Chapter 15

  The belly of the captured ‘Umie ship was a beautiful nightmare of Orky ingenuity. What had once been a tidy, sterile hangar bay was now a roaring forge, lit by the sparks of a thousand welders and the glow of molten metal. Mekboyz swarmed over the sleek blue hull of a Strike Cruiser, gleefully bolting on more dakka, welding jagged plates of scrap over the fancy gold bits, and installing a Grot-operated snack dispenser in the main bridge. This was progress.

  But the git in charge of it all was giving me a headache.

  Codda the Mekboy stood on a gantry, not overseeing his work, but nervously watching the shadows. His mega-armour, usually gleaming with polish and self-importance, was dull and dented. He flinched every time a rivet gun went off too close. He’d tried to overthrow me three times since we took this rust-heap. The first time, he’d tried to rig my scrap-throne to explode. The second, he’d built a Grot-sniper with a kustom rifle. The third, he’d just charged at me, screaming. All of them had failed miserably.

  It had broken him. He was a good Mek, one of the best, but he was a terrible Ork. Too much thinkin’, not enough krumpin’. And I’d made him that way. By letting him live, by showing him he wasn’t the biggest or the best, I’d turned his ambition into a twitchy, paranoid mess.

  “Codda!” I roared, and he jumped so high he nearly fell off the gantry.

  “Boss!” he squeaked, turning. “Just… checkin’ the structural integrity! Gotta make sure it’s all properly Orky!”

  “It’s fine,” I grunted, climbing up to meet him. I looked out at the half-finished fleet. “You’re doin’ good work. This is the start of somethin’ big, Codda. The start of the Grubbly Empire.”

  He stared at me, his eyes wide with suspicion. “Right, Boss. Your empire.”

  “Our empire,” I corrected him “Get it done, Codda,” I said.

  I found Grolnok by the squig pens, poking a nervous Grot with his grabba stikk. Grolnok was old, even for an Ork. He’d been the Runtherd here long before I was a Nob. He was also the one who’d raised Zolk, which made him both valuable and a constant pain in my backside.

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  “Grolnok,” I grunted. He turned, his one good eye narrowing.

  “Boss,” he rasped. “Come to admire my squigs? Or to ask why I ain’t got a thousand ‘Umie slaves workin’ in the fungus-pits?”

  “The second one,” I said, leaning against the pen. “Yapper told me the ships were full of ‘em. Said you just let ‘em all go.”

  “Told ‘em to get in the pods and scram,” Grolnok confirmed. “They’re probably starvin’ to death all over the planet right now.”

  “I told you no xenos slaves,” I said, my voice low. “You listened. Good. But I want to know why you think I said it.”

  Grolnok spat on the ground. “'Cause you’re gettin’ soft, Grubbly. A proper Ork lords it over the gits he’s krumped. Makes ‘em work. Makes ‘em fight each other for fun. You need both. The fist and the boot.”

  “You’re wrong, old man,” I said, shaking my head. “Herding ain’t about lording. It’s about teaching. You teach a squig to bite the other gits and not you. You teach a Grot to clean your boots without losing more than one finger. You teach a Boy to be a proper Boy by givin’ him a proper enemy to fight!”

  I pointed a thumb back towards the burning forge in the distance. “You take a thousand ‘Umie slaves, what do you get? Lazy Orks. You get Boyz who’d rather watch a man-fight than start a proper scrap. But you let those blue boys run around, fighting for their lives? You get a whole generation of my Boyz learning how to fight the toughest gits in the galaxy. A good enemy is the best training tool there is. It makes your Boyz stronger. That’s proper herding.”

  Grolnok was silent for a long moment, just staring. Then he shrugged. “Seems like a lot of work when you could just be stompin’ ‘em.” He subtly nudged the gate to Zolk’s pen open with his stikk. “Your dinner’s ready, Zolk,” he muttered under his breath.

  Zolk’s massive head shot up. He looked at me, then at the open gate, a hungry growl rumbling in his chest. It was the same thing Grolnok tried every few months.

  I didn’t even flinch. I just stared back at Zolk. “Don’t even think about it, lad.”

  Zolk whined, a pathetic sound for such a huge beast, and flopped his head back down on the ground.

  Grolnok sighed. “Worth a try.”

  Just then, a planet-shaking WHOOM echoed from the direction of the siege. It wasn’t the sound of Ork explosions. It was loud. It was angry. It was… familiar.

  My vox crackled to life. It was Rukkit, his voice filled with manic glee. “BOSS! YOU GOTTA SEE THIS! ONE OF THEIR BIG FIRE-TANKS! IT’S BROKEN OUT! IT’S NOT ATTACKIN’ US, IT’S JUST… DRIVIN’! SOUTH! AND IT’S ON FIRE! AND IT’S SHOOTIN’ AT ROCKS! IT’S THE MOST ORKY THING I’VE EVER SEEN!”

  A slow, wide grin spread across my face. I looked towards the distant cloud of smoke and fire. The blue boy wasn't cowering. He wasn't breaking. He was learning.

  “Well, Grolnok,” I said, turning back to the old Runtherd. “Looks like class is back in session.”