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Da 'Ole Of Death Chapta 21 | |
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Chapta 21 |
The necron warrior squad had been tasked with providing advanced warning of any reinforcements that the city may receive from the surrounding desert, but so far they had not encountered anyone, so they simply stood and waited for further instructions. It had not occurred to either the remnants of personalities that remained in their metal bodies or the vast mind that directed them that any of the city’s occupants might decide to come out and attack them specifically. The warriors barely had time to acknowledge that the objects that had just landed amongst them were grenade before the first of them detonated. The blast sent shrapnel through most of the warriors, and caused the detonation of the next grenade while it was still in mid air. This blast, and the next two that followed almost immediately after knocked the warriors to the ground. There was another succession of explosions as the remaining grenades went off and kept them pinned down, but none of them suffered enough damage to trigger their emergency teleport system. As they began to get back to their feet and repair the damage inflicted there was a mighty shout from the direction of the river. “Waaargh!” Ratish was actually the first of the greenskins to make it over the top of the riverbank, and fortunately for him the aliens were still unprepared for combat when he came into view. He fired his small pistol as he ran forwards, then leapt at the nearest warrior, grabbed hold of it tightly, and began to hammer away at its head with the grip of his gun. Hazug was only a few steps behind him, and he barged into the necron warriors as they began to regain their senses and were raising their weapons. He batted the necron’s rifles aside as he passed the first warriors in his path; using the long grip of the weapon he had taken from one of their own in the underground complex. The rest of the orks followed rapidly behind Hazug, and with the necrons distracted by both Hazug and Ratish now fighting in their middle they closed the distance from the riverbank to the aliens without being fired upon. Gobnok made the first kill, with his flamethrower set to deliver an extremely hot blast but only at point blank range, more like a welding torch, he sliced the head from an alien warrior. However, as he tried to grab hold of the headless body as it fell to the ground it disappeared before his eyes. “Ah crap!” he yelled as he realised that he had been too slow, “Now I got get another.” “Over ‘ere!” Zhagrad shouted, and Gobnok turned to see him and Ubgrub holding one of the aliens between them, pulling its arms in opposite directions and stopping it from moving. Grinning, Gobnok charged the captive alien with the muzzle of his flamethrower raised. He pressed the weapon against the alien’s chest plate, and watched with glee at it first glowed red, then erupted in a shower of sparks as melting metal short circuited internal systems. “’Ere we go!” Ubgrub shouted, “’Ang on!” and the alien’s twitching body faded away, taking the two orks with it. Hazug ducked a blow from another necron warrior and swung his weapon around, taking the legs out from under the warrior that Ratish was still clinging to. Moments later both the warrior and the gretchin disappeared. Ghukil had slung his automatic weapon in favour of his axe, and he struck repeatedly at any alien that came within his reach. However, no matter how hard or fast he struck, none of his blows did more than scratch the armour of any of the necrons. One of them aimed its rifle at him from point blank range, but rather than try to doge out of the way, he grabbed the muzzle of the weapon with his free hand and pulled it along with its owner towards him. The alien stumbled forwards as Ghukil’s sudden and unexpected pull dragged him closer to the ork, and as it stumbled Ghukil brought up his axe and struck under its chest plate. The alien fell and writhed on the floor as it attempted to repair the damage that Ghukil had just inflicted. Still keeping a firm hold on the end of the alien’s rifle, Ghukil brought his axe down again and again on the prone alien. Each blow caused the necron warrior to jerk again, and when Ghukil axe came crashing down on its head hard enough to crack open the metal skull the glow in the alien’s eyes died. Ghukil almost relaxed his hold on the rifle that the alien still held onto, but reinforced his grip just in time to be taken away when the remains of the alien vanished. While the disappearance of the necron warriors and the orks holding on to them was, hopefully, getting Hazug’s troops to where he wanted them to be, it also meant that the remaining orks were becoming increasingly outnumbered and those that remained had to be especially vigilant for attacks from unexpected quarters. Roggot unfortunately failed to do this, and a blast from an alien rifle seared the flesh from his arm. He fell to the ground, clutching at the stump of his arm and screaming. Hazug went to help, swinging the alien weapon as he did so. Three more aliens faded away from Hazug’s attacks, but there were no orks other than Hazug himself near enough to take advantage of their disappearance. “Get up lad,” Hazug said, as he pulled Roggot back to his feet, “leg it back to da city and find ya self a painboy, ya aint no good for dis mission any more.” Roggot sprinted in the direction of the river, at first ignored by the remaining alien warriors who were far more concerned with the orks who were still fighting than a single fleeing ork who was no threat to them. But just as he reached the riverbank and was about to jump down out of sight a necron warrior fired at him. The energy bolt hit him directly between his shoulders, and Roggot died instantly as his flesh was stripped from his body. Hazug launched an attack on the nearest necron warrior to him, and he succeeded in impaling through its chest. Rather than pull his weapon free he dragged the alien towards him and wrapped an arm around it. He felt the air tingling as the alien’s emergency teleport activated and his surroundings faded. Now only Gobnok and Nizz remained facing the remaining necrons. Seeking to even up the odds a little, Gobnok reset his flamethrower and fired it, spreading a sheet of flaming liquid that adhered to whatever it struck. This proved too much for some of the necron warriors who had already been damaged by axe blows and grenades and more of them vanished. Of the remaining necrons some of them were now burning, and Nizz took a chance by diving onto one of these, driving his axe down into the necron’s neck and behind its chest plate. For a few seconds he felt the heat of the flames, but he kept his grip on the necron and his disappearance left Gobnok alone to face the rest of the necron warriors. Dodging an energy blast from a nearby alien, Gobnok reset his flamethrower once more and lunged for the first of them that he saw. He pushed the muzzle of his weapon against one of the necron’s eyes and activated it. He kept his finger on the trigger as he took hold of the necron’s arm with his other hand, and he grinned as he joined it in teleporting away. With no further opponents left to fight the remaining necron warriors took up their role of looking out for the approach of reinforcements once more. The data they fed back to the underground complex was modified with information on the orks using the emergency teleport of their damaged comrades to gain access, but they were merely standard warriors and the controlling mind was not giving priority to their reports. Zhagrad and Ubgrub materialised in a dimly lit chamber, with the remains of the necron warrior still clutched between them. They had appeared on a raised dais, one of many in the room. They let go of the alien and it collapsed in a heap at their feet. They leapt down to the floor, Zhagrad drawing his pistol and Ubgrub unslinging his larger weapon. “So wot now?” Ubgrub whispered as they looked around the room. The dais on which they stood was just one of many laid out in neat rows. The surfaces of the room were all made of the same stone that had been used in the construction of the chamber and passageway that lay at the bottom of the hole they had descended into in the desert. There were many shallow alcoves in the walls that were filled with strange machinery that looked to be made from the same metal as the skeletal necron bodies and their other fighting machines were. Likewise, each dais seemed to be made of this metal also. “We should keep out of sight until da boss gets ‘ere with da bomb,” Zhagrad replied and the pair of them took cover at the base of the dais where they had arrived. Moments later another damaged necron appeared on one of the other dais, collapsing immediately. The two orks heard the sound of something jumping down from to the floor and looked over to se that Ratish had just arrived. “Oi grot,” Zhagrad called out, trying to keep his voice low, “’ide.” Ratish looked around, and catching sight of the two hidden orks he also moved out of the open. For a while the chamber was silent aside from the soft sounds of the hidden greenskins breathing until a clatter indicated the arrival of another damaged necron on a different dais. “’Ello?” Ghukil called out, “Anyone ‘ere?” “Shhh!” “Who said dat?” said Ghukil jumping to floor and unslinging his gun. “It’s me, Ubgrub. We’re ‘idin’.” “Oh right,” Ghukil whispered back and he darted over to the other two orks and crouched down with them, “Wot is we ‘din’ from?” he asked. “Anythin’ dat may be movin’ about,” Zhagrad said quietly, “We is waitin’ for da boss to show up, wot was ‘e doin’ when ya came ‘ere?” “’E was still fightin’,” Ghukil said, “so ’e could be next.” More of the necrons appeared and collapsed as soon as they materialised, but no more orks appeared with them. “Where’s da boss?” Ghukil whispered impatiently, “’e’s got da bomb.” He had no sooner finished asking his question when Hazug did appear with the body of a necron warrior impaled on his weapon. On his back he still carried the bomb made by mek Garspark. “Boss!” Ubgrub shouted, jumping to his feet, “we is over ‘ere.” “Quiet lad,” Hazug said, “I don’t want anyone ‘earin’ us.” “We was ‘idin’ down ‘ere,” Ubgrub said, pointing at his hiding place, “and da grot is over dare.” “Where is da others boss?” Ghukil asked quietly. “Roggot aint comin’,” Hazug said, “’e’s lost ‘is arm, so I sent ‘im off to find a painboy to give ‘im a new one. ‘E didn’t make it though, da necrons got ‘im before ‘e could get away. We’ll give Gobnok and Nizz a bit yet.” They were interrupted by the arrival of smouldering necron bodies, evidently they had been on fire recently but it had been extinguished either prior to or by the teleportation process. Another smouldering necron’s remains arrived, but this time with Nizz holding on tight. “Whoa, dat was so cool,” he said as he let go of the alien. Hazug beckoned him, and as he approached Gobnok materialised with the muzzle of his flamethrower pressed against the head of a necron warrior. “Wot is dis place?” Gobnok asked out loud as joined the rest of the orks. Hazug found that they were all staring at him, expecting an answer. “’Ow da bleedin’ ‘ell should I know?” he said, “I aint no mek, and dis place is clearly somethin’ to do with mek stuff.” “So wot do we do now we is all ‘ere den boss?” “Like I said,” Hazug replied, “we find somewhere for da bomb and den leg it out of ‘ere before it goes off.” There was only a single doorway from the room, and there was no actual door to block it. Followed by the other greenskins, Hazug strode to the doorway and stuck his head outside the chamber that they had arrived in. Beyond the door was a wide corridor that extended in either direction, and there were more doorways of the same size and shape as this one all along each side. In addition there was another doorway at one end of the corridor, but a closed door blocked this one. “I reckon dat’s da way out,” Hazug said, indicating the door at the end of the corridor, “Guns ready, let’s move. But keep it quiet.” The greenskins sprinted down the corridor in short bursts towards the closed door, pausing as they approached each open doorway along the way and looking in quickly to ensure that the rooms beyond were not occupied. All of the rooms appeared to be duplicates of the one they had arrived in with rows of daises, some of which were occupied by the remains of damaged necrons that had teleported back here. Approaching the door Hazug noticed that there was no handle on it, or lever nearby that appeared to be intended to open it. The greenskins stopped in front of the door and stared at it. “It looks like dat one dat da human opened master,” Ratish said, and Hazug realised that he was right, it did indeed seem to be made from the same liquid metal as the door they had encountered with Castus, and Hazug still had the device that Castus had used to open it. He pulled the device from his belt pouch and activated. Straight away the device lit up, and though Hazug could not understand the display properly he saw ripples appear in the door before it flowed back into the wall. Beyond the doorway was a spiral ramp that extended both up and down. Periodically level areas, each of which was adjacent to another door like the one Hazug had just opened, interrupted its slope. “We go down,” Hazug said, and he led the way down the ramp. Error. A minor disruption caught the attention of he necron mind. A door had just malfunctioned in one of the stasis towers, and it was now open for no apparent reason. Power
consumption indicates deviation. Upon closer inspection this was not the only fault that this building was reporting. The power consumed in order to retrieve the remains of several warriors had exceeded the standard amount by up to two hundred percent, and this had happened repeatedly, all to the warriors of a single unit. The unit concerned was not one committed to the main fighting. It was instead positioned on a flank to give advanced warning of any forces arriving to reinforce those in the city. According to the data fed back from that unit they had been attacked, but not by anything coming out of the wilderness, rather it appeared that a group of soldiers had used the river to sneak up on them from within the city itself and attacked them. The unit reported taking numerous casualties from the attack, and visual data illustrated that in many cases their assailants had been in sufficiently close proximity to disabled warriors as their emergency teleport units had been triggered, thus carrying them along too. Intruders. The complex had been breached. The inhabitants of the city were launching a counter attack, and had succeeded in infiltrating a team. Examining the relevant visual data records more closely an image of the creature leading the intruders was isolated. The mind recognised it instantly, it was the same creature that had breached the outer reaches of the complex once already. The mind had no reason to believe that the intruders had any specific knowledge of the complex in their possession despite their previous attempt at gaining access to it, so it was unlikely that they would have a specific target that they would head for. Unfortunately this meant that all critical areas of the complex would have to be guarded in addition to forces being used to hunt down the intruders. The mind was aware of the disposition of all of its forces, most were still in stasis and awaiting revival, and of those that were already active, most were deployed in the attack on the city. It appeared that disposing of the intruders would take some time. The necron mind did not consider this a significant problem however, the intruders had only the weapons they could carry and did not constitute a significant danger to the complex itself.
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