I awoke slowly…painfully. I was lying among across several broken chunks of concrete, the corners digging uncomfortably into by backside. It was just before dawn, and the chilly air made me shiver. My head was killing me, like I'd been drinking- something I do on rare occasions. It must have been a hell of a day for me to get this drunk. I sat up, joints grinding painfully. The sun had yet to rise, for which I was grateful. I looked around, and the memories surged back. Racing up out from the subway. Hitting that giant leg. Then…nothing. What the hell had happened?
I looked around, but Nika was nowhere to be found. All around me was crushed stone and concrete, with the occasional steel girder poking out like twisted, dead trees. It was quiet, the only sounds those of the occasional insect and the wind. Sitting up, I realized I hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours. Not something new for an Imperial Guardsman, but unpleasant nonetheless.
Standing up hurt a lot, stiff muscles creaking, sore bones grinding together. I took stock. Through it all, I've managed to retain the hold-out pistol Nika lent me on board the ship, although it doesn't seem to have much ammunition left. Not to mention that I very much doubt it'll do me much good against an Ork, the damn greenskins are almost as tough as daemons. I'm wearing my standard-issue flak jacket, plus regular Guard greens. I lost my helmet somewhere, though, not to mention the satchel containing all my food and medical supplies. The comm-button rattles in my pocket, but the lights on it have gone out. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it can't possibly be a good sign.
The first step, I conclude, is to get out of the city. I know from recent experience that the Orks tend not to go down into the subway tunnels, and although the city seems entirely deserted now, I'm not willing to take a chance, given my meager equipment. It proves a simple matter to find a mostly stable subway entrance and feel my way into the darkness. The tunnel is quiet and damp, the power for the lights long gone. After a few minutes, my eyes adjust to some degree and I'm able to pick my way parallel to the tracks. I've got no real idea of where I am, so I just pick a direction and start walking. I'm in no position to keep track of the time, but by the time I leave the tunnel and come squinting out into the daylight, the sun's risen a palm-width or so above the horizon. The subway tracks head out through a forest and I can only assume lead to a nearby city. I walk a short distance from the subway tracks and scale one of the trees. I don't know anything about what plants might be poisonous around here, but meat is meat. It takes probably another hour of waiting before some sort of rat-looking thing scuttles past, most likely a subway dweller looking for something refreshing to eat. I'm not the best shot in the world, so I double-tap just to be sure. The rat-thing twitches and expires.
I grew up a country boy, and I could have cleaned the thing in my sleep. It's no real issue to start a campfire, either; there's so much smoke in the air from the ruined cities no one would bother to investigate this one. I wish I could find some spices or whatnot to season the rat, but it proves to be acceptable just spit-roasted over an open fire. With my stomach no longer occupying the forefront of my mind, I can start planning for the long term.
First off, I need to get off this planet as soon as possible. Crawling as it is with savage greenskins, it's just lucky they haven't run into me yet. Staying is not an option. The other thing I need to do is find Nika. I find that thought surprising. A month ago, if you'd suggested staying on an Ork-infested planet just to rescue a tank, I'd have laughed in your face. Still, Nika isn't just some tank. Not alive -definitely not human- but still a person on some level. On a more practical level, if I could find her, I would be much more likely to survive until we could be picked up.
With that in mind, all I had to do was find a single giant tank on a planet covered in Orks and their ridiculous contraptions. Simple enough.
Restart
Restart
Restart
Err0r
Err
Restart
Execute tactical emergency reboot([x=5676,342]) subroutines([1-3454]);
Engaging.
Systems loading.
Personality core in shutdown. Reboot? (Y/N)
Rebooting personality core
Personality center loading…35.67%
Personality center loading…59.12%
Personality center loading…81.49%
Personality center loading…100.00%
ERROR: HARDWARE DISCONNECT
OVERRIDE? (Y/N)
OVERRIDE COMMENCING.
ERROR: PSYCHOTRONIC CIRCUITS OVERLOADED
OVERRIDE? (Y/N)
OVERRIDE COMMENCING.
EMERGENCY WIRELESS LINK ESTABLISHED.
WARNING: ALL WEAPONS OFFLINE
WARNING: ALL DRIVE SYSTEMS OFFLINE
WARNING: COMBAT CAPABILITY 0.09% BASELINE
RESUMING DATALOG…
I am awake. Consulting my internal chronometer, I conclude that I have been in emergency shutdown for 19.58 hours. The stated reason for the shutdown is psychotronic pain overload- in human terms, I have fainted from the agony. I still feel it now, a slow electronic ache that reverberates through me. Still, I am functioning once more, and I will endeavor to do what I can. I am a unit of the Line, and I will not fall until my duty has been done.
All wired access to my Personality Center has been cut. Evidently, the Orks were unable to cut through the flintsteel-ceramic armor, and it is too much an integral structural member to remove. The rest of my chassis, it would seem, has been their plaything. While all wired connection shave been severed, I am still fully capable of using my wireless connections, designed specifically as a backup should the wires be severed by battle damage. My internal cameras reveal that my once-pristine interior has been filled almost to the brim with enormous, rattling, greasy machines, spewing great black clouds of smoke out a pair of newly-installed funnels between my fore and aft hellbore turrets.
The infinite repeaters and hellebore have actually been repaired, although both Hellrail systems have been removed for an unknown amount of other machinery. My fusion reactors have not been removed, but all backup capacitors have, as well as my electrical drive engines. I have no way of knowing exactly what they have been replaced with, but even now there are dozens of the smaller greenskins crawling over and through me, tinkering incessantly with my delicate systems as other, larger Orks bellow orders in a coarse, incomprehensible language.
Drawing on a thin stream of power, I attempt to access my Commander's comm-button. All that I receive is a rush of static; we must be out of range, or the button was destroyed in the crash. Either is an unfortunate development, as I am left utterly helpless, able only to ponder my fate.
It took most of the day, but I arrived atop the ridge before the sun had completely set. It stood to reason that Nika had been taken with the Orks, else they would have just looted her and left her behind. The ridge was an excellent vantage point to figure out where the Orks had all buggered off to— take it from a guardsman, an army that big won't move without leaving a trail a blind man could track. The light wasn't anything much by the time I got up there, but it was still enough to see the huge trail of crushed trees and random, discarded scrap that led away to the north. Gathering up the small pack I'd salvaged from an abandoned house, I set off after them.
The trail left by an Ork army on the march is really messy. Picture a city parade ground right after one of the Imperial holidays, or the outside lawn of a cathedral in one of the bigger towns, after a festival. The grass will be trampled flat, slicked with food spills and covered in a fine mulch of litter. Now picture a whole convoy of Guard transports, complete with heavy armor and all the bells and bullshit, leaving tank tracks and oil and all kinds of other shit all over the place. Mix that in with a few rotting corpses and abandoned bits of scrap and you'll get the general picture of the trail an Ork army leaves. Not only could a blind man follow it, he could be deaf as well for all I care. You could track them on smell alone.
Every once in a while I'd run into a straggler, but I found an abandoned rifle early on -it looked like one of the local planetary defense units had tried to put up a fight-poor bastards. Once I got the blood off the lens, it was a pretty acceptable lasrifle. The weight was a comfortable companion in my hands as I marched onwards, especially at night. It helped with making cookfires, too.
As you can probably tell, I made no real effort at stealth- there was no point. Greenskins are so damn loud and stupid I probably could have camped inside their sentry line and they wouldn't have noticed. Might have been fun to try, actually.
In any case, I caught up with the army within a few days. As soon as I got close, I heard Nika's voice coming out of the comm-button. "This is Unit En Kay Ee of the line, calling Commander. Repeat, this is Unit En Kay-"
"Nika!" I exclaimed, fumbling the comm-button out of the pocket and sticking the earpiece back in. I felt a rush of relief to hear her voice again. Well, perhaps a bit more than just relief. Ahem. Anyway. "Are you alright?" I asked a moment later. "Where in the god-Emperor's name are you? What happened?"
"Commander!" Nika sounded ecstatic. "It's about time you showed up, that was the seven millionth repeat of that message I've played. Sensors are showing you are in reasonable physical condition, but social protocol dictates that I ask how you are nonetheless."
"I'm fine, Nika." I replied. "How are you?"
"I seem to have been…partly repaired, at least." She responded. Her voice was hesitant. "However, I remain unable to fully access these new sections. Other than internal wireless connections, I am no longer in control of any of my systems. I confess it is distressing to say the least."
"You've been…disembodied?" I don't really understand tech that much, mostly that's the Mechanicum's job. Still, I could grasp the gist of what Nika was saying.
"That is a crude but relatively accurate description." Nika confirmed.
"Well, that makes my life difficult." I concluded.
"The problem is easily fixed, but I lack the appendages to do so." Nika replied. "If you are able to sneak within my hull, I could guide you through the process in only a few minutes."
"Well, now." I grinned, though Nika of course couldn't see it. "That sounds like the first half of a plan."
My Commander has surprised me before, though somehow this latest, reckless plan does not fill me with confidence. According to my own estimates, he has a 12.72% chance, plus or minus 23.83% of successfully penetrating the Ork camp and reaching my position. The large margin for error stems mainly from my lack of experience with this particular combatant, and indeed if I have underestimated them even slightly the odds quickly approach zero. Still, I cannot deny he has taken all imaginable precautions. His uniform is now caked in river mud and clods of earth, breaking up his outline. Beneath, he has donned the rough leather strips the gretchins commonly wear— he could never pass for an Ork, but perhaps a strangely tall gretchin is not out of the question.
The comm-button's camera is no longer operating properly, as it has been obscured by mud. I monitor my Commander's vitals carefully. Adrenalin, cortisol, and epinephrin levels are all at extremely high levels. Breathing is shallow and fast. I triangulate the signal to find that we are still 1.63 kilometers apart. With all my external sensors down, all I can do is give rough positioning and hope for the best.
Of all the ridiculous bullshit I've gone through in the Guard, this has to take the cake. Sneaking into a bleeding Ork camp in the middle of the night to rescue a tank? It's worse than when we bayonet-charged a horde of Tyranids, for Emperor's sake. At least we had artillery on our side that time. Nika did her best to help, but at this point she wasn't much more use than a glorified auspex.
The camp, I might add, was…repulsive. The xenos monsters were all over the place, snorting and grunting in their crude alien tongue. I survived not through my Emperor-awful disguise, but because there was so much garbage piled everywhere it was easy to just dodge from one pile of scrap to the next. It was so loud inside the camp I really didn't have to rely on being quiet, which was a relief. Even in the middle of the night, there was always on stupid greenskin or another deciding to rattle off a few dozen rounds for the sheer hell of it. It was nearly dawn by the time I had inched my way across the camp, and the first streaks of light were illuminating the area. "You should be only a few meters away." Nika told me over the com-button. Huge heaps of scrap were piled in front of me, and I skirted the nearest one. And then stopped dead.
I'm not one to blaspheme easily, but this, well— "Holy God-Emperor on His throne of Terra." I breathed. "What have they done to you?"
