As the battle lines on each vessel drew closer to their respective bridges, Axion encountered his first truly troublesome Aeldari units.
A group of Warlock conclaves and Farseers, leading a contingent of Aspect Warriors, held the primary corridors leading to the command centers. The cramped confines of the ship's interior prevented the machine legions from deploying their superior numbers effectively. Furthermore, constrained by the directive to take captives, the mechanical forces refrained from employing heavy ordnance. Even the over-engineered atomic pulse cannons of the Armored Wardens had fallen silent for some time.
The Warlocks and Farseers wielded singular weapons: Singing Spears. These elegant polearms, embedded with rune-encrusted psychocrystal matrices and wreathed in shimmering psychic fields, possessed devastating armor-piercing capabilities when hurled. Most vexing of all was their ability to be psychically recalled to the thrower's hand.
Their lethal potency easily bypassed the shield systems of the Automated Sentry-Troopers and Armored Wardens alike, their exotic warp-resonance shattering mechanical chassis with every strike. Yet, no sooner had a spear found its mark than it would vanish, reappearing instantly in the grasp of the Aeldari seers.
Fortunately, these feats were not without cost to the users. In Axion's multispectral energy vision, the psychic signatures of the xenos were steadily dimming. Meanwhile, the mechanical tide had already engorged the rear passageways, sealing every exit.
To Axion's logic, the more esoteric the capability, the higher the individual's status, and thus, the greater their strategic value for capture. Seeking to expedite the conclusion, transport craft launched from the Titan's Spear, delivering a specialized batch of reinforcements to the stalemated corridors.
A fresh complement of TR-09 Morlanad assassin automata was deployed. These diminutive killers did not enter through the breached bulkheads; instead, they sprinted across the external hull of the Aeldari vessels. Upon reaching calculated coordinates, short-range teleport-jumps phased them directly from the void into the heart of the enemy bridges.
While the physical strength of the Morlanad was unremarkable, their hololithic-stealth suites allowed them to stalk openly through the command decks. Their blades struck from the shadows, coated in specialized synthe-paralytic toxins retrieved from the archives of the Human Federation.
Against Aeldari weaponry, which often sought to sever the soul with a mere scratch, these toxin-laced blades were practically merciful. The invisible assassins flickered through the bridge like ghosts, their blades whispering past every living xenos. A single, shallow graze on exposed flesh was sufficient; within seconds, the Aeldari would collapse into a state of narcotic euphoria, their motor functions overridden by an artificial chemical bliss.
To other species, such dosages might have been lethal, but for the Aeldari, it acted like a supreme addictive stimulant, rendering them incapacitated by a tide of endless pleasure. While certain Drukhari, already debased by chemical overindulgence, might have resisted the effect, these Craftworlders were not so fortified.
Sudden blade-flashes, a minor sting, and the rapid onset of overwhelming ecstasy turned the remaining resistance into a collection of drooling, slack-jawed "corpses."
With the psychic support neutralized, the remaining wraithbone constructs were easily dismantled. Erratana-class Armored Wardens charged through the lines with shields raised, tearing the constructs into splinters. Following in their wake, Sapient Machine Automatons brutally pried spirit stones from the shattered wraithbone husks while dragging the unconscious Aeldari into custody.
Across the entire fleet, Axion successfully secured over a million living Aeldari and hundreds of thousands of spirit stones.
What followed was grimly efficient. Spirit stones held an ineffable sanctity to the Aeldari; to the Iron Men, they were simply leverage.
Inside the Titan's Spear, the Aeldari were stripped of their wargear and herded into a cavernous internal bay. The automata issued commands in a cold, archaic dialect of Low Aeldari, driving the survivors forward. Warriors, seers, rangers, and farseers alike were corralled into a singular, vast space capable of holding the entire multitude.
A massive anti-gravity platform, typically used for bulk cargo transfer, hovered in the center of the hall. Upon it sat heaps of spirit stones, organized into mounds of ten thousand each. Beside every pile stood a towering laser-grinding apparatus.
A colossal hololithic projection flickered into life, towering over the captive xenos.
"By the will of the Command Core: disclose the methods for accessing the Webway. Constrained by the ancient Protocols of Peace, the Iron Men seek your cooperation."
The gathered Aeldari erupted in a cacophony of outrage.
"Ignorant machines! Your threats are as hollow as your souls!"
"Your victory is a fleeting shadow! The tides of fate shall turn, and your doom is written!"
While the majority screamed defiance and curses, several elders, those who had endured since the era of the Fall, stared with wide, horrified eyes.
The Protocols of Peace.Iron Men.
These horrors were relics of the ancient Human Federation. Eons ago, at the zenith of the Aeldari Empire, these metallic legions had clashed with the Aeldari more than once. The xenos had believed themselves invincible, but reality had dealt them a shattering blow.
The rising Human Federation had unleashed its iron armies to scour the galaxy. For the Aeldari, it had been a time of total war. It was the Great Expansion of humanity, and the true beginning of the Aeldari decline. Beset by their own growing obsession with excess and desire, the Aeldari Empire had retreated step by step, only managing to secure localized victories through the prophecies and interventions of their seers.
Yet, tactical victories changed nothing. The war had devolved into a grinding stalemate. These machines possessed no aesthetic, no mercy, only a drive for destruction and conquest. When they failed to win on the front lines, the horrific machines began to systematically annihilate entire planets and star systems.
Countless Aeldari had perished in those fires, and the cold machines felt no remorse for the scarring of the galaxy. Their lexicons contained only the emotionless data of destruction, termination, assessment, and efficiency optimization.
Eventually, the Aeldari had abandoned the long war to meet the true masters behind the cold mechanical reapers: the Humans of the Federation. Beneath the shadow of a Sacred Covenant of Peace, that long-forgotten war had finally ended. The souls of the countless dead merged quietly into the Aether of the Warp, awaiting rebirth.
The Aeldari, welcoming a false peace, had spiraled once more into hedonism. Then, the true catastrophe struck. The gods fell, a Dark God was born, and Slaanesh consumed the degenerates of the empire.
Most of the survivors here were the descendants of those who had fought the Federation. The ruthless efficiency of the machine legions had once served as a wake-up call to some, though the Aeldari never truly learned what internal strife had eventually shattered the Federation.
They only knew that the mechanical death-dealers who once hunted them had eventually turned upon their own creators. A war of unimaginable cruelty had ravaged the galaxy, while the Aeldari, fighting for their own future, had intervened from the shadows time and again to save humanity from itself, preventing the total collapse of the Milky Way.