Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

The Azure Star. Low orbit.

More than half a year had passed since Lin had struck his agreement with Miraboreas, the Black Dragon. He had spent every one of those months consumed by the construction of a spaceship.

The vessel was roughly 750 metres long — about the size of a Sword-class frigate, though it carried no ranged weapons whatsoever. When Lin finally lofted it from the surface into orbit and ran through every system check from the bridge, he let out a long, slow breath.

"I actually hand-built this thing... huh. Guess I'm pretty impressive after all."

Imperial technology had always been famous across the galaxy for its brute-force simplicity — even a hive world could turn out a standard Luna-class cruiser. But 'simple' had a way of becoming absolutely hellish the moment you set foot on a planet with no technological infrastructure whatsoever.

It wasn't that Lin hadn't considered asking Miraboreas for help. The problem was that the moment their conversation shifted from the Warp to anything resembling engineering, the World Soul revealed a mind of breathtaking, unspoiled ignorance — the kind of mind that had never once been contaminated by technical knowledge. The only useful thing Miraboreas had managed to confirm was that this situation almost certainly had nothing to do with Tzeentch. Beyond that, he'd been useless.

Lin had been left to experience firsthand the singular joy of scavenging on a planet that couldn't even qualify as a wasteland. Even with the Warp Drive salvaged from his own escape pod as a foundation, it had taken him nearly six months to cobble together something capable of making a proper Warp transit.

He supposed he'd lost the moral high ground to mock a certain someone for 'just scavenging instead of looking for his son' — after all, that someone had apparently managed to find his son in less than six months.

Still, to be fair, what Lin had built was considerably more impressive than anything mere wasteland-scavenging should have produced.

The ship was only 750 metres long, but its keel was not a metaphor. It was a literal dragon's keel.

Lin had originally intended to strip a keel from the space hulk, but the keel sections of a Forge Ship measured in kilometres — an entirely different scale from what his smaller vessel required. That forced him to salvage only loose mithril fittings from the hulk, and to look elsewhere for the structural spine.

After extensive testing, he found that only the vertebral columns of large dragon-type creatures met the strength requirements for a keel. Stringing those vertebrae together with cast mithril from end to end became the only viable approach.

As for the leftover dragon skulls, Lin bolted them to the prow as a ram — the single thing on the entire ship that could arguably be called a weapon. With characteristic flair, he had the ram painted red.

For in-realspace propulsion, Lin had considered re-installing the plasma engine he'd stripped from his escape pod — but the two vessels were so vastly different in scale that one small plasma engine would never be adequate.

Fortunately, Miraboreas turned out to be good for something after all. Once he understood what Lin needed, he offered a material that could serve as an engine.

Specifically: the wings of an Elder Dragon known as the Celestial Comet Dragon.

The Celestial Comet Dragon did not fly by beating its wings. Each wing terminated in three enormous nozzles, through which the creature converted its own biological energy into violent jet propulsion — generating massive thrust for high-speed flight.

According to Miraboreas, these Elder Dragons — fast, formidable, and versatile — had once been the Old Ones' preferred mount for quick-strike raids against small Necron scouting parties during the War in Heaven. But as the Azure Star's ecosystem had collapsed, the species had gone extinct on the planet entirely.

The Black Dragon had preserved a few samples against the possibility of eventually re-evolving the Celestial Comet Dragon back into the ecosystem, but those samples now proved far more immediately useful as components for Lin's ship.

He still hadn't determined why the Second Legion's Gene-Seeds had unlocked partial Zerg biotech schematics, but the benefit was real: Lin had now developed a basic working grasp of xenobiological technology.

Using that knowledge, he had spliced several activated Celestial Comet Dragon wings onto the ship as conventional engines, and built a biological interface for each one. Flesh fed through the interface was converted into bioenergy in the form the wings required, fuelling the dragon-wing drives.

And so, from Lin's hands, a thoroughly bizarre vessel was born: red dragon-skull ram at the prow, a keel laid from dragon vertebrae, engines that ran on flesh.

Lin decided to name her the Hunter.

Even after she was finished, though, the Hunter looked deeply wrong no matter how long he stared at her. She looked less like a spaceship and more like some daemon engine that had crawled out of the Warp.

Plenty of Chaos-corrupted vessels probably looked less extreme. But at least she flew. That was enough.

——

The six months hadn't been entirely consumed by construction, either. Thanks to the materials and guidance provided by the World Soul, Monster Hunter weapons had gradually spread throughout the Astartes — and taken hold.

The Black Dragon had said he wanted to invest; Lin had taken that offer entirely at face value. Premium materials still required negotiation, but anything obtainable through hunting was fair game, and Lin helped himself without hesitation.

He strung the Black Dragon along with a series of vague promises, then extracted every unique resource the planet had to offer within the limits of Miraboreas's tolerance — including several of the planet's dwindling apex-class creatures, specifically the ones Lin could actually kill.

This strip-mining behaviour eventually grew so brazen that the Black Dragon felt compelled to seek reassurance:

"You will come back. Won't you?"

"Relax," Lin said. "My single greatest quality is that I never break my word or default on a contract."

"And how exactly do you manage that?"

"Simple: make sure the creditor is no longer around to collect. That's a technique I learned firsthand on Forge World Huangquan VIII. Highly practical."

"…"

"What do you think got me to the rank of Sage on Huangquan VIII in the first place? But don't worry — I can't kill you, so you've got nothing to fear from a default."

This particular brand of candid honesty was, apparently, unexpectedly persuasive. The Black Dragon gave his tacit blessing as Lin continued sweeping up everything unique the planet had to offer. Bulk production of Monster Hunter weapons was one of the more prominent results of that sweep.

The materials used in these weapons weren't nearly as rare as those in the dragon sword Red Leaf, and Lin still lacked the tools to fully integrate Monster Hunter craft with the existing Warhammer technology base. Even so, the weapons were more than enough to keep warriors who'd spent their whole lives with chainblades thoroughly, enthusiastically occupied.

The aesthetic consequences, however, were increasingly difficult to describe.

Lin filed that observation away for later. The sea trial complete, he ordered the Felynes to pilot the ship back down to the Astartes camp on the surface. This wasn't the first test flight, so the Space Marines on the ground paid the departure and landing no particular attention — the training ground in the camp was already in full, roaring swing.

"Axe Mode — release!"

An Astartes caught an incoming blow on his shield, then snapped sword and shield together into an axe, pivoted to load the swing, and drove the axe blade down with savage force. But Sergeant Arlo, his sparring partner — sword-and-board in hand — showed no alarm whatsoever.

His weapon's disadvantages had sharpened his grasp of the finer details to a razor's edge. A single sidestep took him cleanly out of the savage downswing; then, with startling agility, he closed the distance with a roll and came back with a riposte from his sword.

In an instant, dozens of blade-glints danced across the powered armour of the Switch-Axe Astartes — and then…

…left nothing but a few scratches.

Lin, coming down from the ship, found himself without words. Thankfully, Admir arrived before the awkward spectating could drag on too long.

"How did the sea trial go? The ship's all clear?" Admir asked, striding up.

"All seaworthiness tests are done. Tell everyone to get ready — we depart today. Whatever arrangements we discussed for this planet, proceed as agreed."

Six months ago, Miraboreas had used Admir's body to seal the alliance with Lin — and only then returned it to its rightful owner.

Admir, who had no idea what had actually happened, assumed that the blackout was a symptom of his Gene-Seed defects acting up while he was still recovering from serious injury. He hadn't dared to ask many questions, and Lin hadn't bothered to explain that he'd already reached an agreement with the World Soul.

He kept that as his own private secret, and instead informed everyone that the Gene-Seed contamination had been gradually purged through a thousand years of warfare on this planet, and that they could now safely return to the greater galaxy.

The news sent the whole company into a storm of excitement. Only the Hunter Dreadnought seemed to sense something more — but he said nothing. He probably preferred to maintain the tacit understanding between himself and Lin: that each of them was allowed their own small secrets.

Those small secrets did nothing to interrupt the main course of Lin's work over those six months. He expanded the camp into a monastery that could serve as a training facility for future recruits, then began training the more intelligent Felynes in navigation operations and augury-bird divination.

Beyond that, having acquired substantial materials from the Black Dragon, Lin hadn't neglected Felyne-specific equipment either. Things like bone-hammers capable of stunning monsters and encouragement horns that could buff Hunters — he built and tested both.

Testing revealed that these items could only function through the latent psychic ability inherent to Felynes. He had no idea when they'd come in useful, but he produced a full batch regardless, as secret trump cards exclusive to Felyne hands.

Everything came together in step with the hand-built spacecraft: all people, all supplies, all preparations — culminating in this moment, loading everyone aboard.

The Astartes who'd received the order packed up their belongings alongside the Felynes and filed onto the ship. Once their kit was stowed, a portion of the Felynes — led by the elder Felyne — filed back off again. They would stay behind to keep the camp and monastery in basic operation, ready for the first cohort of new recruits to return.

The Felynes who remained on board took over maintenance of the ship's various systems with obvious ease. The machine spirits, it turned out, responded far better to these small creatures than to Lin himself — a Blank whose natural aura made him a deeply unsuitable Tech-Priest. With Felynes handling maintenance, the probability of equipment failure dropped to the lowest possible level.

Once all the battle-brothers were settled, the leadership — everyone except the dormant Dreadnought — assembled with Lin on the bridge. Lin opened the cogitation system and called the meeting to order:

"Let's talk about where we go from here. Right now, the entire company — counting the Hunter Dreadnought — stands at one hundred battle-brothers. Thanks to the Felynes' support, we took zero casualties in the Silver Rathalos engagement. That said, half our strength is carrying injuries of varying severity — some with lung or cardiac damage, some missing limbs. These are problems we need to solve."

The Second Legion's unique genetics had given most of the warriors forged on the Azure Star exceptionally robust physiology. But aside from Admir, who'd had no choice, the others were reluctant to lean on their 'gift' to repair their own bodies. That made treating the injured the most pressing priority they now faced.

Astartes implant organs were, by design, installed after birth — which meant damaged ones could, in principle, be replaced without enormous difficulty. Most Chapters maintained stockpiles of spare implants for exactly this reason. But this was not most Chapters.

"Perhaps we could raid someone else's reserve stocks?"

The suggestion came from Lieutenant Vigan, who clearly had no appetite for dealing with the Imperium directly. Deputy Aibo shut it down just as quickly.

"Missing limbs and damaged organs don't affect survival, but they do affect combat effectiveness. With our current strength, hitting another Chapter or warband for their organ stores — setting aside whether we could even find a viable target — is a gamble we can't afford. Even if we found one and landed a perfect ambush, I doubt we'd walk away clean."

"Deputy Aibo is right. Every brother we have is precious. We can't take on unnecessary risk."

Admir agreed: "In that case, we need to think in terms of safer options. For example: finding a reasonably large Forge World. Whether it's implant organs or bionics, any decently-sized Forge World should have at least one."

"But are large Forge Worlds actually safe for us?" Sergeant Arlo asked, bringing his sword-and-board Hunter's sharp eye for detail to bear on the problem. "We have no official standing — we're unregistered. That's exactly the kind of thing that gets flagged."

"That's less of an issue than it used to be. The Mechanicus today operates very differently from the one you remember. As long as we can offer resources, they won't much care who they're doing business with."

Lin addressed Arlo's concern simply: "The problem, though, is — what resources do we actually have to trade right now?"

The answer was obviously nothing. The moment the question landed, the discussion fell quiet.

Lin could, technically, pass off his own knowledge as Standard Template Construct data and exchange it with a Forge World for resources — but he had no intention of doing so. Spending unique knowledge for a one-time material payoff was wasteful at best, and being double-crossed by the Forge World once it had what it wanted was a real possibility. It simply wasn't a deal worth considering.

Of course, posing the question didn't mean Lin was out of ideas. He'd raised it deliberately, as a small piece of theatre to introduce his actual proposal.

When no one could answer, he smoothly steered the conversation exactly where he wanted it.

"Just as I once said to the Hunter Dreadnought: you've chosen to follow me, and so I will find a way forward for you. Not just a solution to the injuries — getting us legitimate Chapter status will also become achievable as we move ahead. But all of that requires your complete trust and cooperation."

After the Dreadnought had entered his long sleep, Lin — who knew the current state of affairs, understood the Second Legion thoroughly, and had already reached an agreement with the Dreadnought — had become the company's de facto commander.

But having warriors follow orders was one thing. Seamless, genuine cooperation required putting every doubt to rest.

"It's not that I doubt you, Chaplain Lin."

Admir held Lin's gaze with a steady, serious look. "It's that some offers sound so good they start to feel like traps."

"We trust that you mean us no harm. It's only that — at minimum — we should know the general direction we're heading."

"You'll be surprised, I'm sure. But I'm absolutely certain this is a once-in-ten-thousand chance."

Lin tapped the star chart. Everyone crowded forward, and every single face registered the same shock.

"Holy Terra?!"

"I never even set foot there during the Great Crusade…"

"Are we certain about this? On a ship whose keel has no identification code, crewed by… Felyne companions?"

"My working assumption is that we get blown out of the sky the moment we enter the solar system. And even if we don't, the security checks afterwards would be more than enough to drown us in bolt-rounds."

The Throneworld's oversight was legendarily stringent. Getting in undetected without specialist methods was all but impossible.

Admir and the others were thoroughly baffled. They turned questioning eyes toward Lin — who only smiled faintly, the look of a man whose plan remained exactly on track.

"We won't be going directly to the solar system. We'll operate in the surrounding region — and right now, that region is rich with opportunity. My intelligence gives me very strong reason to believe this will be an exceptionally productive window of activity."

"That's still hard to accept."

Lieutenant Vigan, who had never wanted much contact with the Imperium to begin with, remained deeply sceptical. "Heading for Holy Terra carrying everything the Imperium can't accept — that's just asking to die. Lin, what exactly are you planning?!"

Lin answered with a question of his own. "Lieutenant Vigan — do you know why the Mechanicus doesn't hate artificial intelligence?"

Vigan blinked. "Because the Imperium forbids it?"

"Wrong. It's because all those automata are painted with the Imperial aquila."

Vigan's eyes went wide. He began to turn the words over carefully. Admir, who had already worked out the implication, gave his final agreement to the plan.

Lin issued the order to the Felynes: set course for Holy Terra. The ship carried no Navigator, but Terra's position was synonymous with the Astronomican's light — and plotting a course toward it using the Mechanicus Warp-observation equipment was straightforward enough.

Miraboreas had deliberately damped the Warp storms and was guiding the ship out through them — but for his own protection, he was unwilling to suppress the storms entirely. That meant the journey to their destination would take somewhat longer than it otherwise would have.

Admir and Lin stood side by side on the bridge. The Warp Drive tore open a rift in realspace, and the churning, unpredictable tides of the Warp surged beyond it. Admir, returning to the void for the first time in an age, felt no elation — only a quiet worry for his battle-brothers, and for whatever futures might be tied to this decision.

"I hope this gamble earns its reward…" Admir murmured, then turned to Lin. "Before we reach Holy Terra — is there anything else we need to prepare?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." Lin produced a tin of lemon-yellow paint he'd had ready for some time. "Before we arrive, everyone needs to remember to repaint their powered armour yellow."

"…?"

Admir stared at Lin. He stared for a long moment. Only after he had confirmed, beyond any remaining doubt, that Lin's expression was entirely, unflinchingly serious did he accept that this was not a joke.

————

The ship pressed on through the heaving tides of the Warp, and time aboard grew uncertain and adrift, as it always did in that place.

Those on the ship had no way of knowing that while they were making their Warp transit, real-space time had silently rolled forward to 544.M32. Nor did they know that Cassius Molhan, Chapter Master of the Imperial Fists — currently leading his full Chapter on campaign in realspace — would suffer a calamity in the weeks to come that neither he nor his warriors could yet imagine.

____

________________________________________

If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)

👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉