Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

(All discussion here involving Gork and Mork and the ancient Orks is my own headcanon; the official lore has never explicitly mentioned it.)

"Greenskins? Merely pure war-machines created by the Old Ones—but that's all there is to it. Even if you're interested, I've got nothing worth telling."

"I've heard, though, that the Orks of old were rather different from those of today. They say every Ork back then stood over ten meters tall, and that they commanded technology more advanced than any present-day civilization?"

"That's something of an exaggeration." Miraboreas waved a hand. "Though it's true the most ordinary Ork back then stood about a meter taller than these Astartes, and was a good deal stronger in battle. As for technology, that was never the Orks' forte. During the War in Heaven, the ancient Orks' equipment was supplied by the races responsible for logistics, the Aeldari chief among them."

"Don't they have Big Meks?" Lin asked.

"That was a branch that developed later. The Old Ones placed no limits upon the greenskins; their intent was to draw out the greenskins' combat power to the utmost. But after the Old Ones were exterminated, the unrestrained greenskins soon became a plague that ravaged the cosmos. Not only the Necrons—they also turned hostile against the Aeldari, who had originally handled their logistics. To make up for their missing equipment, the cleverer ones among them developed a means of manufacturing weapons through their psychic power."

"And then this clever portion of the Orks was dealt with by the Necrons?"

"Exactly. The Necrons pruned away all the smart Orks, causing the greenskins' development to regress to the savage 'I reckon.' The technology that had once combined science and psychic power was left with only psychic drive, so that the Orks as a species no longer posed a fundamental threat."

"Going by the Orks' nature, they ought to be able to develop it all over again."

The Black Dragon affirmed Lin's words: "Of course—if there were another War in Heaven."

Lin pinched his chin, realizing that the level of the Orks' development truly depended on the intensity of war.

This explanation could account for why, during the Great Crusade, there had been an Ork warlord who nearly punched the Emperor to death. But the present was not the war-ravaged Great Crusade. Before the Beast War, the Imperium had already entered a tranquil age of prosperity. In so peaceful an environment, how had such a pack of beasts been incubated like gu-poison?

"But..." Lin was still pondering, but the Black Dragon had already turned his gaze upon the Evil Sun.

He regarded this Ork with great interest and remarked, "Though it's only just brushed the edge of it, this one really does have a bit of the flavor of a smart Ork."

"Only a bit?"

"Of course. Military matters, technology, even diplomacy—the Orks of that age were developed far beyond anything you can imagine. They were no mere beasts that knew only war; in many cases they were partners one could parley with. But their ecological destructiveness was simply too great, and at the same time they harbored the ambition to become the masters of the universe, which is why the Aeldari and the Necrons joined hands to exterminate them first."

"Including the two brothers, Gork and Mork?" Lin suddenly realized the question.

The Aeldari had their pantheon of gods. Although those racial gods were now all but extinct, back at the height of the Aeldari's power, why had they not destroyed the Orks' racial gods along with everything else?

"Ha—Gork and Mork. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while." Miraboreas seemed to recall some amusing matter. "At their very peak, this pair were bold enough to march into the Garden of Nurgle and each deal that fat one a vicious blow."

"You haven't heard the name because they were destroyed?"

"No—so long as the Orks aren't wiped out entirely, those two are deathless and undying. But for now they can essentially be discounted."

Meeting Lin's puzzled gaze, the Black Dragon offered a brief explanation: "The Old Ones built into the greenskins a racial psychic power that did not flow through the Warp. This psychic power ultimately formed Gork and Mork within the Warp. Like the Orks, they are little affected by the Warp, but in turn they cannot, like those four beings, draw power from any sentient species. Their strength or weakness depends solely on whether the Ork race is flourishing."

Lin of course understood the Black Dragon's implication: that the Orks' present strength was insufficient to support Gork and Mork manifesting in the Warp to make trouble. But this only made it harder to explain why the Beast War was now breaking out. If there were no shadow of Gork and Mork behind it, then by what means did these Orks show signs of atavism?

This question, too, was beyond the Black Dragon's scope; he hemmed and hawed, unable to answer, and Lin could only steer the question toward the direction he cared about most at present.

"Do you think these Orks... can they be made use of? The way the Old Ones did?"

"Eh?" The Black Dragon looked at Lin as though gazing upon some rare and precious animal.

He shook his head in refusal. "I'd advise you to drop that notion. These beasts, fitted with no control mechanism, are not something you can lay your hands on—unless you can be as mighty as the Old Ones."

Weak Orks had no value to exploit, but an Ork population grown strong would awaken Gork and Mork, who held far greater sway over them—to try to wrest control of a whole species away from two racial gods?

Anyone would call that a wild fantasy.

But Lin did not see it that way. "Which is to say, somewhere in the range between weak and strong, there exists a window in which the greenskins' usefulness can be brought into play..."

"When it all blows up in your face, don't drag me into it." The Black Dragon shook his head, beginning to doubt whether choosing such a madman for an ally had been the right decision. "Let's leave it there. I have to get back."

"Rest easy—I know my own limits."

Learning about the greenskins' history had not resolved Lin's doubts, but it had at least clarified some of the directions ahead for him. As the Aeldari opened a Warp route before them, they arrived at the Port Sanctus system far faster than anticipated.

"The further along the Warp goes, the calmer it becomes. We've now reached Port Sanctus's Mandeville Point." Issaga explained. He had spotted no sign of the Aeldari—those beansprouts' concealment methods really were something. "I don't know the reason, but I think it's a good thing."

"Increase Warp engine output—tear open the veil of reality! Prepare to translate out of the Warp!" Lin issued the order. "The instant we emerge, reboot the void shields and the augur array!"

The three cruisers returned from the Warp to realspace, but what greeted them was not the desolate void of space—it was a bustling defensive array.

At least several thousand orbital defense weapons locked onto this Astartes fleet all at once, and the warning klaxons of the warships' freshly rebooted augur systems erupted into a deafening chorus.

All the mortal crew tensed up. The Chief Augur swallowed and suggested to Lin, "My lord, ought we to announce our identity to them?"

Lin did not answer. He studied the defensive array poised and ready to strike, feeling somewhat baffled within.

"First, calibrate the time," he ordered.

The bridge fell into a flurry of activity, and before long they handed the result to Lin.

Seventy-seven hours—that was the time it had taken them to travel from Cath Maximus to Port Sanctus.

This figure threw the bridge into an uproar; even the Astartes could not help bowing their heads and conferring in low voices.

The trip from Cath Maximus to Port Sanctus was certainly a "short" journey—but a "short" journey of that sort was still counted in weeks.

And yet they had reached here in a mere seventy-seven hours?

Although time within the Warp was chaotic and disordered, the results of that disorder usually meant delay rather than arriving early. Given that arriving early was itself an anomaly, everyone aboard began to wonder whether this was an ill omen.

Lin could only press his hands downward and offer, in a ringing voice, an interpretation of the situation.

"The Master of Mankind has shown mercy upon us warriors who give our all, body and brain, for the Imperium! All of this is surely the might of the Emperor!"

This interpretation satisfied all the mortals; they swiftly calmed down and made orderly contact with the Imperial forces defending the system.

But apart from that Black Templar called Lancelot, no one—including Lin himself—believed a word of this rhetoric.

Arriving this quickly proved those beansprouts really did have some skill, but what about beyond that?

Lin did not much believe it was a coincidence; it was only that, for now, he had no evidence.

Kurande drew near. "What do you make of it?"

"I don't know what it means, but it surely isn't all bad." Lin looked at the intact defensive array. Had they arrived here on the normal timetable, this place would certainly already have been utterly destroyed by the Battle Moon. "At the very least, we'll have plenty of room to intervene."

A small in-system defense flotilla sped toward the Astartes fleet. This flotilla consisted mainly of Resolute-class escorts, and the Resolute-class was a small warship with only in-system navigation capability—it did not even mount a void shield system.

For a system that served as a major naval stronghold, this flotilla was plainly far too shabby, and that shabbiness laid bare a cold fact.

—The Imperium's reinforcements had likely not yet arrived.

The navy crews aboard the escorts requested to confirm the identity of Lin's party, and when they saw the Astartes, their faces shone with irrepressible excitement.

"It's the Emperor's Angels! We're saved!"

The defensive array swiftly released its lock on the fleet, and under the escorts' guidance Lin's party proceeded to the Ramilies-class Star Fort that served as the hub of the defensive array, to meet with the supreme commander of the place.

The supreme commander aboard this Star Fort was merely a colonel of equal rank to Horner.

This officer clearly understood the Astartes Chapters far better than the rank-and-file troopers under him. At the sight of Kurande clad in yellow armor, the worry and strain in his brow vanished in an instant. He strode briskly forward, made the Aquila salute to Kurande, and asked, unable to wait: "Honored brother of the Imperial Fists, are you reinforcements sent by the High Lords?"

"No. This is an independent operation of the Chapter."

"Ah—then, may I ask, how many of you are there in total...?"

The colonel hesitated a little; he knew the question overstepped his bounds, but his lack of security made him crave a reply that would set his mind at ease as soon as possible.

Kurande did not answer, and worry at once spread thickly across the colonel's face once more.

"We are not a force come from the direction of Terra; we are on our way back to Terra after completing a mission." Lin took up the thread. "If I may speak frankly, you all seem to crave support desperately. What has happened here?"

"Nothing has happened here yet, but a catastrophe is right upon us!"

The colonel swallowed, as though merely thinking of such an existence filled him with dread. "Honored sage, do you know? We are about to face a fortress-world as large as a moon—and one that can fly, no less!"

"How much do you know about this world?"

"I don't know, but at every moment our astropaths receive signals from countless worlds—pleas for aid, or transmissions from worlds already destroyed! The most recent message we received came a week ago: another system, before its destruction, warned us that Orks were piloting an armed planet toward Port Sanctus. By our projections, those Orks should appear here within the next few days!"

It seemed the only thing this navy understood about the Battle Moon was, perhaps, the size of the thing.

Lin did not believe these defensive arrays could halt the Orks' Battle Moon. The Ramilies-class Star Fort was mighty, to be sure, but no matter how powerful an immobile defense system might be, before the Orks' gravity weapons it was no more than a toy.

So he began to probe obliquely into the state of Port Sanctus's fleet. "There's no need to worry. No other system has defenses as complete as Port Sanctus's. So long as a naval fleet supports from the flank, the odds of the Orks posing any threat to Port Sanctus are next to nil."

At Lin's words, the colonel's face showed only a bitter, miserable smile. "That is precisely the problem—Port Sanctus's fleet has all been recalled to Terra."

"All of it? When?"

"Before we received word of the Orks, the Imperial fleet garrisoned at Port Sanctus suddenly received orders to depart for Terra. No sooner had they translated into the Warp than we got the news that the Orks' armed satellite was advancing toward this place."

The Astartes exchanged glances; every one of them caught a whiff of something out of the ordinary in this.

Did the High Lords mean to simply abandon the Port Sanctus system outright?

No wonder the garrison here longed so for reinforcements—after all, the arrival of reinforcements would prove the abandonment to be false...

Lin pondered. "If I wished to discuss this matter with the supreme commander of this place, whom should we seek out?"

"The supreme commander of the defensive array is, at present, myself; the only other person of authority is the planetary governor. If you wish to see him, you may proceed directly to the world of Port Sanctus. I'm sure the governor will eagerly await your coming."

"Then please put us in contact with the governor, and inform him that we shall soon be visiting the world of Port Sanctus."

"Of course, my lord." The colonel forced himself to rally his spirits and made an Aquila salute to Lin and the Astartes. "I will report the news of your arrival up the chain. You need only proceed directly to Port Sanctus."

Lin nodded and turned to leave the Star Fort together with Kurande. But in the moment before departing, he paused slightly, turned his head, and reminded the colonel:

"When the Orks' gravity weapons are at maximum output, organize a salvo strong enough to overload their void shields. That is your only chance."

The colonel did not understand, but Lin said no more.

By the way the Beast War would unfold from here, the Battle Moon appearing at Port Sanctus was not the only one. Another Battle Moon would yet appear directly at Terra, and if the situation proved hopeless, he would not stake everything in a death-struggle here.

A single hint was already the greatest mercy he could spare.

He returned to his ship, and the three cruisers set sail once again, departing for Port Sanctus within the system.

Port Sanctus lay near the inner side of the system, so the voyage there would take no small amount of time. Before reaching Port Sanctus, they passed several other planets in the system that served as shipyards—but without exception, the furnace fires on these worlds had long since gone cold.

Only now did Kurande gain a fresh understanding of just how worm-like the High Lords were.

PS: Some people are puzzled by the Black Templars' choice. Let me explain—this choice is, in fact, the original plot of the Beast War.

The High Marshal's point is that there is more than one Battle Moon; even defending against the one attacking Terra would not be the end of it. Greenskins multiply exponentially, and if the source of the Orks is not snuffed out, then Battle Moons will be produced in an endless stream—and at that point they'll have countless defenses of Terra to fight.

So the High Marshal made a choice similar to the Lion's during the Great Heresy, but his is a more radical "trade-bases" tactic—namely, giving up on returning to defend Terra. He reckons Terra has Mars, has orbital defenses, has the Custodian Guard holding it up, so they'd be better off going straight to snuff out the source of the Orks and then coming back to reinforce Terra (they don't know that once the Golden Toilet blows, it'll become the next Eye of Terror).

But the Imperial Fists would certainly never agree to this idea. The conflict of views, along with a series of new disputes that followed, led to a rift between the two Chapters—so much so that later, when the Imperial Fists were being rebuilt, the Black Templars were rather unwilling to contribute gene-seed.

Honestly, this part being the original plot is pretty outrageous too, but I think the falling-out between the Imperial Fists and the Black Templars is a classic, unavoidable episode. So I kept this part, so everyone understands that what you're reading is the proper, tabletop-accurate Fists.

I did my best earlier to lay the groundwork for the Black Templars so as to make this development reasonable, and at the same time I used this plot as a driver for what comes next. There's no changing it now—if you all still find it abrupt, then go yell at GW.)

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