After the pursuit fleets of the Iron Men transitioned back from the Warp and regrouped, the vast armada hung in the void between the two sectors, shrouded in a heavy silence. The massive cluster of ships remained anchored in the empty gulf, maintaining a total blockade around the cooling, molten planetoid.
The enigmatic, gargantuan ring that had initially appeared was gone. In its place, several colossal structures now encaged the planet. Though the precise principles of their operation remained a mystery, the nearby Imperial fleet observed these strange facilities gradually siphoning thermal energy from the world while generating anomalous gravitational fields.
A planetary body of such astronomical proportions could not exist under natural conditions; without intervention, it would inevitably collapse under its own weight. Axion had foreseen this.
The Star Forge had been superseded by a network of distributed structural nodes calculated to stabilize the molten mass. These structures housed unique dark matter singularities, generating gravitational counter-forces sufficient to prevent a world the size of two or three hundred terrestrial planets from imploding. These micro-black holes not only balanced the planet's gravity but acted as conduits for the siphoned thermal energy, accelerating the cooling process to facilitate future mining operations.
While Axion waited for his spoils of war to solidify, far away in the Segmentum Solar, Roboute Guilliman pored over a secret intelligence dossier provided by the Inquisition. The contents of the report defied even his strategic prognostications.
In the Primarch's initial estimations, even with the assistance of the Iron Men, it should have taken decades, if not centuries, to fully excise the Tyranid threat. Yet, in less than two Terran years, Leviathan had been forcibly driven out. Furthermore, these mechanical entities had vanished from the theater of war for nearly a year of that time. Their actual combat duration within Segmentum Pacificus totaled less than one standard Terran year.
As the Inquisition's data was synthesized, Guilliman began to trace the trajectory of the Iron Men's movements.
Following their return from the Imperium Nihilus, the mechanical force had arrived at Vorchad III as a single vessel, only to undergo a rapid, exponential metamorphosis. Within mere days, they had manifested a vast ground force and a gargantuan transport ship, conducting two consecutive campaigns.
Following a period of attrition, they vanished for nearly a Terran month. Upon their return, they boasted not only a replenished army but several massive warships comparable in scale to Imperial Battleships, launching a ferocious counter-offensive against the swarm.
After successfully repelling two major tendrils of Leviathan, they were ambushed by the Hive Mind. They successfully counter-attacked, dealing crippling blows to all Leviathan tendrils invading Segmentum Pacificus, though the mechanical fleet appeared to vanish in a catastrophic explosion. Imperial sensor data from that event suggested the forced opening of a Warp rift within the blast radius.
Subsequently, these vessels reappeared on the distant fringes of Segmentum Tempestus. They intervened to save a mortal merchant convoy and a Rogue Trader dynasty from the Aeldari pirates of the Void Dragons, entering into a transaction with a Reclaimator Tech-Priest aboard the merchant vessel.
They surrendered an Iron Man Automaton, damaged by the Rogue Trader's Ogryn bodyguards, to the Tech-Priest, having pre-loaded it with sophisticated technological data. This automaton began assisting the Tech-Priest in mastering advanced technical knowledge and providing self-repair protocols. Both the priest and the machine were later transported to Mars.
The Rogue Trader family was subsequently investigated by the Inquisition and "processed" by a localized Iron Hands successor Chapter on charges of treason; the dynasty was purged and their warrants of trade rescinded.
Separate intelligence indicated that Princess Saaraina, leader of the Void Dragons, personally led her fleet to the fringes of Segmentum Tempestus following the "Lightless Realm" incident, purging several xenos worlds in a fit of pique. Her pirate fleet engaged Imperial patrols before being driven back by a massive Imperial task force.
According to the logs of the astropathic relay stations on the Tempestus fringe, no Iron Men vessels were detected leaving the area before or after the incident. The prevailing hypothesis was that they executed a forced Warp jump and were cast into the Galactic Core.
Reports from Callidus Assassins embedded within the Leagues of Votann indicated that the Iron Men fleet waged a high-intensity campaign of slaughter within the Core, undergoing a frenzied naval expansion. Their objective appeared to be the location of the Ancestor Cores held by the Kin.
Stolen League intelligence suggested the Votann eventually capitulated, surrendering one of their mysterious Ancestor Cores. However, the Iron Men reportedly treated the core as little more than "disgusting refuse," abandoning the Galactic Core almost immediately after brief contact.
The Space Wolves and Cadian regiments, who had been cast into Votann space by the Warp, were rescued by the Iron Men and provided with a replica vessel modeled after the Macragge's Honour, now rechristened the Wrath of Fenris.
By calculating the fleet's trajectory from the Votann assembly to their second appearance, the Inquisition determined they had set a direct course for Segmentum Pacificus. En route, for reasons unknown, they intercepted a massive Balefleet, tearing them out of the Warp and conducting a total purge. They left behind four purified Arks of Omen. The artifacts within were reclaimed by the Imperium, while the non-Imperial elements were seized by the Adeptus Mechanicus. The hulls themselves were towed away by several Mechanicus Ark Mechanicus vessels.
The Iron Men then traversed the Warp to reach the dark world of Vorchad in Segmentum Pacificus, establishing contact with the Imperial Navy to secure the latest theater intelligence.
The fleet finally reached the front lines. Without waiting for orders from Lord Solar Leontus, they provided support across all Imperial battlefronts in the sector. The massive fleet demonstrated a level of overwhelming firepower the Imperial Navy could not match, effortlessly shattering the Tyranid bio-fleets.
At the same time, they deployed mechanical ground forces exceeding one billion units. Among them, mechanical walkers comparable to various classes of Imperial Titans numbered over a million. The vast majority of these forces originated from the planet-sized warship.
During the conflict, this "World Ship" detached itself and was monitored arriving at the cosmic gulf outside the Saphiris Sector. Utilizing an unknown, ultra-wide-area weapon, it single-handedly engaged three Leviathan tendrils and severed them.
As the Tyranids began a total retreat from Segmentum Pacificus, the Iron Men dispatched a sub-fleet of suspected "close-quarters" vessels to hunt the retreating tendrils, while the remaining ships blockaded the gulf.
During this period, the mechanical vessels underwent an incomprehensible transformation, constructing a massive, unknown megastructure. Based on the anomalous changes observed in the severed Leviathan tendrils, the Adeptus Mechanicus concludes that the construct is being used to smelt the bio-mass.
Currently, the Iron Men are performing actions of an unknown nature upon the remains of the Hive Fleet.
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