Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

An attack from within, coordinated with one from without!

A pincer from both sides!

Half of the tech-sergeant's news was what Goldtooth had wanted to hear. Even though the plan hadn't been put forward by Goldtooth himself, the mere thought that he too counted as a part of it made him puff out his chest with pride.

"Shrimpies!" he cackled wildly. "Yer doom has come!"

He was already scheming over how he'd torment this pack of clueless shrimpies aboard the warship later on—at the very least he had to claw back the debt for being smashed to bits all over earlier. But Admidel was not flustered; he merely confirmed: "How are the boarding torpedoes?"

"They've all been hauled down to the lower deck!"

"Then launch the boarding torpedoes first!"

Gamas took the order and began directing the Felynes to assemble the torpedo launching apparatus, even roping in the Black Templars' tech-sergeant to assist.

The so-called launching apparatus was simply a modification carried out upon the Orks' cannons. But the very principle of Ork weaponry was a tangled mess driven by 'I reckon,' and the Black Templars tech-sergeant fiddled with it for ages, yet in the end still couldn't make sense of how the Ork ship-cannon worked.

"This can't be done," he denied. "Not only does the calibre not match the torpedo—I can't even find a launching mechanism on the thing. How on earth are you lot going to..."

Gamas cut him off: "That's not your job. The Felynes will handle the modification part. You only need to direct the Servitors to load the torpedoes in."

"You mean those xenos you brought along? I still don't understand..."

But before long, the Felynes shattered the tech-sergeant's doubts with action.

They leapt onto the weapons the Orks had assembled with the power of 'I reckon,' and at a dazzling speed began refitting the Ork ship-cannons. As the power of 'I reckon' was disrupted, these inherently unreasonable weapons began to loosen. But the pale-golden psychic energy gradually kindling upon the Felynes was ceded over to these now more scientific weapons, re-stabilizing their structure.

Combining science with psychic power, they completed the modification of the Ork weaponry.

The Black Templars sergeant was dumbstruck: "These xenos..."

"Felynes," Gamas corrected.

The tech-sergeant immediately changed his tune: "They really are good companions of ours."

The boarding torpedoes were loaded straight into the modified ship-cannons, and the Astartes began entering these torpedoes in batches. Issaga, who had recovered his senses somewhat, hoisted Bohemond up and retreated with him toward the torpedoes.

Bohemond's helmet had already shattered, exposing his blood-smeared face. The failure of the Imperial Fists' line of Sus-an Membrane left him still lucid at this moment, and he groaned in agony:

"Not yet..."

"It's this late and you're still thinking about that?! Fall back first!"

Issaga's stern rebuttal did not win Bohemond's agreement. The High Marshal struggled: "That is a weapon blessed by the Emperor! I will not let the Emperor's glory be defiled by the Black Templars' dereliction of duty!"

Issaga wasted no more words. He simply slapped the back of the man's head and knocked him out cold, then, in the name of the Priest, commanded the Black Templars who had gathered around to watch:

"In the name of the Emperor, I demand that you live! Better than dying here, your living on can serve the Emperor all the more faithfully!"

The Black Templars warriors did not argue back. As warriors of the God-Emperor faction, they held great respect for the Priest, whom they saw as able to commune directly with the Emperor. Add to that the fact that they were well aware of their own High Marshal's penchant for being all hype and no skill—unwilling to lose Bohemond, they could only tacitly accept this setback.

The wounded were arranged to evacuate in the first batch. The group shouldered the High Marshal and entered a boarding torpedo, where one Felyne was already inside performing the final adjustments on the equipment.

As the torpedo was launched, this Felyne standing at the very front took over the torpedo's controls, and the boarding torpedo raced toward the Perfectionist that had come to receive them.

But another Ork battleship had at this moment already moved to block the torpedo's launch path.

Fortunately, the launch window had not been completely sealed off. The Felyne piloted the torpedo, nimbly threading out through the gap. But the close-defense weapons on the Ork battleship began to roar.

Their aim was very poor, but the greenskins had always won by sheer numbers. A dense rain of fire came hurtling toward the boarding torpedoes, and somehow the torpedo carrying the High Marshal received special attention.

The boarding torpedoes' sturdiness was not absolute—otherwise so many torpedoes wouldn't have been destroyed midway.

Issaga tried to raise a psionic shield, but the grievous wounds he'd taken earlier left this layer of psionic shield exceedingly thin, and every single round it blocked struck Issaga's mind as though by a thunderbolt.

He let out a muffled grunt and wiped away the fresh blood seeping from his mouth and nose.

Perhaps all they could really do now was pray to the Emperor...

But suddenly, a wave of icy psychic energy surged up. It spread out along Issaga's mind, helping him stabilize the psionic shield enveloping the torpedo.

Issaga turned around in astonishment, and noticed that this psychic energy had actually been transmitted to him from the Felyne at the front who was piloting the torpedo.

So long as it was used for retreat, how could a torpedo not count as a kind of cat-cart?

The boarding torpedoes broke through the Orks' interception, and the melta bombs at the torpedoes' tips blasted open the cruiser's armour plating, burrowing straight into the Exemplary Fists' strike cruiser.

The Exemplary Fists warriors, well prepared, swarmed forward at Sorn's command. They cut open the torpedoes and drew out the wounded inside.

The Felynes swiftly entered the return torpedoes aboard the cruiser, setting off once more to go retrieve the remaining warriors aboard the Ork battleship.

The return torpedoes were a variant version of the boarding torpedoes; although collectively termed boarding torpedoes, the return torpedoes did not carry melta bombs.

Comparatively gentler, they were better suited for use on warships that had already been breached. The present Ork battleship and the strike cruiser, blasted into a sorry state by its own torpedoes, happened to fit the use case of the return torpedoes perfectly.

Another batch of warriors was ferried back by the return torpedoes—even the mortal crew operating the Leman Russ were among them.

The evacuation operation was already drawing to a close, but the nearer it drew to the end, the more critical the situation became.

Admidel was still locked in struggle with the Ork warlord, but the mass evacuation of personnel had already left the battle line on the lower deck impossible to hold.

The gun batteries that had originally been seized by the Space Marines were once again occupied by the Orks. The remaining Astartes rallied around Admidel, fighting desperately, trying to hack out a path toward the torpedoes.

So long as Admidel could tie up the Ork warlord, this was not impossible to achieve. The remaining Felynes began setting up traps to delay the Orks—but from Gamas came a piece of dire news that nobody wanted to hear.

"The other battleship has completely blocked the torpedo's launch window!"

This meant that escape via torpedo was already impossible.

Admidel's heart sank.

This was not their only means of escape, but to try to return to the Hunter under these circumstances...

That seemed none too realistic either.

Admidel, pondering a countermeasure, looked toward the teleport beacon cradled against his chest.

Fortunately, Goldtooth did not seize on his distraction to press the attack, because the weird boy at his side had once again been possessed by the Priest, and the arrival of that Ork weirdboy forced Goldtooth, too, to break off and converse with him.

"Looks like you didn't fulfill our agreement, Goldtooth."

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