Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

The members of the Sword Brethren had ringed Lancelot, who bore the battle standard, in their midst, yet even so Lancelot still had to draw his chainsword one-handed to deal with the Orks that slipped through the gaps in the wall of bodies.

Among the Black Templars he counted as a young warrior; though his outstanding battle record had won him the distinction of being a standard bearer, he was not yet skilled at fighting one-handed.

They had already been pressing forward through this warship for who knew how many hours, yet they seemed to have made no progress at all, merely going round in circles among one rubbish heap after another.

The prolonged engagement had all but exhausted the ammunition the Black Templars carried on their persons. In a boarding fight like this, where there could be no resupply, they could only do their utmost to deal with every approaching greenskin in close combat. But this, in turn, only worsened the warriors' drain of stamina.

Ten thousand? Or perhaps twenty thousand?

Three more Orks bored their way through the wall of bodies, and Lancelot had no choice but to raise his sword to meet them.

"There are too many greenskins—we're bogged down in a quagmire!" Even as he struck back, he shouted toward the High Marshal.

"Then raise the battle standard higher still!"

Bohemond roared back at him, then at once demanded:

"Where is Issaga?"

"I don't know! We lost contact with most of the Crusade squads several hours ago!"

Travis had noticed Lancelot's predicament. He came cutting his way back in from the perimeter, the Black Sword in hand, and with just two strokes sent three greenskins to their deaths.

Lancelot looked with a touch of envy at this Emperor's Champion before him, clad in the Armour of Faith—those warriors who dreamed of the Emperor before a great battle would gain, in a short span of time, a power beyond all rivalry.

They would be regarded as the Emperor's chosen, and the Priest of the Black Templars would bestow upon them the Chapter's most precious treasures, the Armour of Faith and the Black Sword. With their extraordinary power they would shoulder tasks that ordinary warriors could never accomplish, and win glory beyond the imagining of common men.

Although most of them would perish in the very tasks they were meant to fulfil, to become an Emperor's Champion who gave his life for the Emperor remained the dream of most Black Templars.

But Travis was not among them.

Travis was one of the few Black Templars who had no interest in the honour of becoming an Emperor's Champion, yet of all people it was he who had dreamed of the Emperor this time, and been chosen as the Emperor's Champion.

Before this boarding action, no small number of the brothers had voiced their misgivings about it.

But as things stood now, Travis's strength was worthy of the honour of the Emperor's Champion.

He was, moreover, the absolute linchpin of this boarding action.

Every Black Templars warrior firmly believed that, so long as they could deliver Travis before the eyes of the Ork warlord aboard this warship, they would seize the victory that was rightfully theirs.

The problem lay in how to deliver the Emperor's Champion to face the Ork warlord.

A thousand warriors might seem like a great many, but set aboard a battleship over ten kilometres long, they amounted to nothing at all.

On top of that, the passages within the battleship were a tangled maze, and the further they pushed forward, the more their strength was dispersed.

Bohemond struck down the hulking Ork before him. He had spent three bolt rounds—more than the ammunition he had budgeted to kill the beast.

He knocked over a smaller greenskin boy with his helmet, then shattered the skull of a third boy with the guard of the bolter he gripped tight. The xenos brain-matter scattered across his armour.

The High Marshal's skill was consummate, but if the battle had already reached the point where even he had to muster all his arts merely to drive back ordinary greenskins, that in itself was a perilous warning sign.

"Hold on a little longer, brothers! The greenskins we face grow more and more numerous—this is surely a sign that we draw near a key enemy!"

Bohemond rallied everyone with his words, but he also understood that his brothers needed practical support beyond mere words.

"What of the guns!"

"One base unit of ammunition left!" the tech-sergeant answered loudly.

"Why not open fire!"

"If we fire now, our own brothers will be caught in the barrage too!"

"Let us take that risk!"

The giant bolters and the Gatling-gun turrets roared to life once more, and the storm of death they unleashed briefly carved out an open clearing amid the endless tide of greenskins.

One base load of ammunition was swiftly spent. That final supporting fire cleared the obstacles before the warriors, but several warriors were likewise cut down by their own side's fire.

Some of the warriors tried to hoist these wounded onto their backs, but Orks had already come surging up again from the rear.

"We can't take them with us," Travis said gloomily.

Everyone understood the truth of it.

All they could do was carry these wounded brothers to a place of cover and hand them what little ammunition they had left. The tech-sergeant additionally passed them a single melta bomb.

"By the Omnissiah above, I pray your sacrifice will be witnessed by the Emperor."

The wounded gave slight nods, raised their bolters, and began to cover the rearguard for the main body.

"For the Emperor!"

The remaining warriors pressed on, treading forward to the roar of the wounded. They burst through the last bulkhead valve and stepped into a rather spacious hall.

This was the circulation hub within the warship; several of the vessel's key nodes could be reached from here, and if they continued straight ahead, the bridge that was their objective lay not far beyond.

But beholding the burly greenskin standing in the centre of the hall, every warrior came to a halt.

In that greenskin's left hand dangled a half-dead tech-boy, while its right hand was a huge metal claw shaped like a beast's head. Tucked into the fur jerkin on its back was a shoulder-mounted Dakka Gun.

The Ork warlord, too, gazed at these Black Templars warriors; from the corners of his mouth—which could not close because of his enormous tusks—drool dribbled down, and in both his eyes was nothing but undisguised bloodlust.

"Good, you done real, real good, boy! Just as I reckoned—stay put 'ere an' the tinned shrimpies come deliverin' themselves to my door!" Goldtooth flung aside the tech-boy in his hand with a wild cackle and drew his great choppa from his back. "You've earned yerself another go at life, boy! Now scram! Don't go gettin' in the way of my scrap!"

"This many tinned shrimpies—that'll keep me havin' a grand ol' time for ages!"

He pointed the tip of his blade provocatively at each of the Astartes in turn: "Which of you wants ter come first? I'll chop the whole lot of yer into mush ter feed the mushrooms!"

Bohemond watched this enemy before him warily; the foe's sheer size alone declared that he was no easy mark: "There's no need to speak of honour when dealing with xenos—everyone, at him together!"

With seamless coordination the Black Templars began to take control of every part of the hall, while the foremost warriors charged the Ork warlord alongside Bohemond.

But it was not only these Space Marines who scorned fair play; in terms of combat cunning alone, the Ork warlord was in no way their inferior.

Seeing that the shrimpies had already dispersed, a sly glint flashed deep in Goldtooth's eyes. Beating his chest with one hand while brandishing his choppa with the other, he scattered the Astartes' attention entirely. A small Squig had, at some unnoticed moment, already crept up onto his shoulder, and—while no one was watching—began to work that shoulder-mounted Dakka Gun.

The Dakka Gun suddenly opened fire, the Orks' specially-made solid slugs spraying out—but its target was not those tinned shrimpies closing in. It was the domed ceiling of the hall.

Accompanied by a teeth-grating tearing sound, the dome of the hall came crashing down all at once!

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