The only way I could see to prevent that, and, more importantly, save my own skin, was to turn the brood mind's own tactics against it. Something easier said than done, of course, but my instinctive affinity for enclosed spaces and remaining orientated within them had given me the germ of an idea. A fairly nebulous one, it's true, the only part I was certain about being a great deal of running, but it was better than nothing. Thus it was, far too soon for comfort, I found myself skulking through the lit corridors of the section the orks had colonised again, hoping we were in the right area and that we wouldn't come across too many of the inhabitants before we were ready.
However, it seemed that the Emperor was with us once more, the creatures' habitual bellicosity and flatulence combining to produce more than enough audible warning of their presence for Jurgen and I to find concealment in time to escape notice. Before too long we found ourselves looking out for the second time over the vast metal cavern which their relentless energy and destructiveness had wrenched from the fabric of the space hulk.
Fortunately, my sense of direction hadn't let me down, and we'd arrived more or less where I'd hoped we would, overlooking the smoke-shrouded section where the mekboyz toiled, creating weapons and ammunition to lay waste to Serendipita. Even at this distance I could feel the heat from the roaring forges, and hear the clank of tools from the decks below us where gangs of gretchin riggers were scavenging fresh raw material for the furnaces. Between the murk and the heat haze it was hard to make out much detail, but the little I could was more than enough.
Almost immediately below us was an area devoted to the construction of battlewagons: mobile weapon platforms bristling with weapons, which I recognised from Perlia. No two were alike, of course, but I'd faced them often enough to know how hard they could be to knock out without armour support, and hoped Torven and Kregeen would be able to scrape up a fair number of tanks between them. There were plenty of smaller trucks about as well, armed too, of course, but for the moment at least being used to shift supplies about from one end of the cavern to the other. (And for all I knew, the orkish mindset being what it was, back again, just for the fun of charging around at life-threatening speeds.) In the middle distance was a latticework of scaffolding, where the minuscule figures of innumerable gretchin were swarming over a vast pile of scrap, which looked alarmingly like a half-completed gargant; but that, at least, would be a problem for later, and preferably somebody else.
'Those look like promethium tanks,' I said, nudging Jurgen and pointing to a cluster of domed cylinders on the periphery of the vehicle assembly area. 'Can you read the glyphs?'
My aide nodded and squinted a little, trying to bring the crudely daubed symbols on the sides of the tank into focus through the smoke-stained air. 'Looks like a warning,' he said at last. 'Fire, or burn, and zog off[140].'
'Excellent,' I said, my guess confirmed. 'Do you think you can hit it from here?'
'I reckon so,' Jurgen said, peering through the sights of his lasgun. 'It's a long shot, but at least there's no windage to worry about.'
He steadied his breathing, lining the shot up carefully, and fired once. I strained my eyes, but the distance and the obscuring murk were too great, and I could see no sign of the impact. 'Bit to the left.' He repeated the process, to no apparent effect, then tried a third time. I was just on the point of giving up and trying to find an alternative target, when my aide grunted with satisfaction. 'That ought to do it.'
'Did you hit the tank?' I asked, still waiting for some kind of visible effect with a sense of vague disappointment. I suppose I was hoping for something like the inferno which had engulfed the refuelling station in Prosperity Wells[141], although that had been sparked by a krak round from a rocket launcher rather than the feeble punch of a lasgun fired from far beyond its normal effective range.
Jurgen shook his head. 'The tank?' he echoed, looking puzzled, although that was nothing new. 'I was shooting at the outlet valve.' Squinting in the direction of the blocky cylinders, I was just able to make out some minute protmsions where a cluster of pipes joined the assembly. It may have been my imagination, but the haze seemed a little thicker there, and I thought I could make out the shimmer of liquid gushing from the nearest one, to form an evergrowing pool.
'That would work much better,' I assured him, marvelling, not for the first time, at his standard of marksmanship. To hit so small a target at this range would have involved a fair degree of luck as well, of course, but I wasn't going to turn up my nose at that either. 'Well done.'
'You're welcome, sir,' Jurgen said, allowing a faint air of satisfaction to enter his voice, then nodded judiciously. 'Just give it another moment to let the fumes build.' He sighted down the lasgun again. 'Only needs a little spark...'
He squeezed the trigger, and I stared at the fuel dump, hopeful anticipation narrowing my eyes. Where the shot hit, I had no idea, but the las-bolt must have struck metal, producing the spark Jurgen had wished for. For the briefest of instants nothing seemed to happen, then a bright orange flare blossomed from nowhere, racing through the air as it expanded, to engulf the entire complex.
'Good shot!' I started to say, then everything was drowned out by a thunderclap which left my ears ringing, the sound rebounding and redoubling in the confined space. A lake of liquid fire poured through the assembly area, washing over the newly completed battlewagons, immolating orks and gretchin by the hundred in the process. A couple of trucks on the fringes of the mekboyz' compound turned and raced away, trying to outrun the spreading flames; one made it to safety, while the other was overtaken and engulfed, its own fuel combusting in a miniature echo of the main fireball, all but lost in the general conflagration.
'That went well,' Jurgen said, sounding distinctly pleased with himself, over the rolling boom of a succession of secondary explosions, as the ammunition aboard the burning battlewagons began to cook off. I found myself wondering where the main munitions dumps were, and whether we'd perhaps overdone it a little. I'd been hoping to get the orks' attention, not wipe them out entirely.
Well, that wasn't going to happen, of course. Despite the vista of destruction spreading out beneath our feet, the greater part of the greenskins' colony had been left untouched. Tearing my eyes from the inferno we'd unleashed, I was gratified to see them charging around in even greater disarray than usual, while bellowing nobz[142] attempted to restore order with about as much success as you might expect. The warboss we'd seen before was forging his way through the milling throng, cracking heads and roaring at anything unfortunate enough to cross his path, and I gave Jurgen a nudge. This was too good an opportunity to miss. 'Isn't that the one you wanted to take a crack at the last time?' I asked.
'Looks like it,' Jurgen agreed, taking the hint and lining up another shot. It was too much to hope that he'd be able to drop the leader of the host from here (although given the devastation he'd already managed to wreak with just a few las-rounds I wouldn't have been all that surprised if he took the brute cleanly between the eyes), but I had another objective in mind in any case. 'Frak. Just winged him.'
The warboss looked up, snarling, as Jurgen's las-bolt impacted on the left shoulder plate of his armour, adding another barely visible dent to the impressive collection already decorating it, to glare furious hatred in our direction. Which was precisely what I'd hoped for. I stepped to the very brink of the vertiginous drop at the end of the abbreviated corridor, heedless of the suffocating heat rising from the inferno below, and flourished my chainsword, locking gazes over the intervening distance. It was a gesture I knew no greenskin would be able to interpret in any manner other than a challenge, and I was right; with a bellow of rage, inaudible over the roaring of the flames, and the cacophonous collapse of the partially completed gargant as the supporting scaffold softened in the furnace heat, he began running in our direction, skirting the inferno as closely as he could. His bodyguard came with him, of course, and, true to the mob mentality which seemed to govern all these creatures' actions, every other ork in the vicinity trailed along behind. Even from this distance, and over the deafening clamour of the destruction we'd unleashed, I could hear the rising communal shout of ''WAAAAAAGGHHHHHH!'' which betokened their unleashed bloodlust.
140
An orkish word, which translates roughly as ''go away'', but which may also mean, ''leave it alone'', or ''1 doubt your veracity'', according to context. Clearly the second of the three meanings is intended here.
141
The township on Perlia where Cain's celebrated March of Liberation began. It was subsequently renamed Cainstead, to his mingled amusement and embarrassment; even after taking up residence on that world, as a tutor at the schola progenium there following his retirement, he continued to refer to the place by its original name.