Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Although the warriors of the Black Templars were all relishing the battle, Lin, who had received the news on Cath Maximus, was at his wits' end.

The reinforcements he had longed for had indeed arrived—only for those reinforcements to go straight into a fight with the Orks one step ahead of them?

Where was the sense in that?

To avoid precisely this kind of situation, Lin had deliberately kept the muster point in the Phal System. So long as the reinforcements of the Ultimate Wall could reach there, dedicated personnel would be on hand to receive their vessels and guide them into Cath Maximus through the Mandeville Point on the far side, where no Orks were present.

But the very situation had come to pass all the same.

Lin surmised that the warship must have intended to take on a little resupply at Cath Maximus before entering the Phal System—they clearly had no idea that drastic upheaval had already befallen Cath Maximus, still less that the greenskins were now running rampant in every corner of the Sol star region.

This had sent them charging headlong into the Orks' encirclement.

Had the reinforcements been able to make short work of the Orks and smash them to pieces, that would have been all well and good—but in truth the relief force amounted to no more than a single battle barge.

Never mind dealing with the Orks—set against the hit-and-run Sol Expeditionary Fleet, the strength of this 'fleet' couldn't have stirred up so much as a ripple.

Of course, a human vessel could use its speed advantage to shake off the Orks' large warships, and since the Orks' smaller craft posed no fundamental threat, the ship could still escape—provided it was willing to pay a one-sided price.

But Matt Horner's report was perfectly clear.

That battle barge was boarding the Orks' battleship!

By now Lin had given up any hope of receiving help from the reinforcements. He even had to assemble a force of his own to, in turn, break the siege around that relief force.

Admidel, Hays, Kurande, Sorn—every commander on this planet whose word carried any weight was swiftly summoned by Lin, that they might discuss the matter together.

In truth there was little to discuss. As the ones who had raised the Ultimate Wall, they could not possibly stand by and watch this relief force perish—if only for the sake of the alliance's cohesion.

The only questions were how to save them, and who would go.

Just as everyone had gathered in the conference room, a Servitor happened to hand over the latest information relayed back by Horner once more.

"That battle barge has not answered our hails. But Horner identified it from its keel-code." Having read the message, Lin laid out the situation for everyone present. "It is the Abhorrence, belonging to the Black Templars."

The conclusion came as no surprise to Lin.

Rather, when he put a successor Chapter of the Imperial Fists together with such reckless behaviour, the only name that came to mind was the Black Templars.

Only those madmen would launch an attack in such circumstances, heedless of the consequences.

"The Black Templars?" Kurande knitted his brow. "Why not the Eternal Crusader?"

The Eternal Crusader was the flagship of the Seventh Legion, handed to the Black Templars by Dorn's own hand during the dividing of the Second Founding. It was a legendary Gloriana-class battleship.

Though it too was classed as a battleship, the Gloriana-class—measuring twenty kilometres in length at the very least—held unquestionable supremacy in void warfare. Had it been the Eternal Crusader that appeared here, that single ship alone could have sent every last Ork in the void to be buried alongside Gork and Mork.

Sorn, for his part, was not surprised. "Perhaps this is merely one offshoot of the Black Templars. Our brothers always shroud their company designations in mystery."

"In any case, the rescue operation is upon us." Lin steered the conversation back on track. "Admiral Hays, I would have your fleet serve as the main force of this rescue operation."

Hays nodded his assent, and Lin turned his gaze to Sorn. "Chapter Master Sorn, do you have enough return torpedoes aboard your strike cruiser?"

A strike cruiser was built to support the operations of a hundred-strong company as standardised by the Codex following its division, whereas a battle barge could hold an entire Chapter a thousand warriors strong. Going by the figures Sorn provided, Lin found that, even at the most generous count, the return torpedoes they had on hand could only bring back three hundred men. That meant it was impossible for them to bring back all of the Black Templars.

He did, however, have another idea.

"Concentrate all the boarding torpedoes. I'll have the Hunter take the lead."

On the projection Lin called up the little ship he had cobbled together by hand back on the Azure Star. He had painstakingly fashioned the dragon-head ram at its prow. Though at the time he had done so purely for the look of the thing, now was precisely the moment for it to prove its worth.

"The Hunter will carry all of the boarding torpedoes, ram its way into the Orks' battleship to board, and aid the Black Templars warriors inside. When the time comes, we'll use the weapons aboard the Ork battleship to fire boarding torpedoes back at our own warships, and so complete the return voyage."

Lin set out this audacious notion in plain terms, but the others all exchanged glances, plainly thinking it a touch too idealistic.

"We can't be certain the Orks' gun barrels can even fire our boarding torpedoes..."

"I'll make certain it becomes reality." Lin made the call, settling the matter.

The Expeditionary Fleet would make a surprise entry to open up the space for the Exemplary Fists' strike cruiser to fire its return torpedoes. And the return—by way of both the return torpedoes and the boarding torpedoes—would likewise be aimed at the strike cruiser.

The Expeditionary Fleet's strength could not withstand a sustained Ork siege, so the entire operation had to be spearheaded by elite forces and concluded swiftly and decisively.

Lin refused Kurande's idea of joining the boarding party. He still needed to rely on the man's standing as supreme commander of the Ultimate Wall, and could not let this commander hazard his own life. The warriors of the Exemplary Fists were already to take part in this operation aboard their own strike cruiser, but having lost their veterans, they were not yet elite enough, and would struggle to bear the burden of a swift, decisive engagement.

Lin looked toward Admidel.

This boarding operation to rescue the Black Templars had to be centred upon these veterans of the Second Legion.

The Forge Worlds threw themselves into preparing this rescue operation in feverish haste, and at Lin's command every resource was reallocated anew. Before long, the strike cruisers the Hunter and the Perfectionist were the first to set out.

The Perfectionist would first rendezvous with the fleet under Horner's command to act in concert. The Hunter, meanwhile—carrying the Second Legion veterans, the Felynes, and the boarding torpedoes—relied on its powerful Kushala Daora engine to draw ahead of the rest and close in on the Orks' battleship first.

Though Lin and the others had done their utmost, they would still need close to a full day to reach the site where the Abhorrence and the Orks were locked in battle.

And in the very midst of their journey to the rescue, the Black Templars had already become embroiled in a desperate struggle aboard this labyrinth-like Ork battleship.

Although the battleship's underlying frame was a strike cruiser that had once belonged to the Imperial Fists, its main body had already been altered beyond all recognition by the Orks using the power of their 'I reckon'. The Black Templars warriors groped their way toward the bridge from memory, but the route that should, in theory, have led to the bridge now opened only onto one Ork-infested rubbish heap after another.

Watching the Emperor's Champion Travis and High Marshal Bohemond fighting for their lives at his side, Lancelot, the battle standard gripped in his hand, understood one thing.

They had already fallen into the Orks' labyrinth of slaughter.

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