Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Sage Lifar's impassioned speech was nothing like anything he could have produced on his own. The Master Forger glanced at the Deputy Forge Director beside him and found the man's face twisting into something grotesque.

"Betrayal!"

He snarled: "I calculated a 62% probability that he would deduce the truth — I already factored that in and tightened surveillance on him. And he still managed to break free of house arrest and get here? Why didn't I receive a single warning?!"

"It's not the end of the world. What's done is done. All we need to do now is get the Titan Legion loaded onto the transports and detonate the remaining production lines."

The Master Forger was not particularly bothered — if anything, having already overseen the transfer of most of the production lines himself, he took quiet pleasure in watching the Deputy Forge Director flounder in his own domain:

"Surprises are like that five percent chance of a Titan breaking down, aren't they? But I imagine this little incident will give certain people ample cause to reassess whether your competence still meets the standard required of a Deputy Forge Director overseeing the Frateris Militia."

"Open fire!"

The goaded Deputy Forge Director snapped the order without hesitation: "I want Sage Lifar knocked off that Titan!"

"You want to order fire on a God-Machine? Are you out of your mind?"

"I am stopping this from spiralling out of control!"

"Even if the Forge World descends into chaos, the probability of these headless-fly tech-priests actually obstructing us is under 0.1%. All we have to do is wait for the Titan to restart. No matter how much he says up there, words cannot prevail against steel."

The Master Forger and the Deputy Forge Director were still arguing over whether to act when the Servitor that had been sent earlier to check on the Astartes returned. Having lost all emotion to its augmentations, it delivered a devastating piece of news in a flat, indifferent tone:

"Directive: inspect Astartes. Report: Astartes are no longer in the designated area. Traces of implanted organs found at the scene. Assessment: they have completed treatment and departed of their own accord."

The Master Forger and the Deputy Forge Director exchanged a look.

Even the Master Forger, who had been dismissive of everything up until this moment, could now feel that something had gone badly wrong.

The Servitor stepped back toward the door to await further instructions — and was violently crushed by the door slamming open. The Frateris Militia Ranger captain who staggered through it was covered in crackling electrical sparks, his limbs mangled by bolt detonations. He stumbled over the Servitor's wreckage and collapsed in front of the Deputy Forge Director, gasping his report:

"Report: the Ranger squad assigned to surveil Sage Lifar was attacked by Astartes. Sage Lin accompanying them deployed jamming weapons!"

The probability of something going wrong had just rocketed from under 0.1% to 99%. The Master Forger lurched to his feet in alarm, staring at the Deputy Forge Director's ice-cold expression. As much as he had been mocking the man moments ago, controlling the situation now depended entirely on him.

"Open fire."

The Deputy Forge Director spoke each word with deliberate weight: "Start with the problem directly in front of us. Deal with Sage Lifar."

The Frateris Militia still remaining on the Forge World poured out in formation. The Ranger cohorts were the first to reach the Titan's vicinity. They raised their galvanic rifles and trained them on Sage Lifar, who was still declaiming from his script with undiminished fervour. They squeezed the triggers of the flintlock-like weapons.

Specialised solid rounds carrying the force of thunder struck Lifar with pinpoint accuracy from range. This weapon — which could detonate the energy within a target and kill them through an electromagnetic burst — was theoretically every Mechanicus adherent augmented with bionics' worst nightmare. But the solid rounds were swallowed whole by a thin pale-blue shimmer.

The crowd of tech-priests below erupted in uproar. Lifar himself, only now realising he was under attack, nearly jumped out of his skin. A denser volley came screaming toward him — but every round was stopped by his Energy Shield.

His legs went weak with fright, but Lifar couldn't help feeling grateful that the portable shield Lin had given him was exactly as reliable as Lin had promised. Trembling, he pulled up the script Lin had prepared for exactly this scenario and recited the words aloud.

"They've lost their composure! The lords of the Forge Council — because I exposed their truth, they have drawn their blade against me without a shred of mercy!"

He cranked up the brightness of the Energy Shield so everyone could see him standing completely unharmed under the Rangers' assault: "But the Omnissiah shelters me! He rewards the faithful who dare to defend what rightfully belongs to Him!"

"Brothers, do not waver! Rise up — defend our assets, defend the sacred production lines! The glory of the Omnissiah shall shine upon each and every one of us!"

The words had barely left his mouth when the vanguard troops carrying rad-carbines also arrived on the scene.

They unleashed their high-energy rad-beams on Lifar. Pillars of lethal radiation slammed into the Energy Shield, the intense radioactive output causing it to flicker and waver.

Lifar's nerve broke. He had no intention of lingering here any longer — he leapt from the Titan's arm and dropped.

Having lost their target, the vanguard troops turned to disperse the tech-priests clustering beneath the Titan. But the priests, already worked into a fervour by Lifar's words, showed not an ounce of fear. They drew their own weapons and returned fire.

The priests' counterattack was hardly organised, but the sheer bizarre variety of their weapons pinned the Frateris Militia down regardless. Even so, as more and more militia arrived on scene, the outnumbered tech-priests began to struggle to hold their ground.

Pressed by the militia, they fell back step by step.

Then bolts screamed in from behind them, shredding the advancing militia vanguard into scraps. In an instant, the spirit of every tech-priest surged.

"Fear no authority! To defend the Omnissiah's glory is to defend our own wealth!"

Lin raised his Solar-Powered Warblade high. Behind him stood Astartes warriors bearing greatswords, Switch Axes, Silver Rathalos bolt rifles, and an assortment of other Monster Hunter 'local specialties.' "The Astartes stand with our righteous cause! Forward, tech-priests! Drive out every last member of the Forge Council that has forsaken the Omnissiah's glory — not one of them remains!"

As the most critical fresh force on the field, Lin led the charge and plunged into the battle.

Though he bore the title of Sage of Forge World Huangquan VIII, in the chaos of the battlefield no one cared about his rank. Given that he was a Sage — and currently the most capable fighter on the field — the tech-priests of Maximus rallied to him instinctively.

They advanced as a unified mass, and in short order had suppressed the Frateris Militia in that entire sector.

Though militia reinforcements continued to pour in, the tech-priests holding the key chokepoints could no longer be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. And with Astartes picking off militia commanders one by one, the leaderless militia found themselves unable to leverage their numerical advantage to crush the priests.

The chaos spread across the entire Forge World as the firefight intensified.

Realising the Frateris Militia alone could no longer stamp out this tide of rebellion, the Deputy Forge Director personally assumed command.

He ran logical analyses and attempted to strike at the optimal breakthrough points — but Kurande's experience was evidently sharper than his models. The Imperial Fists, few in number, had already positioned themselves in ambush at every one of those "optimal" chokepoints.

When the militia assault squads tried to push through those so-called optimal passages, bolt rifles opened up without warning — paired with explosive barrels hurled from the buildings above — and wiped out the militia vanguard to the last man.

The Deputy Forge Director quickly triangulated the Imperial Fists' positions from the firing vectors. But the Imperial Fists had already withdrawn by the time he locked on. As more and more tech-priests brought their Servitors into the fray, joining the 'righteous cause,' even the front lines no longer needed Astartes to hold them.

These engineering specialists began constructing layered defensive lines just behind the frontmost positions.

As Lin worked alongside the aptly-skilled Imperial Fists to build barricades in the streets, an unfamiliar communication request connected directly to his mind.

He accepted it, and the face of the Deputy Forge Director materialised in his thoughts. The face was heavily augmented beyond recognition, yet Lin could still read in it something extraordinary — rage.

"Sage Lin of Forge World Huangquan VIII — it was you who incited Sage Lifar to ignite this insurrection on Maximus?"

The Deputy Forge Director's contorted face filled nearly his entire field of vision: "I will catch you. I will torture your logic-core with corrupted code. I will fry every one of your augmetics with galvanic discharge. And then I will cite the clauses of the Forge Compact regarding the incitement of unrest in other Forge Worlds' internal affairs as grounds for indictment, and deliver you to Mars for judgement!"

"Incitement? Insurrection?"

Lin laughed.

"No."

He denied the Forge Director and shot back without a trace of courtesy:

"This is a war."

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