The Spear of Judgement, wreathed in a faint, violet shadow, settled into a low, stable orbit. The journey to Mars was to be a short, sub-light transit. Aboard the Aquila Lander, the mood was one of profound tension. Shield-Captain Valerian and his fifty chosen Custodes sat in stoic silence, stepping from the heart of their faith into a mobile fortress of the ultimate heretic.
When they docked, they were met by the Monarch's five Shadow-Knights. Valerian led his host aboard, his every step an act of supreme self-control. "The Primarch's orders are clear, Monarch," he stated. "We are to observe."
"Your presence is noted, Shield-Captain," Jin-Woo replied. "So long as you do not interfere, it is also tolerated."
Then, they arrived.
Mars was not a planet; it was a machine. A rust-red sphere encased in a web of orbital rings, sprawling dockyards, and continent-sized manufactorums. The void around it was thick with the traffic of a million vessels. Beneath it all, the Monarch could feel a new kind of psychic presence—not the organic scream of Terra, but the cold, complex, and constant hum of pure data. The Noosphere.
After being granted clearance, they docked. Waiting for them was a delegation that made the Custodes seem welcoming. At its head was a being who was barely humanoid, a towering, crimson chassis of pistons and spider-like limbs. This was Fabricator-General Oud Oudia Rask, the master of Mars.
"Lord Regent Guilliman's decree is acknowledged," the Fabricator-General's synthetic voice rasped, his optics fixed on the Monarch. "The Omnissiah's archives are not for the perusal of… biological anomalies. Your presence here is a logical incongruity. State your query, specimen, that you may be removed with maximum efficiency."
Valerian took a step forward. "You will show the Monarch respect, Fabricator-General."
"The Lord Commander's authority ends where the Omnissiah's begins," Rask hissed back. "This entity is a creature of profane flesh-sorcery. An insult to the clean, perfect logic of the machine."
The Monarch ignored their posturing, his gaze drifting to a massive cogitator array. Its data flow was as clear as a stream to him.
"Your primary plasma conduit is suffering from a harmonic imbalance," he stated calmly. "The eighty-third catalyst is misaligned by 0.002 microns. It will lead to a cascading failure in approximately four standard cycles."
The Fabricator-General froze. Every tech-priest in his retinue recoiled. The information the Monarch had just stated was something that would have required a deep, week-long diagnostic ritual to uncover. He had seen it with a glance. He had not impressed the Fabricator-General; he had committed the ultimate blasphemy, claiming to understand his god better than he did.
Oud Oudia Rask's brass skull tilted. "Your profane senses will not be tolerated. You will be escorted to the Librarium Technologicus. You will be monitored. Any deviation will be met with immediate purification."
He turned, leading them into the interior of Mars. It was a world of cold, terrifying grandeur. He was bringing them into his fortress, far from the influence of Terra's Primarch. He was taking them to a library, but the Monarch knew the archives of Mars held more than just data-slates. They held secrets and guardians that even the priests of the Machine God feared to awaken.