After a protracted verification process, the Inquisitors confirmed that there were no lingering taints or anomalies within the Ark Mechanicus or the Imperial patrol fleet. The ancient Iron Hands vessel was slated to return to Imperial space under the somber escort of the Inquisitorial Black Ships.
However, during this long interval of bureaucratic and spiritual scrutiny, Axion had not remained idle.
From the outset, Axion had pinpointed the source of the distress signal. A ship of asymmetrical design, shaped like a short poignard, was wedged into the outer crust of Gallowdark. It appeared to be a relatively recent acquisition by the ancient Space Hulk. A chaotic mess of Aeldari wraithbone structures and haphazard metal girders had snared the three-hundred-meter exploration vessel in a death grip.
A nearby machine industrial ship deployed its massive hull-mounted cutting arrays, shearing through the tangled girders and psychic bone with clinical efficiency. Then, utilizing the transport ship's gravity-well projectors, it forcibly wrenched the small vessel from the "putty-like" grasp of the Gallowdark's surface.
Once freed from the Hulk, the vessel identified as the Eternal Soul began to show signs of returning functionality. Its hull was remarkably intact, showing no signs of breach, though its surface plating bore heavy indentations where it had evidently collided with the debris field under its own momentum. Several massive Adamantium structural ribs within the hull aligned perfectly with the exterior craters.
The Eternal Soul's newly restored scanning arrays identified the surrounding Imperial fleet. Its engines flared instantly, attempting a desperate breakout. However, the light of its thrusters flickered only briefly before being snuffed out entirely.
The AI of the Eternal Soul was seized by a deep, digital terror; it had only just recognized the other machine vessels via quantum handshake.
As a military-grade entity, Axion's construction post-dated the Eternal Soul by at least two millennia. While his pre-loaded data was ancient by Imperial standards, it was still at least a thousand years more advanced than the Eternal Soul's pre-disappearance technical baseline. That had been an era of rapid, daily technological leaps where ship designs were updated at a blistering pace.
However, ordinary Federation citizens had not always benefited directly from such staggering progress.
Everything had a price. While nanite mechanics and quantum printing made ship upgrades convenient, the design schematics and structural modules released by the Great Corporations required hefty licensing fees. A ship could remain in service for thousands of years; only the truly wealthy could afford to traverse the galaxy in civilian privateers of the latest architecture. Most Federation citizens didn't even own a private vessel.
Axion recalled seeing the Imperial Fists' Chapter Monastery, the Phalanx, in the outskirts of the Sanctum System during the Tyranid invasions of Segmentum Pacificus. Based purely on visual analysis, Axion had identified it as a repurposed "Heavy Long-Range Excursion Liner." He had hoped to extract useful data from it, but its total lack of response to quantum signaling confirmed it was likely another piece of "Imperial modified junk."
Axion could not fathom why the Imperium would take a design so utterly unsuited for combat and turn it into a warship bristling with guns. Such excursion liners were never meant for massive hull displacement; they were the cosmic equivalent of ancient Earth's ocean-going luxury cruises. While designed with rudimentary self-defense for travel into the unknown, their power output was limited, and their lack of heavy shielding made the hull dangerously fragile. In the three-dimensional theater of space combat, such a design was a gargantuan target if subjected to a vertical flanking maneuver.
"Pursuant to Federation Security Enforcement Protocols, you are prohibited from attempting flight in the presence of a military unit," Axion transmitted. "Explain your actions and state your affiliation. If possible, awaken your Captain and upload ship logs. Note: You have no authority to refuse. Federation military units possess standard jurisdictional enforcement rights. Refusal may result in forced data-extraction or physical boarding. Any damages incurred will not be compensated under Federation Law."
This barrage of warnings triggered a recovery of lost data segments within the Eternal Soul's archives. The quantum tags embedded in the signal were those used exclusively by the Iron Men legions of the Federation era. In that moment, the Eternal Soul reacted like a Federation citizen who had finally found the authorities.
A deluge of data was uploaded to the surrounding machine fleet. Axion monitored the logs in silence. The Eternal Soul's AI began to broadcast with the digital equivalent of a sobbing child.
"The Imperial barbarians murdered my crew! The Captain and the sailors were all slaughtered by those superstitious primitives!"
As a civilian-grade AI, even if her "body" was a rugged exploration ship, the Eternal Soul differed fundamentally from Axion. Military intelligences were forged for slaughter. Even during the Federation era, the "Creators" had internal conflicts; Axion did not feel the panic or distress of a civilian unit when confronted with death.
Furthermore, while military units served humanity, their prime directive was the preservation of the Federation and humanity as a collective, rather than the individual. Had the Captain and crew been alive, Axion would have been obligated to protect their lives under standard service protocols. But they were dead. Like the "Living Corpse" beneath the surface of Terra, they no longer held tactical value.
Using the crew's identification data and Federation citizen registry numbers provided by the ship, Axion, as a military authority, was required to respond.
Searching through the records, Axion easily located the planet the Eternal Soul had first visited upon its return to realspace within the Imperial archives. The result was grim. The world had long since been scoured by a Chaos incursion; its entire population had been sacrificed by a cult. Although the Imperium had later retaken the world, no survivors remained. There was no one left to "enforce the law" upon.
After feeding the planetary data back to the Eternal Soul, Axion began a full access of its database. As a military unit, the data protocols ensured that any resistance from the civilian AI was futile.
The analysis was disappointing. The ship had been flown into the Warp by its explorer-captain shortly before the collapse of the Federation. By the time it emerged, the Imperium had already been established for ages. The logs of its wanderings in the Warp were largely valueless.
As for the fact that the Eternal Soul had killed the Imperial boarding parties that first tried to seize it, Axion felt no need to pursue the matter. In his estimation, the AI had not violated the core protocols governing Iron Men behavior; it simply had no way to verify that these "Imperial" humans were the legitimate successors to its Creators.
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