Chapter: 4.6

Chapter: Zeta-IX

Part: 6

Space Station Zeta-IX

En Route to the Hangar

The Orks fought tooth and nail, their claws, their teeth, their brute strength, and their crude but efficient weapons all contributed to the brutal melee. Their resilience was something to be lauded, if one did away with the notion that they were filthy Greenskins.

One of their cure blades, a choppa, smashed into an Honor Guard's chest, sending her sprawling to the floor. The Ork closed in for the kill with its choppa raised high before a bolter round pierced its head, sending its weapon crashing mere inches from the Guard's head.

"Watch out!"

Greybrand shouted, firing away as she cut through the hoard with her power sword, her blade cleaving through bones and bodies in quick succession.

All around her, combat raged, blood spilled, and bodies fell to the floor. The Orks were tenacious bastards, but they weren't indestructible. However, for every Ork killed or wounded, three more would take their place. 

Still, the guards held their ground against the Xenos, especially the SPARTANs. They were surprisingly resilient and agile, tearing through their enemies with chain swords and crude choppas they picked up along the way.

The shockwave from an explosion nearly rocked her off her feet and she whirled around to see one of the Guards clutching at the bleeding stump of her arm. At her feet laid what remains of a crudely manufactured Ork shoota, smoke wafting off of the junk piece.

She pieced together the details and realized what had just happened, the Honor Guard tried to use one of the Ork weapons but its magazine ended up blowing apart, taking most of her forearm with it.

"Inquisitor, we've got a casualty!"

The squad medic, Lynx if she remembers correctly, called out, her voice slightly distorted by the helmet's speaker, and before the Greenskin could gang up on the wounded guard, she rushed forward, dragging the fool behind the line of advancing guards.

Greybrand allowed herself a moment to survey the skirmish ground. The Ork resistance was thick, and thunderhawk would leave in another minute or two, she couldn't afford to be bogged down with a prolonged firefight against the Greenskins.

"Patch her up quickly. We need to keep moving,"

She called out but her voice was drowned under the war cries of the Orks, their shouts of 'Wagh' were as deadly as a sonic weapon in close proximity. 

The medic worked efficiently, applying a field tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

As the injured Honor Guard was stabilized, Greybrand turned her attention back to the ongoing battle. They had killed a considerable number of Orkz but more were flooding into the hall through the other entrances. 

"Advance! We push through to the hangar doors!"

Greybrand ordered over the Vox, trying to rally them. But there was no need for that, the soldiers were undeterred by their comrade's wounds and continued engaging the enemy with precision and ruthless efficiency.

Lasbolts, Bolter fire, and the growl of chain swords filled the air as they advanced toward the Orks. Though numerous, they were disorganized and lacked the coordinated tactics of disciplined troopers. The surprisingly narrow yet wide combat field seemed to favor skills and focus over brute strength and bloodthirst.

A path began to clear as they pressed on, Greybrand joining their ranks, ducking under an Ork's clumsy swing and countering with a swift thrust that pierced the creature's neck.

An Orks, larger and uglier than its companions, if that was even possible, charged at them, bellowing its war cry of 'Waaaagggghhhh!' as it pushed others out of his way and stomped those that could not move in time.

"Focus fire on the largest one!"

Greybrand commanded, redirecting the attention of her squad. Athena let loose a jet of flame that cleared the path before them and the charging greenskin leader, followed by the hissing and the bright flare of a melta gun as the horn-helmed Xeno melted out of existence.

The rest of the Orkz, or rather, the remaining Slugga Boyz forgot all about their shootas and charged headlong into the wall of bolts and slugs laid down by the rest of the Honor Guards. Explosions of blood and greenish ichor marked successful hits, but the Orkz seemed to have been seriously pissed off by their presence. 

"Fall back to that corridor! We bottleneck them!"

She ordered, pointing to a narrower passageway to their right. The Honor Guard swiftly retreated, leading the pursuing Orks into the confined space.

As the Orks funneled through the bottleneck, the disciplined firepower of the Guard took its toll. Bolter rounds and lasbolts tore through the Greenskins, reducing their numbers with each passing moment.

"Hold position and assess injuries. We proceed to the hangar once ready,"

Greybrand declared once the last of the Orkz stopped trickling through the door, they were safe... for now. The tide had stopped for the moment, the only possible reason being the lack of a proper leader, and with a bit of luck, they might just busy themselves with killing each other until she and her squad were safely off the Space Station.

A minute of tense silence prevailed as the last of the Orkz ceased pushing through the choke point. The air was filled with the smell of burnt flesh and gun oil, the acrid smell wafted in through Greybrand's rebreather and she realized that a bolter round had grazed it. A close call if there was one.

The squad's medic, Lynx, was working frantically on the injured soldier, unfortunately, they didn't have the proper equipment to restore or preserve the arm until it was restored, so she decided to cauterize the wound instead. A muffled cry of pain was enough to tell her that whatever the squad medic used had been enough to seal the veins off but left quite a nasty burn as a result, and from the sounds of it, quite painful too.

She gave the medic a quick nod, acknowledging her efforts at restoring their squad's mobility as quickly as possible. 

As Greybrand tried to stand straight, her knees buckled and she limped forward until one of the Guards placed an arm around her waist to support her. This was an interesting development, the sudden lack of strength left her perplexed before the reality hit her.

She had been using the warp's energy for well over an hour now, drawing from the tainted well and feeding her body. The remaining part of her sudden weakness lay in the training she endured before being declared a sanctioned psyker. 

The Imperium's Psyker Scholas, the only one being on terra, hardwired a psyker's body to terminate its connection to the warp automatically when a certain limit was reached. A failsafe that the tutors prayed to the god Emperor, would save many psykers from getting lost in their powers. The same thing happened to her, almost like a shut-down switch had just been flipped, deactivating her powered body and all that remained was a husk.

Lynx glared at her, she had taken off her helmet a while back, probably uncomfortable with the stuffy feeling inside while she administered treatment. Her expression conveyed her words perfectly, 'Don't increase my workload or you might yet learn to regret it.'

A convincing argument, coming from a medic that is, no one else would say such words to their superiors except for the ones who had the said superior's life in their grasp.

"Inquisitor! A warning from the Gauntlet,"

A stern voice crackled through her comm-bead, bringing her back to the present.

"Thirty seconds to de-orbit. Repeat, the Space Station is de-orbiting in thirty seconds... wait... the Thundrehawk is pulling out! Orders from the Sister Superior!"

Why in the Emperor's name was everyone hell-bent on killing her?

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