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Da Isle Of Doom Chapta 24 | |
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Chapta 24 |
A solid armour piercing shell fired from the battlewagon’s main gun had blown another large hole in the wall of the fort and a second, explosive shell fired through it blew out a much larger section and rained rubble and body parts down in a wide area around it. The gunfire from the walls slackened off somewhat as the defenders in this destroyed section were killed by the shell, but there were still more than enough to keep Two Heads’ small force at bay. On the other hand there were none of the forts defenders now left outside its walls. It seemed that only a single enslaver had been outside in the clearing and Druken’s stormboys had dealt with that one despite losing another of their number to its vicious barbed tentacles. The natural instincts of the ork defenders outside the fort had kept them fighting for a short time even after the death of the enslaver controlling them, but the realisation that they had no idea why they were fighting eventually got to them and after delivering a few more blows for luck Gorgoga had ordered them to retreat. Now though it seemed that there was little for any of the orks on foot to do, only one of Gorgoga’s mob carried a rocket launcher capable of damaging the fort’s walls while the rest had only light arms. However, the opening up of the hole by the cannon shell gave Druken an idea and he looked the wall over again, taking note of each and every breach until he found one that he thought looked like it was big enough for an ork to fit through. “Alright lads we is blastin’ off again.” He announced. “Where to boss?” one of the stormboys asked. “Da roof.” Druken answered, “I reckons dat if we lands up dare den we can lob a bunch of stikkbomms into dem dare ‘oles and den climb in afterwards.” The stormboys stood up and pointed themselves towards the fort. Then Druken slammed the palm of his hand down on his rocket pack control and was propelled upwards on a column of flame, the rest of his mob copying his example straight away. Once again the jump was less than perfect. From their position on the ground the orks had been unable to determine the condition of the roof and as one of them plunged downwards he dropped through a large hole in the roof instead of landing on something solid. He rolled sideways as he finally landed on the floor below, drawing his pistol. But before he could take aim a barbed tentacle wrapped itself around his throat and lifted him off the floor. On the roof above Druken and the other stormboys heard the sound of their comrade cry out, followed by several rapid pistol shots and then nothing. “Rukfist!” Druken called out, “Is ya alright down dare? Rukfist can ya ‘ear me?” but there was no reply and Druken looked up at the other stormboys, “Stikkbomms.” He said and he plucked a grenade from his belt and yanked out the pin before dropping the explosive through the hole. Druken stepped back from the hole just before his grenade went off, followed shortly after by the others thrown in by the stormboys and although none of them could see the damage inflicted they all staggered, clamping their hands over their ears as a power psychic cry hit them. “We got another one!” Druken yelled excitedly as he regained his senses again and he released the straps holding his rocket pack to his back, “Come on lads, dump ya rokkit packs. We got ourselves another way in ‘ere and dey’ll just get in ya way inside.” Then he leapt through the hole into the room below. From the depth of the shaft it was easy to determine that the maze of corridors and rooms that the party now picked their way through was some distance underground. So far every room they had come across had been either a barracks or somewhere that the humans who had once made this place their home would have gathered together while not working. Nothing gave any hints at the function of the complex at all and Mek Batrug’s burner boys were beginning to complain about the apparent lack of meaningful loot. “We can get grot to make bleedin’ chairs.” Skrath sneered. That was until they reached two sets of sliding doors placed side by side. There were no obvious controls for the individual doors but there were two button set in between them. Hazug recognised this set up immediately, having seen something almost identical in his days spent on trade missions with humans. Beyond those doors would be the shafts for the elevators humans tended to use for getting from one level of a building to another rather than just walking up or down the stairs. “Bring dat torch up ‘ere.” He said to Ratish and as the flicking light illuminated the area he looked at the walls opposite the elevator doors. Sure enough there was a large panel stuck to the wall that had human writing on it and Hazug stepped closer for a better look. “What is it my master?” Mayleth asked, the translator at her neck being unable to allow her to understand the written symbols. “Salia, Sophie.” Hazug called out, “Come ‘ere and see if I’m readin’ dis right.” And he ran a finger over some of the words as he muttered to himself. “What is it?” Sophie asked. “I reckon dat dis is a list of all da floors in dis place.” Hazug replied, “is dat right?” “It looks like it.” Salia answered, “There’s a list of floor numbers to the left and what’s on those floors is next to it on the right.” “I’d say there are three floors above ground and eight below.” “So where is we den?” Drazzok asked. Hazug looked at the sign again. One of the first things he had instructed Sophie to do since she came into his possession was teach him to read Gothic, but although he could piece together many words he still had trouble with some words, especially technical ones that had not come up during any of his conversations with humans over the years. “Somewhere ‘ere I reckon.” Hazug replied and he pointed to two adjacent levels on the sign, both of which had the word ‘BARRACKS’ written beside them and he looked at his two human servants, “Wot does ya reckon?” he asked. “I think this one.” Sophie answered, pointing to the lower of the two levels. “’Ow come?” Hazug asked. “Well the other one says that it’s officer’s barracks.” Sophie replied, “And a medical ward as well. The rooms we’ve seen look more like common soldiers living quarters.” “Wot’s all dat?” Drazzok asked. “She says dat
da floor above is for doks and nobs.” Hazug said. “I think that there’ll be more down there.” Salia responded and she tapped the sign on the floor below them. Both it and the floor below that were labelled ‘RESEARCH – RESTRICTED’. “That must be what this place is for.” Sophie said, “Its an old Mechanicus outpost.” Batrug’s eyes widened. Amongst ork mekboys anything looted from the Imperium’s Adeptus Mechanicus was highly prized, their tech priests were known for the machines they could create and some whispered that the holy gargant war machines fielded by orks were inspired by humanity’s titans. “Den wot is we waitin’ for?” Batrug said, “Let’s get down dare.” “Dare’s just
one thing smart lad.” Drazzok said. “Well ‘ow is we supposed to get down dare?” The group looked around and in the flickering torchlight Hazug noticed another doorway further along the corridor and stencilled on it was the word ‘STAIRS’. “I got a way.” He said. Room to room fighting came naturally to orks. It meant getting up close to an opponent and frequently involved close combat rather than precision shooting from a distance. But the same aptitude that made them natural assault troops also meant that once orks had taken and fortified a building it was difficult to dislodge them without bringing it down around them. Or so it should have been. Druken led his stormboys through the upper levels of the human fort in the only way he knew, quickly, loudly and with the maximum amount of force. Grenades were hurled into rooms ahead of the stormboys who would then rush into the room to deal with any survivors. The natural reaction of orks to such tactics would be to launch a counter assault rather than simply wait for their attackers to reach them, but it seemed that the fort’s defenders were unwilling to take such bold action and instead they did something that took Druken by surprise. They fell back. They did not run. This was an orderly retreat of the sort orks were not known for. Even amongst Blood Axes the skill was rarely practiced. The retreat became rapidly apparent to Two Heads and Gorgoga when the gunfire from the fort’s walls ceased. “Gorrid! Forwards!” Two Heads shouted from his gunnery chair and inside the battlewagon Gorrid put his rifle aside and the vehicle advanced into the clearing. Seeing this the driver of the rhino also drove his vehicle forwards. “Come on lads!” Two Heads shouted to the orks arrayed either side of his vehicles, “Let’s move. Dat fort’s ours for da takin’ now.” And then with a cry of “Waaargh!” from both Two Heads and Gorgoga the orks abandoned their vehicles and charged the fortress. From the looks of things whoever had beaten Hazug’s party to this place had also come this way. There was a considerable amount of dust in the stairwell and in it were the easily recognisable tracks of gretchin, two from the looks of it and Hazug notice that although they went down the stairs they did not come back up again. Either the gretchin found another way out of the lower level or they did not leave at all. Halting at the next level down Batrug held up a torch to examine what lay beyond the stairwell. Hazug waited, watching the mekboy until he noticed that Drazzok was staring further down the stairwell and also that the tracks left behind by the gretchin seemed to go in that direction also. “Wot is it?” Hazug asked, looking down the stairwell for himself. “Somethin’ down dare aint right.” Drazzok replied in an unusually quiet voice for the weirdboy and he began to walk down the stairs. “Wait.” Hazug said, taking hold of Drazzok to stop him and then he slung his rifle and drew his pistol instead. Then looking at Ratish he added, “Give us Cuddles.” He said, “Den I’ll go first.” “But wot about da loot?” Batrug asked. “Wait ‘ere.” Hazug said, “I’ll check dis out alone and call for ya if I finds ought.” “Are you sure its safe?” Sophie asked him.” “Nah. But if we all goes traipsin’ down dare we’ll only warn wotever’s already down dare dat we is comin’. I is ‘opin’ dat dey’ll reckon we is all still up ‘ere.” And with that he back to continue down the stairs into the darkness. Two levels further down, with the light caste from the torches above fading Hazug found the wrecked door and the burnt remains of the human corpses just beyond the stairwell. From the condition of the bodies he could tell that they had been burned only recently, though they had been dead for many years. Then Hazug realised that the light here was brighter than it should have been and from somewhere on this level there was more light leaking out into the corridors. This was not the irregular light cast by a burning torch of even an ork built electrical lamp. This had more in common with the steady illumination produced by human lighting, except that the colour had a unusual hue to it. The temperature was also unexpected, this far below ground and without technological assistance Hazug would have expected the air to be cool, but instead it felt warmer than that just levels above. He felt a tug on Cuddles’ and heard the squig growling as it tried to pull him deeper into the level. Hazug allowed Cuddles to lead him onwards, his pistol raised just in case there was anything waiting for him around the next corner. Which as it turned out there was. The enslaver floated well above the floor and stared down at the corridor at Hazug, its multitude of jet black eyes blinking seemingly at random. Hazug swung his pistol towards the alien, aiming for the centre of its eye cluster. No. There was no sound but Hazug heard the voice inside his head and he began to lower the gun. Ahead of him Hazug watched as the enslaver descended and floated closer, all the time its gaze fixated on him as it willed him to submit. Relax. Hazug tried to resist the command, realising at once that enslaver was attempting to take over his mind. However, he found himself unable to go against the command and there was a clatter as his pistol dropped to the floor. But then as Hazug felt another tug he knew that he had another option that would not go against the enslaver’s command and he let go of Cuddles’ leash. Immediately that he was no longer restrained the squig ran forwards and leapt into the air before the startled enslaver could react, sinking his teeth into one of the alien’s larger tentacles. The psychic scream of the enslaver snapped Hazug out of his trance and he ran to help Cuddles, taking the warscythe from his back and flicking the activation switch. Seeing Hazug approach the enslaver lashed out with another tentacle towards him, but a single swing of the warscythe severed the appendage and it fell to the floor, still twitching. “Not so ’ard now is ya?” Hazug yelled and he thrust the warscythe forwards, plunging it into the centre of the enslaver’s body. The enslaver let out another cry, but this was cut suddenly short and Hazug raised his warscythe without first withdrawing it from inside the alien’s body and split it wide open. The enslaver collapsed, its bizarre innards that could be differentiated into any organs that Hazug could identify spilling out over the floor and covering Cuddles in the sticky mess. The sound of footsteps from behind him caused Hazug to whirl around, his warscythe held out in front of him. But rather than a crowd of orks under the mental control of enslavers he saw the rest of his party, all appearing ready for battle. “Wotcha doin’ ‘ere?” Hazug asked as he lowered the warscythe. “Drazzok sensed the alien cry out.” Sophie replied, “So we came to help.” “Yeah, well thanks to Cuddles I got dis one sorted.” Hazug replied and he went to retrieve his dropped pistol, “Now someone grab Cuddles and lets take a look around. I got a feelin’ dat wotever’s goin’ on, dis place is at da centre of it.” |
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