Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Watching the rain of fire pouring down from the sky, Kubik felt he finally understood why Mars was burning.

It wasn't only debris from the space station falling from above — dozens of drop pods plunged down as well, trailing white-hot exhaust as they became part of this meteor storm, hurtling straight for the Martian surface.

Most of those who had lived on Mars for years were seeing a spectacle this grand for the first time — though behind the display lay nothing but bloody war.

Mars tried to intercept them mid-air, but what the Shanzheng had released were Anvillus-pattern Dreadclaws.

These full-specification Dreadclaws, unseen since the days of the Great Crusade, were nothing like the stripped-down variants whose machine-spirits were easily corrupted. Their heavy armor was far beyond anything Mars's now-feeble anti-air defenses could hope to stop.

With no better option, the Skitarii dispatched what mobile forces they had on hand. Several squadrons of Ironstrider walkers raced toward the Astartes drop zones, trying to intercept the landing warriors.

But these drop pods, carrying the glory of the Great Crusade within them, were more than these light cavalry could handle. The moment the Dreadclaws' talons bit into the ground, their opening hatches unleashed Deathwind Launchers first.

Volleys of bolt rounds shredded the Ironstriders into a broken rout, and then over a dozen fully armored Sons of Dorn poured out of the pods, picking off the survivors one by one.

Given a fully organized force, an entire Astra Militarum regiment could batter Astartes on the open battlefield with heavy weapons of every kind. But in unstructured, small-unit combat, no one in the Imperium save the Custodes could match these superhuman warriors.

The Sons of Dorn annihilated this isolated, unsupported mobile force in short order, and the helpless Magi had no choice but to withdraw.

The Ultimate Wall's forces didn't press the pursuit. Instead, they unloaded steamrollers and entrenching gear from the Dreadclaws.

Their objective was clear: carve out a foothold on the Martian surface for the Astra Militarum.

Once the Ultimate Wall had secured the first landing zone, the Astra Militarum's transport ships were finally free to release wave after wave of landing craft, blotting out the sky.

Mars's defense systems, naturally, would not sit idle. The orbital defense array's Lances and missile launchers roared furiously, trying to intercept the descending pods.

But orbital defenses were too rigid, too cumbersome. The defense platforms above the landing zone had already been destroyed, and the surviving arrays couldn't reposition quickly enough to find a proper firing angle.

The Lances' blazing white beams wove a net across the sky, but most were absorbed by the Astra Militarum's escort fleet and the void shields of the Shanzheng.

Occasionally a missile found its mark, and one of the Astra Militarum's Arvus Lighters burst apart in a fireball, but against the sheer scale of the drop, such losses were negligible.

Kubik watched it all, fury washing through his databanks.

This wasn't how the orbital battle was supposed to go!

He nearly ground his gears to dust. "That fence-sitting Lansung!"

Two Solar Fleet warships had become the final weight tipping the balance against the defense. Their arrival had dramatically raised the Ultimate Wall's efficiency at demolishing the defense stations, turning the Fabricator General's earlier predictions into a joke.

He had once been confident of holding back the Astra Militarum's landing fleet, but those two extra battleships had crushed that confidence. He no longer had the strength to stop these lowly creatures of flesh from trampling the Omnissiah's sacred ground.

But rage solved nothing. He still needed a plan.

Kubik's gaze swept over the Priests gathered in the Forge Council. He knew these Magi still had their own private Skitarii, stockpiled munitions, even hoarded power cells.

"This is no longer some private venture by Lin and his Astartes. The Astra Militarum's involvement means this war now sets the Adeptus Mechanicus against the entire Imperium! You must hand over the forces under your command. At this critical hour, every one of you owes Mars your loyalty!"

So he demanded, but the Magi's response was cold.

Even the Magi who had originally stood with the Fabricator General against the daemons began to waver.

No one answered Kubik's demand. Their unspoken thought was plain enough: "We'd rather wait and see."

"The Imperium could never destroy the Mechanicus."

This colossus that controlled eighty percent of the Imperium's weapons production wasn't about to collapse just because the Astra Militarum had set foot on Martian soil.

The various Forge Worlds might scheme and squabble among themselves, but once the Mechanicus as a whole was threatened, they believed even the most heretical of them — Forge World Huangquan VIII — would stand up to defend the Adeptus Mechanicus's supreme standing.

Besides, buried beneath Mars lay the forbidden dark technologies that gave them their confidence. If the Ultimate Wall, or even the Imperium itself, chose to turn against them, they too held cards enough to overturn the table.

There would be time enough later — why fixate on the gains and losses of this one moment?

Better to let the Fabricator General take point and test the Astra Militarum's true strength for them first.

Mars, which had only barely been held together in the name of fighting the daemons, crumbled back into fragments under outside pressure. The Magi, each nursing their own agenda, did nothing at all.

Kubik roared, "Do you think you know the price of compromise? Do you think I care about the seat of Fabricator General? That Magos Lin has been scheming for so long — whatever he's after will strip the flesh from your bones and drain the last drop of oil from your veins!"

Unlike days before, his speech won him no support this time.

"It can't be worse than after the Great Heresy, anyway."

Kubik felt utterly disillusioned with them. He realized these men could no longer be relied upon; all he had left were the Skitarii, exhausted from their bloody battle against the daemons.

He wouldn't simply wait for death.

"I am Kubik, King of Mars! An enemy like this is nothing!"

Even lacking supplies, the Skitarii's combat strength was still several times that of an ordinary Astra Militarum soldier.

Only around five hundred thousand Astra Militarum troops had landed on Mars so far. As long as he struck before they could establish a foothold, Kubik believed the scales of victory would still tip toward him.

Kubik began consolidating what forces he had, treating the urgency of opposing the Astra Militarum as even greater than that of fighting the daemons. But his earlier campaign to encircle Lin had mired the very forces he needed to redeploy.

The troops massed at the entrance to the hive city were still locked in battle against the daemons and Lin's forces. Even if he wanted to pull them out now, his enemies wouldn't simply let him go.

But unexpectedly, even as the Fabricator General was still weighing his options, he noticed the ghouls' offensive beginning to falter. The Skitarii caught between the Exemplary Fists and the ghouls suddenly found room to breathe.

What exactly was Vashtorr up to?

The Fabricator General didn't know the answer, but he knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Judging further entanglement with Lin at the city's outskirts pointless, he withdrew every last Skitarii unit from that front.

The daemons' assault on the front line had also eased somewhat, letting him factor in the three Warlord-class Titans of the Titan Legion currently being readied.

As for the frontal battle at the hive city, Kubik would use his lowest-tier Skitarii and Priests to hold the line there, ensuring the containment operation against the Astra Militarum could proceed smoothly.

It might well be some daemonic scheme, but to keep his own position secure, he no longer cared.

From the teleportation device to the hive city to the Astra Militarum's landing, each problem he faced was bigger than the last. He no longer cared whether the hive city fell — dealing with the Astra Militarum was now the priority.

The Skitarii he pulled out numbered roughly five hundred thousand. They would move out first, to delay the Astra Militarum near their landing zone.

The artillery units responsible for fire support and the three Warlord-class Titans would follow behind, sweeping away those creatures of flesh with overwhelming force.

Though both forces numbered five hundred thousand, the Skitarii's combat efficiency far exceeded that of the Astra Militarum. Kubik believed his army could achieve the results he wanted before the enemy found their footing.

At his command, the Skitarii moved out at once, determined to cut the Astra Militarum off on Martian soil.

Moving faster than any mortal force, they soon reached the designated battlefield, and just as expected, the Astra Militarum was still busy hauling supplies and equipment, unprepared for combat.

A hasty defense was scrambled together to meet the Skitarii, but flesh and blood alone was truly no match for these half-mechanized soldiers.

To the Astra Militarum, these mechanically-augmented Skitarii were their own kind of iron storm.

"Hold the line! Do not fall back!"

The Astra Militarum commander's orders sounded so hollow against the Skitarii onslaught.

The Skitarii's iron tide swept in like a storm of rust-red, dragging Martian dust in its wake.

The Astra Militarum troops, with no defensive line yet built, opened fire in haste, but their lasbeams only scattered sparks off the Skitarii's servo-bodies. Barring the rare shot landing on a vital component, they could inflict little effective damage.

But the Skitarii's attacks were lethal to the Astra Militarum — ion blasts and las-fire turned their flesh into charred fragments in an instant.

Unafraid of losses, the Skitarii didn't even bother seeking cover. To expand their gains as fast as possible, they advanced in ranks like matchlock-era line infantry, blanketing the entire front with lasfire and galvanic charge.

The Astra Militarum fell back step by step, leaving nothing behind but blood spilled across Martian soil.

Flesh and blood seemed so fragile before a mechanized enemy.

At this rate, the Skitarii would soon tear open the Astra Militarum's defenses, leaving them unable to mount any organized resistance.

And the arrival of the Warlord-class Titans would settle the matter for good, ending any hope the Astra Militarum had of landing here.

But Kubik had a vague sense that things wouldn't go so smoothly.

"Something's wrong…"

Through the feeds relayed by his Servo-skulls, he saw no fear on the faces of these Astra Militarum troops. They were suffering casualties heavy enough to break any ordinary mortal force, yet they kept fighting on.

Even battle-hardening couldn't explain morale this high. The thought that the enemy might still be holding something in reserve left Kubik uneasy.

He pushed the Skitarii to hasten their advance, but under the Astra Militarum's desperate resistance, his Skitarii — lacking heavy firepower of their own — couldn't punch through to the heart of the landing zone.

Unable to stop another wave of landings, the Skitarii could only watch as heavy transports, unlike the Arvus Lighters, arrived under the escort of Valkyrie fighters.

These Valkyries belonged to the Imperial Navy, with only a handful ever assigned to the Astra Militarum — treasured machines they normally guarded jealously. That they were now being used as escorts and flak-magnets alone spoke volumes about the importance of whatever the landing craft carried.

When its hatch opened, Hays was the first to step out.

"Soldiers, I stand with you!"

His voice broadcast across the vox-array to every Astra Militarum soldier present. The supreme commander's arrival in person set off a wave of cheers among the troops.

What Hays said next drew the most fervent screams of all from every soldier there.

"But I'm not the only one here — our siege tanks have come too!"

Siege tanks mounted with penetrating shockwave cannons rumbled out of the transports. All they needed was a firing coordinate and a simple setup to unleash the most devastating barrage.

They began deploying at the edge of the landing zone, their barrels raised high and adjusted to the firing solutions relayed from the front, taking aim at the charging Skitarii.

"Fire!"

Hays gave the order himself, and the siege tanks' penetrating shockwave cannons let out a deafening roar. Shells tore through the sky like thunder, crashing down on the Skitarii line with annihilating force.

As the first volley struck like lightning, the Skitarii, who had never witnessed this weapon's power before, were caught momentarily bewildered.

The foremost charging cluster looked as though some invisible hand had slammed down on them. Their mechanized bodies tore apart in the shockwaves, scattering metal fragments everywhere.

When the bombardment ended, the surviving Skitarii looked around to find almost no one else still standing.

Alpha, the Skitarii squad leader, tried to rally the formation, but the second volley was already falling.

Even those who had survived the first volley couldn't escape this time. Their mechanical bodies twisted and warped in the blasts, and the searing heat brought them total annihilation.

Even the Skitarii, stripped of the capacity for fear, found this staggering rate of slaughter chilling.

A Priest tried to reassure his companion. "They've already fired two rapid volleys — there has to be a lull coming soon…"

Before he could finish speaking, a third volley answered him in the clearest way possible.

"Why can they fire so fast? Don't they need to let the barrels cool?!"

Their bewilderment and panic were exactly what the Astra Militarum troops — who had already witnessed the siege tanks' power at Cath Maximus — had been waiting to see.

This was no hidden trump card.

This was raw power, pure and simple!

At first the Skitarii could still force their way forward under such fire, but as more and more siege tanks touched down, no force could keep advancing against the ever-thickening barrage.

"Penetrating shockwave cannons!" Kubik ground out through clenched teeth.

He had only ever heard secondhand that Lin possessed such a proprietary technology — now he was seeing with his own eyes the firepower a massed force of siege tanks could unleash.

From the density of the bombardment he estimated the enemy's siege tank numbers hadn't exceeded a thousand, yet they'd already achieved a rate of fire that should have required an entire regiment's elite artillery corps to match.

The siege tanks were firing high-explosive shells meant for lightly-armored targets, but the Skitarii simply lacked the heavy vehicles to withstand even that kind of firepower.

"If the Imperium hadn't stripped the Forge Worlds of the right to field too large a fleet or too much heavy armor, this battle would never have gone like this!"

Kubik cursed the Imperium's restrictions on Mars, yet the thought running through his conduits was of Lin.

When Lin had first arrived on Mars, he'd once promised to hand over this very technology. Kubik had looked down on its technical merit at the time, never imagining it could prove so devastatingly effective.

If he hadn't listened to Augustus's slander, if he hadn't fallen out with Lin — would he have gotten his hands on this technology? Would the situation now be entirely different?

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