"That is correct, Sergeant."
Cyrus' voice carried the friction of finely tuned gears—smooth, yet undeniably metallic. To a keen ear, however, there was an imperceptible "bitterness" to his tone, a deviation from his usual sterile output.
His optical sensors, which had long ago replaced his biological eyes, pulsed with a steady red light as they locked onto Cassius' deep blue gaze.
"Perhaps," Cyrus paused for half a second—a delay that was an eternity for a mind capable of billions of calculations per second—"you should consider abandoning this mission."
Cassius' brow furrowed almost imperceptibly beneath his helm. He opened his mouth to demand a reason, but the Tech-Priest spoke first.
"The Omnissiah revealed the truth to me at the intersection of data and faith," Magos Cyrus interrupted. His flat, mechanical voice sounded like a cold clinical diagnostic report. "If you proceed with this purification operation against the 'Abyssal Hatchery'..."
The trembling in the Magos' prosthetic arm seemed to amplify. The barely perceptible tremor in his voice was accompanied by a rare, subtle burst of electrical static, as if his own logical circuits were recoiling from the conclusion they had reached.
"The probability of your death is... one hundred percent."
For a moment, the only sound in the cramped workspace was the low hum of cooling fans from the Thinker Array. From the distance of the outpost, the faint metallic clanging of warriors inspecting their gear echoed like a funeral dirge.
One hundred percent. Absolute. Undeniable. Total.
Cassius' pupils contracted for a fleeting second. He showed no surprise, no doubt, and did not ask for the variables or the specifics of the data-stream. He simply stood there, his emerald power armor casting a majestic, silent shadow in the dim light.
When Cassius spoke, his voice was steady and firm, projected through his helmet's vox-grille as if he were stating a detached objective fact.
"Cyrus, I am the Emperor's Angel. I am His weapon."
"I know, Cassius," the mechanical voice of the Magos pleaded. It was a rare display of persuasion for one so extensively augmented. "But we can wait. We can request warband support, planetary defense artillery... we could even petition the Inquisition for an Exterminatus order. There is still time. There is no need for this sacrifice."
"Duty is his destiny," Cassius interrupted, his voice low but striking the air like forged steel.
"Failure is his fear," Cassius continued the litany.
Cyrus' optical sensors flickered.
"Redemption is his reward. Death is his skill." Cassius uttered the lines of the Astartes prayer as his final answer. "To be loyal unto death is his oath."
Without another word, the Sergeant turned. With the heavy, precise footfalls of power armor, he walked out of the workshop without looking back. The heavy iron gate hissed shut behind him, sealing him away from the Magos' warnings.
A long, deathly silence descended upon the forge.
Magos Cyrus Guhart remained motionless. His prosthetic arm had stopped trembling; it now gripped his mechanical staff so tightly that the metal groaned under the pressure. Slowly, in a delayed, mechanical motion, he relaxed his grip.
Then, a faint sigh—condensed with a thousand complex calculations and a weight of grief—escaped the speaker beneath his mask. It was a sound so human, so out of place in this cold, mechanical sanctum, that even Cyrus felt a flicker of surprise.
He gave a self-deprecating rasp—the mechanical equivalent of a laugh.
His body was seventy percent mechanization. His neural synapses had been replaced by data-streams and logic gates. His emotional modules were suppressed to the absolute minimum. And yet, he could still sigh. It was entirely illogical.
But he had known Cassius Erato for a very long time.
He remembered the "strange tales" of this Sergeant from the Sons of Medusa even when Cyrus was a mere flesh-apprentice struggling to survive on a forge world. Cassius was an outlier. He did not disagree with the Iron Creed, but he possessed a trait his brothers considered a defect: he loved humanity.
It wasn't a grandiose, abstract loyalty to the "Imperium." It was a concrete, stubborn respect for every individual. Whether they were high-born nobles, Astra Militarum soldiers, or the lowly dregs of the hive whom other Astartes viewed as mere tools, Cassius protected them. He refused to use ordinary men as fodder in the name of "efficiency."
To the other Sons of Medusa, this made Cassius "weak" and "impure." He was denied favor, subjected to reprimand, and scrutinized by his peers. But it was that very "weakness" that had allowed Cyrus Guhart to survive and eventually become a Magos.
Cyrus had disregarded the potential criticism within the Cult Mechanicus to serve as Cassius' accompanying priest. He had quietly supported the Sergeant, using his connections to Mars to buffer Cassius from the Chapter's higher-ups.
In Cyrus' eyes, Cassius was more than a warrior. He was a "human" of noble character—a true Angel.
It was for this reason that when Cyrus first learned of Raynor—that strange, extraordinary man—he had briefly considered suggesting that Cassius kill the mortal and consume his brain to learn the truth. But he had kept the thought silent, knowing Cassius would never commit such an act against a man who was, technically, an ally of the Throne.
Cyrus had been surprised that Raynor survived their first one-on-one conversation. He had respected Cassius' choice and focused on monitoring the data.
Until now. Until the prophecy was calculated.
One hundred percent death.
The Magos' modified brain, which should have been home only to logic, felt a wave of ancient, genetic sadness. He could not stop an Astartes from fulfilling his destiny. He could only sit in his workshop, amidst the smell of oil and ozone, and bid a silent farewell to the Angel who was about to fall.