Da Cybork Menace

Chapta 17

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 Da Cybork Menace

Prologue

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Chapta 22 

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Chapta 24 

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Warboss Kromag was not impressed with Hazug’s report.

“Ya let ‘im away?” the enormous ork yelled after Hazug told him of Dok Gutstitch’s escape, “Why didn’t ya send for me like ya was supposed to?”

“’E saw us before we saw ‘im boss,” Hazug replied, “den ‘e set an ‘ole load of kans on us while ‘e made a run for it.”

“Dese would be da same kans wot ‘ave just smashed dare way out da city right?”

“I reckon so,” Hazug said, after the dreadnoughts had withdrawn from the battle in the mekboys’ neighbourhood he had lost track of them. But it seemed unlikely that there would be more than one rampaging mob of dreadnoughts in the city.

“So just ‘ow many kans are we talkin’ about den?” Kromag asked.

“I aint sure boss,” Hazug admitted, “but I know ‘e’s got two real big ‘uns, and at least one grot killa kan. I reckon dat dare’s about a couple of dozen other kans.”

“And dis news is already all over da city,” Kromag said, “and some is sayin’ dat it’s my fault for trustin’ a git lovin’ Blood Axe.”

“Maybe dey is right,” came a shout from amongst assembled ork nobs in Warboss Kromag’s throne room.

There was a sudden hush before the warboss responded.

“What?” he bellowed as he got to his feet as strode towards the nobs.

The group parted as the warboss approached them, unwilling to risk getting in his way as he sought out the culprit.

The ork who had made the offending comment looked around as Kromag closed in on him and the other nobs all moved away from him.

“Well?” Warboss Kromag shouted as he drew close, “D’ya reckon dat ya could do it better den?” he asked. The correct reply would of course have been ‘no’, and to put his outburst down to a simple error. But unfortunately the ork nob suffered a sudden failure of intelligence.

“Better dan ‘im and you,” he said, and he smirked.

The smile stayed on his face as the warboss reached his out his hand and grasped the nob by the throat. Then he lifted him off the floor and held him in mid air. His smile now gone from his face, the nob kicked his legs and tried to pry Kazkal Kromag’s vicelike grip from his throat.

Kazkal himself just watched as the nob struggled while he choked the life out of him, tightening his grip. The nob suddenly ceased trying to claw his way free of the warboss’s grip, and instead reached for his waist where he had a large knife tucked into his belt.

Kazkal saw what the nob was doing just as the weapon was pulled from his belt. He instantly released his grip and let the nob drop to the floor. Landing in a heap, the nob let go of his knife and it skid across the floor out of reach. He scrambled to get close enough o grab the knife again, but the nob was suddenly lifted up again as Kazkal delivered a strong kick to his stomach. Doubled up in pain the nob was helpless against the next blow, a strong punch aimed straight into his face, and there was a splatter of blood as his nose collapsed under the attack.

Stunned, the nob could no longer resist, but to Warboss Kazkal Kromag that meant nothing. His judgement and authority had been challenged openly in his throne room, and he intended to make and example of the dissident. He grabbed the nob by his collar, and delivered punch after punch to the nob’s face. He let go only when the nob’s corpse was limp in his grip and he let it fall back to the floor.

“Now where were we?” he asked as he returned to his throne, oblivious to the corpse lying in a pool of its own blood, “Ah yeah, dis bad dok just got away with a big bunch of kans, and everybody knows about it.”

“’E ‘asn’t ever beaten ya though, each time ‘e’s done a runner before ya could get near ‘im,” Hazug pointed out, “but I reckon dat dat’s about to change.”

“’Ow come?” one of the other nobs asked before the warboss could ask himself.

“Because ‘e aint goin’ to get any stronger dan ‘e already is,” Hazug answered, “and ‘e can’t ‘ide all dem kans for long, so ‘e’s got to beat ya quick and get nobs to start backin’ ‘im as da boss. Can ya get some flyboys up yet?”

“Wot for?”

“To see where Gutstitch is takin’ da kans.”

Warboss Kazkal looked into the midst of the assembled orks.

“Corgut!” he shouted, “Come ‘ere!” and an ork mekboy made his way out of the crowd and towards the warboss’s throne. His clothing consisted mainly of red, indicating that he was a member of the Evil Suns clan.

“Dis is Corgut,” Warboss Kromag said to Hazug, “’e’s taken over lookin’ after me planes and other flyin’ wotnot,” then he turned to the mek and asked, “So are any of me planes workin’ yet?”

“We was close last time checked boss,” Corgut answered, doing his best to conceal his nervousness, his predecessor had been killed for failing to get any aircraft airborne after all, “and we may ‘ave a couple of fightas ready now.”

“Den go and find out,” Warboss Kromag ordered him, “quickly,” he added and the mekboy ran from the room.

“We should ask da ship bosses to ‘elp an’ all,” Hazug suggested, “dey should be able to see all dem kans if dey is still together.”

 

Kaglort Skyburna checked his cockpit’s rear view mirrors before he ignited his aircraft’s engine. He wanted to be sure that there was at least one of the gretchin ground crew directly behind him when he did.

The engine ignited first with a bang, then followed by a roar, and a blast of flame erupted from the tail of his fighter. Kaglort grinned as he heard, not one, but two distinct screams from gretchin caught in the exhaust fire. Then, when his fighter did not explode for any reason he increased the power and felt a slight bump as he ran over a third gretchin who was trying to remove the wooden blocks that stopped the plane from just rolling away on its own. Kaglort’s grin widened, he hadn’t even got to the runway yet, and he already had three kills.

Two other fighters made it to the start of the runway and lined up side by side, the engine on a fourth failing to ignite at all. Impatiently the three fighter pilots waited for clearance to launch. There was a ‘pop’ barely audible over the noise of his engine, but Kaglort saw the bright red flare in the sky next to the airbase’s command post that was the signal to go and he, along with the other two pilots, increased their engine power to maximum.

Kaglort felt himself being pressed back into his thickly padded seat as his fighter accelerated along the runway. The fighter shook as its speed increased, and pulling back on the control column, Kaglort laughed as he felt it lift clear of the ground and take to the sky. Beside him, another of the fighters was airborne, though the third stalled as it tried to take off. It landing gear collapsed as it fell back to the ground, and it skidded along the runway, barely avoiding complete destruction when the missiles it carried were ripped free and exploded nearby.

Safely in the air now, Kaglort looked at the map he had been given, gripping his control column with just one hand as he held up the map with the other. The map was a crude sketch of the city below, with several key points identified. He turned the map until it appeared that his current heading was towards the top of the map as he viewed it. Then he shifted his attention towards the large arrow that had been drawn on it also, this was the direction in which he was to fly. His orders were quite simple, search for a mob of dreadnoughts last seen heading that way, follow them to wherever they were going and report back their location. Kaglort looked out of his cockpit in the direction of the arrow and saw that the other fighter was already banking off in that direction.

“Bugger it! ‘E’ll find ‘em first!” Kaglort shouted to himself. He set off after the other fighter, and was soon rewarded with the resounding boom as his aircraft punched its way through the sound barrier.

 

Stoggi was enjoying himself. Normally orks only let gretchin go first to use them as a shield from incoming fire, or to make sure that it would be their smaller and weaker cousins that would blunder into minefields before they did. But right now he was a leader, and the squig-brained orks were his troops to command. Admittedly, he was only following orders that had been given to him by his master, but he felt good anyway.

Then he heard the roar.

Encased inside his dreadnought, Stoggi was unable to identify the direction that the noise had come from, and the slit at the front of his dreadnought allowed him only a narrow field of vision. Fearing a wild squiggoth was about to charge him, he initially tried searching at ground level for the source of the noise. When Stoggi stopped to look around him, the ork piloted vehicles also halted and mimicked his actions by turning from side to side as though they too were searching for something. Stoggi ignored this behaviour.

Then Stoggi heard the roar again, but this time it was different. Rather than a brief but loud noise, this time it was more drawn out, and it seemed to alter its volume. Then Stoggi caught sight of an unusual pattern in the clouds on the horizon. Instead of the dark random shape there were two clouds that appeared as lines drawn straight across the sky. He tilted his dreadnought back and looked up as much as the machine would allow and he saw the pair of jet aircraft circling back around towards him.

 

“Dis is Kaglort,” Kaglort said having activated his fighter’s radio, “We ‘ave seen ‘em. We is followin’ ‘em now.”

 

Followed by the ork piloted dreadnoughts, Stoggi moved his own machine as fast as he could, expecting death to strike out at him from the sky at any moment. But the attack never came. Instead the sound of the planes faded as they passed over him without shooting and then gained altitude.

Stoggi didn’t question his luck, and he pressed on towards the camp oblivious to the jets now loitering high above.

 

Kaglort was getting seriously bored now. He was an Evil Sun, and as such he loved speed, that was why he became a pilot in the first place. While bikers and wagon drivers were boasting about how far they could travel in day, he could better them all. But right now he was flying in circles, his speed kept deliberately low to enable him to keep an eye on the cumbersome dreadnoughts below as they ran through the countryside towards the coast. To make matters worse, he and the other jet pilot had been specifically told that they were not allowed to attack the dreadnoughts.

Something caught his eye ahead of the dreadnoughts. The light was starting to fade now, but even from his altitude, Kaglort could make out crowds of orks standing near the coastline ahead of him. Beside them was a row of buildings that jutted out into the water and he decided that he’d better call this in.

 

“Master!” Stoggi yelled as he approached the camp at the head of the force of dreadnoughts, “Master!”

Several gretchin ran into the nearest of the sheds, returning with Dok Gutstitch himself.

“Good lad Stoggi,” Gutstitch said, smiling when he saw that the gretchin had successfully led the dreadnoughts here without loosing a single one. Then, over then sound of the dreadnoughts’ engines he heard another sound and he looked up and his face fell.

“Dare’s fightas up dare! Ya was followed!” he yelled, then he looked around, “Right grots, get all da cyborks and kans aboard, we gotta move now!”

 

Corgut reached Warboss Kromag’s palace shortly after dark, and was shown straight into the war room while a servant went to fetch the warboss himself.

“So wot d’ya want?” Warboss Kromag said when he entered the room, accompanied by a Goff nob.

“One of me lads reckons ‘e‘s found Gutstitch,” Corgut told him before pointing at a spot on the map of the continent that occupied the table which occupied much of he room’s floor space, “’e’s about ‘ere.”

“Wot did ‘e see?” Kromag asked, joining Corgut beside the map.

“Da mob of kans came ‘ere, where dare was an ‘ole bunch of lads just standin’ about by some sheds doin’ nought.”

“Den we got ‘im,” Kromag said, grinning. Then he turned to face the Goff, “Go round up some lads, and get some transport. I is goin’ to finish dis off now.”

The nob grinned back at his warboss and left the room. Corgut began to move also.

“’Ang on a mo,” Kromag told him, “I aint said dat ya can leave yet.”

“Wot else d’ya want boss?”

“I aint givin’ Gutstitch da chance to do a runner before I can get to ‘im,” he said, “so I wants ya to figure out which of me kroozers is closest to dis place and I wants ya to tell ‘em to blast it. By da time I gets dare meself I just wants to be pickin’ over wots left in da rubble. Goddit?”

“Goddit boss,” Corgut answered, and he left the war room.

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