Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

The Priest could never have imagined that they had merely picked a spot on the outskirts of a star system to mine rocks and smash shrimpies—only for the shrimpies to come knocking at their door.

The Mandeville Point rippled and trembled like the surface of water, and as the veil of the material universe was torn open, a battle barge painted with a black iron cross emblem broke out of the Warp through the Mandeville Point and leapt into the star system.

Before it could even activate its augur array to adjust its course, it ran headlong into the greenskin fleet that was busy mining rocks.

Both sides were clearly stunned at first, but the battle barge belonging to the Black Templars was, after all, the first to react. The captain of the Abhorrence immediately issued orders to the entire ship:

"Hard to port! Adjust heading, present our broadside to the enemy! Ready the macro-cannons!"

The captain's roar echoed throughout the entire battle barge.

"Let us purify these filthy greenskins with cannon fire!"

The battle barge fired first, and with just a single volley it left the Orks—most of whom were mining rocks on the planet—reeling and dazed.

But the greenskins, at the cost of one cruiser sunk, reacted as well. Howling, they charged back onto their warships and, with vessels far outnumbering the shrimpies', began to surround their foe on all sides.

They chose not to flee, but to close in on us of their own accord?

The Priest, too, felt a faint thrill at this moment; the enemy's crystalline stupidity was very much to his liking.

He had just been fretting over having no scrap to scrounge up for his boyz, and now a shrimpy warship had delivered itself right to his door.

This time the Priest didn't even need to stir up his underlings' spirits; the greenskins, who hadn't had a scrap to fight in a long while, grew excited all on their own. Countless bosses led their boyz aboard the assault boats, and their central guiding thought was quite clear:

"Lads, there's heaps and heaps of scrap up ahead!"

"Waaagh!!!"

Even Goldtooth, after a long absence, contacted the Priest; he came to show the Priest his determination to board the enemy.

"Priest, whatever plan you've got, you ain't stoppin' me today!" Goldtooth brandished his big choppa. "Today I'm gonna chop them shrimpies to bits an' feed 'em to the mushrooms!"

The Priest had in fact never intended to stop him from the start; he knew full well that the greenskin boyz' discontent now needed a battle to vent itself.

Attacking Cath Maximus might be a bit risky, but a single big shrimpy ship...

What sort of waves could they possibly stir up?

Going with the flow, he gave a nod, signaling his support for Goldtooth's boarding.

Seeing that another Ork warlord had also fallen in line with their boss's decision, the morale of Goldtooth's boyz soared at once. They howled in excitement, and Goldtooth, too, gave a hearty sweep of his great hand.

"Lads, bring my big ship in close! Today we're goin' to smash them shrimpies an' nick their big gunz!"

Goldtooth's battleship erupted at once into a chorus of waaagh.

The hunger for battle empowered the Orks, imperceptibly quickening by a few notches the speed of this battleship that had been damaged in Horner's earlier harassment. On the bridge, Goldtooth sat sprawled imposingly upon his warlord throne, waiting only for the distance to be right before taking the stage in person.

But before long, a Mek boy came scrambling and tumbling over.

"What's this rubbish? Look at this gutless wretch—I ain't got runts like you among my boyz!"

Goldtooth was very displeased with this panic-stricken Mek boy. He raised his fist. "You'd best have a reason, or you'll spoil my fun!"

"B-boss!" The Mek boy prostrated himself before Goldtooth in fear and trembling. "Somethin' big really has happened!"

"What big thing? Don't tell me them shrimpies have stuck Squigs up their backsides an' flown off?"

"No! They didn't run away!"

"Then that means..."

"It's a boardin'! They've come over to board us themselves, ridin' big iron rods!"

Goldtooth's words came to an abrupt halt. In disbelief he sought confirmation from the boy once more, but the answer he got was the absolute truth.

In his simple mind he first felt it absurd. A moment later, a fury at being scorned welled up uncontrollably in his heart.

He flew into a rage, seizing the Mek boy and hauling him up before his eyes. "What did you say? Them shrimpies dare to board my ship?"

He flung the boy aside like garbage and roared, "I ain't even boarded their ship yet, an' they dare to board mine!"

"What kind of shrimpies are they, boardin' faster than us?!"

Feeling that his warlord authority had been challenged, Goldtooth took up his choppa and stormed out of the bridge in a rage. But soon he doubled back and once again hoisted up that Mek boy, who was by now at his last gasp.

Ignoring the resentment in the Mek boy's eyes, he opened his mouth and roared into the boy's ear, "Where did they board my ship?! You point me the way, boy—I'm gonna go over an' chop 'em up to go with my mushroom brew!"

"I'll show them shrimpies that I'm the biggest, most waaagh warlord of all!"

"We have no chance of winning a long-range gun duel."

Although they had fired first, the captain of the Abhorrence was not optimistic about the outcome of this engagement.

The Orks' densely packed assault boats had already appeared within visual range. These little craft served much the same function as the Space Marines' boarding torpedoes. Though they were not as specialized as boarding torpedoes, as long as a single one managed to close in, hundreds of Orks would come clambering out of it.

The Abhorrence was a standard Astartes battle barge. Possessing Space Marine deployment capability as well, it held a fair degree of proficiency in macro-cannons, lances, and ground strikes.

A jack-of-all-trades battle barge could ably shoulder an Astartes Chapter's support duties, but if one weighed its specialized role for any particular mission, its master-of-none nature would once again be laid bare.

At the very least, the captain of the Abhorrence knew clearly that, having seized the initiative only in the opening stage, they could not gain a decisive advantage in a gun duel. And the Abhorrence's point-defense firepower meant it was impossible for them to shatter every last one of the Ork assault boats.

Even with Astartes presiding aboard this ship, the moment some portion of the vessel's guns fell idle due to the fierce fighting against boarders, their defeat would become merely a matter of time.

"We ought to retreat," the captain advised, though he knew full well his lord Marshal would not accept it. "At the cost of paying some small price, we could avoid this battle."

"No."

High Marshal Bohemond shook his head, rejecting the captain's advice.

He walked over to the scan results provided by the augur and pondered the scan image for a moment. "One of the Orks' battleships is moving at the wrong speed."

"Yes, my lord. I surmise that one of its engines must have been damaged in the earlier battle."

"Then this is our target," Bohemond replied.

His gaze swept over the brothers behind him. The brothers of the Sword Brethren, led at their head by the standard bearer Lancelot and the Emperor's Champion Travis, held their heads high and their chests out as they received the High Marshal's inspection.

He believed his brothers were already prepared to annihilate any foe of the Emperor.

But it was not only his own brothers who were present here.

He cast an inquiring glance toward Issaga, that distant kinsman of the Black Templars.

Issaga was a Lord of the Sanctum of the Excoriators Chapter—this was the unique title given to the high-ranking Chaplains and Librarians within the Excoriators Chapter.

When Bohemond received the summons from the Ultimate Wall, eight battle-brothers of the Excoriators Chapter, led by Issaga, were paying a visit to the Black Templars.

Their Chapter had earlier had some dispute with the Black Templars, and the Excoriators Chapter had finally decided to send Issaga—who had once fought a duel with Sigismund, the first High Marshal of the Black Templars—as their representative to visit the Black Templars and mediate the friction between them.

But they clearly had not expected to run into such a mishap in the course of visiting the Black Templars.

Given the critical situation, this Lord of the Sanctum decided to dispatch a squad to go back and rally the Excoriators Chapter, while he himself traveled directly alongside the Black Templars, being the first to answer the call of the Ultimate Wall.

Sensing High Marshal Bohemond's gaze cast toward him, Issaga shook his head, declining Bohemond's concern.

"Give the order, High Marshal. I too am a son of Dorn."

Bohemond was very satisfied with this answer, and the aversion he felt toward the other on account of his being a psyker gradually lessened.

"I hope you can lead the pre-battle prayer rite for my warriors, Brother Issaga." Bohemond extended his goodwill. "As you know, our Reclusiarch was gravely wounded in the last battle and still lies unconscious within a Dreadnought."

Issaga nodded and withdrew from the bridge. Bohemond returned his gaze to the augur and, in the name of the High Marshal, issued his battle order to the captain:

"Bring the Abhorrence in close, captain. The warriors of the Black Templars will make those greenskins understand, with chainsword and bolt, that our loyalty to the Emperor is the deadliest weapon aboard this warship!"

The captain, seated upon the captain's throne, seemed to have known all along that this would be the result. He calmly bowed his head and offered his blessing. "Then I shall organize the naval boarding parties to mount a resistance. I await your triumphant return, my lord."

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