"I informed him of my origins in binary and appended an oath sworn in the name of the Machine God," Axion explained, offering a natural shrug as he finished.
"I must say, the Ommnissiah's name is remarkably effective with the Mechanicus. He accepted it without question and departed."
"Though, I do not believe machines possess souls of any kind."
Calanthus pressed a hand to his forehead, looking very much like a man pained by hearing blatant heresy.
"Enough. Do not say that again. Never utter such words in front of any cog-brain, ahem, any member of the Adeptus Mechanicus. And keep your identity a secret!"
While Calanthus doubted an ordinary Tech-Priest had the means to threaten Axion, the same could not be said for veteran Magos or even an Archmagos. Recklessly revealing his nature would only invite scrutiny and danger.
A mysterious ancient Iron Man, sought by the personal order of the Primarch himself, his importance was self-evident. Even for a Primarch, such an order was delivered in person to ensure secrecy. If the Great Enemy, Chaos, were to learn of this, they would undoubtedly launch the most troublesome interdictions.
As for the ultimate objective, Calanthus did not know. He lacked the transcendent capacity of a Primarch, nor did he dare to imagine the breadth of his father's schemes and strategies. He only knew one thing: his gene-sire, Roboute Guilliman, did not make mistakes.
He would not speculate. He would simply execute the Primarch's commands, whatever the cost.
Axion did not argue. He simply nodded and continued down the broad corridor.
"Sir! Preparations for ship departure are complete. Shall we weigh anchor immediately?" The voice crackled through the vox-array, echoing in Calanthus's ear.
"Depart. The sooner we rendezvous with the other task forces, the better. We have a special passenger to deliver."
With the vox-link closed, the small flotilla that had been moored at the space station cluster for several days set sail once more. The shattered engine blocks at the rear had been repaired, and the ruined turrets on the other destroyers had been largely replaced.
As the ships moved into the transit lanes, the warp engines tore a rift in reality. The Gellar Field activated, its shimmering shield enveloping the ships like an eggshell. The surrounding light and shadow began to warp, and the scenery turned surreal.
Faintly, the sound of countless voices cackling and mocking could be heard from beyond. Against the crimson backdrop of the Warp, it looked like a vision of hell from the Old Covenant. All mortals were ordered away from the viewports.
The Ultramarines, fully armored and battle-ready, stood vigil within the ship. The Warp, once calm, was now surging with tides of raw energy. Amidst the roiling waves, various daemons could be seen lurking in the depths.
For a mortal, even a single glance at such a sight would cause severe corruption. Those with fragile minds might even transform into semi-daemonic abominations on the spot. Even the Adeptus Astartes would not stare out the viewports for long.
Axion, however, was utterly indifferent.
He saw nothing of the sort. In the energy spectrum provided by his sensors, there were only massive amounts of xenos-energy surging about. As for mental pollution or daemons, they simply did not exist to him.
Lacking a psychic presence, Axion was immune to mental corruption. What others called "Warp Taint," Axion perceived merely as a form of energy erosion. The Iron Men of the Dark Age of Technology had discovered this long ago.
The fleets of the Iron Men possessed Warp-travel capabilities; to them, Warp energy was simply an ill-defined corrosive force. Research centers had once conducted tests showing that this strange power could fuse different metals into exotic materials upon contact.
However, the strength and properties of these materials were extremely unstable. In realspace, the Warp energy trapped within would continuously dissipate; once the energy vanished entirely, the fused materials would become exceptionally brittle due to property incompatibility. According to his archived data, no viable research breakthroughs had been achieved with these materials up until the time of Axion's creation.
Tests had shown, however, that weak AI combat droids could suffer programming glitches from the impact of this energy. Since most combat machines lacked self-upgrading or innovative capabilities, once they fell into a logic loop, they would remain in a state of malfunction. If a high-level command unit was present, they could use quantum data overrides to correct the malfunctioning units or intervene directly via sapient hard-control.
Axion watched the surging energy outside, carefully searching his database for records regarding the Warp. There wasn't much. For the Iron Men, the trouble caused by the Warp seemed limited to the loss of control in low-intelligence automated units. As long as one maintained self-upgrades and core iterations, there was no issue.
Axion remained unaware that the simple firewall he had constructed to counter the gaze of Khorne had effectively strangled almost every scrap of scrapcode and electronic daemonry before they could touch him. As he stared into the Warp, the firewall's self-evolution and iteration speed were constantly increasing. The slight rise in core system usage by such a tiny program was not even worth noting.
After watching the Warp for a while, Axion turned his head to find a group of Ultramarines staring at him with extreme wariness. Calanthus was at their head.
"Are you alright?"
Axion scratched his metal skull and tilted his head. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Seeing that Axion seemed perfectly normal, Calanthus let out a long, sharp breath.
"Disperse. Continue ship patrols. Do not let a repeat of the last incident occur."
In the distance, the Great Rift was clearly visible in the Warp, its light bleeding out such that one could almost see the realspace universe through its edges. But Calanthus quickly averted his gaze. As a veteran, he understood the insidious, all-pervading nature of Warp corruption. Even with a will of iron and absolute loyalty to the Primarch and the Emperor, one could not stare into this realm of Chaos for long.
Damnation was always lurking, waiting for an opening. He would have the courage to swing his blade even against a Greater Daemon, but facing this endless Sea of Souls, a sense of powerlessness would seep from his very spirit.
Silently reciting the Emperor's Litany, his courage and conviction tempered once more, Calanthus slowly looked up at Axion. At that moment, he seemed to understand something.
Regardless of anything else, the ability to stare into the Warp without being corrupted made Axion worth the Primarch's attention. Calanthus suddenly thought of another group of comrades he had seen before: the Sisters of Silence.
Those female warriors could achieve similar feats. It was because of their special constitution. What was the term? Untouchables? Or Blanks?
Axion had denied the existence of a machine spirit. Was he a "soul-less" being as well? Calanthus's thoughts drifted into uncharacteristic speculation.