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Da Boss Of Da Dead Chapta 15 | |
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Da Boss Of Da Dead Chapta 15 |
From their vantage point in the air, the ork pilots had a clear view over a wide area and they had been told where they needed to be looking. Some of the larger aircraft also carried gretchin lookouts, just in case the necrons were attempting to camouflage their base, the smaller creatures being more adept at spotting such things. But as it happened the main entrance to the necron tomb was clearly visible from the air. It appeared that the aliens had simply scooped an enormous volume of rock and dirt out of the ground to reveal the massive vehicle-sized doors. Though somehow they had left all of the surrounding countryside completely unchanged by this excavation. The first fighter pilot to spot this banked and dived, heading straight for the structure of alien metal and he reached for a large button that had been hastily added to his fighter and slammed his fist down upon it. “Look master!” Ratish called out, jumping up and own behind Hazug and pointing into the sky, “Da fighta! Da fighta!” Everyone in the truck looked up to where one of the ork aircraft could be seen descending rapidly. But what interested them was the brightly burning flare that had been dropped and was plummeting down beneath it. “Dat’s it!” Hazug yelled, “Dat’s da signal. Da necron fort is dare.” All around the orks had seen the flare falling and even now were steering towards where it was falling. Before too long the entire mechanised force, hundreds of vehicles and thousands of orks was going to come crashing down upon the necrons. “They are closing my lord.” Astrast said, “Distance twelve thousand metres, lead elements closing fast. We are already taking fire from aircraft, shields holding for now. Your orders?” Mazakatek stared at the tactical display. The orks had made critical error, had they stayed in their own fortified settlements and launched aggressive patrols of the areas in between they could have severely limited his choice of actions by whittling down the necron forces. But now they were about to throw themselves en masse against his palace defences. Mazakatek would kill them all. “Wait for the first of their ground forces to reach nine thousand metres.” He said, “Then open fire.” Looking ahead Hazug could just about make out the exhaust trail of the warbikers and buggies at the head of the force. Rocket and cannon fire could already be heard from above as the ork aircraft began their attacks. Then there was a strange rumbling sound and the truck shook more than normal. “Dat’s just great!” Drazzok exclaimed as he steadied himself on the dashboard, “Dat bleedin’ Batrug aint fixed dis thing right. It’s fallin’ apart and we aint even got dare yet.” “It is not the
vehicle.” Mayleth said. “She’s right.” Hazug said, “It aint da truck, its da ground wot’s shakin’.” And just then there was an explosion of dirt and rock as something massive broke the surface ahead of the ork force. The necron structure consisted of a massive metal arc mounted on a base that allowed it to rotate and tilt freely and at the centre was an enormous crystal that glowed a brilliant green. The first pylon to appear emerged directly under a force of warbikes and both the bikes and their unfortunate riders were hurled into the air along with the dirt and rocks thrown up. The screams of the orks going unheard against the noise of so many engines. Then the structure opened fire. A blinding beam of energy shot from the crystal and began to slice through the horde of ork armour, blasting apart a dozen heavy gun carriers with a single blast. Immediately the orks returned fire, shooting at the necron weapon with everything they had at their disposal. But even as they watched their shots absorbed by the strange alien metal used to build the weapon there was another rumbling and a second of the gigantic weapon emplacements burst to the surface. This was follow by another, then a forth, a fifth and a sixth. Closer to the location of the tomb four more of the weapons emerged to surround it completely. These turned and aimed their crystals skywards before firing their deadly beams at the attacking ork aircraft, blasting them from the sky. A tank in front of Hazug’s truck burst apart as an energy beam sliced it open and detonated the ammunition it was filled with. “Watch it!” Drazzok called out even as Hazug spun the steering wheel as hard as he could to avoid the burning wreckage that was thrown outwards in all directions. The effect of the sudden appearance of the necron defences was drastic and immediate. The combined force of armour and aircraft that had been hurtling towards the location the necron tomb was now being systematically destroyed by the powerful energy beams emitted from the crystals mounted at the heart of the weapons. Each beam seemed unstoppable, slicing its way through even the most heavily armoured of battle fortresses and yet they were also accurate enough that they had no trouble in picking out the fast moving fighters and bombers as they dived down to strafe them. In response the orks reacted in the only way they knew how, they returned fire and the air was filled with the reports of thousands of guns firing at once as every greenskin attempted to be the first one to bring down one of these alien monstrosities. But even as the necrons weapons were subjected to this massive bombardment they continued firing as the ork firepower had no effect. Worse still, the weapon emplacements seemed to be able to determine the origins of the more powerful attacks against them and swiftly turned to neutralise them. Thus depriving the ork force of some of its most powerful weapons. In one of the myriad of ork vehicles, Nargran of the Goffs clan looked out through a hole that the owner had never gotten around to patching. He and his troops were not being passengers in vehicles; they normally walked to wherever they needed to go. But today they had accepted the necessity of riding in a vehicle they would rather have blown sky-high as the only way they could join in with the attack. When the necron weapons broke the surface Nargran smiled, at last there was something for him and his mob to blow up. “Come on me lads!” he yelled as he shoved open the nearest hatch before the driver could even bring his vehicle to a full halt, “Dare’s stuff to blow up. Bring da bomms and bring da squigs!” and he leapt out of the still moving vehicle. Behind him the rest of his unit followed, fifteen orks in all along with three trained squigs that had harnesses laded with explosives strapped around their bodies. Raising his rocket launcher, Nargran fired at the nearest necron weapon and was disappointed to see the rocket sail past it. Reaching for another rocket, Nargran ran closer. “Release da squigs!” he bellowed and the orks holding the leashes of the animals all lit the fuses on the explosives they carried and then let turned them loose. Each of the animals had been trained to rush at the nearest non-ork vehicle or structure, which of course meant the necron weapons in this case and the trio of squigs happily rushed at the necron weapon without any inclination of what was about to happen to them. But as it happened the orks were taken rather by surprise also. As the three squigs came close to the base of the weapon emplacement there was a burst of lighting from the structure that engulfed the squigs and prematurely triggered the explosives they carried before the strange alien energy could dissolve their flesh as necron weaponry tended to do. “Me squigs!” Nargran shouted, “Come lads, we’ll show ‘em!” and his unit continued to rush forwards, firing a volley of rockets that had no effect at all. But as the orks got closer more lightning erupted from the necron weapon and the last thing Nargran saw was his own flesh being flayed from his body. “Stop dyin’ ya cowards and blow somethin’ up!” Warboss Kazkal Kromag bellowed as he watched the one sided battle unfold from his own personal battle fortress and he waved his powerclaw above his head. Looking around he saw a nob also looking out of the vehicle, “Wot’s goin’ on out dare?” he demanded. “We’s getting’ shot up boss.” The nob replied. “I can see dat!” Kazkal snapped and in frustration he delivered a blow to the nob’s chest with his powerclaw that sent the body flying back against the far bulkhead. Then he turned to the driver and shouted, “Get closer. We’ll show ‘em ‘ow its done!” In the air above the story was little different and the best a lot of the ork pilots could manage was to fly in an evasive pattern that gave them a chance of avoiding being shot down. With weapons able to pierce heavy tank armour, the relatively thin skins of aircraft offered no protection whatsoever. A red light came on in the belly of one of the larger ork aircraft and the floor split open. “Dis is it lads!” the largest ork present exclaimed as he checked his equipment, “Time to jump!” “Hazug look!” Sophie exclaimed, pointing upwards. There one of the large ork bombers that had been able to avoid being shot down so far had opened it bomb doors and dark shapes could be seen dropping from it towards one of the necron weapons. But these were not bombs, each humanoid shape was an ork stormboy – one of ork civilisation’s most elite troops and there were flashed of light from most of them as the bulky rocket packs they wore fired to slow their descent. However, given the unreliable nature of ork technology at times a handful of the rocket packs failed to function and their unfortunate wearers simply plummet down uncontrollably to be dashed against the necron weapon they were trying to destroy. “Do you think they’ll be able to do anything?” Sophie asked out loud. “Dunno.” Hazug replied, “But maybe dey’ll be able to get past dat lightin’ from above.” But Hazug’s hopes faded as the stormboys came lower and before they could make a landing the same lightning that had erupted from the base of the structures to defeat those orks who had made it close on the ground also burst from the arc that mounted the main weapon of the structure. In turn each of the falling stormboys became a brilliant green torch as the lightning struck him and burned away his flesh and when the lightning was finished the arc tilted backwards and sent a concentrated beam of energy skywards and sliced the aircraft that had deployed the stormboys in two, sending the two burning halves plummeting to the ground below. Two Heads steadied himself by grabbing hold of a bundle of equipment that had been lashed to the interior of the battlewagon. The vehicle had rocked as Gorrid swerved to avoid the wreck of another armoured vehicle that had been lifted into the air when the massive tank of volatile fuel for its multiple flame throwers had exploded following a near miss by a beam from the necron weapons. Fortunately Gorrid noticed that when the wreck began to descend it seemed likely to crash back to the ground right in front of them. “Give some warnin’ next time lad!” Two Heads exclaimed and then he looked towards the rear of the battlewagon where two of his ork troop were frantically working the main gun, “Oi Kragglat!” he shouted, “Any luck with da kannon?” “None boss!” the gunner replied almost as loudly, “Even da anti-wagon rounds aint doin’ much. Every time I ‘its one of dese necron zappas dey just fix ‘emselves before I can ‘it ‘em again.” “Well keep goin’ lad.” Two Heads ordered, “Try and se if ya can ‘it a spot dat another wagon’s jut ‘it. See if dat makes a difference.” “But boss,” another ork called out as he stared through a vision slit, “dare aint dat many other wagons left out dare.” Two Heads took a look outside for himself, just as a beam of energy sliced through a massive and heavily armoured battle fortress as if it were nothing but an open topped truck. The burning wreck of the battle fortress continued to roll forwards, orks leaping from the stricken vehicle and rolling on the ground in an attempt to extinguish the flames as their own clothing burnt. “Lookout Gorrid!” both of Two Heads yelled. “I sees it boss.” Gorrid replied and he carried out another sharp turn, narrowly avoiding a collision with the burning wreck ahead. But the battlewagon’s new heading instead took it into the path of a squadron of warbuggies whose crews were busy launching volley after volley of anti-armour rockets at the closest necron weapon. “Get out da way!” Gorrid shouted, leaning closer to his vision slit and waving at the drivers of the buggies. But in the heat of battle and with the noise of the battlewagon’s engine masking his voice, the buggy drivers failed to notice the armoured vehicle now bearing down on them until it was too late. Both the lightweight vehicles and their unfortunate occupants were hurled aside as the battlewagon ploughed its way though the squadron. “Its my right of way ya runt lickers!” Gorrid shouted, pointing out the larger size of his vehicle automatically gave him priority when it cane to the flow of traffic whether on a street or a battlefield. “Stormboys! Tankbustas! Can’t anyone get close to dem things?” Warboss Kromag snapped, but no-one else inside the battle fortress dared to reply. His reaction to the reply from the nob earlier had indicated that he was not interested in hearing bad news right now. “Boss!” the battle fortress’ driver suddenly called out, “We is comin’ into range now.” “Nice one.” Kazkal replied, “Let rip!” Kazkal’s personal battle fortress was equipped specifically for taking out armoured targets and mounted a mixture of energy cannons and rocket launchers in addition to the host of lighter anti-personnel weapons. Now all of these fired in unison, aimed at the necron weapon directly ahead of them. But effect of even these weapons was little different to all of the attacks made so far by the orks, with the mot damage being inflicted seeming to come from one of the energy cannons that briefly seemed to be melting through the alien metal before it them returned to normal as the beam drifted over the target and the metal rapidly returned to normal. The necron weapon did pause in its firing for a moment though, but only for as long as it took to realign the emitter crystal with Kazkal’s battle fortress. The energy beam punched through the thick frontal armour of the battle fortress and the vehicle lurched suddenly as the beam ripped away most of the left hand side and it ground to a halt as it was left without half of its running gear. “Keep firin’!” Kazkal bellowed, but by this point most of the gunners were dead, their bodies incinerated by the energy of the beam. There was a dull ‘thump’ as leaking fuel was ignited and smoke and flames began to fill the inside of the battle fortress. The next thing that Kazkal knew there was a flash and a booming sound and he was sent flying through the air. “Da boss!” Drazzok shouted as he spotted the characteristic yellow and blue painted battle fortress of Kazkal Kromag explode, “Da necrons got da boss!” Hazug glanced around and saw for himself that the warboss’ personal command vehicle was now just a large heap of burning scarp metal. “Could anything have survived that?” Sophie asked. Then a more important question occurred to her, “Hazug, if Kazkal’s dead then who’s in charge now?” This was a vital point. If the orks believed their warboss to be dead then in all likelihood the biggest and meanest nobs wall fall upon one another in a vicious and deadly battle for supremacy. Skargak had been the most likely successor, but he was gone now and a power struggle would only serve to benefit the necrons. “’Ang on!” Hazug snapped and he swerved the truck sharply, steering it towards the burning remains of Kazkal’s battle fortress. A squadron of warbikes roared past the truck, their riders yelling abuse towards the necron weapon they were charging at. Apparently no matter how many mobs of orks were wiped out by the powerful close-in defences of the weapon emplacements there were still orks who thought that they could do better. In this case the rides of the bright red painted warbikes were convinced that they could move fast enough to reach the weapon itself before the lightning could find them. Not surprisingly they turned out to be wrong and all that reached the base of the weapon was the burning wreck of one warbike that had enough momentum to carry it that far. Hazug braked sharply when he got close to the remains of the battle fortress and he jumped down from the truck without even bothering to shut down it engine. “’Elp me find da boss!” he shouted as he ran closer, searching the ground for Kazkal and the truck’s other occupants all disembarked to join in the search. It was Sophie that found Kazkal. He was sprawled out on the ground, completely motionless and with blood seeping from dozens of cuts all over his body and as she got close she saw his eyes were closed. She was about to call out to Hazug that she had found the warboss’ body when she heard a soft moan and realised that by some miracle Kazkal Kromag had survived the destruction of the battle fortress. “Hazug!” she yelled as she rushed to the warboss’ side, “I’ve found him! He’s alive!” The others came rushing over and stared at Kazkal as he lay helpless on the ground. “Boss?” Hazug asked, “Is ya alright?” “Alright?” Drazzok exclaimed, “Look at ‘im, ‘e’s full of ‘oles. Of course ‘e aint alright.” “Boss wake up!” Hazug shouted, bending down and shoving Kazkal. But the warboss remained still. “Dat aint da way to do it.” Drazzok said, “Dis is da way to do it.” And he jabbed the base of his staff into the helpless warboss. The psychic energy that the weirdboy used his staff to dissipate was promptly channel through the body of Kazkal Kromag and he let out a sudden roar and sat upright, causing Sophie to jump backwards in shock. “Cowardly git.” Ratish muttered. “Boss,” Hazug said, “can ya get up?” and he held out his hand. “Of course I can get up.” Kazkal replied, brushing Hazug’s hand away as he got to his feet. Then he looked around and saw his precious battle fortress now a burning wreck. “Ya alien runt brains!” he shouted, waving his powerclaw at the necron weapon emplacement that had destroyed the battle fortress, “Dat was me best wagon! I’ll ‘ave ya for dis!” “Boss!” Hazug snapped, “We gotta get outta ‘ere.” “Leave?” Kazkal asked in amazement, “But I’ve got thousands of lads ‘ere.” “Not for much longer ya don’t.” Drazzok commented, “Just take a look about yaself.” Kazkal looked around and everywhere he looked he saw only the signs of defeat. The battlefield was littered with both the remains of ork vehicles and also their crews. Meanwhile all ten of the necron weapon emplacements were still firing on the remaining orks, adding even more to the death toll. Death held no fear for an ork, but that was not to say that they would willingly throw away their lives for nothing. At the very least they expected to be paid up front. “Dey is too strong boss.” Hazug said, “We needs to pull back and figure out wot to do.” Kazkal’s shoulders slumped as he realised that Hazug was right, the orks had been defeated and the only thing he could hope to salvage from this was that some of their amour had survived to this point. Then he noticed Hazug’s truck. “Right den,” he announced, “I’ll ride up on top. Now lets get outta ‘ere.” Kazkal climbed up to the truck’s gun mount as Hazug got back into the driver’s seat. Then Hazug began to drive at high speed along the ork lines and taking care to stay far enough away from the necron weapons that the lightning from them could not reach him. Meanwhile, from his vantage point on top of the truck, Kazkal shouted at the orks to fall back. “Get outta ‘ere lads!” he bellowed, “Regroup at da river!” and he waved in the direction away from the necron tomb. Recognising their leader, the orks that Kazkal waved to begrudgingly followed his order to withdraw and began to pull back. Then as others spotted them leaving they too retreated from battle. This spread across the battlefield and the withdrawal became a rout. From the palace command centre Mazakatek watched as the ork army fled, leaving their dead and injured behind them. “The pylon network is undamaged my lord.” Astrast announced, “All ten weapons remain operational.” “Excellent.”
Mazakatek replied, “Withdraw them, but be ready to re-deploy them should
the orks launch a major attack again.” “In addition I want to establish a security perimeter around the palace.” Mazakatek said, “The orks have failed with a frontal assault, but I do not believe that they will give up entirely. We must be watchful for any more covert actions by them.” “Of course my lord.” Tumanatan said, “There are five squads of warriors ready to-“ “No.” Mazakatek interrupted, “I do not want to deplete the number of warriors available to protect the palace. Our internal systems are fully online now are they not?” “Affirmative my lord.” Shazarak answered from his position monitoring the tomb’s internal operations. “Good.” Mazakatek said, “In that case deploy the tomb stalkers and canoptek spyders. Have them conceal themselves in the surrounding terrain and instruct them to attack any orks that come near.” “Yes my lord.” Tumanatan said. “Now,” Mazakatek added, “has there been any word from Ibon?” |
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