The inside of the train car was a relatively quiet place, aside from the noise generated by the vehicle itself as it rumbled along a set of tracks suspended hundreds of meters above a featureless waste. place. Few of its passengers were yet awake, aside from the servitors that silently kept watch of the goings on within each of the many passenger cars, their mostly mechanical bodies requiring little if any rest. Martyn Rojas revelled in the peaceful quiet as he did what he did almost every day: gaze at the sky. As both a hive citizen and a manufactorum worker, the hour or so spent each day commuting between Spire Chylos and Manufactorum Mendrachis was the closest he ever got to the world outside the thick, bunker-like walls within the confines of which he lived out the vast majority of his existence. Sadly, there was little of interest to be found on the parched surface of Eneldor, which consisted largely of vast, barren wastes of reddish, iron-enriched soil and harsh, unfriendly-looking cliffs, gorges, and plateaus. These features were occasionally punctuated only by small, dilapidated settlements or by Skitarii outposts that looked just as unwelcoming as the nearly inhospitable terrain which surrounded them. It was this unforgiving environment that forced much of the population to spend their lives in a handful of monolithic manufactorum complexes and hive spires, for it was tacitly known that one must either be as tough as adamantium or a complete fool to dare venture into the dust-choked wastelands of Eneldor. But for as ugly and unappealing a planet as Eneldor was, Martyn could rarely help but find himself transfixed by its sky: a sprawling canvas of blue with swirling, wispy clouds and a rosy glow along the horizon.
As he gazed thoughtfully at the sky, longing to escape from his life of exhausting, menial work and into that blue sky and the starry expanse of space which laid beyond it, something unusual caught his eye. A small streak of white light, barely visible against the muted blue of the morning sky, disappearing just as quickly as it had flashed into existence. What in the Emperor's name?, Martyn thought. It must be the lack of sleep messing with my head. Indeed, Martyn rarely ever got much sleep, for the long hours he worked at the manufactorum left little time for much else, although never before had sleep deprivation caused his eyes to play tricks on him. But it was as likely an explanation as any for the bizarre sight.
It was only minutes later that the train screeched to a halt, the sound of metal scraping against metal ringing out as the brakes were engaged. "Destination reached: Manufactorum Mendrachis, entry gate four. Workers, prepare to unload," announced an artificial female voice over the train's voxspeakers. Martyn gathered up the few items he had with him; his work gloves and a small container of drinking water, and made his way out of the train car, glancing back for a moment at the servitor watching him and the other workers in ominous silence. Outside the train was an enormous atrium, its ceiling hanging at least half a kilometer overhead, with a massive cog-shaped window exposing the sky beyond. The atrium floor was roughly a one kilometer wide, and one and a half long, with a massive railway platform stretching across nearly the full width of the space, accommodating more than twenty sets of railroad tracks, with large walkways between each set of track. Lining the walls on either side of the platform were stone likenesses of tech priests, their gazes eternally transfixed upon the platform below and the workers that regularly occupied it. An enormous gate embossed with the sigil of the Priesthood of Mars stood at the far side of the atrium, beyond the end of the railway tracks, consisting of two massive adamantine blast doors each roughly two hundred and fifty meters wide and four hundred tall. The atrium was one of sixteen just like it, each designed to allow a portion of the manufactorum's vast workforce entry to the facility.
"Attention: work shift beginning in forty five minutes," warned the voice yet again, this time booming through the atrium's massive voxspeakers rather than the train's comparatively miniscule ones. "The Machine God favors those who are timely, and abhors he who is habitually tardy. Late workers will be forced to attend one week of remedial training as punishment. Praise the Omnissi-"
The sound of the final syllable was drowned out by an earsplitting explosion, as a massive object smashed through the atrium ceiling. Chunks of rockcrete rained down, crushing numerous innocents, while gigantic, jagged shards of glass maimed and impaled others. A slab of rockcrete several times larger than Martyn slammed into the ground less than two meters away from him, knocking him off his feet and nearly killing him. As Martyn righted himself he caught sight of the object which had crashed inside the atrium: an enormous chunk of coal-black rock, much unlike the rust-colored stone found in great abundance on Eneldor. Various ramshackle plates of metal and crude mechanical components covered the object, with what looked like a set of rocket engines cobbled out of scrap metal and other various refuse coughing plumes of thick black smoke into the air. But what was most concerning was not the object itself.
From the crater within which the object laid rose a number of green-skinned creatures. They were muscular and quite brutish in appearance, with pointed, dog-like ears and large teeth which protruded from their lower lip like tusks. There appeared to be no real uniformity in their garb, but it generally consisted of either soiled rags, primitive plate armor cobbled together from scraps of sheet metal, or some combination of the two. Though Martyn did not know much of the various xenos races which threatened mankind, he knew enough to know what these were.
They were Orks.
The hideous creatures brought to bear a terrifying assortment of rudimentary killing devices, from simple wood-and-steel axes to crude homemade firearms. With weapons in hand, they charged forth into the crowd of helpless workers, hacking, slashing, shooting, smashing, and stomping away with clear enthusiasm, howling with joyous delight at their prey's shrieks of anguish and cries of pain, leaving only mounds of mangled flesh, shattered bones, and pulpy gore in their wake. They tore their way through the atrium like a green-skinned tidal wave of carnage, bellowing the same guttural warcry again and again:
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
Martyn found himself caught in the midst of a sea of confusion. He tried to push through the swathes of panicked people, staggering through the crowd while panting heavily. He found a clearing through the sea of people and broke into a sprint, running as fast as his legs could take up until the point he felt a sharp pain in his side. He was at least thankful that the Orks had less-than-substantial aiming skills, so this pain was from neither bullet nor blade. Martyn staggered his way outside, marginally more safe than the rest of the poor souls who were soon reduced to mincemeat by the greenskin onslaught, their crude and salvaged weapons proving to be horrifyingly effective. They looked as if they could barely work, yet they functioned better than most Imperial weapons. However, just when Martyn thought himself safe, a wave of agony erupted in his back as several projectiles penetrated his flesh near his shoulder blade. He fell to the ground, but attempted to stagger back onto his feet, only to slip on a slurry of dirt mixed with his own blood, his nose striking the pavement with a sickening crack. Martyn, his physical faculties exhausted, slipped into unconsciousness, just as the pain from his newly-broken nose began to wash over him.
As Martyn silently succumbed to his injuries, another Orkish vessel descended into the atrium through the crumbling ceiling, slowing to a stagnant hover just a short ways from the center of the gore-spattered railway platform. From the ship's hold dropped a truly massive Ork, clad in a suit of primitive power armor, driven by a diesel piston engine which belched puffs of smoke angrily about.
"Ya see, boyz!?," the beast roared. "Dis iz wot 'appenz ta gitz 'oo fink dey'z ken muck about in Bad Moonz space! Dis iz wot 'appenz ta gitz 'oo mess wiv Boss Roktoof! Now letz ged in dere 'n show deez 'umies 'n dere stoopid 'Em-purr-oar' git 'oo'z da biggest 'n da 'ardest!"