Vmmm!
The Mekboy's hands hammered wildly across the walker's control panel.
Under Lawson's gaze, it began to power up in a way that completely violated the laws of physics.
The conduits linked themselves.
The power core came online.
The two hollow eye-slots in that giant Ork-face armor plate lit up with a glaring red glow.
This was not an Imperial standard startup sequence.
This was Waaagh! energy.
Pure, illogical, brute-force supernatural technology driven by the collective belief of the greenskins.
The Mek only needed to believe it would start.
So it started.
Even though it was now the only greenskin left in the workshop, the concentration of Waaagh! energy in a Mekboy's skull probably equaled that of a hundred ordinary gretchin.
The walker's bird-legged lower frame began stomping heavily across the metal floor.
Mounted on the operator platform, the large-caliber naval autocannon torn from a shipboard anti-air emplacement swung toward Squad Alpha.
"Everyone scatter!"
The order had barely left Lawson's mouth when:
DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA!
The naval autocannon opened fire.
This was not the crooked, pathetic spray of an Ork shoota.
Every shell was the size of a man's fist. The trajectory was still unstable, but in a sealed chamber, ricocheting shells and flying metal fragments were more than enough to kill.
The Deathsworn of Squad Alpha threw themselves into evasive movement, but one shell detonated less than half a meter from Number Seven, and the flying fragments ripped open his right upper arm.
"Number Five!"
Number Five charged to the front with the power shield raised.
The field generator activated, and that pale blue energy barrier appeared in front of the shield once again.
The first shell slammed into the power shield.
BOOM!
Number Five's boots skidded backward more than half a meter. The force field flickered violently under the impact, but it held.
The second shell.
BOOM!!
This time Number Five was driven back a full step. The shield's blue glow dimmed noticeably. The power indicator on the battery pack jumped from green to orange.
The third shell.
BOOM!!!
This time the field failed.
The pale blue energy barrier shattered like glass, dissolving into countless tiny motes of light in the air.
The shell's remaining kinetic force then smashed into the physical shield beneath it, the sixty-centimeter adamant-steel round shield.
A fist-sized dent caved into the center of the shield face. Spiderweb cracks spread out from the impact point.
Number Five was hurled backward by the force, his back slamming hard into the metal support pillar behind him.
The shield tore free from the forearm straps and bounced twice across the floor before breaking into three pieces.
Through Shared Awareness, Lawson checked Number Five's status.
Fractured left forearm.
Three broken ribs.
But nothing fatal.
"Restore!"
Under microscopic forces, Number Five's broken bones rejoined and healed. He rolled up from the ground at once, but the power shield was completely ruined.
The walker's gun barrel was already turning, preparing for a second sweep.
"Squads Gamma and Delta, circle behind the walker. Target is not the walker itself. Target the Mek. The greenskin on the platform. Decapitate."
Lawson leaned out from behind cover, raised the bolt pistol in his right hand, and fired repeatedly at the walker's leg joints.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three bolt rounds struck the right knee joint.
The walker staggered once, but did not fall.
The cannon turned again, this time aiming directly at Lawson.
He dove and rolled behind an overturned workbench.
DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA...
The bench was blown apart. Metal splinters rained across Lawson's back like a storm.
But while the walker's full attention was fixed on the frontal assault by Alpha and Beta, Gamma and Delta had already completed their flanking move.
Numbers Two and Three slipped down silently from the overhead vent ducts and landed directly behind the walker.
The operator platform was only half-open.
Its rear was completely exposed.
The Mekboy had its back to them, all its attention focused on controlling the naval autocannon.
Its six mechanical arms jerked and twitched madly as they adjusted barrel elevation and traverse. Its mouth kept spewing excited cries of "Waaagh!" mixed with technical jargon only a greenskin engineer could understand.
Number Two raised his boltgun and aimed at the feed mechanism.
Boom!
The bolt punched through the thin scrap-metal casing and drilled into the internals of the feed assembly.
One of the shells in mid-feed detonated from the impact.
BOOM!!!
The feed mechanism explosion set off a chain reaction.
The remaining twenty-odd shells in the ammunition box beside it cooked off one after another under the combined effect of heat and shockwave.
A series of deafening detonations tore the entire operator platform apart.
The upper half of the walker was completely obliterated in the sympathetic explosion. The naval autocannon was left as nothing more than half a twisted barrel.
The Mekboy was hurled off the platform by the blast.
It flipped twice in the air and crashed hard onto the floor, its mechanical arms scattering in pieces in every direction.
It was still alive.
The Mekboy struggled to get back up. Burns and shrapnel wounds covered its body, and one leg had been blown into an angle that was no longer anatomically reasonable.
But it still tried to crawl toward the workbench.
There were more weapons and tools there.
Number Three did not give it the chance.
He closed in from behind, seized the Mekboy by the back of its oversized head with his left hand, and yanked it backward.
The Fang of Catachan flashed through the dim light in a cold arc and sliced cleanly across the exposed throat.
Green blood erupted as if someone had opened a valve.
The Mekboy's huge eyes bulged. Its mouth opened and closed twice. That oversized head lolled to one side.
Its last movement before death was to stretch out a green claw toward the walker, now nothing more than a heap of wrecked scrap.
The obsession of a craftsman with his final creation had crossed species and civilization alike.
Then it died.
System prompt:
Native life energy: 30 points. Contains high-density Waaagh! tech factor. Actual Life Points gained after purification: 21.
The Mekboy contributed less in Life Points than the Nob.
Its direct combat ability truly had not been top-tier.
But what it left behind was worth far more than Life Points.
Lawson searched the Mekboy's corpse.
At its waist, inside a tool pouch sewn together from wire and leather, he found a palm-sized device.
Its casing was made from layered metal and some unknown translucent material. Its surface was covered in incomprehensible greenskin glyphs and scrawls.
At the center of the device was a miniature field generator, modified and amplified by the Mekboy in a way that should never have worked.
A portable field generator.
Ork version.
The field generator dissolved into pale blue motes in Lawson's hand and vanished into the Armory space.
The power shield was gone, but this thing might replace it.
No need to rush before the purification result came back.
Lawson began directing the Deathsworn to strip the workshop clean.
The disassembled vehicle engines, the half-finished weapons, the damaged armor plates, and the two remaining walker legs were all absorbed. Within half an hour, every usable piece of metal in the workshop had been cleared out.
[Adamant Steel Reserve: +89.7 cubic meters]
Total reserves passed four hundred.
Just as the cleanup was about to finish, Number Four sent a signal through Shared Awareness from the deepest corner of the workshop.
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