Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

The first wave of the Ork assault came to an end.

Though the first line of defence had been breached under the greenskin onslaught, the Astra Militarum, sheltered by their well-prepared fortifications, had lost very little in the way of fighting strength.

As the Orks withdrew, the troops returned to the first line of positions and set about further reinforcing their bunkers.

But Lin knew well enough that an attack on this scale was, at most, a small probing action.

The sight of Orks raining down from the sky had been spectacular, but the landing zones had been so densely concentrated that their attack line couldn't spread out properly. Over a million greenskins had jostled and shoved one another in that cramped space, unable to bring their numerical advantage to bear.

Added to this — though that Ork warlord was undeniably a Big Mek of considerable talent — Orks didn't tend to lug too many of their 'reckoning'-built contraptions with them during a void crossing.

Their style had always been to make do with what they found on site. To see their true strength, one had to wait until they'd dug in properly and scavenged enough materials.

From that angle, Zebyrean's argument — that the Big Mek ought to be struck down at once — was not without merit.

After all, the sooner the strike, the weaker the Orks would be. So long as one was prepared to spend a portion of one's elite forces as the price, the enemy could indeed be strangled in the cradle.

But that was precisely the problem with today's Space Marines: chapter-style warfare had stripped them of any strategic perspective. They could only consider their problems on the tactical level.

What Lin needed was a strategic victory. Even if it meant letting the Orks grow stronger, even if it meant losing more Astra Militarum troops once the fighting resumed, he was determined to bag the Orks up first and wipe out as much of their fighting strength as possible.

If he sent the Space Marines plunging in alone now to cut down the Warboss, what was he supposed to do with the remaining greenskins, scattered across the planet like startled birds and beasts?

With only three million Astra Militarum at his disposal, he simply didn't have the manpower to sweep up Orks dispersed across an entire globe.

And besides — this Ork warlord was not the only one they had to face.

By the time the next Ork warlord arrived on planet and gathered up all those headless-fly greenskins under his banner, what price would have to be paid to decapitate that one in turn?

Lin had heard about Zebyrean's act of battlefield insubordination. He had very nearly committed a grave blunder — fortunately, Sorn had intervened in time.

Once he returned, Zebyrean had been stripped of all honours. But manpower was so short that he had, for the time being, been left acting in the post of First Company captain.

The plan was, for the moment, proceeding smoothly enough — but this incident had brought Zebyrean squarely into Lin's view.

He vaguely recalled that the Exemplary Fists had once produced a turncoat who had spoken up for the Iron Warriors and ultimately betrayed his own Chapter. That incident had been the direct cause of the Exemplary Fists Chapter being struck from the rolls, with the remaining survivors all folded into the reformed Imperial Fists.

Lin had no idea exactly who that traitor had been, but with Zebyrean carrying himself like such a conspicuous troublemaker, Lin naturally flagged him as a subject worth watching closely.

Of course, the fact that the Exemplary Fists were willing to operate under the Imperial Fists' banner and answer to Lin's command did not mean Lin could meddle in their internal rewards and punishments.

The present punishment was sufficient for Zebyrean's battlefield disobedience. For now, Lin could only watch — and see what other tricks the man might pull next.

Turning to the other side of this war — what, then, were the Orks themselves up to at this moment?

Picking through the rubbish, of course.

The greenskins who had scattered outward from the earlier battlefield quickly stumbled upon the Primary Hive that Lin had abandoned. They settled in happily, claiming the Primary Hive as their base of operations — or, more accurately, their junkyard.

Lin had long since ordered the Primary Hive stripped of every useful piece of wreckage that could be carried away. But to greenskins who could reckon a working dakka-gun out of a few sheets of scrap and a handful of screws, the Primary Hive was still a treasure trove from end to end.

Though no full-scale frontal engagements had broken out, the Ork warlord who had decided to delay his main attack couldn't keep all of his boys in line either. War-hungry greenskins were never going to sit obediently and wait for Gadda's word, so small-scale clashes continued to flare up with regularity.

From those skirmishes, Lin could of course gauge just what calibre of greenskin had taken up residence in the Primary Hive.

From a few scraps of plate hammered onto their backs, to ramshackle four-wheelers with armour panels bolted to the front, to three-metre-tall walking battle-suits — proper Killa Kans.

In a mere ten days, the greenskins' equipment had undergone an iteration that no human would have believed possible.

Had he not used what little transport capacity he had to evacuate the still-functional production lines and the Titan wreckage left over from the earlier civil war, Lin had no doubt the greenskins would already have rolled out a Gargunk ten or more metres tall.

Fortunately, they hadn't. Ork reckoning was not a force that conjured something from nothing, and this level was already, for the moment, the ceiling of what the greenskins could manage.

But it was enough. Gadda was already convinced that he and his boys now had the strength to beat those shrimp-folk in a straight fight.

They had more numbers than the shrimps, and now their weapons and gear were better than the shrimps' too. How could they possibly fail to crush those shrimps?

The only thing that puzzled him was that Goldtooth and the Chaplain still hadn't shown up.

He had, of course, claimed the lead through his superior reckoning — but even he could work out that such a lead shouldn't have lasted this long. This long.

He couldn't make any sense of it, but that didn't stop a sense of urgency from rising in his gut.

Time had stretched on long enough. He had to finish off those shrimps as fast as possible, before the other two Ork warlords picked the mushrooms from his patch.

That Chaplain especially — the cheek of him, claiming he could hear Gork and Mork having a yarn?

Granted, the boy had correctly pointed out the direction of the shrimp-folk, which lent his story a measure of credibility — but that was only ever going to be temporary.

Mork's most-favoured warlord could only ever be him — Gadda!

Unlike when he'd first made landfall, his now-formidable arsenal had given Gadda complete confidence that he could grind these shrimps into pulp on his own. To draw more of Mork's gaze upon himself, he had to press on with this great WAAAGH crusade!

Gadda emerged from the top tier of the Primary Hive. He couldn't fathom why there should be a great pit up here, but it didn't stop him from claiming the place as his stronghold.

Under his prodding, countless Gretchin and boys laboured day and night, and at last they built, down in that deep pit, a colossal thing whose height was level with the lip of the pit itself.

It was a Stompa.

At Gadda's command, the Stompa slowly clawed its way up out of the pit — a steel giant fully seventeen metres tall, gradually revealing its full form atop the Primary Hive.

Its whole body was clad in crude armour plates, the surface bristling with spikes and protrusions, the entire mass driven along by tracks at its base — a hulking monstrosity perfectly in keeping with Ork aesthetic sensibilities. It had an ugly, Ork-shaped skull for a head, two massive cannons mounted side-by-side on its left arm, a great mechanical spear-gun on its right, and — brazenly — a small artillery piece set between its legs.

Standing atop this steel behemoth, Gadda let out a satisfied roar.

'Wiv dis, we'll send dem shrimps flyin' to da sky, one by one!'

His words ignited the fervour of greenskins who hadn't had a proper scrap in ten days, and they bellowed back at Gadda with matching excitement.

'WAAAGH!'

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