Chapter 299: The Warboss Enters (Part 2)
Kian was hit by an absolute wall of fire in an instant — and that rotary shoota the Warboss was packing was the worst of it. Insane rate of fire, massive bore, and every single round was Grade 7.
Those Grade 7 rounds slammed into the invisible psychic barrier in front of his chest, bled off most of their velocity, and hit with the force of Grade 5 bolts by the time they reached him. They detonated against his ceramic-steel plate in cascading showers of sparks, fragmenting into metal shrapnel.
The kinetic energy behind a rotary shoota was no joke. Every round that punched through his barrier cost him — he could feel the psychic drain mounting with each impact.
And with that thing's rate of fire, the drain just kept stacking. His head was getting heavier by the second.
He couldn't afford to stall. He raised both arms and opened up with everything he had.
Twin heavy-barrel lasrifles firing at maximum output. Bolt carbine hammering in rapid semi-auto, fast enough to pass for full-auto.
For one moment, Kian unleashed the most terrifying firepower he could produce.
Lasbolts and bolt rounds hammered into the Warboss in a blizzard of fire and light —
And didn't do nearly enough.
The Warboss's armour was absurdly thick. Front plate had to be comparable to a Leman Russ's glacis. The lasrifles left scorch marks. The bolt rounds — the same rounds renowned for punching through armour — drilled maybe a centimetre into the plate before detonating, with zero effective penetration.
Four seconds. Twenty-plus maximum-output las-shots and every remaining bolt round he was carrying, all of it spent. The Warboss was blackened and scorched from head to foot. The slugga mounted on his head and the Gretchin clinging to his shoulders had been blown apart into red mist.
The Warboss himself was completely unharmed.
"AHAHAHAHA!! YES!! DAT'S IT, DAT'S WOT I WANTED!! DIS IS A PROPPA FIGHT!! COME ON DEN, SHRIMP-CAN, COME BASH WIVV ME!!"
He was thrilled. He loved every second of it. And he was charging faster now.
"Bloody hell," Kian snarled, and yanked a large melta grenade off his back with one hand, pulled the pin, and hurled it straight at the Warboss.
Don't let the size fool you — this Warboss was no idiot.
He saw the round object flying toward him. Some instinct, or maybe just experience, told him it was dangerous.
The rotary shoota swung up. He shot the melta grenade out of the air.
The explosion was enormous. A wall of superheated force ripped through the corridor, so intense the surrounding walls melted — puddles of molten iron pooled on the deck plating. The Warboss's heavy armoured boots stomped straight through the iron puddles without breaking stride.
"WAHAHAHAHA!! SHRIMP'S BIG BOMB, DAT WAS DEAD KILLY!! BUT IT MISSED ME!! HAHAHAHA!!"
The power armour he was wearing was massive and fully energised. Whatever engine was strapped to his back — internal combustion, steam-powered, Kian genuinely couldn't tell — was belching black smoke and keeping the whole rig running at a dead sprint.
In seconds, three metres of rampaging Warboss was almost on top of him.
Kian turned and ran.
"OI, SHRIMP-CAN!! NO RUNNIN'!! COME FIGHT WIV ME!! COME BASH WIVV ME!!"
He ignored the bellowing entirely. Legs moving. Back the way he came.
"Sorry mate, my mum's calling me in for dinner! Same time tomorrow, yeah?! Tomorrow!!"
"FILTHY HUMIE COWARD!!"
The Warboss saw Kian wasn't stopping, levelled the rotary shoota, and opened fire at his retreating back.
Ork marksmanship was notoriously terrible. Unfortunately, the corridor was also very narrow.
30mm-plus solid slugs hammered off his rear armour in a continuous shower of sparks. They punched through his backside psychic barrier, bled off most of their velocity — not immediately lethal, technically — but the drain on his focus was catastrophic. Every single round that hit his barrier felt like another weight dropped onto his skull.
His head was getting heavier. And heavier.
If this kept up much longer, he was going to go under.
Kian reached deep, grabbed a thread of psychic power, spun around mid-sprint, pointed at the Warboss's feet —
Gravity.
The Warboss was in full charge. His boot hit the invisible field like he'd kicked a boulder. He went face-first into the deck with a crash that shook the corridor.
His retinue of Nobz did not stop.
They stepped on him. Over him. Through him.
"OI OI OI!! DON'T STEP ON ME!! DA SHRIMP-CAN'S MINE!!"
Nob boots — thick iron slabs, each one like a small hammer — rang off the Warboss's armour in a rapid-fire percussion.
Ding. Clang. Thud. Thud. CLANG.
He got his head up once.
Four or five size-78 iron boots shoved it back into the deck.
Ork hierarchy was a strange thing. They feared their boss — right up until there was a sufficiently good fight in front of them, at which point the boss became an obstacle. The Nobz were locked in now. All they could see was Kian.
Boss? What boss? Oh, that? That's a speed bump.
Kian ran. Hundreds of Nobz thundered after him.
He didn't dare stop. Didn't dare look back. His Heavy Reactive Power Armour was somehow keeping pace with a Light suit's sprint speed — legs pumping like pistons, practically a blur.
He ran for a good while.
Then a gap appeared in the upper deck ahead — the same shaft he'd dropped through earlier.
There.
He hit it at full speed, jumped, grabbed the lip of the upper passage, hauled himself through in one clean pull.
"WARNING: VACUUM ENVIRONMENT DETECTED. MAGNETIC BOOT SYSTEM ENGAGED."
The armour's system chimed in its flat mechanical tone. He'd left the warship's gravity plating and atmosphere bubble behind. Hard vacuum.
Mag-locks engaged. He kept running, heading for the hull breach where his shuttle was docked. He needed ammunition. Now.
Come on, he thought. I'm in vacuum. You can't follow me into vacuum.
He glanced back.
His eyes nearly fell out of his head.
The Nobz were following him into the vacuum.
They piled out through the gap like a flood — no hesitation, not even a pause. Faces turning dark. Holding their breath. Moving purely on fury and muscle memory, grabbing the protrusions on the corridor walls with fingers and boots, crawling hand-over-foot in every direction.
The passage above, below, left, right — covered in crawling Orks, coming for him from every surface.
Like the most horrifying spiders he'd ever seen in his life.
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