While the monumental war raging at the galaxy's edge had only just drawn to a tentative close, Holy Terra received a direct transmission from Axion.
Two mechanical vessels belonging to the Iron Men Fleets, stationed along the periphery of the Eye of Terror, had just arrived at the outer boundaries of the Sol System.
The request to berth at Terra and visit the Ordo Sinister was routed straight to the Adeptus Administratum. Normally, such interstellar traffic fell under the purview of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. However, the Iron Men fleets, entirely devoid of soul-bound astropathic choirs, invariably chose to interface directly with either the Inquisition or the Administratum.
Left thoroughly bewildered, the Adeptus Administratum could do little but forward the data-slate up the chain of command to the Senatorum Imperialis, housed deep within the sprawling confines of the Imperial Palace.
The missive successfully alarmed Captain-General Trajann Valoris of the Adeptus Custodes behind the palace walls, alongside the High Lords of Terra, the Inquisition, and the Officio Assassinorum.
The memory of the last time the Iron Men had arrived at Terra remained bitterly fresh in Valoris's mind. On that occasion, they had forcefully breached the Imperial Palace, a reckless incursion that had resulted in blood spilled among the ranks of his own Custodian Guard.
When the Iron Men had previously repatriated the lost Primarchs, they had completely bypassed official protocols. They had merely deployed atmospheric drop-ships to dump the demigods and their wayward warriors onto Terra's landing fields before departing immediately, offering nothing more than a unilateral notification to the Lord Regent of the Imperium, Roboute Guilliman.
Yet this time, they had submitted a formal, diplomatic application to the institutions of the Imperium. Making matters far more problematic, the ancient intelligences had explicitly specified the exact target of their delegation.
Thud!
"Will someone tell me how the Iron Men even know of the Ordo Sinister? What do these abominable intelligences want from them this time?!"
A high-ranking representative tasked with Terra's orbital defense networks on behalf of the Departmento Munitorum, slammed his fist onto the long obsidian table. He glared across the chamber toward the representatives of the Inquisition and the Officio Assassinorum.
The Grand Master of Assassins remained utterly motionless and silent, merely shifting his dark gaze toward the seated Inquisitorial delegation.
The High Inquisitor attending as the voice of the Holy Orders of the Emperor's Inquisition cut a deeply weary, exasperated figure.
"My Lord, if you desire answers, I suggest you look to the Adeptus Mechanicus rather than us. We have only just intercepted data confirming that these Iron Men recently concluded an unannounced visit to the Forge World of Lucius."
At the mention of the Tech-Priesthood, the Munitorum official froze, the wind taken out of his sails as he slowly sank back into his high-backed seat.
Within the cavernous confines of the Council Chamber, High Lord of Terra and Admiral of the Solar Fleet, Jackson, wasted no time. He gestured sharply to a nearby armsman to establish an immediate secure link to the Fabricator-General of Mars.
The hololith projector flickered with a harsh, low-frequency hum.
A colossal metallic structure, sprawling larger than a standard pattern Space Marine Dreadnought, filled the display matrix.
It was Oud Oudia Raskian, the current Fabricator-General of Mars and one of the supreme High Lords of Terra.
Due to the exhaustive accumulation of bionic augmentations grafted onto his frame over centuries of continuous mechanical modification, Raskian resembled a monolithic, multi-tiered facility far more than a living human being. This rendered him the most logistically difficult High Lord to converse with face-to-face.
Simply transporting his physical bulk to the Senatorum Imperialis required immense architectural and logistical preparation. Moving him demanded the coordinated efforts of six heavy industrial cranes, alongside dedicated auxiliary power cables and highly specific lifesupport umbilicals.
Given the sudden, reactive nature of this emergency session, there had been no time to transport 'the building' across the tectonic spans of the palace into the grand hall.
"@#!@￥ Zzzzt... State your business."
Upon spotting the golden-armored silhouette of the Captain-General within the transmission feed, a harsh, synthetic voice laced with static grated through the audio-bays. The tone was thick with unconcealed impatience.
The Fabricator-General's contemptuous disposition toward the Adeptus Custodes was a matter of long-standing friction.
Valoris, likewise, held a deeply unfavorable view of the inscrutable tech-lord. He remembered all too well how Raskian had actively obstructed Chancellor of the Imperial Senate Lev Tieron's efforts during the Fall of Cadia in the Thirteenth Black Crusade, specifically trying to block the dissolution of the Edict of Restraint that would finally permit the Custodian Guard to leave the Sol System and fight abroad.
Worse still, Raskian had later conspired in secret with Master of the Astronomican Leops Franck and Kania Dhanda, the Speaker for the Chartist Captains. Together, they had aided Inquisitor Lord Adamara Rassilo in smuggling a foul Xenos entity, an Aeldari, deep into the subterranean undercroft of the Imperial Palace itself.
Fortunately, the vigilant Custodians standing watch over the Inner Palace had intercepted the fools before they could ever set foot within the Sanctum Imperialis or approach the Golden Throne.
The alien Homunculus from the dark city had been put to the sword on the spot. The rest of the conspirators had faced severe, unforgiving retribution.
Valoris had launched a merciless investigation, utilizing the hidden blades of the Officio Assassinorum to enact a series of quiet purges. In the aftermath, Inquisitor Lord Rassilo was permanently replaced by the Lord Inquisitor of the Holy Orders, while the Chartist Captains' floating seat among the High Lords was stripped away and handed to the Lord Commander Militant of the Astra Militarum. Master of the Astronomican Leops Franck was sent down a path of mandatory, fatal martyrdom to ensure his silence.
Only Raskian, by virtue of his absolute authority as the Fabricator-General of Mars, escaped with nothing more than a severe, formal censure.
While the Custodes themselves cared little for the munitions provided by Mars, their own masterwork wargear being forged within the palace by the Emperor's personal artisans using esoteric arts the Mechanicus could only dream of, the Imperium as a geopolitical entity could not afford an open schism with the Red Planet.
Conversely, Raskian could do little against the Custodians, for they answered only to the Master of Mankind.
This stalemate did nothing to mend their fractured relations. The Fabricator-General routinely refused to mask his disdain for the Emperor's personal guard in any public forum.
Valoris, matching the machine-lord's coldness, stared directly at the asymmetrical mass of iron and logic on the screen and got straight to the point.
"The Iron Men have submitted a formal diplomatic petition. They demand an audience with the Ordo Sinister. Their attached addendum explicitly states the purpose of this visit is a technological exchange regarding Titan-class mechanisms."
"@##@.... And?"
Raskian's dead, monotone counter-question caused Valoris's brow to twitch slightly.
"The Iron Men have just departed the Forge World of Lucius. If my intelligence serves, the tech-priesthood of Lucius shares a highly... unconventional relationship with the Synod of Mars, does it not?"
"What of it? If you are merely soliciting my judgment regarding this delegation, then I propose that I, as the premier voice of the Omnissiah, receive the Iron Men myself. It would prevent your unaugmented minds from inadvertently offending these ancient, living keystones of knowledge."
Raskian's bid was instantly met with fierce resistance from the Inquisitorial representative, while the Grand Master of Assassins silently logged his dissent.
Allowing the Fabricator-General of Mars to host an independent contingent of Iron Men was akin to placing a plasma core next to a volatile psychic rift; the resulting fallout could easily spiral into an unmitigated catastrophe for the Imperium. This was especially true given the current Fabricator-General's history of treasonous overreach.
Yet, before the debate could devolve into the usual bureaucratic quagmire of accusations and counter-arguments, the heavy reinforced doors of the Senatorum Imperialis swung wide.
Clad in the towering, ornate blue-and-gold bulk of the Armor of Fate, Roboute Guilliman strode purposefully into the chamber.
"Whatever the Iron Men seek from the Ordo Sinister matters little. Before you commit yourselves to any rash decisions, there is something you must see."
The Avenging Son's voice carried the absolute, crushing authority inherent to a Primarch, silencing any potential rebuttal from even the Captain-General.
A cohort of Space Marine Techmarines filed in behind him, bearing heavy pict-projectors. They quickly established a massive, flickering three-dimensional hololithic tactical display that projected into the upper reaches of the high ceiling.
Within moments, a profound, suffocating silence fell over every High Lord present in the room.
The tactical display laid bare the raw telemetry, void-war recordings, and visual logs captured at the absolute edge of the galaxy, detailing the cataclysmic clash between the Men of Iron and Hive Fleet Kraken. The final data-slates concluded with horrifying, true-scale images of the Great Devourer's primary hive tendril.
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