|
Da Boss Of Da Dead Chapta 14 | |
|
Da Boss Of Da Dead Chapta 14 |
Frustrated at losing the orks, Kastotek looked down at the ground below. One moment there had been a pair of ork vehicles down there and now there was nothing. The uneven terrain was making the search a nightmare; there were any number of places that someone could hide even though not many would be large enough to permit the entry of the large armoured vehicle. Unfortunately the rich metal content of the ground here was acting as a shield against electronic detection so the destroyers had no choice but the search by sight alone. Then he spotted movement below and he zoomed in his view to see what it was. He found himself not looking at either of the two ork vehicles as he had hoped for but instead another lone ork, one of the larger ones. Bare-chested, the ork looked up at the destroyers and roared at them, beating his chest like some sort of primate. Then it aimed a pistol at the necrons and fired several shots, regardless of the fact that the destroyers were well out of range. Kastotek tightened his grip on his weapon. He magnified his view of the ork, zooming in on his facial features and immediately recognise him. This was the same ork who had dared to stand against him in the market, the one that had made it necessary for Kastotek to require a replacement hand and warscythe. “Follow me in.” he said, “This one is mine.” “Yes lord.” One of the other destroyers replied and Kastotek dived at the ork, determined to take revenge. Hazug saw the destroyers approaching and turned and ran down the hill. He stopped at the bottom and looked back up towards the destroyers to make sure that they were still coming at him. Satisfied that he had caught their interest he turned and ran towards the cave entrance. His plan relied on his being able to make it inside before the necrons simply shot him in the back. Making it to the cave he waved at Two Heads. The two-headed ork had taken up one of the gunner’s positions on his battlewagon, operating one of the twin linked automatic weapon mounts. The signal was simple; the wave meant that the necrons were coming. “Gorrid!” one of Two Heads shouted and then the other finished off with, “Floor it!” and the battlewagon accelerated forwards. Hazug ran to
his truck. Batrug was in the driver’s seat and Drazzok in his usual place
beside him, glaring at the mek, so he instead climbed into the passenger
area at the back. As he began to climb up both Ratish and Sophie reached
down to assist him. Kastotek headed into the gully at top speed. It was deep and steep sided, the ork could not have climbed out so the only possible place he could have gone was into the cave at the far end. As he sped towards the cave he noticed that the ground was marked with deep tracks from a passing vehicle and he realised that the ork vehicles he had been pursuing must have come down here. That meant that they were likely in the cave as well. “Attack!” he yelled at the others destroyers, charging headlong towards the gaping cave entrance. Just as the battlewagon came hurtling out of it. “Let rip!” both of Two Heads bellowed and immediately all of the battlewagon’s weapons came roaring into life. One of the destroyer exploded straight away as an armour-piercing shell tore its torso from the propulsion unit holding it aloft, while two others shuddered under the impact of sustained automatic fire from the lighter weapon mounts. “Yeah!” Two Heads roared with glee, “Kop dat!” The destroyers parted to allow the fast moving battlewagon to pass between them. That was except for one of the pair suffering under the hail of fire from Two Heads himself and before it could either dart aside or increase its altitude to a safe one the entire bulk of the battlewagon crashed into it. “I go ‘im boss!” Gorrid yelled from the drivers seat, “I smashed ‘im up good!” Sure enough the mangled remains of the destroyer were now caught up on the battlewagon’s reinforced plough and after it self-repair mechanisms gave up on trying to fix the damage there was a brief green glow and the remains faded away. After dodging out of the way of the battlewagon the destroyers moved to drop in behind it, where its armour was weakest and its weapons could not target them properly. But even as they did this, Hazug’s truck promptly came rushing from the cave. “Dakka, dakka, dakka!” Thuggrim shouted as he fired a short burst at the nearest destroyer. His aim was good and the heavy bullets ripped the necron’s head from its shoulders and the decapitated torso and drive unit dropped to the ground where Batrug promptly drove straight over it, grinding the wreck into the ground even as it faded to nothing. Dodging aside once more, another destroyer pivoted and aimed its gauss weapon at the truck, intending to strafe its occupants as the vehicle sped past him. But the alien had not counted upon Gorgoga lashing out at him. “Gotcha!” he snapped as he leant over the side of the truck, his free hand clutching onto the roll cage and reaching out with his powerclaw. He wrapped the claw around the destroyer’s narrow waist and squeezed. For a few brief moments the destroyer was dragged alongside the truck, its arm and weapon flailing. But then Gorgoga’s tightening power-assisted grip crushed its spine and the two halves dropped. “Oi!” Gorgoga yelled as the two halves vanished before his eyes, “Where ya goin’ to?” The last of Kastotek’s unit suddenly came under fire from Hazug’s servants, all three of them firing their puny weapons at him. The alien quickly evaluated the threat to him from these weapons as minimal, with a mere fifteen percent chance that they could inflict and harm on him. So he decided that these three would be his next victims and rushed towards them. “Oh no ya don’t!” Hazug yelled as the destroyer reached out towards them, “Dey is mine!” and he held out his warscythe and swung it upwards. The alien blade struck the destroyer dead centre of its propulsion unit and sliced it open as effortlessly as any other target. The upward swing of the weapon brought the blade up through the destroyer’s torso for it to emerge through one of its shoulders, cutting the alien in half vertically. Kastotek watched in horror as his entire unit was destroyed in the space of a few moments without managing to land a single blow on the orks in return. The situation appeared hopeless, but Kastotek still had his warscythe and the weapon was quite capable of destroying both the battlewagon and the lighter truck. Raising the weapon above his head, Kastotek swooped down towards the battlewagon. “Look out lad!” Two Heads shouted to the ork gunner on the automatic weapon mount beside his own. But before either of them could traverse their weapons enough to take aim at the flying necron lord the alien was upon them and swinging his warscythe. The blade sliced through the gunner’s neck and sent his head rolling over the side of the battlewagon. As the battlewagon continued to speed ahead Kastotek swung again and this time cut a deep gouge in its side, but doing no further damage. With the battlewagon gone by, Kastotek now turned his attention to the truck following behind. But Hazug was ready for him. As Kastotek turned to strike, Hazug aimed his rifle and fired the single rocket it carried. The projectile streaked towards the necron lord and wedged itself in his metal ribcage. But it did not detonate. Shocked by this, Kastotek reached down to remove the faulty rocket. But in doing so he took his eyes off the truck and its occupants. As the truck sped past Drazzok swung his staff at Kastotek, aiming for the rocket still lodged in his ribs. As the tip of his staff touched the projectile some of his stored power flowed into it and finally triggered the warhead. Drazzok flinched, recoiling in his seat as the exploding rocket blew Kastotek apart. “Ya got ‘im oh great one!” Thuggrim yelled, “Ya blew ‘im apart!” “Yeah I did, didn’t I?” Drazzok replied with a grin and then he turned to Mek Batrug and added, “No thanks to dat bleedin’ rokkit ya built.” The throne room of Warboss Kazkal Kromag was a mess. The large hole in the ceiling was currently being repaired by a large number of gretchin using a scaffolding that looked ready to collapse at any moment. From his throne, Kazkal stared at Hazug and Gorgoga as they told him how the necrons had emerged from the mine and Mazakatek seemed to have been heading back that way when Hazug was forced to break off pursuit. “So ya reckons dat dare fort is down dis mine den?” he asked when the two nobs were done. “Well one way in is boss.” Hazug replied, “But dare may be another one. When I was dare da mineshaft didn’t look big enough for any of da necron wagons. So dare may be another, bigger way in nearby. We just needs enough lads to find it.” “Ya knows dat da liftin’ gas bomb aint ready yet dontcha?” Kazkal said and he looked towards a large mek, “’Ow long did ya say it’d be?” he asked. “Another nine days at least boss.” The mek replied. “We don’t need
it.” Hazug replied. “I though we did boss.” Hazug said, “But dat was when I reckoned we wouldn’t just be able to go right up to da gates. Know we knows where it is and dat we can reach it easy enough we can just do dis da easy way.” A smile spread across Kazkal’s face. “Spread da word!” he shouted at the top of his voice and he stood up, “I wants every lad and every wagon ready to move. We is all gonna go and pay dat Mazakatek a little visit and we’ll show ‘im wot it means to smash up me fort. I’ll burn ‘is to da ground with ‘im inside it.” Then he threw back his head and gave a yell, ”Waaagh!” “Waaagh!” the other orks in the throne room joined in. Hazug felt a hand on his side and looked down to see Sophie staring up at him. “You’re leaving me behind again aren’t you?” she asked. Ratish
grinned. “Not dis time.” Hazug said with a grin, “Dare’s gonna be thousands of lads and ‘undreds of wagons. I don’t want ya missin’ dat. Dis is gonna be ace.” The pilot brought Ibon’s command barge lower. All around were the frozen wastes of planet’s southern polar region. When the necrons had last walked the surface of this world this area had been a chain of tropical islands, but millions of years of a shifting climate and orbit had brought drastic change. “The signal is directly beneath us.” Ibon announced, “Stop here.” The pilot did as commanded and the vehicle came to an immediate halt. Ibon looked at the instrument panel in front of him and then at the terrain around. There was no sign whatsoever of the industrial facility he had been sent to locate. This was unsurprising, the facility had been constructed below ground as was common with many other necron structures, but now not even a single antenna extended above the surface to give away its location. “What is the state of our weapons?” Ibon asked. “Fully charged cryptek.” The co-pilot replied. “Good. Open
fire.” Ibon ordered. “Straight down.” The pilot backed the command barge up slightly as his comrade depressed it’s under slung gauss cannon as far as possible. Then there was a flash of green light as the co-pilot opened fire, the high intensity beam striking the surface of the glacier and burrowing through it. The beam vaporised the ice on contact, releasing even more energy from the annihilation of matter that served to further melt the surrounding ice. The hole this was producing was more than ample for the command barge to fit down. It took only a short time to burrow down the more than fifty metres of ice until the beam struck rock and from there it was only a few minutes more until the feedback from the beam indicated that it had struck metal. “Cease fire.” Ibon ordered and the beam was cut off straight away, “Good. Now let us go and see what is left.” Carefully the pilot guided the command barge down the shaft carved out by the gauss cannon, activating running lights to provide illumination. As expected, the metal surface at the bottom of the shaft was of necron origin and Ibon jumped down from the command barge and laid his hand against it. Just by touching the metal surface he was able to run scans of the structure. There were no active power signals immediately beneath him and the metal was between three and four metres thick. Satisfied that this place was suitable for forcing an entry he climbed back aboard the command barge. “Cut through.” He commanded. It took longer to cut through the metal than either the ice or rock. Had the facility been anywhere near close to being fully active then Ibon was certain that this attack would have prompted a severe response from its security systems. The lack of any response however, was a double-edged sword. On the one hand it allowed the necrons the chance to gain entry unmolested, but on the other it indicated that there was significant damage internally and Ibon hoped that it would be something he could overcome. As soon as the hole in the metal was large enough, the pilot guided the command barge down through it and into the facility. The vehicle emerged into a vast chamber, several kilometres along each side and the vehicle’s running light struggled to provide enough light to see by. Ibon adjusted his vision to a low light mode, as did the two warriors operating the command barge and immediately he saw why the chamber had to be so large. It held a starship. Though small by the standards of interstellar craft, the crescent-shaped vessel was a powerful warship. Ibon had known that a raiding craft had been near completion when Mazakatek’s palace was forced into hibernation, but he had no way of knowing whether the vessel had been completed and deployed after that. Now he had his answer. With his exact location in the facility now known Ibon consulted the design schematic he had downloaded, searching for the command facility. “That way.” He said to the pilot, pointing. The corridors of the facility were large; they had to be to provide enough room for starship components to be transported to the assembly hangar. This meant that the pilot had little difficulty in flying the command barge down them towards the command centre. However, as they travelled Ibon noticed a large number of massive icicles that hung down from the ceiling, or even places where side passages seemed to be totally blocked by ice. Whether this place had been breeched by the eldar or the elements, it had suffered severe damage for there to be this much ice inside. Pushing on the pilot brought the command barge to a halt outside a large double door that was marked in the necron language as being the command centre and Ibon disembarked. Striding to the side of the door he swiftly located the control panel and activated it. There was a low rumble as the heavy doors slid apart, demonstrating that at least something in the facility still operated. As soon as the gap was wide enough Ibon went through and looked around the abandoned command centre. The necrons that had been stationed here had either entered suspended animation like the inhabitants of Mazakatek’s palace had done, or had abandoned the facility entirely. Only one of the control panels showed any sign of life and so Ibon went over to it. Unsurprisingly it was the beacon system, the means by which he had found his way here. A quick examination told Ibon that although the beacon was still working, it was only just functional. The power reserves available to it were all but exhausted after over sixty million years. Ibon returned to the command barge and began to disconnect the co-pilot. “I will require your assistance.” He said, “We must use this vehicle to power up more of the facility’s systems. Only then will we know exactly what is left.” “So ya is goin’ in with da rest of da lads den?” Drazzok asked as he climbed aboard Hazug’s truck, “No sneakin’ about dis time?” “Not much point.” Hazug said, “I aint got no lads wot would know wot dey was doin and even between ‘em Ratish, Sophie and Mayleth aren’t much of a fightin’ mob.” “Don’t you want to try and find the entrance to the necron base though?” Sophie asked from the back of the truck, her lasgun propped up beside her. “Da air’ll be full of fightas.” Hazug told her, “Dey’ll be able to spot it and guide us to it quicker dan I could.” “Well its nice for ya to actin’ like a real ork for once.” Drazzok said. “Ya really think I’d miss dis?” Hazug asked and he waved hi arm around. To either side of the truck, extending for as far as the eye could see were more ork vehicles. The call to arms issued by the warboss had prompted a massive response and there were vehicles ranging from warbikes to mobile battle fortresses and everything in between present. A roaring sound from overhead gave away the presence of a full squadron of ork fighters also, followed up by heavier attack bombers. The orks were about to do what they did best. They were going to war. Suddenly a siren sounded and looking around Hazug spotted a gretchin standing on the roof of Kazkal Kromag’s personal battle fortress waving a brightly coloured flag. It was the signal to attack. Then came a shout, barely audible over the sound of the hundreds of poorly tuned engines at first, but becoming more recognisable as more orks joined in. “Waaagh!” Hazug put his foot down on the gas pedal and the truck began to move. “What’s happening?” Mazakatek demanded as he entered the control room, “Has Ibon made contact yet?” “No my lord.” Astrast answered, “We have detected something. A large metallic mass, accompanied by massive thermal readings.” Mazakatek looked at the display where he saw the returns from both the ground and air. “The krork are coming.” He said solemnly, “How many?” “Thousands.” Astrast said. “Maybe tens of thousands.” Nalloshtek corrected. “Try and contact Ibon.” Mazakatek said, “Tell him to hurry.” |
|
Copyright Notice The Warhammer 40,000 universe is the intellectual property of Games Workshop Ltd. The fiction presented here is a derived work. It is completely unofficial and Games Workshop Ltd has not endorsed any of it. |
Background image miniature design copyright Games Workshop Ltd
This Web Page Created with PageBreeze Free HTML Editor