Dozens of metres beneath Scrapheap City.
An old air-raid bunker left behind from the days of human rule was still functioning.
The heavy blast doors were locked from the inside.
Air circulation equipment hummed at the end of the corridor.
The Imperial Aquila still remained on the wall, though most of its paint had peeled away.
Several thousand human survivors lived inside this bunker.
They had survived until now on stored food, groundwater, synthetic protein slowly growing in cultivation vats, and supplies occasionally gathered by people sent through a fissure leading to the surface.
Ever since Saint Hecate had fallen to the Orks, greenskins had been everywhere above ground.
Fortunately, the Orks had never been united.
The different tribes were constantly fighting each other and had no time to come looking for them.
The air blowing from the ventilation ducts carried a heavy smell of mould and rusted metal.
The door to the underground meeting room stood half-open.
Seven or eight people sat around the conference table.
Viktor Hearn stood at the head of the table, both hands braced against its edge as he looked down at an old map of the city spread across its surface.
The door was pushed open from outside.
A gust of dusty air swept inside.
A scout entered, his clothes covered in dust.
He stopped by the doorway to catch his breath twice, then walked over to the iron table.
Hearn looked up.
“What’s happening on the surface?” The scout removed his mask and hung it at his waist, then cleared his throat.
“The Orks are still fighting each other.” Hearn’s gaze returned to the map.
Someone beside the table visibly relaxed.
An old officer leaned back in his chair and withdrew the arm he had been resting on the tabletop.
“That’s good.” The old officer’s voice had the dry rasp of someone who had been exhausted for far too long.
For these people, that was the best possible news.
They hoped things would stay this way forever—the greenskin tribes in the upper levels of Scrapheap City would keep attacking one another, while they continued living quietly underground.
The scout was still standing there.
He hadn’t left.
Hearn noticed.
He looked up again, his gaze settling on the scout’s face.
“What else?” The scout’s lips moved.
He hesitated for two seconds.
Finally, he said, “But…” “There’s been one group of Orks acting differently lately.” “They’ve been shouting, ‘Long live the Emperor’…” Early the next morning.
The entrance to Gragoth’s camp was already packed with Orks.
A dense crowd of greenskins stretched dozens of metres beyond the camp gate.
They shoved and jostled one another as they tried to squeeze toward the entrance.
The clang of iron armour hadn’t stopped since the first grey-white light of dawn appeared.
Several of them hadn’t slept all night.
Bits of meat from last night’s meal were still stuck between their tusks.
Their eyelids drooped, but their energy hadn’t diminished in the slightest.
One had painted a crooked Imperial Aquila across his chest.
The bird’s head in the middle looked more like a mushroom that had been stepped on.
Several others had even painted XI backward.
The Roman numerals that should have stood upright had been smeared sideways across their pauldrons instead.
When Gragoth walked out from inside the camp and his iron boot had barely crossed the threshold, the noise outside suddenly surged.
Dozens of voices shouted “Primarch!” at once, mixed with the sounds of fists pounding breastplates and weapons striking shields.
A broad-faced Nob forced his way to the front and looked up.
“Primarch!
If I take down ten, does that get me into First Company?” Gragoth looked down at him.
“Kill ten battle-brothers?” “Yeah!” “Then I’ll kick you out first.” The Ork froze.
“Then how’re you choosing?” Gragoth looked around at the greenskins packed outside the camp gate, then spoke.
“You fight for your place in First Company on the battlefield!” The Orks in the front row looked at one another, tusks showing at the corners of their mouths.
Then the crowd instantly erupted.
“Fight for it on da battlefield!” “I like that!” “No standing around showing off.
We just fight!” Gragoth raised a hand.
The noise slowly faded.
“Big Rivet,” Gragoth called.
Big Rivet jogged over from the direction of the workshop, carrying a sheet of metal more than half as tall as he was.
The rough relative positions of Scrapheap City’s various factions had been painted across it in white.
The lines were crooked.
Some areas were marked with circles, others with crosses, while some simply had arrows painted over and crossed out to mean, “Nobody alive here anymore.” Big Rivet stood the sheet upright and leaned it against an empty oil drum nearby.
Gragoth walked over and stopped in front of the metal map.
His gaze swept across the white markings.
Then he raised his axe.
The massive axe came down with the full force of his body, its blade striking directly into an area marked with a circle.
The metal sheet caved inward.
Its edges curled up, and a deep split tore straight through the centre of the marked area.
“Big Smokestack District.” Blackfang squeezed his way to the front of the crowd.
He glanced at the split circle on the metal sheet, then looked toward Gragoth.
“Big Smokestack District?
Blastfurnace’s territory?” “Yeah.” The corner of Blackfang’s mouth curled upward.
He knew who Blastfurnace was.
Big Smokestack District was controlled by one of the most famous Big Meks in all of Scrapheap City.
His name was Blastfurnace.
He wasn’t as massive as Blackfang, but he was heavier than any ordinary Ork because more than half his body was covered in mechanical prosthetics and tools.
His entire right arm from the shoulder down had been replaced with a huge hydraulically powered mechanical arm.
His left leg was an iron prosthetic.
His right eye had been replaced with three stacked mechanical lenses, and he carried a power unit on his back that constantly leaked electricity, spraying arcs whenever he walked.
More importantly, Blastfurnace controlled the largest concentration of Meks in all of Scrapheap City.
His small tribe alone had nearly a hundred Meks.
Gragoth turned around to face the Orks crowded around the open ground.
“Today, I’m taking you lot to fight Blastfurnace.” “WAAAGH!” The crowd erupted into a deafening roar.
Someone raised a gun and fired into the sky, the tracer trailing white smoke into the morning light.
Gragoth raised his hand.
“Don’t start yet.” Several Orks who had been about to keep shouting held the breath in their throats, mouths open but silent.
Everyone quieted down and looked at him.
Gragoth stood in front of the metal map and tapped the split section representing Big Smokestack District with the edge of his axe.
Then he announced the rules for selection.
“First.” He raised one finger.
“I’ll be watching to see who fights da hardest.” “Second.” A second finger rose.
“After we win, da best-performing one hundred get into First Company.” The Orks nodded.
That was easy enough to understand.
If they wanted into First Company, they had to prove they could fight.
Gragoth raised a third finger.
“Third.” His voice suddenly lowered.
“Every Mek in Big Smokestack District stays alive.” The entire crowd went silent.
The Orks all stopped moving at once.
One had been about to raise his gun.
Another had been about to shout another Waaagh.
Someone else had already lifted an iron club over his head and was about to start spinning it around.
The same confusion appeared on every face.
“What?” a Nob called from the middle of the crowd.
Gragoth repeated himself.
“Every Mek in Big Smokestack District who knows how to build guns, build vehicles, or fix machines—you keep all of ’em alive.” The same Ork who had asked whether killing ten would get him into First Company spoke again.
“What if they hit me?” “Hit ’em back, but don’t kill ’em!” Gragoth made himself even clearer, raising his voice so everyone could hear.
“I’m telling you now.
If any of you kills even one Mek—” “You’re disqualified from First Company.” The effect was immediate.
The Orks who had been itching for a fight suddenly went quiet.
So this battle wasn’t one where they could just kill everything they saw.
The difficulty had gone up all at once.
One Ork raised his hand.
“Primarch!
How do I know which ones are Meks?” Gragoth pointed toward Big Rivet standing nearby.
Big Rivet was leaning against the empty oil drum, the hydraulic claw replacing his left arm gleaming in the morning light, with a whole ring of wrenches and screwdrivers hanging from his belt.
“The ones that look kinda like him.” Big Rivet jolted and pointed at his own nose.
“What d’you mean, like me?” “The ones carrying wrenches.
The ones covered in tools.
The ones with lots of mechanical arms.” Big Rivet looked down at himself, then nodded.
That description was extremely accurate.
The Ork who had asked the question stared at Big Rivet for several seconds and muttered, “Wrenches, tools, lots of mechanical arms.” Then he turned back toward the Ork beside him and started discussing it, clearly committing those traits to memory.
Gragoth looked at the green faces below as they processed the rules.
Then he offered another reward.
“Whoever fights da hardest today,” he said, “I’ll make him Company Champion!” “And I’ll give him a suit of power armour with only one fewer exhaust pipe than Blackfang’s!” ————————————————————
It really helps the fic grow!