary technical oversight. In exchange for suppressing and shackling these great machine-spirits for you, I trust you will overlook my... tracking protocols."
The Magos continued, "Statistical projections suggest an 82.33% probability of your forces successfully planet-falling and locating the Lost Ark. However, the probability of you successfully extracting the ancient vessel falls below 23.66%. Should you provide additional compensation for my direct intervention, that probability rises to 47.39%."
Despite the bargaining subtext, the Magos's tone remained devoid of emotion. Pholios was a high-ranking heretek of the Dark Mechanicus, a creature with almost no organic matter remaining. His form was a nightmare of twisted cabling, hydraulic actuators, gears, and multiple humming pumps.
Through forbidden bio-mechanical rites, he had transformed himself into a distorted engine of war, equipped with integrated anti-gravitic arrays and auxiliary nuclear power cores. He loomed like an oversized Scyllax Guardian robot; indeed, many within the Dark Mechanicus whispered that Pholios had hollowed out his own skull to house his brain within a chassis, rather than undergoing traditional bionic augmentation.
Because of these radical modifications and dangerous implants, Pholios was a formidable combatant even by the standards of his order. Rumors spoke of a Chaos Lord who once offended the Magos during negotiations, the heretic had been reduced to a cloud of drifting atoms by a single flash of light before he could even draw his blade.
"Hmph. It seems your greed has short-circuited your logic," Abaddon growled, a dangerous light flickering in his eyes.
Magos Pholios gripped his massive mechanical power axe with one metal claw while raising a single finger on his free hand.
"I ask for very little, Abaddon."
"A single squad of Black Legion elites. That is the price."
"In return, I shall decrypt these perilous machine-constructs and bind them to your will."
Abaddon looked at the projection and let out a bloodthirsty grin.
"That is a price I can endure. I may not be a master of the machine, but you would do well to fulfill your end of the pact. Fail me, and you will not live long enough to regret it."
The transmission cut. Pholios paid no mind to the threat.
The Ghoul Stars were a graveyard. He had already dispatched four exploratory fleets to locate this world, only for them to vanish into the localized anomalies of the sector. He had purposely leaked the coordinates to lure Abaddon here to act as his shield.
The Magos had already bribed several traitor warbands within the Balefleet to signal him the moment the Despoiler located the world described in the ancient databanks. In exchange, those warbands would receive equipment from Pholios at a "reasonable" rate.
His goal was transparent: utilize Abaddon's elite Astartes to explore the ruins and guard him as he plundered the most dangerous technological secrets. Once he had extracted the data-vaults and the wisdom of the ancients, the physical hulls of the vessels mattered little to him.
Everything was for the glory of the Machine.
Equally, Abaddon was fully aware of the Magos's avarice.
A squad of Black Legion warriors? Hmph.
When the time came, those warriors would return carrying the Magos's mechanical skull as a trophy. No one played such petty games with the Warmaster and survived the punchline.