"Are we ready to move Captain?" 

"Yes, tell the men to reform and prepare to march to the fortress." Gerad ordered without interrupting his inspection of the creature. The thing was hauntingly human; a six-limbed specimen with sangria skin and a complexion more akin to damascus steel, a carpet of fused red flesh stretched over the creature's skeleton like a glove. Its face had a squashed snout and septic yellow eyes. Slabs of blue chitin acted as a shell and encased its torso. The Captain grasped the back of its skull and stood, holding the limp body of the alien high. Zalthen had not moved as Gerad had instructed, instead waiting for his attention to leave the filthy xenos corpse.

"They call these things Tyranids." Gerad started. "They're truly unique apparently, they don't reproduce like any other species. Instead they just replicate themselves by eating other organisms and gathering biomass. They copy the templates of other creatures to reinvent themselves into new creatures suited for different environments. For all we know they could have already adapted themselves to-"

"Put that bloody thing down sir." The Ancient barked scornfully, unaware of which vox-channel he was speaking in. 

Many heads amongst the 7th Company turned to witness what squabble was between their commanding officers. Both parties took note of their audience, yet none of them showed it. For what felt like minutes both Gerad and Zalthen peered at each other in vicious silence. The situation had taken them the furthest out of their element than they had before. The longer their standoff continued the more they could read the other's expression beneath their bloodied faceplates. The tip of the Ancient's tongue was a loaded gun of protests to his superior's anxiousness. He was angry at his Captain with a ferocity he had never previously been capable of conjuring. He didn't want to believe his Captain was weak. He so desperately wanted to bring him to his default attitude of bravery and perseverance through the deepest gulches of evil; the attitude he idolized in him since they had first met. His heart blackened at the thought his Captain could fall to the depths of fear, to be afraid. But alas, they collectively understood this to be true. He was afraid. His anguish was under lock and key in the penitentiary of his conscience, where it had time to rot in the comfort of his sleep. Scurrying in the abyss of his soul; the blind spot of his mind's eye for centuries to breed an entity that drunk the wells of his dreams dry. It was an invisible cancer that had no remedy or surgery he knew of that could correct it. It simply was.

"Return to your duties." Gerad swayed his head to his onlookers, who all guiltily avoided his gaze. The Tyranid bodies were dumped into a mound that reeked of acidic bile. The white soot flourished as Gerad chucked the alien corpse onto the ground. He sunk his metal boot through its skull with ease, flattening it into a mash of necrose pulp that roped into his treads. He backed away when two of his Marines approached with flamers that belched chemical inferno onto the pile, melting it into flaky ashen dross.

Traffic within the halls of the Rex Aeterna was bustling with Imperial personnel tending to their active responsibilities. Imperial Navy vessels had been designed with this traffic in mind for its different crew members, dedicating lanes for Astartes to walk on to the right of every walkway. This was a necessary addition, considering the width between a Space Marine's shoulders doubled that of a regular human. However such alleyways were deserted during the company's expedition. Abandoned by all but Machellus, who marched through the veins of the cruiser to acquire reinforcements. As a Techmarine, he had the privilege of access to the noosphere, a masterpiece of quantum computing of native use to the Mechanicus. It allowed more advanced communications and information distribution than the standard vox systems of the Imperial Guard via information webs that could rope in other schematics plugged into its network, providing a strong connection to the user and their hardware. The noosphere grants its user greater control over machinery, being able to translate and execute complex initiatives and protocols far beyond the standard of the Imperium's regulated equipment. The most important and conventional use is the management of Servitors, the lobotomized tech-slaves of the Mechanicus. Mechanicus Personnel often logged the activity of servitors to notify others in the noosphere of where they are being used and for what task. This smooth flow of industry the Mechanicus could achieve is what makes them a useful instrument in the Imperium's armies. 

Machellus halted before a bay door beneath a metal sign fixed to the wall reading CONSERVITARUM MORTIS. He roped in the door controls from the noosphere and opened it, heaving the weighty plasteel gates aside into the Conservitarum. The room was not illuminated by any ceiling lights, but by the radiating glow of stasis fields. Revealing themselves from the walls were the sanctioned service technomats equipped for servicing the Conservitarum's primary residences. The Dreadnoughts.

The 7th Company had 2 dreadnoughts shelved in the depths of their flagship cruiser, both with honourable combat records and knowledge accumulated over centuries of service. Spotlights flooded the room with the glow of stark white light, illuminating the walker's glossy plate and varnished metallics kept immaculate by the stasis chamber's artificial environment. The baroque depictions of legendary battles and illustrious leaders covered every surface of their adamantium shielding. The tech-thralls scaled the war machines to inspect every schematic and element of them to ensure they have been preserved in prime condition. He had observed from the servitors' reports that both were optimal for combat. Seeing the preparations complete, he began the awakening ritual. 

The Techmarine sang the awakening canticles intensified by his vocal enhancements. Verses of binaric cants and high gothic prayers blended into an eager call to the machine god to show himself. He crept on heavy boots and reached to palm the breastplate of Erasmus, a previous champion of the 7th Company who barely escaped death by the hands of a rampaging ork warboss, only to kill the beast decades after his entombment into a Contempter Pattern chassis. His chassis was built for speed and mobility above all, sporting thin legs and arms for more efficient aerodynamics and a torso the width of a water tank as opposed to the rectangular build of the more common Castaferrum Pattern. Machellus roused the machine spirit within the haunted machine, sending it into a sputtering mechanical resurrection. 

He receded toward the second, Arminius, one of the 7th's previous Captains and an avatar of Guilliman, clad in a Deredeo Pattern suit. The Deredeo pattern held the battlefield role more akin to a heavy weapons platform, outfitted with accelerator cannons the length of a car that replaced his arms, a back-mounted missile pod and a body inches shy of 3 storeys high. The optical scopes beneath the dreadnoughts helmet sallet flared red as it roared to life. The machines were uncoupled from their chambers and took their first steps in decades. The azure giants waded out into the centre of the room, looking around in bewilderment. After being put to sleep for such a period of time had made them nostalgic for the sense of sight, so they took their time trying to adjust to their situation. They were only awakened in times of imminent war and had to be ready to commit to such conflicts on a whim.

"Brother Techmarine, what is required of us?" Arminius' inquiry rang deep from his armoured tomb, crackling from the primitive limitations of the machine's ancient tech. It felt like Machellus was speaking to a wall, a sepulchral mirror that felt a million miles away.

"Macragge is under siege. You are needed for service planetside." 

Erasmus took a knee, striking a hammer blow on the metal grating at his feet. His electro-fiber muscles twanged as he leaned forward to get a closer look at the Techmarine.

"What could have possibly gotten to Macragge? I doubt the Eldar or the Orks would have the resources to break through the rest of Ultramar." Erasmus's tone was as robotic as his companion, yet the timbre in his stoic accent bled through the vox. 

A long distressed wheeze escaped Machellus.

"I am afraid... It is something far worse."