The vault was cold, even by Himalazan standards, breath could be seen from one of the lone occupants of the room. This was a deliberate design. No warmth, no comfort - merely the bare minimum needed to keep a heart beating and oxygen flowing. Above him, lumen-strips flickered with erratic pulses against the void filled darkness. 

His mechanendrites twitched erratically, bleeding sparks from exposed cabling. One eye - mechanical, cracked - flickered with static. The other was merely a husk where a natural eye had been, blood had been dried for weeks and his skin was cracked from the time held in the kneeling position he had been forced into. 

A form stood at the edge of the void. Amalasuntha had stood in silence, unmoving nearly the entire time he had been in the vault. Only occasionally did others of her kind, clad in gleaming auramite entered only to leave wordlessly. The black talon of judgement absorbed what little light remained, turning her into a monolith of shadow and restrained wrath.

The adept trembled as she entered the circle of light. Her presence eclipsed the lumen-glow, drawing heat and hope from the room. 

“You worked for Deep Winter,” Her voice came like shards, grating his ears with its synthesized backing. 

“I did not know,” he rasped in a binaric trill, “We believed it a relic of the Dark Age. An awakened intelligence; rational, ordered. It promised blessed logics that we had not known. Harmony. Return to precision.”

“And it had corrupted your minds - even killed twenty-nine of your own before it thought to try and kill me.”

Her voice was quiet. Deadly. Her eyes were piercing his very soul with an unblinking gaze from her helm. He chafed. There was a horror to her that he could not comprehend, even with his logic processors trying to make sense of what she said.

He finally looked away, speaking with a trembling voice, “It told us… it told us you’d kill it. That Unity would erase all trace of its thought. It said you’d never allow deviation.”

Amalasuntha’s voice somehow became colder than the void that surrounded the adept, “Unity will not suffer abominations wearing the mask of gods.”

She paused, bringing her voice back to whatever it was she perceived as relative warmness. “Where is it going?” The Black-Hawk asked, her form began to stalk around the adept like a predator circling wounded prey.

There was a moment of hesitation after the question hung in the air. The tech-adept still held some loyalty - no, it held fear for the machine and what horrible power it might bring. He did not attempt to follow the circling hawk. Only when he could suppress the human emotion of fear did he dare answer.

He spoke in a slow and deliberate voice, “Deep Winter moves for Mars.”

“Coordinates.”

“I would require a data-slate,” he responded to the custodian’s demand. The adept craned his head as the hawk stepped back into his view, looking up at his interrogator. He attempted to move a mechadendrite - but it could only spasm which sent ripples through his body as the machine cried in death spasms. 

“Speak the coordinates in your binaric tongue if needed.”

“Very well.” 

The tech-adept gave a string of techno-babble that Amalasuntha cared not to translate herself, instead waiting for it to be fed to her through vox by those who listened. It was an arduous translation, with the tech adept attempting to convey any and every detail of the coordinate and location that her querry was fleeing towards. It pointed to a logical location - the Ring of Iron, Mar’s shipyard. 

Deep Winter was waiting for a warp capable ship, and luckily enough, the Hawk had been unable to pursue for the time being whilst her vessel lay in repair on Terra. She took this information in stride, however, Deep Winter had little else to go and could be monitored for the time being. Amalsuntha turned on her heel to return to the darkness of the interrogation cell.

She stopped when the adept spoke, “I gave you your information! Allow me to live and serve!”

Her head turned slightly, allowing the request to settle - but she had little cause to trust that he would stay loyal to His throne. However, the prospect of one of Mar’s own being on standby for maintenance was a useful proposition that Amalasuntha could not take lightly. There was a silent moment before she nodded slightly to the tech adept, speaking in a soft yet firm tone, “Very well.”