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Waaargh! Hazug! Chapta 24 | |
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Waaargh! Hazug! Chapta 24 |
“Wagon
comin’! Wagon comin’!” one of the gretchin yelled at the others manning
the large cannon with him and he waved in the direction that Two Heads’
battlewagon could be heard approaching from while they rotated the cannon
and lifted a large shell into position. Then
the head of one of the gretchin suddenly exploded and there was a second
tiny blast as a bolt round detonated against the cannon without damaging
it. “Gits!
Look!” another of the gretchin yelled as he saw the black armoured marines
emerging from behind the cloud of smoke that was all that was left of a
heavy mortar position. Prosnow
dropped to one knee and aimed his heavy bolter. The weapon roared as he
fired a stream of explosive tipped rounds towards the cannon and its crew
but although the gretchin cried out in panic and dived for cover, none of
them were hit. “Brothers.”
Claudius broadcast to his men, “Advance while Brother Prosnow covers us.
Brother Varrin, are you prepared with the flamer?” “Ready
brother captain.” Varrin answered. “Then
use it as soon as we are in range.” Claudius said as he began to advance
on the cannon. Though
the gretchin remained pinned down by Prosnow’s suppressive fire a small
group of orks appeared and began to fire on the marines, their bullets
bouncing off the marines’ powered armour. “Greystorm,
Vartus. Deal with them while we deal with the cannon.” Claudius ordered
and the two marines broke off. Greystorm fired a short burst that took one
of the orks off his feet straight away, but Vartus was still feeling the
effect of his broken wrist when trying to support his boltgun so he held
his fire until the orks came closer and less accuracy would be
needed. As
the rest of the squad drew closer to the gun position Prosnow ceased fire
before they could cross his line of fire and this was all the opportunity
the gretchin gunners needed to complete loading the cannon now pointed
directly at Two Heads battlewagon. Two
Heads spotted the large cannon pointed at his vehicle as soon as Gorrid
drove it around the corner of the building that had been sheltering them
from view. “Norgut.”
He shouted, “Deal with dat supa kannon.” But as Norgut called for an
explosive shell to take out the cannon crew Two Heads knew that the larger
emplaced weapon would be ready to fire first and he readied himself for
it. He
saw a flash of light from the direction of the emplacement, but rather
than a deep booming sound it was accompanied by a ‘whoosh’ instead and
followed by several brief shrieks. Staring through one of the
battlewagon’s vision slits Two Heads saw the cannon, its crew and the
emplacement now burning brightly. Then he spotted the cause as Claudius
and some of his marines emerged from behind the
flames. Weapons
fire from close by attracted Two Heads attention and he turned to see
Greystorm and Vartus engaging a mob of orks on their own. Vartus ceased
fire abruptly as his magazine was emptied. Under normal circumstances even
a new recruit of the Adeptus Astartes would be able to change a magazine
without even having to think about it. But given his injury, it was more
complicated for Vartus and he was slower than normal, not by much but by
just enough for an ork armed with a heavy belt fed weapon to be able to
take aim at him while Greystorm’s attention was elsewhere. The ork roared
with laughter as he fired the weapon, holding down the trigger to let
loose with as many rounds as he could in Vartus’ direction. Most of them
struck the rigid ceramite plates that covered his body, but even powered
armour had weak points and with so many rounds fired it was almost
inevitable that one would find such a spot. Vartus’ head jerked back
suddenly as a bullet punched through one of his helmet’s eyepieces. One
inside his helmet the bullet could not penetrate the ceramite armour on
the far side so after it had made its way right through Vartus’ brain it
flattened out and fragmented, causing yet more damage even though he was
already dead. Greystorm
looked around briefly as Vartus collapsed, but before his moment of
distraction could cost him his life as well he turned back to the orks he
now faced alone. “Over
dare.” One of him shouted to the gunners manning the battlewagons
secondary automatic weapons, “Dem beakies nailed dat supa kannon for us,
now we is gonna ‘elp ‘em out with dem lads over dare. Gorrid. Bring us
about and get ready to run ‘em down.” “Goddit
boss.” Gorrid replied as he turned the battlewagon sharply and drove
straight at the ork unit advancing on the marines. Behind
the battlewagon Two Heads’ rhino appeared and ground to a halt as its crew
turned the added turret to face the genestealer controlled orks who seemed
to be growing in number as they advanced on the remaining marine left
behind to hold them off. Hazug
led his group around one of the buildings the shield wall had been
deployed between. The group moved in single file with Hazug at the front.
Where most orks would have simply run out into the open, Hazug’s party
kept close to the building to make use of the remaining shadows in
concealing themselves. However, despite their attempts at stealth they did
not go entirely undetected. “So
Kazkal sent ‘is pet Blood Axe to deal with us did ‘e?” Crognok called out
as he appeared from behind a nearby hut, “Well let’s see wot ya’s made of
git lover.” And he strode towards Hazug, brandishing a large
axe. Hazug
grinned. “Good
idea.” He replied,” Kop dis.” And he swung his rifle around to face the
approaching Bad Moon nob, flicked its selector to the mode Mek Batrug had
described as ‘turbo-dakka’ when he first delivered it to him and he pulled
back on the trigger. The turbo-dakka mode was designed to produce a fully
automatic burst at a much higher rate of fire than normal, allowing Hazug
to empty the magazine in just a few moments. The rounds tore through
Crognok and he staggered backwards under the barrage of fire until one
finally hit something vital and he collapsed. Hazug stared at the body and
ejected his spent magazine. “Got
dat fancy shoota ready?” Hazug asked Jarr. “You
cannot intimidate me git lover.” Graffgan said. “I
aint wantin’ ‘im to intimidate ya.” Hazug told him, “I wants ‘im to kill
ya.” Then in gothic he added, “Fire.” And Jarr fired off a single round
that struck Graffgan right between his eyes. Claudius
saw the icon representing Vartus on his helmet display go
out. “Brother
Greystorm. Report.” He signalled. “Brother
Vartus is down and the enemy is closing brother captain. I will not be
able to hold them back.” Came the reply. But before Claudius could order
Greystorm to fall back and join up with the rest of the squad the cannon
mounted on top of Two Heads’ rhino boomed and its massive shell flew
overhead. The
shell struck the ground between Greystorm and the approaching orks, closer
to the orks than to the marine but still catching both in its blast.
Greystorm was blown off his feet by the blast wave and he felt the impact
of shrapnel all over his armour even though nothing penetrated it. On the
other hand the lightly armoured orks towards the front of their mob stood
no chance and a mix of the blast and the expanding cloud of shrapnel blew
them apart. However, the mob was large enough that the survivors ignored
their losses and after picking themselves up continued to
advance. Claudius
and his marines ran towards Greystorm, firing their bolters as they went.
But as they reached the other marine and Claudius looked at the oncoming
orks he saw just how many of them remained and it occurred to him just how
small his force was. “Prepare
to sell your lives for the Emperor.” He said as he picked out several nobs
amongst the mob, trying to come up with some way of targeting them
specifically to remove the mob’s leadership. But
then Two Heads’ battlewagon sped up to the marines, grinding to a halt
just behind them and the roof mounted weapons all turned to face the
approaching mob and opened fire. “Need
an ‘and?” Two Heads asked Claudius as he became the first of his troops to
disembark. Under
fire from the belt fed weapons mounted to the battlewagon and also the one
mounted on the rhino the advance of the genestealer controlled orks
faltered. Orks were notoriously poor marksmen, but with belt fed weapons
and plenty of ammunition they still caused havoc amongst the densely
packed ork mob where it was impossible to miss them
all. “Brother
Prosnow, join them.” Claudius ordered. “With
pleasure.” Prosnow replied and he opened fire with his heavy bolter,
adding its considerable firepower to that of the two ork
vehicles. The
genestealer controlled orks sought out whatever cover they could find, no
longer remaining as a single unit. From these positions they returned
fire, but most had only pistols and the only one to be armed with anything
heavier than a rifle had been at the front when the rhino’s shell had gone
off right in front of him. Some fire did reach the Evil Suns and marines
however and two of Two Heads’ troops fell dead as they were climbing out
of the battlewagon. Two
Heads himself looked around and saw that all of his troops not needed to
crew his vehicles were now standing either side of him, mixed in with the
black-armoured marines. Raising his rifle he aimed it towards the rapidly
disintegrating mob of orks facing them. “Let
rip!” both of him yelled in unison and all at once the Evil Suns opened
fire. Prosnow’s
heavy bolter suddenly ceased fire as he finally ran out of ammunition and
the marine discarded the bulky weapon and drew his sidearm. Few
of the orks in the mining camp tried to stop Krorden or Batrug as they
raced between buildings towards the mysterious construction and the
handful that appeared were either gunned down or simply run over by the
Evil Suns in their hurry to reach their destination. The
mysterious construction project was surrounded by typically crude
scaffolding that doubled as living quarters for many of the gretchin
labourers who did most of the work that did not require the physical
strength of an ork. The
lightweight vehicles all ground to a halt and their occupants studied the
structure to try and determine its purpose. However, before Batrug could
reach a conclusion there was movement from within the scaffolding as the
gretchin workers began to react to their presence. All of a sudden a
single gretchin appeared from within a small tent built into the
scaffolding and hurled a lump of stone towards
Krorden. “Sod
off!” the gretchin yelled as the rock narrowly missed the ork nob and
Krorden snarled. “Trokken.”
He said. “Yes
boss?” his gunner replied. “Yes
boss.” Trokken said with a grin and then he opened
fire. The
gunner of the second buggy as well as the junior mekboy manning the single
weapon mounted on Batrug’s truck followed Trokken’s lead, all of them
firing sustained bursts into the scaffolding. The heavy rounds cut through
the basic wooden framework and the simple shelters built into it and the
gretchin workers were sent into a panic as they tried to
escape. “Burnas!”
Batrug yelled as he jumped down from the truck with his custom blaster in
his hands and fired a single blast that vaporised a gretchin just as it
thought it had reached safety on the ground. Behind Batrug all of his
apprentices other than the one operating the truck’s weapon pulled their
flamethrowers onto their backs and disembarked from the truck. Then with
covering fire being provided by the vehicles they rushed forwards and
raised their weapons. “Let
rip!” Batrug shouted and simultaneously the four apprentice mekboys
unleashed torrents of flame from their weapons. These washed over the
scaffolding, igniting every part of it they touched. This lasted just a
few seconds before they ceased fire and stood back to evaluate their
handiwork. The flames were spreading across the scaffolding and gretchin
were simply leaping from it, preferring the risk of being killed when they
hit the ground to being burned alive. “Get
‘em on da ground!” Krorden yelled when he saw this and the three gunners
lowered their aim, picking off the gretchin as they landed. Meanwhile
Krorden drew his pistol and joined in, taking pot shots at any gretchin
that escaped the gunners’ notice. The
burning scaffolding began to fall away from the structure it surrounded
giving Batrug a better look. Though it was bigger than any of the
buildings in the mining camp it appeared to be solid, the various lumps pf
stone used to build it having been cemented together without leaving any
gaps. Though incomplete, it appeared that the structure would have a flat
top and be about three times the height of an ork like Batrug. Then he
noticed that where the fire touched the structure it remained undamaged.
There was some discolouration in places, but no cracks or splits opened up
even where it was incomplete. Such structures were not unknown to orks,
but they were not often used unless they were required to routinely
withstand extremely high temperatures. “We
gotta go.” He told his apprentices. Then he looked at Krorden, “Oi
Krorden. Dare aint no point in stayin’ ‘ere. Dis is just a giant lump of
stone. We needs to go find Hazug.” “So
where d’ya reckon ‘e’ll be?” Krorden asked and Batrug looked back the way
they had come and from somewhere he heard gunfire. “We’ll
just follow da shootin’.” He said, “Hazug’s bound to be involved with some
of it.” Naturally
slow-witted the squiggoths came to a halt of their own accord after
trampling several buildings along with their occupants and it was then
that the two warcopters descended to pick up Druken and his surviving
stormboys as they climbed down from the backs of the
beasts. “So
wot’s appenin’?” Druken asked Purgan as he climbed aboard his
warcopter. “Da
other’s ‘ave split up.” He replied, “Some of da gits is stickin’ by da
gate while da beakies ‘ave gone off on dare own.” “Is
dey still workin’ with us?” Druken said. “Den
just get us back in da air and we’ll see where da best fightin’s to be
‘ad.” Druken said and Purgan just grinned as he pulled back on the
warcopter’s controls and it rose into the air.
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