by C. L. Werner
The aliens roared with glee as the hull plate was torn free, paying no notice to the handful of their comrades pulled from the ship by the resulting suction. They were a fierce-looking mob, steel helmets crushed down around their apelike heads, their mouths distorted by a profusion of yellowed tusks. Each of the orks gripped some sort of weapon in its leathery paw, from stubby pistols to crude axes and clubs. One monster flexed the talons of a massive power claw, electricity crackling about each finger.
It did not take the orks long to spot Rhodaan’s assault boat and realise it wasn’t part of their armada. A fierce howl sounded from the mob and their transport screeched in protest as it swung around to adopt a parallel course to the assault boat.
‘Man the door guns,’ Rhodaan snarled into his vox. ‘I think the xenos want to play.’
Solid shot rattled off the hull of the assault boat as the orks in the transport began to blast away at the Air Cohort ship. One of the shots glanced off the pauldron of Rhodaan’s power armour. The captain responded by delivering a quick burst from his bolt pistol, blowing gory chunks from the massed ork mob. The stricken aliens were tossed from the compartment with callous disregard by their comrades, the wounded greenskins plummeting earthwards like rag dolls.
The human auxiliaries were beside Rhodaan now, unlimbering the pintle-mounted heavy bolter from its fastenings and feeding ammunition into its magazine. One of the men cried out as a lucky shot from an ork bolter ripped half of his torso away. The rest of the gun crew instantly ducked behind the armoured door, leaving Rhodaan alone to face the alien onslaught.
‘Worthless simpering flesh-maggots!’ Uzraal bellowed, kicking his way through the cowering auxiliaries. His gauntlet gripped one of the men by the back of his tunic. Slinging the man as though he weighed nothing, he tossed the soldier back towards the doorway. The man screamed as he pitched over the side and fell into Vorago’s polluted sky.
‘A bit too much force,’ Uzraal apologised as Rhodaan darted a glance at him. The other Iron Warriors were in the doorway now, their bolt pistols sending withering fire into the ork transport. Uzraal took their timely intervention to march over to the heavy bolter. In a few seconds, he completed the arming of the weapon and directed its murderous fire against the alien vessel.
The scrap-metal transport was shredded by the high-impact, automatic fire from the heavy bolter. Plates were ripped from the alien craft, the crystallised canopy of the flight compartment burst apart in a shower of fragmented shards, the pilots reduced to gory smears at their controls. Howling like a daemon from the warp, Uzraal ripped the heavy bolter from its mounting and leaned out from the side of the assault boat. With savage precision, he sent a continuous stream of shells slamming into the crippled transport, pulping the ork warriors in the exposed cargo compartment.
‘Left at the four!’ Rhodaan said, slapping his hand against Uzraal’s shoulder to get the Iron Warrior’s attention. Descending above and from the left of the assault boat was another ork transport, this one painted a dull grey and adorned with crude glyphs and crosses. As it dropped down, Rhodaan saw doors slide open in its sides and little metal gantries clatter out from the hull. At first he wondered if the orks were mad enough to try a boarding action, as though they were aboard ancient sea vessels, not aircraft hurtling through the sky thousands of metres above a modern city.
As Uzraal’s weapon began to chew chunks from the bottom of the ork ship’s hull, Rhodaan saw the real purpose of the gantries. Ork warriors were emerging from the transport, climbing out upon the shuddering metal platforms. They were somewhat slighter and paler of colour than the vicious mob in the first transport, wearing dull grey fatigues in what seemed some crude attempt at a uniform. More importantly, however, each of the monsters had a huge rocket fastened to its back.
The Iron Warriors immediately turned their fire from the transport to the orks on the gantries. They had fought the greenskins many times and each of them remembered the vicious stormboyz who employed their own crude versions of jump packs to stage brutal assaults in the very heart of their enemy’s position. These orks weren’t going to get the chance.
An autocannon positioned in the tail of the transport growled into life, punching holes in the Iron Warriors’ assault boat. There was a shrill scream as one of the ork shells tore through a Cohort auxiliary, splashing the man’s innards across the compartment. Uzraal shifted his aim, directing his heavy bolter against the ork gun. The other Iron Warriors continued to pick off stormboyz from the gantries. With each shot, another ork went careening from the transport. One especially good bit of marksmanship from Baelfegor exploded the rocket strapped to one ork’s back, transforming it into a living torch and bathing four of its fellows in burning promethium. The stricken greenskins fell earthwards, igniting patches of industrial smog as their burning bodies plummeted through the brown sky.
A nimbus of flame suddenly erupted from the rear of the ork ship, the telltale impact of a krak missile. The sensors in Rhodaan’s helmet instantly calculated the trajectory, spotting Vallax’s assault boat in the distance. He could see the Iron Warriors of Squad Vidarna standing at the open doors of the craft, blasting away at a swarm of ork stormboyz flitting about their ship. Though the Space Marines were slaughtering their foes by the bushel, more of the rocket-packed xenos were converging on the assault boat.
‘Pilot,’ Rhodaan snarled into his vox. ‘Reduce speed! Bring us closer to the other assault boat.’ Whatever his personal animosity towards Vallax, his pride as an Iron Warrior wouldn’t allow him to abandon his brothers on the field of battle.
‘Lord Rhodaan,’ the pilot objected, his voice quaking with fear. ‘We are taking too much punishment ourselves to render aid to the other gunship.’
Rhodaan’s voice was sharp as steel as he growled back at the pilot. ‘Iron Warriors do not forsake their battle-brothers,’ he said. ‘Bring us about, or I will take command of this ship.’ He didn’t need to explain to the human crew what would happen to them if he was forced to pilot the assault boat himself.
‘By your command, Lord Rhodaan,’ the pilot replied. Immediately, the assault boat’s speed began to slacken and the craft began to veer towards Vallax’s ship.
Almost instantly, Rhodaan saw a mob of stormboyz shoot away from a saucer-shaped transport vessel, their rocket packs spewing black fumes as they surged across the sky. It quickly became clear that the aliens had spotted their assault boat and were manoeuvring to intercept. The stormboyz veered crazily through the polluted sky. Rhodaan watched as one of the rocket packs exploded, sending a burning mass of ork-meat plummeting earthwards. Other orks tried to compensate for the erratic trajectory of their flight by attempting to steer with their flapping arms. Still others were too occupied firing their bolters at the assault boat to be bothered by something as inconsequential as speed and direction.
‘Brother Uzraal, bring down that rabble!’ Rhodaan ordered. Uzraal marched across the compartment to the opposite doorway and braced himself against the recoil of the heavy bolter. A bloodthirsty hiss sounded from his helmet’s vent as he took aim.
Before Uzraal could fire, the assault boat was shaken by a tremendous explosion. Two of the auxiliaries were hurled from the compartment and it was all the Iron Warriors could do to maintain their footing. The frantic voices of the crew sounded over the vox, shouting that the dorsal stabilisers and airfoil had been hit. The boat was becoming unbalanced, slipping over into a roll the pilot couldn’t bring her out of.
Rhodaan glared at the oncoming mob of stormboyz, firing into the laughing orks. Beyond them, he could see Vallax’s assault boat veering away, escaping the crush of enemies swarming about her. Clearly the Over-Captain didn’t have the same sense of martial pride as his subordinate.
‘Brace for impact,’ Rhodaan ordered his squad as the boat’s roll increased, shifting the craft to a forty-five degree angle.
‘I don’t think we can expect a soft landing.’
The factory walls throbbed from the rever
berations of Vorago’s cannon. Tiles rained down from the roof as bombs exploded across the district. A section of ceiling came crashing inwards as an immense block of ferrocrete, blasted from a neighbouring structure, smashed its way into Processing Plant Secundus Minorus. The huge chunk of debris scored a deep gouge in the floor as it tumbled through the factory, obliterating ovens and conveyors in its path. Dozens of slaves struggled futilely in their chains as the rolling wreckage tottered towards them.
Yuxiang turned his face so he wouldn’t have to watch the men at the nearby conveyor ground into paste by the runaway block. It wasn’t the sight of death that unsettled him – he had been a spectator to grisly death since he’d taken his first breath on Castellax. No, it was the knowledge that the slightest deviation in the block’s rampage would have made him one of its victims. This was what threatened to turn his knees to jelly and his mind sick with terror.
Now, at this moment, Yuxiang couldn’t allow his emotions to overwhelm him. If he was going to survive, he had to keep his wits. He had to keep focused.
Defiantly, Yuxiang raised his eyes to the wall and the glowering steel words bolted to its surface, the words that had oppressed him for so many years, burning themselves into his mind.
Obedience. Labour. Fid–
As he stared at the words, the entire factory was rocked by a tremendous impact. An entire section of wall was blasted inwards, ripping the last letters from the wall in a shower of sparks and a shriek of steel. Yuxiang gaped in awe as he watched an armoured assault boat come thundering into the factory, smoke and flame streaming from its scarred hull. The deathly insignia of the Iron Warriors glared at him from the boat’s wing as the craft began to roll. A moment later, the craft smashed into one of the blast furnaces, spewing molten metal across the factory in a shower of fire.
The slave could only stare in disbelief at the devastation, his eyes straining to pierce the veil of steam and smoke that now engulfed the assault boat. That had been an Iron Warriors gunship, only the terrifying Traitor Marines were allowed to bear that insignia. Yuxiang’s stunned mind couldn’t come to grips with that fact. All his life he had looked upon the Iron Warriors as something indestructible, unconquerable. Like a force of nature, or a cabal of cruel gods spat from the depths of hell. To think that they could die, that they could be beaten was something Yuxiang had never dared believe possible.
The harsh bark of gunfire broke Yuxiang’s fascination. Whipping around, the slave found his eyes again turned to the wall. Through the great gash torn by the assault boat, he could see hideous forms streaming into the factory. They were things possessed of only a general semblance of human design and upon the broad back of each creature a massive rocket had been strapped. They used these to power down through the rent in the wall, laughing and shooting as they made their descent.
Raw horror raced through Yuxiang’s body. He had never seen an alien before, but he knew he was seeing the dreaded xenos now. No man who had ever heard tell of an ork could fail to recognise the creatures when he saw them.
The monsters must have been the ones who shot down the assault boat, then pursued the crippled craft into the factory. Once inside, however, the bloodthirsty orks quickly forgot their quarry. Even after the havoc wrought by the explosions around it, there were still thousands of slaves shackled to the machinery of Processing Plant Secundus Minorus. The sight of helpless, cowering prey was too much for the orks to ignore. Laughing their brutish calls, the aliens raised their crude weapons and happily began to massacre the defenceless humans.
Prefect Wyre was nowhere in sight, but several of his overseers had remained behind to safeguard the factory during the attack. At the sound of gunfire, they emerged from the shelters they had retreated to at the height of the bombing. Quickly they fanned out, seeking cover from which to engage the orks. Yuxiang knew it wasn’t concern for the slaves that motivated the overseers, but rather fear of what would happen to them if the aliens caused further damage to the factory’s infrastructure with their reckless carnage.
One of the hulking orks pitched over onto its side as its body was peppered with shot from the overseers’ guns. Despite being blasted by three shotguns, the greenskin still had fight in it, aiming its fat-barrelled pistol in the general direction of its attackers and emptying the magazine at the humans. When the weapon was spent, the ork threw its weapon at the oven the closest overseer had taken shelter behind, then threw one of its boots when the pistol failed to hit a target. The wounded brute was groping about looking for something else to throw when another fusillade from the shotguns smashed into it, nearly ripping its head from its shoulders.
The first ork the overseers killed was also their last. With savage glee, every ork in the factory turned away from their slaughter of the slaves to converge upon the small cluster of humans who had the temerity to fight back. Slugs and shells smashed into the machinery the guards were using as cover. The projectiles with lower velocity glanced from the sides of the obstacles, but there was no consistency among the alien armaments and several rounds tore through the machinery as though it were made of paper. Human screams rose from behind the cover as one by one the guards were torn to ribbons by the high-calibre ork weaponry.
Yuxiang cowered deeper in the shadows as he saw the last of the overseers pitch and fall, his shotgun clattering across the floor only a few metres away. The slave watched in terror as several orks prowled among the bodies, stripping weapons and ammunition belts from the dead men. He glanced back at the shotgun. Indecision gripped him. He could make a mad dash for the weapon, seize it before the orks saw him.
The very possibility of attracting the attention of the aliens made Yuxiang shift even lower against the side of his work station. He was no soldier, he couldn’t expect to equal the fighting prowess of the overseers. If he had a gun, he still wouldn’t be any match for one of the aliens. No, his only hope was to hide and keep quiet.
A greasy, musky stink struck Yuxiang’s senses a moment before he saw the ork step out from the other side of his work station. The reek of the alien’s leathery flesh was overwhelming, as though it would take root in his lungs and choke him with its foulness. The slave clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from coughing, fighting against his body’s instinctive revulsion.
It was a wasted effort. The ork took a few steps towards the shotgun, then suddenly swung around. The monster’s beady red eyes narrowed as it stared down at Yuxiang, but it was the alien’s flaring nostrils that told the slave how he had been found. Just as he had smelled the alien, so the alien had smelled him.
Yuxiang rose slowly to his feet, a coil of chain clenched in one hand, the twisted piece of rebar he had used to break his chain in the other. The ork scowled at him for a moment, then its face pulled back in a sadistic leer, exposing its yellowed fangs. He could see the alien’s body shivering with amusement as the ork holstered its pistol. Its eyes darted from the loop of chain to the piece of rebar.
Chuckling, the ork reached to its belt and dragged out an immense knife, a weapon with a blade bigger than Yuxiang’s forearm. The greenskin stabbed one of its fat fingers against an activation stud and the teeth along the edge of the knife began to churn back and forth. Hefting its brutal weapon, the grinning ork stepped towards Yuxiang.
The next instant, a single shot exploded from just over the slave’s head. The ork staggered, the knife dropping from its numbed hand. Smoke rose from the hole in its forehead, its beady red eyes crossed as though trying to look at the wound between them. A second later, the explosive round detonated, blasting the helmet from the greenskin’s head and sending most of its brains and part of its skull spurting across the floor. The alien’s body crumpled to its knees, then pitched forwards onto what was left of its face.
Yuxiang’s relief quickly collapsed into fear as his deliverer marched into view. Like the ork, his rescuer came from behind the machinery and towered above the slave. Again, Yuxiang found himself gazing upon the skull-icon of the Iron Warriors, but where b
efore he had seen it emblazoned across the wing of one of their gunships, now he saw it engraved upon the pauldron of a Space Marine’s own armour.
The Iron Warrior’s plate was almost black from where it had been scorched and charred. It was incredible, but Yuxiang realised this Space Marine must have been on the assault boat and survived the conflagration that consumed it. He could see the scarring along the muzzle of the Iron Warrior’s bolt pistol, the bubbling that bespoke exposure to the most extreme temperature. Somehow, the armour had endured the same heat – and so had the man inside.
No, not a man, Yuxiang corrected himself. A monster, something as cruel and alien as any ork. An Iron Warrior.
Like a god of death, the hulking Space Marine gazed at his handiwork. He brought his armoured boot down upon the wreckage of the ork’s head, smashing what was left of it into a greasy smear. Peering around the corner of Yuxiang’s workstation, the Iron Warrior studied the dispersal of the other orks. After a moment, his fanged helm dipped in a nod of satisfaction.
‘Thirty targets,’ the Iron Warrior growled over his vox-caster. ‘Brother Baelfegor will frag the three near the conveyors. When the rest react to the grenade, the remainder of the squad will assault from the flanks. I will maintain a firing position at their rear. If any of the aliens attempt to disengage, flush them towards my position.’
Almost as soon as the Iron Warrior issued his orders, the factory echoed once more with the discharge of bolters and the boom of grenades. From the smouldering wreckage of their transport, the Space Marines had risen like avenging phoenixes. Now it was their turn to bring death into Processing Plant Secundus Minorus.
Yuxiang sank against the base of his work station, all ideas of escape and freedom dashed. There was no defying the Iron Warriors. They were indestructible. They were unbeatable.