Boom
by Koval
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"So whassall dis, den?"
"Dis, Ufthak, is my speshul kamo... kam... Dis is my dead sneaky paint," Ushnar told him, holding out a pail of foul-smelling liquid in one meaty green hand.
Ufthak wrinkled his nose and recoiled sharply. "Dead zoggin' stinky paint is what it is."
"You gonna sit dere an' get all sneaky-like, or what?" Ushnar huffed, dumping the pail on the floor as a pair of gretchin crept closer. "Boss sed yous 'as suffin ta do when Gurzog does dat wazza fing of 'is in da kopta."
The Kommando paused to look straight at Ufthak. "An' I dun fink it's smart ta get da Boss mad."
"'Ow's dis bright stuff supposed ta get me an' da ladz all sneaky?" protested Ufthak. "Stinks worse 'an squiggoth dung."
"You jes' lemme worry 'bout dat," Ushnar answered with a grin.
---
"Suffin's not right 'ere, boss," Oguk observed astutely as he hunkered down behind a rock, his rokkit launcher clattering against Mork knew what as Golgash crept forwards on his belly.
"'Ow d'ya mean?" Ufthak asked.
"All da fightin's over dere," Oguk answered, pointing over Grob's shoulder towards the fight brewing over to the northwest. Ufthak could see smoke rising in the distance, and assumed something had exploded.
"So?" Ufthak queried.
"So why da zog are we sittin' over 'ere?"
Ufthak found himself halfway between lamping Oguk for his lack of faith in the Boss' kunnin' plan, and agreeing with him. His Tankbustas had effectively been sidelined, and were it not for the promise of Gurzog coming along in his kopta with something big behind him, he would almost certainly have taken offence to the Boss' suggestion that he "go an' wait over dere". Apparently Mork had seen fit to gift the Boss' pet Wyrdboy with a vision, and against his better judgment, the Boss had taken the word of a mushroom-addled kook over good old-fashioned Orkish common sense.
And per the Wyrdboy's gibbering rant, Ufthak's Tankbustas were waiting.
But for what?
"'Eds up!" Ghamog shouted, derailing Ufthak's train of bitter thought and bringing him back to reality. Looking up, Ufthak caught sight of Gurzog's kopta rising sharply over a ridge, waggling about a bit as the mad Mek wrestled with the controls.
The kopta's nose dipped suddenly, and even as far distant as he was, Ufthak could see the huge circular saw mounted on the kopta's front that gave Gurzog his deadly reputation.
"Steady, lads," Ufthak ordered, and moving as a single disorganised mass, the Tankbustas moved into position.
---
"Command, target has been confirmed," Notaro reported. "It's him."
"The Baron? Here? At Issana?"
"The very same. He's fleeing south."
"Then take that bastard down, sergeant. Disengage from the main battle and take that Ork out of the sky."
"With pleasure, commander," Notaro grinned, closing the vox channel and running one last-minute check on his hellgun as the Chimera bounced on a rock.
"Orders, sergeant?" Aconi asked.
"Get up top and shoot that greenskin down," Notaro told him, glancing down at Aconi's plasma gun.
The Chimera shuddered suddenly as it went over another rock, and Aconi nearly dropped his weapon.
"Throne damn it, Rocca, watch where you're going!" Notaro shouted into the driver's cabin.
"That wasn't terrain, sergeant," Rocca responded. "That was--"
---
"Boom!" shouted Golgash jubilantly as the humie wagon threw a track and slewed to a halt some fifty metres away.
"Bah," grumbled Oguk as he reloaded his launcher. "Dat one duzzen count, squig-fer-brains, it's not burnin'."
"Whassat down dere?" Grob wondered aloud, pointing, and as Ufthak squinted hard at the wagon below them, he could distinctly see black-armoured figures clambering out the back. Before long, Oguk and Ghamog were looking too.
"'Oomies!" Oguk cried in excitement, breaking cover before Ufthak could restrain him, and in a grisly scene that reminded Ufthak of that one time a gretchin had touched Ushnar's favourite shoota, fully half a dozen huge exit wounds erupted from Oguk's back and the Ork fell forwards into the dust. He tried to rise, but one of the humies pointed a large shoota at Oguk and his head exploded in blue fire.
"Stay down!" Ufthak barked at his remaining Tankbustas, and to his surprise they all did.
"What we gunna do?" grunted Ghamog.
"Dere's one... two... lots... more... zog it, dere's enuff o' dem humies ta make fer a good ol' scrap," Ufthak replied.
"An' wha'bout dat dere wagon?" Ghamog went on. Ufthak's protest stopped in its tracks as the wagon impossibly came back to life, and the shoota on its turret fired at the rock Grob was using as cover.
Ufthak paused and thought for a moment.
"Well, boss?" Ghamog prompted him, as one moment became two and the humies crept closer.
"Leave da wagon ta me," Ufthak growled.
---
"Orks wearing purple?" Aconi mused, his tone incredulous.
"Must've thought it was camouflage," Notaro observed as he took cover next to a boulder. "Pity about all the noise he was making."
"He'll have friends," Aconi noted.
"Rocca, do you have a fix on that rock he popped out from?" Notaro asked into his helmet pickup.
"Affirmative. Firing," Rocca answered, a split-second before the Chimera's multilaser opened fire and blasted the front face of a large rock into fragments. Notaro thought he could see a shape disappear off to the right, but dismissed it as a figment of his imagination as a trio of Orks wielding crude missile launchers emerged and returned fire. Notaro dropped down onto his belly, taking aim with his hellgun as Aconi followed suit, but another Storm Trooper was less quick off the mark and a lucky missile struck him in the face, decapitating him in a messy explosion.
He pulled the trigger, taking one of the Orks in the shoulder and making him drop his launcher in the dust, but rather than try to retrieve it, the Ork simply rushed past his fellows, unslinging something truly bizarre from his back as he charged.
Something oddly hammer-shaped, venting smoke.
"Aconi! Tankhammer!" Notaro shouted at his plasma gunner, and Aconi took aim, but another Orkish missile landed close to him and he was forced to roll to the side, his shot going wide.
And then the crazed greenskin, daubed in purple like his deceased fellow, was upon them and Notaro could only watch as the Ork brought his tankhammer down on Aconi with a defiant roar. The live rocket serving as the hammer's head exploded violently and tore Aconi apart in a spray of viscera.
The Ork turned to face Notaro, no less dangerous for having expended his tankhammer, but Notaro was quicker and put a trio of lasbolts through the Ork's head, dropping the xeno like a stone.
Then the Chimera exploded.
---
Ufthak pulled the pin on his giant bomb and slammed it against the side of the humie wagon's turret. For good measure he threw the pin down as well, before taking a running leap from the top of the wagon and landing face-first in the dirt. He picked himself up and turned to face the wagon, imagining the boom his bomb would make.
For a horrifying second nothing happened, but Ufthak's trepidation turned to delight as the tank went up with the biggest boom he'd seen since Gurzog tried strapping a kannon to the underside of his kopta.
And even better, two of the black-armoured humies got torched in the blast as well, which left their boss shooting at Golgash and Ghamog. He obviously hadn't seen Ufthak.
With a shout Ufthak ran up to the humie and knocked him to the ground with a well-aimed punch. The humie recovered quickly, rolling onto his back and bringing up his shoota to fire at Ufthak one-handed. Before he could pull the trigger Ufthak was on top of him, ripping the shoota out of the humie's grasp and bashing it into his helmet once, twice, before flinging it to one side.
"Maybe dis wuz worth it after all," mused Ufthak as he reached down to grab the humie's head.
"Damn purple Orks," spat the humie, and Ufthak felt something go into his stomach. He ignored it.
"Ya know what? Ushnar wuz right," Ufthak rumbled. "Never did see me comin', did ya?"
The humie didn't get a chance to answer as Ufthak tore his head from his shoulders, throwing it at the wrecked wagon and laughing silently as it bounced off the side.
He didn't even notice the knife in his guts until he picked up his launcher.
