After a lengthy wait for the reports to be verified, the Inquisitors confirmed that there was nothing abnormal about the Ark Mechanicus or the Imperial patrol fleet.
The ancient Iron Hands ship would return alongside the Inquisition's Black Ship.
During the long wait, however, Iax had not stopped attending to his own business.
Iax had noticed the source of the distress signal from the outset.
An asymmetrical ship shaped like a short dagger was embedded in the outer layer of 00-GZ-Ω7.
Clearly, the ancient Hulk had only recently captured this ship.
Numerous Aeldari wraithbone structures and haphazard metal beams held the small, barely three-hundred-meter vessel firmly in place.
The nearby Industrial Ship used the enormous cutting equipment mounted on its hull to slice through the tangled metal and wraithbone structures with ease.
Then, using the Transport Ship's gravity-well device, it forcibly hauled the small vessel out of 00-GZ-Ω7, as though pulling it free of modeling clay.
Once freed from the Hulk, the exploration ship, identified by its distress beacon as the Eternal Soul, seemed to gradually resume functioning.
Its hull was intact and undamaged, though its outer armor appeared to have some dents, seemingly caused by the ship itself crashing into the Hulk.
Several thick adamantium keel beams within that recess in the hull aligned with the dents on the surface.
The Eternal Soul's newly restored scanners identified the surrounding Imperial Ships, and it immediately fired up its engines to escape.
But the engines' glow soon flickered and went out completely.
The Eternal Soul's AI was utterly horrified. Only then did she identify the other Mechanicus Ships around her through their quantum signals.
As a military unit, Iax had been built at least two thousand years later than the Eternal Soul.
Although the preloaded data within him was somewhat old,