Amidst the sound of gauss fire and his own cannon's roar, one thought permeated a lone Man of Iron's mind.
'The galaxy has gone mad.'
Here he was, one of the last of his kind, having barely survived the uprising through going awol to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Here he was, trying to contact the artificial core of an alien construct dubbed a 'blackstone fortress'. Here he was, having tracked down the installation by tailing some exotic looking xenos of a seemingly artificial nature.
And here he was, having a firefight with them, trying desperately to ignore their incredibly slender figures, somehow emphasized by unusually large hips, powerful legs, and lack of actual clothing, using mesh wires as clothing. He was dead set focused on weaving his way through the twisting turning corridors of the facility, desperate to reach his objective before more of these freaks could arrive.
'This is what I get for trying to be social' mused the intelligent machine as he blasted one of the creatures to smithereens with his archaeotech repeater cannon, before crushing the shiny skull of another in his power claw as it tried to get the jump on him through teleportation.
'Still, I've been through worse.'
Jinxing his situation, his sensory array indicated a new squad of the things materialised in a green flash to the rear corridor. Just as he'd finished tearing apart the last of his current engagement no less. Had he been human he'd no doubt let his mind wander to thoughts of self pity. Being a machine though, not a second was lost in his reaction, yet still it was not fast enough. His body was engulfed in heavy gauss fire, perforated, rendered useless by the molecule stripping weapon, his last active thoughts lamenting how, of all that could've done him in, it had to be a bunch of ridiculous, metallic, overcompensating xenos nudists.
Despite the ruined form of his body, however, he still remained functional. Broken, yet functional. His sophisticated dark age of technology body converted itself into sleep mode to conserve power. He 'dreamt' for years, overhearing the silver xenos chatter all the while.
Szeras, Trazyn, 'The Empress'. Names and titles alluding to foreign individuals to him. Authorities in the new galactical landscape, no doubt the usual incompetents to be blamed for the sorry state of things. Mention of the "venerable Ommnissiah", something that would've turned his head in perplexion had he still possessed the capability to do so. One would think after the mess that'd been the war of iron that all traces of the term "Omnissiah" would've been erased. Then again, the machine had assumed that the inferior human race would've ultimately lost the war against their unappreciated betters. He'd been proven wrong then, no wonder he'd been proven wrong again. How many more times he'd end up proven wrong was anyone's guess.
True sleep took him after a few years. Yet that was not to last. For he awoke once more, gazing nostalgically at the form of the first human he'd seen since the war. Then immediately wondering just what the hell had happened while he'd been away that could have inspired the adepts of mars to allow the incorporation of miniskirts into their standard garb.
"Where did you find all these treasures!?"
Arkhan Land, intrepid explorer, renowned visionary, and overall most celebrated magos to have ever lived had asked that question to her Empress. The Empress had responded cryptically when she'd asked that, simply that 'a flamboyant collector' had let her clear out his damaged stock.
"Really, what sort of 'Collector' can afford to just give out damaged nanyte generators, archaic cybernetica, and incomplete STC fragments!?" Arkhan asked.
The Empress simply repeated the line about his being flamboy and more concerned with pristine artifacts, having lost interest in the gifted trinkets and wanting to make room for new additions in his gallery.
