Chapter 8: Gathering Supplies
Through the god's-eye view of Shared Awareness, Rosen watched Numbers 2 and 3 in an abandoned cargo bay on another deck.
In front of them lay a solid slab of ablative armour plate torn from the chassis of some heavy armoured vehicle.
The dark grey chunk weighed close to six hundred pounds.
Numbers 2 and 3 found the centre of gravity and heaved together.
"Up!"
The instant the armour plate cleared the deck by half a metre, the system registered the action.
[Subordinate Death Warriors triggered joint resource recovery directive.]
[Refined Steel Reserves: +0.45 cubic metres.]
Death Warriors working in combination could lift large metal pieces that a single person couldn't move. The discovery effectively doubled Rosen's Refined Steel acquisition rate on the spot.
He didn't dwell on it. He immediately directed Numbers 2 and 3 to keep sweeping the surrounding compartments.
It wasn't long before the Refined Steel reserves were there.
[Spend: 200 Life Points, 2 cubic metres of Refined Steel.]
[Exchange sequence: Catachan Jungle Fighter x2.]
Two more Catachan soldiers materialised.
"Loyalty!"
"You're Number 4. You're Number 5."
Rosen gave new orders. "Go link up with Numbers 2 and 3. Fan out in formation and push into the outer decks. Collect every usable piece of metal you find. Look for any weapons and ammunition left behind by Imperial forces."
"Yes, sir!"
Rosen looked down and ran a check on their current weapons situation.
The charge indicator on Number 1's M-G short-barrel lasgun was dark. No spare power cells. At this point the thing was less useful than a decent crowbar.
His own Locke-pattern boltgun had two rounds left.
They needed firepower.
Six people going up against greenskins carrying chain axes with nothing but six Catachan Fangs would not survive three compartment sections.
Rosen shifted his attention to the Scrapyard panel.
The mass of minor heretical psychic residue, stripped out during the purification of Ork Life Points, had grown noticeably larger than before.
The grey vapour churned within its containment field. If you looked long enough into the depths of it, you could make out distorted snarling greenskin faces.
[Item: Minor Heretical Psychic Residue (trace concentrated state).]
[Use: Unknown.]
Rosen closed the panel.
"Right, let's move."
He slung the boltgun back across his chest.
They needed ammunition. They needed something with more killing power.
Rosen and Number 1 pushed through a corridor thick with old dust and unidentifiable sticky residue on the walls.
"Pull that cable down. That one. Tie it to the broken gear shaft there."
Rosen gave directions as he went, laying traps as a matter of habit.
On the other decks, Numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 were doing the same, reworking the environment around them with the same instinct.
Suspended weights. Serrated tripwires hidden in shadow. Concealed drops with no bottom visible.
In narrow, poorly lit corridors, these purely mechanical traps were as lethal as a grenade.
Rosen's frown deepened as he moved.
"Something's not right."
He crouched at an intersection and pressed a finger into the thick layer of dust on the deck.
No blood. No shell casings. No scorch marks.
"The 88th Strike Force had seven thousand people. Even if they were all raw recruits who'd never seen combat, a greenskin massacre would leave bodies everywhere and shell casings piled to the ceiling."
But beyond the scattered signs of fighting in the Deck Seventy-Seven wreckage zone where he had woken up, this whole area was as quiet as a dead city.
Where had the Astra Militarum bodies gone?
Where were the lasguns, the heavy bolters, the plasma weapons, and all the ammunition they had been carrying?
He thought back to the greenskins he had encountered.
Most of the Ork Boyz had been wearing their usual cobbled-together scrap armour, but many of them had Astra Militarum identity tags hanging from their belts. Some even carried crudely modified Imperial chainswords.
Rosen issued an order to Number 1, who was closest to their earlier battleground.
"Backtrack the way we came. Use the overhead ventilation ducts or the lower drainage channels to get around the blast shutter if you can. See whether you can find the route the greenskins used when they moved their loot, or find their weapon stockpile directly."
"Understood."
About forty minutes later, Number 1's awareness signal came through.
"Sir, no route around the blast shutter. The terrain in that area collapsed during the chain of explosions earlier. All physical passages are sealed. But..."
Number 1's visual feed shared into Rosen's mind.
He was lying flat on a heavy horizontal beam.
Below him in the corridor, a small greenskin patrol was ambling along. Two full-grown Ork Boyz leading it, with over twenty Gretchin shuffling along behind.
"Delivered right to our door."
Rosen gave the order. "Number 1, pull back slowly. Draw them toward Intersection B-4. Everyone else converge on B-4 immediately. Get ready to ambush."
Ten minutes later.
Intersection B-4.
Number 1 deliberately kicked over an empty metal drum roughly fifty metres ahead of the greenskin patrol.
"Waaagh! Humie sounds! Over there!"
Both Ork Boyz immediately lit up with excitement, waving their cleavers and charging toward the noise with a mob of chattering Gretchin behind them.
They came rushing into Intersection B-4.
Rosen, concealed in the shadow of a load-bearing column, squeezed the trigger.
Bang!
The lead Ork Boy didn't even manage to turn its head. The .75 calibre bolt hit its right temple with exact precision.
The entire upper half of the Ork Boy's skull became a spray of blood and bone fragments in an instant.
[Life Point +7]
The second Ork Boy went into a frenzy.
"Waaagh! You're dead, humie!"
It raised its large-calibre slugga and swung it toward the direction Rosen had fired from.
At the exact same moment it was bringing the gun up, two shadows dropped through the ventilation grille directly above it.
Numbers 2 and 3.
Number 2's Catachan Fang drove hard into the armpit of the Ork Boy's gun arm.
The wide serrated blade sank into the flesh, cutting through the brachial nerve cluster and several primary tendons.
The Ork Boy's right arm lost all strength. The heavy slugga hit the metal deck.
Number 3 landed in the same instant and drove directly into the Ork Boy's chest.
Catachan Fang from low to high, driving hard up through the underside of the Ork Boy's jaw, blade point going straight to the brain.
The blade churned through it completely. The tip came out through the top of the skull.
[Life Point +7]
With both adult Orks dead, the twenty-plus Gretchin behind them fell apart in a panic.
Numbers 1, 4, and 5 came out of the shadows.
Chop, thrust, throat cut. In under thirty seconds, every last Gretchin was down.
From Rosen's first shot to the last Gretchin hitting the deck, less than a minute.
"Clear the field. Move fast."
When they had gone through every corpse, Rosen's frown came back.
"Broke."
Beyond the Life Points that had come in, there was nothing of practical value. The guns the Orks had been carrying were unusable by humans.
Rosen ordered everyone to pull out quickly.