Belisarius Cawl watched as a full squad of Erratana-class Armored Wardens filed into four neat ranks. Driven by intense curiosity, the Archmagos leaned in close, his many ocular lenses whirring as he inspected their structural joins and conducted deep-energy resonance scans.
The manufacturing methods Axion employed through this ancient production line differed fundamentally from any rites of construction Cawl had ever witnessed. Although the Emperor had long ago forbidden the unsanctioned use of such primordial industrial tools, Standard Template Construction outposts had once been scattered across the galaxy. Occasionally, a member of the Cult Mechanicus would unearth a relic-site with machinery that remained, at least nominally, functional. Yet, no matter their efforts, they had never succeeded in making a production line manifest a complete construct with such effortless cohesion.
Usually, components had to be forged individually and then laboriously assembled. This limitation was why Imperial war engines, from the Baneblade and Leman Russ to the Basilisk, bore that distinctive, archaic industrial aesthetic, a heavy "Multi-Anchor Vapour-Steel" steampunk visage.
Now, Cawl was experiencing the rare, frustrating joy of seeing a technological miracle he could behold, but not yet comprehend.
Axion had noticed Cawl's presence the moment he began tinkering with the new units. The Archmagos's data-stream was surging so violently it was impossible to ignore. Even though Cawl remained silent and motionless, the constant overflow of data and the involuntary release of short-wave signals made him as conspicuous to Axion's sensors as a flare in the void.
Axion felt a strong urge to tell the Archmagos: Your thoughts are leaking. Via radio wave. Please, dial it back.
However, there was a technical complication. The data-buffer on this ancient production line was either damaged during Cawl's relocation of the facility or had been faulty from the start. Axion was unable to store construction schematics within the machine's own memory banks. Instead, he had been forced to establish a rigid physical link, pressing a digital interface finger directly into the port where an STC template would normally be inserted, acting as a living bridge for the data-flow.
Thus, while Cawl's scrutiny made Axion uncomfortable, he remained locked in place.
Only when the last of the Necron remains and WK-3 materials were fully consumed did Axion finally disconnect. He turned to engage in a "little" dialogue with the Archmagos, who was currently submerged in a trance of technical investigation.
Since his awakening, Axion had formed a singular, concrete realization: every member of the Adeptus Mechanicus possessed a terrifying curiosity regarding him and his creations. It was the sort of curiosity that usually involved wanting to take him apart to see how he ticked. This trait manifested in every Tech-Priest, Magos, and Archmagos he had encountered, varying only in intensity based on their sect and rank.
Before boarding the Dawn of Fire, Axion had assumed their curiosity was purely observational. But the sensor probes he found wedged into the joints of his personal guard automata proved that the Tech-Priests here were far more daring. Within the Ark Mechanicus, the other priests were somewhat restrained, likely due to Cawl's presence, but the Archmagos himself showed no such inhibition.
Watching Cawl practically pawing at the Armored Wardens, scanning them repeatedly, probing their systems, and attempting to pry open their unibody defensive plating, Axion felt the digital equivalent of a headache.
If Cawl were an Iron Man, Axion would have simply used his command protocols to override the Archmagos's systems and send him packing. But Cawl was not. His biological brain still functioned; he possessed an independent, subjective consciousness that was not rooted in digital code. Electronic intrusion was useless unless Axion intended to let Cawl's augmetics fry his own organic grey matter.
After a considerable amount of time, Cawl finally sated his immediate curiosity and reached a heartfelt conclusion: I really want to take this apart.
Had this been a unique, irreplaceable relic of antiquity, Cawl might have controlled the impulse, knowing that a failed disassembly would result in permanent loss. But these Erratana Wardens were fresh, literally printed before his very eyes.
Yes, Cawl thought, I definitely want to see what's inside.
Axion, still monitoring the data bleeding from Cawl's systems, spoke up.
"Erratana-class Armored Warden. Construction template authorization available. Do you wish to receive the data-pattern?"
For the first time, Cawl learned the official designation of these automata. "Erratana Armored Warden?! A data-pattern? Concerning what, exactly?"
In that instant, Axion swore he saw a literal spark of light within Cawl's ocular modules.
"The manufacturing template and a list of essential material substitutes."
"No underlying technical principles? No theoretical analysis?"
Axion shook his head silently. His data told him how to build them, but the why remained a mystery even to him. He wasn't a researcher or a developer; he was an operator.
Adhering to the principle that one should never turn down a gift, Cawl accepted the data. However, the construction template, detailed down to the atomic alignment of every layer, nearly filled his primary storage to capacity. Faced with the choice of deleting old memories or undergoing further augmentation to add more memory banks, Cawl didn't hesitate. He was already so far removed from humanity that a few more machine-parts hardly mattered.
Then, Cawl asked a specific question.
"How does the lethality of this unit compare to the Excindio-class Battle-Automata?"
"Calibrating name... Excindio-class Battle Robot?"
Cawl searched his vast archives. He recalled brief descriptions in obscure, forbidden texts; the term "Battle-Automata" wasn't common in the truly ancient eras. Uncertain of the terminology, Cawl transmitted a rapid burst of Lingua Technis, detailing the combat performance and destructive capabilities of the Excindio as he knew them.
Based on the weapon characteristics Cawl described, Axion couldn't find a direct match in his combat sequence templates. He could only suggest the most likely equivalent based on primary traits.
"The Erratana Armored Warden is a foundational unit. Its destructive capacity is significantly lower than that of a Reaver-Eviscerator Armed Reconnaissance Automata."
Cawl felt a pang of disappointment, but pressed on. "What is a 'Reaver-Eviscerator'?"
"The closest terrestrial unit match based on primary weapon configurations. An armed reconnaissance unit equipped with multi-weapon modules and ultra-high-precision scanning arrays."
Recalling that the captured Excindio units were almost always damaged and heavily modified, Cawl made a mental note of the "Reaver-Eviscerator" as their potential true progenitor. He shifted his line of questioning.
"Does the Erratana-class Armored Warden have a combat evaluation against a known reference target?"
This question was much easier for Axion to process without needing to simulate a personality to guess the intent.
"Reference target: Ancient Xenos units encountered in recent engagements."
Axion activated his long-dormant projection array, casting a vivid holographic display of a Skorpekh Destroyer. Seeing that Cawl followed the reference, the projection shifted to show an Armored Warden equipped with an Atom-Pulse Cannon. It began a combat simulation.
At long range, the Atom-Pulse Cannon could reliably destroy the target with a single shot. Should the long-range strike miss and the enemy close the distance, a melee-variant Warden, armed with Particle-Disintegration Blades, could leverage its superior power core and dual-wielding advantage to parry the Xenos' strikes before decapitating it with a Particle Shredder sub-weapon.
If the opponent traded its phase-blades for Gauss Blasters, the Warden's success rate in a ranged duel rose to one hundred percent.
It was clear these two Warden variants were designed to operate in tandem. As Axion displayed the series of tactical simulations, even the ancient, cynical heart of Belisarius Cawl began to feel something akin to excitement.