Crunch crunch crunch!
Little Wrench ate until juice was running everywhere. Green grease dripped from the corners of its mouth, smearing its chin and chest.
The moment the Waaagh! energy entered its body, those dormant greenskin instincts flared awake.
This big humie boss killed old Mekboss!
This big humie boss had good food!
The good food tasted like Waaagh!
So this big humie boss was the new boss, a stronger, meaner, better boss than the old Mekboss.
Little Wrench swallowed the last shred of meat in its mouth, then dropped to its knees in front of Lawson again with a loud thump.
"Big humie boss!"
"Big humie boss strongest! Little Wrench follows big humie boss now! Tightens screws for big humie boss! Cleans guns! Hands over tools! Does everything!"
Its huge ears flapped with excitement, and the monofilament leash around its neck pulled tight from how violently it was shaking.
Number One lowered his gaze at the little thing tied to his waist, expressionless. But through Shared Awareness, Lawson caught a rare flicker of confusion from him.
Lawson had not expected the effect to be this good either.
He looked down at the kneeling little greenskin.
"Big humie boss?"
The title was neither accurate nor pleasant.
But in the universe of Warhammer 40,000, a human being called "big humie boss" by a gretchin was far from the strangest thing happening to him.
Little Wrench soon began doing simple maintenance work around the stronghold.
At the same time, Lawson never once relaxed his watch on the direction of the Genestealer nest.
Ever since that brief encounter with the purestrain at the end of the southern line, he had set up two fixed long-range observation posts five hundred meters outside the nest perimeter.
Numbers Twenty-Two and Twenty-Eight were hidden in two separate ventilation ducts, monitoring the main corridor leading to the nest from two non-overlapping angles.
From inside the stronghold, Lawson could receive all of their visual and auditory information in real time.
The two observation posts also watched each other. If either was discovered or attacked, the other could issue an immediate warning.
This double-cross surveillance system ran for three days without a single problem.
Lawson was in the stronghold inspecting the field generator.
The portable greenskin field generator taken from the Mekboy had already been mounted above the barricade at the main entrance, producing a translucent energy screen.
Its duration was limited. It could sustain continuous defense for roughly three to four minutes, but at a critical moment, that was enough to absorb a burst of heavy fire.
Then Number Twenty-Two's mental signal suddenly became highly active.
Lawson switched viewpoint at once.
The Genestealers and the Orks were fighting.
A large number of Genestealer hybrids were pouring out from the side near the nest.
They were different from purestrains.
Purestrains were the Tyranids' forward-seeding organisms, true xenos lifeforms with four arms and razor-edged chitin claws.
Hybrids, on the other hand, were offspring cultivated by purestrains through genetic infection within host species. The first generation still retained obvious xenos traits like misshapen skulls, extra limbs, and purple-gray skin.
What Lawson saw through Number Twenty-Two's eyes was mostly first- and second-generation hybrids.
There were at least two or three hundred of them.
Behind the hybrids, Lawson spotted at least three purestrains.
They were clearly larger than the hybrids. All four arms were spread wide, and the huge serrated claws at the ends of the upper pair gleamed an unsettling bone-white under the dim lights.
At the north end of the corridor, on the greenskin side, there was a standard green tide.
At least five to six hundred greenskins, with Ork boyz as the core and gretchin as the filler, were charging the Genestealer line with howls and bellows.
Among the Orks, Lawson spotted at least two Nobs.
They towered a head above the surrounding boyz and were carving open the front rank with giant choppas.
"WAAAAAAGH! Chop up these purple bugs! WAAAGH!"
The greenskin battle cries echoed through the enclosed passage, making the metal walls hum.
The two forces slammed together in the middle of the corridor.
The Genestealers fought in a way completely different from the greenskins.
Greenskins fought with brute force and numbers. Rush forward, smash everything, get smashed in return, and it did not matter because there were always more lads behind you.
Genestealers, by contrast, were precision killing machines.
The hybrids moved in tactical groups of three to five, maintaining near-telepathic coordination through the broodmind of their patriarch.
When one Ork boy raised its blade to hack down a hybrid, the two hybrids beside it had already predicted the trajectory and cut in from both flanks into its dead angles.
One hybrid parried the full strength of the choppa strike with a chitinous claw-blade.
The second drove its claws into the Ork's armpit from the opposite side.
The third leapt in from the front, all four arms working at once, slamming the Ork to the ground. Then the lower pair of claws neatly severed its cervical spine.
The whole process took less than three seconds.
One Ork boy, finished.
But greenskins had numbers.
One boy dropped, and three more stomped over its corpse.
Those two Nobs were especially monstrous, like a pair of green meat grinders.
The one on the left wielded a giant power choppa. Every sweep of the blade cut two or three hybrids clean in half.
Their chitin plates were meaningless before the energized edge. The hybrids split apart like candles sliced by a hot knife.
The one on the right had thrown away its weapon entirely and charged barehanded into the middle of the hybrids.
It crushed one hybrid's skull with both fists, then grabbed another by its two chitinous arms and tore it in half down the middle.
Purple fluid sprayed over its face. It stuck out its tongue and licked some of it off.
"WAAAAAGH! Tasty! More!"
Green blood, purple blood, chunks of flesh, severed limbs, broken weapons, and crushed bones blended together across the corridor floor into a thick slurry.
But what truly made the battle terrifying were the three purestrains.
They were fast enough to inspire despair.
One purestrain suddenly accelerated out from the rear of the hybrid formation.
All four arms were spread wide as it moved. The huge serrated claws on its upper arms traced four lethal arcs through the air as it passed.
Four Ork boyz were cut apart within a single second and dropped one after another.
Then the purestrain was in front of the Nob at the front line.
The Nob swung a fist at it.
The purestrain bent sideways at an angle that violated every rule of anatomy, and that blow, which could have crushed steel, passed less than two centimeters from its face.
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