Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 8
The Copan system was young, a still accreting disc of rocks and asteroids swirling around a bright star. A single gas giant dominated the outer reaches, gobbling up any stray comet that crossed its path. The inner system was a mass of drifting asteroids and proto-planets, volcanic balls of stone that were continually bombarded by asteroid impacts. The first three planets were molten rock, without a firm surface to stand upon. The fourth through eleventh were quagmires of unstable ground, rocked by earthquake and volcano, with sulphur-oxygen atmospheres and radiation scoured wastes. One would have to be mad to set foot on these hellscapes, but then Orks had never been noted for their sanity.
"More Dakka!" A ferocious bellow echoed across the battlefield, carrying strangely in the sulphur-rich air. He was nearly drowned out by the thundering of guns, mixed with rocket screams and fizzing Zapp gunz, as torrents of firepower split the air over his head. Hundreds of barrels glowed red-hot, impurities in the metal causing them to heat dangerously. At his back grots and Boyz clung to their gunz, unleashing all they had in a joyous barrage of destruction. A few gunz cooked off, their barrels deforming under the strain, gunners dying in wild explosions but Hed'breka cared not, urging them to pour on fire.
He clamped his fanged maw tight and gripped the trigger of the double shoota that encased his left arm. In response the gunz chugged away, spitting bullets in a torrent as brass casings fell to the dirt. Violent recoil shook his arm but the Mega-armour encasing his frame held his aim steady as he poured on the fire. He emptied both drums with a wild yell then dropped his arm and bellowed at a gang of grots lurking in his rear to reload.
At his sides his army fought with furious grit, hammering away ceaselessly. Mobs of Shoota boyz yelled in glee as they unloaded, while Kommandos sent spinning rockets high into the sky, some of which even managed to come down on the enemy. Killer Kans and Deff Dreads stood head and shoulders over them, unleashing their full fury, firepower enough to bring down an army twice their size, yet it was having little effect.
Marching between two low hills came another army of Orks, wading into the teeth of their fire without pause. They had come over the horizon and made a thrust for his base, a surprise attack in the weak dawn light. It may have worked, except Orks were never caught by surprise, they expected war at every moment, it was their meat and bread and the sudden assault provoked only joy. Hed'breka's army fought with unmatched fury but despite all their efforts the attackers didn't fall down, even riddled with bullet holes they just kept marching on.
"Boss!" Gut'twista yelled from inside the Killer Kan he was fused with, "Dem spikey Boyz don't die rite!"
"Dey actin' real funny boss!" Masha added from the back of a battlewagon as he swept a Big Shoota about.
"I see dat ya gitz!" Hed'breka roared, "Keep shootin'!"
Hed'breka squinted his beady eyes, set under a metal plate riveted to his forehead. The opposing army was no clan he knew, but that meant little, Orks needed no reason to war. Yet these strangers were odd indeed. The Orks did not bellow in joy or rage, marching silently into the teeth of his fire without cries of exuberance. Their bodies were wrong, skin covered in sharp spikes that grew out of their flesh and their hands were fused into heavy clubs of metal or stretched into sharpened spikes and swords. They looked like something was growing out of them, a dark seed pushing tendrils out of fertile soil to reach for the outside world. The very idea made Hed'breka's teeth clench as an instinctive need to obliterate the infestation took hold.
"Dem Boyz ain't proper Orks! Take em up close and show dem how real Orks fight!" Hed'breka hollered. As one his army surged forward, a cheering tide of raucous greenskins. They raced on foot and clinging to the sides of Trukks, as stomping war machines lumbered to keep up. Hed'breka leant forward and forced his legs to move. Pistons clamping his armour together squealed as unoiled metal moved on metal, but were unable to resist his raw strength. Squawking grots were left behind as he stomped forward, yelling they hadn't finished reloading but he ignored them, eyes fixed on the unknown attackers. His feet pounded the ground faster and faster, increasing speed as he closed on the foe, every step kicking up clouds of sulphurous dust.
His army outnumbered the intruders three times over and should have rolled over them with ease but astonishingly the two sides met in a frenzy of clubbing fury, hacking and slashing with equal vigour. Hed'breka saw a strange Ork with points growing out of its face be run through by a bladed spear, only to carry on regardless, pulling itself up the shaft to ram spiked knuckles into its attacker's brains. Another had its face caved in but fought on, blindly lashing out while another had its guts torn out but stayed standing. Wounds that would lay an Ork low were shrugged off and in return they laid into the true Greenskins with strange weapons that grew out of their hands. The worst part was they fought silently, no joyous cries, no taunts or raging threats, they fought like puppets without any awareness at all.
Hed'breka saw one of the intruders turn to face him, its features twisted out of true by metallic spikes growing from every pore. In the hazy light it looked aberrant and ill-formed, its shoulders hunched and arms elongated, ending in hefty maces. It was malformed and perverted, a mockery of the Greenskin form. It was no true Ork and that stench of the other provoked the most violent of responses.
Hed'breka lifted his right arm and clenched his grip around a paddle. In response a huge drill attached to the back of his wrist began to spin, three bulky heads spinning up to a blurring velocity. The drill screamed as smoke poured out of its crude motor but the machine worked well enough to create a frenzied smear of flashing teeth, ready to chew through anything they met.
Hed'breka swung his arm as he charged and caught the malform by the shoulder. Drill bits met flesh and metal and produced a fine mist of blood and swarf, filling the air with the spray of a body being reduced to fine droplets. Hed'breka's arm shuddered with the impact and his face was peppered with shrapnel as blood painted his front. He pushed on, driving the drill onwards as the violence made him laugh aloud.
The malform lost an arm to the blow but to his shock it did not falter. It turned with his blow and the other arm came about, fingers growing into razorblades that dug in between two plates and let his thick blood flow. Momentum drove Hed'breka on a step and they stumbled apart, turning hastily to face each other. The malform was standing, as any decent Ork should, but over its stump razor-sharp points of metal grew, extending outwards to begin growing a new arm.
The Malform betrayed the first hint of awareness as it waved its arm and hissed, "Kaos is strong..."
"Kaos?!" Hed'breka roared in anger, "Kaos is pisspoor weak! Dere's only da Waaagh!"
With that he launched himself back at the malform, thrusting the drill head at his foe. The twisted freak leapt to meet him, the remaining arm bulging with motion as long swordblades erupted from beneath the flesh. They met head-to-head and a shining point cut his cheek deeply, letting blood flow. In return his drill smashed into the malform's centre mass, ripping through the chest entirely. Blood fountained high as guts and strange objects were ripped free. Entrails painted his arm red and bits of metal embedded themselves in his chestplate but he pushed harder, ripping through the malform. The drill bits chewed a hole through the malform a grot could walk through, then it finally froze before toppling backwards, dropping off the drill to become still at last.
Hed'breka lifted his arm high and roared in victory but as he did so he spied something odd. Beyond the battle, well back from the fighting was a band of smaller figures. They wore dark armour, with lightning dancing over plates and wings sticking out of their heads. They weren't fighting, merely watching the battle proceed, observing with interest like a Mekboy watching a Stompa blow up its first village. At their fore was a bulky figure in heavy plate, his gauntlets were stained red and he had six wasted figures chained to his belt. Hed'breka knew who it was, dark rumours speaking of the Beakies and their sick leader, Bloody red-hands, the leader of the Kaos Marine Boyz.
"Boss!" a panicked cry came from Masha, "We're being overrun!"
"Dey's too strong!" Gut'twista cried as his Killa Kan lurched about wildly.
Hed'breka saw it was true, the malforms were pressing hard and engulfing his army. Despite shot and shell and saw they would not die, few of his Boyz able to bring them down at all. The malforms were ringing his army in steel, spiked hands stabbing and gutting relentlessly. They were winning and as they claimed their victory they chanted, "Blood for the blood god! Skulls for the skull throne!"
Hed'breka's anger surged and he lurched back into the fray yelling, "No poncy god iz gonna beat me!"
Two Malforms faced him, voices chanting, "Khorne, khorne, khorne, khorne."
Hed'breka bellowed, "Khorne iz whiny bitch, Gork an Mork iz where it's at!"
The pair advanced, thin spears emerging from bulging hands. Hed'breka lifted his drill to meet them head on but as he did so a strange shiver swept through the battle. The malforms paused, all of them, all at once. Anywhere they were to be found they froze still and then exploded. Spears and swords and knives and clubs, all of them erupted out of the malforms in a sudden burst of wild growth. Not only from hands but backs and groins and knees and faces, all of them blossoming with insane transformations. Limbs snapped and chests were torn apart as the Malforms lost any semblance of form, becoming jagged balls of sharpened blades, like sea urchins brought onto land.
With heavy thuds the twisted remains hit the dirt and fell still, ending the battle in an instant. The true Orks were left dumbfounded, staring at the balls that moments earlier had been foes. They prodded them with boots, as if expecting a fresh attack but nothing came. The malforms were dead.
Gut'twista stomped on random balls with his piston feet, the tiny grot within exulting in his borrowed power as he yelled, "We beatz dem!"
Masha growled from his perch, "We beat nothin' dey dropped dead on der own. We didn't get to kill dem, dat's just sodding rude."
Hed'breka wasn't listening. He stomped about and peered across the distance, but of the Beakies there was no sign. Bloody red-hands was gone, vanishing as if he had never been there. Hed'breaka didn't think they'd beaten his army, the Kaos boyz had come for something and they'd got it. He didn't know what or why, or even how they'd pulled this off, but he was sure he was going to extract a dire punishment for this insult. As his army milled about he growled, "Bloody red-hands is pissin' about with da Boyz, makin' em weak and twisted. Dat ain't on. Some berks gotta stop him and dat's gonna be me!"