Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

"Not the Shanzheng," Calxus corrected Kuber. "Only a brief standoff with the Ultimate Wall."

"I don't believe for a second that we won't end up trading fire with the Ultimate Wall."

"A brief exchange cannot be ruled out, no. But you will also receive the fullest measure of aid Mars can extend."

Kuber still had no appetite for it. He drew out the relic known as the Ironstone and demanded, "Is this holy relic, one that mends machine-spirits, together with all the service we have rendered Mars, truly not enough to purchase Mars' backing?"

The Ironstone was the last of Kuber's fortune. This Iron Hands relic had the power to knit machine-spirits back together; it kept armour running and repairing itself even when destruction was a certainty.

Kuber had expected Mars to name a handsome price for it. Instead he got nothing but refusal.

"Captain Kuber, your ambition to found a new Chapter is not looked upon kindly in Mars' internal deliberations, because supporting you would inevitably sour relations between Mars and the Iron Hands. A single relic is not worth such a cost. You must contribute far more value to Mars than that."

The Magos called up Martian reconnaissance footage. It showed the Ultimate Wall's troops digging fortifications near Magma City under Lin's direction. "The number of men who made planetfall on Mars is roughly equal to your own. They are your only enemy."

Kuber fell to thinking.

As a man who had come up among the Mechanicus' staunchest allies, Kuber knew perfectly well that these cogboys were famed for cold logic and meticulous scheming. The more tempting the price on the table, the better his reason to suspect Mars had another design entirely.

But their own position was... genuinely desperate.

"I need to discuss this with my brothers." He showed Calxus out.

"Of course. That is your prerogative."

The other Iron Hands warriors filed into his command chamber one by one, and Kuber's gaze passed over them. Their battered power armour still bore the Iron Hands Chapter badge, though that badge had long since ceased to be acknowledged by any other son of Medusa.

Aside from the Rite of Severance, Kuber and his brothers had kept most of their limbs whole and of flesh.

"The flesh is weak..." Kuber murmured, and in his mind rose the image of those Iron Hands still on Medusa.

They had long treated flesh as an encumbrance, chasing total mechanical ascension. Their bodies replaced by cold metal, their thoughts governed by logic and algorithm, their emotions stripped away entirely.

Kuber had watched with his own eyes as a former battle-brother, hungering for greater power, swapped his own brain for a wetware processor after every other part of him had already been replaced with machinery.

In that moment Kuber had felt no envy. He had felt dread, deep and cold.

He and his brothers kept their bodies of flesh, a constant reminder that they were still human. Iron, they believed, was an augmentation of the self, but they refused to let iron replace that "weak" flesh altogether.

In the Tenth Legion, where even Ferrus was counted a failure, their conviction was branded heresy by the Iron Council. Worse, a disgrace.

So they were exiled. The Iron Council had announced their deaths as a cold object lesson, a warning to every warrior joining the Iron Hands about what they were truly meant to follow.

That mercilessness gnawed at Kuber. Looking at these battered brothers who still followed him, he made up his mind.

"We will not be cast out to the margins of Mars to wait for extinction. Whatever Mars wants from us, we must endure, so that our conviction is passed on!"

He accepted Mars' terms, and Mars, which had long since anticipated this, delivered weapons and equipment with astonishing speed. Three hundred Iron Hands received brand-new power armour, bolters, and a surplus of ion and melta weapons.

They even received dozens of Rhino transports and Land Raiders, vehicles ordered and paid for by the Imperial Fists before the War of the Beast, still wearing their signature yellow paint. Now they had been handed to the Iron Hands and were about to be driven to the front line against the Ultimate Wall.

The cogboys' idea of "good faith" made Kuber's face burn, but the sheer volume of materiel left him marvelling at the largesse of the Forge Worlds. A stockpile pulled off the shelf at random that rivalled the entire holdings of a fleet-based Chapter made cooperating with these scheming Martians feel a good deal easier to swallow.

And so, richer than they had ever been in their lives, they were cheerfully pushed to the front, where they took up positions facing the reconstituted Soul Drinkers.

"Their kit is certainly fine enough." Lin, watching the Iron Hands from the lip of a trench, offered his assessment. "No wonder Mars felt confident enough to threaten me."

Beside him, Admidel was unimpressed. "They still have to dare to actually test us."

"Don't worry. Someone will be along to create that opportunity for us."

More than a day had passed since the Soul Drinkers made planetfall in drop pods, and Admidel had found Lin quickly enough through a dedicated channel.

He had intended to take Lin and leave at once, but Mars, once it caught up, shifted its orbital defence positions to seal off every route back to orbit and jammed all outbound communications with electromagnetic interference.

Mars had not opened fire. But its unwillingness to simply let them go was now plain for anyone to see.

As it happened, Lin had no intention of leaving. He set the Soul Drinkers to digging fortifications where they stood, meaning to grind it out with Mars right here while he waited for Augustus and the other Martian insiders to open a door for him.

From its exchanges with the Shanzheng, Mars had grasped that some absurd error had crept into the chain somewhere. But having only now begun to root out its internal rot, it was nowhere near the truth.

And the Ultimate Wall's stance grew more aggressive by the hour.

"Brother Kurande, why press this so hard? Lin is himself a Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus. His fate ought to be settled within the Mechanicus. We are meant to be fighting the greenskin orks together. Why wreck our alliance over one Magos who has already outlived his usefulness?"

Kubik tried to make Kurande let Lin go. "We can commit further reinforcements to the assault on the Attack Moon. Even Mars' Battle-Automata legion."

"The honour of the Imperial Fists does not permit us to abandon anyone who has stood shoulder to shoulder with us in peril. If you insist on harming him, then Mars becomes our enemy."

"Chapter Master, your loyalty is dragging the Ultimate Wall towards an abyss where the whole of the Mechanicus stands against you. Consider it. Five hundred thousand Skitarii in orbit remain under my control. I need only initiate their kill protocols and the price you pay will be terrible indeed..."

"Then initiate them."

Kurande did not move. He simply stared at Kubik as though he meant to drive his gaze through the hololith and into the Fabricator General's heart.

"Loyalty is not weighed on scales. Honour is not traded for profit. That is where the line of the Imperial Fists is drawn. That insignificant Magos you speak of sheds machine oil worth more than every scrap of aid Mars could offer!"

The Dreadnought standing behind Kurande nodded its approval. Kubik cut the transmission in a fury.

"Obstinate lump of stone!"

Even with no intention of becoming true enemies, the Fabricator General knew these unbending sons of Dorn needed a lesson, so that the Ultimate Wall would understand that Lin's life was, for the moment, in Martian hands.

So it was that three days into the standoff, the Iron Hands received the order to attack.

Kuber's worries centred on Mars' true intentions; the coming show of force did not trouble him at all. In his professional judgement, the weapons Mars had issued were more than enough to grind down Soul Drinkers who had nothing but standard power armour.

Not that he took the fight lightly. He still had to work out how to fight it so that the enemy came away suitably intimidated without too many casualties on either side.

For Iron Hands, famed for their coldness, that was a genuinely difficult problem.

"All units, execute the attack as planned!" Kuber gave the order.

As his words faded, the Iron Hands force rolled forward. Six Land Raiders surged out of the line first, heavy treads chewing through Martian sand, advancing with unstoppable weight.

Behind the Land Raiders came the Rhinos, each packed with fully armed Iron Hands. Kuber was confident his brothers would not be needed at all; the twin-linked lascannons and heavy bolt cannons on the heavy vehicles alone would break whatever resistance the Soul Drinkers could muster.

"Trust in our iron! We give the enemy no opening!"

In the Soul Drinkers' position, Lin stood on the trench lip and watched the Iron Hands move.

There was no trace of alarm on his face. If anything, he wore a faintly amused smile.

"Looks like Mars lost its patience first," Lin said to Admidel beside him. "They've sent out the tin cans to give us a scare."

Admidel gave his katana a lazy swing. "They'll learn what we're made of."

"Of course. Just remember to hold back a little. There's no need for a permanent falling-out with these Iron Hands."

Admidel nodded, then turned to the Soul Drinkers behind him and shouted, "Brothers, ready your weapons! Today, right here, we rebuild the renown of our Legi... of our Chapter!"

"Today's sacrifice, tomorrow's triumph!"

The veterans of the Second Legion raised their strange weapons as one. The newly joined Soul Drinkers answered with silence.

Sergeant Birmingham nudged Lorgash beside him. The warrior, who like him had come from the old Soul Drinkers, asked quietly, "Shouldn't we be joining in?"

"That isn't our battle cry," Lorgash said.

"Then what about our old one?"

"Forget it. I don't think we've earned the right to say 'for Dorn' any more."

The rebellion that Daenyathos, the former Chapter Master of the Soul Drinkers, had raised aboard the Shanzheng had shamed every Soul Drinker alive.

They had kept the Chapter's name out of necessity, and they hungered to wash the disgrace away in battle. But vague intentions and unclear guidance left them adrift.

How were they to cleanse the shame? How were they to face the future?

Watching the Land Raiders grind towards their line, Lorgash felt something almost like relief.

He had no idea why veterans armed with nothing but close-combat weapons and bolters could stand there so full of confidence in the face of tanks. Certain that a mantis could not stop a chariot, he had already made his peace with dying under a set of treads.

At least then he would stop being tortured by lost honour and the guilt of betrayal. Lorgash touched the melta bomb at his chest and hoped only that, once dead, the Emperor might still claim him back to the Golden Throne.

The Iron Hands had closed on the Soul Drinkers' line. Kuber issued his final order over the comm-channel. "All units, prepare to engage! Land Raiders, commence suppressing fire!"

The Land Raiders' guns roared as one. Twin-linked lascannons and heavy bolt cannons opened up together, and searing energy beams and explosive shells poured down onto the Soul Drinkers' position like rain.

Against a line thrown together in a matter of days, the bombardment was devastating. The Soul Drinkers tried to return fire from what remained of their trenches, but their bolt rounds might as well have been sugar pellets against Land Raiders and Rhinos.

The tanks kept advancing, and soon they were nearly on top of the stretch of line Lorgash held.

It was time.

Lorgash drew a deep breath and vaulted out of his cover. Birmingham caught him by the arm.

"Are you insane? That's a tank!"

"Let go of me! Can't you see? This is the only way we stop them!"

The two Soul Drinkers grappled in the open, and the movement drew a tank's attention. A stream of heavy bolt rounds came howling in, and Lorgash was certain he was about to die on the spot. Then a veteran with a Sword and Shield arrived in front of them and caught the fire on his shield.

Lorgash stared at the shield, unmarked, unscratched. Veneto, Switch Axe in hand, laughed and clapped the newcomer on the shoulder.

"Watch closely. This is how we're supposed to fight!"

Once the Rhinos and Land Raiders had burned through a full load of ammunition, Kuber ordered a temporary ceasefire. The dust kicked up by the shelling settled, and he could finally make out the state of the Soul Drinkers.

None of them had died, but there were plenty of wounded. Their line had been torn to shreds; a single charge would punch straight through it.

That had nothing to do with the strength of their will. It was simply an objective fact.

"If our tanks keep advancing..."

Kuber weighed it. He was not sure he had yet delivered the intimidation the Soul Drinkers, and the Ultimate Wall behind them, required. And while he was still thinking, he noticed shapes emerging faintly from the blowing sand: Soul Drinkers.

They were walking straight at the Iron Hands armoured column, and it left Kuber baffled.

What did they want? Were they surrendering?

No. These warriors were clearly at combat readiness, and they carried shields. That ruled the notion out.

His company adjutant spoke up beside him. "There are Soul Drinkers flanking us on both sides... strange. What kind of weapons are those in their hands?"

Even Soul Drinkers who had seen countless forbidden things within the Gorgon Forge could not have identified them.

Kuber's bionic eye scanned the weapons rapidly, trying to analyse their construction and yield. But like the Soul Drinkers' intentions, the capabilities of these things, fashioned from unknown biological materials, remained a mystery.

Surely they didn't intend to fight tanks with close-combat weapons?

Kuber nearly laughed at his own thought. Still, for safety's sake, he gave the order. "Warning shots. Don't let them get close."

The reloaded storm bolters opened up, and the approaching Soul Drinkers were not suppressed the way the Iron Hands expected. Some raised their shields, and those shields somehow stopped bolt rounds fired dead-on. Others simply dodged, moving with an agility that impressed even Astartes.

"What in the warp are those?" Kuber's brow furrowed, and the realisation that appearances had deceived him woke a sense of danger in him. "Increase fire! Suppress them!"

But his earlier misjudgement had already been fatal.

Kosmode struck first. He leapt, and a charged Great Sword came down on a Rhino transport with the force of a thunderclap. Two cuts opened deep gouges in the hull, and before the Iron Hands could even register their surprise, his True Charged Slash was already falling.

"Run!" he warned them, cocky as anything. "Any later and you won't make it!"

The Rhino's armour tore like wet paper under the True Charged Slash, and the Great Sword's edge sheared straight through the engine assembly. That ancient, reliable Rhino powerplant was reduced to a state beyond any repair.

Inside the Rhino, the Iron Hands stared at one another, stunned by the impossible attack. It took a moment before they understood that what they should be doing was getting out.

They scrambled out of the escape hatches, and the crippled Rhino cooked off behind them in a horrific secondary detonation. Ten Iron Hands vanished into the smoke of the blast, and Kuber could not confirm a single life sign among them.

His blood ran cold at what had happened to his brothers.

Only now did he grasp it. Whatever he had let through with his misjudgement, it was not Astartes.

They were walking, human-shaped anti-vehicle ordnance!

"Dismount! Dismount!"

Formus shouted himself hoarse adjusting to the situation. "Vehicles maintain fire! All other squads disperse and find cover where you stand!"

Their opponents displayed a terrifying aggression against anything large enough to be called a vehicle.

The heavy steel that had once made them feel safe was no longer safe at all, and Formus could only order his men to spread out so that his brothers would not be gutted along with the transports.

He produced the Ironstone and roused the relic's power, hoping to preserve what vehicles remained.

But when the warriors carrying Lances began venting jets of melta from the tips of those Lances as a warning, Formus, unwilling to lose a single brother, gave up on keeping the vehicles at all.

The transports and tanks simply could not put out fire faster than these Second Legion veterans, already inside their guard, could dismantle them. The force of the veterans' attacks also ran far past whatever damage threshold the Ironstone could hold, and Formus could only order drivers and gunners to abandon their vehicles too and get as far as possible from machines that were already doomed.

By the time the battle had reached that point, the Iron Hands' defeat was sealed, and Captain Kuber, who had the command, was left with nothing but a bitter taste.

"Where in the Emperor's name did these monsters come from?!"

[Author's Note 1: Honestly, if you look closely, a huge share of humanity's black tech shows up in sheer practicality. Take the Rhino, which is described as repairable by non-specialist crews, whatever fault develops. Bear in mind that before the Horus Heresy this thing was mainly used by mortal auxilia. Those grunts, who may never have seen a firearm on their own homeworlds, are nothing like Astartes trained in vehicle lore in the reserve companies. That even they could fix it says something genuinely impressive.]

[Author's Note 2: The Ironstone relic comes from the prequel to the War of the Highland Year. Back then Iron Father Kristos was trying to seize a corrupted piece of Eldar technology. The Eldar even deployed Phantom Titans to stop him, but Kristos used the Ironstone to keep his armoured phalanx intact and wiped out the Eldar titans to the last. The thing was never mentioned again afterwards (basically the writer had no idea how to beat the Eldar, so he pulled out a cheat), but I still had to bring it up. Truly, this artefact and I are fated.]

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