Evil Sun Rising

by Guy Haley

  Still, as any wise old skarboy will tell you, just because the biggest biter squig in the drop hasn’t been seen for a while, it doesn’t mean it won’t bite you on the behind.

  Construction reached a fever pitch as the orks approached the final humie world. Work on Gork’s Fist was nearly done, so mek teams were taken from the Wrath of Gork and brought over to Mogrok’s Toof o’ Mork to be put to work on Gungutz. So big was the gargant, and so many meks were there working on it, that the orks there swarmed as thick as snots at the drops. Fights broke out as contradictory plans and meks’ egos collided. The big meks had their hands full keeping the lesser meks in line. Brawls between rival grot work gangs were frequent. All the while gimlet-eyed Goff bruisers kept watch in case of any real trouble. Last time the meks had fallen out, the resultant warp breach had swallowed up three rust-ships. Grukk had made it quite clear that was not to happen again, naturally by biting someone’s face off.

  Uggrim, Snikgob and Bozgat kept well out of it. They worked hard and quickly, supervising the building of power field projectors on the gargant’s fifteenth and sixteenth decks. They were good at it, well respected already, better respected when they finished ahead of schedule.

  It wasn’t long after this that Mogrok himself sought Uggrim out. He found him with his backside in the air, humming loudly into a duct.

  ‘You got a minute, mek boss?’ said the Bad Moon. He waited a moment while Uggrim retracted his head and arm from the service hatch he was jammed into and wiped oil from his face. Mogrok seemed genial enough, but Uggrim eyed him warily.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

  ‘Good. Mek like you, clever ork. We should have a little chat. Come with me.’ Mogrok scratched his nose and beckoned. ‘This way.’

  They made their way through the gargant. The shell was all in place, most of the workings too. The finishing touches were under way. They passed grot painting crews stencilling checks and dags on stuff, others fixing glyph plates to this gubbins or that, describing hazards, operating instructions or the boasts of their makers.

  You could never trust these glyphs. You’d as likely get clear instructions to blow yourself up as operate the machinery properly, but the orks put them on anyway. Like everything else they did that wasn’t fighting, eating, or sleeping, they were driven to it by an instinct they neither understood nor questioned. They simply got on with it, accepting that there was only one right way, and that was the ork way. Uggrim was pleased to see it being done properly.

  Mogrok opened a door leading into Gungutz’s main bridge. He motioned for Uggrim to pass through first. It was darker in there than out in the corridor. Uggrim had no choice but to go in. He gripped a spanner at his belt lightly. A number forty-six: long, with a head the size of his fist. It’d do for a weapon. He couldn’t risk openly loosening his blasta pistol in its holster – too aggressive a move. Instead he readied himself to spin about and smash Mogrok in the face in case he tried anything funny. He almost wanted it to happen.

  Mogrok came in after the other big mek. There was no fight.

  Dim orange bulbs burned in the bridge, lighting five chairs, the periscope and the lift that would carry grot signallers up to the very top during battle. Mogrok kicked out a couple of gretchin malingerers he found asleep in a corner. They tried hard to look like they’d been busy but they weren’t fooling anybody. Mogrok didn’t care, and they left relieved they’d only received a couple of hard kicks. Once they had gone, Mogrok gave the room a quick once over, checking behind banks of levers and opening a couple of lockers. Satisfied they were alone, he went back to the door, closed it, and spun the lock wheel tight.

  ‘Put the control bridge way down here in the guts,’ he said, when he was sure they were alone. ‘No point putting it in the head. Humies always go for that, see? Dunno why other meks always do that. Always thinking, me.’ He tapped his forehead with a warty finger. ‘And I reckon you is too. I’ve had a look at that Stompa of yours.’

  ‘When?’ said Uggrim.

  ‘Never you mind. Fat Mork, innit?’

  Uggrim nodded slowly. He held the spanner lightly in his hand, still in its loop on his belt.

  ‘Impressive that. Not many meks can make a little evil sun like that, keep it all bottled up without blasting themselves to bits or cooking each other slowly. Very clever. Morky, that. Clever stuff. You got the know-wots. I could work with an ork like you, but…’ Mogrok pursed his lips and sucked in air through his gold-capped teeth. ‘Thing is, Uggrim, I hear a little whisper that you’re steering clear of me.’

  Uggrim’s face was a perfect study of mild surprise and denial. ‘Been busy, boss,’ he said. How calling this scabby Bad Moon boss choked him!

  ‘Do you think you’re smart, Uggrim?’ Mogrok usually stood with his hands hooked into his wide belt, but had a habit of gesticulating broadly when agitated or inspired. He did so now. ‘Humies think they is the smartest, making twisty plans and laying cunnin’ traps like they come up with war. We come up with war! Orks are the best at scrapping. Get us close and we’ll tear anything to bloody bits. All the boyz need is a shove in the right direction, and Mork’ll do the rest!’

  Speech delivered, he rocked back on his heels. Now he put his thumbs back into his belt. Mogrok really was scabby for an ork, and that was saying something. Uggrim watched fascinated at the squig parasites writhing across the big mek’s skin. He stank real funny too, a cheesy, mouldy smell that filled the bridge. Mogrok didn’t take offence at Uggrim’s stares. He pulled a maggoty thing out from under a scab on his chin and popped it into his mouth. It crunched when he bit down.

  ‘Trouble is, a lot of orks isn’t as smart as they think they is. Now, Grukk there – he’s a follower of Gork, pure and simple. But the likes of you and me, you need a bit of cunning, some sneaky thinking. He hates the likes of us, does Grukk. But where would he be without Mork? Bashing the brains out of big lizards with a rock on some nowhere world as Gork intended, that’s where.’

  Uggrim found his voice. ‘What do you want exactly, Mogrok?’

  ‘Well. Well there we are. What do I want?’ He gave a toothy, Bad Moon smile. ‘I want you to tell me how you got your little sun up and running. Power source like that, well…’ He sucked his teeth. ‘I know some of the others have been making big talk about this thing or that thing what they would build with your evil sun, but I’m not like the others. I’m not all talk. If you gave me something like that, why I’d build a gargant that’d make Gungutz here look like a snotling. What do you say? You interested? You can be in on the whole thing.’

  Of course Uggrim was interested. What mek wouldn’t be? And Mogrok was making a real overture here – no mek liked to admit he was lacking certain knowledge. It was bad for business.

  The only problem was that Uggrim had absolutely no idea how the evil sun at the heart of Fat Mork burned. Bozgat had wanted to make it. They’d almost failed. He still wasn’t sure what they’d done to get it going. There was an atmosphere on Garbax World. It was a dump, but it was inspiring – made him work harder and better than before or since, Bozgat and Snikgob too. Probably because it was a dump, he figured, and they wanted out.

  Not that he was going to admit that. Pride would not allow. Mogrok was confident enough to put his own inability out there, but he was far too dangerous to have Uggrim’s secrets. Mogrok was right – Uggrim had tried to keep clear of the old devil. It hadn’t worked. What would he do if Uggrim fessed up? Uggrim decided he’d rather not find out. He needed to play for time.

  ‘Tricky,’ said Uggrim.

  ‘Tricky?’

  ‘Tricky,’ said Uggrim. ‘Difficult. Bit temperamental, they are, little suns. Scaling that up to this size… Well, let me tell you.’

  ‘Tell me what?’ said Mogrok.

  ‘Problems. Big problems. The alignment of the compression beams, containment…’

  ‘Bubble field,’ said Mogrok. ‘I’m an expert, remember? Dead easy. I’ve been thinking on it. You tell me how you initiate the
primary reaction, I’ll contain it. Bang!’ He smiled lazily. ‘Or rather, not bang. It’ll work great.’

  ‘There are… other problems,’ said Uggrim flannelling desperately. ‘Let me go away, have a think, then you and I can sort it out together, yeah? Gonna have to draw up some plans. Complicated plans.’

  Mogrok seemed satisfied by this. Mostly. He came right up to Uggrim. Not quite close enough for it to be an outright challenge, not quite far enough away for it not to be one either. Uggrim’s mind did a bunch of swift calculations on whether he could take the fatter, bigger ork. They all said no.

  ‘Good,’ said Mogrok nicely, in a way that was not at all nice. ‘You have a think. I’d like you to figure it all out, because I always get what I want, and I don’t like to be disappointed.’ He leaned in a bit nearer. Uggrim’s nostrils flared at the reek of him. ‘Ever.’

  He stepped back, went to the door and spun the wheel. ‘You better get back to work. Gungutz is coming down in the second wave, so I want him ready. You get it?’

  ‘Oh yeah. I’m done on my bits.’

  ‘I knows that. Why do you think I’m here? I’m making a point. You’re a good mekaniak, Uggrim.’ He held his finger up, in the manner of an ork who has just had a splendid idea. ‘Tell you what, I hear you got a bit of a thing going on with Grimgutz. Well, I reckon you and him should go down on Wrath of Gork with Gork’s Fist, Big Mouth and Fat Mork right into the rumpus. Would you like that?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Uggrim, whose head filled with thoughts of crumping. He was starved of action.

  ‘Great. We’ll move Fat Mork tomorrow then. Needs to go on Wrath of Gork, don’t he? I’ll be seeing you around, Uggrim.’

  Mogrok came back from the door, stared at him a moment, patted him on the shoulder and walked off whistling.

  Uggrim brushed off the flakes of pale green skin Mogrok left behind on his shirt. Going down with the spearhead was fantastic news, and he couldn’t wait to tell the lads.

  All the same, there would be another reason for it. Uggrim was arrogant enough to think Mogrok might see him as a potential rival, and there were few better ways of getting rid of a potential rival than having him stand right in front of the enemies’ guns and happily shout ‘Waaagh!’

  Uggrim gripped his spanner tightly. Things might be getting problematical.

  CHAPTER 4

  DA DROP

  ‘Look at that – will you look at that!’ said Frikk, peering through Snikgob’s gunsights. ‘There must be…’ Frikk did a quick mental calculation. ‘Lots of ’em!’

  Snikgob smacked Frikk on the back of the head, bashing his face into the eyepiece. ‘Lemme look, runt,’ he said genially. Frikk jumped down from the seat, rubbing his eye and setting his cap straight.

  ‘Yeah, boss. Sorry, boss.’

  Snikgob put his eye to the scope. ‘Huh,’ he grunted.

  ‘Wow. He’s right. That’s a lot of boyz. Hey! Hey! Isn’t it great? We’re going in first!’ said Bozgat from the reactor deck. He was babbling almost as much as Talker. Whatever Mogrok’s motives, all the Red Sunz were happy to be part of the first assault. Except the grots; they were terrified, but they were always terrified and so they didn’t count.

  There were tens of thousands of orks in the cavernous hold of the Wrath of Gork, ranked by clan or mob, their nobs up at the front in their best fighting get-up. Back banners waved. Iron icons bobbed. Orks barked and shouted at each other, the voices of individuals competing with the deep hum coming off the crowd. The boyz hung onto chains dangling from frames on multiple open, stacked decks. At the very top, high above the crowds, fighters sat in rocket sleds at the end of rickety launch tracks, facing slots in the metal that opened directly into space overhead. The bubble fields glimmered out there, distorting the light of the stars.

  Fat Mork’s squawker was alive with cackles and bragging, threats of extreme violence and the squeals of abused grots. In front of the boyz, hundreds of different war machines waited, their wheels clamped to the floor: little, faster ones up front, the big ones at the back.

  Biggest of all were the Stompas. Fat Mork had a bay all to himself. He was so tall he filled the hold halfway up its height, only the fighters in their racks above him. As Mogrok promised, Uggrim and his lads were riding down from orbit with Grukk himself. Deeper in the ship, at its broad, high waist where the hold went up many more decks, Uggrim could just about make out the massive shape of Gork’s Fist. Uggrim was proud they were going in with the boss. What he wasn’t so pleased about was the presence of Big Mouth, Grimgutz’s eye-wateringly bright yellow Stompa, in the next bay. A crowd of boyz separated them. They looked like two fat old orks, dressed up in their finest, a million little squiglings swarming around their feet.

  Big Mouth lived up to his name. His metal teeth were spread jaw-crackingly wide, an array of giant speakers jammed into his gaping maw. Black moons were daubed all over him, and black flames licked up along the edge of his yellow armour. One arm mounted a huge chainsaw, the other bristled with rockets and guns. Another rack of rockets was held high on stanchions over his smokestacks.

  ‘Flash git,’ grumbled Uggrim.

  There was no warning when they started to fall – no countdown or klaxons, no call to action stations – but somehow the orks all knew it was going to happen just before it did. Uggrim, who’d worked out the rough time they would be landing, got in first.

  ‘Hold on, lads. This is going to be a bumpy ride.’

  The pulsing murmur of the orks became definite words and a raucous song emerged.

  ‘’Ere we go, ’ere we go, ’ere we go, ’ere we go, ’ere we go, ’ere we go-oh!’ Over and over, louder and louder, with increasing tempo. They stamped their boots and roared. Some of the more foolish ones let off their guns.

  The Red Sun meks felt it in their guts – that shift when gravity stops tickling and grabs hard. The ship groaned, a long metallic grumble that ended in a ping. Uggrim glanced upwards. He wrapped one hand into a squigskin strap dangling from the roof of his cockpit. The pair of grot fixers by his feet clung on to each other and whimpered.

  ‘Shut it, you bleeding runts!’ he said indulgently. He gave one a comforting kick.

  Uggrim took one last look out of the periscope and shoved it up out of the way. With his free hand, he keyed on Fat Mork’s telly-scope. Multiple pictures sprang up on half a dozen primitive glass screens. He twiddled a knob, tuning in to the ship’s scopes until he found the image he wanted. Upon the biggest screen embedded in the Stompa’s dashboard, an image of Alaric emerged from a storm of glowing phosphor dabs.

  An orange world, with dark seas and brown clouds. The curve of it crossed the top part of the screen, limned in pale blue, black space beyond. This curve receded rapidly, disappearing from view until brown wastes filled the screen up. Uggrim saw wreckage spin past, the remains of the humie space-guns, smashed to bits by the fleet’s approaching salvo. There were so many ships firing so many cannons, nothing could stand up to them. Nothing at all.

  At that moment, Uggrim and his fellow orks felt invincible. The world was literally at their feet, and they were raining down upon it like a vengeful green comet.

  The ship began to shake. A pale corona of fire flickered at the edge of his screen, growing brighter with each moment: the atmosphere of Alaric rubbing hard against the bubble fields of the kill kroozer.

  Fire of a different kind came in hard a few seconds after that, great pillars of laser light first, which burst harmlessly against the rust-ships’ bubble fields. The Wrath of Gork fell faster and faster, the rumbling of the ship drowned out the frenzied singing of the orks. The telly-scope image wobbled hard. Uggrim grappled with its controls to compensate. More fire was coming in, and aerial shell bursts joined the defence lasers. He saw first one, then two, then two more of the rust-ships disintegrate into hails of fiery debris. Whether that was because of their shoddy construction or the efforts of the humans didn’t really matter – it was hilarious either way.

 
‘Fightas away, fightas away!’ shouted out the kaptin of the ship over the squawker. There were multiple booms as the pilots ignited their rocket slings, slamming them at high speed vertically out into the rush of burning air. More booms followed as a handful of fightas smashed into launch slots that were slightly too narrow, showering burning fuel over the orks below. There were further explosions, briefly viewed before being whipped away, as more fightas were torn apart by the violence of their exit and the speed of their descent, but dozens of the flyboys somehow wrestled their craft under control, gunned their engines and shot off past the hurtling kroozer, already firing at the Imperial craft coming to greet them.

  The Wrath of Gork shook. The odd buggy and tank came loose, chains bursting under the strain. One particularly large gun wagon skidded across the drop deck, into the hull, crushing boys on the way. Uggrim laughed.

  On Fat Mork’s telly-scope, he watched the ground rush at them at ridiculous speed. Sulphurous clouds parted. He saw a brown river running into a brown ocean, the straight cuts of two roads on bridges breaking its wiggly course into three. The spider-lines of humie fortifications grew thicker and thicker, resolving themselves into fat pen strokes, then into crenellated ramparts. There were a lot of them, a number of lines on the west side of the river, the majority surrounding a regularly shaped mountain on the eastern side. The Wrath of Gork was coming down not too far from the forts on the west bank of that river, a few kilometres out, so Uggrim reckoned.

  Ochre ground sped at them, and then it was over, just like that. The ship didn’t so much land as smash into the planet with bone-crushing impact. The singing stopped. There was the horrendous metallic crash of more tanks flying from their moorings. Uggrim jerked forwards, smashing his jaw on a drive lever and biting his tongue. He sat up and shook his head, wiping blood from his mouth.