Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Lin darted in front of Admir. He unloaded every round he had left — the two Bolter autocannons that had sprung from his mechanical backpack, combined with a standard Plasma Gun, laid down a barrage that drove the Silver Rathalos back from its relentless pursuit of Admir long enough for Lin to haul the lieutenant to the side.

"I still have one option," Lin said.

"What option?" Admir had his helmet off. His face was slicked with blood — his own, the Silver Rathalos's, and the blood of his brothers.

"I have one high-yield thermite bomb left," Lin said, keeping it brief. "You tie down the Silver Rathalos. I fire up the jet engine, get airborne, and put it on him. Then we see if there's an opening."

"He's highly maneuverable in the air. Even with the engine you won't be able to keep pace with him — the odds are too low." Admir shot down Lin's plan. "And where did you get a large-scale thermite bomb in the first place?"

"It's my glory round. Saved for when there's absolutely no other choice — at least good enough to take a few enemies down with me."

Admir went still for a moment. In that instant, Lin's silhouette overlapped in his mind with the tech-sergeant who had already given his life. But in the end he shook his head. "I don't agree."

"Then do you have a better idea?" Lin shot back.

"Having no plan doesn't mean there's no choice!"

Admir shoved Lin aside. He caught a headbutt charge from the Silver Rathalos dead-on with the flat of the dragon sword Red Leaf, then narrowly — impossibly narrowly — twisted away from the jaws snapping shut where he'd been a breath before. After the relentless grind of sustained close-quarters fighting, even the company champion was visibly running on fumes. And at that moment, Deputy Aibo came sprinting onto the scene.

"Admir — Sergeant Arlo's line has been broken! A dragon spawn is closing in fast!"

Admir turned to look at Deputy Aibo. The deputy was wreathed in smoke, his CMC powered suit gouged with claw marks and hammered with dents. His right hand still held the company banner. Half of it had been eaten by fire and reduced to ash; the White Wind's crest had been torn by the scorching, yet still stood defiant, snapping in the superheated gale the flames kicked up.

"Deputy Aibo!" he barked.

"Sir!"

"I am ordering you to pull a squad and escort Chaplain Lin into the space hulk. At any cost. Until Chaplain Lin has a confirmed means of returning to space."

"Understood!" The deputy obeyed without a moment's hesitation.

Admir turned to Lin. "Chaplain Lin, you have already done more than enough for us. I told you — regardless of the outcome, we would show our gratitude in deeds. The time has come to make good on that promise."

Deputy Aibo stepped forward. He set down the banner and seized Lin with both hands.

"What are you doing?!" Lin struggled, but the damage to his joints — sustained since his escape pod crash — and his emptied weapons made his resistance laughably feeble against these transhuman warriors. "You're sending me into the space hulk alone?!"

"A small squad slipping into a space hulk won't draw too much attention. I'm hoping you can find a way back to space inside it, Chaplain Lin. It's the only thing we can do for you now. Everything after that — you'll have to figure it out yourself." Admir turned back, squared up against the Silver Rathalos, and settled into his stance once more. "If you do make it back to space — I only ask that someday you return here and take away the gene-seed we've stored at the camp. That is my one request."

"Admir, you never even considered my plan!" Lin erupted. "You selfish bastard — your head's been full of nothing but yourself the whole time!"

Admir didn't answer. Left with nothing else he could do, Lin called over a Felyne, unclipped the Energy Shield battery from his own frame, and instructed the Felyne to fit the Energy Shield onto Admir.

The Energy Shield drawn from StarCraft was nothing like the void shields or Refractor Fields common to the Warhammer world. It intercepted all attacks indiscriminately — fast or slow, any type — and while its energy drain was severe, this was obviously not the moment to count the cost.

Admir stood holding the dragon sword Red Leaf, facing the Silver Rathalos. By now, he was the only one left on the field.

Humanity's enduring advantage over monsters had always been teamwork. But now every battle-brother who had stood at his shoulder was down. He stood alone before the monster.

Against something so vast he was so small — and yet a tremor he could not name was surging through his blood. He sensed it, dimly, as though some force were reaching through the chaos and calling to him, urging him to take the head of the colossus before him.

Am I excited? he asked himself.

Yes. I am excited. He confirmed it.

The fear that rises when facing a titanic creature is the instinct of any living thing. But he was an Astartes — a Space Marine — the executioner of humanity's enemies. And more than that: a Hunter.

He thought of the Legion as it had been before their gene-father's return. He thought of the glorious mandate the Emperor had given them — to hunt the alien wherever it lurked. He thought of the ancient battle-cry that had echoed through the galaxy when the Second Legion still ranged freely among the stars.

"Today's sacrifice," Admir roared, "for tomorrow's triumph!"

The faded glory of the Second Legion blazed through his bloodline. He stood here, and he would drive his courage and his will forward until nothing remained.

He leveled the blade, built speed from a walk to a run, and finally broke into a full sprint toward the Silver Rathalos. And in the Silver Rathalos's eyes, he saw something he had not expected — wariness.

The Silver Rathalos climbed steeply. He had no desire to grapple with Admir on the ground, and instead began building up a breath attack in midair. A silver-white radiance flowed slowly from his chest cavity up toward his skull; searing blue-white flame gathered in his jaws, then erupted downward — a broad, fan-shaped torrent of blue-white fire, aimed straight at Admir.

The inferno engulfed Admir in an instant. He brought the blade up and forward in a guard, taking the punishment on his pauldrons. At the last possible moment, the Felyne carrying the Energy Shield finally arrived — slapping the power cell against Admir's back — and a pale blue barrier snapped into existence around him, throwing the flames outward.

But this breath was ferocious and sustained. The shield that had blocked the bulk of it could not hold against all of it. When the shield shattered, the scorching flames poured directly onto Admir.

The Silver Rathalos watched with satisfaction as Admir was swallowed by his fire. The blood debt — a mate killed, and he himself nearly brought down by this same hand — had been answered, and something close to joy moved through him. He barely even registered the pain of his wounds anymore. He wanted to ride this elated feeling and go hunt down the rest of the tin-cans.

But when the fire and smoke cleared, the Silver Rathalos's expression shifted to something unmistakably surprised. He stopped his sweep toward the remaining Astartes and began building up another breath in his jaws.

The reason was simple: Admir was still standing.

The forward half of his body had melted from the pauldrons down — the powered suit with it. Scalding liquid metal had washed across half of him, very nearly cooking him alive.

He didn't care. When the fire died, he was like a knight charging a windmill — like a lone warrior who had the audacity to face down a god of the stars single-handed. He charged the Silver Rathalos again.

Fearless courage is often accompanied by needless sacrifice. But Lin would never let another's sacrifice go to waste.

"You can't win tomorrow's triumph by sacrificing yourself alone!"

Lin's voice — amplified through his vox-caster — rang like thunder in Admir's ears, though his helmet had long since been burned away. And at that same moment, a massive plasma round screamed over Admir's head, aimed straight at the Silver Rathalos's skull.

"One shot, Admir! Make it count!"

The Silver Rathalos could dodge — but that would mean the breath he'd been charging would go to waste. The raw, species-transcending courage Admir had displayed shook him even so. He wanted this threat eliminated now, no loose ends. So he chose to eat the plasma round and breathe anyway.

But that was not the right decision.

He had forgotten where Lin — the man who had talked Deputy Aibo around — was actually standing. Lin was positioned right beside the last surviving bolt thrower of the original five.

What had just been fired was not only that plasma round.

The plasma splattered across the Silver Rathalos's field of vision. It didn't deal much damage — but it blinded him. He was about to rely on memory to breathe fire in the direction where Admir had been, but a searing bolt of agony interrupted him, tearing a howl from his throat before he could release it.

The calculation had been Lin's, precise to the last detail: a great bolt of bone-crafted from a female Rathalos's skeleton was now buried deep in the Silver Rathalos's eye socket.

The pain destroyed his ability to hold altitude. The silver-white radiance in his chest cavity extinguished. He plummeted straight down — and Lin exhaled slowly.

His guess had been right. Although the Silver Rathalos had begun to show rudimentary flame-manipulation ability — the first steps toward crossing over into Elder Dragon territory — the transformation was incomplete. Biologically, it was still a Silver Rathalos. The rule still applied: a critical head wound during flight would cancel the Hellfire State and send it crashing. It still had to obey.

This was exactly the opening Lin had spoken of.

Admir's body was a ruin of wounds, but the drumbeat in his chest had only grown louder. He forced his half-melted frame into a dead sprint and reached the Silver Rathalos's head as it hit the ground.

The Silver Rathalos, grinding through the agony of a blinded eye, opened his jaws to bite Admir in half. But Admir moved as though guided by some unseen hand — one ghostly step back, clearing the bite entirely — and then wheeled and brought the blade down across the Silver Rathalos's skull.

Lin, watching from a distance, blinked in open surprise.

"Was that a foresight strike?" He wasn't entirely sure.

For Admir, the invisible guiding pull had only grown stronger. Without thinking about it, he felt his hands pull the dragon sword Red Leaf into a clockwise revolution.

But something else in the back of his mind was screaming that such a strike wouldn't draw enough blood — that voice was goading him to follow through with a single devastating downward cleave, utterly certain it would split the Silver Rathalos in two and let him drink deep of the enemy's blood.

That feeling — not of swinging a blade himself, but of something else swinging it through him — snapped Admir's fading consciousness back into sharp clarity. He let out a pained groan and wrenched that pursuing strike to a stop by sheer force of will.

"Whatever you are — get out of my head!"

"Admir — I don't know what's guiding you," Lin called out at full volume, "but if there's an instinct pulling you into a spinning slash, hold onto it!"

Admir took Lin's guidance to heart. He shut out the bloodthirsty screaming in the back of his mind and focused purely on the sensation that had been guiding him toward the spinning slash. Following that feeling, he began to move the dragon sword Red Leaf.

First cut — upper left to lower right.

Second cut — lower left to upper right.

Then lower left to upper right again, upper right to lower left — then a great leap and a third vertical cleave straight down.

And then — the pull from before. Body rotating clockwise, the dragon sword Red Leaf wheeling with it.

And then the final stroke —

The blade of the dragon sword Red Leaf blazed with a dangerous crimson light. The Silver Rathalos stared at Admir with his one remaining eye — stared in terror — as Admir launched himself high from the earth and drove the blade down toward his skull with an unstoppable, forward-surging force.

Admir's target was the neck — the neck that had already been blasted nearly clean through in the battle before. He plummeted with seven arcing sword-trails blazing around him, unstoppable and absolute.

The pinnacle of a hunter's art —

Dragon Ascent.

—

[Author's Note: Done. A few more chapters to collect on the setups I've mentioned earlier, then I'll plant some foreshadowing before we move on.]

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