The Ork Mass Miracle

(Note: This story loosely follows on from The Greenwater Bargain)

Princeps Togarin Volk sat in the command-pulpit of the Reaver Titan Vanguard of Uxion and surveyed the scene ahead of him with calm satisfaction, a snow-covered plain littered with the blazing wrecks of red-painted vehicles. When the Ork invasion fleet, led by a massive ramshackle kill-kroozer, had appeared in-system above Kyrodis VII, many officers of the local PDF had succumbed to panic, but not Volk. The Ork force was indeed large, but they had crash-landed in the middle of the southern land-mass in the teeth of a savage winter, over five-thousand miles from the capital. The greenskins were far too hardy to be greatly troubled by the cold, but they had been completely unprepared for the deep snow-fog that had rolled in from the sea. Though Vanguard of Uxion was supported only by a Skitarii demi-legion and a single PDF regiment, the Ork attack was so scattered and haphazard that there was no chance they would be overrun before reinforcements could arrive.

“Target bearing 010 by 279, Princeps. Ork light assault vehicle.” reported his chief Moderatus.

“Very good. Cycle gatling blaster and eliminate at will.”

A second later, a short burst of massive shells, each the size of any of the individual Orks of its crew, tore the speeding buggy to shreds. Volk watched with wry amusement as one wheel bounced off crazily to stop several metres short of the nearest PDF position.

“Fine shooting, Moderatus. Continue to practice fire discipline, I want us to have plenty of ammunition in reserve in case we are ordered onto the offensive.”

“Do you think that likely, sir?”

“Not today. After all, tomorrow is the Feast of the Emperor's Ascension and the Governor has functions to attend if he is to keep the populace convinced that they are safe. It is of no matter. The Novamarines will be here in a matter of days, and the Orks aren't going anywhere in this.”

***

Kaptin Hedrukk strode the command-deck of Megakrushakrushakrusha in the foulest of tempers. There had been ups and downs in the fortunes of Waaaaa-Hedrukk, he was a big enough Ork to admit it, but most of them had at least been a bit of a laugh, especially when they'd involved jumping repeatedly on a pointy-ear's face. This, though... this was boring.

“I can't see a zogging thing!” he growled, staring at the mass of grey. “Open the looky-slits, ya gits!”

“Er, they are open, boss.” replied one of the Meks. Hedrukk growled, and stomped over to the other Ork, who suddenly discovered that he was the only living thing in a twenty-foot radius.

“Yeah?” snarled the Kaptin, seizing the smaller Ork by the scruff of the neck. “So what the zog is that, then?”

He hurled the struggling Mek full-force at the vision-slit. The wailing Ork disappeared into the fog-wall and everyone waited with bated breath for the splat. None came. Hedrukk sighed. “Someone go dig that git out of the snow. And you-” he pointed at his chief advisor “find me a way through that muck before I feed your 'urties to me squigs!”

Fin-Git, the T'au once known as Por'O Tash, nodded glumly. “Right you are, boss. Might take a tick or too, though, what?”

Hedrukk thrust his face so close to the T'au's that Por'O Tash could smell who he'd been eating. “You've got a day, my lad. If my Waaaagh ain't moving in the right direction by this time tomorrow Gitmuncha and Snarlchomp have 'yer bristols for breakfast.”

***

Almost an hour later, Por'O Tash skulked in the engineering decks of the Gargant in despair. It wasn't as if he even wanted to help the be'gel, but since Waaaaa-Hedrukk had fallen into a warp-rift whilst pursuing a hit-and-run raid by the T'au of the Farsight Enclaves he had all but given up hope of ever going home. Now he, a water-caste diplomat, had to solve a problem that had defeated even the most cunning of Hedrukk's Meks. At least so far the Kaptin had had the sense not to kill too many of them. It was dark this far down, but fortunately his low-light visor was one of the few pieces of his equipment to still be working.

How would the Fire Caste deal with this problem? Of course the Battlesuits had their own enhanced optical suites, so that wouldn't be a concern, but the rank Fire Warriors had no such equipment. They would rely on Pathfinders to coordinate their advance and firing solutions through a limited-visibility environment. But the Orks had no such formation- the closest they did possess had been a force of Kommandos whose Boss, Snikwik, had promised Hedrukk they'd find a solution. All two-hundred had disappeared into the fog and not been seen since.

His attention was suddenly grabbed by the sound of high-pitched screaming from up ahead. In spite of himself, he poked his head around the doorway to see what was going on. A couple of burly Orks were standing in a junk-filled workshop arguing in the shadow of what seemed to be a light assault walker. The screaming seemed to be coming from inside.

“It's your zoggin' fault, Slagsnip, so it is.” growled the bigger of the two, who Por'O Tash recognised as Big Mek Orkwright. “That's a perfectly good Kan, is that. You can't have fixed the little git right.”

“Izzat so?” snarled the Painboy. “That in there is the boss's personal Grot, what he personally krumped and then personally told me to un-krump in case 'e felt like krumpin 'im again. And if it turns out your zoggin' Kan has krumped 'im first, he's gonna take it... personally.”

“Look 'ere, you zoggin- Oi! Who's that lurkin' over there?”

Reluctantly, Por'O Tash stepped into the half-light of the workshop. “Just good old Fin-Git, chaps, don't mind me, wouldn't want to be a bother.”

“Yeah?” rumbled the Mek. “Well right now if yer in here, yer either part of the solution, or yer part of the deck. What'll it be?”

The T'au swallowed. “Er. What seems to be the problem, old bean?”

The Painboy sniffed, and extracted something from his nose. “Orkwright's Kan ain't working. We stuffed the Boss' grot in there and all the wires are in the right holes-”

“-and we used the extra shiny nails.” put in Orkwright. Slagsnip rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that too. But anyway, as soon as we turn the Teevee on-”

Orkwright threw a lever on the workshop wall, and the Kan sparked. A split second later an ear-splitting scream reverberated around the room.

“That happens.” finished the Painboy.

How, exactly, Por'O Tash wondered, had he managed to end up trying to fix another problem for these be'gel brutes whilst in the middle of solving the previous one? Out loud, he said “Well, maybe the pilot isn't really feeling up to snuff, chaps? Perhaps he just needs a little more time to recover?”

“I've been working on the little git fer months!” roared Slagsnip. “New legs, new arms, mostly-new head. I even made sure the zogging feet were on the right sides, that's how hard I worked! If he ain't ready I'll krump the little malingerer meself!”

“Wait a sec, old bean. Mostly-new head? Why not fix everything?”

“No point.” said the Painboy, tapping the side of his nose. “When you wire them into a Kan, the wires go in through their eye-holes, so I never fitted 'im with new eyes 'cos we'd only have to pull 'em out again. Waste of good eyes, that is.”

Orkwright nodded. “Yeah. Stands ter reason, that does.”

“Righto, understood.” said Por'O Tash, still trying to catch up. “But if memory serves, poor little Drekkit still had his eyes when you, ahem, scraped him up, but he couldn't see. So maybe whatever you plugged the wires into isn't working? Just a thought.”

The Ork specialists exchanged a worried glance as the screaming continued in the background.

“Zog me sideways.” said Slagsnip. “Never thought of that. If the seeing-bit of his brain is all smushed up-”

“-then the TeeVee threw-put widget'll feedback along the secondary gubbins and put the boot to 'is thinky-bitz.” laughed Orkwright, slapping Por'O Tash so hard on the back that he flew six feet across the room and crashed head-first into a pile of scrap. “Good catch Fin-Git, no wonder the little git's yellin'. Now then Doc, how're you gonna fix this screw-up?”

“How am I going to fix-” began Slagsnip angrily, before seeing the bit of scrap that had just bounced off his boot. “Aha! With THIS!”

Por'O Tash dug himself painfully out of the pile of parts to see the two Orks busily setting about the optical interface from his visor with a hammer, a pair of pliers, and a fret-saw. At least they'd finally turned the switch off and stopped the screaming.

***

Late that evening, Kaptin Hedrukk stepped out onto the snowy plain in front of Megakrushakrushakrusha to see Slagsnip and Orkwright overseeing the unloading of something from one of the maintenance hatches.

“Oi! What the zog're you two gitz doing out 'ere? I told you-” he pointed his klaw at Slagsnip “that if I saw you before you fixed Drekkit I'd kick yer arse all the way to Armageddon, and as fer you-” this time he jabbed the klaw at Orkwright “You're still lucky I didn't krump yer for that zog-up with that 'landin' gear' of yours.”

“Landin' gear worked fine, Kaptin.” muttered Orkwright defensively.

“Oh yeah, the landin' gear landed.” snarled Hedrukk. “It's just that the rest of Skullrokkit Lots-plus-two wasn't still nailed to it. Where the zog is Fin-Git with my Waaaaagh?”

“Right here, boss!” called Por'O Tash, “Just overseeing the unloading of the equipment. I have the Meks taking great care and following my instructions-” he was cut off by a massive crash as the Kan fell off the hoist and landed upside-down in a snowdrift. “-as well as can be expected.”

Once the Kan had been dug out and stood upright, Orkwright proudly explained Da Plan.

“Y'see, Boss, Drekkit 'ere 'as 'ad 'is TeeVee fixed up right proper with extra-speshul proprietary peepy-gear what I invented meself and did not at all nick from da skinny git. Dat means 'e 'as a visual range what exceeds normal Orky capabilities by a factor of, er, bleedin' lots.”

Hedrukk nodded sagely, and turned to Slagsnip. “Wot?”

“'E said, the Kan can see real good even through this 'ere squig-souper.” translated the Doc.

“Yeah, so what?” snarled Hedrukk. “So me Grot can see where he's going. Big zoggin' deal! It's not called Waaaaa-Drekkit, is it? Don't you get any funny ideas, lad.”

“WOULDN'T DREAM OF IT, BOSS.” buzzed the Kan.

“Dat's da real kunnin' part.” said Orkwright. “See, we've fitted this Kan wiv a super-enhanced extra-kustom hyper-visibility widget.”

“Wot?”

“S'got a big flashy red light nailed to it.” explained Slagsnip, switching it on.

“Yeah, that's what I said.” agreed the Mek. “So Megakrushakrushakrusha can follow the little git, and we're welding a complete audio-visual beacon suite to it so the Ladz can all follow that.”

Hedrukk turned, slowly, to stare at the work-krews swarming all over his pride and joy. “Are you two gits telling me my Gargant is gonna.... jingle?”

“Got it in one, old bean.” said Fin-Git. “You'll jingle all the way.”

***

Princeps Volk stifled a yawn. The constant supply of stimulants and nutrients that Vanguard of Uxion kept him and his crew supplied with meant that they could operate for days or even weeks without sleep, but this evening had been insufferably dull. The Orks seemed to have given up trying to find their way through the fog, and the last buggy to blunder into the floodlit kill-zone had been almost six hours ago. According to the Titan's chronometer it was a couple of minutes until midnight. This was not the way he had anticipated celebrating the Feast, but on the other hand for a servant of the Emperor it was the most apt way imaginable.

He became aware of a faint sound through the external sensors.

“Moderatus? Do you hear that?”

“Yes, Princeps. It sounds... like bells jingling... Wait... target bearing 341 by 240, Ork assault walker.”

“Hold fire. I want to see what we're shooting at. Is that a light?”

“Confirmed. Ork light walker with some sort of nav-beacon.. Throne! Second contact, same bearing. Warlord scale!”

For a moment, Volk was paralysed with shock and something else, some ancient, long-forgotten memory. From out of the gloom of the fog came a huge, triangular shape, dark green and covered with fresh snow. Here and there hung bright, shining lights and as it drew closer a jingling, jangling sound accompanied it- and from the very top shone the brightest light of all, almost like a star. It was, in a way, beautiful.

“Princeps! Target confirmed. Gargant! GARGANT!”

Volk snapped back to his senses. The situation could still be contained. With the support of the PDF and Skitarii, even a lone Gargant could be brought low.

“Clear carapace turbo-laser for firing and commence chain-fist ignition sequence. For the Emperor, we advance!”

***

From the command-deck of Megakrushakrushakrusha, Hedrukk could see the scrap unfolding nicely. The humies had done a decent job of fortifying their position, and the snow was hampering the Ork advance a little. Worse, some of the humies were Tinheads, armed with twinklies and puke-guns.

“Oi!” he shouted into the speaky-tube. “All gunners, shoot up them Tinheads on the right, they're stitching up the lads good and proper.”

“Where?” crackled the speaker. “Still can't see zog-all in this muck.”

“Shoot where all the flashy blue and green lights are coming from, you zogging git!” roared Hedrukk. “Or else I'll send you over there with a big red flag for the lads to aim at!”

Still, he reflected as the Imperial right flank disappeared in a curtain of explosions, overall this was a bit of a disappointment. Sure, there were a decent number of enemy Trakks and walky-tanks which the Meks would enjoy trying to put back together, and there were enough humies that the ladz would get a bit of a workout, but there wasn't much for Megakrushakrushakrusha to do other than shoot up anything that got too big for its boots. Speaking of which, far below he could still just see Drekkit's Kan rattling along at the head of a Dreadmob, chanting “WAA DA ORKS!” at the top of his mechanical voice, no doubt. Of course there was no need to follow him any more now that they could actually see the enemy, but Orks tended to take orders very literally when they bothered to obey them at all, and no less than ten Killa Kans, six Dreads, two 'Nauts and a Stompa were still sticking to him like hair-squigs on a Freeboota. He grinned. Why not?

“Engine room, full ahead! Follow that Grot!”

***

The bridge of Vanguard of Uxion glowed red in the high-alert lights. Princeps Volk tried to make sense of the report he'd just been given.

“The Governor is dead? How?”

His comm-officer's voice betrayed no emotion despite the dire, inexplicable news. “Unknown. Reports claim almost a hundred Orks were hiding in a giant cake at the Feast, but there's no verification. We have sporadic reports of attacks all over the capital.”

“Throne. Well, there's nothing we can do about that from here. It seems the Orks are using that Gargant as a rally point- the lights are some sort of signalling beacon. Status?”

“Void shields 2 and 4 collapsed, 1 and 3 operational.”

“Gatling blaster at 15% ammunition capacity.”

“Carapace turbo-laser at 23% charge.”

“Chain-fist fully operational.”

“Motive systems full green.”

“Then we have no choice- we must destroy the Gargant in assault. It doesn't seem to have detected us through the fog yet- we'll bear to the right to blind-side its close-assault systems and take it down hard and fast. Prioritise motive power, divert recharge from ranged weapons to shields. Full ahead!”

***

Kaptin Hedrukk was really starting to enjoy himself now. Some bosses hated leading from the deck of a Gargant and preferred the hands-on approach, but from here he had a really good view of everything blowing up- and lots of things were blowing up. Drekkit, bless his mechanical feet, had stomped all the way to the main firing line of humie Trakks. The tanks were dug-in and had proved tricky for his gun-krews to hit, though they'd had a lot of fun trying, but now the Dreads were amongst them they were having difficulty withdrawing. Panicking humies ran hither and yon below, pursued by enthusiastic Kans, whilst the heavier walkers busied themselves systematically dismantling the vehicles. He'd got Megakrushakrushakrusha as close as he could, but now it looked like if he wanted to get anything else done he'd have to go get his Klaw dirty after all.

Fin-Git and Orkwright helped him into his mega-armour. He was very fond of the new suit, which had a shiny coat of blue paint, a kustom force-field Orkwright swore blind he'd invented himself (although the generator looked suspiciously familiar from that skinny Commander he'd krumped a while ago) and a really shiny zap-gun. He was just about to leave the bridge when something huge loomed out of the fog. A humie Titan.

He went to grab the speaky-tube, forgetting that closing his left hand fired the zap-gun and blowing a hole in the console. “Oi! Someone tell the gunners to shoot that zogging thing!”

“What, the console, Boss?”

“Shut it!”

“Don't think they need telling, old fruit.” observed Fin-Git. “It is somewhat large, after all.”

“It.. It's beautiful.” gaped Orkwright. Hedrukk slapped him with the zap-gun, which bent a bit. Zogging thing had always pulled right a little anyway.

“Shut it, ya git! Get the Mega-Choppa going!”

“It's too close, boss!” shouted one of the Meks. “'E's blind-sided us. This fing's dead shooty but it turns like a drunk Stunty!”

Hedrukk could see he was right. The Titan was filling his vision now, and he looked down to see its massive feet scythe through the Dreadmob. One caught Drekkit a glancing blow, and the Kan spiralled off into an oil-slick snowdrift. The Kaptin saw red.

“STOMPING SPEED! FULL AHEAD!”

***

Volk viewed the scene with grim satisfaction. Vanguard of Uxion's shields had held just long enough to get them into melee range with the Gargant, and now the chain-fist was in position to scythe one of the barbaric machine's weapon arms off. Even as the mighty weapon bit, the alarm klaxon sounded.

“Prox-alarm! Target advancing!”

“Brace for impact.” ordered Volk. It was a foolish move the Ork was making- the Gargant's own bulk was stopping its clumsy melee weapon from reaching the Reaver, and whilst a body-check would do superficial damage it would never topple a gyro-stabilised Titan. The two machines came together with a deafening clang, and through the augurs Volk found himself staring straight into the command-deck of the Ork walker.

Straight through the open... view... ports...

“Point defence! Activate auto-maulers!” he screamed, but it was too late. A massive Ork hurled himself straight out of the Gargant, and a split second later the augurs were blinded by the creature's bulk.

“I.. overload the reactor! Omega pro-”

Before anyone could comply the front of the Titan's crew compartment was torn off. The Ork, his armour sparking with ionic discharge from the shields, grabbed a Moderatus in each hand, the gun mounted on his left blasting shots in all directions as he did so, and slammed them together, showering Volk with gore.

“YOU KICKED ME GROT!” shouted the beast. “NOBODY KICKS ME GROT BUT ME!”

If Volk had understood Orkish, he would have died a very confused man.