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Da Portal of Darkness Chapta 2 | |
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Da Portal Of Darkness Chapta 2 |
Dariel Thayne cursed his bad luck. He had been running late from the moment that he woke up and discovered that his alarm clock had ceased working and allowed him to sleep far too long. Throughout breakfast all he could think about was how difficult it was going to be to replace the device, there was little technology in the human quarter of the city, known to the orks as Git Town, and what was available was expensive. Then to top it off just as he had been about to leave for work his young son had spilt his breakfast all over Dariel, forcing him to change his clothing. So now he was going to be very late for work. In his two years as the chief constable of what passed for a law enforcement body in Git Town he had never wasted an opportunity to champion the benefits of punctuality to his men. He knew that they would have gotten on without him of course, they were reliable enough that he didn’t have to watch hem constantly to make sure that they did their job and didn’t abuse their power. About now he expected them to be loading up the handful of vehicles his constabulary had available to it ready to undertake the regular morning sweep of the human quarter. These patrols had become more important recently, for many years the existence of the human constabulary had been unknown to the ruling orks who only ventured into the area when extremely bored. But recently, while responding to a reported explosion Dariel and his men had come face to face with a force of orks who had been in the area for some other reason and had been fired on by a human who had somehow obtained a stockpile of anti tank missiles and energy rifles; military specification weapons that Dariel’s men could only dream of possessing. The orks had left without firing on the constabulary, but they had taken word of its existence, along with the weapons to the other orks. So now that they knew that an organised armed force existed here more of them had been coming looking for trouble many more times than normal. Though the orks did not care if humans killed any of their number, the reverse did not apply, and Dariel had issued orders for his men to withdraw if they saw any signs of trouble. Dariel quickened his pace as he approached the final turning to his headquarters where that he expected his men would be about to leave without him. Dashing around the corner, he saw that the gates to the courtyard where the patrol vehicles were stored were still closed, indicating that they had not left yet. Good, he thought to himself, I’m just in time after all. Then the explosion knocked him backwards off his feet. Stunned by the blast, Dariel landed on his side and rolled across the ground, the noise of the explosion making his ears ring. It didn’t take long for him to recover his senses however, and Dariel picked himself up and looked towards where his headquarters had been. Now what was left of the building was ablaze, and a thick cloud of smoke was forming above it. The gates to the courtyard had been propelled across the street and smashed against the building opposite. Attracted by the sound, people were starting to emerge from other buildings to see what was happening, and already Dariel could here those with property near to the burning police headquarters calling for water to be brought to help contain the fire before it could spread to other buildings. Had Dariel Thayne woken up and left home on time this morning, he would have been inside that building when it exploded, so before rushing to help put out the fire he considered what good luck he had this morning. Standing on his balcony still, Drazzok watched the cloud of smoke forming following the blast. “Wot’s ‘e lookin’ at?” one of the madboys standing beneath Drazzok asked the nob who led them. “Dunno,“ the nob replied before taking a deep breath and yelling to Drazzok, “Wotcha lookin’ at master?” Being called ‘master’ suddenly made Drazzok forget just how annoyed he had been at the gathering of madboys below him, after all no ork ever turned down the chance to boss someone about, even if they were lacking the common sense that even gretchin and humans possessed. In fact especially if they lacked any common sense, since you could often get them to do things that they wouldn’t if they had any. “Hazug will ‘ave ‘eard dat bang,” Drazzok replied, still keeping his eyes trained on the cloud, and there were murmurs from the madboys before the nob spoke again. “Who’s Hazug?” he shouted. “Someone wot is far too smart for ‘is own good. Whenever anythin’ odd ‘appens, ‘e goes runnin’ off to find out why, and den ‘e normally drags me into it an’ all.” Suddenly, before the madboys could enquire any further, Drazzok began to descend the ladder from his hut. “Come on den,” he said as he made his way downwards, “if ya is goin’ to ‘ang about den ya can make ya selves useful and take me to see Hazug.” “Ya ‘eard da master lads,” the nob yelled, “let’s clear da way for ‘im.” As soon as Drazzok reached the base of the ladder and planted his staff into the dirt the madboys began to move ahead of him. “Clear da way!” “Make room!” “Da mighty Drazzok is ‘ere!” Drazzok just stood and watched the madboys as they moved away from him, apparently oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t following them. “Oi!” Drazzok suddenly shouted at the madboys, causing them to grind to a halt and turn around to face him. “Wot is it master?” the nob ask. “Hazug lives dat way,” Drazzok replied, pointing in the opposite direction to the one the madboys had been heading in. “Ya ‘eard ‘im lads!” the nob bellowed, “Clear dat way instead!” Rhia and Sophie were quickly able to gather up food and drink for a short journey into Git Town, and were already waiting in the truck when Hazug and Ratish entered the garage laden with weapons. “I thought we were just going to see what happened. Will we need those?” Sophie asked as Hazug placed a pair of human manufactured laser weapons along with bandoliers of extra ammunition in the back of the truck. “Dunno, dey is just in case,” Hazug answered before adding, “So don’t touch ‘em till I says so, “ as he batted Rhia’s hand away from the weapon nearest to her and covered them both up with a sheet. Then he laid his own much larger any bulkier weapon on top of them. While he did this Ratish dragged an even bigger belt fed weapon onto the truck and fixed it in place to the vehicle’s roll cage where it could fire all around. “Ratish as go da big shoota on da trukk master,” the gretchin said proudly, and to emphasise his point he pulled back the bolt and readied the gun to fire. “Right den,”
Hazug said as he clambered into the driver’s seat and started up the
truck’s engine, “we is all ready for off. Someone get da door.” Hazug watched as the door opened wider, waiting for there to be enough room for him to drive his truck through. But before this happened, Hazug saw that the way out was blocked by a mob of orks. Standing at the front of this mob was the weirdboy Drazzok, and another large ork with an eye patch who brandished a large gun. “Stop right dare Hazug,” Drazzok said seriously, “where d’ya reckon ya is goin’?” “Didn’t ya ‘ear da blast?” Hazug asked from the driver’s seat. “Of course I ‘eard it,” Drazzok replied, “and I knew dat ya would go rushin’ off to find out wot was goin’ on, so I came ‘ear to stop ya before ya could get me in more trouble.” Hazug frowned before reaching for his money pouch. “I’ll pay ya a tooth to come as well,” he said, holding out the cash. Drazzok’s expression changed to a smile at the thought of getting paid, and he walked towards the truck, climbed into the empty seat next to Hazug and took the tooth from him. “Well wot is ya waitin’ for den?” he asked. “Well I thought dat we should shift ya lads out of da way rather dan squash ‘em,” Hazug replied. “Don’t mind dem,” Drazzok said, “Dey is mad.” Hazug wasn’t so sure about just running over an entire mob of orks. The orks themselves didn’t worry him, but their weaponry could damage the tyres of his truck and he didn’t have any spares. “Sophie get back in da trukk,” Hazug told his servant and then he turned to Drazzok, “Get as many of ya lads on board as’ll fit, da rest can wait ‘ere till we gets back.” “Come on lads,” Drazzok shouted towards the madboys, “get on da trukk, da rest of ya stays ‘ere and looks after da ‘ouse.” As one, the mob of madboys rushed at the vehicle as it stood idling in the garage and clambered aboard. Having been at the front of the group, the nob got there first and he shoved Ratish away from the gun mount, lining the sights up with his eye patch. Sophie noticed this as she was buffeted by the other madboys climbing up. “Shouldn’t you aim with the other eye?” she asked. “Yeah, I s’pose so,” the nob replied, and he reached for a pouch on a cord around his neck, “dis is me good eye and I is savin’ it for a special occasion,” he added, waving the pouch. Ratish was not happy about being displaced. “Master, ‘e pushed Ratish,” the gretchin complained to Hazug as more orks continued to push him around as they boarded the vehicle. Hazug was about to reply when he realised he still didn’t have a clue who the large ork shifting the automatic weapon’s stock from one shoulder to another actually was. “Who is dat nob anyway?” he asked Drazzok. “’Ow should I know?” Drazzok replied, “’E just showed up dis mornin’ and knocked me out of bed.” Hazug turned around to face his new gunner. “Wot’s ya name den?” he asked. “Thuggrim,” the nob replied without looking away from the gun, and Hazug turned his gaze back to the front of the truck. Satisfied that the way ahead was clear, and with his truck now filled with orks, Hazug put his foot down on the accelerator and sped off towards Git Town. Dariel Thayne sat down on a low wall, out of breath. Opposite him, the fire in the police headquarters continued to burn, but the local people had made sure that any debris that came loose was extinguished quickly before it could cause the fire to spread beyond the headquarters. Before the orks had conquered Crasus Minor the city had possessed a dedicated fire fighting service, and Thayne still had a vague memory from his early childhood of their massive vehicles racing through the streets with sirens blaring to take specialised equipment to extinguish burning buildings and rescue anyone unlucky enough to be trapped inside. But like so many thing s the ork invasion had changed all of that. While the orks had been willing to tolerate a subservient human population in this particular city, as well as scattered about the continent, they had taken most of the technology for themselves, and the fire department’s bright red vehicles had been amongst some of the first vehicles to be taken. Apparently the ork species had a particular attraction for vehicles of that colour. It was only then that it struck Thayne that most of his force would have been inside the building when the explosion occurred, and it was inevitable that all them were now dead. Even if the explosion had not killed them, the smoke and flames would have ended their lives by now. “Chief, are you alright?” someone asked, and Thayne looked up to see a man looking down at him wearing the badge of one of his department. “Throne, Jaris!” Thayne exclaimed as he got rapidly to his feet, “How did you survive?” The man’s clothing showed no signs of damage from the fire at all. “Night shift sir,” Jaris replied, “I’d just got home when I heard the explosion, and I rushed right back. How many others got out?” “None, I’d have been in there myself if I hadn’t been running late this morning.” “Then I guess we’re both lucky,” Jaris said, “So what happened?” “I don’t know. I came round the corner just as the morning patrol was due to leave when the explosion happened.” “Could it have been a fault with one of the vehicles?” The vehicles operated by the police had not been in very good condition. Kept hidden from the orks for thirty years, they had been maintained using scavenged second hand and improvised replacement parts that would have never been approved by the Adeptus Mechanicus had they still been around, so the possibility of one of them exploding with a full fuel tank and carrying several hundred rounds of projectile ammunition wasn’t hard to imagine. But the fuel and ammunition carried by each vehicle would have been insufficient to destroy even the other vehicles parked in the courtyard, let alone take out the entire headquarters building as well. “No,” Thayne said, “The blast was far too big,” and then an unpleasant thought hit him, “I think it was a bomb.” “A bomb? So you think the orks did this?” Thayne paused for a moment as he considered whether the orks would use a bomb to wipe out his force. “No,” he answered finally, “I don’t think it was the orks. Whoever planted the bomb had to have access to our headquarters, or maybe one of our vehicles, and if the orks knew where we were based then they would have just come storming in and shot the place up. No, someone human did this.” “But who chief?” “If I knew that, I’d be off round to deal with them now. All I can say is that I think that we need to find out who else wasn’t in there when the place blew, and find out what gear we’ve still got left, because I think that whoever did this is planning something else that they didn’t want us interfering with.” Before wither of the lawmen could say anything more there was the sound of an engine, a low pitched rumble that grew louder as the vehicle closed, and there was another sound accompanying it. “Orks!” The warning cry was repeated and people fled as the crudely built truck appeared and drove at speed towards the remains of the police headquarters. “Scatter!” Thayne shouted, before he grabbed Jaris and pulled him behind the wall on which he had been sat. Panic-stricken humans fled as the alien vehicle came closer, and peering out from behind the wall, Thayne saw that it was crammed full of orks, and though it was hard for him to tell at this distance, he thought that he recognised the driver. “So it was the orks,” Jaris said, “They must have used a missile, and now they’ve come to finish the job.” “No,” Thayne told him, “there was no missile, it was a bomb, and I don’t think they’re here to kill anyone. In fact I’ve got a feeling that they’re here to investigate what’s going on.” The ork truck screeched to a halt in the street outside the destroyed police headquarters, and immediately orks began to leap down. Then the sound of the engine stopped, and Thayne and Jaris could hear the orks yelling at one another in their crude language. But there was something odd about them, even though neither of the human lawmen understood the ork tongue it was obvious that what they were yelling did not appear to have anything to do with getting themselves organised, if anything they seemed to be arguing. “I said dat I got down first!” one of the madboys shouted, pounding his chest. “Ya got to be kiddin’!” another shouted, “It was me wot was first!” and he jumped up and down as if this would prove him right. “Never mind first,” a third madboy called out as he carefully climbed down from the back of the truck, “I did it best cause I didn’t make as much noise as any of ya.” “So wot?” “So it means dat no one ‘eard me.” “But ya just shouted at us while ya did it.” Hazug couldn’t stand any more of this. “Be quiet!” he bellowed, and to reinforce his order he leapt down from the driver’s seat, grabbed hold of the nearest madboy, lifted him off the ground one-handed and butted him in the face. Following this he dropped the ork and grabbed the next two nearest and slammed them together. “Now anyone else got anythin’ to say important enough to get shot over?” he added. A nearby madboy drew in breath as if to speak, and in one swift motion, Hazug plucked his pistol from his belt and pointed it straight at the madboy’s head. Immediately the madboy shut his mouth tight, gulped and shook his head slowly. Behind Hazug, Drazzok and Thuggrim had dismounted from the truck and walked over to him, closely followed by Ratish, Rhia and Sophie. “Dat was just wot I was goin’ to say to ‘em,” Thuggrim said, and he unslung his rifle as they all stared at the burning building in front of them. “Hazug?” came a voice from behind the group. It was a human voice rather than the much deeper tones of an ork, and Hazug looked over his shoulder to see that a pair of humans was climbing over a low wall that they had been hiding behind. As they did, several of the madboys began to rush towards them with their weapons raised and the humans both lifted their arms to show that they held no weapons, though each had both a pistol and a club hanging from their belt. “’Old on a mo!” Hazug ordered, and the madboys halted, though they kept their pistols trained on the pair. “I knows ya,” Hazug said, this time using the human language, Gothic, vaguely remembering that the lead human did not speak orkish. “Yes, we’ve met once before, I’m Dariel Thayne.” The name meant little to Hazug, though it did jog a memory for him. “Ya is da leader of da cons, const…” “Constabulary,” Sophie said. “Dat’s right, da constabulary. Ya keeps order around ‘ere.” “Yes, that’s right,” Dariel answered and, followed by Jaris, he slowly lowered his arms to his sides. This prompted more of the madboys, including Thuggrim, to raise their guns, but a wave from Hazug calmed them. Then Hazug pointed towards the burning building behind him. “So explodin’ buildin’s is keepin’ order den is it?” Hazug asked. “It was a bomb, I think someone wanted to wipe out my force.” “Who?” Hazug asked. “I don’t know,” Thayne answered and, after a brief pause, he added, “But I think that they’ll try and pick off the few of us who weren’t inside next, I need to warn them quickly.” Something about the explosion seemed wrong to Hazug. For all of his life the humans here had possessed only a handful of weapons, and none of them had been particularly powerful. But now some of them had apparently gained access to enough explosives to destroy a large building, and not long before he had stumbled across a stockpile of heavy weapons concealed in a residence here in Git Town. He had been able to convince Kromag that the find was a one off, in part by bribing him with a share of the missiles to stop him from sending a force of orks into Git Town to search for any more and kill any humans that got in the way of the force. But if there were more weapons hidden here then it spelt trouble for everyone. “I’ll ‘elp ya,” Hazug said to Thayne, “Ya better go warn ya other lads now. I’ll get someone ‘ere who can tell us wot ‘appened properly.” “Thank you, I don’t have the manpower to investigate this by myself,” Thayne responded, and he turned to leave, and as he did he spoke to Jaris, “Stay here with them,” he said, “I think you’ll be safe enough if just try not to get the way.” As Hazug and Thayne spoke Drazzok became inpatient. He didn’t speak the human language, so the nature of the conversation between Hazug and the human standing before him was a mystery to him. As a Snake Bite, the most traditional of the ork clans, Drazzok didn’t really approve of talking to humans anyway. He could just about accept Rhia and Sophie because they were Hazug’s property, but this human did not appear to be properly domesticated. He made his way closer to Sophie and leant down so that he could speak directly into her ear. “Wot’s ‘appenin’?” he demanded. In this situation a human would have whispered the question, but Drazzok, like all orks who weren’t Blood Axes did not do quiet, and Sophie jumped at the sudden sound directed straight into her ear. She quickly regained her composure enough to answer the weirdboy’s question. “Hazug’s offering to help Officer Thayne find out who caused the explosion that destroyed his police station,” she whispered back in orkish. “Ah crap,” Drazzok exclaimed, remembering that this was exactly the sort of trouble that he had wanted to avoid by stopping Hazug from coming here in the first place. Suddenly Hazug began to speak in orkish once more. “Ratish, I got a job for ya,” he said, and his gretchin servant pushed between Rhia and Sophie to stand beside his master. “Ratish is ‘ere master,” he said, looking up at Hazug. “Good, I wants ya to and find Batrug. Tell ‘im dat I needs ‘im to come ‘ere and find out wot sort of bomb did dis,” and he pointed towards the destroyed police station. Ratish grinned and he began to run back towards the ork regions of the city, “’Ang on a mo,” Hazug called after the gretchin, “’E’ll want payin’, so ya ‘ad better take some money to give ‘im,” and Hazug tossed two teeth from his money pouch towards Ratish, who failed to catch either of them. “Ratish got ‘em master,” Ratish shouted as he picked up the teeth from the street, “Ratish’ll be back real soon with da mek,” and he ran off as fast as he could manage. “Did ‘e just send dat grot to get Mek Batrug?” Drazzok asked Thuggrim. “Sounded like it,” the madnob replied. “Ah crap,” Drazzok repeated, considering how much trouble that particular mekboy could cause him. With Ratish gone for specialist technical help, and the human Thayne gone to warn his surviving followers, Hazug turned his attention to what needed doing here. He considered what Mek Batrug would want to do when he got here, and Hazug came to the conclusion that he would want to able to inspect as much of the wreckage as he could. Admittedly the mekboy would probably take anything he thought looked interesting for himself, but he could be relied on to at least tell Hazug if it was important to finding out what happened here. “We needs to protect da area until da mek get’s ‘ere,” Hazug ordered, and then he turned to Thuggrim, “’Ave ya lads surround da wreckage and keep everyone away from it,” he ordered. At first Thuggrim just looked at Drazzok, after all Hazug was not his superior. “Ya ‘eard ‘im,” Drazzok told him, now resigned to the fact that he was up to his neck in this, “Get ya lads to surround da wreckage.” “Right boss,” Thuggrim said, and then he shouted to the other madboys, “Drazzok reckons dat da wreckage may try and get away, we needs to surround it and stop it from running’ past us!” The madboys began to disperse, forming a loose perimeter around the former police headquarters as it continued to burn. Including Thuggrim, only ten madboys had been able to fit in Hazug’s truck, and even if they had been in full possession of their mental faculties Hazug doubted that there were enough of them to adequately seal off the area he wanted them to, but this was what he had so it would just have to do until mek Batrug could arrive and decide what to do. Hazug and Drazzok stood in front of the police station, watching the madboys deploy down the alleyways to either side and loop round behind it, while Sophie remained close by to Hazug as usually. Rhia however, stood further back, remaining by Hazug’s truck. Jaris walked over to her calmly and spoke quietly to here. “Could I have a quick word with you?” he asked. “Sure, what is it?” Rhia replied. “Not here, somewhere more private,” and Jaris beckoned to Rhia to follow him. Rhia followed Jaris as he turned and walked away from the burning police station now surrounded by orks. He led her into an alleyway further down the street, out of sight of the others. “Well?” he said, stopping and turning around as soon as he was sure that he would not be seen or heard by Hazug. “Well what?” Rhia replied. “What’s happening?” Jaris asked her, folding his arms. “Well we’re waiting for an ork enginseer that Hazug knows to… Aak!” Jaris suddenly reached out and grasped Rhia by her throat and pushed her up against the wall of the alleyway. Then he stepped forwards so that he was face to face with her. “You know what I mean,” he hissed at her, “When are we getting those fething missiles?” “Hazug doesn’t have them all,” Rhia gasped, reaching up for her throat and trying to pry Jaris’s hand away. “But he has some of them, when can we get them?” “He keeps them locked up,” Rhia replied, “the lasguns too. He only lets us have access to them when he wants us too. Let me go. Please.” Jaris released his grip on Rhia and stepped away. “You accepted this assignment,” Jaris snapped, “we can make do without the lasguns if we have to, but without the missiles we’ve nothing to take out the orks’ heavy armour.” “I’ll find a
way to get them,” Rhia protested, “He’ll just have to be
patient.” “Well why can’t they bring more missiles in then?” “It’s not an army,” Jaris told her, “The rumour is that there’s some sort of special agent being sent to finish off what we’re starting here. That’s why the Governor had me plant the bombs here this morning, we need to make sure that Chief Thayne and his second rate posse don’t get the way out of some stupid sense of loyalty to the xenos.” “You planted the bomb?” Rhia asked, astonished, “How many people did you kill?” “They were traitors,” Jaris told her sternly. “But they’re human, I didn’t sign up to kill humans. Just orks.” “They worked for the orks, not directly maybe, but they did nothing to disrupt their operations here while doing all they could to disrupt ours. Anyway, what about the inhabitants of that farm you took that ork to? Who do you think killed them?” “I thought it was the orks,” Rhia said. “No, they were supplying the orks with food. It was us that killed them because they refused to supply us. Keep that in mind when you decide whether or not you’re going to hurry up and find a way to get our missiles back. Use your signal light when the coast is clear, we’ve got someone watching the building who’ll see you.” With that Jaris walked away, heading straight back towards Hazug’s truck, leaving Rhia standing at the entrance to the alleyway, wondering what she had got herself into with her assignment. |
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