The Spear of Vilia's valiant suicide attack was brought to an end by the sudden turn of events.
The Tech-priests aboard the cruiser were on the verge of their cognitive processors burning out. They urged the maintenance Servitors to bring the reactor temperature under control while doing everything they could to stabilize the rampaging Machine Spirit.
Who would want to die if they could live? They still wanted to serve the Omnissiah for several more centuries.
Following the captain's orders, they had originally prepared to die in service to the Omnissiah. But now that this sudden anomaly had appeared, no one knew what was happening.
Nearly frenzied binary communications flew between the Martian Tech-priests. Radio waves surged, and electromagnetic interference boiled what little brain matter they had left.
"By the Machine God, what is that?!"
The oilheads felt the various ports across their bodies involuntarily spurt overheated lubricant. Had their hearts not long since been replaced with brand-new mechanical cores, they might have leaped right out of their chests.
Every camera probe and scanning beam on their bodies operated at full capacity as that warship of terrifying proportions passed through the unknown gateway of light.
Most of the Tech-priests and crew were horrified by the unfamiliar warship's sheer size, while a small number of oilheads were intensely curious about the light gate they had never seen before.
A warship they had never seen before, far larger than a Gloriana-class Battleship.
An incredible new teleportation gateway beyond the bounds of comprehension.
If they had not been in the midst of a battlefield of death, these most orthodox followers of the Adeptus Mechanicus from Mars would already have charged forward without hesitation to investigate.
"Our scanning array could not retrieve its keel code from the database, Captain. That means it is highly