'It's Cawl!' one blurted in a saw-like machine voice.

Cawl was aware of the chaos he had caused only on the periphery of his being. His machine-meshed consciousness was overfilled with the tricky business of coordinating three dozen somewhat recalcitrant war machines. Semi-organic minds squealed at him for higher-level access codes.

Cawl squashed them all.

He couldn't do this alone, not in his wildest fantasies. He was forced to rely on the machines themselves. Quickly he formulated an effective battle plan, overriding centuries of Cybernetica data custom in an instant.

Hands yanked at him, but he did not relent. He clung on to his seat as his colleagues attempted to drag him from his chair, and set up the machines in a whirling helix similar to the cavalier's caracole of ancient days. The helix rotated tightly, too quick for the xenos to snare, their autocannons trained on the weakened points of the alien creature's carapace, firing constantly.

Someone had him in an ineffective headlock. Fortunately for Cawl, tech-priests neglected their bodies. The band assailing him were as yet too lowly to possess much in the way of augmetic strength.

The automata continued their spiral of death, hammering the carapace of the xenos monster with their cannons. Ammo counters ticked to zero. Weapon barrels on the schematics blinked, indicating heat so great the barrels were near to failure. Cawl kept up.

'Stop!' shouted Aspertia. Cawl assumed she meant him, but the following data blurt went out to the others, <Unhand Cawl!>

'He's breaking the lore!' one shouted in anguish. 'He dishonours the machines!'

Weak fists pummelled him. Someone scrabbled at his hardline, trying to yank it out, scratching his skin around the input port. Cawl let go of his seat and backhanded his assailant hard, and the man lurched away with a yell, but the others grabbed his arm and pulled. The operation of so many automata at once was taking its toll on him. The displays cast into his mind blurred. His intelligence core ran hot. He feared it was slowly poaching his brain. <Stop!> canted Aspertia. Again the data blurt went to his fellows. <Unhand Cawl now!>

The assault ceased. His outraged colleagues stepped back. Dimly, Cawl heard the clank of fully augmented bodies surrounding him.

A skitarii rad pistol levelled itself at his temple. He could practically feel his gene-code degrading from the nearness of the barrel. Cancers birthed in his skin in that moment, he was sure, but he kept on with his task.

Cawl sent targeting information to the setheno-djinn in the robots' missile launchers. He had to trust them to do the rest. He was close to systems failure.

'Tell the Acquisitor Provost to order the extractors away,' he said thickly. 'Engines at full power.' He could barely speak. The heat in his head was unbearable. 'He has to move now!'