3,923Arrival 1.1
Shoot an Admiral
Ultima Segmentum
Nyx Sector
Moros Sub-Sector
Fay system
Planet Fay III
7.169.289M35
"On this day, the darkest of all heresies came to my world!" Exalted Overlord Boris Byukur, 289M35.
Colonel Daviev Larkine
"Thanks to your monumental incompetence, Admiral, the Orks have landed on our beautiful planet and are desecrating it as we speak. Are you content to be the man who let these foul xenos come unopposed?"
This sentence had been pronounced in a voice one might legitimately qualify as a falsetto, reflected Colonel Daviev Larkine. It really didn't help that the man owning this ridiculous voice would also be considered morbidly obese by anyone having decent standards of weight. Unless his estimation was way off the mark, the repulsing creature sitting on the purple and gold throne was weighting more than two hundred kilograms, none of them of muscle. That the man wore tasteless robes of garish yellow-green completed the traumatising effect for every person present.
Not that anyone would have dared criticise these insults to the common sense. The man concerned was the planetary governor after all.
"With all due respect, Governor," Replied Admiral Telyon Lysyvev of the Fay System Defence Force in a tone which failed to convey the minimum levels of courtesy and respect, "the orks method of transportation was absolutely impossible to intercept with the few warships I have under my command. Their transition back from the Warp was suicidal! You aren't supposed to come that close to a planet unless you want to crash! No pilot high on drugs would have done half the manoeuvres the orks did! It was not my fault!"
Enormous, planet-sized error.
The jowls of Exalted Overlord Boris Byukur, Governor of the Fay System in the name of the Imperium and by the Grace of the Emperor, went a red-purple in less than three seconds. His belly, already greasy and huge, inflated under the sudden pressure. Black eyes narrowed, an expression of pure loathing formed on bulbous features, a frown marked the middle of the Governor's forehead and fists weak from decades of self-indulgence tightened.
"Are you implying it was MY fault, Admiral?" screamed the Exalted Overlord. "Is that what you're implying?"
"No, no, no, Governor! I just wanted to say-"
"The excuses for your incompetence are as worthless as you are, Admiral." A flip of a fat and oily hand waved off the objections of the naval flag officer. To the assembly present, it was painfully and awfully clear Boris Byukur had made up his mind, or what existed as such, about the end of this conversation.
"Shoot him. SHOOT HIM!"
Twenty soldiers garbed in the deep crimson of the Exalted Guard, who until then had stood against the walls in an uncomfortable position of attention, grabbed their lasguns and immediately fired at the highest setting of power their weapons could muster. Twenty beams of light directed at one target. One could have severed a limb or fried the muscles and organs of an unprotected soldier.
With one lone target located in the no man's land between the Governor's purple-gold throne and the Fay Planetary Defence Forces senior officers, the Exalted guardsmen could have missed Admiral Lysyvev, but it would have required them to be awful in their ranged weapon skills, or being very poorly motivated.
Neither was the case in this instance. Three lasers hit the naval officer in the head, ten or twelve in the torso, and the rest in the back or the legs.
Admiral Telyon Lysyvev's body stood immobile for a few seconds like the man's mind refused to acknowledge he was dead, before collapsing on the luxurious purple carpet covering the floor. By the looks of the blood pool expanding around the defunct Admiral, the carpet was going to pass in the losses. Usually las-bolts cauterised the wounds if it was a glancing hit, but shoot a human ten or twenty times, and cauterisation found its limits. And now, there was a lot of blood...
Half a dozen servitors raced in, grabbed the corpse, pushed it in a mortuary bag, and dragged it out with the routine of those long-experienced in such activities. The Governor watched the dark strain left on the carpet with piercing eyes, before barking an order.
"Rear -Admiral Mikasev! You are promoted to the rank of Admiral and have command of the Fay System Defence Force, effective immediately!"
A young black-haired officer in the purple and black of the Fay SDF took a step forwards and saluted. His visage was shining with excitation, the death of his superior in all likelihood far off his thoughts.
"Thank you, Exalted Governor! I will not disappoint you!"
And what a promise that is, thought Colonel Larkine. Sooner or later, everyone disappointed the Exalted Overlord-Governor. That was simply a law of nature.
"See that you don't, Admiral." The threat was not even disguised. The former Rear-Admiral gulped audibly.
"Now that we're done dealing with the cowards and the traitors, let's talk about the xenos! General Syuev?"
"Thank you Exalted Overlord," interjected the fourth highest graded military officer of the Fay Planetary Defence Forces sweetly, a man with greying hair and murky brown eyes. Noted to be a bootlicker of the highest order and having climbed his way to the top by arranging the 'mysterious disappearances' of anyone barring his way.
"As of this moment, the Orks have crashed their Space Hulk nearly one thousand and six hundred kilometres north of our position here in the capital.
They appear to be very heavily armoured and mechanised, with a lot of scrapped Imperial tanks and warbikes. My analysts are certain this is one of the warbands who gave our brothers of the Guard so much trouble in the Petersburg campaign."
Larkine tried to remain calm and confident, but it was hard. If Syuev was correct, and the Colonel saw no reason why he wouldn't be, it was these orks which had trashed his beloved regiment.
The Fay 20th Infantry had lost sixty-five percent of its numbers in fifty hours, and had been sent back home for reconstitution along the Fay 6th Infantry and the Fay 8th Infantry. Exceptional scenario, most regiments never seeing their homeworlds again in their lifetime, but the proximity of the Petersburg and Fay systems had convinced the powers-that-be to do the smart thing for once.
The General could at least have avoided opening the deep wounds again in public, though. The Emperor and the Golden Throne knew the bastard and all his other friends of the Fay III's high command had been delighted to point out his failure again and again at every conference or military exercise. Similar expressions on the faces of the other Colonels faces of the 6th and the 8th showed the Imperial commanders shared his opinion. But with so many hostile PDF officers and administrators in the room, opening their mouth to protest would be counter-productive.
"Under these circumstances, the Planetary Defence infantry may not be up to the task, even if our home regiments will fight twenty times better than the Guard on their home ground!" gloated Syuev, pushing and ignoring the rules of military courtesy altogether.
"Thus we have formed the Fay Exalted Grand Army, a powerful and invincible mobile force which will swiftly crush these brutes! The plains of Tekov being the ideal staging point to exploit our aerial and machine superiority, we will attack there.
Recommendation of the General High Staff is to send the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 11th, 15th, 18th, 19th, 27th, 28th, 29th and 48th regiments in this battle. The three Imperial regiments rebuilding their forces and the 78th and 79th infantry will cover the passes of the Ourazov Mountains to ensure the orks don't escape our trap."
Many colonels and majors in the rear of the officers assembly gasped. Not Larkine, although it was hard. The first seven mentioned formations were all Armoured PDF regiments. To be accurate, they were all of the Armoured regiments currently on Fay III, and in the rest of the system, mustering between eight hundred and nine hundred Leman Russ Battle Tanks. The 11th and the 15th were the best Mechanised Infantry formations, with over three hundred brand new Chimera vehicles. The 18th and the 19th were the best Artillery regiments, or at least the ones having the greatest numbers of Medusas Siege Tanks. The 27th was the sole Drop regiment formed. The 28th and the 29th were the only Aerial Regiments in the PDF's employ.
Only the 48th was understandable, it was the Heavy Infantry regiment in charge of the sector the orks currently infested.
To sum it up, of the 200 PDF regiments existing on the ground of Fay III, the force just recommended took the best equipped soldiers on a mission where the odds of success could not be described as anything but poor. And General Syuev, dripping with self-satisfaction, had not finished speaking.
"I propose Exalted Marshal Ivan Byukur to command this force."
A round of applause automatically burst out, all the military men knowing that was what expected of them.
Colonel Larkine sighed inwardly. It would have been too much to ask for this force to be commanded by someone competent. Ivan Byukur, who now advanced towards Exalted Overlord Boris Byukur, was the Governor's eldest and most favoured son. Astoundingly fat at thirty Terran standard years of age, today Ivan wore a military costume purple and gold, an outfit bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the standard grey-blue Fay uniform.
Daviev had heard of the rumours like every Fay soldier serving in the PDF or the military forces. Exalted Marshal Ivan Byukur, the man accused of seventeen rapes, and whose victims were never seen again under the sun's light after they came to testify. These were the official ones; there must have been dozens more unreported, and he was one of the main reasons why the women of the Fay system served exclusively in the Imperial Guard and Navy, not in the PDF.
Ivan Byukur, the Butcher of Natitia, where he lost his entire Armoured Regiment against Natitian insurgents possessing nothing heavier than lascarbines. In the aftermath, the Nyx Sector Headquarters had to send five more regiments of much larger size to suppress a very minor rebellion, and Colonel Ivan Byukur had been dismissed from the Guard in disgrace, a large bribe ensuring the incompetent would never face in court-martial.
And now his Governor father and the General Staff wanted to give him...fifteen regiments? Close to sixty-eight thousand men, given that the average Fay regiment had something like four thousand and five hundred men under arms. The elite and best trained force of the planet, in the absence of the Fay men fighting somewhere in the stars of the Milky Way. Against the green xenos, a threat way more dangerous than humans. Larkine knew it, they had handed him his ass in the last battle before the other Guard regiments came to his aid.
"Err...has an astropathic call been made to Nyx headquarters?" asked timidly the colonel of the Fay 6th Infantry of the Guard. "I mean," the dishevelled man added precipitately, "this necessitates a change of strategy for the ork campaigns in the sector..."
Exalted Overlord Boris Byukur had nothing to say against this question, though it was obvious the colonel's pretext didn't fool him for a second. After a few moments, the obese Governor draped himself in his horrid clothes and readjusted his position on the throne.
"General?"
"The message will be sent as soon as this meeting is over." promised Syuev.
"Good, good. Now give me the details of this campaign. I want to know everything."
And, to the great chagrin of the advisors, colonels and nobles present, that was what happened. During the next several hours, the Exalted Overlord grilled his subordinates for all information. Colonel Larkine grimaced a lot of times before it was over. A commander-in-chief of a planet interested in helping his men achieve victory would have been a great help, the issue was Boris Byukur was doing nothing of the sort. Under the symbol of the golden aquila, the Governor constantly argued the smallest details his generals gave him, countermanded reasonable orders, ordered changes of millennia-old doctrine, and criticised bitterly the initiatives of the most daring tank regiment masters. To make matters worse, there were no tac-displays, the explanations of problems generating more confusion.
Daviev had been convinced this campaign was going to be a disaster when the 'Exalted Idiot' had been named to command the war effort. When the father of the imbecile in question had finished translating his utter incompetence onto the military field, any possibility of salvaging from this disaster had been kicked out.
Not that there was any opportunity to say it aloud if you valued your life. The Exalted Guards were patrolling along the walls, ready to execute any man, woman, xenos or mutant having the temerity to blemish the honour and the intelligence of the Governor. For the Emperor and with pleasure, of course.
Needless to say, the commanding officer of the Fay 20th Infantry of the Guard was breathing a heavy sigh of relief once the colonels were all authorised to leave and go back to their commands. A quick walk to the communications centre to pass the vox orders down to his second-in-command hundreds of kilometres away, before going to a local bar and finally filling his aching stomach. The headquarters of the 20th near the Ourazov Mountains was over four hundreds kilometres for a bird, more for a land vehicle of the Imperium. Travelling to it was hardly a quick affair, better do it well fed.
Useless to hope for a Valkyrie transport, the Governor General Staff did not have a good opinion of him. A feeling decidedly mutual, of course. His command Chimera and two regular vehicles for escort would have to do.
The outskirts of Great Landing, Fay III's capital and most important city, were fairly calm at this late hour of the evening. It helped the news of the ork invasion was still kept secret. Moreover, one of the first acts taken by the tyrant known as Boris Byukur after he rose to the planetary supreme power six months ago had been to establish a curfew and severe movement restrictions.
The blocky contours of villas and mansions progressively succeeded the few massive buildings the city had, before growing sparser after forty kilometres. Great Landing was the greatest city of Fay III by a large margin, but Larkine knew it was not a major hive of population galactic-wise. Overall, the Fay system was inhabited by less than two billion people, with most of the industry being in orbit or concentrated in the south where the mines were operated. On the northern part of the continent...there was a lot of grass. Mountains, too. A few villages of proud clansmen living there for generations. But overall it was lightly populated, although that may be subject to change with the orks' arrival. A good thing, seeing that it meant civilian casualties were strongly reduced in such an environment.
Knowing the travel was going to take a certain amount of time on the under-developed roads, Colonel Daviev Larkine closed his eyes and tried to find some sleep. With the government of his planet flying from stupidity to sheer idiocy, he was going to need some rest.
A series of small shocks in the Chimera woke him all too soon. The road had become a path blasted by massive amounts of explosives, illuminated by the first rays of the sun of the day. The pleasant green expanses had given way to grey mountains and a stormy sky. The vegetation consisted of small and ugly trees. Colds winds almost cut his breath when he climbed to the top of the transport to have a quick look at the landscape.
A small drink of amasec helped chase the torpor as the small convoy progressed towards Ramev's Pass. By order of the General and the Exalted Overlord, the 20th was supposed defend this gap in the mountains against any ork pointing their green ugly head in this direction.
It was hard to see why. Ramev's Pass was not exactly easy to access. At two thousand metres above the sea level and with only one twisting path going through it, an enemy force was going to be hard-pressed to capture a victory here. Especially as the maps and the surveyors had reported three or four dozen points behind where delaying tactics could be mounted.
More importantly, there were four large passes more accessible to reach Great Landing and the core centres of humanity presence on the planet. No ork worth the name was going to voluntarily walk into zones where the prospects of battle were decreasing. But orders were orders, and the Fay 20th would obey. That the orders were moronic was of no importance. The alternative was to face a firing squad.
Finally, the Chimera reached the 20th's camp. Judging from the looks of things, his troops were busy executing his initial orders, and the work was progressing at a satisfactory pace.
Four concentric long trenches had been dug from the earthen portion of the gap where the ground was not solid rock, giving them a decent mount of protection from any northern attack force. These earthworks would do nothing against flyers, but at least the ground part was taken care of.
The mines, the turrets and the heavy razorwire were installed, they would provide killing grounds for his veteran marksmen. With the orks having a lot of vehicles, the difficulties of the terrain and the elevation would work in the 20th's favour. The xenos were going to have a hell of a fight, the Emperor willing. Larkine debarked from the transport at a slow, careful pace. A platoon was here to welcome him, led by Major Ilvyna Dalten and Commissar Zuhev.
His least favourite people in the entire regiment. Colonel Larkine stopped his groan just in time.
Zuhev had not been the Regimental Commissar on the Petersburg Campaign. But fate and friendly fire had plagued the 20th dramatically on the frontlines, and his predecessor and five of the Company Commissars had not been there to assist until the death of the last ork. Daviev Larkine had not asked his troops why, and no one had bothered him to demand why Commissar Mulguv was missing a good part of the back of his head.
Of course, the General Staff of Nyx, in all its destructive brilliance, had decided to promote Zuhev, former Commissar of the 4th Company. The best thing Larkine could say about the man was that he was an asshole and looked the part, with his tanned skin, dark eye, grey hair and his bionic right eye. The Colonel knew from the looks of his men ninety-nine percent of them were ready to shoot the Commissar at the first chance they would get. Zuhev was one of those Commissars, who after the fighting was over drew a list of soldiers that had not performed to his standards of insane courage and mindless fanaticism. The biggest amount of casualties the 4th Company had taken in the Petersburg Campaign were not caused by the orks, but by firing squads.
Major Ilvyna Dalten was no better. In looks, his second-in-command was stunning; her blonde hair, innocent face, green eyes and muscled body combined to give her an appearance that guaranteed most hot-bloodied Imperium tankmen would not choose to sleep alone in their Leman Russes if she asked. Unfortunately, the Major was only attracted to girls. It would not have been so bad, if she hadn't made the 2nd company of the Fay 20th in her image during her tenure as their captain, and proved beyond doubt she was a heartless and cruel bitch towards men. Before joining the Imperial Guard it was rumoured Lady Dalten, heiress of one of the noblest Fay families, had been well on her way to reach a body count with three digits. Climbing up the ranks in the Guard had not changed that. If the discipline and the performance of the women under her command had been less exemplar, Larkine would have shot her on the spot. But the Major was a competent leader of women, thus her eccentricities were tolerated. For the moment.
"Colonel."
"Major. Commissar."
None of the three were friends, so the pleasantries, salutes and courtesies were reduced to the strict minimum.
"Any signs of enemy presence?"
"Not the tiniest bit of green," replied in a measured tone Major Dalten. "But the last patrol of scouts will only come back in two standard hours. Plenty of time for the situation to change."
"Is it confirmed? The xenos have really landed on Fay?" The simple fact that Commissar Zuhev felt he had to pose the question told mountains of Governor Byukur's effort to keep the invasion under wraps.
"Afraid so."
"Good." The Commissar smirked. "The blades sworn to the Emperor will soon cut and blast the loathsome xenos out of existence, as it should be. The Emperor Protects!"
"The Emperor Protects!" Repeated the Colonel and the Major. Though in the Major's case, it was mumbled and the woman rolled her eyes. Fortunately the Commissar, in all his religious fervour, did not notice what was for him a sacrilege.
"Our numbers?"
"The last wave of recruits arrived when you were at Great Landing, Colonel. Five hundred Whiteshields girls and boys. We now have six out of eight companies at full strength. Only the 4th and 7th companies are a bit behind what the official board recommends. 4350 valid soldiers, thirty men were in permission at Luvev and are on their way back right now and twenty-two in the infirmary. Under combat conditions we have sixteen days worth of ammunition, twenty of spare parts and forty of supplies. There are a lot of rivers and other sources of water nearby, drinking is not a problem."
"Good. The request for more transports and heavier weapons?"
"Denied, Colonel. General Syuev said, and I quote 'the PDF and the Exalted Marshal need these machines!' "
Larkine squashed the urge to take the regimental vox-caster and send insults to Syuev. It would make him feel better for a few seconds, but the consequences would be severe even if the PDF General was not formally in his chain of command.
"Where does that leave us, in machines and materials?" The commander of the Fay 20th inquired in an exasperated tone.
"Including the vehicles you came in Sir, we have now six Chimeras, four Taurox and ten Tauros. We have received two light Sentinels for scouting and reconnaissance efforts, and Captain Tel is amusing himself trying to rebuild the two old Basilisks we have in detached parts."
Major Dalten didn't add that it was not enough transportation for a tenth of the battalion if the battle turned ugly and they had to withdraw. Her superior already understood it.
"Fine. It could be worse. Our orders are to hold the Gap against enemy attack. The Exalted Marshal wants to be the powered sword with his 'Grand Army', and we will be the armour plating where they will be trapped and broken. Any questions?"
"Who are we using to cover the gap once the work is completed?"
"The 1st and the 2nd companies, the 5th and the 6th for the next shift, then the 3rd and the 7th. Forget the 4th and the 8th, they need to train with all the replacements received the last week."
"Agreed-"
"Sir, Sir!" A panicked vox-operator sallied out of the ranks with a lack of composure the Imperium's army did its best to erase from its Whiteshields as soon as it enrolled them. From the looks the Commissar sent him, the young recruit was aware of it, but this awareness did not prevent him from shouting his message with all the power in his young lungs.
"Lieutenant Masev is reporting alarming news on the vox-caster, Sir!"
The Colonel cursed. No doubt the grey eminences of Great Landing had decided, in all their wisdom, to create another genius plan. Fortunately, the vox-casters were not far from where they stood, and a rapid sprint found them near the communication centre in less than half a minute.
Masev, a young brown-haired man who had been promoted to the regimental command of the vox systems, was transpiring heavily in the tent sheltering him and his material. And with reason. From the receivers blared screams of agony. Here and there, shouts of defiance and orders came in a disordered fashion.
"They are too many!"
"Fire! Fire!"
"They got Ivan!"
"Half of our regiment is gone! We need artillery support now!"
"The third is overrun and the nineteenth has been flanked! For the Emperor!"
"Our batteries are gone! Retreat! Retreat!"
"This is the 28th Aerial Regiment of the Fay Planetary Defence Guard. Colonel Merskyn and all officers have fallen on Lance's Fervour. Regiment has been wiped out by the orks. Destroying the communications now. The Emperor protects."
And then there was only silence.
A long silence, which was broken by no one for a full minute. A silence that reigned in the improvised vox-caster station like the judgement of the God-Emperor himself. Trying to assimilate the news, Larkine cleared his throat.
"Lieutenant. How far from our positions were those communications?"
"Less than a hundred kilometres, Colonel. Our vox signal range is not precise in these mountains and-"
"Thank you, Lieutenant. Do your best to refine the results, and contact headquarters to inform them of these events." Masev nodded vigorously, relieved his regiment commander wasn't going to shout at him for the bad news. Another time, in another life, Daviev Larkine might have had done so. But that was before meeting the orks. Before almost dying trampled by these fucking xenos which respected nothing but the biggest of their barbaric tribes.
Colonel Larkine turned around to regard Major Ilvyna Dalten and Commissar Zuhev, whose respective postures had changed from calm to something looking like bloodthirstiness or cold determination.
"There is no other pass in a range of fifty kilometres. I don't need a tactical display to know we are going to be attacked within the next twenty hours."
The orks were coming, that was a given. The orks were going to come for them and do what orks do best. War. Larkine bared his teeth in a smile, showing his depleted white dentition.
"I think we need to remind these xenos there are on a planet of his Holy Majesty. Don't you Major?"
Ilvyna Dalten answered with a predatory leer, making shiver the majority of the Fay men and women.
"Yes, Sir. With your permission, I am going to prepare a welcoming committee for them."
"By all means, do so."
The rest of the morning was just a cavalcade of preparations and last-minute adjustments in positions and weapon deliveries. Paperwork, the greatest bane of the soldier, was thrown out, and the veterans started to sing the bloody songs preserved by the Imperium during thousands of years of battle against the heretics and the xenos.
The time to clean of the weapons and the boots until they shone and the training to march in column was over. For the Fay 20th, the assault was imminent and there was no time to be lost in such frivolities. The Chimeras were put in positions of fire support, the trenches and defensives positions were completed at the fastest pace possible without botching the job. Larkine frowned more than once at seeing such minor works being tested against the greenskins, but necessity was a harsh mistress. With no siege machines and no construction equipment, it was all the Fay Guard would have. All lasguns were recharged to their fullest settings with what little sunlight managed to pierce the grey clouds.
Drums. Loud drums and screams. On the horizon, something huge advanced. Something green. From the top of his command Chimera, Colonel Larkine tried to remain the very picture of confidence and calm. No doubt he utterly failed in that regard.
The only reason they were coming under assault was the assault of Byukur, the grand plan of the Exalted Marshal, was in ruins. Fifteen regiments were dead, providing meat and supplies for the orks. Fifteen regiments, all better equipped than his, and the 20th was not even at full strength.
They needed an Emperor-sized miracle now. Otherwise they were all going to die.
Just as these dark thoughts crossed his mind, the eyes of Colonel Daviev Larkine were suddenly blinded by a massive column of light. There was no warning, no sound. Just an explosion of white, pure blinding light.
There were screams of "the Emperor protects!" and shouts of Larkine's officers pleading their men to remain calm and not shoot in any direction which might provoke a massacre.
Finally, the temporary blindness dissipated, letting everyone contemplate the state of their surroundings...and gasp.
In the middle of the camp, just before the command Chimera where Larkine stood, the grass was burnt in a still smoking circle.
"Throne of Holy Terra..."
In the middle of the circle stood a young woman in peculiar clothes the Colonel honestly could say he had never seen a similar fashion on Fay or the other planets he had visited.
Is she the answer of the Emperor?
The woman, who had a look of someone just coming into adulthood, was tall. She was approximately 1m80. Long black hair flowing freely in the cold wind of the mountains, a rather thin face with what looked like antic ocular devices. She was covered in a light grey cloth, with what looked suspiciously like armour in darker grey plates. A belt of light blue with an insect as emblem completed the uniform. More impressive, she had a light Jump Pack on her back.
And she looked as disoriented as the rest of the regiment.
Commissar Zuhev was the first to react. Drawing his laspistol from his holster, the representative of the Commissariat pointed it right between the eyes of the woman...and let out a scream before letting his weapon fall to the ground. Zuhev's hand, once opened, revealed the black sting of a flea-vampire, an insect with quite a painful sting that preyed on the local livestock.
What in the name of the Emperor?
Larkine cleared his throat, all the while ordering with forced gestures his soldiers to lower their weapons.
"Who are you?" The Fay 20th commanding officer asked the mysterious stranger.
"I am Weaver." The voice was definitely feminine, not xenos, and the hints of tension and confusion were clearly present. Perhaps it was a divine intervention...
"Er...Colonel?"
Larkine raised his eyes at Dalten's intervention, and paled. Down below the valley was full of angry roars, the atrocious noises of engines pushed to their very limits, and the colours black and green. Especially green.
The orks were in position at the bottom of the slope, five hundred metres lower in altitude and a kilometre away, but too close for most of humanity's definition of 'safe'.
"TO ARMS! TO ARMS!"
And then the traditional warcry of the green waves rang out like a malediction in Ramev's Pass, shaking the mountains and ruining the eardrums of those humans who had not covered their ears in time.
"WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Author's note: The orks are here. The adventure and the war can begin. Thanks to Thanathos, this chapter is now properly beta-ed on June 8. Thanks for all the readers supporting this story.
Other interesting links for the Weaver Option:
P a treon: ww w. p a treon Antony444
Alternate History page: www .alternatehistory forum/ threads/ the-weaver-option-a-warhammer-40000-crossover.395904/
TV Tropes: tvtropes pmwiki/ / FanFic/ TheWeaverOption