Gazing upon the list projected before them, the expression on Colonel Diack's face was one thing, but even the Wolf Lord's eyes looked ready to burst from their sockets.
Virtually every vessel that Axion had come into contact with was displayed within the floating spectral register.
The Wolf Lord stared in utter disbelief at a line written in crisp High Gothic, the longest entry in the entire ship manifesto. He asked, his voice betrayed by a flicker of tension:
"The Macragge's Honour?!"
"That is a holy relic-ship of the Ultramarines!"
The Automated Sentry-Trooper did not comprehend the astonishment radiating from the scions of Fenris.
"As mechanical constructs, all vessels on the list fall within the parameters for reconstruction."
To an Iron Man, a vessel only slightly smaller in scale than the Pectaro was not a complex undertaking.
The Imperial forces, however, had no inkling of just how divergent and logic-defying the reconstruction technologies of the Iron Man truly were.
The Wolf Lord made his choice without a shred of hesitation.
Simultaneously, Axion received the construction request synchronized from the frontline intelligence units. Upon intercepting and reviewing the data, Axion found no fault with the logic of the local intelligence's processing; in fact, he deemed it eminently rational.
Rather than expending his own logistics to deport them, it was far more practical to let these Imperial forces evacuate themselves.
Constructing a Gloriana-class battleship was a significant expenditure of materiel, but resources were the one thing this region did not lack. The star charts recovered from the League of Votann vessels revealed at least a thousand surveyed mineral-rich worlds.
If necessary, Axion would not hesitate to scour the territories of these abhumans entirely clean.
The optical sensors of the Sentry-Trooper pulsed with a shifting light as it received Axion's confirmation. The projected imagery shifted instantly.
"Command Core has accepted. Vessel reconstruction sequence loading. Current dockyards have no vacancies in the construction queue. Total estimated wait time: six hours."
Seeing a duration so drastically shorter than any conceivable expectation, a Wolf Guard could not help but bark a question.
"Why six hours?"
In response, the Sentry-Trooper provided a definitive demonstration. The hololithic display projected a feed from the void of space.
"Four Machine Weavers within the fleet are currently constructing other vessels. In three hours, they will initiate a combined construction protocol. Projected assembly time: three hours."
As the Sentry-Trooper explained, the icons of the four industrial vessels began to shift, moving from a parallel formation into a rectangular four-sided array. Each ship adjusted its pitch and yaw, and the Quantum Printing Modules at the base of the industrial hulls began a synchronized, joint fabrication.
In a zero-gravity environment, this method could exponentially increase printing efficiency while staggering the logistics strain across multiple industrial hubs.
The Imperial survivors watched the display with burning intensity and complicated hearts. Even as the Emperor's Angels and his most loyal soldiers, they harbored distinct misgivings.
The Wolf Lord narrowed his eyes and asked:
"What is the maximum size of vessel you can construct?"
Treachery was a constant in this universe. The sting of betrayal from genetic brothers remained a catastrophe the Imperium could never forget. The mechanical entities before them were clearly far more terrifying than any heretic Astartes.
If these so-called allies were to turn hostile one day, the Wolves needed to know what they would be facing.
"The maximum ship configuration is the Titan-class."
The hololith flickered to show a gargantuan vessel. For the sake of scale, the Sentry-Trooper thoughtfully placed the Macragge's Honour alongside it as a reference point.
Seeing the two ships together felt like witnessing an Imperial escort craft coming alongside the Phalanx. The Titan-class hull spanned over twenty thousand kilometers, a silhouette more exaggerated than a small planet.
Even the largest ancient vessel in Imperial records, the Speranza, was cited at a mere five thousand kilometers. The largest known constructs to the Imperium were the Ork Attack Moons, hollowed-out planets, the largest of which topped out at ten thousand kilometers.
They did not know, however, that they were asking the wrong question. A starship was not the largest construct the Iron Men could build; it was merely the largest vessel in Axion's database.
The Sentry-Trooper displayed the rough proportions but, unlike with the Imperial ships, did not provide a detailed schematic of the hull or internal structure. A Titan-class ship never possessed a "standard" layout; the resources required for one were enough to hollow out several mineral-rich systems.
The Wolf Lord felt a strange sense of relief looking at the behemoth. Though its volume was vast, it did not exceed the scale of an Attack Moon by too much. If the Imperium of old could break the Orks' weapons of war, then defeating such a ship was not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.
Probably.
Perhaps.
It would be like fighting two Attack Moons at once, the Wolf Lord mused, his mind racing even as his face remained a mask of stone.
Seeing that no one had further questions, the Sentry-Trooper spoke.
"Please commence transfer preparations. The rally point is set at these coordinates. In six Terran hours, heavy carriers will arrive to transport you."
With that, the Sentry-Trooper turned and departed to resume its duties, deftly avoiding the Tech-Priest Luber, who was just emerging from the forward command post.
Luber was oblivious to the revelations of the last few minutes. Having regained his freedom of movement, the priest rushed once more toward his "holy land," picking through the wreckage of destroyed Votann wargear, occasionally glancing with distracted awe at the Sentry-Troopers laboring in the distance.
The Astra Militarum received orders to organize and recover all possible assets. Priority was given to rations and standard logistical stores. Excess weapons, ammunition, and gear were piled high; if time ran out for transport, they would be rigged with explosives and detonated.
The force of over twenty thousand souls was organized into twenty square formations of a thousand men each. The wounded were placed separately, assisted by their battle-brothers. The bodies of the fallen were interred where they lay. The Cadians had lost their homeworld; they would never have the chance for their souls to return to the gate they once guarded.
The Space Wolves were equally occupied. Their battle barges still contained many Chapter relics that required retrieval.
However, the busiest among them were the Tech-Priests. They scoured the Votann equipment destroyed by the Iron Men with religious fervor, packing away any components that were not beyond repair. To them, these fragments represented a technological feast.
Six hours passed in what felt like a heartbeat.
Colossal Iron Men transport craft began their descent from orbit. Their never-before-seen silhouettes and sheer scale made the gathered Guardsmen visible nervous.
The Space Wolves shared this tension. They had no way of knowing if the promise of a Gloriana-class battleship from these "iron husks" was a reality or a deception. But at this juncture, they had no other choice.
The Tech-Priests scattered throughout the ranks, however, reacted quite differently. They were so ecstatic they looked ready to prostrate themselves on the deckplates and carve out a sample for analysis on the spot. Only the stern warnings of the Wolves, threatening consequences for any "unauthorized mechanical communion," kept them in check.
Forty heavy carriers effortlessly swallowed the entire Imperial force before lifting off from the planet's surface.
And when the unprecedented silhouettes of the vast, silver fleet appeared through the viewports of the transports in the void of space...
A singular, unified gasp of awe echoed through every cabin.