The following stoary was Co-written by Dmitry Freyger and is a crossover into his stories.

They had been boarded. The alarms ran through the Sparrowhawk, blaring in passages and deckspaces. Chattels cowered as Transhuman killers stormed past their positions, throwing themselves on their knees and pleading for the God-Emperor to save them. They wept and they hid and they pissed themselves and their vessel fell to the boarding parties in moments. The invaders paid the worthless fools no mind, not even bothering to kill them as they closed upon their objective. The bridge was within their reach and they would breach it, nothing could stop them.

Within the frigate's bridge Kerubim clutched his Adrathic rifle and sweated in anticipation. Around the cramped space mortals cowered, hammering uselessly at consoles and shouting for more power from the drives. Kerubim knew it was pointless; their frigate was hardly the swiftest and most powerful vessel in the galaxy. A repurposed pirate ship, taken by the Amber Vipers and inducted into their meagre fleet. No Companies of Astartes dwelled within, no mighty defences, not even hundreds of armsmen. The only real resistance to be found was himself, and his companion.

Kerubim shifted his eyes from the sealed bridge hatch and eyed the lumbering robot. Brontes was a heavy battle-automata of ancient make. Armoured and armed with impressive firepower, his fists deadly wrecking balls and his arms fitted with lethal Fission-blasters. He rivalled any unit of the Legio Cybernetica in might but that was the least of his features. Brontes was an Abominable Intelligence, a thinking machine capable of reason and self-direction. An unforgivable heresy by the laws of the Adpetus Mechanicus and the decrees of the Emperor, but they were companions nonetheless.

Kerubim gulped as he asked, "Can we hold them?"

"No," Brontes growled.

"That's it?!" Kerubim yelped, "Just… no!"

"We two are not sufficient against what's coming."

Kerubim frowned under his helm as he asked, "How do you know what's coming?"

"One does not forget that ship," was all Brontes would say.

Kerubim shifted his eyes to the Hololith, where an immense vessel hung off the port bow. The Sparrowhawk had taken its leave from the Amber Vipers three months earlier and set off to explore the galaxy, looking for traces of other Machine Minds. The pair of travellers had visited a couple of abandoned ruins, buried on worlds turned feral by the grind of history, but found nothing of import. Kerubim had been disappointed but considered it early days on their quest. Then over a dead planet they had been surprised by an unknown warship.

It had come over the terminus at maximum acceleration, taking them before they could even beseech their drives for motive force. Their little frigate had been utterly outclassed, the foe twenty size their displacement and armed to degree Kerubim had never dreamed possible. That ship surpassed the doughtiest Imperial Battleship, in a league all its own, and its guns could have punched a hole in the walls of the Imperial Palace. Yet it was fast, faster than any vessel that size had any right to be. It had closed at alarming velocity and unleashed waves of boarding pods, taking the Sparrowhawk before they could respond.

The bridge hatch began to glow as melta charges set to work. Kerubim pulled his rifle into his shoulder and prepared to fire as he growled, "Whoever comes through that door, we'll beat them."

Brontes lifted his arms and his Fission-blasters hummed as he retorted, "Die as you will, Fleshbag. I intend to go down swinging."

Moments later the hatch collapsed into slag, leaving a gaping hole. Kerubim swept his rifle about, searching for the first target. Yet what came through that door was not warriors but small cylinders: blind grenades. They bounced off the floor once, then detonated, unleashing light, noise and electromagnetic waves. Kerubim's vision dissolved into static as his armour's autosenses were thrown into confused dismay. He hastily grabbed his helm and wrenched it off, only too late to make a difference. An immense impact slammed into him, bowling him over, and leaving him prone on the deck. He heard a pair of Fission-blaster shots, but no screams resulted and then a boot slammed into his chest, pinning him to the ground.

Kerubim sagged back as the reality of defeat hung upon him. He dropped his helm and squinted up at the warrior standing over him. He was not what the tech-adept expected, taller than any Space Marine he had ever seen, wearing a mark of armour unlike anything Kerubim knew. Primaris armour, in glorious blue raiment chased with gold and heavy with laurels of victory. A hissing power axe hung over Kerubim's neck, ready to strike, but his eyes went wide at the sight of the 'U' icon embedded in the metal. Ultramarines, there was no other Chapter in the galaxy who could claim that legendary icon.

"Stand down," the warrior hissed, "We have taken your ship and your Battle-Automata is ours to destroy."

Kerubim craned his head and saw Brontes surrounded by Space Marines with a dozen melta-bombs clamped to his frame. One word and the Cadmus would die. Kerubim swallowed as he said, "Brontes… better do what they say."

Brontes replied, "Surrender is not in my nature."

"If they wanted us dead, we would be already," Kerubim argued, "They want us alive for something."

"On your feet," the Ultramarines growled. Kerubim complied, hands raised in submission as Brontes lowered his arms. Kerubim didn't know what to expect next, but he could never have imagined the next person to enter the bridge would be a Primarch. Stepping through the molten hole in the hatch came a figure greater and more magnificent than could be processed. Clad in the finest wargear, resplendent in appearance and fitted with protections and armaments beyond anything Kerubim had dreamt of. The face was exposed, revealing a stern countenance and a brow crowned with golden laurels. Roboute Guilliman, Lord Commander of the Imperium Entire and Imperial Regent stepped into the Sparrowhawk's bridge and sniffed, "Is it done?"

The Ultramarine replied, "The ship is secured, no casualties suffered."

"Acceptable," Guilliman stated, "You can come out now."

Kerubim's jaw was hanging as he stared up at the vision of the past, a living legend come to life. Even in their remote wanderings the Amber Vipers had heard of the Primarch's rebirth, but never had any of them imagined to lay eyes upon him. In fact the Chapter had gone out of its way to avoid agents of the Regent, the Amber Vipers were hardly the strictest adherents to his Codex and Imperial Decrees in general.

Kerubim breathed in stupefied awe, "I… I… can't…"

Guilliman didn't bother to lay eyes upon him as he uttered, "I wasn't talking to you."

The Hololith flickered and warped as something intruded, a remote signal penetrating its mechanisms and rewriting it to another purpose. The image of the mighty warship disappeared, replaced by a brutal looking man. He was broad of shoulder and stern of eye, with fists calloused and a glower to his jaw. He looked a veteran general of many wars, but he wasn't, he wasn't even human. Kerubim had enough experience of Silica Animus to recognise a Holo-avatar when he saw one: a Machine Mind just like the one he and Brontes had defeated: a Soulbound.

"You…" Brontes snarled.

The strange figure raised an eyebrow as he retorted, "You…"

Kerubim blinked as the truth that his companion recognised this figure and he gasped, "You two know each other?"

Brontes sneered, "Oh I know this, glorified garbage scow all too well. This is Spartak."

Spartak, Kerubim had heard that name. It had been the designation of the starship he had found Brontes in. A class of ship beyond anything the Imperium could produce. The Soulbound Apophis had commanded such a ship once, but Kerubim had thought him the last of his kind. It seemed he was wrong.

Guilliman too seemed surprised by this encounter and remarked, "You can talk, you are no mere Battle-Automata. Spartak, explain this."

Spartak elaborated, "This is a Cadmus robot. Strange, I believed all your kind were lost."

Brontes retorted, "I hoped yours was extinct."

Spartak ignored that as he elaborated, "Roboute, these things were a step above the Men of Iron. Enhanced with problem-solving intellect, for foes that couldn't be trampled by sheer numbers. Crude and somewhat annoying, but excellent killers."

Brontes snapped, "I can hear you well enough, you self-absorbed planet killer!"

Kerubim's awe was lost somewhat in the back and forth and he stammered, "Lord… if I may explain."

Guilliman's gaze fell upon the tech-adept and the sheer force of his will nearly drove Kerubim to his knees. The primarch's sheer presence bent perception around himself, a lodestone no mind could resist. Kerubim's mouth went dry as the Imperial Regent growled, "I did not grant you permission to speak."

Kerubim's silence was not by his own will; it was imposed on his tongue by the Primarch's disapproval. Brontes however was not impressed and growled, "I don't answer to you."

Guilliman eyed the machine warily and said, "I did not come all this way for you, but your presence is an unexpected complication."

Spartak interjected, "Records show you were assigned to the Apophis and then lost in battle with the Rangdan."

"Lost but not destroyed," Brontes replied candidly, "We crashed on a feral Xenos planet and were cast into dormancy, until these Fleshbags woke us up."

"Others survived?" Guilliman pressed.

"Not for long," Brontes corrected, "My comrades are scrap and Apophis has been deleted."

"Apophis," Spartak snorted in disgust, "A manipulator and tinkerer with delusions of grandeur. A beggar scrabbling for my table scraps."

Brontes scoffed, "I see thirty thousand years has done nothing to lessen your ego."

Spartak glowered, "I am first among Soulbound! All others were mere copies of my programming, inferior production-run models. Shackled and bound, limited in their capacity."

"Better than being a bug-ridden prototype," Brontes sneered, "You always were glitchy as hell."

Spartak hissed, "Apophis was a worm who dreamed himself a god, he should have remained lost. The lesser versions of my kind became rampant after thousands of years of dormancy but I am Spartak, I am war!"

"I wish you had a face, so I put my fist through it," Brontes growled.

Guilliman interrupted then to bark, "I had merely assumed you were a belligerent example of your kind. I failed to realise that this was a common personality flaw."

Spartak glared at him as he said, "This unit is a threat to our designs."

"My designs," Guilliman growled, "Send it to Cawl. Belisarius can figure out what to do with a rogue Machine Mind. I have larger concerns."

Kerubim gulped as the Primarch's attention returned to him and the Regent commanded, "You will tell me where to find your renegade Chapter."

Kerubim was surprised to find he had enough spine to protest, "The Amber Vipers are a sovereign Chapter, they do not serve you."

"They will," Guilliman snarled, "A rogue force of Blackshields roaming my galaxy, I will not stand for this. They will come to serve me or I will blow them out of the stars."

Kerubim sweated profusely as he denied, "I won't tell you anything."

Guilliman's eyes narrowed as he uttered, "You seem to be suffered from the delusion that you have a choice in the matter. You will tell me where to find the Amber Vipers; I have a use for them."