Chapter 17: For the Emperor

In the brutal calculus of close-quarters combat, mass and brawn are the ultimate deciders. Once Smartnog recovered from the initial shock of the ambush, he began to steadily overpower Jappard, despite fighting one-handed.

Yet Jappard fought with the desperation of a man possessed. His tenacity denied the Ork a clean opening, and Smartnog remained wary of the Commissar's power sword, a blade humming with murderous intent. For several frantic exchanges, the duel hung in a bloody stalemate.

Then, a needle-thin beam of white heat hissed through the flickering amber forcefield.

A dying Astra Militarum gunner had crawled to his multi-melta and pulled the trigger with his final breath. The melta-beam punched through Smartnog's power armor, cauterizing a jagged hole straight through his torso.

"Die, monster!" Jappard seized the opening. He leaped high, his power sword descending in a crushing overhead arc. Smartnog jerked his head aside, but the blade sheared through his shoulder and chest, nearly cleaving the Ork in two.

As Jappard landed, he raised his blade for the coup de grâce. Suddenly, crack-crack-crack, three heavy slugga rounds slammed into his chest.

At such close range, the massive caliber was catastrophic to human physiology. Jappard was thrown back like a broken doll. Even as he collapsed, his fingers remained locked around the hilt of his sword, his fading gaze fixed on the mangled Ork, filled with a singular, cold regret that he had failed to strike the final blow.

"For... the Emperor..." he wheezed, his last breath a prayer to the Golden Throne.

"Ten paces away, da gun is fast. Inside ten paces, da gun is dead-on an' fasta!" Darrius emerged from the smoke, his smoking slugga lowered. He had arrived just in time to save the Mek.

Ultimately, Darrius couldn't bring himself to let Smartnog die. Since his "rebirth" into this galaxy, this Ork Boss had upgraded his gear, shared his warband, and even hammered the fundamentals of Orkish "teknology" into his head. Smartnog was a gold mine of Orkish progress, and even a heart as cynical as Darrius's couldn't justify backstabbing a mentor who had been so... earnest.

Darrius had sprinted to the breach the moment the Imperial line broke. He'd arrived by the skin of his teeth; a second later, and Smartnog would have been a trophy for the Ministorum.

The Ork was a ruin. He lay in a widening pool of dark crimson, the furrow from the power sword carving a canyon across his chest.

"Iz dere a Painboy? Get me a Painboy, now!" Darrius roared at the mob behind him.

A moment later, a diminutive Ork squeezed through the crowd. He looked like a Grot's ugly cousin, wearing what might have once been a white coat, now stained a permanent, crusty red. He carried two blood-slicked choppas and looked less like a surgeon and more like a butcher in a bad mood.

"Ya lookin' for me, Boss?" The Painboy squinted up at Darrius with a look of vacant, terrifying innocence.

"Fix Boss Smartnog. If 'e croaks, I'ze gunna pop yer 'ead loike a squig!" Darrius's voice was taking on the true, guttural cadence of a Warboss.

"Roight ya are, Boss! 'E'll be roight az rain!" the Painboy squeaked. He signaled a few Grots, who trundled forward with a rusty trolley.

The cart was laden with rusted circular saws, bone-cleavers, and heavy iron hammers, tools of torture rather than medicine. Such is the way of the Mad Dok. To a human, the "treatment" would be a death sentence, but Orkish physiology is a miracle of biological resilience. Their dual animal-fungal nature means they can survive almost anything; as long as the head is sewn onto a body quickly enough, an Ork will usually get back up to keep fighting.

The Dok went to work with staples and a welding torch. He stitched Smartnog's torso shut, shoving strange, clicking mechanical bits into the gaps to replace ruined organs. He found a severed Ork arm nearby, slightly too small, and bolted it onto Smartnog's stump with steel plates and a row of industrial nails.

Ten minutes later, Smartnog grunted, shook his head, and stood up. He was a "good-as-new" Ork once more.

He raised his newly attached arm, squinting at it. It looked somewhat spindly compared to his massive frame. Smartnog's expression soured.

"Dunt ya worry, Boss," the Painboy interjected, his survival instinct flaring. "It looks a bit dinky now coz you'z so big an' 'uge. Give it a bit of time, an' yer body'll fink it bigga. It'll grow ta match da ovva one, just ya wait!"

"Hmph." Smartnog snorted, turning away.

He walked over to Jappard's corpse. "Ya wuz a tuff humie," he grunted. "A proppa scrappa. I loiked dat fight. It wuz a gud wun."

"Boss," a nearby Boy piped up, scratching his green head. "Wot's dat 'For da Emprah' fing da humies always yell? Who'z dis Emprah git?"

Smartnog stopped, warming to the role of teacher. "Most humies are puny gitz. But dere's some tuff ones, loike dis fella who cut me, an' da one dey call da Emprah."

"Da Emprah is da Big Gold humie. Proppa killy, 'e wuz. 'E beat all da ovva humies into line an' became dere Warboss. But den, 'is best Nob got a bit rowdy an' dunt loike followin' ordas. So da Nob took 'is own Boyz an' 'ad a massive scrap wiv da Big Gold humie."

"In da end, da Nob got krumped. But da Big Gold humie got messed up real bad, too. Now dey got 'im stuck on a weird machine just ta keep 'im from kickin' da bucket."

Smartnog scratched his cheek. "Basically, it'z like a big scrap wiv each ovva, like we 'ave. But humies are too thick an' too complicated. Dere Warboss iz a skeleton-corpse, an' dey'z too stupid to pick a new one. We'z much smarter dan dat."

Listening from the sidelines, Darrius couldn't help but smirk. If a priest of the Ecclesiarchy had heard this Orkish summary of the Horus Heresy, they would have died of a collective brain hemorrhage.

"We Orks iz different," Smartnog declared, his voice rising. "We dunt fight for no corpse! We fight 'cause it's fun! We fight 'cause we'z da biggest an' da strongest!"

In the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium, Darrius realized, the Orks might be the only race truly enjoying themselves.

"Now, move it! I'ze ready ta take me ship!" Smartnog was beaming with green-tinted joy. He didn't even stop to calibrate his gear; it was as if he'd never been on the brink of death.

Darrius considered telling him to rest while he took the bridge, but he caught himself. In the simple, binary logic of the Orks, such an offer might look like an attempt to steal the prize. It would be like trying to take a toy from a toddler.

"Lez go! Ta da bridge! Lez get Big Boss Smartnog 'is new toy! WAAAGH!"

Smartnog's face lit up. Sneaky iz a gud lad, he thought. I loike 'im. Wen we'z done, I'ze gunna bodge 'im da biggest, waaaagh-iest ship in da galaxy!