Axion sat within the Thunderhawk gunship, his gaze fixed on the auspex displays as he cross-referenced his flight path. His sudden appropriation of the craft had a singular purpose: nestled within that colossal, asteroid-like fragment of a Space Hulk was a quantum signal belonging to the Men of Iron.
The newly identified signature was faint and lacked a specific class-identifier. While quantum signals did not suffer from temporal or spatial decay, the sheer weakness of its energy readings suggested the source was in a state of terminal degradation.
Axion had transmitted a handshake response, but to his frustration, there was no reply.
This silence only deepened his directive to explore.
With two Peltast Sniper Automata and an Aegis Protector in tow, Axion had bypassed the hangars of the Dawn of Fire. He utilized a sub-routine to blind the ship's Machine Spirit to his presence, selecting a Thunderhawk bearing the heraldry of the Ultramarines and securing himself within its hold.
By the time the gunship was rotated onto the launch rails, Axion had completed his data-intrusion, effectively birthing the only pilotless Thunderhawk in the entire Imperium.
Standing over four meters tall, Axion was far too massive to fit into the cockpit. Furthermore, the standard Imperial interface relied on archaic manual control columns and tactile switches. Instead, Axion breached a section of the interior hull to expose the complex control hardware. By slaving the Thunderhawk's fire-control systems to his own optical sensors, he began manipulating the craft directly through its raw physical architecture.
It was a cumbersome method, but highly effective.
He had never considered simply ripping the cockpit canopy off to sit inside. This was a war zone; the vacuum was thick with cosmic dust and jagged ship debris. While his own chassis was significantly more durable than the Thunderhawk's armored plating, it was still subject to kinetic abrasion. It was far more logical to let the vehicle's hull bear the wear of the void.
As for the Imperial reaction, Axion was unconcerned.
He had infiltrated the hangar, scrubbed his access logs, and even modified the vehicle inventory counts. Based on system records alone, his departure would be invisible. He had jammed the Thunderhawk's data-link; unless someone was physically watching him, Guilliman likely wouldn't notice his absence until he reached his destination.
However, Axion had underestimated his own perceived value in the eyes of the Primarch. Since his return, Roboute Guilliman had ordered the Ultramarines to monitor Axion's movements and report any anomalies immediately.
The ship was teeming with sons of Macragge. Axion could not distinguish whether the glances cast his way were purposeful surveillance or mere curiosity. After all, he was an anomaly among them.
The Ultramarines generally kept their distance, unlike the Tech-priests of the Mechanicus who tended to swarm him with religious fervor. Because of this, he hadn't given them much thought.
But as Axion's Thunderhawk cleared the launch bay, a nearby Ultramarine immediately checked the ship's logs.
There was no sortie order. No flight clearance. Even the craft's identification number had been purged from the active roster, a glaring gap in the sequential data. Facing this anomaly, the duty Techmarine attempted to commune with the ship's Machine Spirit. The Spirit insisted that the hangar doors had never opened and no craft had been released.
Looking at the physically open hangar aperture, the Techmarine's binary cant rose into a sharp, piercing alarm.
Guilliman did not wish for the matter of Axion to draw undue attention. Upon receiving the report, he glanced at a nearby member of his Bladeguard, signaling him to take a squad and follow. They were to discern the reason for the Iron Man's sudden sortie and maintain a constant vox-link with the fleet.
Forcible retrieval was not considered a viable option.
Guilliman had reviewed every scrap of data on Axion since his emergence. The entity could slaughter Iron Warriors with ease; killing the Primarch's own sons would likely be just as trivial. Furthermore, Guilliman was curious: what could possibly compel this Iron Man, who usually seemed content to act as a silent mascot aboard the ship, to move with such sudden purpose?
Soon, a second Thunderhawk roared away from the flagship, tailing Axion's trajectory.
Axion was indifferent to his pursuers. He was consumed by the need to identify the source of the quantum signal. If he succeeded, he might finally unravel the mysteries of his own past.
After piloting the Thunderhawk in a wide arc around the massive wreckage, Axion identified the point of strongest signal proximity. He used the dorsal-mounted battle cannon to blast a breach in the Hulk's crust and plunged the gunship into the opening.
In the trailing craft, the Bladeguard Veteran frowned. He gestured for his Battle-brother pilot to follow.
A Space Hulk, even a fragmented section, was a labyrinth of extreme lethality. No sane soul entered one unless driven by absolute necessity.
The environment within gave even Axion pause.
Beneath the shattered outer hull of metal lay strange, lithic formations. Axion's internal scanners revealed a chaotic network of inexplicable tunnels stretching hundreds of meters toward the signal source. Some of the metallic reflections returned by his sensors were of a nature he could not categorize.
Unlike the Imperial derelicts he had encountered in the Warp, this fragment was a "graveyard-asteroid", a fusion of rock and ship hulls crushed together by gravity and time. Corridors intersected at impossible angles, choked with stone and exotic alloys.
The darkness of those deep conduits held unknown terrors.
Due to the extreme spatial instability, Axion abandoned the idea of teleporting directly to the source. Instead, he landed the Thunderhawk on a massive interior plateau of rock. Given the fluctuating gravity, he used his immense strength to bend several thick metal struts around the craft's landing gear, anchoring it firmly.
He twisted the heavy structural beams as if they were wire, ensuring the vehicle wouldn't drift out through the breach while he was gone.
With his Aegis Protector and Peltast automata in formation, Axion began the descent into the Hulk.
The scenery shifted constantly. They passed through the mangled remains of Imperial vessels and the sleek, bone-like curves of Aeldari wreckage. Deep within the strata, Axion encountered a perforated hull section occupied by a small Ork settlement.
Due to the cramped confines of the corridors, these Orks lacked their typical oversized war engines and were few in number. A few hundred Greenskins posed little threat to Axion.
The Orks fought with crude solid-sluggers, basic las-weapons, and oversized "choppas" that looked like sharpened scrap metal.
The Aegis Protector acted as a kinetic bulldozer, sealing the width of the corridor. It advanced with relentless mechanical precision, its heavy lasers reducing every Ork in its path to piles of scorched fungus that emitted a peculiar, savory aroma. Their primitive scrap-armor and weapons were punctured effortlessly, then ground into the deck by the Protector's heavy treads.
In the claustrophobic space, the Peltast snipers had little room to maneuver, trailing behind the vanguard.
After carving a path through the Greenskin nest, a metallic bulkhead of hauntingly familiar design finally appeared in Axion's visual feed.