Accompanied by an incredibly grating, synthesized sub-bass voice, a scarab no larger than a palm, glowing with an eerie green light, scurried nimbly up Cawl's tangled mess of life-support pipes.
It didn't just climb; it made itself right at home, using its thin metal legs to tap against Cawl's respiratory mask with a crisp ding-ding sound.
A Canoptek Scarab—the basic maintenance unit of the Necrons, and a favorite voyeuristic tool for certain ancient Necron bastards.
It stopped right in front of Cawl's sensor-laden metal face. Its back carapace slid open, projecting a beam of green holographic light. With a whoosh, the light converged in mid-air to form a massive face wearing a metallic mask.
Because of a projection scaling issue, the face was ridiculously oversized, with its nostrils pointing directly at Cawl.
Trazyn the Infinite.
Overlord of the Solemnace Tomb World, self-appointed Chief Curator of the galaxy's largest museum, self-appointed expert in cultural relic preservation, and universally recognized super-deadbeat who never returns anything he "borrows."
"Amateur monkey," Trazyn's voice crackled through the scarab's vocal unit, laced with static. "I just took the liberty of scanning this pile of junk you're hauling."
"Is this the Ark Mechanicus you humans are so proud of? Tsk, tsk, tsk."
Trazyn's holographic giant head shook. "The shield generator's phase is off by 15 degrees, and the reactor coolant is still leaking. You're actually planning to save the galaxy in this barely-mobile heap of space trash? If I ever let a perfectly good ship fall into such a state, I'd find the nearest singularity and jump in headfirst."
Cawl didn't get angry. Mostly because he didn't have the energy to spare. Over the past few days, this undying metallic fossil had harassed him no fewer than fifty times. It was always the same script; the old man never bothered to come up with fresh material.
"Be silent, xenos," Cawl's primary consciousness replied coldly, even as he controlled a servo-arm to tighten a bolt. "If you are here to help, then unlock the 7th-layer logic lock on the Blackstone Obelisk. If you are just here to watch the show, then crawl back into your tomb and go to sleep."
"Help?" Trazyn let out a strange cackle, sounding like two rusted iron plates grinding together. "Why should I help you? I am a Great Being, a life eternal, while you are nothing more than a slightly cleverer-than-average monkey."
"Giving you data and letting you use my scarabs is already a divine mercy. And what have you done with it?" Trazyn extended a holographic finger, pointing at the messy data models in front of Cawl. "You take this precious knowledge and use it to play in the mud?"
"Open your inferior electronic eyes and look at this heap of code you've written! You are actually attempting to use binary logic to explain a multi-dimensional matrix? It is too ugly! Too inefficient! Too... human!"
The Necron technology tree and the human one weren't even in the same dimension. The Necrons played with reality revision, molding the laws of physics like clay. Meanwhile, humans were still struggling to solder things together, scavenging for scraps from the Dark Age of Technology.
Cawl trying to understand Blackstone technology using human logic was, admittedly, a bit of a stretch. But Cawl had his own defense: "That is because your instruction manual is trash. Every data packet I found is based on an encoder with an utterly disgusting underlying logic. To crack the principles of the device, I have to crack the encoder first. Is that my fault?"
Trazyn threw up his hands. "Who told you humans to be so narrow-minded? Tens of thousands of years have passed, and you've learned nothing except how to build bigger cathedrals. If I weren't afraid that those Chaos lunatics—who are even more abhorrent than you—would destroy my precious collection, I wouldn't bother with you at all."
As insufferable as the old bastard was, Trazyn was dead serious about "preserving cultural relics." In his eyes, the entire galaxy was one giant museum. Every civilization, every historical event, and every heroic figure was an exhibit.
The Chaos lot—whether they were the skull-collecting fans of Khorne or the filth-spreading fans of Nurgle—shared a common hobby: destruction. Wherever they went, they didn't just ruin relics; they extinguished entire civilizations.
To a museum curator like Trazyn, this was absolutely intolerable. If the dam at Cadia broke, the warp-filth of the Eye of Terror would flood the material universe. When that happened, his precious statues, his limited-edition Space Marine "action figures," and even the treasures he hadn't had the chance to steal—er, borrow—yet, would all be corrupted or destroyed.
It was a crime against art! A murder of history! A psychotic desecration!
So, Trazyn had to act. But he also looked down on humans, thinking they were too pathetic. Thus, this awkward situation arose: he provided Cawl with technical support through gritted teeth while simultaneously unleashing a barrage of venomous insults to maintain his sense of noble superiority.
"Since you are so knowledgeable, why don't you tell me why this phase-reversal beam won't focus?" Cawl interrupted Trazyn's monologue. "I've reconstructed the emitter array according to your blueprints, but every time I power it up, the energy overloads the focusing lens."
Trazyn brought his giant holographic face closer to the data model, pretending to study it for a moment. "Oh, isn't it obvious? The material of your lens is insufficient. Let me see... what are you using? Heavens, crystal? You're trying to channel stellar-level energy through a piece of junk glass? You need Living Metal! You need Living Metal that can self-repair and change its refractive index based on energy frequency!"
"Do you hear yourself?" Cawl snapped. "I don't have that on my ship!"
"That is your problem, not mine," Trazyn said with an innocent expression. "I am merely a consultant; I am not responsible for providing materials. However—"
Trazyn's tone shifted. "If you were to sincerely and honestly beg for my help, I might consider lending you a small piece from my private warehouse. Of course, there will be interest. You must give me a few Primaris Space Marines in exchange."
"Deal," Cawl agreed instantly, without so much as a blink.
In Cawl's view, a verbal promise like this was worth as much as a fart. Once they reached Cadia and the fighting started, who would remember who owed what? Besides, how much Imperial property had this old bastard already stolen? He'd swiped entire companies of Space Marines! What were three or five more? Trading a few Primaris for a critical component was a steal.
What? You say this is heresy? Tell me something I don't know.
"Decisive," Trazyn nodded with satisfaction. "But you haven't begged me yet. Say: 'Oh, Great Trazyn the Infinite, please save this foolish monkey.'"
Cawl: "..."
Cawl went silent for three seconds. "I'll give you another squad of Space Marines."
"Deal!" Trazyn replied instantly.
Clearly, the dignity of a Necron Overlord was worth nothing in the face of a rare "miniature."
"But how will you give it to me?" Cawl feigned ignorance to change the subject. "Aren't you on Solemnace? You're thousands of light-years away. Are you going to send it via Warp-express? Or rather—"
A glint of cunning flashed in Cawl's electronic eye. "Are you actually right here? Right next to me, on that perennially invisible scrap-heap of a ship, watching the show while fiddling with your nasty little toys?"
The holographic Trazyn froze. The awkwardness of being caught red-handed was almost palpable.
Indeed. Trazyn hadn't stayed home at all; he had personally led the expedition. At this very moment, less than five hundred kilometers to the left of the Ark Mechanicus, a Shroud-class Light Cruiser was completely cloaked. It was maintaining a perfect stationary relative velocity, flying parallel to the Ark.
Trazyn was sitting on the bridge, and he was indeed assembling a "miniature" while watching the drama unfold. He felt that Cawl, being human, definitely couldn't handle the mess at Cadia alone. If he weren't present for such a once-in-a-millennium event, no one would be able to record that historic moment!
So, Trazyn had to be there in person. He needed to personally turn those heroes and legendary weapons into "exhibits" and freeze those epic moments within his stasis fields. This was the self-cultivation of a qualified curator.
"I simply wanted to ensure that a dreg like you didn't die halfway there, so I am begrudgingly accompanying you for a stretch," Trazyn said, desperately trying to save face. "You should feel honored, amateur monkey. To have the Great Infinite personally escort you is a privilege most civilizations could only dream of."