Though the Iron n possessed no innate psychic potential, this did not prevent Axion from subjecting the laboratory equipnt to exhaustive scans and technical extractions. The cache contained a multitude of peculiar technologies: psychic weaving techniques used for Webway construction, inter-dinsional sub-strata drilling, and more.
These were the instrunts the Emperor had engineered for his Imperial Webway Project. With the data salvaged from these devices, Axion could, at any mont, construct a segnt of Webway and forcibly graft it onto the ancient network of the Old Ones. While Axion remained uncertain as to how to generate the specific psychic aegis required to repel daemonic incursions, such a hurdle was negligible for a machine intelligence.
As for the chanism of opening and closing the gates, the solution was straightforward. Axion could not replicate the Emperor's psychic bio-tric controls, but he could mimic the Aeldari. By combining Aeldari gate-activation sequences with the Emperor's Imperial Webway weaving and the "brute-force" thod of explosive closure, a nearly flawless set of Webway tactical applications erged.
The danger of becoming lost within the labyrinthine dinsion was a non-factor for the Iron n. So long as their numbers were sufficient, every node and junction would be mapped and held.
Following the delivery of the laboratory's contents to Terra, Axion's fleet began a massive redeploynt. Cruisers were reorganized into independent battle groups under the command of flagship vessels. Swarms of transport ships descended upon Terra to recover the legions from the Titan's Spear.
Nearly ten billion chanical units within the Terran Webway required transit. Even a vessel as gargantuan as the Titan's Spear could not house such a staggering host.
The resources of the Leviathan Mining Planet in Segntum Pacificus had been utterly depleted. The stationed fleet now set course for the Ultima Segntum. The T'au howorld was the next viable candidate for mineral extraction; it remained littered with shipwrecks and raw materials. This logistics fleet would systematically scour all T'au worlds, transforming their forr Sept worlds into mineral distribution hubs.
To facilitate the deploynt of his vast chanical legions, Axion contacted Guilliman directly.
"Collaborator Roboute Guilliman, the new protocol is ready for execution. All Imperial worlds and their constituent forces may now petition for the assistance and support of the Iron Man legions. I shall respond to these requests."
For Guilliman, this news was like rain upon parched earth, an invaluable boon. He harbored no doubt that the Iron n were far more reliable than his erratic and troubleso brother, Lion El'Jonson. However, when Axion presented a detailed manifest of the available forces, the normally stoic Primarch was montarily stunned into silence.
Guilliman stared at the list, his mind processing figures that defied Imperial military logic:
[Small-scale Ground Combat Units: 8 billion]
[dium-scale Ground Combat Units: 1.2 billion]
[Large-scale Ground Combat Units: 300 million]
[Standard chanical Fleets: 35 Battle Groups (Each consisting of: 1 Flagship, 20 Strike/Assault Cruisers, 20 Heavy Carriers; Total Drone Capacity: 220,000; Mixed Ground Units: 150 million)]
[Tax Escort Vessels: 1,378 Guardian-class (dium Multi-role Combatants)]
The thirty-five chanical Fleets and their escorting tax fleets accounted for a total of 5.3 billion chanical troops. Of the remaining 4.2 billion units in the sapient machine legions, 4 billion remained aboard the Titan's Spear, while the remaining 200 million were stationed upon the Void Sword and its imdiate escorts.
This was the harvest of Axion's efforts in just a few short years.
chanical units not listed would not respond directly to Guilliman or Imperial requests. When the Iron Man strategic logic deed heavy support necessary, the Planetary Arks would respond to fleet petitions and deploy to critical war zones. Even with these caveats, Guilliman was profoundly shaken.
The Iron n favored explicit directives and tangible objectives; they thrived on efficiency. While Axion understood the current state of the Imperium, he believed that since the protocol was active, it was best to relinquish operational control to those better suited to wield it. Biological strategic processing differed from machine logic. Thus, Axion chose the safer route: the Iron n would function as the ultimate executors of Imperial command.
Guilliman looked upon this mountain of military might with burgeoning excitent. His experience with Axion told him that with a precise order, the objective would be achieved perfectly. The process might be brutal, but it would be the ultimate weapon.
With the Lion handling matters on Terra, Guilliman was eager to delegate and focus his own intellect on the Pariah Nexus.
Ten of the thirty-five chanical Fleets were dispatched to the Imperium Nihilus to bolster the forces there; a ssage was sent to Commander Dante of the Blood Angels informing him of the Iron Man reinforcents. Of the remaining twenty-five fleets, five were assigned to patrol the borders of the Great Rift within the Segntum Solar, tasked with intercepting Chaos raiders.
The remaining twenty fleets were diverted to the Ultima Segntum. The Pariah Nexus required a solution. Ard with soulless chanical legions, Guilliman intended to attempt the total eradication of the Necron presence in that sector. Once the Necron threat was neutralized, a massive portion of his fighting strength would be liberated for other fronts.
Speed was the essence of the plan. Guilliman had not been away from Terra long, yet the Lion had already sent several inquiries regarding his return. Knowing his brother's administrative "talents," Guilliman knew he had to act swiftly. He needed to return to the Throneworld before the Lion accidentally collapsed the entire Imperial bureaucracy.
Axion, naturally, raised no objection to Guilliman's distribution of force.
The massive fleet, resembling a swarm of iron leviathans that blotted out the stars, ignited their engines at the edge of the Sol System. Great plus of fla propelled these behemoths into the Warp as they vanished into the empyrean, racing toward distant battlefields. Simultaneously, several newly modified Psychic Bombs were silently deployed into the Webway.
Unlike conventional lta, high-explosive, or plasma munitions, these Psychic Bombs were designed to disrupt localized supernatural energies rather than inflict physical destruction. Once the Sapient Machine Automatons had positioned the charges, a physical detonation cord was trailed back to the Titan's Spear.
The bombs were detonated.
In an instant, the neatly arranged psychic crystals within the charges were shattered by small lta initiators. A tidal wave of psychic energy erupted, shattering the energetic equilibrium of the Webway. As the psychic tide recoiled, it lashed out at the Webway gate established by the Harlequins.
There were no catastrophic collapses. Unlike previous attempts to destroy Webway passages, the backflow of psychic energy rely overloaded the gate's chanisms. The wraithbone threshold sparked with arcs of psychic lightning, reducing a few automatons into molten slag, but otherwise, there was no loss.
To Axion, the efficacy of Psychic Bombs in sealing Webway portals was remarkably high.
With the portal closed, the Titan's Spear disengaged its spatial anchors. The chanical fleet, which had kept the Imperial Navy and the High Lords in a state of high tension for months, finally vanished into the Warp.
The only ones left dissatisfied were the red-robed priests of the Adeptus chanicus on Mars. They had been "coveting" these chanical fleets for a long ti, observing every external structure and component during every supply drop, desperately trying to analyze and hoard the data of their "Lost Divinity."
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