The fact that in their purging of the unclean Death Guard they had saved the Cadians from otherwise certain death was irrelevant. To the minds of the Iron Hands, if Sergeant Vessig's troopers had died, it would have only been as a result of their own physical, mental or spiritual weakness.
The Cadians were only here now because they had followed in the wake of the Space Marines, keeping to the path the vengeful Iron Hands had cleared through the scavenging zombie packs infesting the rains, as they had left their Thunderhawk to rendezvous with them back at Ferroturitus Prime Guard Command HQ.
Some of those present in the bunker in a more subservient role were now cautiously coming to the aid of the Cadians, as if uncertain as to whether their help would be considered a dereliction of duty, or that they feared tempting the Space Marines' wrathful retribution if they acted in a way that the Iron Hands might consider to be interference.
'Emperor's throne!' Gdolkin exclaimed. He was a battle-brother of the Adeptus Astartes! He did not expect to be treated in such a disrespectful way by these fools.
Somewhere a distant warning klaxon was blaring.
The Iron-Father marched across the command chamber, a vision of barely-contained fury ready to explode like an electrical storm. The hulking giants of his brother Iron Hands followed. Everyone moved out of the way of the monstrous, black-armoured warriors, the harsh glare of cracked glow-globes flashing from the clan company markings and the taloned gauntlets of their Chapter symbols. Each of the Astartes was at least a whole head taller than the tallest of the other men and cyborg-priests present there.
The Space Marines held their boltguns across their chests as they would if they were on parade, or going into battle. Just one of those boltguns was a terrifying piece of destructive equipment, so large that an ordinary man could barely lift one. The ammunition they fired made them more like small rapid-firing rocket launchers when compared to standard Guard issue firearms.
On hearing the commotion a hunched, hooded, red-robed figure unfolded himself, with a distinct pinging of metallic joints, and turned myopic telescope-lensed eyes on the advancing Iron Hands.
The Space Marines stopped in front of the central cogitator's data-input and information retrieval console as the tech-priest elbowed his way through. The retreating adepts and administrators backed away before the Iron Hands, and left the warriors standing at the centre of a clearing amongst the forest of bustling adepts, although their arrival had temporarily brought the pandemonium to a standstill.
"What is the meaning of this intrusion?' the tech-priest demanded indignantly, and rather unwisely, considering who he was speaking to and Gdolkin's current attitude of anger.
The Iron Hands and the Machine Cult had ten thousand years of mutual respect built up between them. The same was not true between Iron-Father Gdolkin and this arrogant technophile.
'Are you in charge here?'
'And who might you be to speak in such a way to a favoured servant of the almighty Omnissiah?'