Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

"Still not going to reconsider?"

Lifar shook his head with iron finality. Lin could even make out tiny beads of sweat on the Magos's half-metalised face. "Absolutely not! Whatever merit I earn from completing my mission brilliantly won't offset the mistake of smuggling Space Marines aboard a survey vessel and dragging them back to a Forge World without clearance! The Forge Director will have my head!"

"Then let's discuss other solutions. I'll transfer all the data from my current projects to you — would that work?"

"Is that so? Not even the merit of bringing back a warning that the Forge World is on the brink of annihilation would outweigh the mistake of letting us inside?"

Lifar froze. He stared at Lin, and his visual receptor lenses reflected back Lin's expression — calm, unhurried, completely self-assured.

"What did you say?" His voice carried unmistakable disbelief. "The Forge World on the brink of annihilation? What do you mean by that?"

"Do you even need to ask? The Greenskin threat is right under your noses."

"That's impossible!"

Lifar denied it outright. "When I arrived, I already detected massive warp-transit fluctuations. There's no chance that Greenskin fleet has its sights set on our Forge World. Those large-scale warp signatures were clearly aimed at Hive World Nding. Are you trying to bluff me with this?"

The Magos clearly hadn't yet grasped that the so-called Greenskin fleet he was referring to was, in fact, a terrifying Battle Moon — though that wasn't the most important point to establish right now.

Faced with Lifar's denial, Lin simply pointed unhurriedly at the ground beneath their feet.

"What about the Orks on this planet?" Lin asked.

"Hmm?"

"The Imperial Fists fleet crashed on this world. Magos, you specialise in biology — so you should know the species traits of Greenskins well enough. All they need is wreckage, and they can reverse-engineer the corresponding level of technology remarkably fast."

"That's… true," Lifar answered hesitantly, still not quite following where Lin was going with this.

"Then why do you think the Greenskins would seed this planet with Orks? Just to pick a fight?"

"Isn't that it? They're creatures with nothing but combat on the brain…"

"You're not wrong about that. But you're clearly not thinking as strategically as the Ork Warboss leading this particular Greentide."

Lin reached down and plucked a mushroom from the soil. It was a half-plant, half-biological Greenskin genetic spore, already sprouting from the earth. Before long, these spores would grow into new Gretchin, Snotlings, and Ork Boyz.

"They didn't seed Orks onto this planet just to pick fights with Imperial forces. They'll take root here. They'll grow. And they'll generate an entirely new Greentide."

"When that tide builds its own warships, it won't trail behind a fleet that's already long since moved on — it'll set its sights on whatever worlds nearby haven't yet been hit by the main Greenskin advance. Worlds like Forge World Cath Maximus, right next door."

Flame bloomed in Lin's palm. He ignited the promethium flamer mounted on his hand and incinerated the Greenskin mushroom completely. Then he looked over at Lifar, who had already broken into a cold sweat.

"Would you say I have a point, Magos of Cath Maximus?"

Lifar went still. He instinctively swallowed — despite the fact that he'd long since lost any glands capable of producing saliva — but he needed to do something to ease the tension gripping him.

His earlier cavalier attitude had meant he simply hadn't thought things through along these lines. But the moment Lin laid out the possibility, his professional instincts as a Magos Biologis kicked in — and they told him the probability of this scenario exceeded 95.81%.

The rough scan the survey vessel had run earlier had already confirmed that Greenskins on this planet numbered in the millions. Factor in the still-growing Greenskin spore-mushrooms, and any Greentide that eventually achieved spacefaring capability would be starting at tens of millions, at the very least.

He had been so absorbed in the comforting assumption that the Greenskins weren't heading toward their Forge World that he'd never stopped to consider that no one could simply sit out a tide this vast.

Especially since Greenskin technological advancement depended entirely on what technology they could capture — and right now, a Forge World was sitting right next door to this particular mob. The moment they discovered it, how could any Ork possibly resist that kind of prize?

Even if Cath Maximus wasn't in the main line of advance, it would still face an assault by tens of millions of Orks at minimum.

Cath Maximus besieged by Orks — that was not a thing he wanted!

At least not until he himself had made his escape — no, not until he had transferred all of his assets on Cath Maximus to somewhere safe!

For a fleeting moment, Lifar considered just piloting the survey vessel away and never going back. But the knowledge and resources he'd left behind on Cath Maximus made him too reluctant to simply cut and run.

He turned a miserable face toward Lin, who had just presented this entire nightmare scenario, and Lin offered him a reassuring smile.

"It's fine — isn't that why we're here? You know as well as I do that Orks are a species that needs a leader. As long as the Forge World helps restore the Exemplary Fists Chapter to fighting strength, this squad of elite Astartes can drive deep into Ork territory and cut the head off whatever Warboss is running the show."

"All you have to do is bring us back with you. When the Ork invasion eventually comes, you'll be the greatest hero who saved the Forge World."

"Then why not just kill the Ork leaders right now? That would buy a lot of time, wouldn't it?" Lifar tried, his tone probing.

"Ha — and let your people freeload off all that extra time we bought?" Lin shook his head. "I'm Mechanicus too, remember. I know better than anyone how quickly our kind can forget who they owe a favour to."

Leaving aside the question of what it would cost them — short on ammunition and manpower as they were — to take out the Ork bosses right now, Lin the former tech-priest knew all too well that the last person you could ever trust was another member of the Mechanicus. If you wanted them to honour an agreement, you first had to bind their interests to yours.

When dealing with these oil-blooded zealots, an imminent Greenskin horde was the best leverage imaginable.

Lifar let out a long sigh. "It seems I have no choice…"

"Don't worry. Under these circumstances, the moment you bring us back to the Forge World, they'll have no choice but to count it as a major achievement on your part — no matter what. You can't lose, whatever happens."

"What I'm afraid of is that the moment entry inspection detects Space Marines aboard the survey vessel, they'll simply refuse us entry outright. This isn't a matter of whether I'm willing to bring you — it's a matter of whether the Forge Director will agree to let you into the Forge World once I get you there."

Lifar still balked at taking this kind of risk. More than any vague, intangible merit, what he really wanted was an excuse to rush back to Cath Maximus and start packing his things for a swift departure.

"My relationship with the Forge Director is not good. If the Forge Director refuses and you then try to force your way in, the Forge Director won't hesitate for a moment to use the orbital defence systems to send everyone aboard this survey vessel to meet the Omnissiah Reborn!"

"Tell them we're your 'evidence.'"

Lin understood the Forge World hierarchy well. Their heavily augmented minds had replaced ordinary cognitive organs with electronic logic processors. As long as something was logically sound, they couldn't refuse a reasonable case for entry.

"You've brought back a detachment of Imperial Fists who personally survived the Greenskin war — living testimony to corroborate your hypothesis that an Ork invasion is imminent. Isn't that perfectly reasonable?"

Lifar blinked in surprise, then thought it through and realised it was, in fact, workable. "Then we'll also need to collect some Greenskin specimens…"

Lin waved a hand. Kurande, who had been waiting further back, stepped forward with a handful of warriors — and laid out, in a neat row before Lifar, the dozen-odd Greenskins of various types they had hunted down earlier.

"Will this do?" Lin asked pleasantly, though his eyes held an undisguised edge of threat.

The warriors carrying the Greenskin corpses stepped forward as one, their massive frames casting ominous shadows across Lifar.

Lifar blinked. He found that he had, somehow, run completely out of excuses to keep stalling.

From the very beginning — from the paralysis trap laced with an electronic virus — Lin's meticulous preparation and his talent for exploiting logical loopholes had left Lifar genuinely awestruck. He couldn't help but ask:

"Which Forge World are you actually from, Magos?"

Lin answered with modest humility:

"I am Lin, of Forge World Huangquan VIII."

"Forge World Huangquan VIII?"

The tension drained instantly from Lifar's expression. Every last trace of resentment at having been outmanoeuvred from start to finish dissolved into a look of quiet, resigned understanding.

"…Well. That explains everything."

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