Green Tide

"I haven't played 'Stomp the Little Shrimp' in ages. Let those paupers come down and see what fun they can bring me. Pass on my orders! Tell all the boyz not to smash everything on this planet too soon. Leave some 'toys' for the new guests."

"Especially that place called... what was it, 'Steel Outhouse'?" He pointed at the massive complex in Agricultural Zone 7 on the star map. "That place looks the toughest. I'm moving my throne onto its roof! I'll sit there and watch with my own eyes as these new little shrimps cry and scream while my boyz stomp them into paste, bit by bit!"

Grak could never have imagined that this decision, born of cruel amusement and arrogance, would exact such a terrible price from him and his entire Waaagh!.

He believed himself to be the hunter, toying with a pack of bugs about to be crushed beneath his feet.

But he did not know that those "bugs" had long since become explosives with their fuses lit. They had not come here to die. They had come to... drag everyone down with them in the explosion.

When the 99th Regiment's transports forced their way down through scattered artillery fire, dropping around the outskirts of Agricultural Zone 7 like dumplings into a pot, they were met by a scene from hell.

The sky was dark red, veiled by thick smoke from burning crops and factories. The air reeked with a pungent, bizarre blend of engine oil, scorched earth, and the stench of some unknown creature. In the distance, enormous Ork war machines hurled flaming boulders and explosive oil drums indiscriminately into the area with crude yet powerful catapults.

The soldiers of the 99th Regiment charged out of their transports amid such an environment.

There was no fear on their faces, no confusion. Only an obsession suppressed to its absolute limit, ready to erupt.

"Move! Move! Move!" Sergeant Orik, now clad in a relatively intact suit of carapace armor and gripping a chainsword, roared himself hoarse. "Defensive positions! Heavy weapons teams, take that hill! Everyone else, build a circular perimeter around the transports! We didn't come here to sightsee! Get moving!"

The soldiers sprang into action with extraordinary efficiency. The former criminals, now the fiercest warriors, carried heavy bolter ammunition crates as though they weighed nothing. The old Cadian veterans became the tactical core of each squad, using their experience to direct the recruits in digging the most effective foxholes.

Alexander stepped down from the transport. Rather than remaining safely in the rear, he went straight to the very front of the defensive line, a power sword in hand.

His arrival was like an injection of adrenaline straight into every soldier's heart.

"The Commissar is with us!"

"See that? Big Brother is right beside us!"

"Fight for Big Brother!"

The soldiers murmured the words quietly, yet with unwavering conviction. It was as if, so long as Alexander stood with them, they could never be defeated.

Then, a rumble like muffled thunder rolling over the horizon sounded in the distance. Immediately afterward, a mass of "war wagons," cobbled together from every kind of scrap metal and belching thick black smoke, came into view.

It was the Orks' vanguard.

Some of those so-called "war wagons" resembled tractors, some looked like trucks, and some were little more than iron plates strapped to wheels. But they all had one thing in common: they were packed with green-skinned Orks waving choppas and axes, roaring, "Waaagh!"

"Prepare for battle!" Colonel Valeus issued a calm but faintly tense order over the command channel. "Heavy bolters! Fire at will!"

"Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!"

Several heavy bolters deployed on the flanks roared first. Their massive bolts swept toward the steel tide like Death's scythe.

Several of the foremost "war wagons" were instantly blasted into scattered parts, their Ork passengers flung into the air alongside the wreckage.

Yet this did not halt the Orks' charge. On the contrary, the explosions and death seemed only to stoke their savagery. The vehicles behind them drove straight over their comrades' wreckage without slowing in the slightest.

"They're coming!!" A young soldier's voice trembled with tension.

"Hold steady!" Orik slapped the young man's helmet. "Remember what the Commissar said! What are we?"

"...We are fire!" The young soldier's gaze hardened again.

"And what are they?"

"...Firewood!"

"Good!" Orik grinned, revealing a mouthful of metal teeth. "Now let this damned firewood learn how hot we are!"

"For our families! Fire!!!"

In an instant, a web of fire from thousands of lasguns blanketed the battlefield. Red laser beams poured down upon the charging Orks like a torrential rain.

The Orks at the front fell in swathes. Their bodies were burned through with charred holes by the high-energy beams. But there were simply too many of them. One row fell, and two more immediately surged up behind them.

They drew closer and closer. Their ugly, tusked faces could already be seen clearly.

"Grenades!!!" Orik tore a grenade from his belt and roared.

Countless black dots flew forward.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Violent explosions tore bloody gaps through the ranks of the charging Orks. But that brief pause was quickly filled by even more greenskins pressing forward.

"They've reached us! Prepare for close combat!"

This was the order the Astra Militarum least wanted to hear. Fighting an Ork at close quarters was practically suicide. The strength and physique of an ordinary Ork boy far surpassed those of even a well-trained Astra Militarum soldier.

Yet the soldiers of the 99th Regiment seemed to have been waiting for this very moment.

There was no fear of death in their eyes, only a thirst for blood.

"For the Emperor!"

"For the hearth!"

"Burn them all!!!"

With frenzied cries that made little sense, they charged willingly into the green tide.

The instant the two sides collided, the battle entered its bloodiest and most brutal phase.

An Ork swung a massive choppa like a door slab, cleaving a soldier and the lasgun in his hands cleanly in two. But in the next second, the dead man's comrade let out a beastly roar and drove his bayonet brutally into the Ork's eye socket.