An unexpected passenger

As the Iron Warriors' fleet rapidly pulled away from the planet and fled some distance toward the Great Rift, Sien realized something was wrong.

The enemy had four ships, including two Cruisers and a Battleship. If they had truly wanted to destroy the Battleship he was aboard, it would not have taken them so long.

Yet instead of unleashing their full firepower, they had kept their distance and traded salvos with his ship for so long. Clearly, they had something else in mind.

This Battleship did not belong to their Black Templars Chapter. They had only ended up aboard it by chance.

With an ordinary Imperial Battleship, the only thing the enemy was likely to covet was the vessel itself.

After seeing Iax easily destroy the enemy ships, Sien had no time to be astonished. He immediately led his fellow battle-brothers aboard a Thunderhawk Gunship to return to the ship.

Although the earlier call for aid had been jammed, the enemy had clearly launched a Boarding Action. If an Imperial Battleship was seized right under their noses while they did nothing, they would likely find themselves facing an Inquisitor of the Inquisition next.

At that point, the best outcome would probably be penitential service in the Deathwatch.

Just as the Thunderhawk Gunship lifted off, a pale blue flash of Warp light flickered through its rear compartment.

Iax's towering frame appeared inside the gunship, curled up.

The sudden increase in weight nearly sent the Thunderhawk Gunship crashing down.

"Gentlemen, why did you suddenly turn around and run off? Were you dissatisfied with my little bit of help? You still haven't answered my questions."

Sien stared at Iax, who had abruptly appeared before him, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.

"What was that? Untargeted random Teleportation technology? Or did you place a teleportation beacon on our vehicle beforehand?"

Iax tried to uncurl his body. The Thunderhawk Gunship's interior was not small; even for a Man of Iron over four meters tall, there was enough room to move around.

"This is called Experimental Short-Range Warp Technology. It allows directed jumps, teleporting directly to a designated location within several hundred meters."

"I didn't know the exact internal layout of your little box, so I curled up before teleporting inside, to avoid punching straight through your vehicle."

A Black Templar standing nearby, whose shoulder armor bore a cog-and-sword emblem, spoke up curiously.

"Why would you punch through it? Wouldn't an untargeted Teleportation embed you in solid matter?"

"Farrion, I understand your curiosity about these technologies as a Techmarine, but don't pry into someone else's technological secrets."

Sien stepped beside Techmarine Farrion and patted his helmet, all the while watching the ancient machine, which was almost wedged inside the compartment, with caution.

"That isn't a strange question. Short-Range Jump technology isn't simply Teleportation. It is more like contracting the space occupied by the body into a material singularity, moving that singularity, then expanding it again. The volume of space occupied by the matter changes. Conventional Teleportation, meanwhile, is something akin to spatial shearing. If solid matter already occupies the destination, you get the embedding problem you mentioned."

"And I know perfectly well that the material of my body is far superior to, hmm... what is this vehicle called?" Iax extended a mechanical finger and pointed at the metal compartment beneath him.

"You mean the one we're riding in? A Thunderhawk Gunship."

Techmarine Farrion answered as he looked at the compartment Iax was pointing to.

"A Thunderhawk Gunship? Hmm, a Thunderhawk. How interesting. Anyway, my body is made of material far stronger than this Thunderhawk Gunship's hull. If I didn't contract my body, I might puncture the compartment when the space expanded and fall straight through. After all, I don't know the dimensions of this thing's interior."

With his curiosity satisfied, Farrion looked at Iax, who seemed quite approachable, and cautiously asked another question.

"If possible, could we equip ourselves with this technology?"

"Enough!" Sien interrupted Farrion's question.

"Do not presume to meddle with technology you don't understand. Even if we acquired it, we would need to submit it to the Imperium for review to verify its safety. Do you know how much risk you're taking by doing this?"

For some reason, Iax felt that he was getting rather used to people interrupting his conversations.

Was this a habit peculiar to this era, rudely cutting off other people's conversations?

Nevertheless, Iax answered Farrion's question.

"If you can provide me with a detailed historical record, I can give you this technology. It's no great matter."

Iax's words made Sien stumble.

"You mean you can actually provide this jump technology?"

Every Chapter recovered ancient equipment, but extracting advanced technology from it was an exceptionally difficult task.

Furthermore, most equipment had to be handed over to the Adeptus Mechanicus to study, work out the technology involved, then undertake further development and manufacture.

Yet even after tens of thousands of years, research into ancient lost technology remained painfully slow. Many ancient creations still could not be properly analyzed, let alone have their underlying principles understood.

This ability to enter the battlefield in an instant was clearly more sophisticated than conventional Teleportation technology.

If they could recover it and submit it to the Chapter, perhaps they really could flash onto the battlefield in the future, catching the enemy by surprise in combat.

And this Ancient Machine Intelligence clearly possessed plenty of other technological data from the Ancient Era.

Once he understood all this, Sien decided to lure Iax back with a tempting promise.

"If you can provide some practical technology and scientific knowledge, once things here are settled, I can try to request permission to take you back to our Chapter's monastery. We have the Chapter Archives there, which might be of some help to your historical research."

Hearing that there might be a new source of historical information made Iax very happy.

After all, the more sources he had, the easier it would be to correct subjective errors in the records.

"Beep. Is that Sergeant Sien? The enemy is advancing rapidly through the ship. They've deployed a considerable number of Renegade Astartes. The Astra Militarum can't use some of their heavy equipment inside the ship, and our other weapons can't easily hit these agile enemies. We need immediate support."

Sien's expression grew grave at the sudden transmission. He walked to the front of the gunship and knocked on the cockpit door.

"Get us back quickly. If necessary, find a compartment near the Bridge and blast a small opening in the hull. We must reach our position before the traitors attack the Bridge."

"Understood!"

The battle-brother piloting the Thunderhawk Gunship immediately acknowledged Sien's orders.