Xenos!
25: Chapter 25 – Then Come On!
Xenos!
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After clearing the enemies blocking his path, Captain Wilson pressed the charge.
More enemies surged from ahead.
Wilson’s wrist snapped once, and the power sword traced two precise arcs through the air.
The heads of several Ork Boys standing in the way flew free, green blood spraying from their neck stumps.
Their bodies hadn’t hit the ground yet.
Wilson was already striding forward, grey power armour catching a cold gleam in the dim corridor.
Behind him, the warriors of the Word Bearers Legion fanned into standard tactical formation.
Boltgun fire cracked out in short, lethal bursts, methodically cutting down the last pockets of resistance.
Wilson was about to order the advance toward the star fortress’s core when a muffled crash rang out from the side, followed by the shriek of twisting metal.
A grey-armoured figure came flying as though struck by a battering ram.
It slammed hard into the corridor wall with a sickening crack of bone, then crumpled softly to the ground.
One of the company’s warriors.
Chest plate visibly caved in, the Power Backpack throwing sparks from a short circuit.
Wilson’s gaze locked instantly onto the source of the attack.
At the far end of the corridor, an immense figure loomed.
It stood nearly twice the height of an ordinary Ork, knotted muscles straining against the heavy, haphazardly welded iron armour covering its frame.
The rough skin was a deep, dark green, covered in scars and thick metal rivets.
One hand hefted a massive war hammer cobbled together from vehicle wreckage and scrap sheeting, its head larger than the torso of a grown man.
The other hand, encased in crude metal gauntlets, was clamped around another Word Bearers warrior.
That warrior’s power armour was cracked open in multiple places, one arm bent at an unnatural angle.
Still struggling.
The visor of the helmet was half shattered, exposing a bloodied jaw and two eyes burning with fury.
“Die…
xenos…” The warrior forced those words through clenched teeth, trying to raise the good arm and fire the bolt pistol.
Gul’dan.
Wilson had pieced that name together from the awed, terrified howls of the other Orks.
Gul’dan let out a low, dull grunt thick with contempt.
The massive jaw lined with tusks split into a grin.
It gave the warrior no chance at all.
The enormous hand clenched tight.
The ceramite shell of the power armour let out a gut-wrenching groan beneath that terrible force, then shattered and buckled like an eggshell.
The crack of breaking bone was clearly audible.
The warrior’s struggling stopped instantly.
“Weak little Shrimp.” Gul’dan sneered and casually hurled the crushed corpse toward Wilson like discarding a piece of rubbish.
The Space Marine’s mangled remains — twisted metal and flesh — hit the floor hard.
A single dull thud.
Wilson stood where he was.
He did not move.
His gaze lifted from the broken body of the fallen comrade and settled on Gul’dan’s ugly face.
The expression beneath the helmet was invisible.
But the temperature of the entire corridor seemed to drop in an instant.
The other Word Bearers warriors ceased fire and closed quickly on their captain, forming a defensive formation, boltguns trained as one on the massive Ork Warboss.
The only sounds left were the faint hum of power armour servo systems and the distant, muffled rumble of explosions.
“I reckon you lot are all weaklings!” Gul’dan bellowed, swinging the great war hammer into the metal wall beside it and leaving a deep crater, trying to crush the sudden silence with sheer force.
“Xenos!
Atone!” Wilson’s roar erupted through the helmet’s vox-amplifier.
In nearly the same instant, the metal deck beneath his feet screamed with friction.
The grey figure became a bolt of lightning and drove straight at Gul’dan.
Gul’dan was equally goaded into fury by that unfaltering charge.
A ground-shaking roar tore from its throat as it met the rush head-on with thundering strides.
Gul’dan’s bulk was nearly three times Wilson’s — a mountain crashing into a mortal man.
Yet in the instant before they met, the pure, ice-cold killing intent radiating from Wilson momentarily overwhelmed the Ork’s raw savagery in sheer force of will.
The power sword hummed to life.
Its pale-blue force field aura tore through the air.
Wilson said nothing.
No battle cry, no taunts.
Every ounce of will was concentrated into the sword in the grip.
Eyes through the lenses locked onto Gul’dan’s every movement, no rage, no frenzy, only an utterly focused, relentless hatred bent on the complete annihilation of its target.
“Little Shrimp!
What are you staring at!” Gul’dan bellowed, the enormous war hammer descending with a wind pressure that could grind anything to dust.
Instinct pricked something uneasy in Gul’dan, the pressure this small opponent gave off far exceeded anything it had torn apart before.
Wilson was silent.
In the instant the hammer was about to land, Wilson side-stepped with a sliding step, the movement too fluid for a warrior in heavy armour.
The hammer grazed the shoulder plate and smashed empty air, blasting a hole in the floor.
But Wilson’s power sword had already swung.
The slashing grew faster and faster.
In Gul’dan’s eyes the cutting blade blurred into a beam of light, pouring forward in an unbroken stream.
Wilson lunged with a hard step, arm becoming a blurred shadow.
The power sword swept out at a speed the eye could barely follow.
Hack.
Slash.
Shear.
Thrust.
Not blind swings, every stroke aimed at a critical point.
Gul’dan’s wrists, the elbow joints, the connection points of the war hammer.
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!
Steel screamed against steel like a sudden downpour, cascading sparks in every direction.
In an instant, dozens of deep gashes opened across Gul’dan’s crude war hammer.
The thick rivets holding the scrap plates in place were sheared through with precision.
A length of sharp-edged steel plate was sliced clean away.
Gul’dan was forced back a step.
It tried to counter.
But Wilson’s sword was too fast, too relentless, a net of death that sealed off every avenue of attack.
Gul’dan could only swing the war hammer in desperate parries, and more often than not fell back on animal instinct, retreating and dodging.
The heavy war hammer it had always relied upon was coming apart at a shocking rate.
Wilson stepped silently forward once more.
The sword arm moved faster still.
A perfect killing machine, the most economical movements, the most efficient angles, driving a formidable enemy step by step into a corner.
Left with no choice, Gul’dan resorted to a dirty trick.
As Wilson pressed relentlessly in, the moment the sword arm rose, Gul’dan drove a clenched fist hard into him.
Wilson had no room to dodge.
The choice was made in an instant: take it on the helmet.
BOOM!
With a dull crack, Wilson was sent flying.
And in that same brutal exchange, the power sword had taken Gul’dan’s left hand completely off.
“Stinking Shrimp!
I’m going to kill you!
I’ll use your skull as a bowl!” Gul’dan shrieked in fury.
“Then come on.
Xenos!” Wilson tore away the helmet, split clean in two, and exposed his face, scored by shards of metal.
➤ Next: The Old Dreadnought Has Arrived — .—— .—— .—— .—— .——