Da 'Ole Of Death

Chapta 5

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Da 'Ole Of Death

Prologue

Chapta 1

Chapta 2 

Chapta 3 

Chapta 4 

Chapta 5 

Chapta 6 

Chapta 7 

Chapta 8 

Chapta 9 

Chapta 10 

Chapta 11 

Chapta 12 

Chapta 13 

Chapta 14 

Chapta 15 

Chapta 16 

Chapta 17 

Chapta 18 

Chapta 19 

Chapta 20 

Chapta 21 

Chapta 22 

Chapta 23 

Chapta 24 

Chapta 25 

Chapta 26 

Chapta 27 

Epilogue 


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The truck kicked up a massive cloud of dust behind it as Hazug drove at speed through the desert, the truck’s engine making fart more noise than at the lower speed at which he had driven through the streets of the cities. He kept heading straight towards the source of the smoke somewhere over the horizon. The size of the cloud concerned Hazug, even at a great distance the lowest part of the plume appeared wide and he was worried that the remains could be spread over a wide area.

“So wot if it is? Won’t dat make it easier to find?” Drazzok asked when Hazug voiced his concerns.

“’Arder to find wot we is lookin’ for,” he replied, “we need a nice big bit of scrap if we is goin’ to find out ‘ow da ship was wrecked.”

Hazug drove for most of the day. Ratish was quite willing to relieve himself over the side of the truck when they needed to, but Sophie and Drazzok were both adamant that they would do no such thing and Hazug doubted he could maintain control of the vehicle if he attempted it while driving so some stops were unavoidable, and Hazug kept an eye open for good places for them to top up stores of food and water to takes these breaks. It was during one such break, at an oasis surrounded by a cluster of rocks that Hazug found something else to concern him.

“We aint da only ones out ‘ere,” he said as he showed the others the remains of a wild squig that he had found decaying beside one of the rocks.

“How do you know it didn’t die naturally?” Sophie asked.

“Because dare’s an arrowhead still stuck in it,” Hazug told her.

“But don’t orks carry guns?”

“Only da civilised ones,” said Drazzok.

“Yeah,” added Hazug, “and Fetrig did say dat dare could be wild boys out ‘ere. I think ‘e wos right.”

“What’s a wild boy?” Sophie asked Hazug.

“It’s an ork wot aint made its way to a proper settlement yet. Most of ‘em is just young ‘uns, but sometimes ya get some who stay out in places like dis long enough for ‘em to get bigger, nobs even but dat is rare.”

Sophie looked around, worried that there could be a war band of hostile orks nearby before she spoke once more.

“Would they attack us?”

“Of course dey would, dey is still orks,” Drazzok said as he and Hazug also looked around for any sign that the arrow’s owner was in the immediate area.

“We best get a move,” Hazug said, and the group returned to the truck and sped off without any of them seeing the figure crouching in the shadows.

 

As the sun began to set the crash site was still some distance away, and the sky became orange from the fires still burning.

“I think we is almost dare,” Hazug shouted over the noise of the engine so that everyone could hear him, “and I don’t want to camp out in da open just in case dare is someone else about so I’ll keep on drivin’.”

The others muttered their agreement, and Hazug drove onwards.

The first piece of wreckage they encountered was a bent metal disc, easily twice Hazug’s height in diameter. It stuck up out of the sand, scorched black by the uncontrolled entry into the planet’s atmosphere and the many fires that had sprung up near it after impact though they had now all burned themselves out. Hazug stopped the truck to take a look at the disc to see if it was what he was looking for.

“Just a patch, ya can see all da rivet ‘oles round da edges. We need a bigger bit,” he said as he drove onwards through the scattered wreckage.

“It looked pretty big to me,” Sophie said before Hazug interrupted her.

“Dat’s a big bit,” he said as he brought the truck to a complete halt before an enormous piece of the destroyed spaceship and disembarked.

Sophie gasped at the size of the wreckage in front of her. She had seen the gargants under construction back home that towered over the buildings of the city, but this was more massive than those would ever be. The visible length of the wreckage was over half a mile, and there was a trench at one end that marked out the path it had taken when it crashed. An unknown length at the other end had been buried in the impact, creating a hill of sand that in places had been turned to glass by the heat of the wreckage it covered. Looking down the length of the trench as far as she could see, Sophie saw that this was the source of much of the fire, damaged components had broken off during the crash and continued to burn as they were left behind by the bulk of the wreckage as it continued to plough through the sand. The smell was almost overpowering to her also, regardless of who built them spacecraft were filled with volatile materials and in addition the bodies of the crew had been quite combustible, adding the odour of burnt flesh to the acrid smell of burnt and melted plastics and metal.

“What could do this?” Sophie called out as she gazed around.

“Dare’s loads of stuff dat can,” Hazug said, “but most of ‘em take time to do it, dis wos done in one go. Now I need to find where da ship wos hit,” and he set of to search through the vast field of wreckage, Ratish scampering after him.

“Aren’t you going too?” Sophie asked Drazzok.

“Nah, I don’t know nothing about spaceships or blowin’ stuff up,” he said as he found a piece of the wreckage that had cooled down enough for him to be able to sit on it, “now get us a snack.”

Wandering through the wreckage, Hazug search for anything that looked like it had been struck directly by the attack. He found it on the largest piece of wreckage, located near to what had once been the outer hull surrounding the engineering section. It was a circular hole with a size similar to Hazug’s height punched through the hull without distorting the hull around the hole at all. He climbed up the wreckage to the hole and placed a hand into it, running his fingers over the edge. The metal was still warm to the touch but there was no sharpness to the metal edge, it was as if a circular section of the hull had simply ceased to exist in an instant. Next he looked into the hole. Beyond it he saw another hole the same size and shape in the next layer of platting, beyond that another and then more still beyond that. The path of the holes ran at an angle towards the back of the wreckage until it reached the back of the wreckage, right where the ship’s engines would have been located. Satisfied that he had found what he needed to know, Hazug climbed back down where he found Ratish waiting for him.

“Did master find wot ‘e wanted?”

“Yeah, I found it all right.”
Ratish smiled.

“Den master is ‘appy?”

“No I aint, dis aint good.”

“Ratish ‘elp?”

Hazug paused, then looking around he responded.

“Yeah, I need ya to take a look around and find anythin’ dat may be useful. Bring it back to da truck when ya got it.”

“Yes master,” Ratish said as he ran off. When Ratish disappeared from view Hazug turned around and headed back to the truck.

“So wot ‘appened to dis thing den?” Drazzok said with his mouth still full of food when he saw Hazug return.

“Some sort of zapp gun,” Hazug said, sitting down next to Hazug and taking food offered by Sophie, “but bigger dan anythin’ I’ve ever seen, and one dat doesn’t melt metal next to da hole it makes. It shot right through da hull into da middle of da ship and hit da engines, den dey blew up and took da ship with ‘em.”

“So was it just a lucky shot?” Sophie asked.

“Nothing lucky about makin’ a hole through ‘alf a ship,” Hazug told her, “I don’t think dat da ship would ‘ave survived regardless of where da zappa ‘it it.”

“The tau had guns that could shoot though thick armour,” Sophie said, “could there be more of them on the planet?”

“I’ve seen wot tau shootas do, and dis wasn’t one of ‘em. I aint seen anythin’ like dis before.”

“’Ere where’s dat grot of yours?” Drazzok asked, suddenly becoming aware of his absence.

“I got ‘im lookin’ for anythin’ worth lootin’,” Hazug replied, swallowing another mouthful of food, “I reckon somethin’ ‘ad to survive da crash and we may as well be da ones to get it.”

Hearing movement, Hazug suddenly dropped what remained of his meal, drew his pistol and spun round to face the source of the noise. A she did so Drazzok also leapt to his feet while Sophie ducked behind the two orks.

“It’s Ratish master,” Ratish called from out of the gloom as he appeared, dragging something behind him wrapped in a somewhat singed blanket.

“Well wot’ve ya got den?” Hazug shouted as he put away his gun and picked up his food once more.

“Sluggas master,” Ratish said, and he opened up the blanket to reveal a quantity of ork handguns, “dare wos a bunch of ‘em scattered back dare.”

Hazug took one of the weapons and inspected it. The gun wasn’t loaded, and it had some cosmetic damage but it appeared to have remained functional after being in the crash.

“Any bullets for ‘em?” Hazug asked.

“Some master,” Ratish said as he pulled a handful of bullets from his pocket. There were perhaps a dozen rounds, fewer bullets than guns recovered but this did not surprise Hazug, most of the ammunition would have gone off when exposed to the extreme temperatures they experienced during the uncontrolled entry into the atmosphere. Hazug took a clip of his own pistol ammunition and tossed it to Ratish.

“Take dis,” he said, “I wants ya to fire one bullet from each slugga to make sure dey still work. Den we is restin’ for da night, we’ve another long drive tomorrow.”

“Where to master?” Ratish asked, picking up the ammunition clip.

“We is goin’ to take a look at wot can do dis to a kroozer,” Hazug said.

 

Hazug woke at sunrise, and he promptly nudged and kicked the others to wake them also. He noticed that the grime covering Ratish now had an element of soot to it from the one handgun tested that had just produced a cloud of smoke before blowing up. The other weapons he had scavenged had been loaded on the truck with the rest of their equipment.

“Let’s get goin’ den,” Hazug said as he got into the truck, “we’ll ‘ead back to dat oasis to get some more water, den we can ‘ead over to wotever da crew of dis ship saw.”

Sophie paused at the mention of the oasis.

“What about the arrow?” she said, “Didn’t you say that there could be orks near there that would attack us?”

“No problem,” Hazug said as he started the truck, “dey may ‘ave arrows, but we got loadsa shootas. Now get on.”

They reached the oasis as the sun was high in the sky. Hazug stopped the truck short of the cluster of rocks where the source of water was located and got into the back of the vehicle. He located the crate that contained the items he had purchased from mek Batrug before coming on this journey and opened it.

“We’ll take dis stuff with us just in case,” he said as he pulled out the custom rifle and loaded it. Next he took out the crude single shot pistol and gave it to Ratish whose face lit up as he took the weapon and a bag of ammunition for it. Then Hazug held out the human built automatic pistol towards Sophie.

“’Ere you are,” he told her, “I managed to get ‘old of one of dese things for ya.”

Nervously Sophie took the weapon and loaded it.

“D’ya want to borrow my slugga?” Hazug asked Drazzok.

“Well if da grot and da git is getting’ guns I aint goin’ without,” he said and Hazug handed the weirdboy his pistol.

“Right,” said Hazug, cradling his rifle in his arms, ”nobody shoots until I say so, got dat?”

The others nodded and murmured that they understood. Holding his rifle at the ready, Hazug sprinted towards the oasis followed by the rest of the group.

They reached the edge of the water without seeing any signs of anyone else nearby. Ratish and Sophie put their guns aside and began to fill the empty water bags and flasks they had carried with them. Hazug maintained a watch, looking down the length of his gun as he panned around checking for any indication that they were not alone.

“I don’t know wot ya is worried about,” Drazzok said as he wandered around the edge of eh oasis, “dare aint o one ‘ere.”

The weirdboy stopped suddenly and everyone else looked at him as his staff hit the ground with a distinct ‘clump’ rather than the muffled sound of it striking sand.

“Get back,” Hazug told him, pointing his gun at the ground where Drazzok stood.

As Drazzok moved backwards and Hazug advanced a trapdoor was flung open and an ork leapt out of hole hidden beneath where Drazzok had been. There was a rush of movement as more orks burst from carefully concealed locations all around them.

The revealed orks formed a rough circle around the group who all raised their weapons and waited for Hazug to give the order to fire.

“Wot is we waitin’ for?” Drazzok asked as he looked at the band of wild boys who were now pointing bows and arrows at them, “Let’s let ‘em ‘ave it quick.”

“Wait,” Hazug said as he studied their opponents. Most of the wildboys were small by ork standards, though all were still much larger than either Ratish or Sophie; they had probably hatched from their pods less than a year ago. Some of them were larger however, and they clearly dominated this warband. Hazug noticed the clothing of the orks was coloured to blend in with the desert, and all of them had waited in specially prepared hiding places before they had all emerged at once.

“Dey is like me,” Hazug said, “Dey is Blood Axes.”
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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.

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