Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

The company banner had been sewn by Lin beforehand, and the wounded had been hastily gathered together after they returned to the ship.

But that was fine. Everything could be fabricated — so long as the trust that was won was real.

With Kurande's complete confidence now secured, Lin urgently convened every company commander aboard and summoned them to the bridge.

There, Kurande himself delivered the crushing news — a millennium of history that had passed without them.

The warriors' faces remained impassive, yet Kurande's sharp eye caught the faint, involuntary twitches in their cheek muscles that betrayed the depth of their shock.

Not one of them spoke. After Kurande finished, the silence settled into something deeply uncomfortable.

Lin drew Kurande aside and said quietly: "Forgive them. You know how sons of Dorn are — after prolonged campaigns they gradually wall themselves off inside, becoming as unyielding as stone. Outside of battle, they grow reticent to the point of silence… They have endured too many wars."

Kurande nodded in understanding.

He was a son of Dorn himself, and knew well the temperamental flaws that ran in Dorn's bloodline. He harboured not a shred of suspicion toward these tight-lipped warriors.

Which was precisely what Lin needed — because the moment any of them opened their mouths, Kurande would have realized they weren't stunned at all. They were barely holding it together.

"I am a Magos Biologis of the Adeptus Mechanicus, but I also serve as the operational commander of this breakout action. Castellan Evander personally delegated full authority over all external affairs of this force to me. So, Captain Kurande — you need only relay the situation to me."

Lin pulled up the data-slate on the bridge. The Hunter, which had been maintaining a constant orbit around Jingang, had displayed its rough surface-scan results on the slate.

The readout showed that the greenskins — having fallen into civil war for lack of any external enemy — were climbing the technological tree at a frightening pace. They might be less than a month away from constructing voidworthy spacecraft.

"We are already aware that the Siege of Terra was won over a thousand years ago. But that news does nothing to address the problem before us now. Let us speak of the greenskins, Captain Kurande."

Lin minimised the reports that had been laid bare for all present to see. "Whatever time has passed… at the very least, I am certain we have been moving in the direction of Terra. I believe this region to be the Sol System, and not far from Terra at all. But why, even in this sacred system, are we witnessing greenskins running rampant?"

"I don't know either. In truth, the orders our Chapter received were to deploy to Jingang and exterminate a xenos breed known as the Chrombeasts."

Kurande's expression darkened, clearly drawn back into the agony of recent memory.

"But then the greenskins appeared out of nowhere — piloting an enormous Battle Moon that simply materialised above Jingang! They brought gravity weapons to bear and devastated the planet's surface, and the Imperial Fists, who had all been deployed groundside, had absolutely no means of striking back. We suffered a catastrophic blow in an instant. That is everything I know!"

Admir spoke up, pressing the question: "The entire Imperial Fists?"

Elected by the others to handle the talking, he strained to make his voice sound suitably horrified. Following the script Lin had prepared in advance, he pushed further: "You mean the Imperial Fists at full strength — a hundred thousand warriors, troops and fleet alike — were all annihilated at Jingang?"

"No, Lord Admir." Kurande held this Imperial Fists Company Champion in deep respect, but the subject clearly cut at a raw nerve.

"Blame that power-hungry Guilliman. Every Legion has been broken apart and scattered to the winds. The Imperial Fists are nothing but a small Chapter of a thousand men now — an entire Chapter with no more warriors than a single ordinary company used to field within the old Legion!"

He slammed his fist against the table, his face flushed crimson with fury: "Our Primarch has vanished. The Legion has been dissolved. The High Lords who now dominate the political landscape of the Imperium won't even allow us a conventional fleet or mortal auxiliary forces, and every piece of heavy armament has been stripped away!

"And in spite of all that, they still had the nerve to order the Imperial Fists to Jingang to exterminate over eighty billion Chrombeasts!

"A Chapter reduced to a thousand souls — we had to commit every last one of us just to have a hope of completing that extermination. Every warrior was deployed to the surface of Jingang. And that was precisely when the greenskins fell on us from the sky. Without brothers to spare and without a fleet, we had no capacity to fight back whatsoever!

"The destruction of the Imperial Fists lays at the feet of Guilliman and his Codex Astartes — that document which shattered every Legion into pieces. And after that, the blame goes to those High Lords who sent the Imperial Fists alone and unsupported into the depths of Jingang!

"Those High Lords are the scum of the Imperium! They call themselves High Lords simply because they clawed their way to temporary victory in the petty power struggles of mortal men. They have sat in the Imperium's highest offices for centuries, and all they have learned is how to eat with a knife and fork!

"From the very beginning, the Imperial Fists were betrayed and deceived by the High Lords — a monstrous betrayal of the Imperium and the Emperor alike! How were we supposed to fight under those conditions? It's over. The Imperial Fists are gone. But if the High Lords think that means we will simply lie down and die, they are gravely mistaken!"

Kurande pulled off his helmet. His face was burning red, and even his hands had begun to tremble.

"I will exterminate these greenskin xenos. And then I will hunt down every last one of those High Lords and call them to account, one by one. If I cannot do that, then I will put a bolter shell through my own skull!"

Admir and the other warriors exchanged glances.

Standing in his boots — watching an entire Chapter's worth of brothers die before your eyes — any of them would have burned with fury no less fierce than what raged in Kurande now. And yet what Kurande had just said, examined carefully, veered very close to outright sedition.

The warriors of the Second Legion held little affection for the present-day Imperium. Kurande's words put no particular pressure on them in that regard.

But they were equally unfamiliar with the current landscape. With every word and action guided by Lin, they had no idea how to respond to Kurande's earth-shaking declarations.

Especially when Kurande turned his expectant gaze directly on Admir. At that moment, the pressure on Admir doubled.

"The great forebears of the Imperial Fists will surely lead us through all of this — won't they, Lord Admir?"

Every eye snapped to Admir at once.

Admir opened his mouth and found he had nothing to say.

That speech had the obvious implication of handing leadership of the Imperial Fists over to him — but Lin had never mentioned anything like this was going to happen!

How exactly had he, a Company Champion of the Second Legion, ended up being asked to serve as Chapter Master of the Imperial Fists?

Fortunately, at the critical moment, Lin — who had already pieced together the current era from Kurande's words — stepped in at exactly the right moment and rescued Admir from his predicament.

"Every traitor will repay their debt in blood. They deceived the faithful guardians of mankind — and without those guardians to protect them, they will inevitably drown in the blood they themselves have spilled. That fate was sealed the moment the greenskins appeared."

Lin pulled up the star chart and marked Jingang's position, along with the key systems connected to that location via the Warp transit lanes. At the end of that plotted course, unmistakably, lay Holy Terra.

"I believe the greenskins' appearance here is no coincidence. The ork Battle Moon lingered in this system for only three days before departing — which means they are certainly heading somewhere next…

"I cannot know which worlds lie along their path. But given the simple truth that greenskins never stop fighting, I am prepared to stake everything on this: their final battlefield will be Holy Terra itself."

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