Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

As a transmigrator who had crossed from the enlightened M3 into the barbaric and ignorant M32, Lin had never put much stock in the God-Emperor's mythology. But after the old golden boy had just pulled him back from the brink, Lin found himself genuinely reconsidering whether the figure seated on the Golden Throne was a man or a god.

If he really was still human, how could he not understand the basic principle of finishing what you start? You help someone, you see it through to the end.

Surely he wasn't going to survive the Warp only to get splattered across the ground in realspace?

Thanks to Warhammer's absurdly robust material strength, the escape pod had come through the dense atmosphere with nothing worse than some scorched armour plating — everything else was completely intact. But a vessel that had never once been designed for atmospheric flight was never going to win any awards for aerodynamics, and the plasma engines, already trimmed down to make room for the miniaturised warp drive, simply couldn't provide the kind of brute-force thrust needed to slow the thing down.

Lin pushed the plasma engines to maximum reverse thrust, even channelling power directly from his own body into the engines to push them past their rated limits — but the downward momentum didn't slow in the slightest.

With the ship clearly beyond saving, Lin had no choice but to open the hatch, lock himself to the outer hull using his mechadendrites, and start stripping components in freefall at high altitude — the plasma engine and the warp drive, both.

It was a race against death, but Lin, who had spent years rummaging through ruins, was no stranger to working under pressure. With steady hands and no assistance equipment whatsoever, he detached the warp drive, then hard-wired one of the plasma engines directly onto himself. As the ship screamed toward the ground, he jumped clear with the warp drive in his arms and fired the plasma engine simultaneously.

The exhaust plume incinerated the red robes that marked him as a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and melted away the augmetic lower half of his body. Fortunately, the engine output was just sufficient for his weight. With careful adjustments, Lin — plasma engine strapped to his back, warp drive clutched in his arms — touched down.

He raised both hands to cheer for his successful emergency landing, with no audience to appreciate the moment. His half-melted legs, however, had other ideas. His arms hadn't even finished rising before his legs gave out entirely, and he went face-first into the dirt.

It didn't dampen his mood in the slightest. The giddy rush of having cheated death made him want to flip over and laugh at the sky — and as he rolled onto his back, the view from his side caught something. His instincts sharpened immediately.

This landing had not gone unwitnessed.

The half-melted legs left Lin temporarily immobile, but that was no reason to sit and wait for whatever was coming. Without any visible change in expression, Lin activated his Energy Shield, and a plasma pistol quietly slid out from under his wrist.

He set down the warp drive he'd been cradling, pretending to tend to his lower body, using the upper half of his robes and the light from a welding torch to conceal the plasma pistol charging beneath his wrist.

While Lin appeared wholly absorbed in repairing his legs, a bolt pistol was pressed silently against the back of his head.

"Don't move." Lin heard the man behind him say it in Low Gothic.

"Before you go threatening people," Lin replied, utterly unperturbed. His wrist flicked over with the fluidity of a street magician, and the fully-charged plasma pistol swung to bear on the man behind him. "I'd suggest you give some thought to your own head first."

"You think one plasma pistol is enough to kill me?"

"It's not just one plasma pistol. Are you really going to question the contingencies of a Mechanicus Priest?"

The man gave a cold snort. "I'm not afraid of sacrifice."

"There's always someone who fancies himself a fearless martyr," Lin said. "They yearn for sacrifice — but they never stop to consider how much their sacrifice is actually worth."

Lin tilted his head toward the bushes ahead, where something had already begun to stir. Whoever was behind him had company.

"Instead of standing here at each other's throats, why not give up on the idea of capturing me and consider genuine cooperation — an equal partnership that could offer you and your companions, whoever else is stranded on this planet, a very different future? Or did you go to all this trouble of sneaking up behind me just to take us both out together?"

The man behind him was silent for a moment. Lin could hear his heavy, measured breathing. Then the bolt pistol pressing against the back of his skull was slowly withdrawn.

"You're sharp, Mechanicus Priest." The voice gave nothing away. "Whether it was saving yourself during the crash or the way you've handled this just now — I can tell you're not ordinary."

"I simply trust in my own skills and my own value. Besides, you were the ones who threatened me first. I only wanted an equal footing for the conversation."

Lin shrugged and let the charge in the plasma pistol dissipate. "We've been talking this whole time and I still haven't seen your face. In the spirit of goodwill toward a potential partnership, shouldn't you come around where I can get a look at you? You know how it is — my legs aren't exactly cooperating right now."

The man said nothing, but Lin heard footsteps. A moment later, a tall figure stepped into view before him. The man stood a full two and a half metres high; the shadow he cast standing over Lin swallowed him almost completely.

Lin immediately spotted the traces of augmentation on the man's body, and the regularly-spaced interface ports arrayed across his frame. The unexpected sight made him stare.

"An Astartes?" he breathed.

Lin had been running analysis ever since. He'd worked through many possibilities: the man spoke Low Gothic, so he was Imperial, or had been at some point; he had approached without a sound, indicating standard military conditioning; his footsteps approaching hadn't been light, suggesting significant mass from biological augmentation —

But none of those data points had led him to Astartes.

Seeing the man in person, Lin immediately understood why his reasoning had gone astray. The figure wasn't wearing Power Armour — the piece of equipment an Astartes almost never went without. He had covered only his vital areas, using what appeared to be armour plates stripped from a suit of Power Armour and some animal hide.

The difference in apparent weight had thrown off Lin's estimate. But that improvised state of dress also told Lin everything he needed to know about the man's situation.

"How long have you been stranded here?" Lin asked with a smile.

The man's expression didn't move. He clearly wasn't surprised that Lin had identified them, and he clearly had no intention of answering. Lin pressed on undeterred. "Come on — even if you won't say anything else, you at least have to introduce yourself. You can't build the foundation for deeper cooperation without knowing each other's names, can you?"

"Admir." The man paused for just a fraction of a second. Lin caught the faint shift in his expression. "Thirteenth Legion."

"Oh, the Thirteenth Legion…"

Lin drew the words out. Combined with that microexpression, he had a fairly good working theory about who he was really dealing with. "I'm Lin. An ordinary Mechanicus Priest."

Admir seemed to sense that he'd given something away with those two lines, though he couldn't for the life of him work out what had tipped Lin off. He could only press his lips together, keep his face blank, and wave two of his brothers over to carry Lin away.

"No need for that." Lin raised a hand. "If I cut away the irregular fused sections on my legs, I can get basic locomotion back on my own."

There were no Chaos markings — none of the lunatic ward-glyphs those heretic cultists loved so much — anywhere on the man's bare skin. Combined with the Legion he'd named, Lin's working theory was that Admir was either one of the old guard who had refused to accept the Legion's dissolution, or a renegade warband that had turned its back on both the Imperium and Chaos alike.

Neither of those was as dangerous as a Chaos worshipper, but neither was exactly friendly, either. The value of a Tech-Priest was enough to keep him safe — but merely safe wasn't enough. He needed to be sure he couldn't be controlled.

"We don't have much time to let you sit here and repair yourself at your own pace," said Admir, his expression still cold. "This planet is full of dangerous things, and your crash landing attracted more than just us."

"Oh?" Lin looked up, genuinely surprised. "There are native factions on this planet?"

"No. Only beasts."

"Only beasts? If it's only beasts, why haven't you just killed them all—"

"HRROOOOAARRR—"

Lin didn't finish the sentence. The jungle exploded with a roar like a thunderclap. The sound came from far away, yet it carried such bone-deep resonance that Lin didn't see a single bird startled into flight — instead, a number of them were frightened so badly they simply fell out of the trees and hit the ground.

Lin looked toward the source of the sound. He saw only another unarmoured Astartes emerge from the treeline, jogging to report to Admir: "Approximately five kilometres out — closing fast!"

Admir gave a short nod. He ordered the two Astartes to haul Lin up outright, and Lin, who could already faintly feel the ground beginning to tremble, offered no further objection. The group moved out at a dead sprint in the direction away from whatever was coming, in perfect order.

"What in the Throne is that thing?" Lin called out to Admir, being dragged along the ground between two Astartes with sparks flying from his fused lower body. "That sound alone — and the ground shaking from five kilometres away? What kind of creature is that large?"

"We're about to cross an open clearing. Look back when we do and you'll see for yourself!"

Admir was not wrong. The thing pursuing them had no intention of giving up. Shortly after Admir and his twenty-odd brothers converged in the open clearing, a colossal creature burst through the undergrowth. It was covered in tawny-brown scales with grey-blue striping, had triangular ears, and bore a pair of forelimbs fitted with membrane-like wings.

Its overall silhouette recalled an ancient pterosaur, but massively scaled up — its body alone was some fifteen metres long, forcing it to move on all fours. Its gaping maw and the saliva dripping from its jaws left no doubt about the nature of its appetites.

The Astartes appeared unsurprised by the creature. Admir moved quickly to issue orders: "Mark the Power Armour and stow it somewhere hidden — we travel light from here. My squad escorts the Mechanicus Priest to the base. Everyone else splits into two teams and covers our withdrawal. When you're done covering, pull back immediately. Each team gets two bolt pistols. If anyone's about to get run down, shoot for the vitals to buy time. Survival is the priority — don't spend your lives to save ammunition."

The Astartes split into two covering teams without hesitation. Lin used the moment to stow the warp drive he'd pulled from the ship alongside the Power Armour. As they hid the armour, he noticed it was MK II Crusade pattern, disassembled and stripped of its power packs — shoulder markings deliberately effaced, making it impossible to identify their Legion of origin.

Beyond that, their weapons and ammunition were critically short. A squad of seven or eight had only two bolt pistols between them, with just two magazines total. Close-combat weapons were another matter — everyone had one — but looking at the chainblades notched all over and the power swords that barely held a gleam, Lin genuinely doubted whether those melee weapons could perform at even thirty percent of their rated capability.

These Astartes had clearly been run into the ground. Bare-handed they were still superhuman warriors, but staring at the creature before him — something he had never seen in reality yet somehow recognised intimately — Lin let out a helpless sigh.

"A Deviljho?" he murmured, trying to reassemble a worldview that had been shattering piece by piece ever since he had arrived in Warhammer a century ago. "Why is there a Deviljho here?"

---

PS1: The first warband's aesthetic is inspired by Monster Hunter — but if you're not familiar with MH, don't worry. I'll be folding the Monster Hunter elements into the Warhammer setting and doing my best to give everything a reasonable in-universe Warhammer explanation going forward.

PS2: On the question of whether greater mass means more stable Warp travel — yes, that is indeed the case. Early lore explicitly states that the larger the Warp drive (and by extension, the larger the ship), the more stable the transit.

That said, there is a counterexample: if a Warp jump is initiated within a star system's gravity well before reaching the Mandeville Point, the star's gravitational field becomes entangled with the mass of a large vessel, causing the Warp corridor opened within the star's gravity to become unstable. In that specific situation, a smaller ship actually has the advantage.

This is fairly old lore, however — something I dug out of some old GW material — and I wouldn't rule out that it's been retconned by now.

This section is minor trivia and not plot-relevant; just here to answer any questions.