Upon receiving the communiqué from Guilliman, Lord Commander Solar Leontus immediately ordered his vox-officers to establish contact with the Pectaro, currently holding station in the orbit of Vorchad III.
With the assistance of the Tech-Priests, who cycled through several esoteric transmission protocols, the guardsmen finally secured a link with Axion. When the metallic visage flickered onto the tactical display, Leontus could not help but subtly scrutinize it. It was markedly different from the grotesque, bio-mechanical amalgams of the Adeptus Mechanicus—cleaner, more purposeful, and possessing a disturbing aesthetic symmetry.
Axion, analyzing the biometric data of the Lord Commander, discerned the intent behind the gaze. He was indifferent to his own structural appearance; it was only logical for an Imperial commander to be curious upon a first encounter with a forbidden relic of the past.
"Initial contact established. Lord Commander Solar Leontus, Iron Man Axion greets you. By the directive of Roboute Guilliman, I am tasked to assist the current Imperial deployment. This unit is authorized to initiate armed assistance protocols."
Leontus blinked, momentarily caught off guard by the machine's directness, before his brow furrowed slightly.
"Define your parameters."
"Please set potential objectives based on the provided temporary templates and deliver a mission briefing. This unit will exercise autonomous judgment during execution to optimize tactical solutions and achieve the desired outcome," Axion replied succinctly.
Following his clear response, Axion abruptly severed the vox-link and transmitted an electronic protocol document via the Lord Commander's data-link.
Leontus was startled by the machine's blunt termination of the call. Moments later, a vox-adjutant approached, cradling a data-slate.
"My Lord, we have just received a specialized protocol file from the Pectaro."
Leontus took the slate and reviewed the configuration tables. It bore a superficial resemblance to a standard mission order, yet it contained several unprecedented query fields.
"Anticipated target damage threshold? In the event that mission success is deemed unattainable, is total destruction of the objective authorized?"
Finding these concepts difficult to reconcile with Imperial doctrine, the Lord Commander was forced to re-establish the link with Axion.
"For example," Axion explained tonelessly, "if conventional terrestrial armed clearance of a planet fails, is the annihilation of the celestial body authorized? Or is the use of ship-borne weaponry for destructive saturation clearing permitted?"
"Similarly, if the rescue of a specific high-value target fails, shall the target be utterly destroyed to prevent recovery and utilization by the enemy? The degree of destruction will vary based on the target's composition. Final results may experience a degree of variance."
The explanation made Leontus's eye twitch. "Is there no option for mission re-execution? If you fail once, can you not attempt a second time?"
Axion fell silent, data flowing through his glowing optic sensors. Suddenly, a new option appeared on Leontus's data-slate.
"Protocol revised. Added 'Iterative Execution' option. Revised query: Is destructive processing authorized following multiple mission failures? Based on mission parameters and execution status, this unit will autonomously decide whether to abort the mission and initiate extraction."
"Once extraction protocols are activated, the operation is logged as a failure. Merit and contribution calculations will be voided."
Over the next hour, Axion and Leontus painstakingly refined over thirty clauses, some of which the Lord Solar found bordering on the absurd. Finally, Axion received his first objective:
The Relief and Cleansing of Raknor.
Raknor was a Bastion World, critical for its immense military manufacturing capacity and bristling with gargantuan automated defense turrets. It was one of the few worlds in the sector where significant Imperial forces and civilians were confirmed to have survived. Though the surrounding system had fallen, the Astra Militarum on Raknor's primary world had dug into the vast military installations and utilized the massive stockpiles of unexported materiel to grind the Tyranids into a brutal war of attrition.
The Imperial Navy had been unable to breach the dense perimeter of bio-ships to provide reinforcements or evacuation. If Raknor could be reclaimed, the Imperium would gain a vital foothold. With minor repairs, the planet's planet-side defenses, supported by a small naval contingent, could hold the entire system. Furthermore, its industrial output would be a boon to the entire front.
As the pact was sealed, Imperial sensors tracked the Pectaro and its massive HG-class giant carrier consort as they began to maneuver. The Pectaro tore a jagged rent in reality and plunged into the Warp.
Leontus, reviewing the star charts on his slate, was left with a mounting list of questions. Raknor was not far from Vorchad; Imperial vessels rarely engaged in Warp transit for such short distances. Usually, for a neighboring system, the Navy preferred to spend a month or two in realspace transit to avoid the vagaries of the Empyrean.
However, Federation-era ships were designed for short-range Warp jumps. Long-distance Warp travel, without the guiding light of the Astronomican, was a guarantee of becoming lost. Even Axion would never attempt a long-range jump without an Imperial navigator-vessel to lead the way; his internal sensors could not lock onto long-distance coordinates within the Warp. Ancient Federation ships had relied on rapid, iterative "leaps" between the Warp and realspace.
When Axion translated back into reality, he was precisely where he needed to be, only a "negligible" distance from Raknor. Bolstered by the terrifying energy output of anti-matter reactors, the acceleration of the Pectaro and its carrier far outstripped anything in the Imperial Navy. Pushing his engines to their limit, Axion reached Raknor in a mere three Terran days.
The Tyranid bio-fleet never anticipated a threat emerging from behind their own lines. The Shadow in the Warp had smothered the outer reaches of Segmentum Pacificus; Imperial Navigators were utterly incapable of guiding ships through that void of hunger. Any Navigator who drew too close would be driven to madness by the Great Devourer's psychic pressure.
But Axion, aboard the Pectaro, was deaf to the hunger of the Hive Mind. His dark matter engines hummed perfectly, his energy reserves were optimal, and there was no soul for the Warp to gnaw upon.
When a localized burst of high-energy particles erupted from the rear of the Hive Fleet, the hungering will of the Warp felt, for the first time, a flicker of uncertainty.
Oblivious to the new arrival, several Tyranid Hive Ships continued to rain bio-spores upon the resisting world. Spore-chimneys sprouted in the gaps between the massive defense batteries, releasing thick clouds of microbial spores. Raknor's environment was degrading rapidly; for the humans below, the air was becoming a toxic soup. Civilians were collapsing in the streets. While Raknor did not lack for ammunition, the Planetary Defense Forces lacked specialized anti-spore gear. They were forced to contract their lines and even seize civilian respirators to survive the atmospheric rot.