Lawson nudged the giant power choppa with the toe of his boot.
Too heavy. A human could not use it.
But the power-field generator mounted on it might still be worth studying. He had Number Two stuff the entire blade into the Armory space for purification and storage.
The Nob's heavy armor was stripped down as well and completely absorbed into the adamant steel reserve.
Once the post-battle tally was complete, Lawson made a strategic decision.
From the moment they boarded this hulk until now, they had only been doing two things:
Running, and killing.
They ran to stay alive.
They killed to build resources.
But endless guerrilla fighting was not a long-term solution.
Without a stable rear base, the Deathsworn had no way to get proper rest or maintain their equipment. Newly exchanged Deathsworn also needed time to adapt to the battlefield environment and learn the rhythm of squad coordination.
Fighting like drifters without direction inside a space hulk one hundred and twenty kilometers across was no different from getting lost in the jungles of Catachan. You thought you were advancing, but in reality, you were only circling in place.
He needed an anchor point.
A place that could defend, attack, and accumulate strength.
So if the environment offered no safety, then he would create a relatively safe zone within the unsafe one.
"Find me a site."
Through Shared Awareness, Lawson issued the order to all the Deathsworn.
He laid out the hard requirements for a base location:
First, no more than three entrances.
Second, at least two independent retreat routes.
Third, enough room for at least twenty people to move around and rest.
Fourth, sufficient buffer distance from the greenskins' main activity zones.
The nine Deathsworn split up to search. Through Shared Awareness, Lawson reviewed every candidate location in real time.
An hour and a half later, Number Four found a nearly perfect site on the eastern side of Deck Seventy-Four.
It was a medium-sized shipboard aerospace maintenance bay. Back when this hulk had still been a functioning warship, it had been used to service Thunderhawk assault transports. The bay covered roughly eight hundred square meters, with a ceiling nearly ten meters high. It had three entrances: a four-meter-wide main entrance in front, a standard personnel access door on the left, and a maintenance pipe opening on the right with a radius of less than one meter. In the ceiling there was a two-meter-wide ventilation shaft leading upward to the next deck. In the rear-left section of the floor, a waste-disposal duct connected to the lower level. Two independent retreat routes.
After inspecting it personally, Lawson made the call.
"This is it. Start building the defenses."
The Deathsworn moved immediately.
The main entrance was the priority point for fortification. They built two waist-high metal barricades on either side of the opening and cut firing slits into the tops. Between the barricades, they left a narrow Z-shaped passage. Any charging enemy would be forced to make two turns inside it, reducing their speed to the minimum while exposing themselves completely to crossing fire. Ten meters outside the main entrance, they set grenade traps and tripwire triggers.
The left-side door was reinforced with two thick metal columns jammed across it, and traps were set in front of it as well. The maintenance pipe opening on the right was the narrowest approach of all. Anything larger than a gretchin could not squeeze through, but Lawson still strung up a crude alarm of wire and metal scraps there. The two retreat routes were prepared too.
The entire defensive system took roughly three hours to build.
Then Lawson exchanged more Deathsworn.
[Consumed: 300 Life Points, 3 cubic meters of adamant steel.]
[Exchange Sequence: Catachan Jungle Fighters x3.]
Numbers Ten, Eleven, and Twelve.
Together with Number Six, the lonely fighter still guarding the armory by himself, Lawson now had twelve Deathsworn.
For the next two days, Lawson implemented a three-shift rotation system: one team out hunting, one team on perimeter guard, one team inside the stronghold resting and maintaining equipment. Three fixed patrol-and-hunt routes radiated outward from the base, all coordinated in real time through Shared Awareness at a level no Imperial communications system could possibly match.
The effect was immediate.
While Team Alpha lured greenskins into ambush zones, Team Beta used Shared Awareness to block their escape route from the flank, and Team Gamma harvested the stragglers on the withdrawal paths. They ran this tactical pattern more than a dozen times, and each execution was smoother than the one before.
Over the course of two days, the number of Deathsworn steadily rose to eighteen. The adamant steel reserve climbed past three hundred cubic meters. The Ork meat from the hunts was processed systematically, cut up and roasted with the flamer. Some of it was eaten directly, while some was stored inside the Armory space for preservation. Thanks to the distance-free transfer function, even Number Six back at the armory could eat hot food.
But Lawson had not forgotten one thing.
On the southern hunting line, the one that extended toward the deeper decks, a patrol on the second day brought back a report that put everyone on edge.
At the far end of that southern line, roughly two and a half kilometers from the base, Numbers Three and Nine had discovered an unusual zone.
Through Shared Awareness, Lawson saw what Number Three saw.
The floor, walls, and ceiling of the corridor were all covered in a translucent, sticky substance that looked like spider silk.
Lawson recognized it immediately.
Genestealer nest-webbing.
It was not just a territorial marker. It was also a biological sensor network. Every strand was linked to the psychic awareness web of the patriarch deeper in the nest.
To step into an area covered in nest-webbing was the same as ringing the doorbell on a Genestealer home.
Numbers Three and Nine had already halted at the very edge of it, without taking a single step farther.
Good.
Just as Lawson was about to order an immediate withdrawal through Shared Awareness, a shadow flashed past at the far end of the corridor.
Fast.
So fast that normal human eyesight could only catch a vague purple-gray blur.
A purestrain Genestealer.
Four arms. A massive pair of serrated claws at the ends of the upper limbs. A smooth, earless head, and above the mouth, a retractable ovipositor.
The purestrain appeared at the far end of the corridor for less than half a second, then vanished around the bend.
"All personnel withdraw."
"The end of the southern line is now designated a forbidden zone. Pull all patrol routes back north by five hundred meters."
Numbers Three and Nine withdrew soundlessly, vanishing into the shadows of the passage.
Roughly thirty seconds after they left, the purestrain reappeared at the corner.
It tilted its smooth head, staring at the now-empty corridor. Its two pairs of arms slowly spread and closed again. The ovipositor above its mouth twitched slightly, as though savoring the lingering scent of human presence in the air.
Then it too disappeared.
Back in the base, Lawson shut down the southern-line Shared Awareness feed and drew in a long breath.
A single purestrain's close-combat ability rivaled an Adeptus Astartes in certain respects. And there would never be just one in a nest.
At his current level of strength, touching a Genestealer nest would be pure suicide.
But Lawson's mind had already moved on to a different board entirely.
The Genestealer nest lay deep in the southern reaches of the hulk. The greenskins' main activity zones were in the north and central sections.
There had to be continuous friction and conflict between the two factions.
If he could locate the areas where they were clashing, then sweep in from the side while they were busy tearing into each other, that would become an extremely efficient way of gathering resources.
But he needed more Deathsworn first.
More firepower.
Once the number of Deathsworn passed fifty, then he could start thinking about that move.
Lawson stood atop the highest point of a half-collapsed gantry crane inside the stronghold.
From one man with one knife, to eighteen fully armed Catachan fighters and a fortified base.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
His first piece of territory aboard this space hulk had taken shape.
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