Chapter 2: Orks as Kindling
Before, all he'd needed was a patch of dirt and he could forge a loyal Death Warrior from nothing.
Now what was this? Had the difficulty been cranked up?
Or were the fundamental laws of the Warhammer universe just that brutal, squeezing his system's conversion rate down to something genuinely offensive?
One Gretchin kill for one Life Point.
That meant he'd have to rip apart a hundred greenskins by hand on this crisis-riddled space hulk just to summon a single basic-tier Death Warrior.
And then there was the Refined Steel requirement.
Rosen looked down at the Catachan Fang in his hand.
The moment his eyes settled on the blade, a small prompt box popped up in the system interface:
[High-carbon metal construct detected (plasteel/refined steel composite).]
[Absorb and convert to Refined Steel reserves?]
[Estimated yield: 0.00024 cubic metres of Refined Steel.]
Rosen selected [NO] without a second's hesitation.
Was the system out of its mind?
He was behind enemy lines, and this knife was his only lifeline. He wasn't feeding his one weapon to the system for a pathetic 0.00024 cubic metres of anything.
He might as well just cut his own throat and get it over with.
But he needed to understand how the Refined Steel acquisition worked.
This was a space hulk. There was no shortage of metal.
He crossed to a massive load-bearing steel column nearby and pressed his palm flat against it.
Nothing.
He picked up a scrap plate from the floor, roughly the size of his hand.
[Scrap iron/low-carbon steel detected.]
[Absorb and refine into Refined Steel reserves?]
[Estimated yield: 0.003 cubic metres of Refined Steel.]
The rule snapped into focus immediately. Only objects he could physically lift counted as his property in the system's judgment. Only those could be absorbed.
He tested it further by hauling up a solid iron chunk weighing well over two hundred pounds.
The system confirmed it was eligible for absorption, but the actual Refined Steel yield was only 0.007 cubic metres. Scrap iron lost a significant amount to purification.
"Absorb."
The two-hundred-pound lump dissolved into a fine scatter of grey light and vanished.
Rules confirmed. Efficiency mapped. No time for arithmetic right now.
The danger was nowhere near over.
This was the wreckage zone of Deck Seventy-Seven.
When the 88th Strike Force had launched their boarding assault, his company had been fighting in this exact area.
Back then he'd been surrounded by his squad. Now everyone was gone.
Rosen's ears went up.
From somewhere deep in the shadows, he caught sounds drawing closer. Sounds that didn't belong.
"Waaagh... humies... smash..."
At least several dozen Gretchin and Ork Boyz were wandering this level.
He made his assessment, then moved fast, running a complete mental inventory of everything he had on him.
One Catachan Fang.
Two frag booby-traps clipped to the inside of his webbing.
One spool of monofilament wire, twenty metres long.
One block of military rations, hard as brick.
One water skin with half a flask of murky filtered water.
One hip tactical pouch containing several metres of concealed fuse line.
He had no idea what was happening out in the void. Were the three Imperial cruisers still out there? Were there any other survivors from the 88th Strike Force?
The shuffling footsteps were getting closer.
The Orks had apparently caught the scent of fresh blood in the air and were moving this way fast.
He couldn't stay put.
Rosen pulled back quickly and located a ventilation duct running diagonally above his head. The grille was long gone, leaving a dark open mouth in the ceiling.
In the jungle, when you're facing a pack you can't fight, a hunter learns to be better at hiding than his prey.
He slipped into the dark duct without a sound.
Darkness was the oldest ally in the void. And the most lethal enemy.
Rosen, Kol "Iron Serpent" Rosen, peered down through the gap at the bottom of the duct at the wreckage zone of Deck Seventy-Seven below.
The first to emerge were over thirty Gretchin packed tightly together.
They were dragging all manner of loot scavenged from human corpses and rubble. Rusted gears, snapped lasgun barrels, a bloodied helmet, and what appeared to be a bloody human leg that had once belonged to some unfortunate Guardsman.
"Move it! You useless maggot-nosed slugs! Faster!"
Behind the Gretchin mob, two massive figures came stomping out, hurling abuse as they went.
Two fully grown Ork Boyz.
Both stood over two metres twenty. Deep green skin covered in a criss-cross of scars. They wore crude armour hammered together from old tyres and unidentifiable alien carapace, and each carried an enormous cleaver. One of them had a massive slugga hanging from his belt, the barrel wide enough to fit a grown man's fist inside.
Rosen narrowed his eyes in the duct.
He was waiting for a variable.
Down below, the Gretchin mob suddenly erupted into a commotion.
The two Gretchin corpses had been found.
"Boss! Boss! Over here!"
"Dead little gits! Someone did 'em in!"
This Gretchin was noticeably smarter than the two idiots from earlier. It moved close to the corpse with the Fang wound in its throat, small nose twitching twice.
"This were done by a big humie blade! There's a live humie nearby, a fighting one! Real good fighter!"
Greenskin genetics allowed them to smell bolter gun oil from hundreds of metres away. They could read the brutality of an enemy from the wound patterns on a corpse.
"Waaagh! Shut yer gob, you noisy little snot!"
The lead Ork Boy swung a boot hard into the warning-issuing Gretchin.
The Gretchin managed half a shriek before it hit the metal bulkhead a dozen metres away and became an unrecognisable smear of green and red.
The surrounding Gretchin trembled as one.
"Useless little runts!"
The Ork picked at his nose. "I'm 'ere to scrap them big fellas in the iron shells! Not playin' hide-and-seek!"
"I heard more guns up ahead! Them cowards are nicking the good stuff! Move it! Waaagh!"
"Waaagh!"
Both Ork Boyz stomped off toward the far end of the corridor.
The Ork's complete absence of logical thought processes had just handed Rosen an opening.
The Gretchin spread out and kept sifting through the wreckage. The group scattered widely, two and three at a time across every corner of the zone.
Three of them were shoving each other over a cracked shoulder pad bearing the Imperial Aquila, squabbling right beneath the ventilation duct where Rosen was waiting.
Now.
Rosen dropped from the duct mouth.
The Catachan Fang reversed in his grip.
Thunk.
In the instant before his boots hit the deck, the blade drove straight down through the top of the leftmost Gretchin's skull. The green brain matter and blood didn't even have time to spray.
Rosen rolled into a smooth forward tumble on landing, bleeding off most of the impact.
The second Gretchin barely got out a strangled squeak before his knife grip cracked into the side of its skull.
Half the Gretchin's face caved in. An eye popped free from the socket under the pressure.
The third Gretchin had only just started to react.
Rosen flicked his wrist. The Catachan Fang came up from low to high in a vicious upward slash.
The wide serrated blade caught the third Gretchin from the groin and tore through it all the way up to the chest cavity.
From landing to three kills, the whole thing took under three seconds.
[Life Point +1]
[Life Point +1]
[Life Point +1]