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  Iron Inferno

  C. L. Werner

  The sky was a livid bruise of ochre and mauve, what little daylight filtering through the murk turned a sickly yellow by the thick layers of dust polluting the atmosphere. Izanagi was a wounded world, maimed and mutilated by an assault from the stars. The shrieking winds that churned the dust clouds were like the pained wail of the planet, crying out in agony to an uncaring universe and an impotent Imperium.

  Lord General Ro Nagashima wiped the grit of dust from his goggles and glared at the murky sky. The Prefect-Governor of Izanagi had assured him the astropaths had sent a psychic alarm into the aethyr. It was small consolation. Even if the psionic cry was heard, even if a relief fleet was mobilised, the vagaries of travel through the interstellar warp meant it could be years before help arrived. By that time, Izanagi might be far worse than wounded.

  General Nagashima sighed into the rebreather mask that straddled his face, his breath echoing back into the comm-filters of his helmet as a harsh metallic wheeze. His gloved fingers brushed against the row of campaign medals sewn into the breast of his tunic. The tactile feel of old glories brought a bitter smile to his face. Annihilating the pirates of the Oni Cluster, bringing to heel the serf uprising on Tetso, defeating the renegade House Carcalla and their mercenaries, all of these had been wars he had fought in the further reaches of the Yamato System. There had been honour and grandeur in those battles. They had been a furnace that had forged him from a fragile man of flesh and fear into a warrior of steel and valour.

  The general looked again at the ugly, dust-choked sky. This war was different. This was not some backwards corner of the system, some scraggly planetoid overrun by rebels or some pirate-infested asteroid. This was Izanagi, the jewel of the Yamato System. This was his planet. This was his home.

  It had started without warning, a chunk of space rock vomited from the warp, hurtling directly towards Izanagi. Terror had gripped the world, every calculation of the observators of the Divisio Astrologicus came to the same result: Izanagi was doomed. The impact of such an immense meteor would kill the world and everything on it. There was no time to evacuate, only to kneel before the God-Emperor and make peace with Him before the end.

  The impact of the immense meteor was felt across the planet, sending earth tremors that resonated across each continent. A great plume of dust billowed into the atmosphere, wrapping Izanagi in a mantle of darkness. Yet, it seemed, the Emperor had answered the prayers of His subjects. Impossibly, the immense space rock had reduced its velocity as it entered the gravity pull of Izanagi. True, it had struck with enough force to gouge a hundred-metre-deep crater in the lush forests of Kazi Basin, but even such a devastating impact was far from the planet-killing blow predicted by the arcane science of the tech-priests.

  Even as the people of Izanagi celebrated their deliverance, the real danger began to make itself known. The thick layers of dust swirling in the atmosphere blinded the satellite surveillance systems of the prefecture and the agri-combines. Aircraft found it impossible to operate in the choking, gritty clouds, dust quickly clogging intakes and exhausts and reducing visibility to a few metres. Only by travelling directly overland was it possible for expeditions to reach the crater and investigate the strange space rock, a difficult journey of some hundreds of kilometres from the nearest settlements.

  At first, the silence of the expeditions was blamed on the interference of the atmospheric dust on vox traffic. Then small settlements began to fall silent. Within a week of the meteor’s impact, a chilling hypothesis was proposed by the observators. The meteor had not crashed into Izanagi. It had landed, been directed at their world by some manner of intelligence. Worse, the tech-priests of the Divisio Biologis were certain they knew what creatures had piloted the meteor into Izanagi. They called the object a rok and said that from its innards it had infected their world with the most persistent xenos threat in the universe.

  General Nagashima shuddered as he thought about that moment when he had stood in a terracrete bunker and watched as the tech-priests dissected one of the specimens collected by their skitarii scouts from the Silent Zone. He had seen pict-casts of the aliens before, read of them in histories, but nothing prepared him for the shock of that moment.

  Ro Nagashima staring into the dead eyes of an ork.

  To call it man-like would have been sardonic and insulting to the grace of human physiology. It was a squat, four-limbed beast, its limbs swollen with grotesque masses of muscle, its ugly skull jutting out from its broad shoulders on the merest stump of a neck. Its skin was like old leather, green where it had not been blackened by the plasma guns of the skitarii. Huge fangs jutted from its lantern-jaw, beady red eyes glared from either side of its ape-like nose. There didn’t seem to be room for a spoonful of brains in its thick, sloped skull, yet the ork had been carrying a bulky, ramshackle weapon that had the tech-priests scratching their shaven pates in confusion and muttering cantrips against the heresies of xenos technology.

  This, then, was the enemy.

  With orbital and aerial observation impossible, the human defenders of Izanagi could only monitor the advance of the orks by the expansion of the Silent Zone. When settlements went quiet, they knew that the aliens were on the move.

  General Nagashima clenched his fist as he remembered those long, frustrating weeks, watching the steady advance of the orks on his maps like a surgeon watching the spread of some malignant disease. Eventually, the officers of Izanagi’s Planetary Defence Forces detected a pattern to the alien attacks. Knowing where the orks had been, they felt safe predicting where they would go. Studying his maps, Nagashima decided where they would cut out the disease threatening his world.

  The general rubbed the fog of dust from his goggles and stared at the wind-swept hills all around him. The crop of boden-fruit was lost, the dead vines shivering in the breeze, but they would still serve Nagashima’s plans. The boden-fruit required a careful mix of altitude and shade in which to flourish, and this had led to their cultivation on small, man-made hills. Vast plantations dedicated to the raising of boden-fruit peppered Izanagi, creating artificial landscapes of maze-like valleys.

  This was where the ork rampage would end.

  Nagashima was using those valleys now, hiding his PDF troops behind the hills. A paved service road cut through the hills, used by the serfs to gather the crops. It formed a direct route to Ko, one of Izanagi’s hive-cities and the nearest processing plant for boden-fruit. The general smiled as he gazed down at the tempting stretch of road. Built wide and rugged to accommodate the hulks of the harvest machines, the road was ready-made for movements of armour. Along its length for a distance of seventy kilometres, his engineers had set their minefields. At the mouth of the road, where it entered the valleys from the plain beyond, Nagashima had buried hundreds of aerial bombs, each of which could be detonated remotely when the ork column drove over them. The aliens would be caught between the buried bombs and the mines. It was then he would give the order for his troops to emerge from concealment in the hills and cut down the orks from either side.

  He could almost find it in himself to pity the stupid brutes.

  The general turned and stared out across the plain. Every trap needed bait, and Nagashima had provided the orks with a very good reason to cling to the apparently safe hills and valleys when they made their advance. Dominating the plain was a low mesa. He could see the imposing structure sprawled about its summit, the plasteel and ferrocrete immensity of the maintenance complex for the boden-fruit harvesters. It was an awesome structure, rising several hundred metres over the plai
n, dwarfing even the mesa it stood upon. Around this formidable complex, Nagashima’s troops had dug a vast system of trenchworks, erected a jungle of chain-wire, constructed a nest of minefields and tank-traps. Behind these, a system of bunkers burrowed into the base of the mesa. Immense gun emplacements jutted from platforms in the sides and on the roof of the complex. Howitzers and siege mortars gaped from caves gouged into the face of the mesa, their steel mouths waiting to explode with fire and death.

  General Nagashima could imagine the effect the mesa would have on the orks. Even their brute brains would recognise the horrible firepower arrayed against them. They would seek to bypass the fortifications and circle around it under cover of the hills.

  The orks would not know that the entire complex was an illusion. Less than five per cent of the guns were real, just enough to give the impression of full batteries when they fired. The rest of the artillery was simply stretches of pipe welded together and painted to resemble the muzzles of cannon. Most of the bunkers were simply tarps riveted into the walls of the mesa. The minefields around the complex were really only a few metres deep, the chain-wire only active and lethal for a small stretch before giving way to normal stretches of chain strung between iron posts. Many of the tank-traps were simply wooden beams nailed together and painted to look like metal.

  A token force manned the perimeter of the fortification, there to give the illusion that they were the vanguard of an entire army. If the orks sent scouts to investigate the defences, the custodian force was to punish them relentlessly, each platoon tasked to give the impression of a company, each company that of a battalion. At the same time, any scouts who entered the hills would find no trace of human occupation.

  General Nagashima smiled beneath the mask of his rebreather.

  Yes, he almost felt sorry for the filthy xenos scum.

  The brown skies of Izanagi smouldered into complete blackness with the onset of night. Neither moon nor star could penetrate the dust-filled murk of the atmosphere.

  Kaptain Grimruk Badtoof pressed the magnoculars against his face, the human-built instrument looking like a tiny toy in the ork’s immense hand. Grimruk scrunched his scarred face into a scowl and squinted through one of the lenses of the magnoculars. A thick finger pawed awkwardly at the modulator controls set into the side of the instrument. Guttural snarls rumbled through the ork’s fanged mouth as he thumbed past the setting he wanted. It was with difficulty that he resisted the urge to dash the magnoculars to the ground and stomp them beneath his steel-shod boots.

  Finally, the ork kaptain found the setting he wanted. The black world around him leapt into vibrant hues of green as the night-vision mechanisms became active. Grimruk always thought it was an appropriate thing, the way the human device made things green. It was almost as if the humans who made them had understood that the night belonged to the orks.

  A low, bestial grunt trespassed into Grimruk’s thoughts, asking him what he saw.

  Grimruk didn’t look to see which of his warriors had asked the question. With his free hand he simply struck out and swatted the speaker. There was a satisfying crunch of gristle and a truculent yelp of pain. The question wasn’t repeated. He’d given his mob strict orders to keep their gobs shut. The last thing he needed was for one of them getting gabby and giving the humans warning.

  Grimruk stared through the magnoculars, passing them across the bristling defences of the human position. He studied the lines of wire, the fortified bunkers and complex trench works. The ork grunted in appreciation as he passed his gaze over the artillery pieces poking out from the structure on top of the mesa. Those were some big guns, the kind of thing the mekboyz could really put to good use.

  The ork’s leathery features twisted in a brutish smile as he watched the figures of sentries moving through the wire. Grimruk paid careful attention to where they stepped, what they touched and what they didn’t. When he wanted to, the ork could remember things with photographic detail. It was one of the benefits of having half his skull replaced by a painboy’s experiment.

  The kaptain watched the soldiers make their way back into the trenches, then followed them until they disappeared into one of the bunkers. With a satisfied grunt, Grimruk lowered the magnoculars, shoving them into the scrawny arms of Wizgrot. The thin, emaciated creature was much smaller than the hulking ork, though it shared the same leathery green hide. Where the ork’s bulk was suggestive of awesome brute strength, that of Wizgrot was lean and sneaky.

  The gretchin orderly took Grimruk’s magnoculars and replaced them into the steel case he carried. Grimruk scowled at Wizgrot. Shivering, the gretchin sketched a salute and snapped his heels together. Grimruk cuffed him anyway, sending the orderly’s spiked helm rolling through the dust. Wizgrot scrambled after the helmet, bringing barks of harsh laughter from the orks watching him.

  Grimruk rounded on his troops, glaring at them with his good eye. The other, lost along with the better part of his skull, had been replaced by a crude electrical device, a scanner light that simply bounced from side to side in the pit of his empty eye socket. The rest of the ork’s face on that side of his head was simply a mass of rusty steel plates bolted to his skull. Grimruk scratched at the line of scar tissue that marked the join between flesh and metal.

  He reached a decision, one that brought a smile of sadistic amusement across his face. Grimruk settled his attention on Gobsnot, one of his lieutenants. Gobsnot was just stupid enough to make a good diversion. The ork kaptain grabbed hold of his underling’s tunic, dragging him close so he could grumble new orders into the nob’s ear.

  Gobsnot turned away from Grimruk. Growling at the mob milling around listening to the exchange, he called out a few comrades. When the detail was mustered, the orks loped off into the darkness in the direction Grimruk had pointed.

  Grimruk watched them vanish into the gloom, a cunning light in his eye. He reached to his belt and pulled a tattered mass of fabric and leather from where it had been tucked beneath it. His clumsy hands tugged and teased the worn, tortured material into a crude approximation of shape. Straightening himself to his full height of two and a half metres, the ork kaptain scrunched the battered hat onto his misshapen head. It was ludicrously small, barely covering the top of the brute’s scalp. It wasn’t the fit that concerned Grimruk, however. It was the message behind the hat. He’d torn it from the body of a boss human in the ruins of Vervunhive, one of the black-clad officers who kept their soldiers in line by shooting the ones that tried to weasel out of a fight. Grimruk smiled as he saw that his own troops understood that same message.

  The kaptain studied his warriors, watching the eagerness building up inside them. He needed to squelch that right away. His hand closed about the heft of the immense chainaxe he carried. He thumbed the activation stud, grinning as the steel teeth of the weapon shuddered into life, whirring like lightning as they screeched along the edge of the axe.

  Grimruk turned, his long coat whipping about him in the biting Izanagian wind. He didn’t look back to see if his troops were following him. They were the best kommandos in the clan, the hardest fighters the Blood Axes could provide. They weren’t afraid of anything. They’d follow him into Gork’s mouth if he told them to.

  Besides, if any of them did try to run out on him, they knew he wouldn’t stop looking for them. He had a long memory for a kaptain. It was another side effect of having half his skull replaced by a painboy.

  They made good time even when they did reach the wire. Grimruk placed the credit for that on his foresight. He’d kitted his troops with red boots before setting out on their scouting mission. Even the lowest grot knew red ones were faster than others.

  The massive ork kaptain crouched down beside the barbed fencing, his eye watching the terrain around him. He could just faintly see the flickering lights of the bunkers, sometimes the dim gleam of a soldier’s lho-stick as he drew smoke into his lungs to fend off the cold of night. The sight gave Grimruk an idea. He snapped his fingers at Wizgrot. The we
edy gretchin fumbled about among his many packs and belts until he found what his boss wanted. Grimruk stuffed the thick cigar into the corner of his fanged maw, clamping down on it with his heavy teeth.

  Another snap of his fingers and Wizgrot was straining on tiptoe to light the ugly smelling rolls of dried squig-sinew. Grimruk drew a lungful of the filth into his chest and grunted. Now if any of the sentries did spot movement in the wire, they would see the gleam of his cigar and think it was just one of their patrols coming back. The size discrepancy between ork and human was a minor detail the kaptain chose to dismiss.

  Besides, Grimruk considered as he took another drag, pretty soon the soldiers would have other things on their minds. The kaptain stared out at the darkness, wondering how far Gobsnot and his boyz had gone. They should be just about into the wire by now. Watching the way the human patrols had avoided that stretch of the perimeter, Grimruk was pretty certain there was something nasty waiting there for Gobsnot.

  The deafening boom of explosives thundered through the night. Grimruk’s grin broadened. It seemed Gobsnot’s boyz had found some mines.

  Instantly the trenchworks ahead of the orks burst into activity. Soldiers scrambled along the line, racing to positions closest to the disturbed minefield. The darkness evaporated as heavy floodlamps sparked into life, as the sizzling beams of lasguns slashed through the gloom. The barking chatter of a heavy bolter snarled into action while the dull crump of mortars and light artillery pounded the earth. More mines exploded as Gobsnot’s embattled kommandos tried to retreat from the withering fire trained upon them.

  Grimruk roared, slashing his chainaxe through the wire. Alarms wailed as the strands of barbed wire snapped beneath the chewing teeth of the axe. The kaptain just grunted in amusement. The humans had already deployed themselves to deal with Gobsnot’s mob. It would take them time to train their guns in his direction. Time the soldiers didn’t have.