40 Thousand Reasons

Chapter 42: Ironclad

And losses we did sustain, tens of thousands of servitors and some guardsmen, even with light armor support and void marines lobbing krak grenades into every corridor.

The Orks fought back with passion and disregard for losses, and our salvage expeditions to the Lunar cruisers farther away had to retreat ignominiously, although they did achieve the primary objectives and shut down the reactors.

I redirected the remaining troops and servitors on the Mars cruisers and sent out more light tanks and Sentinels to compensate for the obvious lack of power armor.

Imperium ships were built with huge inner hangars and wide hallways, so this strategy worked somewhat. Flamers and grenades were much more useful in tight spaces, frying thousands of grechins and Ork boyz, and somewhat countering the more armored Nobs and Mekboyz.

The 'Ardboyz were a more difficult target, protected by heavy metal plates and impossible biological resilience, than the normal Shoota Boyz or Slugga Boyz, but fire is a great equalizer.

By the end of the day, the Space Wolves had terminated one Warboss on the ironclad and diverted some Grey Hunters to help clear out the Mars cruisers, while the Terminators transferred on the Exorcist Grand Cruiser, after they reloaded all the spent bolter ammunition.

Immediately, the tides changed, as the Astartes simply plowed through the fierce Ork resistance and cleared the main hallways towards the bridge and the reactor bulkheads.

Sometime during this engagement, the real Warboss died under Astartes Terminators assault, and the Rarguts Waagh simply shattered into a hundred small splinters all around the star system.

Their warp distortions also failed, and many illogical Ork weapons or armors became ineffective or just stopped working.

Thus, we renewed our offensive boarding with 10 times fewer casualties, and rapidly overrun the Mars cruisers.

The assault landers returned to the Lunar cruisers and managed to capture them as well.

After that, it became even easier, and one by one the light cruisers were boarded and disinfected from the fungal infestation, leaving the tech-priests to begin reconsecrating the derelicts and cleanse the corpses.

Of course, that meant my medical bay was again filled with wounded and cripples, giving something to do for the Biologis Magi and my dear doctors/concubines.

Thousands of irradiated and sick serfs from the lower decks were called to be converted into more servitors as a stop-gap, and during this culling the tech-priests detected 9 more Blanks among the indentured crew.

I set them aside as a gift for Ryza, should it be interested in replicating Blank Machine Spirits. I was quite certain they would.

Made me wonder if constant exposure for generations to the Warp had created even more Blanks among the serfs of the Navy, which seemed probable. It could be simply my extraordinary luck, or it could be a general trend among humanity.

Clearing the big ships took more time, as expected. My troops soon ran out of bolter ammunition and had to fallback on lasguns and flamers, while the Astartes had their potent melee weapons and servo-powered strength to keep slashing and chopping.

I provided a hundred STCs produced at Antax to serve as temporary barracks for my organic troops, as well as for sleep and recovery on board the enormous Ork warships.

The tech priests were poking them in confusion, as intended. Containers with the STC designations didn't quite compute in their Mechanicus Cult dogma.

Of course, the grenadiers and void marines were too tired to care, simply glad at having a safe-ish place to eat and sleep.

Nearly a month later, both ships were declared reasonably secure and the Astartes departed for their continued Crusade against the other Ork Waaagh.

I decided to wait and let my troops rest and recover while the tech-priests inventoried and collected anything of value from my prizes.

Sadly, most of the comical looking weaponry that we captured didn't work anymore, possibly because the silly Mekboyz used welding or hammers to fix their devices, powering them with belief and stupidity.

Once the Waagh field dissolved, the weapons became rusted scraps and unstable power cells ready to blow at nearest touch.

However, the dead Painboyz, known also as "Mad Doks" did have real artifacts stapled onto them, some of them relics of Astartes genetors or Librarians, including trauma packs and valuable Life_Extension_Technologies.

One of them was a huge claw with the ability to connect a human mind, or even an Ork, to a Mind Impulse Unit and allow that person to control machinery with their minds, just as a Princeps mentally controls an Imperial Titan. Or so my Antax provided advisor whispered while measuring me for some future upgrade.

Other serums and injections would be valuable as well, after the Biologis Magi checked them ten times for safety and doctrinal integrity.

The other find was a Wierdboy bound tightly by the Orks themselves into a prison cell, eyes exploded but still alive. His neck and chest were covered with phase-iron manacles and chains, possibly to keep the Warp user from exploding the ship or the Ork tribe itself.

He wouldn't be that dangerous right now, and nearly irrelevant to myself. I also decided to keep him as a gift for Ryza, complete with the ton of ultra-rare phase-iron bindings, worth a battlecruiser by itself.

Then I thought again and decided to chop off the Wierdboy's arms and salvage some phase-iron for my own use.

Something like a crossbow bolt tipped with phase-iron couldn't be parried by the next Chaos Sorcerer trying to ruin my wrist.

The adamantium hull of the Ironclad battleship was of enormous value again, and I just realized how lucky our Warp emergence had been. I doubted a vortex missile would have damaged the Ironclad sufficiently, and it would have been impervious to anything else I had.

I managed to steal away a hangar full of adamantium plates from broken bulkheads and doors, since the Astartes haven't been careful or frugal with their firepower. Luckily, I did have Armed Sentinels and logistic Weasels to help me transport and handle the heavy adamantium plates.

A day later, an Ark Mechanicus cruiser arrived from Forge Ryza, with the Fabricator Locum on board.

It was time for gifts and making friends. At his place, not mine.

"Captain Lancefire. We meet at last. Who knew you would employ the Overlord in aid of our Forge World, and so soon?" the Fabricator began with a rhetorical question.

Ludvaius gestured with three fingers at me. Something in Astartes battle speak about being cautions and thinking thrice before speaking.

"Obviously, Forge Ryza did. A sign from Omnissiah, as a gift would be returned thrice if given with a pure heart." I answered gently and followed him inside his armored quarters.

Ludvaius snorted and leaned on the metal wall of the hallway, to await my eventual return or survival.

The Fabricator stared at me for a minute, waiting for the punch line. "I admit I don't understand." he replied with a wave of tentacle.

"There's a Grand Cruiser, a battleship, a few Mars, Lunar and dozens of light cruisers in my gift, Fabricator. I'm sure even the outer shell is worth something, if sold for scrap." I argued humbly and sat in the indicated chair.

The Magos sighed audibly, emitting a wheezing noise like something mechanical wobbled in his chest.

"You're being ridiculous, Lord Pef. That adamantium Ironclad is worth some 3 trillion thrones, even if 'sold for scrap'. And a nearly intact Grand Cruiser is worth at least another Overlord-class cruiser, just like the Canticle." he answered with a flutter of mechadendrites.

Perhaps upset or irritated, maybe both. Cyborg body language is hard to read, because they never seem to have the same numbers of limbs and joints.

I just shrugged. "If you say so. Here, more gifts of another nature." I said flatly and began handing over the plasma-based templates and my failed Volcano-patterns. Surely Ryza will manage to make them work.

I never seen a tech-priest cry til now, but perhaps insurmountable joy was not something their logis-engines were prepared to counter.

So, I patted his orange robe over the shoulder. "There, there. No need to cry Magos. I know the STC templates are a bit damaged, but you have a million genial Magi on Ryza. Perhaps they can be repaired in a few decades." I advised him in a sad voice.

The Archmagos sobbed harder, so perhaps I fucked up worse than I thought.