"Into the fray! Into the fray once more, you dogs!" cried commissar adept Krakin. He held his chainsword high above his head and aimed his bolt pistol at the nearest fleeing PDF trooper. He squeezed the trigger and the coward's head disappeared in an explosion of fire, bone, and blood.
That got the rest of the men turning yet again and the squad began pouring solid shot into the oncoming greenskin horde. Thirty thousand orks, with a giant gargant supporting them. The Maklis Hive was in grave danger.
Krakin raised his sword yet again and charged into the enemy. He brought the spinning teeth down onto a screaming grot, tearing the green flesh from bone. The grot was slain and Krakin leveled his bolt pistol at the next one, removing the organs from the greenskin's chest.
Krakin had made dozens of kills that day. Forty-eight grots, fifteen orks, ten of his own men. He was not proud or happy about killing his own troops, but he had to do it to maintain order. This hive was important, and if it were lost, the entire planet would be consumed by the never ending tide of orks.
The planet consisted of two main continents, each taking roughly one eighth of the planet's surface. Connecting the continents was a thin stretch of land, 40 kilometers at its widest, 20 at its most narrow, which some early terraformer made to ease the burden of trade transport between the two continents. Maklis Hive sat in the center of the strip, the only population center, and therefore the only defensive position, on the 5000 kilometer piece of land.
Letting out a massive warcry, Krakin lead a second charge deep into the flank of an enemy formation. Thirty troopers fired into the mass of greenskin scum and then tore into their flesh with bayonets. Krakin killed three orks with a steady burst of bolt fire and then ripped another two to pieces with his chainsword. He paused to reload the sickle clip of his pistol and to survey the battle ground.
The orks were burning the farm land. They had burned the entire first continent to the ground. That was definitely a problem, as the planet was an agri-world that fed twenty forge worlds. If the planet were to be destroyed, over 45 billion people would starve and twice as many guardsmen would go unarmed. They had to prevent the orks from reaching the second continent.
He sawed off the head of a nearby grot, then chopped the arm clean off of the runt herd next to it. His counter charge was being forced back by the throng of green flesh. He felt a sharp pain and saw a grot was biting his hand. He yanked away his hand, but the grot manage to tear off one of his fingers, blinding the commissar momentarily with pain. He whirled around and ran back to the earthen wall where his troops made their second line of defense.
He leaped over the wall and manned a mounted storm bolter. The double barrels of the large bolt weapon barked and flashed as they launched .75 caliber rounds 4 times a second, exploding as they hit the green flesh and painting the ground red. He was sure he gunned down at least forty orks and twice as many grots. Still, they were advancing. The horde was inexhaustible.
"Fall back! Fall back!"
The commissar whirled around and pointed his bolt pistol at the cowardly PDF leader. "There shall be no falling back! We make our stand here! Any cowards like you will be executed!" He raised the bolt pistol to the head of the coward. "Any last words?"
"Sir, listen to me. Look behind yo-" His head shattered. The commissar holstered the smoking gun and turned his attention back to the orks. It was then that he noticed the approaching gargant, with its crude weapons pointed at the make shift wall.
"Fall back!" He shouted as he made his way to the third and final wall. They had to destroy that gargant or the hive would definitely fall.
His bionic eye zoomed in and refined the image of the gargant, searching the spiked and weapon covered surface for any weaknesses. He saw that both of the gargant's feet were open in front and were being used as troop transports. Maybe there was a way to the command center through the feet.
He needed to find a way into one of the feet. Hearing a roar, he whirled around and saw a group of ork bikers charging the wall. He leaped forward and fired the rest of his clip into the nearest biker. The biker flew off the bike, missing an arm and a head. Krakin recovered the bike and mounted it.
His feet barely touched the ground and the seat was too wide for comfort. He prayed to the Emperor that the bike would work for him and pulled on the throttle. The bike shot forward, moving wildly through the various mobs of orks. He had crashed into half a dozen orks before he got the unruly bike back under control.
He turned, gunned the engine and shot off towards the gargant. Within seconds, he was half way to the gargant. The monstrous, bipedal beast was closer than he thought, but the relieved him as it meant the gargant was slightly smaller than he had assumed.
He aimed the bike as best as he could into the right foot of the gargant. As he was about to ride the boarding ramp into the foot, the foot rose to take a massive step. Reacting on instinct, Krakin grabbed the edge of the gargant's foot ramp. The rough metal edges dug into his hands and he felt blood dripping down his arms as the ground fell away from him. Six meters in the air, he pulled himself over the edge, sprawling on the floor as the foot slammed into the ground.
He got up and charged at the four dumb-founded orks within the foot. He blew the head off of one with his bolt pistol and stabbed another straight through. The third fired its crude pistol, but the shot went wild, ricocheting off the sheet metal wall. The fourth one, a large greenskin, most likely a nob, raised its chainaxe over its head and tried to chop Krakin in two.
The spinning blades missed by a hair as Krakin dived to the right, rolling back to his feet. This positioned him perfectly to remove the head from the third ork with a smooth stroke of his sword. The nob raised its axe again and tried to hit Krakin. This time, Krakin parried the blade, cringing as the shriek of two whirring chainblades clashed together filled the echoing foot.
Krakin broke free from the block and tried to sweep low and take out the nob's legs. Mid-stroke, he was thrown off balance as the foot rose again. To the horror of the now pone Krakin, the nob maintained its balanced and moved to remove the head of the commissar with its chainaxe.
Rolling away from the potentially fatal blow, Krakin sliced the ankle of the beast open. Bright red blood spilled onto the floor as the nob howled in a mixture of rage and pain. The foot slammed into the ground again and this time, the nob fell back, landing on its own chainaxe. The blades began slicing into the back of the nob, spraying its alien blood all over the holding bay. When the nob finally died, Krakin was covered in its blood.
With both of his weapons still in hand, he ran to the crude elevator at the back of the leg. He pushed the biggest button, assuming the orks would make the biggest button the most important one. Orks being orks, he assumed correctly.
As the elevator rose from the foot to the head, he reloaded his bolt pistol. 12 fresh bolts were all he had left. That and his already over worked chainsword. He prayed that the resistance in the cockpit was minimal.
As the door opened, he saw to his dismay that there was a huge ork, at least three meters tall and covered in huge muscles, wielding a power klaw right in the center of the room. 'He must be the Warboss', thought Krakin.
The Warboss yelled at the intruder, "Oy! 'Umie!"
"By the Emperor, the beast speaks," the shocked Commissar commented.
"Damn right I spoke. 'oo are ya anyway?"
"I am Commissar Krakin, political leader of the Maklis Hive forces."
"HA! You ain't no leader. A leader needs ta be big an' strong, like me! You iz scrawny and weak!"
"Then fight me, you green bastard, and we'll see who the weak one is."
The massive ork charged Krakin, raising the power klaw high in the air. Red sparks were flying from the power klaw as it smashed into the chest of the unfortunate commissar. Krakin felt every one of his ribs breaking. He slammed against a wall and blacked out for a moment.
He awoke to the hard laughter of the Warboss. "Har Har! I beat ya wid one blow! You iz very weak, 'umie. I think your boyz would be better wid out ya!"
Krakin coughed and a spot of blood appeared on his lips. A piece of his ribs must have punctured his lungs. "Jokes on you, greenskin filth. You failed to notice the krak grenade I planted in your shirt as you struck me."
"WHAT?!" Cried the ork. A moment later, the warboss's torso disappeared in a brilliant flash of light and a cloud of vaporized blood. The meks that were driving the gargants ran in fear of seeing their boss killed. Krakin fired all of his bolts into the control consoles at the front of the cockpit. Once that was done, he allowed himself to faint and get on with the task of dying.
Elsewhere on the field, as the gargant ground to a halt, PDF trooper Siphus Quislen fired his last clip of solid slugs from his autogun. He saw small puffs of blood appear as the bullets hit the greenskins, but it didn't even seem to slow down the orks.
As the last bullets left the chamber and the firing mechanisms clicked dry, Siphus drew his combat knife. It was half a meter long, barely even the size of a knife anymore. He had lovingly forged it himself, back on his old planet. He had moved from his old high-gravity world to this lower gravity agri-world three months back. The Planetary governor and the farm he worked at paid for his trip, provided he would work in the fields and join the PDF. Now here he was, as good as dead on a doomed planet three months later.
Knife drawn, he leaped from the trench. He felt so much lighter and stronger on this planet. He used to weight over two hundred kilos, but now he weight only seventy-five. He had a vertical leap of five feet and was much stronger than most people on this planet. He hoped this would give him an edge in combat with the greenskins.
As he charged a mob of maybe fifteen boyz, he leaped right at their leading nob. His knife found its new home within the nob's massive neck. Blood spilled from under the knife and shot up in a great spout as he withdrew the blade.
He stabbed a second ork and punched a third. The knife cut through half the ork's torso, killing the greenskin. The third ork was knocked clean back several feet. Siphus was certain he had felt and heard its ribcage shatter.
The other orks began to run away, screaming. Suddenly, a huge chainaxe cut one of the orks in half. It was a warboss, the one leading the infantry charge on the east gate.
"You lot ain't done fighting 'til I sayz you'z done!"
"But boss! Day 'umie killed Grotblit!"
"Grotblit? Dat scrawny snotlings? Har! Served 'im right, tinking he was good enuff to be my better! I'll kill dis 'umie myself."
"I'm right here, you smelly grot!"
"Wot did ya call me?"
"A smelly grot. A filthy, scrawny snotling!" taunted Siphus.
The warboss let out a warcry that shook the heavens and charged at Siphus. Siphus leaped two meters into the air and managed to land on the warboss's shoulders. He shoved his knife into the skull of the confused ork and liquefied its brain with sheer force.
As the warboss fell over, some nobz took notice, each claiming that he was the new boss. This started infighting at the eastern gate. Siphus returned to his trench a hero. The eastern gate would not fall that day.
Instead, the southern gate fell. Four hours after two heroes killed two warbosses, the city was lost. That was when the imperial guard took notice.