Mission #2

Castellan Mother Theresa leaned over the tactical hololith hastily set-up in the back of her command Chimera. The orks were in retreat, and her platoons were shooting down any stragglers. Sister Lucy stepped up, wiping greenish gore off her blade.

'Alright, let us consolidate-'

'You shall do no such thing.'

As if on queue. Was the inquisitor some sort of witch? Probably yes. Better not to think about it too hard, just in case she read it out of your mind.

'You shall assemble your forces and strike at the orks as soon as able.'

Of course. Theresa expected this. She secretly hoped for the opposite. But hope is the first step on the road to disappointment, as her schola tutor liked to say.

'They are a warrior race, and respect only strength. We shall offer them nothing but the Emperor's mailed fist.'

This time, Theresa offered no objections. They were of little use to this imperious woman.

'Very well, inquisitor. We have a squad of Atican City Fighters near the xenos camp. Sister Lucy, raise them on the vox and ask for a tactical-'

'Unnecessary. I have insider intel on the camp.'

Theresa was quite riled up by now at being interrupted constantly, but this time, she couldn't contain her shock. Her remaining biological eye opened so wide at this statement - what, the orks had a traitor in their ranks? - that her augmetic eye tried to follow suit, and Theresa had to fight vertigo at the sudden zooming out of her field of view.

'Interrogator Clotilde will fill you in, and you will meet my agent in the field.'

Theresa leaned back to the hololith. Her disciplined mind fought through the confusion. There were things to sort out later. But for now, there were numerous things that only had to be done, and done quickly.

'Assemble whatever shock troops we can fit into our remaining Chimeras. Footsloggers retreat to the excavation with the inquisitor. Do we have armored support yet?'

With the grinding of gears and the rattle of armored tracks, the battle tank Livia Drusilla lumbered into view. Theresa allowed herself to smile.

'Mount up.'

************* (Ork story time written by and mission designed by my co-player)

Boss 'Edkrakka was zogging PISSED. He didn' t mind that his attack on the humie outpost had failed, it was a zoggin' good scrap, after all. He also didn't mind that his favourite trukk got blown up with him and his Nobs still inside. There was always another trukk, after all. Neither did he mind that most of his boys were too slow to even make it to the fight, after all, if they couldn't keep up, they should have gotten themselves a trukk themselves. The fact that that git, Gitstompa, had challenged him for the title of warboss after the fight also didn't bother him, that was proppa Orky, even if the Snakebite technically cheated by forgetting to get off his squigosaur (you'd expect nothing else from that Squig-loving runt). No, Edkrakka wasn't too bothered about not being da biggest boss on the planet anymore, as long as he still got to scrap and enjoy hisself. What did piss him off, was that he now was miles and miles from the nearest humie army, forced to organize his much depleted forces in his new camp, as Gitstompa had taken most of the boys to go fight somewhere else. Edkrakka's frustration led to maybe a few more boys getting krumped in the head than was strictly necessary, but zog it, they shouldn't have been such gits to start.

As he was going through the Ork camp, a Kopta pilot of the Fortunit Suns came running up to him, looking quite excited. "boss, boss, I spotted a column of 'Umies coming this way, troops and tanks and errything".

Edkrakka' s mood instantly improved. "zoggin' 'ell, that' s mighty fine of them humies, coming to us, instead of sitting behind their walls" Edkrakka grinned "ya see, boys, even the humies know how to have a proppa scrap and they prefer to have it with ME, Edkrakka". He raised his powerclaw. "now," he said, "let get ready for a WAAAAAAAAGH"

The excited shouts of the Orks drowned out the noise of the approaching imperial column.