Chapter 14: Convergence with Smartnog

"Belay that cheer, Helmsman! After the third macro-volley, bring us about! Face the enemy head-on! Deploy the prow ram!" Pex bellowed his command.

Shock tactics, the brutal art of the ram, were a favored doctrine shared by Tyranid bio-ships, the Imperial Navy, the forces of Chaos, and Ork Freebooters alike. In the 41st Millennium, where voidships spanned kilometers of cold gothic iron, the vessel itself was the ultimate kinetic weapon. History had proven time and again that a multi-gigaton prow-strike was the swiftest, most definitive method of sending an enemy ship into the abyss.

A sepulchral silence fell over the bridge. Ramming was often a suicide pact; once the charge began, an Ork captain would sooner die than veer off-course. For the mortal crew, the raw courage required to stare down extinction was in short supply.

"I said deploy the ram and face them! Did you lose your hearing?" Pex roared again.

With Jappard absent, there was no one left to check Pex's authority. He was the master of this vessel. Despite the cold knot of terror in their guts, the crew obeyed.

May the Emperor's light guide my path; may my soul return to the Golden Throne, was the silent prayer echoing through the bridge.

Deep within the guts of the Glorious Knight, Darrius felt a cold sweat prickle his green skin. He had realized the ship was locked in a close-quarters duel with an Ork pirate warship, and he knew exactly what that meant.

He knew the greenskin temperament all too well, once the Waaagh! took hold, they'd happily krump their own mothers if they got in the way. To an Ork Warboss, a boarding party was expendable ammunition; the mothership would happily blow itself up just to take the enemy down with it.

If Darrius didn't seize the bridge and gain control of the ship immediately, this Imperial cruiser would become his gilded coffin.

He bypassed the ritualistic dances of Kukka and abandoned the plan to personally hit the engine room. He needed to reach the bridge and assist Smartnog in taking the ship's brain.

Of course, the power room remained vital. Darrius split his force, entrusting half of his Boyz, many of whom had grown into hulking Nobz, to Ironklaw. He ordered them to take the engines, using a pack of Squighounds to scent out the path through the labyrinthine corridors.

Once the split was made, Darrius refused to let his Mekboys stop to loot. Time was a luxury they didn't have.

"Move it, ya gitz! We'z burnin' daylight!" he roared, silencing the grumbling Meks with a heavy fist. To a Mekboy, a hallway full of salvageable Imperial tech was paradise, and Darrius was the angry god dragging them out of it.

The path toward the bridge was a trail of desecration. Smartnog had left a clear wake of shattered Imperial barricades, smoldering wreckage, and Leman Russ tanks with their turrets sheared off like bottle caps. He saw Sentinel walkers torn in half and Chimera APCs crushed into iron pancakes.

Human corpses were rare; the sheer caliber of Orkish weaponry usually reduced a guardsman to a fine red mist long before the body could hit the deck.

Near the primary bridge lift, in a narrow transit corridor, Darrius's mob finally caught up with Smartnog.

"Ya zoggin' lout! I told ya to take da engines! What'z you doin' 'ere?" Smartnog's spittle sprayed across Darrius's face.

The only reason Smartnog hadn't used his massive hydraulic power-claw to leave a permanent mark on Darrius was simple: Darrius was now standing eye-to-eye with the Mek himself. Furthermore, the Boyz behind him looked like a proper veteran bodyguard.

In Ork society, might is right, and an Ork with a big enough fist is always worth listening to.

"I already sent a mob to da engine room. A proppa bunch uv big, flash Boyz. Takin' da engines ain't gonna be a problem," Darrius countered, pointing to the Nobz behind him to prove his words.

"I figured you needed my help more up here, Boss, 'cause right now, things are looking real bad." Perhaps genuinely anxious, Darrius's humie dialect slipped out again.

After explaining the grim situation outside, Darrius tactfully added: "Boss, ya wudn't want to get snuffed out before ya even take dis ship an' become a Big Mek, right?"

Smartnog's roaring maw snapped shut. His red, cybernetic eyes bored into Darrius for thirty agonizing seconds, his primitive brain likely processing a thousand violent thoughts.

"You'z a real sneaky one..." Smartnog's power-claw clicked open and shut, but it didn't descend on Darrius's head. "Fine. We work togeda. We take da bridge. But... dis ship iz mine! Got it?"

"I'll give ya teef an' I'll give ya Boyz," Smartnog continued, bargaining with a bluntness only an Ork could muster. "I'll even build ya a small kroozer layta. If ya want a ship dis big, ya gotta go loot wun yerself, or build wun! Roight?"

Darrius blinked. He hadn't come here to challenge Smartnog for the loot; he had just wanted to survive.

"Dat's me final offer! Ya want da ship, we fight now! Winner takes da bridge!" Smartnog began to crack his knuckles, ready for a scrap.

"Deal, deal! It's yers!" Darrius said quickly. He was struggling to keep up with Smartnog's logic.

He had still viewed himself as a subordinate, but Smartnog, judging by Darrius's sheer physical size, now viewed him as a peer, a rival Boss to be negotiated with rather than a grunt to be bullied.

Is it really just about how tall you are? Darrius marveled. Ork society is weirdly meritocratic.

"Wun more fing," Smartnog grunted, satisfied with the deal. "I told ya, I dunt loike it when gitz talk like 'umies. I dunt like dem Blood Axe gitz. If ya wanna act loike a sneaky 'umie-lover, do it wiv yer own mob layta."

"Understood, Boss. No problem," Darrius assured him.

At that moment, Darrius found the Orks almost... endearing. In a human aristocracy, rising through the ranks required decades of political maneuvering, lineage, and bureaucratic appointments. Here, you just had to grow big enough and punch hard enough, and the world accepted your new station. No "tall poppy" syndrome, no subtle betrayals, just the raw honesty of the fist.

Compared to the convoluted, soul-crushing power struggles of the Imperium, where even a successful hero might be purged by the Inquisition for "knowing too much," the Orks were refreshingly simple.

"'Ere, take dis plate. Ya look loike a scrap-heap," Smartnog grunted, rummaging through a pile of salvaged parts. With the speed of a fevered genius, he began bolting together a suit of mega-armour for Darrius. "If you'z gunna be a Boss, ya gotta look flashy. Ya gotta look... WAAAGH!"