"Forgive me," Vick murmured, his voice filtered through layers of static distortion and machine-reverence, as he reached out and rhythmically tapped the underside of the spherical Standard Template Construct (STC) exactly forty-four times.
He had never stopped studying the Standard Template Construct gifted to him by the Lord of Talon. Over time, he discovered a concealed access protocol buried beneath layers of obfuscation and sacramental encryption. Conventional methods could not destroy the STC, but the backdoor could.
As the final tap echoed through the chamber, a low crackling hum filled the sanctum. A halo of blue-white light spread across the STC's casing.
A translucent hololithic interface activated above the device, displaying two options:
[Emergency Purge.]
[Contingency Protocol.]
One of Vick's mechadendrites unfurled from his spine and scratched thoughtfully against the hooded dome of his chrome-plated skull.
He was perplexed.
The Emergency Purge option likely existed to prevent enemy capture. The Contingency Protocol, however, implied preparation for continued operation under hostile conditions.
After a brief moment of cogitation, Vick selected the Contingency Protocol.
The menu disappeared. In its place, a new directive burned into the air:
[Speak.]
Vick whispered a short binary prayer, offering homage to the Omnissiah, before voicing his request.
"I require elimination of the incoming heretics."
The STC pulsed once in acknowledgment. A narrow blue scanning beam swept across the chamber, analyzing the surrounding structure.
The walls, forged from rare industrial alloys and reinforced forge-metals, began to deconstruct. Layers of armored plating separated into raw material streams and were pulled toward the center of the corridor. Cog emblems, riveted panels, and purity seals tore loose and scattered across the floor.
The STC was harvesting raw material for fabrication.
In the center of the corridor, something was being constructed.
The scanning beam then passed across Vick himself, analyzing his mechadendrites, integrated weapon systems, and internal augmetics. One by one, his sacred augmentations detached from his body and disassembled. The process was painless but deeply unsettling. Components floated into the air and joined the growing construct.
The process was terrifying in its speed and precision.
Micro-assembler drones emerged from concealed compartments within the STC. Magnetic sequencing fields stabilized the forming structure while internal fabrication beams assembled armor plating, synthetic musculature, processors, and weapon systems with mathematical divinity.
Atom by atom, something took shape.
In mere moments, a Man of Iron stood completed before him; impossibly whole, heavily armored, and built purely for war.
Recognition struck Vick immediately.
It resembled the same type of abominable warform he had once been ordered to destroy during his initiation trials within the Talon Hive using a "meltabomb." But this one… it was different. Its armor was denser, its internal systems more advanced. One arm mounted a high-output directed energy weapon. The other carried a broad disruption blade surrounded by a controlled electromagnetic field.
As Vick stared at the construct, six Traitor Astartes from the Foresworn Warband emerged from the shadowed corridor beyond.
Their corrupted power armor was scarred by centuries of warfare, reeking of warp-forged sin. Warp-tainted inscriptions covered their ceramite plating. Chains, hooks, and ritual trophies clattered against their armor as they advanced.
They halted, noticing the warform in the center, puzzled by its appearance.
It resembled a modified Castellan Robot, yet... wasn't.
The Heretic Astartes did not hesitate. With wordless howls, they charged.
The Iron Man responded immediately.
It moved with brutish grace, its energy weapon fired concentrated streams of plasma-like matter that tore through the corridor with furnace-level heat. Blue-white flashes illuminated the hallway with every discharge.
The sanctum's stained-glass panels shattered from the shockwaves, raining fragments across the combatants.
The Chaos Marines dodged with superhuman agility, weaving through the barrage as their chain-axes and thunder-hammers slammed into the warform's hull.
Sparks flew, but the machine barely moved.
Despite its lumbering movements, the Man of Iron was deadly.
Its energy weapon carved molten holes through the steel walls.
It stood immovable, blocking the narrow corridor like a sentinel. No one would pass unless it was destroyed.
The Chaos Marines roared and struck, leaving deeper and deeper gouges in its frame.
Its glowing optics flickered with combat telemetry, constantly recalculating angles of engagement.
Vick assumed the battle would devolve into prolonged attrition.
But the Iron Man was learning.
It adapted to the Astartes' attack patterns.
After dozens of exchanges, the Iron Man abruptly stopped firing.
Instead, its torso rotated sharply like a turret, its targeting systems already predicting movement trajectories before the next charge completed. The arm with the disruption blade anticipated the trajectory of a charging Traitor Marine.
The Astartes impaled himself on the blade.
The energized blade cut through ceramite, flesh, and reinforced bone in a single motion. The heretic split apart at the torso, both halves collapsing onto the floor in molten ruin.
Bisected. Neutralized.
The tempo of the battle changed immediately.
Though slow, the automaton now moved with eerie foresight, intercepting each foe not where they stood. But where they would be.
Four more Traitor Marines fell in quick succession, each attack a predictive strike too precise to be chance.
Only one remained, a larger, heavily armored Astartes wielding a double-headed power axe. His plate was thickened, more akin to a siege variant of Mark III Maximus.
The Man of Iron attempted to analyze and intercept his attacks, but failed.
No matter how tight the corridor, this warrior slipped every blow and counterstruck with punishing ferocity.
Sparks fountained from the Man of Iron's shoulder joint, and glowing fluid leaked from its rib-vents.
After several failed attempts, the automaton paused, recalculating.
A cold mechanical voice emitted from its internal vox-system.
[New strategy: 80.7% success probability.]
"DIE, MACHINE!" the Chaos Astartes roared as he drove his power axe toward the deepest fracture in the construct's chest armor.
The Iron Man stepped backward.
Then, with mechanical serenity, its chestplate irised open, revealing the glow of a miniaturized fusion core suspended within layers of magnetic containment.
The core released a blast of searing energy.
The axe, the warrior, and all he was, disappeared in a radiant explosion, reduced to irradiated ash.
[Combat sequence complete.]
Silence returned to the sanctum.
The chest compartment closed. The Iron Man turned and approached Vick.
"Praise the Omnissiah. Praise the Machine God. Praise the Prime Motive Force…" Vick whispered ecstatically.
The STC then bathed the automaton in a beam of energy, disassembling it.
The components reformed into Vick's original mechadendrites and weapon systems. Each tendril snaked back into place, still warm from transmutation.
As for the salvaged wall materials, they had coalesced into a perfect metal cube, which dropped at Vick's feet.
He immediately threw himself over it protectively, mentally racing through options to carry it away.
It was only a cube of metal. No visible systems. No active machinery. No detectable function.
But to Vick, it was a relic.
He would name it the Sanctified Cube. A testament to the divine power of the STC.
Its existence alone was holy.
"Deployment complete. For the Omnissiah. For the Machine-God."
A burst of open-channel vox came through, unencrypted and broadcast across all frequencies. Even the most primitive vox-units could decode it.
Moments later, the reinforced vault doors burst open.
Sevin entered at full speed, wielding four power swords while four relic-pattern pistols hovered in servo-mounts around him. He was fully prepared for a last stand.
But there was no enemy.
Just Vick, silently staring at a metal cube.
Without speaking, Vick transmitted the recorded combat data directly to Sevin.
The warrior-priest reviewed it at accelerated speed, and grew silent.
"We do not have time for reverence," Vick said. "You must expel the invaders. At minimum, purge the stronghold."
"Consider it done," Sevin replied.
He retreating into the vault immediately and began reorganizing the defense effort.
His consciousness expanded outward through the command network, linking with thousands of allied personnel simultaneously. Tactical guidance flowed directly into soldiers, skitarii officers, servitor coordinators, and command units in real time.
The entire defensive network accelerated in response.
....
One Month Later
Vick and Sevin had survived the initial assault, and even destroyed the second wave of drop-pod invaders, though the fighting cost them heavily in manpower and infrastructure.
One major problem remained.
Several Dreadclaw drop pods successfully returned to orbit after deployment. However, that might ultimately prove beneficial. Corrupted machines of that type were notoriously difficult to eradicate permanently once embedded within defensive systems.
Thirty days of ceaseless war.
Sevin still remembered the turning point.
Approximately seven hundred standard hours earlier, the enemy assault had begun as a precision decapitation strike aimed at leadership centers, communications nodes, and reactor districts.
When that failed, the invasion escalated into full planetary warfare.
More and more traitor voidships arrived in orbit above the Forge World, deploying corrupted war engines and profane legions to the surface.
The war escalated from battle... to apocalypse.
Corrupted Titans marched across industrial sectors. Daemon engines breached defensive trench lines. Siege artillery reduced entire manufactorum districts to molten ruin. Warbands from multiple renegade factions fought simultaneously across the planet.
Now Sevin stood motionless with his eyes closed, his consciousness spread across thousands of active combat feeds.
Nearby, Vick continued performing rites around the Sanctified Cube.
Binary hymns echoed through the chamber while sacred oils coated the relic's metallic surfaces. Incense burners released thick chemical smoke in slow spirals around the object.
The ritual was far from peaceful.
The wailing of Titan sirens echoed through the sanctum. The thud of macro-cannons and the thunder of lance strikes shook the earth. Infantry gunfire and artillery never ceased.
The Forge World trembled continuously under the strain of war.
"What is the current status?" Vick finally asked after concluding the rite.
Sevin opened his eyes, grim.
"I ordered a data-smith to perform another orbital survey," he replied. "Additional hostile void signatures are entering the system. Several hulls are marked red. Likely enemy reinforcement fleets from neighboring systems. The void war goes poorly, our enemies have resources to spare."
Vick didn't need more detail.
He knew. The picture was grim.
The Forge World's defense protocols had accounted for a potential unified assault from the Eye of Terror. But no one had expected the Red Corsairs to intervene.
The Red Corsairs possessed enough ships, raiding strength, and operational flexibility to reinforce failing invasion fronts indefinitely. Their participation allowed smaller traitor factions to sustain offensives that should have collapsed weeks earlier.
Vick still could not identify a logical motive.
They were like dark angels of the enemy, joining the fray for no discernible profit.
Why? Even if they conquered this world, there was little strategic profit in conquering a half-ruined forge world already being contested by rival traitor forces.
It made no sense.
Yet they continued committing resources.
Their involvement had broken every original defense projection.
"How many moons and planets are in the Agripinaa System?" Vick suddenly asked.
"What?" Sevin frowned in confusion, then transferred the relevant tactical feed directly through the command link.
Vick's optics flickered as astronomical data streamed into his visual processors.
In the hellscape outside, amid the bodies of fallen soldiers, a lone damaged servitor looked skyward.
Three celestial bodies hovered above: two black moons and a blackened planet, with two metallic orbital rings glinting faintly in the pollution-choked heavens, suspended like judgmental gods over the forge world.
Vick stared at the image in silence.
Then he spoke quietly.
"The Omnissiah walks with us."
.....
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