The war-factory was a cacophony of war. The air was a chaotic web of tracer fire, where the rhythmic thrum of Astartes bolters interlaced with the erratic, heavy-caliber thumps of Ork shootas.
Amidst this lethal storm, Axion wandered alone, a ghost in the machine.
Ork ballistics held as little threat to him as the bolter rounds. Yet, despite the apparent ease of his traversal, his internal threat-detection subroutines remained at maximum vigilance. Axion did not fear the crude output of greenskin industry; rather, he remained wary of the Dark Age of Technology remnants that might still haunt this world. To his ancient logic, these Orks had not yet demonstrated a technological gulf wide enough to overwhelm the forces of the modern Imperium.
He paused to observe. Massive, jagged gears ground against one another; blistering furnaces belched black soot; assembly lines looked like refuse heaps stitched together by madness.
It defied all logical parameters. Did these xenos possess no fundamental grasp of material science?
Scanning a single metal strut, Axion's sensors identified a dozen disparate alloys. Some were high-grade composites dating back to the Federation era, genuine STC-derived materials, while others were nothing more than scavenged, low-grade pig iron. Fragments of varying structural integrity had been crudely welded into a single plate, which was then fashioned into armor or weapon casings.
The discrepancy was jarring to his processing core. It was as if one were to build a main battle tank where the outer glacis was a patchwork of hardened steel and wet parchment, and yet, through some impossible defiance of physics, the parchment held with the strength of reinforced plasteel in the Orks' hands.
Axion's logic center flickered with a micro-stutter of confusion.
Nearby, an Ork Big Mek had been lurking in the shadows. Initially engrossed in the brawl, the Mek's attention had been snared by the sight of Axion standing motionless, staring at a pile of scrap. The machine's lustrous casing, its towering stature, and its utterly alien aesthetic, devoid of the blocky brutality of the Imperium or the jagged filth of the Orks, ignited the Mek's avarice.
I reckon dat's a right proper bit o' kit, the Mek mused. Looks dead waagh.
Driven by the need to dismantle and "fink out" this shiny new toy, the Big Mek reached into a massive pocket and produced a heavy, grease-stained wrench.
Just gotta bonk its noggin, then I'll drag it off quiet-like. Then I'll make summin' real waagh outta it.
Moving with the practiced silence of a creature that lived among roaring turbines, the Big Mek navigated the labyrinth of thumping machinery. He scaled a maintenance catwalk and leapt, swinging the massive wrench in a crushing arc aimed directly at Axion's cranial unit.
CLANG!
The sound echoed through the bay, but Axion's mechanical hand had already snapped upward, catching the wrench mid-swing with effortless precision. Utilizing the Mek's own kinetic momentum, Axion twisted his chassis and hurled the xenos across the floor.
A human would have been pulverized by the impact. But the Big Mek was a creature of singular resilience, a mountain of muscle and green hide standing nearly two and a half meters tall. Even compared to Axion's four-meter frame, he was a formidable specimen of biological endurance.
As the Mek tumbled, Axion's wrist-mounted triangular blade hissed outward. A pale gold oscillation field hummed to life, vibrating at a frequency capable of bisecting the Ork instantly.
But the blade stopped mere centimeters from the Mek's throat.
Axion paused. Perhaps a live specimen could provide a demonstration, a way to reconcile the "illogical" performance of this equipment with the laws of physics.
He noted the differences in this Ork's panoply. While the common Boyz wore simple hides and scraps, this one was encrusted with mechanical greebles and carried a wide array of tools. From its specialized gear, Axion deduced this was a technician—a Mekboy. He would keep it alive to "create" something, so he might observe the phenomenon in real-time.
…
The battle was nearing its conclusion. The Ultramarines had scoured the primary halls of the war-factory. While Gretchin likely still cowered in the vents and shadow-pockets, there was no time for a meticulous purge.
Naval armsmen, drawing on their basic fortification training, began reinforcing the breached metal walls with salvaged scrap and temporary barriers. Simultaneously, a sea of red-robed figures surged into the facility, trailed by file after file of shambling combat servitors.
The factory became more frantic than it had been under Ork control. The Tech-Priests directed their servitors to begin the ritual of disassembly, focusing on the massive gears and structural supports. These were pure industrial castings; though crude, their quality was consistent enough to be sanctified for ship repairs.
The patch-work metal plates that looked like a collage of scrap were ignored by the Adeptus Mechanicus. They had seen Ork "technology" before and held it in utter contempt. Their ancient data-tethers, encoded in Binary Cant, warned them never to trust anything that defied the holy standard of the STC.
Amidst a torrential downpour of binary bickering and canted insults directed at the "unclean" machinery, the Tech-Priests fell to their work. In the void above, the cruiser maintained a constant auspex sweep, ready to signal the ground forces the moment the Orks from neighboring camps rallied for a counter-attack.
Axion strode out of the factory's rear exit, dragging the unconscious Big Mek by one leg. He would wait for the creature to awaken; he required a demonstration of this "Ork science."
As he emerged, a group of mortal soldiers moved to intercept him, sensing a threat from the un-slain xenos. However, a nearby Ultramarine raised a hand, barring their path. The Astartes knew better than to interfere with the "automaton"—matters regarding Axion were to be referred directly to Calanthus.
Behind the factory, Axion's attention was drawn to a group of Tech-Priests gathered around a towering pile of metallic refuse. It was a massive, hideous effigy of an Ork, bristling with mismatched weapon systems.
Axion approached the circle of priests, still towing the comatose Mek. One Magos, interrupted in his binary tirade, turned to vent his frustration, but the words died in his vox-grille. He stared into Axion's glowing optic and then at the dangling Ork, and wisely chose silence.
Word had spread among the ship's Tech-Priesthood: the golden machine understood the Holy Lingua Technis. It had already humiliated a colleague by translating his binary insults in front of the Astartes.
The Tech-Priests might possess a unique, machine-centric worldview, but they were not fools. If they provoked this unknown entity, and he decided to swing that two-ton Ork at them like a flail, they knew exactly how the report would read: "The xenos killed the Priests before the automaton could intervene."
They parted like a red tide, letting the Iron Man pass.