Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

A miscalculation.

Lin felt a pang of regret. He hadn't anticipated that a Titan captain would be resting inside the amniotic vault of a Titan that hadn't even been activated yet.

Granted, a captain who refused to leave her Titan's side did corroborate his earlier suspicion that she and the Forge Director were at odds — but the plan to inject the virus had clearly gone up in smoke.

Seeing no further point in hiding, Tom swiftly flicked the data-disk into a corner and turned his head away, beginning to whistle innocently. His back had already arched into a subtle curve, however — he was clearly ready to spring at the Titan captain at a moment's notice.

Lin, understanding they had been seen through from the start, called out in time to stop Tom's reckless impulse.

Christina simply stood with her arms folded, watching Tom's internal war between instinct and obedience with an expression of cool detachment.

"It seems you can communicate with this cat directly," she remarked. "How? Did you implant a language translator in its brain?"

"Regrettably, it's natural-born."

Speaking through the equipment Tom carried, Lin opened a direct line of communication with Christina. The plan had hit a snag, but her manner told him there was still room to manoeuvre.

A flicker of genuine curiosity passed through Christina's eyes. "Natural-born?"

That had clearly piqued her interest. At Lin's prompting, the Felyne submitted compliantly as Christina reached down and plucked him up by the scruff.

The scrutiny of those deep-blue eyes made Tom's fur bristle slightly, but he held still and let Christina do as she pleased.

"Perhaps I should obtain a pair for study..." she murmured. "But before that —"

She bent down, retrieved the data-disk from the floor, and slotted it into the Titan herself.

"...?"

Lin watched her move in open surprise, unable to divine her intention.

Christina closed her eyes.

She seemed to do nothing more than form a single thought — and yet the entire Titan awoke, without a single activation rite having been performed.

The injected virus activated alongside the Titan's awakening, and Lin jacked into the feedback stream from his code. The Titan's ferocious machine-spirit shrank away from Lin's intrusion, letting his lines run freely through the systems.

But that freedom lasted only an instant.

In the next moment, Lin felt Christina — who had likewise interfaced with the machine — delete every last byte of his code clean out of the system.

She made a small sound of interest, evidently perceiving something subtle about what she had just erased.

"Such a simple virus — and yet the machine-spirit offered no resistance at all?"

On his end, Lin felt it too: Christina was something extraordinary.

She had roused a Titan from dormancy without ceremony, and without suffering any backlash from the machine-spirit...?

As a rule, the larger the war engine, the more ungovernable its machine-spirit — and the greater the mental strain borne by the captain who forged a neural link with it. That strain could be eased through the Mechanicus's consecration rites, or by fulfilling whatever purpose the machine-spirit hungered for. But even with the rites performed, no other captain who had ever helmed a Titan had commanded it with the effortless ease Christina displayed.

Could this be Christina's gift?

When Archmagos Lifar had briefed Lin on the layout of the Titan Congregation, he had also shared a few details about Christina.

By all accounts, she had not been raised specifically as a Titan captain — or rather, no Titan captain trained on a Forge World could have tamed the machine-spirit of a Titan that had fought in the Horus Heresy.

This Warlord-class Titan had been transferred out of the Firewasp Titan Legion after the Heresy, during the period when Mars was re-establishing its subsidiary Forge Worlds, and had since served as the cornerstone of Cath Maximus's defences. But after its original crew died, Cath Maximus had found no one capable of piloting it — until Christina appeared, in recent years.

The girl who preferred a white lab coat to the Mechanicus's red robes had originally been a tech-priest specialising in neuroscience. Her research into the workings of the mind had allowed her to endure the machine-spirit's mental pressure in her own unique way. She had accordingly become the Warlord's captain as a matter of course, and within a few years parlayed that position into the rank of Legion Commander of the Titan Congregation of Cath Maximus.

Two senior Archmagi on the Forge Council had never stopped challenging her authority — but the very fact that she stood where she stood was proof enough of her ability.

To say nothing of a technique like this: cold-starting a Titan without a single preparatory rite...

Lin was quietly stunned. Meanwhile, Christina had already unpicked the virus's purpose:

"You wanted this Titan to go out of control on the surface during the transfer." She waved off the priests who had come hurrying to investigate why the Titan had powered up. "Why?"

She paused, thoughtful. "Have you already deduced that this Forge World intends to evacuate?"

"To be precise, I've deduced that only the Forge Director and the senior Archmagi will be evacuating."

There was no longer any reason for concealment. Lin laid his cards on the table: "This Forge World will clearly be abandoned. Only the most valuable assets are worth transferring. I don't know what the senior Archmagi keep for personal wealth — but I know they will move the Titan Legion."

"Why go to this trouble? With the strength of Astartes, even without using the Titan to sow chaos, you could certainly seize vessels at the evacuation port. There's no need for this extra step."

Christina pressed one hand lightly to her temple, turning over Lin's motive. "Unless..."

"I intend to take this Forge World."

There was no need to let her think it through. Lin named the heart of it directly.

Christina's mouth opened slightly as she stared at the holo-projection Lin cast through the Felyne.

She was startled by his bluntness, and staggered by the sheer absurdity of it.

Her own thinking had stretched only as far as imagining these Astartes seizing something from the Forge World under cover of the chaos — but the entire Forge World?

She shook her head and gave him a flat refusal: "The Forge Director does intend to withdraw with the Titan Legion, but that doesn't mean you can take control of a Forge World in the upheaval that follows. Even granting that you have certain means at your disposal — how could you possibly hold against the Greenskin horde already on its way?"

"Their transport capacity was never going to carry everything. If I can make them leave a little more behind, I'm confident I can hold Cath Maximus."

"That's pure fantasy. You support that absurd claim with nothing more than that?"

"I perceived that you and the Forge Director were not of one mind. I persuaded Archmagos Lifar to provide the schematics and allow my agent to infiltrate this facility. I attempted to inject a virus to detonate the conflict between you and the Forge Director at the moment of transfer..." Lin let the question answer itself. "I've already come this far — can you truly call that fantasy?"

Christina's brow furrowed. She conceded, inwardly, that he was a man of action.

"But you didn't find me here when you injected the virus. Your plan has already failed at that step."

"Not yet — because I'm attempting to persuade you."

Christina's eyes went wide. A strange, unnameable feeling stirred somewhere beneath her sternum.

She found, to her own surprise, that she was a little intoxicated by the sheer audacity of the man.

But audacity alone could never carry a plan to success. She wanted to find the foundation beneath Lin's madness:

"What makes you think you can persuade me?"

"I don't know the precise nature of your dispute with the Forge Director and his circle. But I know that the only leverage you have against them is the simple fact that you are the only person on this Forge World capable of piloting a Warlord-class Titan."

Lin shifted tack and offered the one promise he could actually make — even if, in truth, it was little more than a promissory note written on air.

"I suspect they plan to relocate to Mars. But once you're there, you won't be the only one who can handle a Warlord's machine-spirit anymore."

"Join me. I can guarantee that this Warlord-class Titan will always be yours — until the day you die, you will be its one and only captain."

The promise visibly moved her. Christina wavered — yet one concern still lingered.

"And the tens of millions of Greenskins? The Forge Director chose not to tell the priests on this planet the truth, to smooth the evacuation. If you take this Forge World, how do you intend to lead a bewildered priesthood against an enraged Forge Director — and after that, against an incoming Ork tide?"

"I have no direct quarrel with the Forge Director. All I want is the world they're about to abandon." Lin sidestepped the question smoothly. "Once I demonstrate sufficient strength, I believe the senior Archmagi will not fight to the last man."

"Strength? With a hundred Astartes — plus perhaps my Titan?"

Christina shook her head. "This planet has a total of two million Skitarii-grade combatants. Around five hundred thousand of them fall under the Deputy Forge Director's direct command alone. The remaining half is the combined private armies of every other Archmagos and tech-priest on the planet. Even if the priests chose to side with you, you could not stand against the Deputy Forge Director's organised forces."

"And from what I understand, they've also buried demolition charges beneath the production lines. The moment they leave, they'll trigger the self-destruct protocol and the charges together. What would remain would not be a Forge World — it would be a worthless field of ash."

"So if that is your plan... perhaps handing you over to the Forge Council right now would serve me better."

The Olympica Accords, signed long ago between the Mechanicus and the Emperor, stipulated that Forge Worlds could maintain only the minimum forces necessary for self-defence in peacetime, with temporary expansion permitted only in times of war or under direct threat.

Though Archmagi routinely circumvented this clause by dispersing private troops or outsourcing military deployments, five hundred thousand Skitarii under direct Forge Council command was roughly the ceiling for a third-tier Forge World.

But even that number alone was an impossible burden for Lin, who had only a hundred Astartes.

Lin, however, clearly had his own answer.

"We won't be fighting alone." His certainty was absolute. "All we need to do is meet the opening clash head-on — then shift to the defensive and hold. After that, we wait for our reinforcements to arrive."

"You have reinforcements?"

"Of course. I've prepared a contingency. Once they arrive, we can measure ourselves not only against the Forge Director and his Skitarii, but against the Greenskins as well."

It sounded like boasting. Christina, naturally, did not believe it.

To earn her trust, Lin had Tom lean close to Christina's ear.

He told her of the contingency he had prepared. Christina's eyes went wide at first — but then she slowly shook her head.

"You can't guarantee they'll actually reach this place... This plan is riddled with uncertainty from start to finish."

"If every probability in this universe were predictable, what a dreadfully dull place it would be."

The projection of Lin spread his arms wide. An expression crossed his face that had never been there before — a sweeping, almost reckless arrogance.

"Even the entities within the Warp cannot dictate the fate of every soul... In the unpredictable depths of Chaos, it falls to me to seize destiny by the throat!"

— ✦ —

Above the star system containing Jingang.

The Imperial Navy commander Hays, who had just translated in from the Mandeville Point, stared at the Greenskin fleet encircling Jingang and felt a deep unease settle over him.

He studied the Greenskin fleet with a furrowed brow, his inner assessment of the Imperial Fists' prospects growing bleaker by the moment.

He had been dispatched under orders from a High Lord to investigate the Imperial Fists, who had fallen silent — but barely out of the Warp, he had already received word that Hive World Nding, lying behind Jingang, had fallen to a Greenskin offensive.

Greenskins? Wasn't it supposed to be the Chrome Beasts?

But the facts were plain before him. Gazing at Jingang, already occupied by the Greenskins, Hays found himself paralysed by indecision.

Then, at that moment, a signal carrying Imperial Fists encryption codes cut through to Hays's fleet.

"I am Admidel, a warrior of the Imperial Fists."

A peculiar Astartes — painted lemon-yellow, yet whose power armour was festooned with fangs — identified himself.

"I am tasked with guiding you to the current position of the Imperial Fists."

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