The data logs aboard the wrecked ship recorded several distress signals, but none had received a response.
Although the reason was unknown, the Adeptus Mechanicus fleet in orbit had clearly abandoned the ship and swiftly departed.
Analysis of the surrounding traces suggested that, after the ship crashed, the Exploration Team previously deployed to the surface might have reached it and attempted to rescue survivors.
Many sections of the hull bore cutting marks, but the bodies inside the cabins had already become piles of bones. Clearly, the Exploration Team had found little.
As the force ventured deeper, large quantities of destroyed equipment and machinery lay scattered around them, along with countless scattered bones.
Clearly, this had been the Exploration Team's ultimate fate.
Meanwhile, the mechanical troops discovered more signs of battle in the shaft where the Dark Angels had stayed.
Dismembered bodies lay everywhere, while melted daemon engines and Chaos vehicles told the story of what had happened to them.
Among the countless bodies, Iax finally discovered something that did not belong to the forces of Chaos.
An Armed Sentinel used its mechanical arm to pull a massive alloy arm, nearly two meters long, from the wrecked chassis of a vehicle smashed beyond identification.
The mechanical arm gleamed bright silver and remained in good condition, but its connection point bore enormous tears. Analysis indicated that the arm had most likely been blown off after some powerful weapon destroyed the machine body itself.
The nanomachines carried by the Armed Sentinel swiftly infiltrated the mechanical wreckage and retrieved some of the information remaining in the arm's control chip.
The command data came from a defense machine designated DS-842.
The mechanical arm also carried a rarely seen weapon—the Atomic Disintegrator Cannon.
This weapon could fire a beam that reduced anything it struck to elementary