Axion paid no mind to where the Tech-Priests dispersed.
The colossal construct looming before him elicited a peculiar sensation for the first time, a glitch in his cogitative core that caused his logic-streams to falter and his processing speed to plummet.
The massive machine stood over ten meters tall, its frontal carapace adorned with the crude, hideous iconography of the Orks. Axion did not comprehend its symbolic weight: it was the sculpted visage of Gork, the Ork deity, and this was a towering Gorkanaut.
As he approached, Axion's internal vox-thief intercepted bursts of binharic cant from the surrounding Tech-Priests. They were embroiled in a heated debate over the classification of this monstrosity. Compared to a standard Gorkanaut, this specimen was egregiously oversized; yet it was too small to be a Stompa, and its silhouette lacked the traditional ramshackle profile of such a god-machine. It appeared to be a product of pure, frantic improvisation.
Because the Magos could not reach a consensus on the machine's designation, the vox-channel had been a cacophony of static and argument until Axion's presence cut through the chatter.
It was the composition of the outer hull that caused Axion such violent distress. He had never experienced a diagnostic spike of this nature. After cross-referencing millennia of data, he reached a grim conclusion: this sensation was likely what mortals termed "heartache."
The Gorkanaut's chassis was a patchwork of disparate metallic alloys. Some plates still bore clear serial numbers and identification stamps. Axion recognized them instantly.
These were the armored plates of Federation super-heavy tanks and high-grade composite metals reserved for the most delicate of precision instruments. Now, they had been reduced to jagged scrap, crudely welded together to form the hide of this xenos idol.
These blundering beasts!
For the first time, Axion doubted his own deductions. Had these Orks truly modified a holographic projector through their own primitive ingenuity? Or was this the handiwork of the Aeldari?
He considered the possibility before dismissing it. Such devices were never revealed to alien races during the Federation era. Not even the Aeldari possessed the fundamental understanding required to warp the technology into this.
Amidst his calculations, Axion's sensors locked onto another familiar shape: the massive rotary cannon mounted on the Gorkanaut's arm.
This weapon was the most distinctive piece of salvage in the entire heap of refuse. Every barrel bore the scars of crude welding, a product of barbaric recycling. The material of the barrels was uniform and exquisite; Axion identified them as the main battery of a Federation super-heavy main battle tank.
The identification codes on the steel were blurred by heat-scarring and weld-beads, rendering the specific forge-origin untraceable. During the Federation's height, countless conglomerates had manufactured such components. Yet, since Axion's awakening, this was the highest-quality material he had encountered outside of his own chassis.
He found himself questioning the true nature of "Ork Tech." If they possessed no scientific merit, they should not have been able to reshape such resilient synthetic alloys. But if they possessed high technology, why commit such an act of mechanical sacrilege? Why not maintain the original cannon's function or use the materials to forge something superior?
As Axion spiraled into a logic-loop before the Gorkanaut, the burden in his grip stirred. The Mekboy he had been hauling like luggage finally regained consciousness.
"I fink I 'it summit..."
Axion hoisted the greenskin by the scruff of its neck, forcing it to face the towering Gorkanaut and the desecrated Federation scrap.
"Tell me, Ork," Axion's voice was a cold metallic rasp. "Where did these materials come from?"
As his senses returned, the Mekboy began to struggle violently against Axion's grip. It was a futile effort. Axion's mechanical hand tightened, his servos exerting precise pressure on the creature's cervical vertebrae, holding it at the brink of snapping.
"Answer me, xenos! Struggle again and I shall sever your head from your shoulders."
Feeling the crushing pressure on its neck, the Mekboy ceased its flailing. It looked at Axion and responded in a garbled, thick-accented dialect of Low Gothic.
"I don't know nuffin' 'bout dat!"
"Then what is this pile of refuse?"
"Dat's a right proper Waaagh-bot, dat is! A big metal git! Me and da boyz 'ad a 'fink' and made it ourselves!"
Seeing the Ork responding to Axion, a nearby Tech-Priest scuttled closer, his mechadendrites twitching with academic fervor. "Why was this... construct... built to such an inefficient scale?"
Even an orthodox priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus could not bring himself to call this heap a "machine." To do so would be to invite the wrath of the Omnissiah.
The Mekboy's eyes lit up as he began to boast of his "teky-nical" breakthroughs. "We found a load of weird bits in da ruins. Solid stuff, dead 'ard. But Orks is da strongest, see? We can smash anyfing!"
"Da metal was stubborn, but I 'ad a fink dat we could make summink big, so we 'ammered it togevver."
Axion pointed to the rotary cannon. "And this?"
The Mekboy looked at the weapon, his chest swelling with pride. "Dat's a real Waaagh-shoota! I found a shiny big tube and 'ad a long fink 'fore I made it work."
Hearing the Ork refer to a super-heavy tank's main battery as a "shoota," Axion's facial servos twitched in a mechanical phantom of a grimace. The caliber of this weapon was larger than that of an Astartes Boltgun. He had assumed it was at least a rotary autocannon.
Sensing Axion's interest, a spark of low-cunning glinted in the Mekboy's dull eyes. "If ya wants to see it go, I can turn da Waaagh-thing on for ya!"
Axion was no fool. Regardless of the machine's "refuse" status, he had no intention of testing its lethality, whether by being shot or by witnessing the entire mess detonate. The exposed wiring and leaking conduits suggested a catastrophic lack of stability.
Determined to witness the "Ork process" firsthand, Axion dragged the Mekboy to a pile of scrap metal. He shoved the creature's head toward the heap of rusted slag and discarded components.
"Construct a ranged weapon. Now."
The surrounding Tech-Priests broke into a cold sweat. Was this entity an Abominable Intelligence? It seemed possessed of an unsettlingly independent will.
The moment Axion loosened his grip, the Mekboy snatched up a heavy metal rod, intending to strike back. However, a pale gold energy blade hissed into existence, effortlessly shearing the reinforced rod in two. The Mekboy stared at the two smoking halves in his hands, blinked, and then obediently turned back to the scrap heap.
Using whatever jagged debris he could find as improvised tools, the Ork began a frantic session of hammering and clattering. Before long, a bizarre contraption took shape. It was a hideous amalgam of mismatched metals, crudely finished and aesthetically offensive.
Axion recognized it immediately as the same category of weapon used by the "Shoota Boyz"—though this one had a shorter barrel, perhaps a pistol. Bundles of wire and junk were wrapped haphazardly around the muzzle.
Axion snatched the weapon and inspected it. A nearly depleted low-density battery, a fractured power-grid... there was no magazine. It was a directed-energy weapon. There were no visible power lines, and the materials were fundamentally incompatible. He noted several components that seemed to act as primitive focal lenses.
He tossed the energy pistol, which looked ready to explode upon ignition, back to the Mekboy.
"Fire at that scrap heap. Let me see."
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