Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

"Detonate the production lines — now!"

The Deputy Forge Director's voice cracked like a whip.

His actions outpaced even his words. Torrents of data were already surging through him as he tried to bypass the still-unresponsive Master Forger entirely, reaching directly for the detonators buried beneath the production lines.

But fast as he was, he was not faster than the Volcano Cannon.

A lance of crimson laser light punched clean through the wall of the Forge Council chamber — the wall carved with icons of the Omnissiah and sacred litanies — and struck with perfect precision the energy core at the heart of the Forge Council: the node that governed every critical production line on the Forge World.

The energy core detonated instantly, dissolving into a cascading storm of brilliant motes of light. In that same instant, the blinding radiance swallowed the entire Forge Council chamber whole.

With the Forge Council as its epicenter, an ionic mushroom cloud rose from the surface of the Forge World — visible with naked clarity from low orbit.

Within the churning column of that cloud, a ferocious electromagnetic pulse was already building, readying itself to surge outward and wash across every centimeter of the Forge World.

The Deputy Forge Director's expression was as still and cold as dead water. The Master Forger, snapping back to awareness, moved to his side and together they triggered the charges buried beneath the surrounding production lines — but the results were pitiful.

Only the lines immediately around them could be detonated. The detonation signals could not punch through the interference thrown up by the ionic mushroom cloud to propagate across the wider world.

Even the Master Forger — whose cognitive core was not primarily devoted to logical analysis — grasped it now. "He turned Christina long before any of this began?"

The Deputy Forge Director did not answer. He only watched the battlefield in silence.

The Titan had gone still after firing. The priests stared in bewildered confusion at the burning ruin of the Forge Council, momentarily at a complete loss. Then Forge Archmagos Lifar — who had seemingly vanished sometime earlier — stepped back into view, clutching an oversized amplification horn, and began broadcasting to the assembled crowd:

"Treacherous Forge Council! They commanded the God-Machine to destroy our sacred Omnissiah shrine and detonated the energy core — the very core that is the symbol of every holy production line on Cath Maximus! Their actions have revealed the truth of their contemptible intention: to ruin Maximus and abandon us to save only themselves!"

"Priests of the Omnissiah — rise up! Let us seize this God-Machine! The might of the Omnissiah cannot be left in the hands of traitors who have forsaken the glory of the Machine God! We must defend Maximus! Defend the sacred home of the Omnissiah!"

The Frateris Militia were still pressing their assault per their earlier orders — but with Lin leading the Hunters of the Second Legion to finish off the detachment that had been pinning them down and now swinging back to reinforce, the force that had reached the Titan's feet was utterly encircled.

Lin's troops dismantled them with ease, and the Titan Guard were "routed" without suffering a single casualty.

Faced with a now-isolated Warlord-class Titan, the priests — practically delirious with fervor — cracked their knuckles and launched what could only be described as a competitive climbing tournament up the side of the God-Machine.

Some scaled the outer armor plates with their bare hands. Others produced cutting torches. A few even brought thermal charges. Every method was in service of the same goal: to get inside that machine and reclaim this monument to the Omnissiah's glory from the clutches of the wicked Forge Council. And though the Titan resisted, its movements were conspicuously "gentle" — not a single priest was harmed.

The Deputy Forge Director didn't need to look down to know how this scene would end. The Warlord-class Titan would, through the priests' "heroic efforts," see the light and return to the Omnissiah's "glory." If anyone questioned why the Titan's resistance had been so feeble, it could always be explained away — the loyal machine-spirit simply refused to be the instrument of villains like themselves.

In the end, every element of this would become proof that the rebels were fighting on the side of righteousness.

This single engagement had driven the Forge Council to stand against the entirety of the Forge World.

The enemy's plan had not been complicated. His own prior assessment had not been wrong. The Titan — their letter of introduction to Mars — truly had been a crucial piece of the enemy's scheme. The only gap in his intelligence was that he had not known Titan Captain Christina had already come to an arrangement with Lin.

If Lin had made prior contact with Christina — who had never been particularly inclined to follow the Forge Council's directives to begin with — he would certainly have been on guard against that possibility.

But he had not. And he still did not know by what means Lin had managed to bypass their surveillance and reach an understanding with Christina.

That blind spot had led him to a false conclusion. Believing Lin's objective was to seize the Titan, he had led his Frateris Militia into the logical trap his enemy had set.

What the enemy had wanted all along was the entire Forge World.

Having untangled his thoughts, the Deputy Forge Director had nothing left but silence.

He was still considering what to do next when an unexpected transmission arrived.

Lin had traced the signal the Deputy Forge Director had used to contact him earlier and was now reaching out in return.

The Deputy Forge Director hesitated a moment, then accepted the call.

"Have you come to gloat over your victory, Forge Archmagos Lin?" he asked.

"No."

Lin's denial was flat. "I merely came to share some... foundational facts.

"You certainly know the basics of communications — specifically the physical layer at the very bottom of the network stack? For fixed installations like production facilities, cable lines or directional lasers make perfectly good transmission media. But for bombs buried under a production line with detonation terminals that constantly shift position — when you never anticipated an emergency arising — you would naturally rely on electromagnetic waves for remote triggering. And electromagnetic waves, as you know, are as fragile as thin ice under interference..."

The Deputy Forge Director knew Lin was correct. The shockwave that had been building within the ionic cloud was now overflowing outward. Even their own communications were beginning to break apart under the assault of the ionic cloud sweeping across the Forge World, cutting in and out in ragged bursts.

"Perhaps you could dispatch Messenger-Servitors to rebuild a communications network capable of operating through heavy interference and resume detonating those charges. Perhaps you could send the Frateris Militia to storm the factories by force and initiate the self-destruct sequences as originally planned. But regardless...."

On the other end of the channel, Lin leaned forward, his gaze fixed on the Deputy Forge Director who had once looked down on him with such contempt. He announced:

"The war has only just begun."

The savage shockwave arrived in full force. The transmission between the Deputy Forge Director and Lin was consumed by sheets of white static noise. The invisible surge penetrated every centimeter of space. Vast quantities of electronic equipment failed under the brutal energy. Some priests who had been closer to the explosion and lacked adequate shielding died outright where they stood.

This mechanized world plunged into chaos unlike anything it had ever seen.

The Deputy Forge Director closed the communications interface, now nothing but a wall of crackling static.

Feeling the severing of his link to the Frateris Militia, he let out a slow breath. The fury that had been raging inside him had, strangely, given way to a kind of calm.

He was forced to concede it: the sage from Forge World Huangquan VIII had outmaneuvered him at every turn.

Rage born of wounded pride was the emotion of a man who had lost a single move. Now that he understood he had been inside his opponent's calculations from the very beginning, the Deputy Forge Director found he no longer had the energy for anger.

"What are you going to do now?" the Master Forger asked. He was surprised, certainly, but having already relocated the critical production lines in advance, he was not panicking. His attitude toward the Deputy Forge Director — who had come off the worse in the military confrontation — remained largely that of a spectator.

"Get to the fleet in orbit. Compile a full assessment of the situation. Muster the troops. And pay the Forge Director a visit."

He turned and walked away from the site, heading toward the spaceport.

"That sage from Huangquan VIII was right about one thing — this is indeed a war.

"But it will be over soon enough."

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