The hulk had drifted aimlessly for a few months now. The cramped
section of the "craft" Gargrazz
and his mob had boarded was sealed off from the rest of
the hulk. They'd grown weary and frustrated over the quarters
they were bound up in and Gargrazz could sense that things were going to
go poorly if he didn't get his boyz planetside soon.
After consulting with his meks, he'd decided to fire the massive burnas
they'd scraped together on the side of the ship. They weren't nearly as
effective as the trakta-beam that pushed the ship off into deep space at
near light speeds, but it would at least get them moving towards a
cluster of stars that would, hopefully, support some kind of
habitable planet. If not, then anything was better than rotting on this
Mork-forsaken hulk.
It doesn't take long for an ork boy'z stolen weapon to start taking on a new life of its own. Four months from their
last plunder of an Ooman colony and ther gear, and there wasn't a single weapon on the
ship that looked or felt like anything other than orkoid. Every boy had
run his weapon by one mek or another and had them "kustomized". Most
were accelerated, manipulated, or ventilated. Every single one was louder.
Gargrazz had spent weeks trying to get his meks to take a "look-see" at
the captured Big Dakka the Blood Axes had boosted on the last raid, but
to no avail. The weedy Blood Axes had guarded it like it was a shiny
treasure retrieved from some great crumbling dynasty. They insisted on
caring for it and allowed only their own mek access to it. Gargrazz was
under the impression they'd done more harm than good. After all, it
still had the stink of Ooman about it.
Finally, after an eternity of tinkering and in-fighting, the orks had
finally passed close enough to a planet that could be hit with the traktas. The
pulsating beam latched onto the planet's gravity field and slowly pulled
the hulk into a low orbit. It would only be a matter of days before the
hulk spiraled into the atmosphere and crashed somewhere on the surface.
Gargrazz was too anxious to get groundside, so he ordered the drop kanz
to launch as soon as possible.
The horde pushed and shoved their way into the kanz while mekz and
slavers hustled their respective clockwork creations and grot charges
into the larger bombaz that would fly down to the surface. (Most would
plummet like the kanz, but there was a bit of comfort to the grotz to be
put into something that had the semblance of wings and the insinuated
aerodynamic properties...) On Gargrazz' order, and with a rousing
chorus of "Ere We Go!", the podz were launched towards the planet's
surface. The last meks off the hulk set the traktor's field to spike,
causing the five mile long hulk to suddenly get tugged into the surface of
the planet a hundred miles off from the kanz landing point.
Speaking from a relative point of view, things went smoothly for the
orks. The kans plowed into the planet's surface and ruptured enough to
allow the orks access from the crude drop pods. The bombas spiraled
recklessly and made their respective two to one point landings nearby.
The hulk smashed cataclysmic ally into the planet's surface just over
the horizon.
Most of the boyz were out of the kanz and recovered from
the speed rush of planet fall to witness what was one of the largest
bangas known to Orkdom. Whooping and hollering, the mob of orks rushed
towards the crash site, hoping to loot some good skrap and fashion
themselves a new kamp from the wreckage. Meanwhile, the meks and
slavers held back to attend to the damaged machinery and violently
vomiting gretchin that were littered all over the battlefield.
This gave the mighty Gargrazz and his retinue of hoary old nobz time to
take stock of the planet they'd arrived on. They took in the lush,
green forests of terran-style trees and low brush. A majority of the
area was a thin layer of fertile soil with craggy, broken outcroppings
of rock.
Zugnek, an ancient and massive nob of the Deathskullz klan turned to
Gargrazz, "No time fer da squigz ta take 'old in dis muggy spot."
Gargrazz grinned, "Yer. 'Member ta get da drops dug first ting. We'ze
gonna have sum ripe 'ol squigz 'afore da season endz."
"Yum."
The assembled nobz looked down at Gargrazz' assistant, Fetchit, who'd
just spoken out of turn. A few idly rubbed their choppas, while some
silently shot Gargrazz a look. Gargrazz sighed and picked up the
squirming grot and hefted him off into the deep brush. The smaller runt
disappeared with a high pitched, "Aieeeeeee...".
Gargrazz turned back to the nobz mob and gestured to the crash site,
"C'mon. Gonna' take us a while ta get to da new kamp. Mosta' da trukks
is leavin' wifout us."
The massive orks all tromped off back to the kanz landing site to try
and catch the last trukks that were already tearing off towards the location
of the new kamp.
 
Fetchit landed hard in a tangle of briars. Slowly, he manipulated his
spindly arms out of the tangle and began to pick burrs out of his
jerkin-- all the while grumbling to himself about, "What 'eed do iffin'
ee' was da boss..."
He knew he'd be too late getting down to the landing site to catch a
trukk (if any orks would let him on the trukk in the first place) and
had resigned himself to a long walk to kamp. It wouldn't be so
bad. There were no bosses, he had a pouch full of chewin' squigz, and
Gargrazz wouldn't even miss him for the next few days. This would be
his own adventure!
He brushed himself off after taking stock of all his bumps and scrapes
(three new bumps, one new biggun' scrape, and a half dozen older bumps from
the last squigbowl game he "played" in). He picked his helmet up off
the ground and screwed it back down on his head. He was proud of his
hat. He'd found two spare boar tusks and had attached them on like
bull's horns in respect of Gargrazz' clan, da Goffs. It so endeared
Gargrazz to him that Gargrazz had traded for the grot and had kept him
as his primary assistant for lotz of years now. The position had it's ups and
downs. He was closest to Gargrazz and was counted on for many important
tasks, but on the other hand, he was closest to Gargrazz...and his
impatient hamfist.
Shooting the ornery shrub a raspberry, Fetchit strode off in the
direction of the kamp-- and right into the heaving chest of a massive
ork.
Fetchit fell flat on his rump and looked up. A huge ork was standing
over him. He wielded a massive choppa that gleamed wickedly in the
spotty sunlight that fell through the trees. His other hand rested on a
crude slugga that was wrapped in squig skin and adorned with teeth.
Fetchit didn't recognize this ork, or the nine others that had emerged
from nowhere, they definitely didn't sport the tell-tale signs of being
in Gargrazz' mob. In fact, Fetchit couldn't see any clan designation at
all.
The big ork thunked his choppa into the soft soil, and reached out and
grabbed the frightened runt. He hefted him up to his level and took a
long snort, smelling the grot. Fetchit winced and farted out of
fright. The ork wrinkled his brow and turned to another ork carrying a
big staff with a wicked hook on the end. He held Fetchit out to the ork
and said, "Wozzit?"
The other ork shrugged and shook his head, "Na' me..."
The leader turned back to the grot and shook him. Fetchit screwed his
eyes up and winced. When the shaking stopped, he pried a single eye
open to see the ork moving a massive finger to his hat. The ork then
grinned and flicked the little helmet off the grot's head. The ork
chuckled.
Fetchit had had enough. He was, after all, a member of distinguished order. He pulled his arms free of the ork's clutch and
shook his fists at the ork, "Me's Fetchit! I'mma greatest grot whut
ever served for da great an' mighty Gargrazz Da Oomie Busta! You'z'a
gonna' get a gob fulla' powerklaw frum me boss if ya don' lemme' go! I'm warnin'
yer!"
The ork was so shocked by the grot's bravado that he dropped Fetchit and
screwed up his eyes in confusion. The ork, however, took no time to compose
himself and hefted his choppa while Fetchit turned and picked up his
helmet off the ground. The ork brought the axe down inches from Fetchit
just as he turned back around. Fetchit yelped and flung himself to the grass,
covering his head.
The big ork bellowed, "Whoo'ze you?! Wiffin' geddup all'a darkun?!
Whuzzat boom-a offa' sky?! Why'duz stinka' notha' orken alla sudden?!"
Fetchit tried his best to understand the ork, but the accent was so
thick, he could only make out part of the bellowing. He shrugged
numbly.
The ork suddenly grabbed Fetchit and stabbed a big finger into the
grot's tunic where a crudely sewn bull was emblazoned across his chest,
"Whooza' gonna' kop wiff'in dunkla' squig?!"
The finger tattooed a thumping rhythm on the grot's chest. Fetchit had
never been so scared before in his life. He took a rather wild stab in
the dark, "Goffs? You know...clan?"
The finger thump stopped. The ork kept the nearly clubbed-sized digit
hovering in front of Fetchit.
Fetchit tried again, "Bull? Biggin' nasty Oomie fing? You know,
Oomie?"
The ork turned to his mates, they all shrugged. He turned back to
Fetchit, "Wossa' Ooman?"
Fetchit accidently let a sarcastic eye-roll escape. The ork shook him
again. His helmet fell off and the ork thumped him on the head with his
finger. After a yelp, and some gentle rubbing of the sore spot, Fetchit took on a rather humble
countenance, "Oomanz. Emp'ror. Urth? Beekies? Big metal dakka...ya
never seen'a Ooman?"
The orks showed no sign of understanding.
Fetchit made one last attempt, "Pasty, weedy gitz wif skinny mugs?"
The orks suddenly relaxed. Another ork, back behind the leader nodded
sagely, "Yer...Panzee. Wee's kop Panzee..."
Fetchit, not wanting to inspire another thumping, nodded, "Uh, yer,
Panzee...whatevur..," and then under his breath, "Good enuff ya gitz..."
The ork shook him again and stabbed into the bull glyph again, "Whooze
nob?! Wozzit... ur... Gargrazz? Wozza' 'E?"
Fetchit opened his gob before he realized what he was doing, "Gargrazz
is me warboss! Mighty Gargrazz da Oomie Busta!"
The ork then bellowed and threw the grot against a tree. Fetchit was
nearly knocked cold. The ork mob surrounded the little grot with ugly
looks. He barely made out the leader's rant, "Me's warboss! 'Ard 'ol
Mugzthumpa! Gotta' mob'a onna' kop'a Mork! Wozzat dump bout'a
'Bull'!? Notta' proppa' orken gonna' kop a bit 'bout'a Panzee
squigly!! Wozzat 'Gargrazz'!? Skrap'n wiffin' gonna' shows'im whooz'a
boss!! WAAAUGH!"
The orks around the enraged warboss bellowed along with him. Fetchit
could feel orky rage building up around him. He knew he'd started
something that wasn't going to turn out proppa'.
Suddenly, one of the orks tossed him into a sack and the orks began to
tear across the forest floor in the direction of Gargrazz' kamp.
Gargrazz was overseeing the construction of his hut. The boyz were in a
hurry to finish it because they wanted to get started on their own
abodes. The Snakebites had lashed up a mek's pulley system to a team of
boars. The grunting beasts were hauling a massive wall up out of a slag
heap and maneuvering it into position for Gargrazz' Nob Hut. Boyz
scurried about with burnas, spannas, hammers, and rivet gunz as they
attempted to construct the building that collapsed and crumbled faster
than it went up.
Gargrazz heard a rumbling. He turned. Over a hill to the north,
birds and other flying beasts were lifting up in mass from the canopy of
the forest. Large forest creatures crested the hill-- obviously fleeing
from some sort of disturbance that was tearing through the foliage.
Gargrazz' skin crawled. He felt a tingle in the nape of his neck.
There was a stimulating energy that was coursing through the area. His
hired konstruction boyz felt it too. They stopped hammering and cutting
and turned to the hill to the north. Aggression. Anger. Rage. The
euphoria of battle was already starting to build and the orks hadn't
even known an enemy yet-- yet there was something tangible radiating
outward that gripped them all by the chest. The rumbling
shook the last bolt loose from the hut and the shoddy kontrapshion
sighed and collapsed to the ground like a house of cards.
Gargrazz was angry. Whatever it was, it needed to be torn limb from
limb. He gulped a massive gob of air and groaned out a huge, guttural,
"WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"
Every ork in his mob that was scuttling over the scrap heap turned and
grabbed the loosest bit of scrap they could find and hefted it before
tearing across the wreckage towards the mysterious rumbling. The
vibration of the earth reached a fever pitch as two massive warbands
charged towards each other.
The first alien ork crested the hill. It was Mugzthumpa and he was
bounding ahead of his mob by a full thirty feet at a breakneck pace.
Gargrazz instantly knew that this was his foe. He flipped a switch on
his mega armor and powered up his boostas. He tore ahead of his retinue
and broke away from the mass of his warband. He leveled his kustomized
shoota at the other warboss and snapped off a few inaccurate rounds at
the ork. Frustrated, he tossed the gun away at the last moment and
ducked into a low, inertia-driven crouch.
The two huge opponents both leaped yards from each other and crashed
into each other in mid air. Gargrazz' bulk drove the other ork
backwards into the turf. Their combined mass left a deep indentation in
the dirt. Mugzthumpa grunted and powered his slugga into Gargrazz'
gut. He pulled the trigger and shoved. Gargrazz flew back his full
body length, leaking ichor from a tear in his mega armor. Medisquigz
already staunched the flow and sealed up the wound by the time he'd
rolled to a standing position.
Mugzthumpa left Gargrazz no time to think. He'd already launched himself
at the Goff warboss with his choppa hefted high over his head.
As both ork mobs finally met in a crashing crescendo around the two,
Gargrazz grabbed his opponent in mid flight by the shoulder blade with
his hamfist and ducked the massive axe, maneuvering around the arc of
the deadly swing. The axe embedded in the dirt and sent a spray of sod
in all directions. Gargrazz dug his feet into the dirt and used his
lower vantage to grapple the ork's arm back behind him while he was
still flailing. A sickening pop was heard under the sinews and muscle
of Mugzthumpa's shoulder.
Mugzthumpa bellowed angrily and whipped his slugga around in his good
arm and put it to Gargrazz' head. With a quick snap of the trigger, a
portion of Gargrazz' exposed skull was torn away by the solid slug.
Streaming grey matter, Gargrazz fought the sudden slowing of his reflexes and threw his
weight into a lazy swing with his powerklaw.
Mugzthumpa was too distracted by his success to duck the huge klawed
hand that caught him across the chest. Octarine light flashed as the
powerklaw blinked and tore a gaping hole the size of a manhole in
Mugzthumpa's barreled torso.
Gargrazz collapsed in a heap. A bucket-load of medisquigz were swarming
over his head where the slugga round had torn a part of his skull
loose. Mugzthumpa, on the other hand, was barely clinging to life.
There was little left to hold his extremities together except a
cavernous shell of his midsection. Green ichor sprayed in a dozen
different directions. His eyes lolled back in his head as both the
warbosses' respective retinues converged on the battlesite.
Both sides were stymied. This was a bit of a pickle. Neither warboss
had technically "won" the duel and no dominance had been established.
Both orks had come out relatively even. They watched the battle rage
around them. It had become obvious that Gargrazz' mob was winning by
sheer bulk of his force and by bringing more boyz to the skrap... but
Mugzthumpa's boyz were holding their own. Their tenacity was
unparalleled. Unhindered by clan in-fighting, they were able to regroup
after a retreat to come back in force with another mob-- whereas
Gargrazz' boyz would tend to fall back and stay back, huddling in their
respective clans, relying on the more aggressive skarboyz and snakebites
to continue the fight...
Eventually, as the great, red sun began to dip low on the horizon, the
energy wound down. Both sides had emerged on the other side of their
rage and were becoming increasingly uninterested in their skrapping.
Gargrazz' medisquigs and his doks had helped him be the first to come around
between the two warbosses. The doks had sealed the head wound with a
hastily bolted metal plate while medisquigz repaired broken synapses and
reconstructed neural pathways by building daisychains of microscopic
squig-based tissue. Mugzthumpa was worse for the wear. His respective
bitz had been gathered carefully by doks from both mobs and were kept in
jars by the attending grots. Meks had already begun construction of a
cybork body for him, using skrap from the wreckage of the hulk, but it
would be days before completion.
Gargrazz took this time to establish his dominance over the other mob by
beating down the surlier nobz that had delusions of grandeur. This time, however, Gargrazz had
decided on a different course of action. A "New Ork Order", as his
reunited grot assistant-and-now-translator, Fetchit, had described it.
He called together all the nobz of the respective clans and units and
addressed them at once, "Awright..." Gargrazz swept the assembled nobz
with his gaze and made sure every last one was attentive, "...I had
enuff of all dis confusin' clan stuff an' wotnot. It's time I gon' an'
made sum changes 'round here. Frum now on, dere'z goin' ta be ONE mob.
It'z gonna' be MY mob. I don't kare if yer a Snakebite git, or a weedy
Blood Axe git..." there was a low mumble from the rear of the
assemblage, "...or you're wonn'a me newboyz from Mugzthumpa's mob. Yer
all gonna' be MY mob now. Yer all gonna' look like GOFFS now. No
more'a this bickerin' an fussin' over stoopid Oomie concepts of 'Hon-ur'
an' 'All-e-guntz'. Orky Kulture is all dat'z wot-- an Orky Kulture is
whut I SEZ IT IS. Is there any kwestunz? Me'n Mugzthumpa'z already
discussed this, an we're gonna' enforce dis policy wif force. There
will be no diskussion, awright?"
The assembled orks shuffled uncomfortably. They looked sideways at
their backwards or wrong-thinking compatriots and decided that there was
little discussion to be had. Gargrazz had proved time and again that he
was the ded 'ardest. One must assume, by that logik, that Goffs were
the superior clan...
Things changed from then on. The clans didn't disappear all together,
glyphs and backplates of foreign clans often poked out through the stark
black, red, and white of the preferred Goff garb (one cannot, after all,
deny one's hardwiring...) but the army soon began to identify itself by
Gargrazz' might. The multi-Kultural identity that always forced them to
fight in a shapeless, uncooperative mass began to dissolve away into a
mob of one mind, one bent, one thought. The mob grew in size, and never
had a problem incorporating new boyz. They were all admitted and
absorbed-- as long as they were part of Gargrazz' mob, and not loyal to
the useless clan system that most ork mobs of old were forced to
struggle with. Gargrazz' Kamp stayed on that planet for a few years
until they had exhausted the resources of it. They rebuilt the bombas,
slapped together a portion of the old hulk, powered up the ancient
trakta beams, and caught themselves the next asteroid that drifted by--
off to another system... in search of new foes to skrap wif.
End.
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