Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

That the Imperial fleet had reached orbit above the Battle Moon was something Lin already knew while he was still on the surface. But it was only after the Thousand Son sorcerer used psychic teleportation to return them to the strike cruiser the Perfectionist that Lin discovered the Soul Drinkers Chapter and the Castigators Chapter had also arrived on the scene.

"So Lansung wanted to fire an Exterminatus and claim the glory of destroying the Battle Moon for himself, and the Soul Drinkers and the Castigators stopped him together?"

Lin confirmed the broad outline of events with the ship's captain. The men who had stayed in orbit had no idea, of course, that what had actually halted the strike was the sordid friction between the Imperial Navy and the Mechanicus. Either way, though, a debt of gratitude was owed.

"We should invite both Chapter Masters who answered the Ultimate Wall's summons to a meeting, and thank them in person," Thorne proposed.

Kurande was hardly going to refuse. The Castigators would naturally be approached by Issaga, who had been a Castigators Librarian to begin with. As for the Soul Drinkers...

"Where's Zebyrean?" Lin asked.

Only then did the assembly notice that Zebyrean, who was supposed to be minding the fleet, was nowhere to be found. Fortunately the captain had an answer for them.

"He has already gone to thank the Soul Drinkers on the Chapter's behalf."

On the shielding platforms that ringed the main deck in the shape of a warding sigil, the Soul Drinkers' cherubim sang hymns to calm the psychic tides. Zebyrean stepped onto the deck of the Glory to that singing.

The armoured blast doors reacted to his arrival. A metre thick, alloy laced with silvered steel, they parted with a hiss of pneumatics, and dozens of heavy las-emitters and bolt cannons swung to bear on him.

Those killing machines covered every metre from the doorway to the deck, and only stood down once they had confirmed Zebyrean's identity. He raised his head and found a single figure waiting for him in the distance.

It was Daenyathos, Chapter Master of the Soul Drinkers.

"I hope you will not take offence that only I have come to greet you, brother." There was an unusual warmth about Daenyathos. "We have only just weathered an ork boarding action. My Honour Guard are still purging the last of the greenskins from this vessel."

Zebyrean was not the least bit displeased. In truth, he approved of every part of the procedure, including the ship's guns that had just been trained on him, because all of it accorded with the Codex Astartes.

Admittedly, being met by the Chapter Master alone did breach protocol. But set against the heresies of practice he had seen within the Ultimate Wall, what was a minor lapse under extraordinary circumstances?

"A simple reception suits me perfectly, Chapter Master Daenyathos. I am only the first-company captain of the Exemplary Fists. There's no need for me to be feted the way Kurande and Thorne are."

"First captain is a weighty office, Brother Zebyrean. You need not be modest. To carry such a burden on the strength of a century of battle speaks to your ability, and to the trust others place in you."

Trust. Really?

Remembering Thorne's attitude toward him, Zebyrean said nothing. He wanted to explain that his First Company was only a rebuilt formation raised after the original had been annihilated, that even counting generously it held barely thirty new recruits. But the words would not come.

Daenyathos caught the shift in his mood at once. "Brother, I can feel your humility. But I can also feel your dissatisfaction with Brother Kurande and Brother Thorne."

He had steered the conversation somewhere Zebyrean found deeply awkward. Zebyrean waved a hand to show he had no wish to discuss it.

"I came only to thank the Soul Drinkers Chapter for extending a hand to my Chapter in its hour of peril. If you had not joined us in time, I could never have stopped the Imperial Navy's treachery alone."

But Daenyathos would not let it go. "We are both sons of Dorn. Aiding a brother is simply our duty. And for the Soul Drinkers, such aid has never been limited to force of arms. Brother, why not speak with me about what troubles you?"

"I don't want to make all of this any more... burdensome. Chapter Master Daenyathos, I came to repay the Soul Drinkers for their help. How could I impose on you further?"

"You are mistaken, Brother Zebyrean. Only by untying a knot in the heart can one prevent it from becoming a greater trouble later. Besides, guiding one's warriors is a Chapter Master's duty as set down in the Codex. Is it not?"

Daenyathos's words moved Zebyrean profoundly. He found himself measuring this Chapter Master in purple power armour against Thorne, and the man before him came out immeasurably the more worthy of the office.

He let his guard down a little and prepared to tell his story. "It isn't quite a conflict. Only some unpleasantness. It began when..."

A sudden vox request cut across the two of them as they walked side by side. Daenyathos accepted it and found the message came from his own shipmaster.

"My lord. A new message from the Perfectionist, addressed to you. It is signed by Kurande, Chapter Master of the Imperial Fists."

Daenyathos did not step away from Zebyrean. He opened the message and found a brief note of thanks for the Soul Drinkers' support, along with an invitation to meet aboard the Perfectionist. At the end, it noted specifically that Thorne wished his first-company captain to return to his post as soon as possible.

"It seems we shall be returning to the Perfectionist together."

Zebyrean's face fell, and the air between them turned heavy with his dejection.

But for a man with his own designs, such a mood was exactly right.

"Whether one is new blood joining a Chapter or a newly raised captain, being doubted is something every one of us must pass through."

As Daenyathos offered his comfort, he held out the book in his hand. Zebyrean's gaze was drawn to the blue cover without his meaning it. "What is this?"

"The Catechisms Martial. I wrote it as a guide for those Soul Drinker brothers who find themselves adrift. Read it, Brother Zebyrean. I believe it will help your situation as well."

Thorne did not upbraid Zebyrean, because thanking the Soul Drinkers was not in itself a problem.

He simply did not trust the man out of his sight. He had the persistent feeling that the moment this captain stepped outside his direct orders, he would find some spectacular way to make headlines.

Yet when Zebyrean and Daenyathos arrived aboard the Perfectionist, Thorne saw the two of them deep in cordial conversation, with none of the trouble he had feared.

He relaxed somewhat, and joined Kurande in hosting a brief welcome ceremony aboard the warship for the Castigators and the Soul Drinkers.

Grim news came from the Castigators. Their Chapter had been ambushed by orks en route to reinforce Terra. Their Chapter Master and several Captains had fallen beneath the greenskin onslaught, leaving barely four hundred battle-brothers in the entire Chapter.

After an internal vote, they had decided that Issaga, who held high standing and understood the present situation better than anyone, would take up the mantle of Chapter Master. Which meant Daenyathos was the only newcomer at the ceremony.

Daenyathos was unlike the usual sons of Dorn. His speech was gentle, his thinking deep, and his frame looked all the nobler against the purple of the Soul Drinkers' power armour. He preferred to preserve his Chapter's independence, yet was willing to support the Ultimate Wall in this critical hour with Terra encircled. With his cooperation, the ceremony ended to everyone's satisfaction, with the Soul Drinkers declaring that they accepted Kurande's leadership.

The Soul Drinkers numbered over eight hundred, the largest of any Chapter currently present. And they had brought a precious battle barge with them, exactly the kind of fleet strength the Ultimate Wall needed most.

Kurande's spirits lifted at this rare piece of good news. After the ceremony ended, however, Lin sought him out.

"What do you make of the Soul Drinkers?"

Kurande did not understand why Lin would ask. "They keep their own counsel, but they are upright men. They began moving toward Terra the moment they received the Ultimate Wall's summons, and in the end they saved us from ruin... why? Magos Lin, do you have some negative view of them?"

"I'm only curious about where they came from."

"They were a Chapter carved out by our father Dorn himself during the Second Founding. Of that there is no doubt. Granted, they vanished into the void as a fleet-based Chapter after that Founding. But I believe men who could return to Terra in time remain loyal sons of Dorn."

At the very least, as far as Kurande was concerned, these Soul Drinkers were vastly preferable to the Black Templars.

Lin shrugged, aware that saying more would only sow doubt for nothing. He let Kurande's judgment stand for the moment, then turned and went to find Admidel, who had also attended the ceremony.

"Did you notice anything unusual about those Soul Drinkers? Anything that resembled your own kind, for instance?"

"You mean you think they're descended from the Second Legion?" Lin's question startled him. Yet he searched his memory for a long while and could recall nothing about Daenyathos that resembled the Second Legion at all.

"No evidence, then... perhaps we simply need to observe them longer."

Several thousand years from now, mired in fleshy mutation and entanglement with Chaos, the Soul Drinkers would be proven not to carry Dorn's bloodline at all, and would be destroyed for it. Which meant they had to be survivors of one of the two obliterated Legions, folded into the Imperial Fists. The problem was proving which one.

Before departing for Port Sanctus, Lin had been fretting under Thorne's pressing questions over what they would do once they reached the Shanzheng. Now the solution had walked right up to him of its own accord.

Used correctly, a Chapter with such an unambiguous Second Founding pedigree would be his firmest backing when he returned to the Shanzheng.

The Soul Drinkers' later entanglement with Chaos was worth guarding against, of course... exactly how to make use of their peculiar origin would require more thought.

In any case, their destruction had been pushed several thousand years further off. Lin had plenty of time.

What demanded his attention right now was the state of the Battle Moon.

No one had expected the operation against the Battle Moon to end with him killing the Ork warlord.

A warlord corrupted by Nurgle would have been a far harder proposition for anyone else. In front of Lin it became almost effortless. And once Lin had released the warlord from his existence, the already crippled Battle Moon, deprived of its warlord's Waaagh! energy field, tumbled into chaos.

Orks with ambitions toward the vacant warlord's throne fell into civil war across the reeling moon. Had they managed to breed a new warlord out of that infighting, the Battle Moon might yet have been saved. Unfortunately, an Imperial fleet was watching hungrily from orbit. They would never get the chance.

Mars's own operation on the moon ran for more than ten hours. During that time a Martian explorator fleet arrived above the Battle Moon. Under Pavonis's direction, the Skitarii dug tens of thousands of ork prisoners and one enormous ork device out of the surface.

Lin could not see what the device hauled aboard the explorator vessels actually was, but he guessed it was the spatial teleportation apparatus Urquidex had mentioned earlier.

Mars, running off to the orks to dig up technology capable of teleporting an entire planet...

Sometimes Lin suspected that this crowd who denounced Forge World Huangquan VIII as heretics every single day were considerably madder than Huangquan VIII ever was.

It was not so surprising, really. For all that Mars styled itself the orthodoxy, it was in fact the single largest supplier of manpower to the Dark Mechanicum cogboys. In sheer numbers, no other Forge World produced more traitors than Mars.

Once Mars withdrew, the Battle Moon, now an empty shell, retained only symbolic value. Lansung urged everyone to pull back from it, then personally delivered the Exterminatus.

The Battle Moon, tottering since the loss of its warlord, could not withstand such an attack. That once-invincible thing shattered into countless fragments within a blinding flash of light. The annihilating force of the Bipolar Cyclonic Torpedo tore it in half, and the wreckage scattered outward like fireworks.

Half the debris was driven into the deep void by the blast, becoming a cold belt of meteors drifting slowly into endless dark. The other half was drawn down by gravity toward the surface of Port Sanctus.

Port Sanctus's atmosphere became a canvas of hellfire. Metal fragments plunging through the cloud layer scored crimson contrails against the air, and those contrails were the shadow of death for the civilians still on the world below.

Lin's brow furrowed. "Fire on the larger fragments," he ordered.

The first to open up were the three cruisers he had brought from Cath Maximus, and then the whole Ultimate Wall fleet.

But against an exploding armed satellite, their strength was no more than a cup of water thrown on a burning cartload. Many vast shards still broke through the atmosphere, blazing as they tore across the skies of Port Sanctus.

Port Sanctus held more than one hive city. The main hive where Lin had fought earlier received the bulk of his protection. The remaining hives were not so fortunate.

The colossal shockwaves reduced whole districts of them to rubble. Fire and dust vaulted skyward, blooming into mushroom clouds that stood as monuments to ruin.

The dust hurled aloft veiled the sky, and sunlight could not pierce it. Barring surprises, the whole of Port Sanctus would be locked in twilight for months.

Lansung, however, cared nothing for the damage his action had done. To a man who had already intended to abandon Port Sanctus, that anything of it survived at all was a pleasant bonus.

With the glory of destroying the Battle Moon now in hand, he impatiently ordered his astropaths to transmit to Terra the triumphant dispatch he had written long in advance. Then he harried the fleet toward home, his mind entirely occupied with how best to stage his victory parade on Terra.

As for the Ultimate Wall?

They had assumed the campaign against the Battle Moon could only be settled within the Sol System. Now they too found themselves adrift.

Kurande had convened the Ultimate Wall to strangle the source of these beasts. Destroying a single Battle Moon hardly counted as achieving that goal, but for the moment he was out of ideas about the next step.

Were they to go back to Bohemond now and start striking out in all directions like the Black Templars?

The four Chapter Masters were divided. Kurande and Daenyathos both held that they should first return to the Shanzheng; Thorne and Issaga argued they should seize the initiative and strike at the orks as soon as possible.

Two against two, and every one of them except Daenyathos turned to look at Lin, waiting for his counsel.

Lin's advice was plain and direct. "We should return to Terra."

"That would place the Ultimate Wall under the persecution of the High Lords."

Thorne's objection was sharply reasoned. "If a Battle Moon were bearing down on Terra, the High Lords would have no choice but to rely on us, and they would never dare oppose the Ultimate Wall's assembly. But if we arrive at Terra outside of wartime, every scrap of their energy will go into finding ways to make trouble for us."

"Which is why we won't be returning to Terra that quickly."

The orks had more than one Battle Moon. The one at Port Sanctus had proven unexpectedly easy to deal with, but according to the course the Beast War would take next, another Battle Moon would appear directly above Terra.

Lin did not want to play the prophet too openly, so he did not spell out that a battle for Terra itself still lay ahead. He only suggested:

"Whether we return to Terra or press the attack, we need time to refit. Replenishing weapons and equipment takes time. So does drilling until we can fight as one. Port Sanctus, with no outsiders left on it, suits us perfectly right now."

It was a passable argument. Thorne and Issaga accepted it, if grudgingly.

Daenyathos's knotted brow smoothed out. The Soul Drinkers' Chapter Master seemed to care a great deal about whether they would reach the Shanzheng.

"Then what is our plan?" Kurande asked.

"Reorganise the forces on Port Sanctus, send word to Cath Maximus, and get in touch with our lady Inquisitor. One step at a time, Kurande. Saving the Imperium isn't done in a single stride. Right now we're only at the beginning."

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