Around and above them, carved into the stone cornicing or cast into the adamantium walls, were the cog-toothed, lightning strike, winged helix and claw-handed symbols of the Cult Mechanicus, Vurgaan clan, Apothecarion and Iron Hands' Chapter respectively. There were also the memento mori skulls and eagle-winged insignia of the Imperium of Mankind, ever-present in the architecture and ornamentation of that ancient galaxy-spanning realm, adorning every surface, every jutting buttress and bulkhead door, practically every rivet of the chamber.

The damage the Iron-Father had suffered whilst cleansing the Chaos-infected derelict space ship could be clearly seen now that the mangled wreck of his gauntlet had been removed.

That his flesh had failed him angered Gdolkin. It reminded him of his own humanity. He was still mortal after all, and that angered him also. Oh for the holy perfection of the dreadnought, to live like the Emperor upon his Golden Throne, enshrined within an immortal body of adamantium and ceramite. That was the dream of any Space Marine, to continue the fight for the Imperium even after his death. And it was even truer of the techno-venerating Iron Hands' Chapter, and amongst them this attitude was epitomised in Iron-Father Gdolkin. It was his one desire, after that of serving his Emperor and laying waste to the enemies of humanity, to become a leviathan of legend, a dreadnought war machine in the eternal service of his Chapter, his primarch and his Emperor.

The Iron-Father's right hand was a mangled pulp. The fingers were gone and only the thumb remained, half hanging off, now that it did not have the support of the metal sheathing glove to hold it together. Bone gleamed in the cold halogen light. There was little bleeding, however, since the Larraman cells that had been released into his bloodstream when he was injured had formed a skin-like layer of scar tissue over the injury.

His right hand had lasted two hundred years longer than his left. Space Marines of the Iron Hands' Chapter had their left hands removed on joining the brotherhood and replaced with an entirely augmetic replica, in honoured memory of their primarch, Ferrus Manus.

But Iron-Father Gdolkin was different. He had lost his left hand before he had ever been chosen as an aspirant by the Iron Hands of Medusa.

Although flesh might at times prove weak there were still organic parts of the Iron-Father's bio-engineered body that he would find hard to do without. The adapted part of his brain that was the sus-an membrane was such a one. The genetically manipulated augmentation would allow him to dislocate his mind, reliving past experiences in another zone of consciousness, so as to leave behind the pain his body would be subjected to as the surgical procedure was undertaken.

Already slowing his breathing to help him enter the trance-like state he would enjoy whilst the surgery was being performed, Gdolkin took the laurel-leaved talisman of his Mechanicus Protectiva in his bionic left hand. The tiny internal pistons and tension cables of the fingers operated so smoothly that Gdolkin could almost forget that they were not of flesh and blood, were it not for the fact that the replacement of body parts with augmetics was core to the Iron Hands' belief system, and ultimately a result of their genetic predisposition.