Chapter 42: The First Wave

"Ah? Da humies are 'ere?"

Darrius was down in the deep dark, driving the Big Digga through the subterranean rock, when one of his Grotz scurried up with the news.

The Big Digga had been properly kitted out since the early days. Not only did it grind through stone faster and meaner than before, but it had a custom network of pipes welded across its hull. These pipes sprayed a thick mist of mushroom spores over everything it churned up, seeding the tunnels as it went. It was a proppa greenskin planting machine.

Because the Big Digga made such a beautiful, deafening thrum-thrum-thrum, it had quickly become a favourite among the Boyz. Darrius had built two more just to keep up with demand, and whenever he had some spare time, he'd climb into the cockpit himself, treating the subterranean drift like a race track just to wind down.

He'd only just started his joyride today, feeling the chassis shake beneath his boots and listening to the sweet, concussive crackle of crushed granite, when this sudden news ruined his rhythm.

"Take me up ta take a gander! How many uv 'em are dere, an' wot are dey packin'?" Darrius grinned, his big tusks jutting out. "If dey're lookin' fer a scrap, dat's bleedin' fantastic!"

Perhaps he had been an Ork for too long. Not only was his accent getting entirely unstable, but his tolerance for peace was wearing thin. He wanted a fight.

Oronia IV was nothing but sand. There were no natural enemies here, let alone native life. The Boyz had been keeping themselves busy by staging massive faction brawls just to burn off their energy, but for a five-metre-tall Warboss like Darrius, it was impossible to find an opponent who could actually take a punch.

Above ground, Oronia IV was a landscape defined by jagged rock and howling gales. As a particularly vicious dust storm tore across the waste, a few pairs of tiny, glowing red eyes poked out from the lip of a jagged ravine.

It was Darrius, accompanied by a few of his craftier, sneaky Kommandos. They had used the blinding sandstorm as cover to creep right up to the ridge line.

Looking out across the desert flats, one could see a thriving patch of squig-and-fungus fields, a rare splash of vibrant green carved into the face of a dead world.

Suddenly, a dozen merciless tongues of fire erupted across the plain, slowly devouring the harvest. Hundreds of human troopers clad in hazard suits and carrying heavy flamer units were systematically torching the fields.

Every now and then, a Grot, an Ork, or a Snotling who had been napping in the deep spores would catch fire and come charging out like a screaming, blazing comet, shrieking in absolute agony as the promethium cooked them alive.

Crack! Crack!

A few precise shots from lasguns rang out, dropping the flaming shapes mid-stride. The bodies fell, going still as the flames consumed them alongside the fields, turning both greenskin and fungus into drifting black ash.

Behind the line of incinerator troops sat several massive, brick-shaped bulk landers. Even more infantry and armored columns were rumbling down the heavy ramps. Some units immediately joined the defoliation efforts, while others began laying down sandbags, digging trenches, and assembling prefabricated bastion structures. They were digging in for the long haul, intent on establishing a permanent, fortified foothold.

Darrius tilted his massive head back. His gaze pierced right through the thin, hazy atmosphere of Oronia IV, catching the glinting, dagger-like silhouettes of Imperial warships looming in low orbit.

It was a tactically sound drop zone. The terrain was open, allowing them to systematically destroy the greenskins' surface ecology while providing a smooth landing strip for their heavy logistics. Better yet, the fleet in the void provided a perfect umbrella, ready to rain down orbital bombardments at a moment's notice.

It looked like a tough nut to crack. But that was only on the surface.

Darrius pulled his head back down into the trench. The Kommandos beside him squatted low, their red eyes fixed entirely on their Warboss, burning with an unholy excitement.

Orks were bred for the meat grinder. In the immortal words of Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka: We'ze born ta fight, an' we'ze born ta win!

Surrounding the fledgling human base wasn't just Darrius and his small scouting party. A massive, suffocating ring of the green tide had already encircled the entire perimeter, and more Boyz were constantly tunneling up from the deep dark below.

The underworld of this planet was where the real greenskin strength lay. What the humans were burning on the surface was nothing compared to the sprawling, subterranean empires thriving underneath.

The news of the humies landing had spread like wildfire. Every single Ork and Grot on the planet knew about it within minutes. After kicking their heels on Oronia IV for five long months without a proper war to wage, the entire population was reaching a fever pitch.

Looking at the glowing red eyes of the few Boyz beside him, Darrius could practically see the reflection of the tens of thousands of greenskins waiting right behind them, eyes desperate for conflict, desperate for madness, desperate for blood.

Every single Boy was waiting for Darrius to give the word. Waiting for the signal to launch a proper, world-shaking Waaagh!

"Rambo..." Darrius rumbled.

The Kommando Nob called by name slid his heavy, soot-stained goggles down over his eyes.

"Awaitin' yer ordas, Boss."

Kommandos were the oddities of the greenskin race. They were cold, calculating, and possessed a bizarre, un-Orky reverence for discipline and chain of command.

True to his name, Rambo was a specialist in asymmetric warfare. Such greenskins were rare across the galaxy, appearing in significant numbers only within the Blood Axes clan. It made sense; the Blood Axes were eccentric by nature, known to wear salvaged military coats, heavy combat boots, and even polish them until they shone.

"Tell Kukka ta get word down to da standard Bosses. Let da furst wave uv Boyz launch dere attack in 'alf an hour. But ya lot 'ave got a different job. I want ya ta bag a few tongues—proppa, intak humie tongues. I need intelligence on wot da 'umiez are plannin'."

In truth, Darrius wanted to hold back. He wanted to wait, or perhaps lure the enemy deeper into the valleys, letting the Imperial forces deploy more troops before devouring the entire army in one massive, decisive swoop.

But he knew the Boyz beneath him had been holding it in for too long. If he didn't give them a Waaagh! now, they'd start tearing each other to pieces.

The warlike nature of the Orks was an unstoppable force. Even the iron-fisted discipline of the Blood Axes could barely keep a mob from charging when the blood called, let alone a loose coalition like his.

Snap!

Rambo and the Kommandos behind him snapped their boots together, delivering a flawless, textbook military salute to Darrius, their hands positioning themselves with mechanical precision.

"Mission accepted, Boss."

With that, Rambo and his infiltration squad dissolved back into the shadows of the tunnel network.

The name 'Rambo' was a gift from Darrius when this particular Kommando Nob sprouted from the mushroom patches. Spoken with a flawless English accent, the name carried all of Darrius's pleasant surprise and high expectations for his sneaky vanguard.

Once the order was given, Kukka had his Weirdboyz psychically blast the command down to every greenskin Boss in the sector. The Nobz assigned to the first wave immediately began flaunting their muscles and revving their Choppas in front of the later waves, boasting loudly that they'd flatten the humies before anyone else could even get a swing in.

The entire preparation for the assault was seamless, executed with an astonishing level of order and coordination.

'Order' and 'coordination' were concepts the Imperium rarely associated with the greenskin race, but that was an ancient, fatal misunderstanding, much like how high-ranking Imperial commanders often dismissed Orks as mere savages swinging stone axes.

The greenskins were a highly advanced bio-engineered weapon. As their population swelled and their culture matured, they became increasingly organized, hierarchical, and efficient.

During the legendary War of the Beast, the Orks had forged an empire that spanned the stars, presenting a threat so catastrophic that they had brought the Imperium to its knees, their Attack Moons hanging directly over Holy Terra itself.

An empire of that scale was impossible without an incredibly powerful, stable command structure.

As the final seconds of Darrius's countdown ticked away, the earth around the Imperial base seemed to rupture.

Countless Orks erupted from the dirt, pouring out of ravines, hidden trenches, and subterranean tunnels. From every point of the compass, a choking green noose tightened around the human perimeter. The emerald tide rushed forward, looking entirely capable of swallowing the black speck of the Imperial outpost in a single, brutal gulp.

To look upon that charging mass, one could easily believe the boasts of the first-wave Nobs: this single charge would be more than enough to completely krump the humies into the dust.