Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Goldtooth wanted to flee, but he didn't even know where he was supposed to flee to. Right now he was just as panic-stricken as the boyz around him.

"I'm gonna survive no matter what, and grind that boy's bones to dust..." he thought, gnashing his teeth. The latter half of the thought gave him a flicker of grim satisfaction, but the brain capacity of a brutish Ork simply wasn't enough to solve the former half of the problem.

On this battleship that was about to go down, what on earth could he do to stay alive?!

But he was a warlord—his brain did work a touch better than that of an ordinary boy. After his initial panic and disarray, his gaze swiftly locked onto that band of tinned boyz who were evacuating.

Unlike the panic-stricken greenskins, this group of tins had seized their chance to break free of the Orks' encirclement and were now withdrawing while looking out for one another.

Their formation was orderly—they clearly had a definite destination.

It took Goldtooth only a moment's thought to understand: this band of tins obviously had some means of evacuation beyond firing those big iron rods!

Then this was easy.

Ask him to think, and he couldn't come up with any way to escape. But ask him to steal—that was exactly what he was good at!

A murderous glint in his eyes, Goldtooth shoved aside the panicking greenskin boyz around him and strode off in pursuit of Admidel and his group.

He was going to snatch the means of escape right out of these shrimpies' hands!

"The Ork warlord's started chasing us," Deputy Aibo warned.

Truth be told, the veterans of the Second Legion had never imagined things would take such a turn. The greenskins' sudden infighting had handed them the chance to evacuate via the Hunter.

Although the Ork warlord had still come after them, their situation was already far better than before.

"Use items to slow him down," Admidel commanded. "Pick up the pace!"

The Hunters threw out the Flashbombs and sonic bombs they'd held back earlier for fear of harming other allies, but Goldtooth was clearly no ordinary foe to be restrained for long. The delay these items could inflict on him was mere seconds—just barely enough to keep the warlord from catching up to them directly.

The group chased and fled, and soon arrived at the spot where the Hunter had originally crashed into the great hall. They could already see the Hunter's hull plunged deep into the battleship—originally it had been wedged into the battleship. Thanks to the Felynes' efforts, the breach had been widened enough for a small ship like the Hunter to pass in and out.

But to reach the Hunter's entrance, they still had to turn a corner and enter the great hall.

Admidel made a gesture, and the accompanying Felynes caught his meaning, entering the hall first to prepare. Admidel quietly palmed a Flashbomb in his hand.

They rounded the corner and entered the hall, and the relentlessly pursuing Goldtooth followed without hesitation. But once he turned the corner, all that greeted him was an instant of blindness.

And the storm-like onslaught of an Avenger bolt cannon!

The Avenger bolt cannon that hadn't been used earlier now came into its own. Four bolter barrels lashed together spun at high speed, the golden-yellow spent casings nearly burying the lower bodies of the Felynes operating the cannon. In exchange came a hail of bolts that not even the Ork warlord could withstand!

This weapon was originally meant to be mounted on the Imperium's various war machines and gunships, but Lin had temporarily torn it loose and fitted it onto the Hunter, giving this ship—which had no armament at all to begin with—a little self-defense firepower.

Although it was a bolt-type weapon, its caliber and rate of fire made it a bona fide tank-killer in ground-pounding boarding assaults. Before the Ork warlord's arrival, it was with this very weapon that the Felynes had wiped out the Orks who'd drawn near here in scattered numbers. And now, even the Ork warlord might become another soul slain beneath these guns.

The current situation was different from before, when they'd also had to fend off other Orks—now all the firepower was concentrated on the lone Ork warlord. The bolts still couldn't punch through the adamantium armor plate before his chest, but the firepower blanketing his entire body left not a single patch of intact flesh anywhere on him.

No matter how much he'd been modified, in the end he was still a living creature.

Goldtooth began to curse in despair.

"Cursed Priest, cursed shrimpies...!"

The bolt cannon's firepower ceased as its ammunition ran dry, and Goldtooth had been shot nearly into a sieve. In despair he watched as the Felynes and shrimpies simply cast aside their weapons and boarded the Hunter. The Hunter's Kushala Daora engine began to roar; adjusted into reverse, it started providing the ship with the thrust to tear free of the battleship.

His last will to survive drove Goldtooth to stagger to his feet, and he lunged forward suddenly, gripping the edge of the Hunter with one hand.

"I'm Goldtooth, I'm the Ork who's gonna become the big warlord... I absolutely can't die here! Absolutely not!"

But what good was clinging to the edge? Once this ship entered the void of space, he—dangling on the outside—would instantly become a strip of wind-dried cured meat.

He tried to exert himself, but his arm, with barely a scrap of flesh left on it, simply couldn't muster the strength to haul himself one-armed up onto the Hunter. He roared and lifted his head, only to find a green figure standing right before his eyes.

Recognizing who that greenskin was, Goldtooth was overjoyed—in that instant he saw a chance to live on.

"Quick, gear boy! Just pull me up, and I'll make sure ya can become a Big Mek! From now on ya'll be my most capable helper! Anyone who bullies ya, I'll kill 'em for ya!"

But that greenskin boy only looked at Goldtooth coldly. He drew out his wrench and slammed it down hard onto Goldtooth's fingers, the ones clutching the edge.

Goldtooth was instantly seized with panic, and he screamed for his life:

"What the hell d'ya think yer doin'?! Don't forget I spared yer life before! I'm a warlord—ya all gotta obey my orders!"

With his army collapsing like a landslide, a warlord's status held almost no sway over his subordinates—it was little more than empty words now. Add to that the gear boy's own resentment toward Goldtooth, and Goldtooth's words only made the boy pound all the faster.

"No, no, no... I'm yer boss, all ya boyz ought to swear loyalty to me, respect me, worship me! Adore me, yer waaagh boss, and pledge to the death to be Brother Gork's chosen for me, me the Ork leader..."

His fingers slipped loose against their will under the wrench's blows, and his earlier delight was once again shrouded by despair. His final words caught in Goldtooth's throat, and in the instant he plummeted away they turned into his last wail before death.

"I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the Ork warlord!!!"

The once-invincible Ork warlord met his end in the most absurd of fashions.

The last of the power of 'I reckon' dispersed along with the Ork warlord's death, and most of it flowed into the very tech boy who had brought about his end. Although the greenskin boy hadn't sensed this psychic convergence, he felt his mind grow considerably sharper.

"I'm no ordinary gear boy!"

The words sounded like a taunt directed at the dead Ork warlord, and also like he was muttering to himself. He tugged out a rag, upon which was a new totem he'd made in imitation of the red dragon head.

It was a leering red Ork face—in his eyes, this was the symbol of his identity.

"I'm Evil Sun! I'm gonna become the fastest Big Mek of all!"

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