Yay! A new chapter!
The Stompa is HERE!
Bugklaw, though he must and will die soon, is a brilliant tactician for an Ork. I am glad that I've created him.
However, I think I will have the Overmind personally kill the great Warboss using the first body of the Overmind.
Chapter 36
The thing is, about half the crap I fed to Judanus through Alena was a bluff. In truth, I really didn't want Judanus to flee through his Warp Portal, particularly because I cannot stop it. Whether I had mentioned the method of escape or not, it was obvious that Judanus would flee through the Warp when I take over the planet and crush his armies. However, I had hoped to provoke his pride enough to consider it cowardice to flee before an enemy. It was a little reverse-psychology stuff that a Tzeentchian servant would see through easily, but I was hoping that with all the things going around him, Judanus would be too distracted to notice. This also coincided with my, through Alena, taking over of the Kingdom. Using the Kingdom, I would continue to distract Judanus, and weaken the two realms at the same time. Making him an offer was also to distract him. He would be thinking about my Swarm and everything that he doesn't know about us. He would be worried, and with my bluff about a million creatures poised against the West, he would be distracted.
Also, I cannot 'devour' the Warp Storm, no matter how much I am salivating over the massive amount of concentrated psychic energy contained within the Warp Storm. I could slowly drain it, yes, but not 'devour' it whole, because obviously the Warp Storm is 'currently' bigger than me. I will become bigger as the Swarm grows but not yet. This was another bluff to both disorient Judanus and to give him a vague threat and warning. By exaggerating my powers and how I could devour the Warp Storm, he would gain a false understanding that the Swarm has a great power over the Warp, which could theoretically mean that I could stop his escape. It was a big bluff that meshed with the subtle indication about how the Swarm is so powerful that we didn't care if he took the coward's path and escaped. It was a complex trap that I hoped that any logical being would fall into. Of course, it was far too late when I remember that creatures of Chaos are not really into the whole thing about sanity.
In any case, I really hoped that Judanus bought my bluff and provocation. Alena was ordered to deliberately goad Judanus, and through which I would get the bodies of the Space Marines, and now that I even had a soul of a Space Marine, I could extract as much information as I wanted from it. All I needed from the Space Marines now was their physiology. The spiel about how I could conquer the West with a million creatures was also a bluff. Most of mobile forces not on a wary watch against the Orks were dispatched westward, conquering rest of this big planet. It took months to get there in sufficient numbers, so it would take months to get them back. In order to fix this issue, I've been working on underwater Nydus Worms, because ferrying a million Zerglings plus thousands of other creatures with Overlords is just so exhaustingly slow. I still had about five million Zerglings and three hundred thousand upper-level creatures all along the eastern coast of my domain, watching out for any Ork attempt to cross the sea and land their Stompa. Also, I still had about five million creatures in my mainland, and a half million creatures in various hiding places within the Kingdom, and a hundred thousand creatures on the West coast. In truth, I could overwhelm the Kingdom and the Chaos, but it would not be without serious consequences.
All the death of humans would be a serious incentive for daemons to enter the fray. By 'giving' the West to Judanus, I had constructed a frame within which Judanus would act but not beyond it. If I was Judanus I would have called for many more legions of Chaos Marines to finish off the Kingdom quickly and deal with the Loyalists and the Swarm afterward. Killing and sacrificing the millions within the Kingdom proper would have gained him a lot of favor from his Dark Gods. He was simply too foolish to see it. By trapping Judanus in this trap of the mind, I have successfully cut off Judanus from the avenue of recruiting more Chaos Marines. He would save up his sacrificial slaves for an escape plan rather than summoning more Chaos forces, and yet he would not be able to flee because of his pride. Of course, I had to modulate my pressures on him because cornering him would make him flee. I had to wait to pounce at that moment when he would be unable to flee. I could kill him now, but then there is that Khornate Apothecary Lilgath. To me, he seemed a little more unstable than Judanus. At least Judanus had a plan, but Lilgath, though he tries to hide it from Judanus, has no purpose or a plan or a scheme save for the murders and spilling of blood. That was infinitely more dangerous, and as long as Judanus is around, Lilgath would not take reign.
Seriously, that Lilgath guy looks ready to break open the barrier of the Warp Storm and let loose the millions of daemons who are clawing the wall just to get on to this planet. I could not have that… yet.
Judanus, though powerful and posing a greater potential threat, was still less of a threat at that moment compared to the Orks and the bloody annoying git that was the Warboss Bugklaw. The Orks have been mining hard within their islands, and they are slowly reproducing some of the weapons that were lost during their war against my Swarm.
Though my Overlords and Overseers were yet to find any tanks, they found an influx of about a thousand bikes, and several hundred Warbuggys & Wartrakks as well as many Wartruks among the Orks. Still, their last invasion of the Prideland had caused a severe lack of higher-level armored vehicles among the Ork tribes, and while Bugklaw was still the mightiest of the Warbosses, there were at least a dozen challenges laid upon Bugklaw after his defeat in the Prideland. Bugklaw had to spent time and effort suppressing those rebellions while building his Stompa as well as naval vessels and armored vehicles.
This had caused severe shortage of personal armament of the Ork Boyz. Requiring more weapons, some Boyz even turned back into their feral state and armed themselves with crude axes made of a bit of metal piece tied around a wooden stick with ropes. The mistake of Bugklaw was so obvious to me. He was so focused on building bigger vehicles and the Stompa that his Boyz were getting armed with progressively weaker weapons. If this continued, Bugklaw would invade me with his Stompa and tanks but his Boyz would be torn apart my Zerglings.
Fortunately, the Stompa was still some time away from completion and even when complete, I was sure that it would not be able to cross the ocean.
So, leaving Elric to watch over the Orks just in case I turned my attention to the deal I have made with Judanus. Of course, this was a ridiculous idea. I already controlled the Kingdom, and I had already laid a foundation with which I could execute this plan.
My Zerglings were let loose in the Kingdom's South and the fringes of the Central. Small empty villages were raised to the ground, and everything and everyone in those villages were destroyed. Still, most of the population remained within the walled cities and towns and castles. These towns and cities and castles hurriedly sent out request for reinforcement, but the Queen, being Alena, did not answer them, but instead, ordered them to raise more men to use as militia. The Kingdom, despite sending a million men to the war, was still full of people.
By the law of the land, of every ten households, one adult male must be given to the King/Queen as a part of his/her professional army, another one for the local Lord at or above the title of the Count, and one for the local Lord whose demesne the households were located. Also another one man was considered as a reserve for the Royal house, and must join training in sword and spears or bows once every ten days. Another was considered a man for local militia who could be drafted by the local Lord. So, ten households would provide the King with two men, two for local Lords, and one for militia. However, Alena had changed this ancient law.
Although Alena was a powerful figure as the Queen of the Kingdom, she technically only controlled two fifth of the Kingdom's total military power. With the South now completely gone off the reservation and the local lords drafting as many men as possibly to stave off death by Zerg, the Royal powers did not reach the massive population of the South.
The West was already in turmoil from the rebelling of the Duke of Verin and the invasion of Zerg along the coast. The North and its open rebellion was the reason for the draft. This had meant that the Queen's Army and the soldiers she drafted were only from the Central and the East. The East was the most fertile region of them all. Fed by many rivers and the silts, good climate and good rainfall, protected from storms by a small chain of islands far off the coast, the East was a paradise compared to frozen land like the North, or the stormy and dry land of the West or the mountainous land of the Central, or the politically nightmarish land of the South.
East, by far, had the most population and the Central, though much of its land was mountains and hills, was rich in minerals and hardy men. It is from these two regions that Queen's Army was raised. Given the dire situation, Alena modified the law and drafted one additional man from ten households, which was unheard of. She drafted the men who were dedicated to the formation of militia, and by driving the population into the towns and cities; she had made the local Lords to use their own troops to defend the people.
Therefore, the nine hundred fifty thousand men Alena drafted for her new army was one fifths of all adult males of the Central and the East. That showed how many people were in the Kingdom. In the Central and the East alone had a presumably 4.75 million adult males, with almost equal number of adult females, and counting in children and old people, the population of the two regions was well over 14 million people, and defended by around nine hundred thousand soldiers that belonged to the local Lord.
Even though my Zerglings were so numerous, nine hundred thousand soldiers, with potentially two million adult males turning to militia, defending their homes from behind thick walls and high towers, was not an easy obstacle to tackle without a thought. Besides, there was still the northern half of the South under human control. From Alena and other infested nobles, I could gather than in the last census of the Kingdom, done only a decade before my arrival, the South had a population about half the size of the Central and the East combined, with over 70% of the population living in the northern half of the South. I had calculated that I am facing a population of about 5 million humans, among which about half the adult males, nearly eight hundred thousand, were soldiers and ready to defend their homes.
Also, these areas were not dominated by the central authorities, which means that blacksmiths and weapon-smiths were not drafted either. My plans of weakening the Central and the East worked because Alena was the Queen and she controlled the regions. The South was going to cost me some Zerglings.
It wasn't that the West was a complete pushover either.
Hargen had devastated and controlled an area size of the state of Florida, the southern coasts of the West was a barren land compared to the rest of the kingdom. The dry hot weather along with sand-like soil had left only small bits of land being capable of agriculture, and the population was low compared to other provinces within the region let alone compared to other regions.
My forces now readied themselves across a rapid river flowing from the vast mountains of the Central. The rest of the West, was still very strong. The northern three quarters of the West had many mountains like the Central while cold like the North despite being as fertile as the East. These conflicting elements had made its people sturdy and hardy, and using the various mineral resources of their land, the soldiers of these lands were strong and well-armed.
Duke of Verin ruled the region, in a rebellion against the Queen, declaring his hatred for the Chaos forces residing in the North. Openly declaring his support for the Loyalist Space Marines, the Duke brought in the lesser Lord of the West under his banner. The Duke of Verin was the richest man in the Kingdom except for the Royal House, and Verin had both the grains and steel among his riches. With the help of the Techmarine, Verin's mines went into overdrive and mass produced steel weapons and armor and gunpowder weapons. Lesser lords sold their swords and spears to Verin in return for guns and cannons, and the Duke fortified the entire West all by himself.
Although this tied up much of the resource to support the Loyalist Space Marines and their campaign, it made the West much more formidable than Judanus had expected.
This was the primary reason that I offered 'the West' to Judanus. The Chaos Lord was an idiot, and he would most certainly assail the West with as much strength as he can spare since I promised to coax Alena's army south on the context of the Zerg invasion of the Kingdom. While invading the West, I suspect that the forces of Chaos would suffer grave attrition damage even though they would win. Even if Judanus gives up the West, I would then be able to invade the West when it is weakened. This was particularly important because I could not be sure how much damage the Swarm will suffer against a potential invasion by Bugklaw and his damnable Stompa.
The Swarm invaded the Kingdom enmass.
A million Zerglings marched north along with fifty thousand Roaches, ten thousand Hydralisks, a thousand Ultralisks and ten thousand Mutalisks. Other creatures of upper echelon were also involved, and they were all led by Volran as this campaign was as much about showing the enemy who we are as it was about conquering.
Volran had newly developed a Path of War that named the 'Path of Marching Doom'. It was a simple Path. It was all about shock and awe, using brute strength and numbers to push forward without looking back. In a stampede of a million Zerg creatures, nothing less than an equal firepower or number could withstand the impact. It was not a subtle Path, nor was it foolish. In this doctrine, the Ultralisks would take charge and they gain an ability to create the Overrun Effect, an aura that provoke reaction within Zerg creatures to move faster and fight more fiercely in melee, while extra layer of carapace would clad the creatures to protect them during the stampede.
While under the Overrun Effect Aura, a Zergling that would normally move like a big cat would change its gait into something that resembles the movements of a Pachycephalosaurus or a Stegoceras, the bone-headed dinosaurs who would charge against enemies. The Khaydarin Crystals within their bodies would artificially increase the mass of the creature and make them into a charging rhino. Roaches, too, would be directly influenced by the Overrun Effect Aura, while Hydralisks, while moving faster, would gain extra layer of carapace and favor melee combat instead of range attacks. The Ultralisks themselves would not be under the Overrun Effect since it is for the lesser creatures, but they would be in the 'Juggernaut Frenzied' state, an advanced state of their normally frenzied state. While in the 'Juggernaut Frenzied' state, the Ultralisks would be almost impossible to stop once they gained a certain momentum.
The 'Path of Marching Doom' was the reason that Volran had been chosen for this invasion, as this was very much a doctrine of shock and awe. With Hargen in the islands of the lesser human realms, and Alena in the Kingdom, and Elric keeping vigil over the ice bridge in the South Pole and the east coast, I really didn't have that much choice in the matter. Of course, it wasn't that Hargen or Elric was right for the invasion either. Hargen's 'Path of Swift Culling', a traditional hit-and-run mixed with some Zerg ingenuity, was a path that whittled down a superior enemy to a manageable size, and Elric's 'Path of Rising Demise' was a rather defensive or surprise attacks on small scales using Zerg's ability to burrow and burrow-move without being detected. Of course, Alena's 'Path of Storm' was highly psionic focused, so in my current plan to hide upper-level creatures, that Path was out of the question also. Thus, Volran was chosen to lead the Zerg forces with his unique personal combat doctrine.
Within the month, the entire region of South was under my control except for the towns, cities and few larger castles that managed to survive the initial wave of Zerg forces. My Zerglings infested the countryside, roaming around in small groups to hunt down anything that was not Zerg. Since Alena's influence did not reach this far south, there were many hundreds of villages and small castles and towns with low or no walls still populated by humans. They fell fast. The speed of the Zerglings were matched only by the fastest horses they had, but the horses were terrified of the Zerglings. Local Lords attempted to rally their troops to fight my creatures, but they could not resist the might of the Swarm.
Castles were quickly besieged, and Banelords, a variant of Ultralisks that fired Banelings, being the long range artillery of the Swarm, rained down Banelings upon the castles while Ultralisks became living rams and punctured through the gates. Smaller castles stood strong only until then. By the second month of the Zerg invasion, there were only a two score towns and cities and a handful of mighty castles remained within human control. Then, there was the problem of supplies. Filled with number of people that the walls were never designed to hold, the towns and cities began to suffer hunger. Vast storage houses of grains were soon showing signs of depletion and only the castles, being built for war, could withstand the long sieges. However, none of them realized that the protracted sieges were a feint to show to Judanus.
In response to the Zerg invasion, the Queen Alena took action. She demanded that local Lords send additional men to the Queen's Army so that she may dispatch well-trained and well-armed soldiers to fight these 'xeno creatures'. Some complied, and some didn't, but in the end, Alena received nearly two hundred thousand men, all in various garbs of local Lords. She quickly armed them with weapons and set them through vigorous training. Then, she rerouted three hundred thousand soldiers from the northern front to to the southern front. Five hundred thousand soldiers were quickly dispatched along the rivers and hills and mountains that divided the South from the Central and the East. Fortifications of thick logs and dried mud were hastily erected along the border then they were slowly replaced by stones and mortar, though the stones were from nearby town walls and castle walls being disassembled by the order of the Queen.
Of course, this was fine for me since the fortifications along the border meant very little to me. I had about half a million Zerg units all over the dark corners of the Central and the East. Unexplored mountains, dark swamps, valleys filled with poisonous plants and abandoned mines were all infested with Zerg. The Kingdom may have noticed a great drop in the number of bandits and brigands on their roads, but that was not a result of the Kingdom's patrols, but my Zerg taking over their dens and devouring their criminal flesh. These Zerg were those who were cast out after I first introduced tiny shards of Khaydarin Crystals in every Zerg creature. They settled within the Kingdom and took a long and painful and slow process of forcing Khaydarin Crystals into their mature bodies. Now, they were like the rest of the Swarm, and new creatures from those colonies were born with crystal shards.
Judanus was obviously pleased that we kept up our end of the bargain. He summoned another fifty Chaos Marines and dispatched half to the southern front against the Kingdom and the other half against the West and the Loyalists. Judanus relentlessly drove back the Loyalists back to the realm of the West, only to meet fierce resistance that they did not expect. Of course, it was fierce but not unbreakable. The southern front, where the forces of Chaos were being killed by thousands against the 1.3 million strong enemy army with strangely powerful sword and revolvers with big bullets. Though the appearances of Chaos Marines had brought massive advantage, the lack of armored units had meant that even Chaos Marines could be swarmed over by the humans, shot by 250 gunners firing revolver rifles with bullets as big as bolter rounds with steel tips carved like screws. Even the Power Armors of Chaos Marines were not infallible. The bullets of the human gunners literally drilled into the armor while the officers aimed for eyes and soft bits of the armor.
There were issues with cannons too. When new cannons looked like giant revolvers and fired explosive shells, the casualty rate of Chaos Marines rose sharply, and being few in number, even the loss of one Chaos Marine was a significant loss. Judanus sought to change this by sending his Chaos-corrupted Servitors armed with heavy weapons in the Tower. That drove back the humans for a week or so. Heavy Bolters, Plasma Cannons, Power Fists and Chain Swords on Servitors who looked like a fusion of daemon and man and machine really freaked out the humans for a week before they brought in countermeasures. New guns were introduced to the Gunners. Long rifles with very powerful bullets with amethyst cores were added with scope and iron-sight. These sharpshooters aimed solely for the Servitors and their heads. The power of psionically infused amethyst core in the bullets allowed piercing of the metal plated skulls of the Servitors with warp-mutation, then caused by a direct encounter between the psionic energy within the amethyst and the warp energy within the Servitors, the bullets exploded, shattering the skulls of the Servitors. Of course, Judanus never knew that we supplied the psionic energy in the amethyst cores.
Time passed. Then, seven months after the initial invasion of the Zerg, and the entire planet was embroiled in war. Judanus and conquered a large chunk of the West, finally reaching the mighty Citdadel of Verin and had besieged it for a month with no end in sight as the House of Verin and their loyal Imperial Guards fought back with scores of heavy weapons passed down through generations and repaired by the Techmarine. Against a dozen Heavy Bolters, several Autocannons, a couple of Lascannons and single Plasma Cannon, along with three thousand Lasgun-armed Guardsmen and two hundred gunpower cannons, the Chaos forces could not breach the four-walled citadel of the Duke. Then there was the destruction of the Predator Tank, by a most glorious sacrifice of the Assault Marine Kleine, who assailed the Predator Tank with a team of Verin's Knights and used eight melta grenades to destroy the tank. The knights had all perished in the ensuing firefight but Kleine was captured by Judanus, and was handed over to the Swarm.
The invasion by my creatures was also going well. Though Volran was ordered not to actually break through the defense line set up by the humans, the five hundred thousand Zerg creatures pouring out from every crevices and dark dank holes across the entire Kingdom was enough to drive the whole of the human realm into a panicked overdrive. Towns and cities and large castles were constantly besieged while the countrysides were raided and ransacked by my Zerg, and when humans attempted to strike back, my forces would melt away back into the ground and appear out of somewhere they did not expect. Particularly, the Central suffered greatly.
Being a mountainous region, the people were hardy and was used to isolation. They also built castles to withstand long sieges. That would have been good against human attackers or even Orks or Chaos, but against the Zerg, that only meant that the towns and cities and castles were utterly isolated. One by one, the towns, being the smallest, fell to my hands.
Then something surprising happened.
Suddenly, over the Ork islands, my Overlords and Overseers were hunted and killed by Deffkoptas. I realized that Bugklaw was on the move. I checked that the ice bridge, despite my efforts was built and was strong. I quickly moved Elric and his forces to the south pole, hoping to delay the Stompa and the millions of Orks that were surely coming that way. What came next was really surprising.
A small Ork fleet arrived on the coast of the East, right smack in the middle of the Kingdom. The human Kingdom actually had a large fleet stuck in ports since the war was on land. There were about two dozen large warships on patrol, but as the Chaos did not utilize naval warfare, they were merely precautionary measure. Besides, the sailor had been drafted into the King's Army long before Alena took reign. The humans had somehow redeveloped ships very similar to 'ship of the line' with broadside cannons. During the height of their power, the Kingdom had amassed an impressive fleet that prepared to attack the Orks in their own islands. That time was shortly before Judanus attacked the Kingdom. The reason that the King had so many soldiers ready for war was that he was readying to fight the Orks in the first place.
Now, most of those ships were docked in ports, their cannons being slowly rusted away as the Kingdom's attention focused solely on the war against the Chaos. It was in such state that the Orks arrived in their metallic ships. Though crudely similar to their space-bound vessels, these Orks 'naval' ships still packed far more firepower than their human counterparts. As the Ork Kannons fired so randomly, the humans ships quickly lined up to fire their broadside 24-pounder long guns. The problem was that Orks ships were bigger, better armored and had a lot of Kannons. The humans ships fired in return but they barely made dents on the Ork ships when Orks ships began to fire toward the human ships. The Kannons fired in such rate and range and randomess that human ships were quickly destroyed.
Seeing this strange move by the Orks through the nearest Overseer, I quickly dispatched my own naval creature to eliminate the Ork ships, since I really didn't want any surprises. I was a little too late. That particular port was quickly raised to the ground as the dozen Ork ships fired everything they had into the city and the docks. Then after an hour of shelling the city, the Ork ships began to spew forth Ork Boyz and Gretchens. By the time my naval creatures arrive at the scene sunk the crude Ork ships, nearly nine thousand Orks had landed and fortified the city, slaughtering the humans inside the walls.
Now, if that was the end, I would have been lucky.
I was not lucky.
As I was watching the Ork-infested port city, the Orks began to do something strange. Then something big happened.
The Stompa happened.
Apparently, the Orks had installed a series of their 'tellyporta' receiver beacons, and they 'teleported' the damned Stompa right in the middle of a human city along with thousands of Orks.
Of course, later I remembered something from Dawn of War 2: Retribution about 'tellyporta' but it was a surprise when I faced that 'teleporting of a Stompa'-event. It was not a pleasant surprise.
I had majority of my forces so far from the East that it was not even funny and I was not about to appreciate how that damnable Ork could outmaneuver me, the Overmind of the Zerg. Of course, it was much later that I realized that expecting any logical movement from an Ork or an insane Chaos worshiper was simply ridiculous.
I really didn't expect the Stompa there!
Suddenly, the war changed.
The Orks quickly spread out along coast, taking over a dozen port cities and towns, and so wisely spread out their 'tellyporta' beacons. Then they began to teleport Orks on to the mainland. Within days, Orks had thousands of Boyz out there, and within the first week, the Orks built up crude defenses around their strongholds. By the second week, the entire coast of the East was crawling with over a hundred thousand Orks and their many vehicles. The Stompa, the key issue in all this, had moved out from the first city, and had obliterated two towns, flattened four villages and was heading to one of the large castles. The human defenders were at a loss as to 'how' to fight a massive Ork monster/vehicle.
Actually, even I was at loss. My Titan was still a month away from completion, and if I wait a month, that monstrosity would destroy the entire East, and my plans involving the Kingdom would go out the window. As for Elric and the majority of my forces he took with him, they would arrive in the East in two weeks after a non-stop race to reach the end. I quickly prepared as many Nydus Network to quicken the pace, but it would still leave the Stompa and the Orks roam free for a week and a bit more. I really didn't savor idea.