Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

What does it feel like to have a boarding torpedo punch you directly in the face?

Lin had experienced it firsthand, though he couldn't describe it particularly well. The moment that massive iron spike punched through the armour plating and scraped past his face to bury itself in the hull compartment, the tremendous shockwave hit him — and then the shrieking whine of air venting through the breach knocked him unconscious before he could process any of it.

But the very next instant, his onboard equipment forced him awake. A stimulant injection coursed straight up his iron spine and fired directly into his central nervous system. His brain — one of the precious few remaining pieces of flesh on his body — received the signal with razor sharpness and hammered a mandatory override back into his limbs, dragging Lin's consciousness up from the depths of blackness after less than half a second of unconsciousness.

Lin snapped his head up the moment clarity returned — and found himself staring straight at the first black-armoured Space Marine clambering out of the boarding torpedo. The warrior raised his weapon and fired without a moment's hesitation. The bolt gun's muzzle belched a savage tongue of flame, and in an instant, a lethal bolt round was screaming toward Lin's face.

Lin let out a quiet huff — entirely unrattled. The bolt round vanished into a thin pale-blue shimmer that swallowed it whole. Before his oxygen rebreather mask had even finished dropping into place over his face, he was already pulling the corner of his mouth into a mocking grin at the black-armoured Astartes. That clearly enraged the warrior. Without a second's delay he dropped the bolt gun, raised his chainsword, and charged.

But when his descending chainsword was stopped by that same pale-blue shimmer, an expression of unmistakable shock crossed his face.

"A refractor field?" he demanded.

"Energy shield, boy!" Lin flashed a grin. He planted a boot into the warrior's chest and sent him staggering back, then swept his solar war-axe free from behind his shoulder in a single fluid motion. The weapon — drawn from a universe of Starcraft, powered by a Wraithstone of the Eldar — looked absolutely ferocious.

The black-armoured Astartes read the danger immediately and angled his body to present his thickest pauldron, hoping to absorb Lin's counter-strike. Lin simply flicked a control on the solar war-axe. The blade blazed to sudden radiance. Swung like a whirlwind in his hands, the axe's enormous force combined with the disintegration field along its edge — it passed through the Astartes like a hot knife through butter, cleaving the black-armoured warrior from shoulder to hip and dropping him in two pieces.

"And a solar war-axe." Lin kicked the top half of the corpse out of his path. "You know how it is — I'm always ready to embrace the glory of battle."

Having squandered the half-second window of Lin's initial unconsciousness, the remaining four Space Marines still emerging from the boarding torpedo posed no real threat to him whatsoever. The mechadendrite backpack mounted on his shoulders automatically deployed a plasma gun, and the weapon's faithful full-auto bursts picked off each warrior trying to push out of the torpedo one by one.

The fifth and final Space Marine waited until the plasma gun had overheated before bursting out from behind the torpedo and hurling himself straight at Lin — but the Servitor at Lin's back squeezed the trigger, and a molten hole was burned through the last warrior's chest. He toppled to the deck without another sound.

"The sudden atmospheric pressure change rendered you unconscious for 0.43 seconds, and you also displayed a significant quantity of unnecessary emotional behaviour during the engagement — both factors degraded your combat efficiency, Magos Lin." The servo-skull cataloguing data nearby delivered its cold reminder. "I continue to recommend that you pursue further bodily augmentation, particularly the replacement of the vulnerable human brain."

"But it takes a human brain to show them the difference between me and them, doesn't it?" Lin stepped over the body of a black-armoured Space Marine and spat contemptuously on the Chaos eight-pointed star branded into the dead warrior's forehead.

He steered the conversation elsewhere. "Show me the current status of my Ark. That bastard Abaddon — I steal something from Fabius Bile and it's suddenly any of his business? Worth sending this many men just to board and kill me?"

"Strictly speaking, it was not solely Fabius Bile's property, Magos Lin." The Servitor walking at his side helpfully identified the core issue. "Had you not stolen the DNA of Abaddon's father, I believe he would have been quite happy to sit back and enjoy Fabius Bile's misfortune rather than lead the pursuit personally."

"He was the one who made a mess of destroying the Horus clone and reclaiming the Warmaster's remains — he left Fabius Bile with a DNA sample of Horus in the first place. I never went after the actual corpse. All I took was the Horus DNA Fabius had privately stashed away. And somehow Abaddon has the nerve to blame me for that?" Lin's voice rose in irritation. Without turning his head he demanded: "What's the current status of the Mechanicus Ark? How much time do we have?"

The servo-skull hovering at his shoulder projected a schematic overview of the vessel. The Mechanicus Ark's full situation was laid out in detail before Lin's eyes — the schematic was dense with cascading red warning runes, each one a testament to how close the ship was to total collapse. At his side, the Servitor dutifully began its report:

"The Mechanicus Ark Veritas has suffered a boarding assault by the Black Legion. After vanguard Terminator squads were teleported aboard and sabotaged a portion of the plasma drives, the enemy launched dozens of boarding torpedoes into multiple sections of the hull, and subsequently deployed landing craft against a Veritas unable to mount adequate anti-boarding resistance."

"Approximately two hundred Chaos Space Marines are currently conducting deck-by-deck sweeps to eliminate our remaining resistance forces aboard the Mechanicus Ark while tightening their encirclement. Accounting for the enemy's continuous reinforcement, calculations indicate that existing Frateris Militia forces can sustain effective resistance for approximately three more hours. One hour, ten minutes, and twenty-three seconds before that militia collapses, we will find ourselves in a position where every available corridor leads to a Chaos Space Marine."

"What about the gene-vault holding the Horus DNA? I need to reach it first."

"Advancing in that direction will result in a direct encounter with three Black Legion Space Marine squads, including one Terminator squad."

Lin's stride came to a halt. His gaze carried through one of the Veritas's fractured viewport portholes to the void outside. There, a grim black warship hung motionless in the near distance, its macro-cannons trained directly on the Veritas — as though mocking the sheer presumption of Lin's existence.

He had every confidence he could deal with three squads of Chaos Space Marines, Terminators included. But Abaddon the Despoiler was out there on that warship, watching Lin's Mechanicus Ark with a hunter's eyes. That battleship with its macro-cannons aimed squarely at the Veritas was the Sword of Damocles hanging directly over his head.

Abaddon had sent only boarders for now because he still wanted to capture the Ark intact and claim a greater prize. But if the Chaos Space Marines aboard kept going silent one after another, Lin had absolutely no doubt that the Warmaster with his topknot would simply level the place with a macro-cannon salvo.

As master and captain of the Mechanicus Ark Veritas, Lin knew perfectly well that this vessel — a crude, jury-rigged Ark converted from a Lunar-class cruiser — could not survive a single broadside from a battleship's primary armament.

Speed had always been the Veritas's one and only advantage against a battleship…

But when the Chaos warship had translated into position directly ahead of the Veritas by some impossible violation of the laws of the Warp, and then used teleport-boarding to cripple a portion of the plasma drives, death had become a matter of time for this Ark — nothing more.

As a Blank, unconcerned with any of the Four Powers amusing themselves with his soul after death, Lin had never feared sacrifice. He had even prepared a melta bomb on his person as his own personal blaze-of-glory charge — had Abaddon boarded directly, Lin would have detonated it without a moment's hesitation, taking the Despoiler with him to see the most beautiful fireworks in the galaxy. But this was not that situation.

The DNA of Horus held a number of interesting possibilities for Lin, but it was not worth dying for. Lin had no intention of going to meet the Emperor over Horus's genetic material. Even without anyone reminding him how much he still had left to do, he had no plans to rest in the Emperor's embrace just yet.

"Abandon the gene-vault. We change course for the escape pods." Lin made his decision with calm clarity. "Abaddon wants the Horus DNA? Let him have it. There are other things of genuine value in this universe."

"Command received. Routing to escape pods." The servo-skull pulsed. "Calculated arrival time from current position: thirteen minutes, thirteen seconds."

The Servitor at his side, however, had reservations about the call. "Magos, this Ark carries a great many things of value beyond the DNA — archaeological finds and proprietary inventions you have yet to report to the Forge Worlds. Are you certain you wish to simply abandon the Mechanicus Ark entirely?"

"The only thing of genuine value aboard this ship is my head." Lin rapped his knuckles against the one remaining section of biological architecture on his body. "As long as I'm alive, the knowledge we have gathered is not lost."

"However, those materials risk falling into heretical hands. They may reverse-engineer the principles behind your proprietary inventions and bring greater calamity upon the Emperor's loyal subjects."

"At best they can use them. They won't be able to work out how to make them."

Lin turned his solar war-axe over thoughtfully in his hand — another of his proprietary "inventions." For a reason he could never explain to anyone else, he was completely certain that Abaddon would never crack the secret of its construction.

He looked long and hard at the Servitor who served as his experimental assistant. When he had performed the modifications, he had deliberately preserved a substantial portion of the man's original human autonomy — and that individual had indeed demonstrated a degree of human subjectivity that surprised even Lin himself. "Come with me to the escape pod now. There's a small escape craft there. Room enough for both of us."

The Servitor was silent for a moment. It seemed as though the human thoughts still living inside him were at war with the programmatic logic installed when he was converted. But in the end he bowed his head and said with quiet humility: "As you will, my lord."

The two of them moved at a brisk pace through the Ark's active combat zones, heading for the escape bay. After cutting down several Chaos Space Marines who moved to block their path, Lin and his Servitor finally reached the area housing the escape pods. There, a compact escape craft — modified by Lin's own hands — sat berthed in its bay, waiting.

"I've modified this escape craft. It carries a specialised miniaturised Warp drive and a Geller Field — enough for one short-range Warp jump." Lin said, popping the hatch. "You disconnect the escape craft's safety locks from the Ark out here, then get in. We leave together. Understood?"

The Servitor nodded and immediately set to work. Lin climbed into the escape craft and began checking the systems — in particular whether the Geller Field was still operational. When he had confirmed everything, he raised a hand and gestured for the Servitor to board.

But the Servitor outside simply shook his head — and sealed the escape hatch shut.

"What are you doing!" Lin was genuinely irritated. He attempted to directly access and override the Servitor's base-level code. The Servitor blocked him.

"Magos Lin." The Servitor spoke with grave sincerity. "Though you never gave me a name, I believe you still remember the circumstances of our first meeting. I am grateful to you for rescuing me from the hands of the Ecclesiarchy, and for converting me — condemned to mindless servitude as I was — into a Servitor with a measure of genuine thought. I have long wondered: why do I still retain a portion of my human mind? I am your experimental assistant, yes — but at the same time, I hope that I may still make a greater contribution in the manner of a human being. For instance, by giving my life to stop the enemy of Chaos."

"The Ark's architecture is unusual. There is no Navigator aboard, no standing Captain. The only individual with the authorisation to activate the self-destruct from the command bridge is you. I am asking you for a chance — the honour of dying gloriously as a human being. Transfer the Ark's self-destruct authority to me. Let me go to the command bridge, trigger the self-destruct, and drive the engines to overload. I will destroy every possibility of the enemy seizing any of your creations, and I will bring a final ending to every enemy still aboard the Veritas."

Lin pressed his lips together. He watched his Servitor, and grief spread slowly through his mind. Every rational circuit, every calculation engine on his body reminded him that keeping this Servitor was the more advantageous course for whatever came after their escape.

But he was not rational alone. Unlike other Archmagi of the Mechanicus who had uploaded their consciousness into cogitators and simulated human emotion through regulator subroutines, Lin — who still carried a human brain — could actually taste this feeling. He turned the bitter emotion over in his mind, and then gave his Servitor a single nod.

The Servitor did not smile. Prior modifications had long since stripped away his capacity to express emotion physically. But Lin could feel the satisfaction radiating from him all the same. He disengaged the escape craft's safety locks and guided the small vessel into the launch tube. At the very last moment before the launch window closed, he did not render the cog-and-wheel salute of the Mechanicus. Instead, he crossed both hands over his chest — and offered the sign of the Aquila.

"The Emperor protects, Magos Lin."

"I don't follow the Emperor. But I believe in human wisdom and courage." Lin answered quietly. "Go do what you want to do. As a human being."

The escape craft's engines ignited and flung Lin — and Lin alone — out into the vast void. The Servitor dwindled in his field of vision until he was gone, replaced by the panoramic view of the battered and ravaged Veritas. The servo-skull informed Lin that the probability of a single Servitor reaching the command bridge and triggering the Ark's self-destruct under these conditions was effectively zero. But somewhere in the back of his mind, Lin felt certain the man would succeed.

"There are always things in this universe that probability can't calculate." Lin gave his servo-skull a sardonic tap, then jacked his own cables into the escape craft's Cogitator systems and began calculating the data required for an emergency Warp jump. Undirected emergency jumps without first reaching a Mandeville Point were brutally dangerous, but if he had any intention of not being lost in the Warp forever, the calculations would still need time.

Lin was confident Abaddon would give him that time. And as it turned out, he was right.

When the Chaos warship's Astropath-in-command reported to Abaddon that the augers had picked up the signature of a small escape craft, what he received in return was the Despoiler's snarling contempt.

"An escape pod? Where's he going to go? A pod with no interstellar drive capability ends up either drifting through space forever or making a crash landing on the nearest planet." Abaddon scoffed coldly. "I'd say this Magos is simply a rat running out of options. Don't bother with it. Tell the warriors aboard the Mechanicus Ark: seize the command bridge at any cost — take control of that Ark!"

His gaze lingered on the Mechanicus Ark, eyes bright with hunger. The Black Legion was still newly formed, still building itself from scratch — the successive campaigns to absorb one warband after another had bled the Legion's reserves dry. And now a Mechanicus Ark had delivered itself to his doorstep. Even if it was nothing more than a minor Ark tinkered together by some minor Magos, the technology aboard it and the various production systems it carried would surely ease the Black Legion's most pressing needs.

This foolish Mechanicus Magos had stolen his father's DNA from Fabius Bile, and in doing so had handed his entire life's work directly to Abaddon's jaws. And now the Magos had even fled in a panic before he could manage to detonate the Ark. This cowardice — so perfectly reminiscent of those Martian Magi who had stood by and watched during the Battle of Terra — filled Abaddon with swelling confidence. He would seize this opportunity. He would lead the Black Legion to yet another victory.

But victory did not come as promised.

Reflected in the viewport was the sight of the Mechanicus Ark erupting into a brilliant cascade of fire — and then consumed entirely in the explosion. Reflected in that same glass was the astonishment on Abaddon's face. He surged upright from his throne and strode to the viewport. Then, abruptly, he turned and walked to where the trembling Astropath-in-command stood.

"Where is that Mechanicus Magos's escape craft! He will pay for this!" Abaddon roared.

"His escape craft is still registering on the augers — it has barely moved since just before the explosion." The Astropath-in-command pointed at the auger display with shaking fingers. "Now… oh no. Gods, no!"

Abaddon shoved the Astropath-in-command bodily aside and stared at the auger display himself. He watched as the escape craft's reading suddenly erupted in violent Warp fluctuations — and then the auger returned nothing at all. There was only one possibility consistent with a reading that dramatic: this escape craft, physically incapable of housing a Warp drive, had just made a Warp jump — and slipped free of Abaddon's grasp entirely.

The Despoiler was silent for a long moment. Then he drove his fist into the auger console with enough force to shatter it completely.

Iskandar Kayan, the Thousand Sons sorcerer who had been resting after the effort of translating an entire battleship through the Warp, came hurrying onto the bridge. He took in the scene, understood at a glance what had happened, and moved to Abaddon's side. He lowered his voice.

"We have won, Abaddon. There is no need for such anger."

"Won?" Abaddon turned to look at Kayan. Even for a "brother" he had personally recruited, he could not summon a pleasant expression right now. "The Mechanicus Ark is destroyed. The Magos escaped. Besides a batch of hastily-raised cannon fodder, I also lost two Terminator squads — brothers who have fought at my side since the days of the Legion. You call this a victory?"

"Yes — a victory!" Kayan raised his voice slightly. "Yes, we paid a price. But we have seized proof of Fabius Bile's treachery, destroyed the conspiracy to steal the gene-heritage of Horus, and demonstrated the authority of the Warmaster of Chaos — we have shown all who would listen that no matter the cost, the honour of the Black Legion will not be challenged! The prestige you have gained will help you better marshal the forces for the Second Black Crusade you have long envisioned!"

"Abaddon, this is a victory! A victory that looks not to immediate gains but to the future! A victory in the truest Abaddon fashion!"

Abaddon stared at Kayan's impassioned oratory. The fist that clenched and unclenched at his side laid bare the fact that his composure was anything but. But in the end he accepted what was being said. "You are right, brother. This is a victory."

At those words, the near-solid atmosphere of dread that had congealed on the bridge began to move again. The mortal crew members drew breath one by one, each quietly grateful they would not be executed for failure.

"I will announce to the outside world that this was a victory. But I have no desire for any mortal who knows the truth to walk out of here — to prevent the spread of certain… unwanted rumours." Abaddon said coldly. "Nothing will remain here except the victory."

Kayan gave a single nod. Psychic fire coiled between his hands. "As it should be."

Abaddon left the bridge without looking back. The screaming of mortals behind him would not improve his mood by a single fraction.

In the far-distant year 540.M32, the great Chaos Warmaster, Abaddon the Despoiler, tasted once again the bitterness of a hollow victory.

He did not yet know the name of the Mechanicus Magos who had slipped through his fingers. But he would, one day — for Lin's story was only now beginning.

PS: No dimension-hopping into other settings — just the occasional aesthetic oddity smuggled into the Warhammer universe.