Only war stories from th.., p.36
Only War: Stories from the 41st Millennium, page 36
I was mildly surprised to find myself waking at all. That when I woke I was in the medical bay, surrounded by the sterile smell of antiseptic and the crisp white uniforms of the earth caste staff, surprised me less.
I rolled my head to the side. The motion felt thick and sluggish, as though moving through tar. More likely, the t’au had my system flooded with enough painkillers to drop a rampaging krootox.
To my left, Kartyr was lying in a bed identical to mine, staring into space with glassy eyes. His right arm was covered in a gelatinous bio-sheath that stretched from his wrist to his neck. His face was a purple almost deep enough to be black, the colour of a hideous bruise on t’au flesh.
‘Looks like you got torn up,’ I slurred. His face lit up with a smile, and he turned to look at me.
‘You are not in much better condition, Kalice Arkady,’ he said. I realised that I also had a regenerative bio-sheath that spread from my left knee all the way to my navel. ‘The earth caste medtechs say that you have suffered comminuted fractures of ridiculous severity in your hip and upper leg.’
A laugh burbled out of my lips. He wasn’t kidding. Beyond simply my leg, I felt as if I’d been run over by a Baneblade. My head throbbed from where I’d hit the floor, there were thick synthplast bandages over my abdomen where the claws had slashed me, and I dimly saw that a smaller bio-sheath encased my right hand where my finger had been broken as the pulse pistol had been yanked away from me.
‘Did we get them all?’ I asked. Kartyr nodded ever so slightly, the movement apparently causing him significant discomfort.
‘The vast majority of the genestealers were eradicated in the bay,’ he said. ‘One or two stragglers have been tracked down in the time since. El’Ufafri has quietly ordered the diversion of multiple bands of kroot to the station to keep a vigilant eye out for any that may have been missed, but I believe all of the cultists have been purged.’
My head lolled back onto the thin cushion that crowned t’au beds, thinking about the crisis suit teams coming to our aid. Just when we had needed them the most, there they were.
‘They believed us after all,’ I said, laughing incredulously. I had always been certain that I still represented the fundamental best of humanity, but I wondered if some of the naivete I saw in my t’au allies had begun to rub off on me.
‘We may have just been under surveillance,’ said Kartyr. ‘Given our assertions, it would have been a prudent measure.’
‘That big of a response? That quickly?’ I shook my head. My grin was mirthful, but there was nothing but bitterness behind it. ‘No, Kartyr. They knew. They knew there was a genestealer cult the whole Throne-damned time. Hell, Li’pora may have discovered it first and alerted them weeks ago.’ I shook my head. ‘But the t’au don’t have a lot of experience with genestealers. Conveniently for them, though, they have a human defector working for them who knows all about the bastards.’
‘You think…’ Kartyr seemed unwilling to voice the thought. ‘You think the council intended for us to stumble into this?’
‘Once we found the cult, they knew I wouldn’t let it go. The humans in the cult, at least the ones familiar with me, would know it too.’ I sighed, laughing again. ‘I’d never let such a danger go unanswered. If you hadn’t backed me I’d have investigated on my own, even against orders. Aun’song didn’t just know it, he counted on it. As soon as the cult knew where we were going they’d have to move to stop us, with unavoidable finality. Aun’song put us on this trail to lure the cult out of hiding so he could cleanse them all at once.’
The medtechs continued to glide past us, content to ignore both me and Kartyr as we sat in silence. That was fine. I think, right then, that he was the only t’au I wanted to talk to.
‘I can’t deny the logic of your claims,’ he said. ‘I know the ethereals are capable of such conduct, and I will try to take comfort in the knowledge that their actions, and our tenacity, saved the lives of many hundreds of people aboard this station.’
I stared into the middle distance. Kartyr had never left his own people. He’d never chosen duty to his comrades over duty to the twisted dictates of a god-thing enthroned on a home world he’d never seen. There were some gaps we would never bridge.
‘I serve the Greater Good,’ I said, ‘and always will. But I don’t appreciate being dangled like a worm on a hook.’
Kartyr nodded sagely. He studiously avoided looking at me, but his voice dropped to a low, conspiratorial whisper.
‘I think, Arkady, that I do not appreciate it either.’
I leaned my head against the cushion. Maybe some gaps could be bridged after all.
ROAD RAGE
MIKE BROOKS
The first indication Ufthak Blackhawk had that something was up was when Nizkwik sailed past him at head height.
‘Someone to see ya, boss!’ the grot wailed, before it collided with a pile of scrap in the corner. Ufthak straightened up from where he had been prodding at his shokk rifle – cautiously, because he wanted to keep all his limbs attached – and turned to face the cave mouth.
Caves. That was part of the problem. Ufthak’s arm of the Tekwaaagh! had landed on this planet in search of interesting gubbinz with which they could make things explode, and had found very little. There weren’t even any impressive, tall buildings: not that the Tekwaaagh! tended to leave much standing in its wake, but tall buildings were useful to take a look around and see what you wanted to stomp flat next. The low, sprawling temple complexes they had seen from orbit turned out to be annoyingly sparse on interesting tek or shiny loot, and somewhat overpopulated with useless frescos and surprisingly lethal traps. Ufthak had resorted to using a cave as his bunker, and newly minted big boss or not, it was hardly the sort of impressive surroundings that would convince the boyz of his right to command.
Especially not, it seemed, the group of orks doing their best to block out the light from the cave mouth. Other species in the galaxy might assume that orks were always threatening, and to be fair, so far as most other species in the galaxy were concerned, that was an accurate assumption. The only reason an ork didn’t want to scrag or blow someone up was if something else was currently a more interesting target.
Ufthak, being an ork himself, was more attuned to the niceties of orkish behaviour and body language. He was a big boss now, after all, one step down from Da Meklord himself. Da Meklord was the warlord of the Tekwaaagh! and possibly the greatest teknikal mind the orks had ever produced: at least, that was what he said, and no one seemed very interested in contradicting him. Ufthak now had a goodly chunk of Da Biggest Big Mek’s authority, and most orks knew better than to give him any lip lest he remove said lips for them, possibly along with their head.
Judging from the puffed chests, squared shoulders and bared fangs currently between him and the outside world, this group of orks were in the minority.
‘Wotcha want?’ Ufthak asked lazily. None of them were close to him in size, which surely meant they weren’t going to be foolish enough to challenge him to a fight. It was not always true that the biggest ork would win scraps over rank, but it was as near a certainty as made no difference. That was why any ork boss worth his name would keep an eye on whether any of his underlings were bulking up as their metabolisms went into overdrive to prepare them for a leadership challenge, and dish out a remedial beating before the upstart got, quite literally, too big for his boots.
‘Wot do we want? Oh ho,’ said the ork at the front, with a hollow laugh. Ufthak frowned. Sarcasm was a concept he had only recently discovered himself – since the bigger an ork got, the smarter he got – and he did not appreciate it being used in his presence when he was not quite sure of its target.
‘Dat’s wot I said,’ he declared, folding his arms and glowering. ‘Get on wiv it.’
‘Why? Are ya busy?’ the head ork sneered at him. He wore the yellow and black of a Bad Moon, but the zag-stripes and the goggles on his forehead marked him out as a Speed Freek. ‘’Cos we ain’t busy, an’ dat’s da problem!’
Ufthak shrugged. ‘Yeah, we killed all da skrawniez an’ dere big monsta-fings. Anuvver win for da boyz ain’t good enuff?’
‘Dat weren’t a win!’ the other ork declared hotly. ‘Dat was barely even a fight!’
The problem was, he had a point. Pointy-eared skrawniez rarely offered a decent fight in any case: the gits hit you and ran away again, possibly doing backflips at the same time, which was somehow more infuriating than an enemy who ran away without fighting at all. However, at least they could make it interesting, if razor-sharp slicey-discs that took your arm straight off, or screaming at you until your spine froze, counted as ‘interesting’.
The skrawniez on this planet, however, hadn’t had any of that fancy stuff. They’d mainly had simple guns, a lot of pointy sticks, and giant, scaly monsters, some of which were larger than even the biggest squiggoths Ufthak had ever seen. It had been a bit of a challenge at first, because your basic shoota wasn’t even going to dent one of those behemoths, but if there was one thing the Tekwaaagh! wasn’t short of, it was dakka. As Ufthak had observed, in a fight between dakka and monster, the monsters came off worse.
With their monsters blown up, out, and generally about, the skrawniez hadn’t stood a chance. There were probably still a few hiding out here and there, but the fighting had finished fairly quickly. That might have suited other species in the galaxy, who had a notion that you should be fighting for a reason, or that winning a fight should get you something in particular, but orks didn’t hold with that nonsense. The point of fighting was to have a fight. Winning was more of a bonus, providing it didn’t happen too quickly.
‘Da gitz here was weedy,’ Ufthak said. ‘It happens. Da next ones’ll be better.’
‘We don’t believe ya,’ the frontmost ork said bluntly. ‘Ya wouldn’t know a good fight if it walked up an’ slapped ya!’
Ufthak laughed despite himself. ‘Ha! Dat’s a good’un! D’ya know who yer talkin’ to, my lad? I’m Ufthak Blackhawk! Ufthak Gargantsmasha! I took down one of da humie Gargants wiv nuffin’ but me hammer an’ a squig!’ He pointed to where the Snazzhammer was resting in the corner, next to the large, red mound of sleeping flesh that was Princess the squig. Admittedly, Nizkwik the grot had been there as well, but it hadn’t been much help. And yes, Mogrot Redtoof had been with Ufthak too, but Mogrot wasn’t here right now, and what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him: which in Mogrot’s case meant he was probably pretty much invulnerable to anything the galaxy could throw at him.
‘Not just a hammer an’ a squig, was it?’ the ork said nastily. ‘Nah, ya had a dragsta too, didn’t ya? A shokkjump dragsta! Or are ya forgettin’ dat part?’
Ufthak blinked, nonplussed. ‘Is dere a reason yer so bovvered about da dragsta?’
The ork’s eyes went so wide Ufthak thought they might pop out of their own accord.
‘It was my zoggin’ dragsta, ya git!’
Ufthak tilted his head to one side and examined the furious Speed Freek. He vaguely remembered clobbering another ork with the Snazzhammer and stealing the shokkjump dragsta he and Mogrot had then used to jump through the Gargant’s force field, but he’d never really thought about it past that. Another ork had something that Ufthak wanted, so he’d taken it. That was how ork society worked.
‘Oi, Nizkwik!’ he bellowed, and was rewarded with a clattering noise as the grot managed to extricate itself from its landing site, where it had remained until now in order to avoid drawing any more unwelcome attention.
‘Yes, boss?’ Nizkwik puffed, hurrying up.
Ufthak pointed at the Speed Freek. ‘D’ya know dat ork?’
Nizkwik squinted, then nodded. ‘Yes, boss, dat’s Riptoof.’
‘Did I nick his dragsta?’
Nizkwik, whose job it had been to shoot the shokk rifle on that very same dragsta prior to Ufthak ripping it off and using it as his personal weapon, and who had stuck around with Ufthak ever since rather than go back to its former boss, nodded again. ‘Yes, boss. An’ a great bit of nickin’ it was too,’ it added loyally.
Ufthak sighed, and glared at Riptoof. ‘So I nicked ya dragsta, used it ta help kill a Gargant, an’ wot? Now ya fink ya gonna start trouble wiv me over it?’
‘Not over dat,’ Riptoof replied, although Ufthak reckoned he was lying. ‘I’m just da one wot’s got da gutz ta come talk to ya. Da boyz ain’t happy. Da Meklord never should’ve made ya big boss. Y’ain’t found us a proppa fight. Ya ain’t got respekt.’
Ufthak looked meaningfully at the Snazzhammer. ‘How about I knock yer head in? Would dat get ya respekt?’
‘Dere’s only one fing Speed Freeks respekt,’ Riptoof retorted, ‘an’ dat’s speed! Yoo an’ me, head-ter-head! Me new ride against da dragsta wot ya nicked!’
‘I ain’t got da dragsta no more,’ Ufthak told him. ‘It sorta fell off da Gargant an’ smashed. I fink,’ he added, ‘I was a bit busy killin’ da Gargant.’
‘Ain’t my problem,’ Riptoof sneered. ‘If ya want da boyz to follow yer orders, yoo’ll be ready to race when da sun comes up tomorrow.’
There were a few enthusiastic ‘Yeah!’s and ‘You tell ’im!’s from the other Speed Freeks, and then the whole posse turned around and left again.
Ufthak considered it. On the one hand, he could go after them and dish out a beating. Orks understood and respected violence. That should reinforce his right to be in charge.
On the other hand, the Kult of Speed made up a sizeable portion of the force under Ufthak’s command, and Speed Freeks were a bit, well, weird. Just knocking some heads together might look, to them, as though Ufthak was scared of taking up the challenge, and that would never do. Besides which, somewhere in the back of Ufthak’s brain was the notion that he had no intention of stopping at big boss. Da Meklord might have an accident one day, or if no convenient accidents occurred, one might have to be arranged; possibly involving a shokk rifle and the Snazzhammer. Accidents could look very deliberate, sometimes. And if, one way or the other, Da Meklord found himself headin’ off to see Gork and Mork before Ufthak did, it would be very useful if a lot of the Tekwaaagh! was already inclined to follow Ufthak’s orders.
And for that, he needed respekt.
‘Nizkwik,’ he said. ‘Go an’ find Da Boffin.’
Some orks might not trust a mekboy who’d replaced his own legs with a gyro-stabilised monowheel, which just showed how lacking in imagination those orks were. Granted, you might not want Da Boffin to improve you, but he zoomed around on a single wheel and never fell over, which was a pretty good indication his teknologikal know-wots were up there with the best.
‘Wot’s it yer after?’ Da Boffin asked, buzzing alongside Ufthak as they walked under clear skies and three moons. ‘Straight-line speed? Cornerin’?’
‘Best have some of each,’ Ufthak said. ‘Riptoof didn’t say wot da race is gonna be, an’ if I show up in somefing dat’s great at one, he’ll probably change it to somefing else. Fink he’s a bit kunnin’ like dat.’
‘An’ ya need it by sunrise,’ Da Boffin mused.
‘Dat’s right.’
The mek did the universal sucking-in-of-breath of an expert in his field giving bad news to one less well educated. ‘Gonna be a tall order.’
‘Ya know I’m good for da teef.’
‘Ain’t teef dat’s da problem, it’s da time,’ Da Boffin said. ‘All da teef in the galaxy can’t buy time.’
‘Ain’t sure about dat,’ Ufthak said. ‘Some of dose tinhead gitz seem to be able to make time speed up for dem, or slow down for us, or somefing like dat.’
Da Boffin’s eyes gleamed in the moonlight. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah, seen it,’ Ufthak confirmed. ‘Didn’t do ’em much good against da weirdboyz, but it was a fancy trick while it lasted. Fink you was fixin’ a Gargant at dat point.’
Da Boffin scribbled something on a piece of squig hide. ‘Well, dat ain’t gonna help us, ’cos I ain’t got somefing wot can do dat. Yet,’ he added. ‘So it’s just gonna be wot me an’ da spannerz can get togevva by mornin’.’
Ufthak nodded. There was no point offering further bribes, let alone threats. Da Boffin would take this as a challenge, and would do his best to make sure that any vehicle Ufthak drove was as good as possible so that the glory of Ufthak’s win would reflect on him. Besides, insofar as any ork trusted any other ork, Ufthak trusted Da Boffin. He and the painboy Dok Drozfang – who had attached Ufthak’s intact head to his old boss’ intact body, thereby giving Ufthak a head (ha ha) start up the ranks of the Tekwaaagh! – had been around Ufthak since the beginning of his rise to power, and knew a good thing when they saw it.
‘Is it just gonna be yoo?’ Da Boffin asked.
Ufthak had given some thought to this. ‘Nah. Gonna have Mogrot ridin’ wiv me.’
Mogrot Redtoof was the only other ork Ufthak might say he trusted, combining as he did the combat skills of an enraged smasha squig with the intelligence of a concussed snotling. Mogrot was just bright enough to know he had no hope of coming up with decent plans himself, but was willing to fight pretty much anything he was pointed at and strong enough to have a decent shot at killing it, which made him the perfect second-in-command.
‘Dat’s extra weight,’ Da Boffin warned.
‘Let me worry about dat,’ Ufthak said confidently. ‘Mogrot’s worf his weight in… Well, he’s worf his weight, an’ let’s leave it at dat.’
The next day dawned with a brooding mass of rain clouds on the horizon, blowing in from the west towards the Waaagh!’s campsite, pressed up against a labyrinth of limestone ridges and ravines. To the south, the land spread out a little: the rock formations became more isolated, and were separated by large expanses of scrubby grassland on which the skrawniez’ massive monsters had grazed.
