840.M30
Tanya Russ
Oh, this campaign was a pain in my ass. It had been nearly four years since the campaign for the Wheel of Fire had begun and in that time we had cleaned up what could be best described as 70% of the Ork infestation.
Over that time I'd become quite acquainted with Ork tactics and their abilities to be stubborn and pull things that I could not believe were real out of their collective rear ends.
At this point I had fought the Orks on every conceivable type of terrain on fronts across the sector and the one thing I had certain knowledge of was that they could pull some absolute bullshit. Once we had exterminated the Orks on the first planet, New Vietnam, I had taken a few of the enemy guns for testing and found they didn't work in several instances. I was not even sure why. A few of them did work, but these ones tended to be actual weapons that had basically just had pieces of scrap metal stapled onto them while the other guns were literally just scrap that did not work. When I'd asked those who brought them in if they had been working when they fought the Orks, they would always respond that they had been. Which was… odd.
This had resulted in me finally having a long conversation about the Orks with Malcador and oh how that gave me a headache.
The idea that a species of creatures was out there that could simply think into being that weapons would work was painful to even comprehend, because if they could think a weapon into functionality… What else could they do?
Could they think ammunition into existence? So far It did not seem to be possible, they seemed to have some laws. To my understanding they could just bend things to their will but how far did their will extend?
At the end of this logic train was the terrible notion that if an Ork believed you to be something hard enough… Could they turn you into that something? If the Orks started believing Space Marines were monsters or war maniacs, would that suddenly affect the mentality of the Space Marines? For my sake and my men I had to hope that that was an overthinking of the subject. The fact that they could basically bolt pieces of iron together to build jet fighters was enough at this point, that warg energy having some ability to affect humanity was as terrifying a thought as could be.
Not to mention I was having to be a lot more thorough about destroying any gear we lost. There had been several instances where Rhinos had to be abandoned in the field, only for them to turn up more heavily armed in the command of Orks. This had resulted in me giving direct orders that if a heavy vehicle needed to be abandoned it must be destroyed.
Giving the enemy the ability to use your weapons platform and making them stronger was not something I wanted to do often. Sure that had lowered the stock pool of heavy vehicles and made me have to be more conscientious of their use but it did result in good outcomes for the most part.
Marines didn't really need the vehicles in most cases. Even in most of the more barren desert worlds we were able to move quickly enough to pin an enemy force and then grind it down before another enemy force joined the original.
And I was right, the prolonged fighting that my men were going through did improve their quality quite quickly. Over the course of the last four and a half years we had been slowly improving our ability to fight on any terrain, to the point that I think we could probably fight legions twice our size.
Now why did I think of fighting legions, considering as far as I knew the only Space Marines in existence were ones that were under my father's control? A bit of paranoia that I'd started to develop. During one of the sieges we had found evidence of power armors in similar sizes to what we owned, dating back to possibly before the Long Night.
Of course I had loaded it all up and shipped it back to Mars for their study, but I'd taken the time to look over it. Just to be sure.
I was now sure that something like the Space Marines probably had existed at some point. If they had existed in the past outside the Imperium and they existed now inside the Imperium then most likely they still existed outside the Imperium.
It may be a jump as I hadn't seen any evidence yet but pretending that the possibility that there were no superhumans out there that could possibly contend with us was foolish. No doubt we would run into them sooner or later and they would have a home field advantage, which was why I was pushing hard to get my men's skill level up as high as possible. With any luck, if we ever did run into an enemy force of Space Marines that skill level would be the defining feature that would see us winning.
That being said I had learned quite a bit about my Marines over the last four and a half years, especially the specifics of their ability to fight. Some of the fights we had been in were some of the most horrid situations I think I'd ever seen, trenches and swamps were something I really would never want to repeat but trenches in wet jungles were somehow worse.
Thankfully I was able to learn that Marines could do with a lot of bullshit. In both cases I expected a lot of men to fall ill but there were no major outbreaks of any known diseases I could put my finger on. There had been a few Marines who definitely got sick after being exposed to unknown toxins but, for the most part, they'd survived that. Losses generally came from combat and losses in combat were heavy.
I had known that sooner or later losses would pile up for my Marines but I had kind of hoped we would avoid anything too major. Thirty percent losses.
This campaign had seen 30% losses so far amongst my men. Granted those losses had been replenished with new Marines from Fenris arriving 2 years ago but it was quite apparent that the fighting here was going to get much worse as we were now coming close to the final goal of the campaign. Meaning what could be best called the imperial capital of this Ork empire.
The world had no name I cared for so I planned to change it to Rathvin, a fortress that most likely would hold out some of the more stubborn warriors in the entire galaxy. But first I had to conquer it with nothing but my legion. And what Imperial Army and Fenrisian Army elements I had at my disposition.
I had lost access to my better assistants along the way. The Star Hunters had been recalled first, apparently they were needed for some sort of operation that I was not informed about. Not a big loss, my men were pretty good at recon at this point and we had been able to prosecute the war without them without issue.
The Iron Warriors on the other hand were a more serious loss. Evidently the Imperium had got itself into a bit of an issue and they needed siege experts. So, even though I was facing a possible siege that would probably go on for 6 months to a year, I had lost those badasses to another siege they were needed at.
It was understandable really. This particular conflict was supposed to go on for 10 years, the fact that we were probably within a year of completing it might have sent a signal to the higher-ups in the government that two legions were not needed for this campaign. It was an unfortunate thing but I had made good use of them while they had been here and gotten my legion up to snuff when it came to siege tactics with their aid.
And I'd seen them off with a bit of a Fenrisian party as well, dedicating one of the recently conquered planets to their legion master. Planet Icrinda, which had been one of the first worlds we had taken, had been renamed to planet Diorius. Did it matter in the grand term of things? No, but he seemed absolutely proud and happy to have received such an honor and I hoped that it would foster good relations between the Iron Warriors and my legion in the future.
Had to thank Ventassius from the Star Hunters when I saw him again. He'd actually spoken to me sometime before he had left and mentioned how the Iron Warriors had a bit of an issue with enjoying the prestige of a thing. I had no problem with this, soothing a person's pride by giving their name to that planet would show that they had been involved in this conflict and had taken the first step. It was an easy thing to do.
Either way he had left last week with his legion, off to some planet somewhere far away from here.
Which left my legion for the final push, and what a push it would be as we could not let the Orks sit idly by. Every day we did they would build new weapons to fight us with so I'd let the Imperial Army send in the Navy, backed up by the fleet of my Fenris Wolves.
And for the last week we had been fighting Ork ships in orbit, trying to clear out enough space that we could begin landings on the planet below and start clearing the planet of its infestation.
Perhaps I was too soft, I admit this. The fact of the matter was the planet below was filled to the brim with Orks and this was the perfect situation to use one of the many planet-destroying weapons I had been given as part of the Gloriana's weapons allocation.
But I just disliked the idea of wasting the valuable human lives on the planet below, let alone the planet itself, with short-term destruction that would waste a perfectly fine opportunity to train my men up on harder conflicts.
Not to mention, something had been up with the last few fights, The Orks had responded differently to the conflict, seeming to have luckily guessed on where our forces were fighting from. Or going to be. I had suspicions that there might be something going on, someone feeding them intel. Destroying the planet outright may end the conflict quickly but it wouldn't help me figure out who and what was feeding them that information.
No doubt the emperor, boss, or whatever they called their particular leader in charge… Was it just Warboss but bigger? Who knows but anyway he would have some information so I planned to fight my way to him and beat him until he told me how his troops had been able to react well enough to cause several suspicious losses for my army.
I did not like the possibility that someone was either betraying my force from the inside or was possibly supporting the Ork forces with Intel-gathering operations that I was not able to destroy. So I would hunt down as much information as I could now, the more control of the situation I could gain now the better it would be in the long run for my army. If it was internal traitors they could be dealt with, if it was external spies then I knew they couldn't be Orks and I could and probably would have candidates for the next war that the Emperor would expect me to go on.
If some aliens were supporting the Orks against the Imperium then they were an enemy of the Imperium, no matter what lie they might say otherwise. So I would hunt them down and I had a good feeling I already knew what specific aliens were doing this. After all my lessons with Malcador had continued, especially on preventing mind reading, and the only alien race that I knew of that might have abilities like that were those washed-up elf look-alikes. At least from the description I had been given.
The possibility that the Eldar, or whatever name they went by as it seemed to change with every person I spoke to about it, could be supporting the Orks against the Imperium in some way seemed very likely.
Why else would Malcador be training me to defend myself against mental attacks?
Of course I needed proof. And even if I had proof I would still need to figure out how they were supporting the Orks, why they were supporting them, and where to hit them. But all those things could be accomplished in time.
The first step was to seize the enemy fortress on the planet below.
Which was going to be a bit of a problem.
Most of the Ork worlds I'd fought over for the last 4 years had a single fortress with maybe a few outposts and a collection of camps.
Also slave camps, but those tended to be get cleaned up real quick as I put them as a top objective in finishing this empire.
The first planet I'd actually taken in this campaign, New Vietnam, was now basically a thriving colony of former slaves. Mainly because it was hard to find the planets they were from since most didn't know. Some had apparently lived in this sector for their entire lives anyway.
That was fine by me though. Grabbing the materials that kept the Ork economy running and transporting them to create a larger human economy that would in a few decades probably be this sector's capital, one able to deal with Orks on their own and carry a little bit of vengeance for their ancestors, would be fine by me.
However the main problem was that this Ork world had what could be described as one Capital City full of Orks with five fortresses around it. Their anti-air was good enough that trying to smash through to the city would be foolish. It was like the Rhine Front's siege warfare all over again.
Granted, with the help of the Squats that wouldn't be too big of an issue. Their laying trains were very useful for moving supplies and, knowing the Orks, if we could destroy one of those fortresses and punch into the main capital… well if I could kill their WarBoss the Ork empire would self-destruct nicely enough.
Then it would just be a matter of fighting each individual force until they were all dead, burning all the corpses and any contaminated areas thoroughly, and escorting any and all slaves off-world.
It sounded easy but of course it probably would not be, those Orks had given us 30% casualties so far and there was still a potential to boost that number by 10% when we hit the planet's surface.
Thankfully we've learned most of the Ork tricks by this point so hopefully they wouldn't be able to pull a surprise like they had in the early days. Most importantly, as far as we could tell, there were no slaves in the outer camps. Which meant those fortresses were well and properly acceptable bombardment targets and in range for the orbital ships.
Most likely, once we started fighting, I would go ahead and give the orders for that bombardment. As much as I did not like wasting potential planets I did not like wasting my money either. If there was a way to clean up at least several of these fortresses, allowing the noose to tighten around the Warboss's neck quicker, I would do it.
From there I would probably be required to engage in either a full frontal assault on their fortifications, which hopefully would be lighter than expected, or choke them to death through a siege. The problem with that was that the slaves were inside the main city and they were likely to start eating those slaves.
I will not suffer cannibals. I know that Orks eating humans isn't cannibalism but sentient life is sentient life so I would most likely be required to move in on that City in an assault nonetheless.
Besides that, there was another demand made of me. I guess some member of Mars had mentioned that the planet might have ancient technology on it because it used to be a colonial world of the human federation before the Old Night. I didn't know if that was true or not, the little data I had been able to pick up since arriving here did indicate that humanity had controlled the planet at some point, but if so they hadn't had full control for a long time. Though some planets did have heavy fortifications that did look like they dated back to before the Old Night. Some of them could probably date back to before humanity walked on the moon, honestly.
But it had been a request that I do my best to besiege the city and find any information for the Mechanicus, especially anything about ancient technology that may have been lost. I saw no major concerns, I would attempt to do as they had requested.
Either way the fighting would probably be fierce in the first few days and, over time, break down into an unorganized rout. Orks did not tend to retreat, I had been told, but it seemed if you applied enough pressure they would attempt to fall back to a better position. As much as they enjoyed a good fight on levels that would make most war maniacs cringe, they knew that fighting in an untenable position was going to only end in their death.
And, unlike with my Wolves of Fenris, who had a vague mysticism about where they would go after they died, the Orks apparently had no real religion. At least I didn't think they had a religion outside their ideas on some pair of gods called Gork and Mork that were too confusing to be a religion in my mind. They would fall back to save their own lives and my men would push them till we won.
Tanya Russ
Most days, I like to tell myself that I do not like combat. After all, fighting for your life against monsters was not a valid form of entertainment. Fighting for your life against other living beings was just wasteful resource management as you could have easily worked the situation out and improved the world together.
Well I will admit I had started to notice over the years that, as much as I liked to say I did not like fighting… I was a bit of a hypocrite.
Covered in the blood and guts of various Orks that I had smashed my way through I stalked the city streets of the Ork empire's Capital. If you could call it that.
I had not seen many cities in this life. I had seen what I suspected were cities from the orbit of Terra and I'd seen small towns since the campaign started, but this? This was not a city.
This was a collection of trash heaps built next to each other and people told to live in tents around the trash heaps. It was disgusting conditions that no person should be forced to live in, be they human or Xeno, or maybe even spiritual. There was no sanitation, there was no public works to keep the streets clean, and there was definitely a stench about this place that was worse than I think I have ever experienced in my entire life. Probably worse than I'd experienced in all my lifes.
But, granted, this might only smell as bad as it did due to the enhanced senses of being a Primarch. Either way killing the Orks did not seem to be doing anything for the stench so I would probably have to order this place burned after we were done here. Granted, this wasn't the expected city, a barbarian camp would be a better term. I would need to burn this place down either way as it was infested in more ways than I liked. In fact, as I was about to turn a corner, I saw a hand burst through the ground. The green and ugly color told me exactly where an Ork was about to be born.
I walked over there and waited till the head popped out of the earth before shoving my chainsword through its skull, killing it.
Not the most glorious combat but we had broken through their line and currently everything was in flux. I was just behind the forward Space Marines who were pushing onward towards what we thought was the capital building. It was basically a bunch of debris piled over an entrance to an ancient cave system by the looks of it and the Orks were doing their damnedest to prevent us from getting to it.
In my mind it was pretty much obvious that it was where the leader of these Orks stayed. Why he was in there I didn't know, I had been informed that Orks preferred to come out and fight in the end but maybe he didn't realize this was the end yet. Either way soon we would be overwhelming that entrance and we would push in and kill the green bastard. Till then I made myself busy killing the monsters that managed to get behind our lines, a job usually dealt with by my wolves but they were a bit overtaxed at this point.
There were more Orks in this city than I think I'd ever seen in any of the other campaigns on this battle, no doubt more Orks than Space Marines. My forces couldn't move without stumbling over the creatures and ultimately they were hiding in every building. Which was where my wolves were coming in handy as they could easily pick up the scents of the Orks and lead my Marines to the houses they were hiding in. At that point it was up to what gear they had. Considering I saw large smoke plumes rising throughout the city it was more likely than not that most Marines detachments had already determined the best course of action was to simply burn the place down.
Not a terrible option considering that's what my overarching goal would always be for this place as long as they helped to get the civilians out first, which were proving to be not as numerous as I originally believed. Considering the number of bones that looked rather human lying about I suspected I may have arrived after they had already decided that civilians weren't worth keeping around for much longer.
Orks were disgusting creatures. The longer I observed them and the more of them I saw, the more I was sure of that. Granted I knew that holding them up to my moral standards might be a bit much but the victor writes history and, as far as I was concerned, I was going to be writing a history of the Orks being exactly what I had seen so far. A wasteful barbaric race that could put up a damn good fight when they wanted, one that was a threat to humanity that needed to be kept in check.
Absent-mindedly I chuckled at the knowledge that most likely, a few years ago, I probably would have attempted to find some sort of use for this race. There probably still was some sort of use for this race but how quickly I'd gone to burn them all out…
Mildly concerning too… I had to wonder if, even though I had not been completely mind-controlled by the Emperor, there wasn't some sort of instinctual command code to preserve humanity buried somewhere in my mentality. Or did the Orks have some sort of psychic ability to draw people towards the conclusion that they needed to be destroyed, perhaps? After all they loved fighting so much, what better way to make sure that alien races would fight them than to convince them that Orks had to be destroyed?
These were dark and dangerous thoughts when you really put your mind to them. Though I would acknowledge that there was always the possibility that the Emperor was controlling me in some way I was most likely just being a bit paranoid, some sort of habit I'd picked up that was probably not good for me.
That being said, there was use for the Orks when you really put your mind to it. A species that could be deployed to fight an enemy and grow their troops in the field? That was a useful bio weapon, it made me wonder if that's what they had been created for. That being said, if they were a bio-weapon, finding some way to use them for humanity was not an impossible thing.
If I ever found an enemy that needed a bit of work thrown at it perhaps I would engage with them as needed as mercenaries. These Orks though… I could not afford to do such things. The Wheel of Fire was an important path to the other side of the Galaxy. If it was not brought into compliance and left to be controlled by Orks it would become a pirate Haven in no time. Plus I needed to gain uncontested control of the sector and the Orks would not allow that.
It was an unfortunate waste of living resources but they were wasting resources with their existence and there was not much else I could do on the matter.
Really the only thing I could do at the moment was focus on the now so I stopped lollygagging and continued searching through these destroyed hovels they called a town and moved forward to the front lines, quickly finding my way there since I could move rather quickly with my long legs. The line was not too far ahead by this point anyway.
My Marines were taking cover behind various structures, most looking no better than the tents all around, and across from them was a horde of Orks doing exactly what I expected a horde of Orks to do: constantly charge and scream their roars of war and whatever Battlecry they had adopted. They were deafening the area around with noise.
I used a bit of the helmet's tools to lower the volume of the Orks and raised the volume of internal Coms so I could listen to the Marines around me as they worked out what they were going to do.
Generally it seemed like they were waiting for the Volkyte-equipped troops to arrive. We finally had a sustainable number of them, three full companies of the weapons, though only one was in a full company. The other weapons had been scattered about to various platoons and other units to give them a bit of a more punch.
The company that was carrying the Volkyte weapons should probably be arriving soon, from my memory they had been detached to deal with a bit of a counter-attack to the north of here as the Orks had apparently decided that would be a great idea to drive a whole bunch of vehicles that looked more like scrap metal than the regular scrap metal vehicles they usually drove around, all pipes and thin plates. If the vehicles didn't have such large main cannons on them I would have not even bothered but they did so I had to detach a unit to deal with them and at the time the soldiers in the Volkyte company were not really doing anything so they had seemed like the perfect candidate.
No matter the fortifications in front of the main Palace, I guess, if the Ork Lord or WarBoss or whatever you called an Ork leader that was at the rank of an emperor. I really had to talk to Malcador about that when I got the chance. Either way the fortifications in front of the main palace were slowly crumbling as my infantry laid down a rain of fire that kept the Orks either in place or losing their limbs when they tried to reach out to fire back. It was nice watching my men cover for each other, taking moments to allow other men to refill their rifles.
Sure this was a massive waste of ammo but we were putting so much ammunition down range that the Orks were basically pinned, and it was a good tactic to hold them in place because I could see from where I was standing that several Marines were attempting to go along the side of the fortress. They were most likely trying to find some way to get through the enemy fire and get up close, I didn't know why though I suspected they probably were carrying explosives.
Blowing up a hole in this fortification's walls and allowing us in would not only give us a clear entrance to the Palace but also cause enough chaos in the Ork ranks that we probably could sprint the distance between our makeshift lines and into their more fortified ones.
At least that's what I hoped. Turning my attention back to the comms I mainly heard what I expected: men complaining about just how tough the Orks really were. It's not as if I didn't see why: there were several Orks that had their limbs completely blown off and they were still fighting basically. The Orks were probably giving the same complaints to their commanders, considering some of my men were now missing limbs due to peeking out at the wrong time or being unlucky by the look of it.
Shaking my head I watched as the Marines equipped with explosives first sprinted out of cover, running across the no man's land from an angle that appeared to not have as many fire positions on it. They quickly covered the distance between our lines and the Ork lines and were already at the side of the fortifications. An impressive speed.
I watched with some pride, I had trained these men for almost going on a decade at this point in some cases so I think I deserved a little pride in their accomplishments. The Marines quickly set up an explosive charge on the side of one of the defensive towers and got to a safe distance by jumping into a torn-up part of land that probably had been hit by a bombardment from earlier in the conflict. The crater provided enough cover that they were not immediately incinerated as the tower's support was blasted free of the rest of the structure, causing it to pull portions of the outer wall of the defenses down as it toppled over onto the ground.
With a sound of clattering and shattering, pieces of wood and metal were flown across the battlefield and a squeak goblin… I still didn't know the name of these lesser creatures that made up the bottom of the Ork hierarchy… anyway it was thrown just a few feet in front of me, still holding onto the heavy machine gun that had been in a place of pride on the tower.
Raising my wrist I used the hidden bolter in the forearm armor, a recent addition to my equipment, to blast the creature to make sure it didn't try and pick up that heavy weapon and go back to aid in the defense of the fortifications.
The body which had been separated from its head fell down to the ground, which seemed to signal something to my Space Marines. Letting out something that sounded more like a howl than a Battle cry, they seem to have taken my killing of the little creature as a sign that it was the time to charge. Well… they weren't exactly wrong.
Sighing at their living up to the name of wolves of Fenris, I pulled out a chainsword and started walking forward, leading the way for my men towards the recently opened hole in the enemy line.
The enemy seemed pretty confused at what had happened, though they were starting to open fire again. Marines quickly suppressed the enemy as they began moving forward in a loose formation of around five men shooting while five men moved forward. This just kept up a hail of gunfire on the fortifications, allowing us to close the distance which allowed my men to either charge through the hole in the wall or climb over it. As usual various ropes and other kits had been assembled for this operation.
I was not the first person into the fortress. As much as I enjoyed a good fight nowadays I was not someone to risk my life for being the first. if I had to make a guess I was probably around the 50th in. Letting the Marines charge in first was an acceptable thing in my mind and, as I stepped in, I watched the Marines as they went to work clearing the fortification in front of the Warboss's Palace.
One thing that I had noted was that I would not have trained my men if they were not Space Marines, as they had a preference for fighting hand to hand. If you could kill enemies at a distance you should kill an enemy at a distance, they would probably do the same. However I'd quickly learned, and confirmed it over the years, that Space Marines were quite accustomed to close quarters combat and often moved faster than their enemies.
Closing the distance and killing a person outright was often a lot easier for them than shooting and so what I stepped into was a charnel House of murder, My Marines beating the life out of Orks with their bare hands if they didn't happen to have a rifle or bladed weapon to do it.
It was an ugly business but I had to admit that the Orks, while powerful in close quarters, weren't very fast. They may carry crude versions of our weapons but that didn't make them any less deadly as I saw a few Marines who got a little too overconfident take wounds and possibly die. Judging by their pristine armor I suspected those particular Space Marines were recruits recently brought in to replenish our losses, unfortunate but it would happen.
The battlefield is nothing but Darwinism on a massive scale, in the end those smart enough not to put their lives at risk will survive while those who put their lives at risk would remove themselves from risk through death.
Speaking of that, the newer boys tended not to wear their helmets. Though, considering many of them died laughing and with a smile on their lips, they were probably thinking they were going to Sto'Vo'Kor or Valhalla. Which I hate to admit was a useful tool for a soldier. Believing there was somewhere your soul would go after your death was after all often the thing that soldiers needed. What was the old saying? you won't find an atheist in a foxhole? I laughed at that rather openly before turning my fist to fire off a few shots from the bolter pistol into an Ork that charged at me.
I felt a twinge of pain as the creature fell, that phrase reminded me of something I may have said to the unknown being X. I wasn't getting as many headaches nowadays, I think I had broken through most of the barriers and now had most of the information from the second life. This was useful for my existence and I felt I understood everything I needed to know about my second life. A spiritual being of some kind got into a pissing match with me that had involved World War I.
Being able to view these memories from my third life I was able to detach myself quite a bit from that conflict and see the truth of the matter. Two stubborn beings had met each other and nearly destroyed a world with their fighting. That was a terrible thing to have happened to humanity, I would endeavor to prevent something like that to ever happen again.
Considering the other primarchs might have their own personality traits and other abilities the possibility that they might be stubborn and I might have an argument with them was not impossible. Perhaps something like that would happen between other primarchs too. Either way I would need to keep my eyes on it, letting life get wasted between two near demigods in power seemed like a good way to end all humanity.
I really had no time to spare to watch the festivities of this battle to the death though. The fact of the matter was that in a fight between Space Marines and Orks like this victory was most likely going to go to the Space Marines. Sure a large percentage of them were fighting for their own personal Glory, as was to be expected with warriors of their caliber, but a good percentage of the leadership in command were moving about the field attempting to rescue any Marine who got themselves in too much trouble. And, as I watched, more Marines entered a square and simply got to work taking over the fortification walls and bringing their rifles to bear down on our enemies firing into the Orks that were distracted by the Marines they were fighting in solo combat. Sure I saw a few Marines look a little bit annoyed as the Ork in front of them exploded into gore but they simply moved on to the next one since there was a large number of Orks across the square for them to fight. And even more coming every moment, it would seem that word that we had broken through the internal defenses of the Warboss palace… I think that's the name I'll stick with for this monstrosity… anyway word has spread. Not only were there Orks coming out of the tunnel system that no doubt linked the palace to various defensive areas across the city, but some were already simply charging across the area we had abandoned to take the palace from all directions, except the ones we had troops coming from. The green tide was charging at us, which resulted in many Marines who had been on the wall focusing their fire on the ones incoming instead of the Orks defenders. Which I think probably meant the Marines in the square fighting the Orks had been hasty in thinking they had kills stolen from them.
Moving through the square I did my best to clear a path through the Orks, killing as I went, trying to get towards the palace itself. Standing at the foot of said structures stood what I would best guess were the best-trained Orks I'd ever seen.
In fact it was rather impressive how they were holding off my Marines considering they were using tactics that were probably outdated by the time the Romans started conquering Greece.
Orcs, massive ones, big enough that they actually were almost on my level of size, were standing in full metal armor that looked as thick as some tank armor. They held a combination spear and gun which they were using to fire a few rounds and stab at anyone who got too close. To top off this absurdity they were holding massive Shields the size of themselves, with little openings that their Ork Gun-Spears could poke through.
Actually it just reminded me of an upscaled version of the shields the Mechanicus had sent us when we said we were about to engage in siege warfare, only more crude and scrappy looking.
I had to wonder which one came first, our Shields or their Shields. Had their creation of these shields been a response to our own use of gunshield lines during the sieges or were both reliant on some pre Old Night designs that had propagated across the universe? I could see that as a possibility, the shields did somewhat remind me a bit of riot shields so it was not impossible that the design had simply been upscaled by both factions on their own from that concept. Well I couldn't exactly ask them what and where they had gotten those Shields. Not only because they seemed uninterested in answering questions, simply screaming and shooting their guns at anyone who got too close, but also because I didn't have the time.
Every moment the Ork leader was alive was a moment one of my Marines could die so it was time to do some killing. The armor was too thick for my chainsword to break through though and the sword was likely to break even with the recent upgrades from Krakenmaw, I would need to pull another tactic out of my book of tricks. Pulling the Fenrisian sword Mjalnar from my back, its gleaming blue blade glowing a little with that strange light that it seemed to put off, I took a kendo stance. I tried to focus on drawing upon Fenris' Warp Energy, and only Fenrises, a tough task considering the distance between my adopted homeworld and this planet. But I was able to do it, drawing energy into my blade, taking it from its naturally cold deposition to something even colder, the light on it glowing even more brightly than normal. Taking in a breath I let it out as I moved as fast as my Primarch body and my power armor allowed me.
In what felt like only a second I moved from about the middle of the courtyard to right in front of the middle Ork, bringing down my sword and cutting right through the metal shield that was meant to probably survive a tank round given its thickness of it all. The shield did more than simply be cut in half though, along the cut ice-like structures formed making the metal even more brittle as it froze. As the final length of the cut reached the bottom edge of the shield the entire thing shattered into metal fragments as the cracks developed along the frozen metal.
The Ork stood there with that shield and probably would have looked rather confused if he wasn't screaming as his arm had also frozen to the shield and been shattered as well. He attempted to stab me and fire his gun spear at extremely close range. I however was quite adept with such movements and was able to dodge said spear, bringing up my blade in a countermotion that sliced through the end of the spear. It did not remain in contact with the metal as long as it had with the shield so the fractures did not transfer to the spear as much. However it didn't really matter considering I'd cut just a few inches above the Ork's hand.
The now one-arm or one-handed Ork looked at the stump that had once carried its weapon, very confused, before several Marines took the opening to fire some shots into him. Bolter rounds pierced through the comparatively weaker chest armor and exploded inside of him, causing him to topple over and leaving a rather large hole in the line of massive Orks.
With some skill that I had acquired over the years I slid into that hole and sliced at the backs of the Orks on either side of me, transferring the Frozen energy to their spines. They didn't exactly do well with that, toppling over too.
They were at least still in one piece but they were not going to be getting back up. With a much more massive hole now inside the line Marines who had been freed from the combat against the regular Orks started charging up towards the gap I had created. The Orks, now only about six of them in total, attempted to form two back-to-back circles, three Orks facing outward and trying to stab at anyone who came too close.
This would not do for my fighting so I reached down and picked up one of the Orks spear-guns. Quickly I imparted a piercing spell into the weapon before throwing it at the closest Ork. The blade pierced through the shield, leaving a rather large fist-sized hole in his armor then his torso and then into the back of the Ork behind it, leaving only one Ork standing in that trio. The remaining Ork did not last long since he had been facing a direction the Space Marines had not reached yet so my wolves simply opened fire with their bolter guns into his back.
With the three Orks to my left dealt with there was only the group of three on my right still standing, however I didn't bother dealing with them. They were already doomed as Marines were firing on them from all sides and I could already see rounds exploding inside the shields themselves. If anything the Orks were probably already dead even if it might take a few more shots for them to realize it. And they may not fall as they may just keep standing there because their weight was against each other.
Either way I moved past the entrance of the Warboss's Palace, kicking the door in. Well what could be best described as a door and looked into the throne room.
Could you call this a throne room? Yes! In fact I was noting a lot of Greek influence which raised the probability of this having been a human colony after all, one that the Orks had just built over because there really were a lot of Greek style pillars holding up the roof of scrap.
In front of me was what could be best described as a pond of heated water I guessed, turned green by whatever Orks had been killing and throwing in there. It had most likely been some sort of decorative thing at one point but it was now just radioactive sludge as far as I was concerned and looked unhealthy as all hell. Another thing to burn when I got the chance. Around the pond, in many directions, were marble steps which led to the pillars to the left and right and to the door they jutted from. Across the pond sat a blackened scrap throne, made up of various guns by the looks of it, and upon the throne was a massive Ork that looked more machine than living creature.
One of its eyes had been replaced by some sort of optical laser and it looked at me, trying to look very impressive I think.
"What's dis? an 'umie break'n into ma sanctum?" The massive creature said as it raised itself out of its chair."I recognize yer now, yer're bg booba wun, 'da leada uv 'da 'umie invadaz 'oo have destroyed so much uv ma empire. Kome ta face me 'n a final kombat an' meet yer doom like all da otha 'umiez 'oo have attempted ta unseat da ork empire uv da wheel uv fire."
"Sure," I said matter of factly as I stepped closer, stopping at the edges. "I'm here to fight you and end your reign of terror across the local sectors to open up a path between the Imperium of Man and the outer edge of the Eastern side of the galaxy."
"Haha! yer want ta reach 'da realms uv ultramar, don't yer, th pitiful empire. Do yer know dat dey claim ta be da true successors uv humanity? i wonda wot will happen when yer imperium uv man reaches 'der. Will yer go ta WAAAGH! wit' im as yer've gone ta WAAAGH! wit' us? i hear dey aren't 'actly da most welcom'n lot."
I shrugged at that and said, "Never heard of the realms of Ultramar, though I shall pass this information along to the Emperor. I'm sure he'll be quite interested to hear about a human civilization on the edges of the Eastern fringe, it probably explains why there's such a large trade route going by your little Wheel of Fire sector. If you weren't so known as being raiders of that trade route I probably would not have been sent here to deal with you actually. So I doubt we'll be going to war with this Ultramar as you put it, the trade is what's important after all."
The Ork laughed at that, "oh ya fink we were raid'n im? we weren't raid'n im, we were demand'n tribute ta keep da space peaceful from pirates as we have done for dousands uv years."
I shrugged at that before saying, "Well, according to my reports, you were raiding which would indicate to me that if you did start demanding tribute from ships that belong to the Imperium of Man you didn't exactly work out a contract with us beforehand. So you're bad as far as I'm concerned."
The Ork leapt at this statement, shouting,"so dis was all an 'cuse for humanity ta fight 'da wheel uv fire! well, 'dat's downright respectable den." He got up from his seat, revealing that he was nearly 14 ft tall, an impressive size for an Ork. His hands had also been either surgically removed and replaced with giant claws or encased in them. I wondered how he got anything done with that, considering he now had no digits to do anything but Ork technology was strange to me. Perhaps it was precise enough that it didn't matter that he was wielding claws?
Laughing, the ork stepped down from his throne and started walking directly towards me, each step seeming to echo on the marble stone floor as the weight of the armor he was wearing was enough that I swore I heard it groaning. "tell yer wot, 'umie! i've been fight'n' hard ta keep dis sector securely 'n ma hands for hundreds uv years. If yer surrenda now I'll let yer keep 'da world yer've claimed on 'da ol edges uv 'da wheel uv fire. Yer'd make fine orks wit' yer fierce tactics an' stubbornness an' i would enjoy hav'n someone ta fight for ma Boyz every once 'n a while."
"I don't think I would do that," I said stoically. "Why would I surrender the sector to an Ork, a creature that has shown itself to be rather destructive to humanity simply to indulge in its interest in fighting." As I watched the Ork stepped into the water in front of me, moving through the sludge rather quickly as it made its way towards me. It was already a fourth of the way here and was smiling rather brightly.
"Because yer are an ork. Yer make 'cuses for why yer want ta fight but yer want ta fight, deep down yer are jus like us. Yer're jus as destructive an' yer'll see it soon enough. 'umiez are jus orks without da ability ta get big but it would seem dat someone 'as made it so ya kan be almost as tall as a gud krork like myself."
"Kork? Never heard of that," I said as the creature got halfway through the pool, "but I'm afraid it doesn't matter what your opinions are on the nature of humanity and orks. What matters is that this world and this sector will soon belong to the Imperium of Man. It will secure the trade route between the Imperium, the leagues, and this realm of Ultramar you claim exists within shouting distance of this little empire. And when that's done? Well the Imperium will just keep on expanding, pushing you Orks and your violent destructive ways to the edges of the Galaxy till you're either tamed for the Imperium's use or removed."
The Ork laughed at that, replying, "and how are ya gunna remove dis?" It was now only three-quarters of the way across the pond and it raised its hands above its head to indicate that it was implying all of the armor and beast inside of it.
Shrugging, I simply answered, "The way I remove all my problems: coldly." Sliding my sword into the water in front of me I watched as ice literally shot across the water, trapping the Ork's feet in the sludge that had once probably been clear liquid at some point.
I held the sword there for a few minutes, making sure that it had frozen the entire liquid which had resulted in a greenish blue ice that looked even more disgusting than the liquid that it had been a few seconds ago. The Ork was busy trying to pull its legs free, completely stuck. It would seem that the ice was covering up several points critical to maintain mobility. I could even see the ice trying to grow up the legs of the metal and flesh of the creature.
"Hey wot 'da hell?? dis isn't a fight! wot weird-boy shit iz dis, dis isn't fair! ya are a disgrace ta yer kind, kome fight me like a man."
I shook my head and heard the sounds of boots behind me. A moment later I saw several dozen Marines starting to take up gun positions around me, aiming at the Ork that was now stuck in the ice.
"Mr Warboss I've already defeated your armies and we now hold the internal center of the city. There is no reason for me to fight you in one-on-one combat but I was willing to do it. But it would seem, Mr Warboss, that you forgot to do the important part of war: finding out about your enemy's abilities. Since you made that mistake you stepped into a place that I could use to easily defeat you. If I make no mistake you are defeated, which means I can do whatever I want with you. Since I want your Orks to start fighting each other over who should be the leader, I don't want you to control them anymore so… Well, I think we know what the order will be."
"You bitch!", The Ork shouted
"Yes, I've been called that. I'm afraid though it doesn't matter what you call me, this is your termination notice as ruler of the Wheel of Fire sector. I think the Imperium will be handing that rank out from now on. Wolves of Fenris, fire."
As one there was a wave of opening fire from the Marines around me, hundreds of rounds of bolter ammunition were expended into the Ork in front of us. Limbs went flying, pieces of gunk went everywhere, and most importantly the creature collapsed forward on its knees into the ice allowing us to shoot down its neck into the main body.
As it bled all over the ice I shook my head, before saying, "Clear the building, order the flamers up. We're going to need to burn this place out."
The Marines gave the sign of the Aquila before chorusing "Yes, my Primarch," and ran off to get to work.
Sighing, I turned to the frozen corpse of the Ork. Well that had been rather anticlimactic. Guess I was expecting an evil speech that would definitely confirm the existence of the Eldar in this sector in some way. Oh well the mission was accomplished, the objective done. Time to move on and get to work on cleaning up this sector of any remnants of the Ork infestation.
Turning to go I stopped as I heard a voice say "How very barbaric, Mon-keigh. Though I do say, a rather creative though rudimentary use of Eldar runes.
Sliding back around on the balls of my feet, putting both hands on my sword, I looked around, wondering where that voice had come from. I could see many of my other Space Marines were also doing the same, utterly confused as to who had just spoken and why.
Which I was thankful for. If my marines had been frozen solid, as if time had stopped, I'd be worried about the return of a certain Being X. However they were all moving, plus this voice had sounded rather female and… British of all things?
Stepping out of the shadows behind the throne came an armored woman, wearing a white material that looked almost made of bone. She looked around at the Marines who had quickly adjusted their guns to point at her but seemed to give them no mind, instead leaning on the strange bone-like material staff she held in her hands.
"Mon-keighs, mon-keighs, do not fear. I do not come to fight you, there's no reason to raise your guns at me, you lower life forms."
I was taking in all of this, trying to determine the best way to handle this, before I finally just said, "Do you mind not calling us monkeys, woman? If you wish to have a conversation show a little bit of respect for those you are trying to talk to."
"Of course. My apologies, human. Is that better or should I call you something else? None of you here are really humans, are you?"
"How about we make this a little bit easier then?" taking my blade I slid it back into its holster on my back before pulling my helmet off and holding it under one arm.
Giving a smile that I knew would show off the canine teeth that seemed to be common amongst my legion as well as myself I said, "I am Tanya Russ of the Imperium of Man. If you wish to negotiate with the Imperium of Man I'm willing to hear you out and transfer the information of this negotiation to my superior, though I will ask now if you were providing intel to the Orks of the Wheel of Fire sector. If so, why should we deal in good faith with you, considering you have obviously shown yourself to be a possible threat to the Imperium of Man?"
Obviously the Eldar seemed to think for a moment before nodding. She reached up and pulled off her own helmet, revealing a red-headed woman with sharp pointed features and fair skin with freckles. Mimicking me she held her helmet under her arm, though considering I was disarmed and she was obviously carrying some kind of staff, itwasn't a complete mimic. And considering that she had immediately focused on runes and implied that they might be related to her own culture's way of casting spells I would have to assume she was a spell caster as well of some type. She was not someone to be trifled with, that I could tell right away.
"Very direct, you go straight to the heart of the matter and produce very good questions." She seemed to think for a moment before saying, "Well, I'll make things simple then. The Orks of this 'sector', as you call it, have been of our people, or at least useful tools. I think you even considered that yourself in your statement, push them to the edges of the galaxy I think was what you said? Well that's how we viewed these Orks. We let them live in this sector that was basically cut off from most space and called upon them in times of war for our needs. I'm sure they've done a few things on their own but the most important part was when they were threatened we would provide them with data on the enemy they were fighting. Just the general direction they would come from and how they tended to fight. It was a pretty good deal, that which you've completely destroyed by the destruction of the Ork empire here. I assume you are going to replace it with your own Imperium so I don't think they'll ever be rising again to our aid. So unfortunate." She shook her head before continuing.
"As for whether my people are a threat to your Imperium? I would hope not, our goals do not need to be against each other. We have no interest in your galactic empire, we are busy with our own issues and the opinion of my particular homeworld is that if the lesser beings want to fight amongst each other for the control of the Galaxy we'll let them. As long as they keep out of our problems. Do that and we should be fine.-"
I nodded my head, simply saying, "A respectable thing then, you already had a deal and you stayed true to your deal. So if we were to make a deal you would stay with it too, is that the implication you're trying to provide by telling me the truth of the matter here or at least the truth you want me to have."
The other seemed rather impressed by that or was smugly smiling. It was hard to tell with such sharp features. She simply nodded and said "You're a sharp one, I like you. Yes, any deal we come up together will stay true as long as they don't interfere with other deals and don't interfere with our people. There's no reason for us to go directly to war with each other as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps a little proxy war now and again but simply because we had already ongoing issues in sectors to deal with."
I nodded my head, "Alright then. So a simple deal of non-interference? I can work with that, I'll send this up to the Emperor and let him figure out what to do on the matter. Until he gives an official statement on this I'll be willing to keep to a non-interference with your issues, if you do not interfere with ours. Sounds good?"
"Sounds excellent," the red-headed woman said before, with one hand, quickly shoving her helmet back on her head. "You are an interesting person, to find a barbarian with some sense? Something like that is rare in this galaxy, you'll go far." With that she simply turned and walked back behind the throne and didn't reappear.
Indicating with a motion of my head I sent two Marines to take a look and they turned to me very confused after checking, implying that somehow she'd simply just walked out of existence when she went behind the throne.
Muttering under my head, I said 'Great. Both British and a Ninja, that's all I need."