'Much has happened since the Emperor took his leave of the expeditionary forces,' said Regulus. 'Alignments shift and new powers emerge from the shadows, offering their aid to those with the strength of vision to heed them. Horus Lupercal is one such individual, and he is now assuredly a friend of the Mechanicum.'

Kelbor-Hal's language centres easily read the implications of Regulus's words and, though his emotions had long since been cut from him like a diseased tumour, old rancour rose to the surface as he recognised sentiments identical to those espoused in the bargain struck with Terra.

'I have heard words like that before,' he said, 'when Verticorda led the Emperor to my forge over two centuries ago and I was forced to bend the knee to him. The ruler of the grubby Terran tribes promised us an equal role in his grand crusade of conquest, but where is that vaunted equality now? We toil to provide his armies with weapons of war, but receive nothing for our efforts but platitudes. Horus Lupercal is a warrior of vision, but what does he offer but more of the same?'

'He offers these,' said Regulus, as a silver-skinned arm rose from behind his shoulders, a delicate bronze calliper clutching a data wafer of silver and gold. Regulus reached up and took the proffered wafer with one of his primary arms before offering it to the Fabricator General.

'On the world of Aurelius, the Warmaster's Legion met and overcame a foe known as the Technocracy. Its armed forces bore a striking similarity to those of the Astartes and it was clear that they had access to functioning STC technology.'

'Standard Template Construction,' breathed Adept Malevolus, unable to keep the hunger from his voice. Kelbor-Hal had long been aware that both Malevolus and Chrom retained some unpleasantly human traits: avarice, ambition and desire to name but a few. Distasteful and unseemly in such senior adepts, but useful when it came to aligning their factions to his own.

'This Technocracy had access to a functioning STC?' pressed Malevolus.

'Not just one,' said Regulus, with more than a hint of theatricality. 'Two.'

'Two?' asked Chrom. 'Such a thing has not been seen in a hundred and nineteen years. What manner of STCs did they possess?'

'One for the construction of a hitherto unknown mark of Astartes battle plate and another for the production of lightweight solar generators capable of supplying the power needs of an Epsilon 5 pattern forge complex. Unfortunately, the actual Construct machines were destroyed by the rulers of the Technocracy before Imperial forces could secure them.'

Kelbor-Hal could see Malevolus and Chrom look hungrily at the STC wafer, an artefact that contained information worth more than both their forges combined, flawless electronic blueprints created from miracles of design and technological evolution: machines that could design and construct anything their operators desired.

Such machines had allowed mankind to colonise vast swathes of the galaxy, before the maelstrom of Old Night had descended and almost wiped humanity from existence. To discover a working Construct Machine was the greatest dream of the Mechanicum, but to have fully detailed plans created by such a machine ran a close second.

Kelbor-Hal could feel their desire to snatch the data wafer from Regulus in the crackling spikes in their radiating electrics.

'Horus Lupercal sends these gifts to Mars together with a solemn promise of an alliance with the Priesthood of Mars. An alliance of equals, not of master and servant.'

Kelbor-Hal accepted the data wafer, surprised to feel a tremulous thrill of excitement at the thought of what he might learn from its contents. It was a thin sliver of metal, fragile and insignificant, yet capable of containing every written work on Terra a hundred times over.

No sooner had his metallic fingers touched the wafer than his haptic receptors read the data in a flow of electrons, and he knew that Regulus spoke the truth. Genocidal wars had been fought for information less valuable than was contained on this wafer. Millions had died in search of technology worth a fraction of its value.

In centuries past, the Mechanicum had waged war on the tribes of Terra, despatching expeditionary forces to humanity's birth world to plunder forgotten vaults of ancient citadels and wrest the buried secrets of the third planet's ancient technology from those who did not even know it was there, let alone how to use it.

The Emperor had built his world on the bones of this long-buried science, and, unwilling to share it, had fought the soldiers of Mars and hurled them back to the red planet before travelling to Mars in the guise of the Omnissiah and a peacemaker, albeit a peacemaker who came at the head of an army of conquest.

The peace that was offered was illusory, a conceit designed to conceal a darker truth.

The Emperor offered peace with one hand while keeping a dagger behind his back with the other. In reality, the Emperor's offer was an ultimatum.

Join with me or I will simply take what I need from you.

Faced with a choice that was no choice at all, Kelbor-Hal had been forced to bargain away the autonomy of Mars and become a vassal planet of Terra.

'These are great gifts indeed,' said Kelbor-Hal. 'Given freely?'

Regulus bowed his head. 'As always, my master, you cut to the heart of matters with the precision of a laser. No, such gifts are not given freely, they come with a price.'

'A price?' spat Chrom, the glare of his eyes flaring in response. 'The Warmaster seeks to exact more from us? When we have already pledged him the strength of our forges!'

'You seek to back out of the bargain with the Warmaster?' demanded Regulus. 'We knew great things would be asked of us, but the measure of us how we react to these challenges. Great reward comes only with great risk.'

Kelbor-Hal nodded, the blank face of his face mask slipping into the bland countenance of a conciliator. 'Affirmarion: Regulus is correct; we have come too far to balk at paying a price for such things. Already we and our allies strike at those without the vision to see that Horus Lupercal is the true master of mankind.'

'The things we have done,' said Adept Malevolus. 'The schemes we have set in motion. We have come too far and committed too much to back away from the fire simply because we fear its heat, Lukas. The destruction of Maximal's reactor, the death of Adept Ravachol… were they for nothing?'

Chastened from two sides, Chrom bowed his head and said, 'Very well, what does the Warmaster ask?'

Regulus said, 'That when it comes to strike, we guarantee to have Mars firmly under our control. The dissident factions must be quashed so that the forces of the Warmaster may launch his bid for supremacy without fear of counterattack. Any factions loyal to Terra must be brought to heel or destroyed before the Warmaster's forces reach the Solar System.'

'He asks much of us, Regulus,' said Kelbor-Hal. 'Why should we not believe we would merely be swapping one autocrat for another?'

'Horus Lupercal pledges to return the Martian Empire to its former glory,' said Regulus, with the practiced ease of a statesman. 'Further, he swears to withdraw any non-Mechanicum forces from the forge worlds.'

Ambassador Melgator stepped forward, his black, mail-fringed cloak rustling on the smooth floor of the observation chamber. The ambassador rarely spoke when any but he and the object of his attention could hear him, and Kelbor-Hal eagerly anticipated his words.

'With respect, Adept Regulus,' said Melgator. 'The Warmaster, blessed be his name, has already asked us for a great deal and we have delivered. Materiel and weapons are priority tasked to expeditions he favours and delayed to those not aligned with him. He now asks more of us, and are these, admittedly valuable, STCs all he promises us in return? What else does he offer as proof of his continued friendship?'