Support the Ground

Once Gul'dan was dead, the remaining Orks scattered. Without their Ork Warboss, their morale plummeted.

"Attack!"

Will Wilson shouted despite the wound on his chest. Gul'dan had injured him, but he had been lucky: the claws had only scored a shallow gash across his chest. By accelerating his blood circulation, Wilson could make it scab over quickly.

"For the Emperor!"

Will Wilson's adjutant Rocket led a squad of veterans to clear the remaining Orks from the Star Fortress, while Wilson headed straight for its Command Center.

The Command Center was a wreck, littered with corpses and blasphemous creations.

Clank, clank, clank...

The heavy doors opened, the grinding of massive gears painfully loud in the empty space.

Will Wilson had to marvel at how destructive the Orks were. The equipment had only been in use for a few decades, but after the Orks got through with it, it sounded thousands of years old.

"Access the Star Fortress's control system and return it to its original position."

A Techmarine received the order. A data cable ran from the Servo-skull beside him, and he used it to access the fortress's controls.

"I'm in. Taking control now."

As he spoke, the Servo-skull's mechanical eye sockets shifted from red to green.

"Control secured. The Star Fortress has returned to its designated orbital position."

At the Techmarine's words, Will Wilson looked outside. The tilting Star Fortress was returning to its position. Apart from a few unfortunate bits of falling metal debris, it was unscathed.

Gul'dan's scheme had been thwarted, and Will Wilson had killed him.

Next came support for the forces on the ground.

"This is Captain Will Wilson of the Third Company, Fourth Chapter, Word Bearers. We've answered your distress call."

"Praise the Emperor! Thank goodness!"

"Those damned Orks have broken through our outer Defense Line! They're advancing on the Hive City's second defensive ring!"

An explosion sounded from the other end of the transmission. Then a great hole suddenly blasted open in the command post buried deep within the Fortress. Through the electronic static, Will Wilson could still make out cries of "Orks incoming!" and "Retreat!"

"The troops below can't hold out any longer. Move down and support them immediately," Will Wilson ordered.

Still, something bothered him. With more than a hundred thousand Imperial Army soldiers, adequate defenses, and ample firepower, how could they have lost the first Defense Line in less than twelve Terra hours?

Now was not the time to dwell on it. Will Wilson pushed the question aside. Once they had repelled the Orks, he would send someone to investigate.

On the ground, chaos had engulfed the entrance leading into the Middle Hive.

The enormous gate stood half open, like a dying beast gasping for breath.

Imperial Army soldiers shouted themselves hoarse, struggling to get civilians behind the relative safety of the barrier before the tide of death arrived.

"Move! Get the civilians inside! Women and children first!" An officer stood on a platform beside the gate. He had shouted until his throat was raw and his voice was a rasp.

He waved his arm toward the narrow passage the soldiers were barely holding open with their bodies.

"First Squad! With me! Plug that gap on the left!" A sergeant raised his Lasgun and called to the few soldiers still beside him. Without hesitation, they charged toward a breach an Ork rocket had blown in the flank wall.

They did not look back. Their bodies became the last Defense Line.

"Heavy weapons team! Where the hell is the heavy weapons team? Get the Heavy Bolter over here! We need suppressing fire!" another captain roared into his comms. Only crackling static and the ever-closer sound of explosions answered him.

The crowd inched forward in despair. The civilians were ragged, gaunt, and sallow, their faces showing fear, numbness, and a faint glimmer of hope.

They pushed and cried as they surged through the narrow corridor formed by the soldiers' bodies.

Stray rounds struck the crowd from time to time, setting off screams and fresh panic. The soldiers could only do their best to maintain order, shielding people from flying shrapnel and dragging the fallen aside so the path to safety would not be blocked.

Less than a few hundred meters behind the civilians lay hell on earth.

The Imperial Army's rearguard was buying every second with their lives.

"Waaaaaaaaaagh!!!"

The green tide swept through the street. A sergeant with a Chainsword had just split an Ork Boy in two, the blade still caught in its bones, when a hulking Ork Warboss charged up to him.

The sergeant had no time to pull his weapon free. The Ork Warboss's crude Choppa, broad as a door, sliced through his waist with a vicious rush of air.

Squelch!

Blood and entrails spilled out. The sergeant's upper body slid to the ground, his eyes still wide open, as the roar of his Chainsword abruptly died.

Nearby, a Leman Russ main battle Tank tried to fire its main gun into a dense mass of Orks.

The muzzle flashed, blasting a group of Orks into the air. A moment later, dozens of frenzied Ork Boyz swarmed over the Tank like ants.

They stuffed crude explosive charges into gaps in the tracks and hammered at the observation ports.

The Tank lurched clumsily, trying to shake them off, but there were too many.

A tremendous blast tore one of its tracks apart.

The explosion immobilized the Tank. The Orks then pried open its hatch and dragged out the crew, tearing them to pieces in an instant.

The last Autocannon position at the street corner was still roaring. Its two operators poured Ammunition into the oncoming green tide.

The Autocannon's fire briefly checked the Ork charge, shredding those at the front.

But their resistance was a candle in a storm. More Orks kept pouring out of the ruins on both sides.

Their fire was wild, but astonishingly dense.

A hail of bullets rattled against the Autocannon's gun shield.

One loader took a bullet to the head and fell without a sound.

The gunner kept firing until a bolt of plasma struck the Autocannon. The explosion swallowed him and his last position.

The final Defense Line collapsed.

The Orks' howls joined into a single roar, drowning out the last sounds of human resistance.

The green tide swept over the barricades and the places where the soldiers had fallen, surging toward the gate that had yet to close.

Before the gate, the last few dozen rearguard soldiers formed a thin Defense Line.

They faced the death rushing toward them without flinching.

The officer drew his pistol and aimed it at the approaching green tide.

"For the Emperor! Hold the line!"

At last, the gate slammed shut, but every Imperial Army defender in the Middle Hive had been killed.

In the Upper Hive, Major General Bernardo, commander of the Jungle Hive City Defense Force, faced off against a group of nobles.