Deep within the station, beneath layers metal and flesh like constructs and hardened mucus, the Queen stirred.
It's massive body filling every inch of the large hall, tendrils spread from its body spreading throughout the inner part of the ship.
Her eyes twitched and a low screech could be heard around. She felt it a disturbance in her swarm. Thousands of her children are continuously dying, the rings of the station already partially occupied and cleared of her kin.
The hive's emotions chaanged. As thousands of signals were being sent from the outhside. They are being attacked, an this time it's not weaklings like Pirates or mercenaries that entered in the past.
She spasmed again as antennas on her head emmited sounds of different frequencies, and from her swollen belly came a new clutch of drones. Instinct telling her that they cannot beat the intruders with number alone like how they deal with everything.
She expanded her focus across the hive, calling all warriors to move toward the main station and brace fro the arrival of intruders, the tendrils around the walls began to pulse, absorbing weaker and useless insects. As she used their biomass to create more fighting bugs.
This is the power of collective consciousness of the hive. Pushed by a singular purpose: to survive and expand.
And the greenskins- they are a threat to the whole nest.
----------
Back in the killa moon.
Few days have already passed since the first attack started However this did not do anything to diminish the enthusiasm of the orks. In fact it made them more dangerous.
Days of WAAAAAGHHH have turned the lowe level orks in the ship into war machines. In the past the tallest ork would be around 2 meters tall but now majority already surpassed that.
The tallest Bossboot already resembling ork wa bosses from the lore. Standing at 4 meters tall and clad in black armor made of a mix of metal and insect shells. His right arm changed with a giant killa klaw with 2 large caliber cannons after it was cut down.
Weeks of orky innovation has allowed the warband to produce ork machines from killa kans to wartrakks and even a deff dread. Lead by the mekkboy known as Skrapnob da Ship-Skragga or "Da Iron Toof" as other orks called him due to his golden teeth, the boyz kept producing various pieces of ork tech. "I'z da reason dis ship farts fire an' don't fall apart!"
Painboyz improved to due to the emergence of Dok Gutzrippa da Chop-Sawbones. His methods may look like quack doctors from earth but his works were not. He saw the difference between fixing Orks and upgrading Orks and decided the latter was way more fun like every ork would. Orks who came in with stumps would walk out with spinning saws for arms, wheels for legs or even two heads.
Untill now Kael is the only person Gutzrippa didn't experiment on but he kept saying things like "Dat humie boss got sumfin in his brain-meats. Maybe I'll take a peek later fer science."
Kael observed the area around the ship already cleared of most of the bugs. All around loud artillery and gunfire kept booming. Grotz and squigs hauling scraps around the soace station and mekboys hammering can be heard.
Around the ship, sentries equiped with machine guns kept shooting flying bugs that gets near crashing on some unlucky grotz splattering blood and organs.
Weeks of living with orks already numbed Kael allowing him to not flinch from gore around him.
Not gonna lie but he thinks he even gained some aggressiveness form the orks.
"AI open exploration map"
Kael stood before the humming control panel, its surface flashing with green light. He placed his hand on the console.
"Display tactical overlay. Status of outpost control."
The ship's AI responded in a flat, synthetic voce
"Initiating topographical scan. Mapping in progress… complete."
A three-dimensional map of the station materialized in front of him, spinning slowly. With different Colored zones: red, green, and grey.
"Current territorial control: Sixty percent of outer ring sectors secured. Resistance clusters decreasing by three-point-two percent per cycle. Inner sectors remain heavily infested. Outer ring is estimated to be occupied in 3 days."
Kael exhaled slowly, eyes on the the map as he told his wierdboy assistant .
"Tell the meks to prepare fortifying the outer rings, I want all guns aimed at the bugs before we attack them"
"Yeh, Boss! We'z gonna bomb da whole stinkin' bug nest ta bits!"
"Mhm"
Kael nodded as he proceeded to his chambers wich is probably the only clean spot in the ship.
"Ssssssss"
He massage his head as warm water bathed him removing all the fatigue for the day.
'im going crazy interacting with orks all the time'
'from the original Kael's memories humans aren't very common in this part of the universe, tho I'll doubt I'll get allong with them due to masisve cultural difference.'
Like before his death, milky way galaxy also exists in this universe and according to his memory human civilization already existed for many millennias and are one of the larger population in the universe. But who knows what other civilization exists out there, from his memory even large interstellar empires cannot fully map dozens of galaxies much more the whole universe.
'universal exploration should be my main agenda, imagine all the wonders and beautiful alien- cough I mean views'
Not thinking about other matters he finished showering and finally fell to his bed drifting into sleep's embrace.
Or so he thought.
Kael dreamed again.
He found himself in middle of a green void,
not the glow of Orkish psychic energy he'd grown used to but a overwhelming storm of green. It churned with the scent of blood, oil, and gunpowder.
He stood on a battlefield of scrap. A continent of ancient wreckage, skulls the size of mountains, broken titans chained to the bones of gods. The sky was a swirling maelstrom of green lightning and red fog, and orbiting above was a shattered moon made entirely of teeth.
Then, they came.
Mork and Gork.
Not walking. Not stomping. They descended like thoughts made flesh too massive, too angry, too loud. The ground shook beneath each movement, and the air screamed in their presence.
Then they spoke as one fused in power:
"You'z been doin' good, little man..."
"Smashin', lootin', yellin', leadin'—a proper WAAAGH iz brewin'!"
Kael fell to one knee. Not out of worship—but because the weight of their voices crushed the soul. His skin tingled with static, his spine arched with psychic pressure.
"But you'z still small. Still squishy. Still humie."
"Too much thinkin', not enough krumpin'."
"But dat's why you'z interestin'."
Gork leaned down, his eye burning like a star.
"So we'z gonna help. Just a bit."
"A GIFT."
From Mork's clawed hand came a glowing cylinder on it was a green piece of flesh shaped like the fucking corona virus pulsing, throbbing like a living heart, swirling soup of green and red DNA strands floated around as it fused into something unnatural. It felt alive, and angry.
YOU… HAVE BEEN DOIN' GOOD…"
"YOU BUILT A SHIP DAT ROARS."
"YOU FED DA WAAAGH."
"YOU ATE DA ZAPPA JUICE."
"YOU DIDN'T SMASHED, BUT YOU THOUGHT."
"DA KORK SEED."
"PART ORK RAGE, PART PRIMARCH MIGHT."
"FORGED BY DA GODZ, TEMPERED BY DA EMPEROR'S BLOOD."
Gork's fist slammed the shattered moon into the ground, the tremors rippling through the green cosmos.
Mork's grin spread wider, sharper than any power klaw.
"DIS SEED GONNA MAKE YA BIGGER, FASTER, TOUGHER… SMARTER."
"YA'LL BE DA WAAAGH'S CHAMPION, DA UNIVERSE'S FEAR."
"Stick it in yer meat. Let it grow. Let it change ya."
"MAKE DA BIGGEST WAAAGH EVAH."
"BE BRUTAL."
"BE CUNNIN'."
"BE DA BOSS."
Kael's body was seized by an unknown Force. green mist surged into him, through his mouth, eyes, skin, soul. He screamed in pain, as the flesh bud inside the canister flew into his chest that was opening like a mouth exposing his organs
Then it attached to the heart
His flesh boiled. Bones snapped and reformed. His blood turned hot and heavy. His thoughts became blurry.
Pain of unknown level filled his body, as if thousands of ants were crawling.
After unknown amount of time Kael awoke full of sweat
His heartbeat thundered like Ork drums.
His skin itched, thickened. Muscles bulged under veins that glowed faintly green. His teeth felt sharper. His thoughts were clearer.
The bed was now small for him as his body grew- taller than an astartes but shorter than a primarch but he new this was only the beginning and he can feel it.
His body is hungry
Hungry for battle
Then it came the last message
"Da powa ya got now? It's weak, just a quick spark—
A flash dat don't last long, like a runt's squig.
Dis ain't da end, it's only da beginnin'.
Da real challenge? Dat's what's comin' next!"
"Dis be da final test, da last stomp ya gotta take.
Show us ya strong enough to smash or get smashed.
If ya fail, ya jus' squish underfoot,
But if ya win, da powa's all yours, forever!"
"Squash da Bug Queen under yer big boot,
Let da blood spill like a red river—
In da smashin', da bashin', da wipin' out,
Dat's how ya gets real powa, strong an' true!"
"But listen 'ere, if ya muck it up,
Den it ain't our problem, boy—
Ya'll blow up like a squig stuffed wit' rokkit fuel,
Splat! Jus' goo an' guts, no more boss!"
Hearing this Kael was snapped out of feeling his newfound powers
'fuck this ain't a power up, this is a quest with time limit and death penalty!'
'I plan to just chill and they're making me fight the boss?'
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[On a scale of 1 to 10 how good is the power I chose for the mc?]
I was planning to introduce it in later chapters but come on that's boring and WAGHHHH is WAGHHHH. It also a quick reason to change his personality from passive to truly fitting an ork boss😈