Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

The development of the Hellhound war-vehicle was a pure and happy accident.

Setting aside the fact that it could later be upgraded to transform into a mecha-vampire-bat mode, the vehicle wasn't particularly high-tech—yet Lin had never managed to find a suitable template for it within the Imperium.

After all, the Imperium of Man had never valued the development of high-mobility vehicles. Stacking armor and piling on firepower—that was the true and righteous path in the eyes of an Imperial army that excelled at grinding, positional slugging matches.

As for the enemy's high-mobility vehicles?

So long as your firepower was dense enough, they were nothing more than coffins that happened to move a little faster!

This guiding philosophy left high-speed vehicles with no place to shine within the Imperium. It wasn't that the Imperium lacked fast-assault vehicles entirely, but only a portion of the Space Marines chapters—those serving as special forces—were equipped with a small number of all-terrain buggies. The Astra Militarum rarely fielded such products at all.

What's more, the origins of these all-terrain vehicles were nearly impossible to trace. It was said that relevant production lines could only be found near Mars and Chogoris, the homeworld of the White Scars.

Lin wasn't terribly keen on trekking off to those places just to "borrow inspiration" for his Hellhound, and creating a purely original design from scratch would take far too much effort. So the development of this vehicle ultimately came to nothing.

He never expected that in the end it would be Evil Sun who tinkered the thing into existence.

Earlier, on Cath Maximus, the wildly speeding Ork buggies had caused the Astra Militarum no small amount of trouble. As a newly minted Mek who had unlocked the templates latent within his genes, Evil Sun had naturally mastered the manufacture of Ork buggies as well.

He told Lin he wanted to build something bigger and faster, and Lin, his interest piqued, handed over the Hellhound war-vehicle blueprints he'd had on hand. To his surprise, this Mek actually used the Ork buggy as a foundation to build the still-un-localized contraption.

The greenskin-produced Hellhound war-vehicles were savage in appearance—but then, the Hellhound had always been a cheap vehicle to begin with. Painted red, they could tear along at blistering speeds while also attacking with a single promethium flamer mounted atop the vehicle.

A single Chapter serf served as the driver, and without needing anyone else's cooperation, he could steer the four-wheeled war-machine while spraying out hellfire.

This assault opened its curtain with the entrance of the Hellhound war-vehicles. Relying on their superb mobility, they charged straight into the massed ranks of Nurgle's faithful in an instant.

Burdened by too many swollen mutations upon their bodies, the disciples of Nurgle had always been famous for their clumsiness. Unable to react in time, they were carved apart across the battlefield by the flames of the charging Hellhound war-vehicles.

The high-temperature jets engulfed the foremost of Nurgle's followers. In an instant, these dead men risen from death were reduced to withered black charcoal, embracing death utterly and completely.

The Nurgle disciples trailing behind these walking corpses tried to counterattack, but what greeted them were the Astartes advancing in formation.

The rear-rank Astartes first used bolt rounds to blast these tenacious, hard-to-kill Nurgle faithful into mangled ruin, and then the front-rank warriors wielding Macro-element Flamers sent these stubbornly resisting Nurgle disciples straight to hell.

The plague-power they took such pride in was utterly helpless before true flame!

The air was thick with the stench of scorched flesh and meat, mingled with the foul reek of viruses being purified by fire. Nurgle's faithful let out shrill, agonized screams, but the sound quickly dissipated in the searing heat. Facing the premeditated assault of the Astartes, how could the Bishop fail to understand that he had once again fallen into a trap set by the False Emperor's lackeys?

But he was not without preparations of his own.

"Hold on just a little longer!" he loudly reminded all the Nurgle faithful present. "Once the Grandfather's army arrives, these lackeys of the False Emperor will be ours for the taking!"

Under his command, the Nurgle disciples clustered together. They meant to use the firearms in their hands to overwhelm the Hellhound war-vehicles that kept carving up the battlefield and strangling them one by one—but the Leman Russ set up at the crossroads soon used its 180mm high-explosive shells to teach them the meaning of "no gathering allowed."

This turkey-shoot of a bombardment did not last long, however. Soon, a moving mass of dark cloud swooping down from mid-air obstructed the Leman Russ's fire.

It was a swarm of plague-flies.

These little black insects, driven on by the Nurgle faithful, hurled themselves at the tank, so densely packed they nearly swallowed the vehicle whole.

Though they couldn't pierce the armor, they burrowed into every crack and vent they could find. The Imperial Fists guarding the tank hurriedly torched the plague-flies with flamers, but the insects still succeeded in crippling the Leman Russ's not-quite-sealed engine.

With the engine stalled, it could no longer supply power to the energy cells, and the arcs of the punisher shock-cannon dimmed away.

Lin knitted his brow.

The Leman Russ's ancient HL232 V12 multi-fuel engine was sturdy and reliable, more than able to adapt to over ninety percent of battlefield conditions. But against things of the warp, it was still far too strained.

Having it carry a punisher shock-cannon had been a stopgap measure to begin with; now it seemed the upgrade of the siege tank's hull would have to be moved up the agenda as well.

Robbed of the Leman Russ's fire support, the clustered Nurgle faithful began to mount an effective counterattack. Macro-element Flamers cranked to high temperature were certainly a fine weapon against plague, but the thinly numbered Astartes still found themselves overstretched when dealing with the massed swarms of Nurgle disciples.

This was chiefly because the veterans of the Second Legion had not been deployed. Considering that hidden forces still lurked in the shadows of this world, Lin intended to keep these warriors—who had yet to reveal their edge—as his hidden surprise.

"Issaga!" Lin turned his head and shouted the Librarian's name. "Have you found it?!"

Fine beads of cold sweat dotted Issaga's forehead. The act of pinpointing Chaos Psychic Powers was a considerable risk even for a veteran Librarian like him. "Almost!"

His mind stretched toward the tangled, decayed power that had welled up after the mass deaths of the Nurgle faithful. A ritual circle, positioned who-knew-where, was drawing all this psychic energy into rotating loops. "Just a few more Nurgle faithful slain!"

Lin nodded. Difficult as it was, the extermination of the Nurgle faithful had to continue.

But the Bishop had more than just plague-flies. Seeing that the tank could no longer use that devastating magnetic-rail cannon, he realized it was time to unleash the final trump card in his hand.

He threw up his arms and cried out, "O sinner of the Grandfather! Now is your one chance to prove yourself! Crush them, and let the Grandfather see your worth once more!"

The earth began to rumble and quake once again—but this time the tremors were not caused by the Leman Russ.

"It's a Chaos Spawn!" Thorne muttered under his breath. Having lived through the Siege of Terra, he was no stranger to this kind of Chaos creation.

After all, back then, plenty of Chaos Space Marines had, in the midst of battle, suddenly turned into this very thing.

That Chaos Spawn stood a full five meters and more in height, its surface covered in twisted tumors, every protrusion writhing and endlessly oozing dark green slime. Beneath it were hundreds of squirming tentacles, which—clumsy-looking yet by no means slow—dragged this deformed monstrosity crawling forward.

It came surging with unstoppable momentum from the crossroads where the stalled Leman Russ sat. The Leman Russ tried to fire back with its two 90mm cannons. The armor-piercing rounds that sank into the Chaos Spawn drew from it an indescribable howl of agony, but the brimming power of Nurgle swiftly repaired those pulp-bursting wounds, restoring the Chaos Spawn to its former state.

The Chaos Spawn lashed out with the mutated tentacles across its body. The countless tentacles wrapped around the Leman Russ, and the seventy-plus-ton tank looked like a mere toy before it.

It even hefted the Leman Russ up and down, as though savoring the pre-death despair of the mortal driver within.

But all that greeted it was a grenade hurled out through the opened hatch.

"ROAAAR!!!"

The humiliated Chaos Spawn bellowed, and slammed the Leman Russ viciously into the ruins beside it. The Leman Russ, already twisted into scrap metal, was instantly buried beneath the rubble. Lin could only hope the brave mortal inside had not suffered too much in his passing.

This was a Chaos Spawn that a mortal could be twisted and mutated by from a single glance!

Having dealt with the Leman Russ, the Chaos Spawn rushed toward the Astartes besieging the Nurgle faithful. Lin fixed his eyes on Issaga, waiting for him to complete his triangulation.

As yet another Nurgle disciple was "evolved" by the flames amid his screams, Issaga, eyes shut tight, at last wearily opened them. In the gaze of this seven-hundred-year-old veteran, Lin could see an undisguisable dread.

"Where is the ritual?" Lin asked.

"It's everywhere!"

Lin had no time for now to puzzle over what this "everywhere" was supposed to mean. Through the comm channel, he issued the order to the other Astartes: "Cease the attack. Withdraw!"

Several Thunderhawk gunships, spiraling down from the sky, used the four twin-linked heavy bolters in their nose sections to sweep clear a landing zone. Capable of carrying thirty men each, they picked up the majority of the battle-brothers on the field. A portion of the Astartes and the Hellhound war-vehicles were left behind as cover, and once the Thunderhawk gunships had taken off, these Hellhound war-vehicles threw out tow-trailers, into which the remaining brothers filed in an orderly stream.

"They must not be allowed to escape!" The Bishop's shriek scarcely sounded human. Having paid such a heavy price, he refused to see himself achieve nothing. "Chaos Spawn—hold them here!"

The Chaos Spawn planted itself in the path of the Hellhound war-vehicles. It flailed its tentacles, trying to halt all these Hellhound war-vehicles at once, but the result of wanting everything was losing grip on it all. The surging power granted by the Hellhound war-vehicles' potent engines let them toy with the Chaos Spawn as it lumbered in clumsy pursuit. Under alternating cover, they nimbly wove around the Chaos Spawn and vanished from the battlefield in a streak of dust.

A pity the Nurgle faithful couldn't communicate with the Zerg swarm from another universe—otherwise they would have known how, back in the day, these war-vehicles had stolen every last drone from the Zerg.

This battle against the Nurgle faithful ended in a resounding victory. But the most exhilarated one was not Lin or any other Astartes—it was Evil Sun, who had personally taken part in the Hellhound war-vehicle's development.

"Fast, so fast!"

Watching the Hellhound war-vehicles racing away from the battlefield, Evil Sun capered and gesticulated at Lin's side. "Just like a Squig with a firecracker lit on its tail! Never thought I'd get to build somethin' this flash with me own two hands! Even dyin' now would be worth the price of admission!"

Lin made no particular response to this, but Evil Sun knew full well that his ability to build such a thing rested entirely on the blueprints provided by this silver-class Big Mek. Once his bout of leaping, bouncing excitement had run its course, this Mek sought Lin out and prostrated himself sincerely before him.

"Big Mek, please teach me!"

Noticing the odd looks from the surrounding Astartes, Lin kicked Evil Sun away with one foot.

"We'll talk later," he said dismissively.

Truth be told, he didn't quite dare to teach him.

At first Lin had only meant to teach Evil Sun a little science and technology—after all, what he needed were weapons that humans could use too, not junk that fell apart the moment it was separated from the Orks' "I reckon."

But in the course of instructing Evil Sun, Lin discovered that the more specifically Evil Sun understood the manufacturing process of a thing, the more the thing he built would, conversely, lose that inconceivable efficacy of traditional Ork weapons.

This situation piqued Lin's interest, and he conducted repeated experiments and verifications upon Evil Sun. In the end, he grasped the rough parameters of the power of 'I reckon.'

The Orks first had to have a rough conception of a thing, and only then would their power of 'I reckon' begin to take effect. For instance, they had to know at the very least that a gun fires and makes noise—only then could they build a gun whose principles had absolutely nothing to do with actual firearms, but which nonetheless fired and made a great deal of noise. But if you actually dissected the principles of a firearm and taught them to them piece by piece, they would instead be unable to build that kind of weapon whose logic and power were equally absurd.

Put simply, know too much, and you can no longer reckon.

But this was in fact all the more terrifying, because if their weapons could function without needing waaagh energy to sustain them, then their power of 'I reckon' would be devoted more to amplifying weapon power and psychic attacks.

With just a moment's thought, Lin couldn't help but marvel at what monsters the Old Ones had created all those ages ago. Thank goodness the Necrons had, back then, wiped out the batch of Orks who truly understood technology—otherwise this galaxy might well have been swallowed by endless greenskins before the Great Devourer ever arrived.

Lin would not simply give up on turning these "creative" greenskins to his own use. But just as the World Soul had reminded him, until he found a way to strip away the greenskins' "harmfulness," Lin could not let them develop too much.

Perhaps, with Evil Sun at the head, cultivating a domesticated clan was not a bad idea.

But all this was a matter for later. What mattered now was pinning down the location of the ritual. The Astartes withdrew all the way back to the defensive line they had constructed. The Planetary Defense Force took over most of the defense of the position, allowing the battle-brothers who had just fought a grueling battle to rest for a while within the fortifications.

During the respite, Lin sought out all the Chapter's senior figures. Those capable of making decisions gathered once more, and at last they had the time to figure out why Issaga had earlier said "it's everywhere."

"This ritual circle is enormous—it encompasses nearly half the underhive," Issaga explained. "That's also why we couldn't determine the direction of the psychic energy earlier. It's too vast, so the profane energy it absorbs scatters and re-merges into the ritual circle, leaving me unable to pin down the precise location."

The sheer shock of this news was considerable, and for a moment no one made a sound.

Who had the ability to lay out such a vast ritual circle in total silence?

A traitor Inquisitor, or a Chaos Warband, had originally been their prime suspects. But unless that Inquisitor had several hundred retainers, or that Chaos Warband had dozens of Word Bearers specialized in rituals, they would lack the power to preside over a rite of this scale.

And yet, if they truly had that many people, how could they have gone days being hunted by the Imperial Fists without leaving so much as a trace?

What's more—a ritual circle the size of nearly half the underhive?

What in the world was this mastermind trying to do? Drag the whole of Port Sanctus into the Warp?

The matter grew murky and bewildering once again. Everyone knitted their brows and bowed their heads in silence. Only Lin thought of something. He sought further confirmation from Issaga: "You confirmed the size of the ritual circle—did you confirm how many nodes it has?"

"Seven, aside from the center… why?"

"Numbers are a very important factor. Through this factor, even the bizarre profane energy of the Warp can be analyzed by science."

"What science?" Issaga was intrigued.

"If you really want to know, I can teach you a bit of numerology as well."

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