Ork stories
By Craig Gallant
Da Firs' Blow . . . Ouch.
Plateau of Torment, Planet Karos
Nasea Cluster
Sector -0.425
Grishnak ignored the low muttered cackle of his manic standard bearer as he scanned the distant
mesas through stolen Imperial binocs. From his current position he could see a line of Humie troops,
grey uniforms standing out in stark contrast to the swirling red dust of the Plateau. Behind the slowly
advancing skirmish line he could see other soldiers crouched down behind crew-served heavy
weapons, at least a heavy bolter and a lascannon.
"Bugeyez." Grishnak spoke in a harsh whisper, even though the Humies advancing on his position
were still very far away.
The painboy with the thick spectacles stumped up to his warboss, oblivious to the advancing power of
the Imperial Guard. "Yeah, boss?"
"Scan doze rocks over dere," Grishnak pointed at the huge plateau that loomed in the middle distance.
"I bet dere 're more o' dem stinkin' Humies hiden' over dere."
Bugeyez consulted the blocky scanner hanging from his toof-studded belt. Aside from the visible
skirmish line and the strongly glowing traces of the Ork horde, no other life forms were in range.
"Nothin', boss. 'Course, dat's an' awful long way, it might be out'a-" He stopped abruptly as Grishnak
cuffed him with the dented binocs. The doc rubbed his head resentfully and went back to his own
rock, muttering under his squig-laden breath.
Grishnak turned his enhanced vision to the left, where Brukk and his kommandos were laying in
ambush. The big Ork warboss felt a grudging admiration for the nasty Blood Axe nob, who did seem
to be less inclined to annoying behaviour on this new mission. If it hadn't been for the scouting
kommandos making contact with the Humies' flank, it might have been the Gangstahz that were about
to walk into a trap, and not vice-versa.
And trap it was. Grishnak knew that his boyz were well deployed for springing on the foolish Humies
that were cautiously advancing through the red-tinged desert. The Pulsa and Nazdreg's new-fangled
Smasha Gun were covering the kommandos, just waiting for some nasty Imperial armor to try for
them. In front of the Big Gunz the smell of boars and warboars floated to Grishnak's sharply curling
nose; there was no doubt that Gumz and the rest of his Snakebites were over there, ready to spring on
the foe all unawares. Next in the battle line were the boyz, plasma guns and flamers all shined up and
ready to bring down some pain on the Humie force. Arrayed at the front of the mob was Hindy the
runtherd and his Gitz, the Gretchin. Behind them the low rumble of warbike engines announced the
presence of Da Nightwingz, autocannon at the ready. Behind a sharp outcropping of red stone to
Grishnak's right were Gog, Lew and Gak in their mega armor, cannons aimed at the corner of the high
plateau towering above them all. The other Big Gunz were right behind the Bad Moon nobz, Gretchin
crews fidgeting impatiently. And far to the right, anchoring that flank for the warboss, was the giant
form of Nazdreg's dread, which the boyz had christened "Da Kan", where the hardwired Gretchin
pilot, Oscah, was undoubtedly eagerly searching the approaching Imperial battle line himself for
targets.
Grishnak felt confident with the mob's deployment. He knew the best way to get the info Nazdreg
wanted was to get some of the boys stuck right in, so the boarboyz were all set to charge towards the
unsuspecting Humie line. As they slunk forward the rest of the lads settled their weapons against
shoulders and rocks, waiting for the signal to open fire. The warboss tried to see what Brukk was up
to, but there didn't seem to be any movement at all among the rocks where the kommandos were
hidden, so Grishnak assumed all was well with his extended left flank.
His confidence was short-lived, however, when an immense column of fire erupted from the ground
amidst the hiding kommandos. Grishnak whipped his binocs around to Brukk's position in time to see
the writhing forms of two orks, bodies wreathed in unholy white fire, stumble out of the column,
staggering around like lads with too much squig juice in them before they finally slumped to the sand,
where they continued to burn, sending smaller columns of thick black smoke swirling up around the
huge pillar of fire that lingered over the doomed position.
Before Grishnak could even swallow the bile and anger that was rising in the back of his throat, the
heavy weapons of the Guard line opened fire on his army as the huge form of a Leman Russ battle
tank came rumbling around the side of the opposing plateau. The warboss had never seen Imperial
Guard fire teams so accurate. In moments the lead bike in the Nightwing formation exploded in flames
and began to hurtle towards the Gretchin in front of it. One of the Gretchin crewing the Smasha Gun
was vaporized by the incandescent lance of a lascannon, sending the rest of the Big Gun crews nearby
scuttling for cover despite the brave display of Lowkey and the Gangstahz' standard. Several other
Gretchin in Hindy's screen fell shrieking like human women as they were torn apart by heavy bolter
shells. Other shells, these from the menacing tank, spanged off the light armor of the Nightwing bike
that held the huge (and in this terrain useless) searchlight. One of the enemy shells pierced an
autocannon's barrel, but the bike remained upright. The roar of the tanks battlecannon, the silent fury
of its lascannon and the stuttering growl of its other heavy bolter did no appreciable damage.
The boys of Grishnak's Gangstahz, enraged at the devastation being wrought upon them, let loose
with every weapon in the line. For a split second the big warboss reveled in the echoing thunder of his
warband's power. Then he noticed that all of that power was flying up over the advancing
guardsmen's heads. Lascannon shots, autocannon tracers, autogun rounds: they were all flying
harmlessly up over the ducking heads of the Humie foe. A single luckless guardsman in the center of
the advancing line disappeared as a Lascannon bolt from Da Kan transfixed him, but other than that,
the Mork-Damned Humies advanced with impunity.
In the deafening silence of the warband's shots, several more guardsmen fired heavy weapons, several
indeed coming from the tumbled rocks Grishnak had indicated to Bugeyez only moments before. Just
as the nearly deafened Ork warboss thought a lull in the firing had lowered, a bizarre, hellacious
whistle snapped through the air, and a huge mortar shell exploded into a fiery conflagration just in
front of the Ork positions.
As the angry flames crackled menacingly and the destroyed warbike careened out over the desert
almost hitting a Gretchin that desperately dove out of the way, Grishnak let out a ferocious snarling
howl. How had his perfect trap failed? He stabbed at the communications stud on the inside of his
mega armor gorget with his tongue and growled into it, "Brukk, whad 'appened?"
The sound of the unnatural column of fire roared back over the suddenly opened comm. channel.
"Uh, Warboss, I dunno." Even his newly-found respectful tone could not calm the fuming warboss.
"Ve vere all zet to shpring da trap, vhen dat big fire erupted on top of Franz an' Gerkin." Grishnak
growled lower in his throat. "Zhen everyzing in za Humie army seemz to have fired at once."
Grishnak barked wordlessly, then switched frequencies with another stab of his tongue. "Gumz?"
"Yeah, boss?" The Snakebite nob was also closer to the tower of fire than Grishnak had thought,
from the sound of it over the radio.
"I 'tink dere's a big gun hiden' behin' dat big hill, I want you an' yer uder nobz to head dat way. Send
da rest of yer boyz forwards still, to get stuck in wit' dat line."
"OK, boss." And moments later three huge cyboars pounded past Grishnak heading across the back of
the Ork battle line and off to the right flank. The rest of the Snakebite boys, riding unaugmented
warboars, continued slinking towards the ridge that held the main Guard skirmish line.
While the boarboyz advanced, a couple of the kommandos finally decided to join in the fight. The
sound of desultory bolter fire and a couple deeper heavy bolter shots echoed through the shallow
canyons of the Plateau. From where he stood watching, Grishnak could see little effect on the
advancing guardsmen. One Humie disappeared from view, but he could have been ducking just as
likely as having been hit by one of those skill-less shots.
Grishnak peered out over the sheltering boulder at the huge tank advancing slowly behind the Guard
skirmish line. Choosing when to fire a Pulsa was not an easy job, especially for a general of
Grishnak's particular intellectual . . . peculiarities. The Warboss was sure there were other vehicles out
there somewhere that he hadn't seen yet. Were they hiding behind the huge plateau? Were they
attempting to outflank him as he stood here thinking? Grishnak looked out over the gently undulating
desert sands beyond Brukk's slowly crisping position, and the Smasha Gun that was guarding that
immense swath of space. Firing the Pulsa behind that Gun would startle the idiot Gretchin crew to the
point where they wouldn't be able to offer the Blood Axes the cover they desperately needed. And
although Grishnak was tempted to leave Brukk and his incompetents hanging in the hot desert breeze,
he knew he could not afford to do that. And with the other Gretchin crew cowering behind their
weapons, the warboss realized that the difficult decision had been made for him.
The warboss fired a couple of shots from Wolfbighta', his kustom shoota, in the general direction of
the cowardly Gretchin gunners, who sheepishly moved back towards their weapons. Grishnak turned
angrily back around to look out over the battlefield where his beautiful plan was unraveling before his
eyes. Into his momentarily silent, thoughtful world intruded the voice of Brukk over the general Ork
frequency. "Oh no, Adolph!" Looking over towards the kommando position, almost resigned to
whatever disaster had now befallen the morons on the left flank, Grishnak saw another flaming Ork
torch flail his way out of the mysterious column of fire, staggering frantically to an ignominious death.
The column of fire, as if sated by the three Orks it had consumed, immediately winked out of
existence, leaving only the still-smoking remains of its three victims to show it had ever really existed.
Grishnak sighed, ignoring Brukk's gibbering, and covered his eyes with one huge armored claw.
The Humies, not much caring for Grishnak's anguish, opened up again as if the burning Ork had been
a signal. The advancing skirmish line leveled lasguns at the opposing line of Gretchin, and several of
the little bleeders dropped like puppets with their strings cut. The heavy weapons teams unleashed
another unbelievably accurate volley of fire, and the Ork warboss was horrified to see the Smasha
Gun off to his right explode in an impressive mushroom of flame as white-hot bits rained down upon
the Gretchin crew who had been returning to it. The weaponless bike of Da Nightwingz took a stray
hit and immediately flipped into the air, skidding to a halt in the crimson dust of the desert upside
down on top of its luckless rider.
The Gangstahz answered with a vicious fusillade of their own, which once again seemed to have no
effect on the slowly advancing Humies. A lascannon shot bounced harmlessly away from the
monstrous front hull armor of the Leman Russ, which continued to crawl forward like some huge,
lazy squigoth. This time Grishnak couldn't see even a single Humie fall.
Again the big warboss scanned the distance beyond the cowering kommandos. It might be possible for
the Smasha Gun guarding them to be moved enough to get off a shot on the Mork-damned big tank.
But that would leave the useless kommandos and, more importantly, the sneaky advance of the
boarboyz completely without cover. Where were the other trukks that had to be out there? Grishnak
cursed the wily Imperial commander for keeping so much of the force he HAD to have out of sight.
Shaking his head in irritation, Grishnak gestured for the cyboar-mounted nobz to continue their
flanking maneuver. Through the smoke and swirling ruby dust of the battlefield the angry Ork could
see little. As he was trying to decide the best next course of action, a single bright flash ripped through
the smog before him and drilled a hole through Lew's targeting eye. The headless body of the mega
armored, lascannon-armed nob collapsed into the still smoking ruins of the Smasha Gun. Gog and
Gak, the two remaining nobz, looked worriedly towards Grishnak, who gestured towards them
warningly with Wolfbighta. They immediately turned back towards the battle, doing there best to look
fierce.
A nagging worry gnawed at the back of Grishnak's little Orky brain. If he were smarter he would have
remembered the feeling: imminent defeat. Actually, he attributed it to a late snack of gnasher squig the
night before and went right on trying to puzzle out how to get some licks in at the Humies. In
frustration, he sent out a general order for the entire mob to sit tight for a sec and hope the fog cleared
enough to get some more shots off. The warboss' bare eye gleamed suddenly with a wicked
afterthought, and with a dramatic gesture at the remaining Gretchin crew to his right he sent the bulky
mass of a Pulsa Rokkit roaring wildly up into the sky and over the big plateau. The muffled crump of
its landing sounded close enough to Grishnak that it might have actually done some good!
Moments after the Rokkit had disappeared behind the plateau, the ominous bulk of the Humie's tank
came flying out of the fog in the middle of the battlefield, trailing faint streamers of reddish mist. For
one glorious moment it seemed that the tank was going to ram straight into an out-flung arm of the
plateau, but it ground to a halt just short of the massive edifice.
Immediately Gak let fly with the heavy plasma gun on high power. Naturally, he missed. Da Kan
unleashed the full power of its lascannon armament . . . and missed also. Grishnak stared down the
seemingly bottomless barrel of the tank's battle cannon and felt the beginnings of a slight sweat break
out on his forehead. He knew the crew would be too shaken up by the Pulsa to fire at once, but they
would recover soon, and it didn't seem like he had anything else to throw at it.
In anger at missing the tank, Da Kan's heavy bolter ripped out once again at the advancing skirmish
line, and two more of the Humie scum jerked spastically before falling back down the dune and out of
sight. Answering heavy bolter fire from the Imperial line stitched once more into the Gretchin line,
thinning their ranks even more. Far off to the right Gumz and the other two Snakebite nobz
disappeared behind the plateau, galloping cyboars raising still more of the pesky red dust. Grishnak
spared a brief appeal to Gork and Mork for the success of the savage nobz before bringing his
attention back to the big tank, whose main gun was even now cranking around back to bear on the
Ork line stretched out in front of it.
Grishnak, ignoring the almost painful prodding at the back of his mind, glared at the huge engine of
destruction and roared over the comm. link at the top of his basso Orky voice, "CHARGE!!!!"
Grishnak was imagining the pounding of boars and cyboars, the answering roar of his warband, the
rending and tearing of Humie flesh. But soon it sunk into Grishnak's heroically dense brain that the
battle field was actually eerily silent; his ladz all looking back at him as if trying to decide if the last
order had actually been an ill-conceived joke.
A single, small voice crackled over the warband's frequency. "Uh, Boss," it was Gumz. "Dere's some
really big . . . "
"CHARGE!!!!!!!!!" Grishnak's roaring voice echoed off the sharp walls of the Plateau.
" . . . ok."
From where Grishnak observed the battle he could see the boarboyz sit up in their saddles, swords
waving, bolt pistols rattling off into the air as they shouted taunts and battle cries at the top of their
vast green lungs. The Humie skirmish line, readied to receive the charge, let loose with a massed
volley of lasgun shots, and one boar rider slumped over in his saddle as his enraged steed continued
charging, rushing off into the distance. The rest of the boyz slammed into the remnants of the
skirmish line, which melted beneath the vicious green and tan tidal wave.
"Yeah!!!" Grishnak screamed, firing off more shots from Wolfbighta into the air. "Get'em!!!!"
Over the comm channel the voice of Gumz crackled in Grishnak's ear. "We gottem, Boss! T'ree of
'em down, an' we're gonna git dat Big Gun tank! Yeehah!"
Grishnak screamed again, "Yeah!!!" In a moment, it seemed like the tide of the entire battle had
turned. The huge Warboss stood up straight and tall and gestured towards the Guard line. "OK, Ladz"
he yelled out over the general frequency. "Ever'body, GETT"EEMM!!!!"
Once again the massed firepower of the entire warband lashed out at the hated Imperial foe . . . AND
MISSED AGAIN!!!!!!!
Grishnak stood dumbfounded, Wolfbighta hanging listlessly from one powered claw. The return fire
from those damned accurate heavy weapons teams lashed out once again. First Gog and Gak, the last
two mega armored nobz flew out from their Humie-hunting blind as a lascannon beam and exploding
autocannon shells destroyed the little rock nest. Neither lad moved from where they fell. Then Hindy,
leading his remaining three Gretchin towards the Humie line, clutched at his suddenly algae-spouting
chest, falling to the desert floor and staining the red sand around him a ghastly shade of brown.
As Grishnak's gaping look of disbelief grew wider, the accursed pillar of flame reappeared, this time
on top of the wildly celebrating boarboyz! Crazed from pain and the sounds of battle, two of the
beasts ran off into the shimmering distance, carrying the charred remains of their once-proud riders
with them. Another of the beasts simply fell where he stood, his piggy little heart giving out as his rider
just fell over onto the burning sand. The one remaining boarboy, less than three feet from the
ravening tower of flames, just stared at his fallen comrades, then turned and took off across the
swirling sands wide eyed, his weapons cast from numb claws as the rest of the warband hooted and
hollered derisively.
Grishnak was rocked out of his disbelieving trance by the loud voice of Gumz in his ear. "Boss!
Dere's lots a tanks over 'ere! Dey gots dese big bird-like tings, too, deys gots BIG gunz on . . . " The
sustained, ragged burr sound over the comm net set the big warboss' fangs on edge. Screams of
Snakebite nobz and cyboars rang out over the airwaves, then were ominously silenced.
Grishnak scratched thoughtfully in one ear with Wolfbighta as he pondered this new development.
Hmm, big bird-like things with big guns. It was obvious to the towering Ork that the lamented nob had
been gunned down by one of the accursed Sentinel scout walkers. Grishnak grinned. With this last
little bit of information he could withdraw and easily claim a victory in his own eyes. Didn't he have
the information Nazdreg required of this particular force? Hadn't most of the warband survived? Sure
sounded like a victory to him!
"OK, ladz, pull out!" Grishnak sent the order out over the general frequency. "We'ze out'a 'ere,
boyz!"
All around Grishnak's position he could see Orks making their stealthy way among the tumbled rock
formations of the Plateau, moving quietly away from the suddenly stalled Imperial line. Obviously the
Humies were trying to see if the warband had anything else to throw at them before they continued
their advance. Well, Grishnak intended to be far, far away by the time they made THAT decision.
Grishnak sent Bugeyez crawling out into no-Orks'-land to check on the casualties. He could see Gog
moving weakly by the ruins of the Smasha Gun, and was sure there were other living wounded out
there as well. This row wouldn't be quite as costly as it might have seemed, although Grishnak was
not looking forward to making an account of the material losses to Nazdreg's agents on the orbiting
mini-Hulk. But however it looked, there was more than enough stuff on that Hulk to refit the
Gangstahz and have them hunting down the next enemy force within a standard galactic week.
An evil grin twisted the snaggle-toothed gob of the vicious warboss. Yeah, there would be a next time,
and THEN, let these tricksy Humies watch their pale backsides, 'cause NEXT time, the plan WILL