The first Ork to wake up had exactly one second to understand what was happening. He raised his head, blinked, saw two hundred twenty centimeters of Imperial fury standing in the kicked-open hatch, and opened his mouth.
He didn't get to use it.
Ace's bolter barked twice. The Ork toppled backward. The Ork beside him woke from the impact, saw his dead comrade, saw Ace, and roared.
Then they all roared.
The base came alive like a single organism. Hundreds of green bodies snapped their eyes open and reached for weapons, clubs, pipes, rocks—anything they could get their hands on. The collective snoring turned into collective roaring, making the ground vibrate even harder than before.
"So that was the quiet approach," Logen said.
"Maddog," Ace said.
Maddog stepped up beside him. The flamethrower was already hot. His face wore a smile that could have been entered as evidence in any psychological evaluation.
"Cookout," Maddog said.
The first burst of flame tore through the front rank of charging Orks like a hungry animal. Green bodies stumbled, burned, and fell over one another. The smell was indescribable. Logen would later write in his report: "Smell: Yes."
Ace jumped out of the pod. Not tactically. Not as planned. He simply jumped because there was a hatch between him and the enemy, and hatches were meant to be jumped through. His sword hummed as the power blade activated, and then he was in the middle of them.
Three Orks at once. The first lost an arm. The second lost his head. The third lost his bearings when Ace slammed his helmet into the Ork's face—his own helmet, with the fresh dent and the seventeen older ones.
"Everybody out! Everybody out!" Ace roared, and it was less an order than a statement of fact, since everyone was already out.
Athras had been second. His chainsword howled, and he moved through the Orks with the controlled fury of a man who knew exactly what he was fighting for. There were no civilians here. There were only enemies. And when Athras didn't have to protect civilians, he was free. Free in a way that even the other Dumbhammers respected.
An Ork Nob, two heads taller than the others, swung a rusty axe at him. Athras ducked, kicked the Nob in the knee—the knee lost—and rammed the chainsword through a gap in the improvised armor. The Nob fell. Athras was already on to the next one.
"Left!" Logen shouted.
Max threw a grenade. It went left. The target had been on the right.
The grenade bounced off a scrap tower, fell into a pit full of ammo crates, and exploded. The blast tore away half the tower, which toppled onto a group of twenty Orks who were just climbing into their vehicles. The vehicles exploded too. A chain reaction of scrap, fire, and green body parts tore through the eastern flank of the base.
Everyone stared at Max.
"I aimed right," Max said.
"We know," said Logen.
Rick didn't use words. Rick made sounds. The hum of his Gauss weapon rose to a howl, and then he fired. The green beam hit the first Ork and dissolved him. Not killed him. Dissolved him. On a molecular level. The Ork was there, and then he wasn't, and in his place hung a faint green shimmer in the air.
The Ork behind him stopped. Stared at the spot where his comrade had been. Looked at Rick. Looked at the glowing green eyes. And ran away.
Orks didn't run away. Orks never ran away. But this Ork ran away, and three others followed because they didn't know what Rick was, but they knew they didn't want to find out.
"Rick scares them," News observed. He stood behind an overturned vehicle and fired a bolter pistol that definitely wasn't his. It bore the insignia of the Dark Angels. Nobody asked.
"Troubax!" Ace roared between sword strikes. "Radio! Now!"
Troubax crouched behind the pod, the vox device on his knees. His fingers flew across the frequencies. And then he opened his mouth, and out came whatever was going to come out.
He sang.
"Hiiiiere is Dumbhammer Squad—posiiitiooon compromised—requesting extractioooon—coordinates coming in the second verseeeee—"
There was silence on the other end of the line. Then a thin, incredulous voice: "Is that... is he singing?"
"Ignore that," Logen cut in over the radio. "Coordinates are coming in writing. We need pickup. Immediately."
"Understood. Estimated arrival... uh... forty minutes."
Ace decapitated an Ork. "Forty minutes!"
"Forty minutes," Logen confirmed.
Ace looked around. The base was an inferno. Maddog had turned the western side into a sea of flames and was working his way forward methodically, quietly humming to himself—not as bad as Troubax, but bad enough. Rick stood like a metal statue amid the chaos, methodically dissolving anything that came within range. Athras and Max fought back to back, which meant Athras was fighting while Max tried to throw grenades that flew in every direction except the right one—and still hit something useful every time.
And then Ace heard it. A deep, rhythmic pounding. Heavier than Ork feet. Metallic.
Something pushed its way out of the center of the base. Big. Broad. Welded together from the remains of at least three Imperial vehicles, with a cannon that looked like someone had welded two tank barrels together and hoped it would work.
An Ork battle tank. Manned, armed, and angry.
The turret turned. Toward the Dumbhammers.
"That's not good," Logen said.
Max threw a grenade. It flew over the tank, beyond the base, and somewhere off into nowhere.
"Max!"
"I almost had him!"
The cannon fired. The explosion tore a hole in the ground three meters from Ace. Dirt and scrap rained down.
News looked at the tank. Then he looked at the Dumbhammers. Then he looked back at the tank. An expression appeared on his face that Logen would have classified as diagnostically concerning, if he hadn't already seen it on Maddog.
"They don't need this anymore," News said.
And then he took off. Not away from the tank. Toward the tank. Between Orks, over burning debris, ducking beneath a sword strike Athras delivered to an Ork who was blocking News's path. He reached the tank, climbed up its side, ripped open the hatch, and disappeared inside.
Three seconds of silence.
Then an Ork flew out of the hatch. Then a second. Then a third, still holding a weapon that News had obviously taken from him.
The turret turned. Away from the Dumbhammers. Toward the Ork base.
The cannon fired.
The explosion blew the largest watchtower in the base to pieces. Orks flew through the air. Scrap rained down. And from the tank's vox device came News's calm, satisfied voice: "Archaeological redistribution complete."
Maddog laughed. It wasn't a pleasant laugh. It was the laugh of a man holding a flamethrower and possessing an ally inside a tank.
"Cookout," Maddog said, "with sides."
Forty minutes. They had to hold out for forty minutes.
They made it in twenty-two.