Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Together they gazed down upon the harsh, unforgiving land below.

The terrain was eaten through with severe contamination. Exposed rock strata had taken on a sickly rust-red, as though drenched in corrosive acid. Massive conduit-pipes coiled across the landscape like congregating serpents, connecting one enormous smelting furnace and processing unit to the next.

Metal ventilation shafts snaked along the skyline like veins cast in iron, endlessly bleeding heat and toxic vapour into air that was already foul, keeping the sky in a perpetual grey haze.

"What do you make of it, Kurande?"

"This Forge World is large," Kurande answered.

He surveyed the surface below, noticing details that his earlier agitation had caused him to overlook: "It's only a Tier Three Forge World, yet its scale is comparable to some of the Hive districts on Mars. That disproportion reminds me of the Forge Council itself — it simply doesn't fit what a Tier Three world should be."

"You're right that it's large, Kurande. But speaking from my area of expertise, the only honest way to describe this Forge World is: big and hollow."

Lin extended a hand toward the tallest smelting furnace within their line of sight. "Do you know what they produce in there? Mars-pattern Lasgun, Mark II."

"The Astra Militarum's standard-issue weapon?" Kurande was clearly familiar with the most widespread arm in the Imperial Guard.

"That's the one. Though within the Mechanicus, we tend to call that particular piece of technical non-achievement a 'torch.'"

"And yet there is never any shortage of demand for it. For a Mechanicus adept with higher aspirations, that sort of production line is the definition of a thankless task — too useful to scrap, too dull to stomach."

"The more prestigious Forge Worlds simply offload these low-end production lines onto other planets, freeing up their own facilities for more advanced work."

"So this place exists to absorb the low-end overflow from the core Forge Worlds?" Kurande was quick on the uptake. "And their core Forge World would be Mars?"

"It's the nearest one, isn't it?"

Lin turned back inside and resumed tinkering with his device — something resembling a satellite dish, fitted with a signal-receiving antenna.

"If I'm reading the situation correctly, the Forge Director is a senior Archmagos dispatched here directly from Mars, which would explain that imperious manner of his. And the reason he showed no interest in us is perfectly simple: he doesn't need us to carry out a decapitation strike."

"This planet is every bit as disposable as the production lines it hosts. Every data-template on it can be replicated from other Forge Worlds. For the Mechanicus, it holds no indispensable value."

"New knowledge — irreplaceable knowledge — is the true lifeblood of the Machine Cult. To the Mechanicus, this world is at best a capillary. When the moment of decision arrives, they will abandon it without a second thought. Which means they have no use for us as Ork Warboss hunters either."

Kurande absorbed the analysis. He worked to sort his thoughts, testing whether Lin's reasoning held together.

"...Magos Lin, both of us are under soft house arrest, confined to a limited area of movement. How did you piece all of this together?"

"I had a feeling from the moment the Archmagi in the Forge Council barely reacted to our report. But the confirmation came through them."

Lin leaned down and scratched Tom the Felyne's belly. The cat purred contentedly.

The priests and Magi of the Forge World had long since ceased to find such 'alien creatures' remarkable. If anything, a Biologis Magos without a biological specimen or two in tow would have been the unusual sight.

After departing the Forge Council, Lin had used his rank as Magos to claim an unused minor forge-furnace on the Forge World as his workspace. He was free to conduct experiments there — the price being that he was not permitted to move freely across the Forge World.

But there was always another way. If he could not go out, Lin simply ensured that the Forge World's priests came to him.

He made full use of the Felynes' well-known affinity with Machine Spirits, commissioning a run of small cloaks embroidered with cog-wheel sigils for their backs, then renting the Felynes out to priests in need of Machine Spirit maintenance.

The Felyne genome carried an encrypted imprint of the World Soul — there was no possibility of anyone stealing or replicating that genetic key. This allowed Lin to execute his plan with complete confidence, and the priests who needed their Machine Spirits soothed came flocking in numbers that exceeded all expectations.

Trading cats for goods, Lin had acquired a considerable haul from those priests — including such rarities as psyker bone-ash — and from the abnormally large volume of Mechanicus priests passing through, gleaning snippets here and there, he had assembled a clear picture of this Forge World's true situation.

"You really are meticulous about the details," Kurande said, once he had recognised that the five days had not been wasted after all. "And I never imagined these little creatures could be so useful to us..."

"That's not all."

Lin fitted the signal dish — built from materials bartered from other priests — over Tom's head. A faint golden psionic light stirred on the Felyne and gathered across the dish's surface. Moments later, the antenna, whose composite included psyker bone-ash, began transmitting a faint, crackling sound.

"We have no Astropath of our own to send or receive Astropathic messages. However, the Felynes do possess a latent psionic potential. I've drawn that potential out and used this device to turn one of them into a temporary Astropathic signal receiver." Lin offered a brief explanation.

Kurande was sceptical. "Can you actually receive anything useful that way?"

His scepticism was well-founded. Astropathic communication generally functions as a broadcast to all parties — encryption comes from pre-arranged ciphers agreed upon in advance by sender and recipient, making any intercepted transmission utterly incomprehensible to anyone without the key.

But Lin faced his doubts with perfect calm.

"Wait. Truly urgent messages don't leave time for encryption."

Lin returned to his work, leaving Kurande to wait in mounting impatience for the better part of a day.

Just when Kurande had resigned himself to an indefinite vigil, the receiver crackled to life with broken sound.

"I am Yuan Hai, Planetary Governor of Hive World Nding. I hereby broadcast this notice to all surrounding worlds. The Greenskins... the star has been destroyed... we have already... the Orks..."

The words describing the battle were fractured, disrupted by competing psionic interference, and Kurande could not make them out clearly. But as the transmission continued, the voice grew steadily more distinct, and Kurande was at last able to hear the Planetary Governor's final resolution.

"In light of the situation on Hive World Nding, I have made the decision to detonate three Virus Bombs on the planet's surface — to slow the Ork invasion and buy time for the surrounding star systems."

His voice broke apart again. Beneath the background noise, the howls of Orks were audible — the Greenskins had clearly pushed into the very room from which this Governor was broadcasting.

"We shall meet again beneath the Golden Throne, all who receive this message. Whatever comes — glory to Mankind!"

The formal transmission ended there. But through the Astropathic signal, the distant roar of a chainsword and the Governor's own battle-cry could still faintly be heard.

"You Greenskin filth — come at me then, all of you! Don't give me the chance to cut you down — every last one!"

Kurande shot to his feet.

He scooped up Tom and took the stairs to find Lin, who was upstairs tending to a batch of organs and limbs in their cultivation units.

The basic supplies provided by the Forge World included various organs needed to heal the warriors. But the Hunters of the Second Legion, having spent centuries on the Azure Star, showed no sign of ageing — and had grown larger and more formidable than ordinary Space Marines. That physical divergence forced Lin to put every organ through a secondary cultivation cycle to ensure compatibility.

A non-specialist would never have noticed the subtle difference, and Kurande naturally noticed nothing of the sort. He simply set a bewildered-looking Tom down beside Lin, then played back the Nding Governor's broadcast with a grave expression.

"Hive World Nding has fallen," he said.

"Faster than I anticipated." Lin was quiet for a moment, turning the situation over in his mind.

He knew the broad strokes of Nding's fate from the fragmentary historical record — the Hive World had never stood any real chance against the Ork onslaught — but he had not known the precise timetable.

It had been only twenty days since they had departed Jingang, and already the news of Nding's fall had reached them. Even with Virus Bombs capable of scouring a planet's entire biosphere deployed as a delaying measure, it would not buy them much additional time.

"It appears the Green Tide has become unstoppable," Lin concluded. "The Battle Moon has been sweeping all before it, and with everyone scrambling to protect their own, no one will come to assist in defending Cath Maximus. This Forge World won't last much longer before it too is abandoned."

"Abandoned?"

Kurande's mind was struggling to keep up.

He already knew from his earlier conversation with Lin that this world held no strategically irreplaceable value for the Mechanicus — but the ingrained reflex of the Imperial Fists was already pushing him toward thinking about how to fortify a defensive line and inflict maximum casualties on the Greenskins before any evacuation: "Shouldn't we be building defences?"

Lin smiled. He gestured toward the transports currently taking off and landing at the starport in the distance, then asked: "Which do you think preserves more of the Mechanicus's assets — fighting until the Forge World is reduced to rubble and then retreating, or beginning the evacuation right now?"

Kurande fell silent.

Lin heard his breathing grow heavier, heard his fists clench.

But in the end, Kurande unclenched his fists and accepted the bitter reality.

First, the value of their proposed decapitation strike had been dismissed. Now, even the honour of participating in the fighting was being stripped from them.

But Kurande had to learn to accept it. His objective was singular and inviolable: defend sacred Terra.

"Magos Lin — how long before you finish cultivating these organs and restore our warriors to combat readiness?"

"About a week. Don't worry — it'll be done well before they begin their evacuation."

"Then we need to start planning our own evacuation from Cath Maximus now. If the Mechanicus only look after their own, we will need to seize a ship at the starport to secure our departure."

Kurande thought it through, his expression heavy and pained.

This was not anxiety over whether they could evacuate — it was the weight of a decision he was wrestling with, one whose magnitude would shake the foundations of everything.

"Before we take the ship — if it can be managed — I also need to seize this planet's Astropathic relay station... I had hoped that with the Forge World's assistance, we could prevent the worst outcome. But if the Mechanicus only intend to save themselves, then I must send out a summons to every successor Chapter of the Imperial Fists."

Lin looked at Kurande. Kurande looked at Lin.

Despite the sorrow still etched across his face, his eyes held a resolve that was anything but ordinary.

"Before our father Dorn dissolved the Legion, he required every successor Chapter broken from the Imperial Fists to swear a secret oath in common. That oath was this: when sacred Terra faces crisis, the Imperial Fists would send out a summons to all successor Chapters. Every Chapter that receives that summons must return to Terra's aid at any cost, to form together the final wall that guards Terra."

"Even now, a thousand years on, I believe every Son of Dorn still holds that oath sacred. And I, Kurande, as the successor to the Imperial Fists Chapter Master, must reassemble our Legion before events pass beyond the point of no return!"

"Where is the assembly point?" Lin asked.

"The Phal System."

"That's quite close."

Lin checked the star-charts on his data-slate. "If it's the Phal System, they could relieve Cath Maximus very quickly."

"...?"

Kurande's iron expression fractured slightly. "Didn't you just say the Mechanicus would abandon Cath Maximus? What use is a relief force coming here?"

"Simple."

Lin smiled — easy, unhurried. "I'll hold it myself."

Kurande's expression didn't merely crack — it went cold with shock.

"With barely a hundred warriors to our name?" He was beginning to wonder whether Lin had lost his mind. "Without the Mechanicus, how do you propose to hold Cath Maximus?"

"Then we take the entire Forge World for ourselves!"

Lin closed his hand into a loose fist, as though he had just seized the whole Forge World within his grasp.

"Kurande — have you ever stopped to ask: if Cath Maximus truly has no need of our assistance, why is Augustus still providing us with basic supplies?"

Kurande froze.

As a founding Chapter member and a rotating seat-holder on the High Lords' Council, the Imperial Fists had always sourced their supplies through large-scale direct procurement from Mars. He had never once fought a war on a shoestring budget — so naturally, the question had never occurred to him.

"They are putting on a performance," Lin declared.

"Evacuating an entire Forge World requires the transport capacity of several systems working in concert. Do you honestly think they can take every piece of production equipment on this planet when everyone else in the sector is too busy saving themselves? Obviously not. Which means they will only take the most critical personnel and materiel. Everything else here will be left behind."

"The senior leadership of Cath Maximus must have known about the Battle Moon long ago — and begun preparing their evacuation long ago. They deliberately dispatched Magos Lifar — a man they knew had grievances against them — to conduct the survey, precisely because they knew Lifar would not apply himself to the investigation."

"As long as Lifar returned with nothing conclusive, they could legitimately claim the Ork outbreak was minor and would not threaten Cath Maximus — and continue their quiet withdrawal behind the scenes. But our arrival disrupted their plan. We brought the news of the impending Greenskin invasion before the Forge Council, making it impossible for them to keep it hidden."

"So they provided us with basic supplies because supporting an Astartes Chapter lets them demonstrate their fighting resolve to the uninformed priests who don't know what's really going on?" Kurande was still struggling to believe it. "But why go to those lengths?"

"For that, we need to talk about the organisational structure of the Mechanicus... but don't worry — I'll give you the simplest version possible."

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