by C. L. Werner
As Nehring began barking new orders to the men filing past the quartermaster’s bunker, the officer’s voice caught in his throat. His dark features turned ashen as he snapped to attention and bent his body almost in half sketching a profound and self-humiliating bow. Taofang had never seen a colonel display such deference to anyone before. He turned his head, following the direction of Nehring’s gaze. Instantly, the janissary snapped to attention. All around him, the click of boots filled the air as the rest of the brigade followed suit.
As he stood at attention, an icy wave of fear rushed through Taofang’s body, chilling him from toe to scalp. Striding across the plaza was the armoured hulk of an Iron Warrior, his ceramite boots scarring the flagstones as he marched. The soldier had seen the Space Marines before, but always at a distance and never one as terrifying in appearance as the legionary he now gazed upon. A revolting mantle of flayed human skin was draped across the giant’s shoulders. Taofang didn’t need to look at the skull-like helm with its maze of jewelled campaign-markers to recognise the monster. It was Algol, the fiend of Castellax, feared as the Skintaker, the merciless Slavemaster.
Every eye in the plaza was locked upon the Skintaker as he marched towards the bunker. Even the shriek of Air Cohort fighters as they streaked overhead wasn’t enough to make the janissaries look away. They watched Algol’s gruesome cloak billow about his shoulders as the fighters screamed through the sky. They watched as the Iron Warrior approached the still bowed Colonel Nehring and held their breaths in anticipation.
‘I require the Scorpion Brigade,’ Algol said, the vox-casters in his helm sending his voice booming across the plaza.
Nehring’s words came in a frightened squeak. ‘Of course, Dread Lord! We are distributing weapons right now. They can be–’
Algol reached out with one of his armoured hands, his gauntlet closing about Nehring’s head as he drew the bowed officer upright. The crimson optics in his helm bored into Nehring’s terrified eyes. ‘You have two minutes to get this rabble armed,’ Algol hissed. ‘I want them loaded on the trucks within five.’
‘Ye-yes, Dre-Dread Lord,’ Nehring sputtered. Algol removed his crushing grip and turned away, leaving the colonel to dab at the blood trickling from his crumpled cap.
‘Five minutes,’ the Iron Warrior reminded as he marched away.
Nehring reached to his holster and drew his pistol. The colonel spun around, firing the weapon into the face of the closest unarmed janissary. The soldier didn’t even have time to scream, simply dropping to the flagstones, a smouldering crater where his forehead should have been. ‘Faster, you maggots!’ Nehring shrieked. ‘Lord Algol wants you scum in the trucks and by the warp, you will not disappoint him!’
The orderly ranks of men collapsed into a crush of humanity as the janissaries swarmed towards the bunker, snatching lasguns and autoguns from the quartermasters. As soon as they had a weapon in their hands, the soldiers were sprinting across the plaza towards the motor pool and the waiting trucks. Such was their panic that many of them neglected to snatch extra ammunition from the crates lined against the bunker’s wall.
As Taofang pushed his way into the mass, he looked once more at the terrible figure of Algol. The Space Marine continued to stalk across the plaza at the same measured march. He has such contempt for us, Taofang thought, that he didn’t even bother to see what we’re doing. He didn’t even care who was shot. We’re too small for him to even notice us.
Taofang stared skywards again, watching as another bright burst of light slowly faded into nothing. How terrible must the orks be to cause war-gods like the Iron Warriors such concern? What could mere men like the Scorpion Brigade do against such an enemy?
The fat-bodied trucks lurched and bounced as they rumbled through the deserted streets of Dirgas. Curfew had been imposed upon the city on Algol’s command, freezing all shipment to and from the factories, arresting all transportation from the production plants and hab-pens. Slaves were ordered to remain where they were, either locked inside their cells in the hab-pens or else shackled to their machinery in the factories. Travel meant communication, and communication was something now forbidden in the city.
Taofang hugged the cold steel of his lasgun closer to his chest, grimacing as he stared down at the three clips of ammunition he’d taken. Among the last men to leave the plaza, he’d been in too much of a hurry when he’d raced past the ammunition boxes. Instead of three energy cells for his lasgun, he had three clips of bullets for an autogun. Trying to haggle with his comrades in the truck had been fruitless. None of the men were from his own platoon and several of them were in an even worse state than he was, having neglected to grab any ammunition at all. As it stood, Taofang had twenty shots from the energy cell already inside his weapon.
With a shudder and screech, the truck came to a stop. The steel doors at the back of the cabin swung open, the bark of an officer ordering the janissaries from their conveyance. Taofang dropped down from the truck, finding himself in the warren-like sprawl of a factory. Metal girders and ferrocrete pillars soared dozens of metres upwards to support a vaulted roof. Stamps and presses, a river of conveyor belts and production lines filled the immense structure. Toppled carts, their cargo of tank treads and hatch-doors strewn about them, littered the floor. Here and there, a gore-soaked body lay sprawled amid the wreckage. Looming from the destruction like some scrap-work colossus, was the still-smoking casing of a huge rocket, its hull glowing a dull orange from its fiery descent through Castellax’s atmosphere.
Taofang’s truck had pulled up halfway along the sloped ramp leading to the factory’s transport node, a monorail connecting it to Dirgas’s main railway. A quick glance showed him that a half-dozen other trucks were likewise positioned around the transport node, an officer snarling orders at the soldiers as they disembarked. In all, there were about two hundred janissaries being deployed. He thought he could hear the sound of the other trucks’ engines below the din of the factory’s machines and thought the rest of the regiment might be deploying on the far side of the building.
Closer at hand, however, was the sinister bulk of an armoured transport quite unlike the crude trucks employed by the janissaries. It was a box-like vehicle, its hull fashioned from plates of reinforced plasteel, every centimetre pitted and scarred from millennia of warfare. Great titanium treads powered the machine up the ramp, its engine belching thick black fog as it powered its way forwards. Stained in dull grey livery, marked with the metal skull of the Iron Warriors, the transport was a formidable contrast to the khaki-painted trucks.
‘Establish a cordon!’ the officer was bellowing at the janissaries as they disembarked. ‘No xenos leaves this factory!’
Only a few metres away, a pair of janissaries jerked in agony as large calibre rounds ripped through their bodies. Soldiers scattered from the doomed men, taking cover behind the trucks and abandoned loading cranes scattered about the transport node. Taofang thumbed the activation rune on his lasgun and dove for shelter behind a wrecked cargo carrier, falling flat as his boot slipped on the slick floor. He bit down a livid curse as he found himself staring into the mushy remains of what was either the carrier’s operator or a regurgitated mass of vita-gruel.
Heavy slugs continued to slam into the floor, pulverising the dead bodies of the ambushed janissaries. A confusion of other shots plastered the same area, displaying a crazed variety of calibres and ammunition types. The helmet of one of the corpses melted under the glowing discharge of a low-intensity plasma weapon, the skull inside smoking as the man’s hair caught fire.
Taofang followed the afterglow of the plasma beam, tracing it back to its source on one of the steel gantries criss-crossing the factory. As he did, he felt his skin crawl. There were creatures crouched upon the walkway. He could see one of the beasts clearly, a thing the likes of which he had never dared imagine. Its shape was vaguely human, or at least humanoid, though swollen in proportions with thick knots of muscle and sinew. Its arms were short and thick, i
ts legs stumpy and broad. Its head seemed to jut directly from its powerful shoulders, an apelike skull that was mostly jawbone and tusks. Beady little eyes glistened from shadowy pits sunken into its monstrous face. A patchwork of crudely assembled textiles clothed its massive frame, each scrap stained and dyed into a checkerboard of white and black. Bandoliers of bullets and knives criss-crossed its chest and straddled its waist. A machete bigger than Taofang’s arm was thrust through the alien’s belt, keeping company with a cluster of primitive-looking grenades and a nest of still-dripping human scalps.
The alien’s leathery green skin marked it as an ork, but the vicious brute crouched upon the walkway bore only the slightest resemblance to the absurd, clownish marauders Taofang had heard of. Looking up at the monster, he couldn’t see anything amusing. It looked like death, and a more brutal death the janissary was unable to picture as his gaze strayed back to the mutilated bodies of his comrades.
Orks in Dirgas! How had the aliens penetrated the defences of Castellax so quickly? Even if they had pierced the orbital defences, there were the city’s defence batteries and the Air Cohort to fend them off. Indeed, Taofang hadn’t heard so much as a peep from the gigantic surface-to-orbit defence cannons, guns so immense their recoil felt like an earth tremor. It was impossible that the orks could strike so suddenly.
The rattle of renewed gunfire slammed against the sides of the trucks, some of the shots of such strength that they ripped clean through the vehicles and into the men cowering behind them. Screams of agony echoed through the factory as injured janissaries writhed on the ground, clutching at the bleeding stumps of arms and legs or trying to push splintered ribs into the wet meat of mangled chests.
The aliens on the gantries coughed and growled, savouring the carnage. Las-beams sizzled up at the monsters, searing ugly scars into their flesh and scouring their primitive vests of chain and scrap metal. Taofang joined in the vengeful fire, targeting his shots at the ugly xenos with the plasma weapon. Again and again he fired at the ork, watching its hulking body jerk with each shot. For a brief moment, Taofang felt exhilaration. For the first time he experienced a feeling of true accomplishment. He was a real soldier, fighting one of mankind’s most ancient foes. And he was winning.
Then, as the ork reared up and pointed its weapon in his direction, Taofang’s exhilaration evaporated. He could see now the effect his shots had on the alien. A half-dozen black splotches on its leathery green skin, a nice cluster of fresh scars to go with the confusion of old wounds already marring the alien’s hide. Staring down the sight of his lasgun, Taofang could see the ork staring back at him, its face pulling back in a leer of amusement as it brought its weapon to bear.
Before the ork could shoot, however, the greenskin was bowled backwards by the meaty impact of an explosive round. Bone and sinew burst from the alien’s body as the shell detonated against its shoulder. Uttering a shriek that was half snarl and half howl, the ork struggled to spin around and face its attacker. Even as it made the effort, a second explosive shell tore deep into its chest, detonating an instant later. Ripped almost in two by the explosion, the dying ork fell from the gantry and hurtled to the factory floor far below.
‘Iron within! Iron without!’ The bellow rolled like thunder through the factory. Marching from behind the box-like hull of his Rhino, Algol pressed a fresh clip into his ornately adorned boltgun and began looking for new targets. The armoured giant moved without hesitation, stalking towards the raised walkways and the xenos fiends infesting them. Like a heathen war-god, the Iron Warrior raised his weapon and sent burst after burst of high-calibre death speeding towards the orks. Alien howls of confusion and pain now filled the factory as the orks suddenly found themselves the attacked rather than the attackers.
The janissaries, only a moment before quaking in their boots, rallied to the gruesome Algol. The terror the Space Marine inspired now emboldened them. The Skintaker was the most fearsome fiend on Castellax… and he was fighting on their side!
Bullets from the ork guns gouged the floor as the aliens struggled to get the Iron Warrior in their sights. It seemed an effort beyond their savage brains. Algol’s huge frame was constantly shifting from one direction to another, fading into the shadow of a truck or support pillar in that fragment of time before an ork loosed a barrage of automatic fire. Instantly, the Space Marine would return fire, leaning out from behind cover to deliver unerringly accurate bursts from his bolter. Each shot seemed to send another xenos hurtling from the walkways.
‘Castellax!’ the voice of Colonel Nehring rang out. The officer rose from behind the shelter of a pile of steel crates and made a beckoning sweep with his arm. Dozens of janissaries took up his cry, lunging from cover and rushing towards the aliens on the gantries, loosing a withering stream of las-fire as they charged. With the invincible Iron Warrior leading them, the men forgot their fear of the orks, remembering only their training and the thrill of battle.
Taofang rose from behind the crane, his heart hammering in his chest. He felt his awe of the Space Marine flooding through his mind, driving him to bold heroics. Screaming an inarticulate war cry, he charged the closest gantry, firing at the skulking ork crouched at the top of the stairs. He saw his shots burn into the alien’s flesh, saw one of his las-bolts melt the tinted visor of the alien’s helmet and sear into the beady eye behind it. He saw the ork pitch and fall, tumbling down the stairs like a rag doll. He laughed as he continued to shoot the wounded brute, burning fresh holes into its leathery flesh.
It took him a few seconds to realise his weapon wasn’t firing any more. Taofang stared incredulously at his lasgun, noting with some confusion the blinking red light of the depleted energy cell. For an instant, fear tried to well up inside him. The ork he had been shooting wasn’t dead, its hideous physiology preserving it through the fusillade. Wounded, bleeding, several of its bones broken in its fall, the monster was struggling to rise, its one good eye glaring murderously at Taofang.
Before panic could grip the janissary, he noticed the terrifying figure of Algol marching across the factory. One of the orks, more crafty than its comrades, had played dead and now, as Algol passed beneath the walkway the xenos was lying on, the alien leaped down onto the Iron
Warrior’s shoulders.
Algol didn’t even break stride. As the ork’s weight slammed into him, the Space Marine reached back and closed his gauntlet about the alien’s jaw. Pivoting at the waist, he used his grip to swing the ork across his hip, breaking its hold and dashing it to the ground. Before the ork was even aware of what had happened to it, Algol’s boot came smashing down into its face. The alien thrashed wildly, but a second stomp from the Skintaker crushed its skull and ended its struggles.
Taofang looked back at the ork he had injured. With a vicious scream, he shifted his grip on the lasgun and ran at the alien. Swinging the weapon like a club, he brought its heavy stock cracking into the monster’s head, ripping open its cheek and knocking its helmet askew. The ork swiped at him with one of its paws, but the clumsy effort only spilled the brute back onto the floor. Standing above the prostrate beast, Taofang drove the butt of his lasgun into its head, pounding its skull until he felt it splinter and crack beneath his blows. Carried away by the violence and feeling of unspeakable power, Taofang kept up the assault until there was only a gooey mush clinging to the stock of his weapon.
Breathing heavily, his lungs burning with the intensity of his exertions, Taofang stepped away from the pulverised mess. The factory echoed with the bark of gunfire, the shouts and screams of men, the howls of savage aliens. He could see janissaries rushing up onto the gantries, hurdling the butchered bodies of slaves and overseers, firing at the scattered orks. He watched as Algol emptied his bolter into a huge ork with massive tusks and a rifle that looked like it had started life as a small howitzer. He saw the ork keel over, its face reduced to pulp by the Iron Warrior’s shots. The howitzer-rifle roared as the ork’s twitching fingers tugged the trigger, sending a shot straight i
nto the roof with all the devastation of a mortar shell. Debris clattered down around the triumphant Space Marine, glancing off his ceramite helm and pauldrons.
Then, Taofang saw something else, something that offended his eyes and made his brain recoil in disbelief. As he stared at the victorious Iron Warrior, he saw a strange image, like a phantom vision projected across the scene. He could see the ghostly echo of some immense room, an impression of spectral orks scurrying about strange machines.
A sound like tearing metal shrieked across the factory and with it came an ozone stink and a weird ripple of light that penetrated Taofang’s eyelids when he closed them against the glare. As he tried to blink the searing pain away, he caught a blur of motion on the walkway above him. Forcing his eyes to focus, he felt his gorge rise as he began to make out more clearly what it was he was looking at. There was another ork on the gantry.
No, he corrected himself. Not on the gantry. In the gantry, its body inextricably fused into the metal framework, the grille woven through its leathery flesh. Taofang was at a loss to explain how such a gruesome thing could happen, even more so because he was willing to swear on the fiends of the warp, that the alien hadn’t been there a few seconds before.
The incredible supposition was further emboldened by the magnified sounds of combat roaring through the factory. Taofang could see orks charging at the janissaries from every quarter, even from places the soldiers had definitely cleared already. The men were taken completely aback by this incredible ambush, and the xenos spared them no chance to recover from their surprise.
Even Algol was beset by fresh foes, firing into a mob of orks who came charging at him from the transport node, a place that had been absolutely devoid of enemies only a moment before. To the strangeness of the attack was added the disheartening spectacle of the Space Marine retreating from the aliens, firing short, undirected bursts at them as he sprinted back towards the ramp and his transport.