Katia had never felt thirstier in her entire life, which was kind of ironic considering she was about to die in a water reprocessing plant.

 

“Fire in the hole!” Prax shouted and lobbed a bundle of hessian cloth at the orks charging down the access way between two immense water tanks. The leader of the group swung his choppa at the bundle but Katia and Prax both ducked back before the thing detonated with a thunderous crash. The improved explosive was cored by a krak grenade, and packed with as many ork bolter shells as could be made fit. The resulting detonation began with a sharp crack and roared into a score of secondary explosions as the sub munitions cooked off. Pieces of shrapnel clanged off piping and storage tanks with surprising musicality. Their supply of frag grenades had been expended in the desperate minutes following the fall of the gate, and they were down to whatever they could cobble together. For a while it had seemed they might hold the facility at least till their ammunition ran out, but just after dawn the Orks had changed the game. A warbike, painted entirely red, had gunned its way across the causeway, plowing into the gate at full speed before a load of explosives had gone off. The gate house had been vaporized, as had four out of the five troopers defending it at the time. Katia herself had been on her way up to check on the troops excited reports about the approach of the bike and had only been spared by the fact one of the troopers, whose name she had never learned, had shoved her back into the stairway the moment before the bomb went off. It was only by the grace of the God Emperor that she hadn’t been killed, either by the blast or the fall. It had been chaos after that, as the Gudrenites tried to rally and retake the wreck of the gatehouse, but it had been useless. Three more guardsmen had been killed, literally cut to pieces by blood crazed orks, before the survivors had managed to pull back into the interior of the pump station, trying desperately to make some kind of defense among the twisting masses of pipework.

 

“Waaaaaghh!” a single ork voice roared, and it was picked up by the others that were hunting the Imperials through the maze of tanks, pipes, ducts and reclamation stations that made up the pump station. Katia stuck her head out and saw that all but one of the orks was down. The survivor had lost a hand, an eye, and most of a leg, but was still dragging himself forward. She leaped at him, spinning her powersword and driving it down into the back of the orks neck with a satisfying sizzle. Bolter fire crashed out, hitting the tank above her and spraying sparks in all directions. Fragments clanged and whined across the convex metal surfaces of the tanks, echoing and redoubling as they went. Katia spun towards the threat, four orks rushing from a machine shop, close packed but she had no ammunition left for her bolt pistol. Another of the improvised explosives lofted from the shadows, tossed in the peculiar overarm manner many of the Gudrenites seemed to prefer. It burst with a flash of dirty smoke and eye searing light and all four orks were down, one grabbing angrily at its own spilled entrails. Muddy water poured from a tank where the crack warhead had punched the thin plate, spilling down over the offal like a cleansing rain. The air stank of mud, cordite and hot metal. More cries of Waaagh echoed through the facility. Katia had given up on any coherent defense, it was hide and seek among the tanks now, just trying to hold out a few more minutes. Those too badly wounded to fight, the dying really, had been pulled back to the inner sanctum of the Mechanicus. That would be their last stand, a courtesy that Kaita felt was owed to the Clockwork Emperor given that his facility had kept them alive a few hours longer than they had any right to expect.

 

“Commisar!” Prax called and las fire cut past Kaita, she whirled and lit her powersword, just in time to parry a great rusted axe that arced down to split her in two. A trio of orks had appeared from the level below, leaping the six feet up onto the working floor with whoops of excitement. Katia fainted left and then cut back right, taking the leg out from under the first ork with a sizzle of burning flesh. The remaining two drove her back, looping cuts coming too fast to even parry, her only option was to fall back away from the still firing Prax. The non-coms shots struck the back of one of the orks, blowing steaming chunks of flesh and armor away. The ork spun with unexpected grace and fired his bolter from the hip. Like all ork marksmanship it was pure wildfire, but if you through enough dice eventually you got boxcars. Prax’ arm flew off in a spray of blood that splashed up the side of a tank, his las gun clattering to the ground. The veteran fell to one knee, tried to steady himself with an arm he didn’t have and screamed as he mashed the bloody stump against the tank, before pitching onto his face. Katia shouted in frustration and tried to step in to stab the second ork but it whipped its axe around with unexpected speed, Katia tried to catch it in a block but the power of the blow lifted her off her feet and flung her into a relay lectern with a crash that jarred her bones. The creature loomed forward and lifted its blade to cut her in two. Katia jammed the point of her blade into a nest of piping and a great gout of steam burst forth with a scream like a storm siren, engulfing the orc from knee to crown in scalding cloud of boiling vapor. It howled and staggered back, stinking of cooked flesh and boiled blood. Pain burning through her body, Katia pulled herself to her feet and lunged after it, plunging her glowing blade through its sternum and bearing it over with her weight. She landed atop it with a splash and felt the disgusting mix of burned ork flesh and blood beneath her free hand. Twisting the blade she yanked it free and came unsteadily to her feet. The ork which had shot Prax was charging her, spittle flying from its gaping, yellow toothed maw. Katia tried to raise her blade, but it was so heavy, she felt slow and ungainly and there was an unpleasant ringing in her ears. The Ork’s mouth exploded in a spray of teeth as two las bolts punched into it at a steep angle. The beast staggered and tripped forward and Katia whipped her blade up, taking its ruined head off its shoulders. She glanced up to offer her thanks, but the steam made it impossible to discern which one of the guardsmen it had been. Several were up in the pipework, firing down where they could. Katia staggered through the stinking steam, by now the muddy water was sloshing around her ankles. Prax was lying face down and she pulled him up only with an effort. His face was very pale and his breathing rapid. Bright arterial blood still pulsed from the stump of his right arm, but the rhythm was slow and the output meager.

“The Emperor…” he began in a reedy voice, but he died before he could complete the aphorism.

“Grant you rest,” Katia replied, letting the dead corporal sag into the film of waste water. Katia pulled the canteen from the dead soldiers webbing and emptied it in a gulp. She almost sprayed it out of her mouth as she realized it was cheap joylik.

 

“I should put you on report,” she told Prax’ corpse sadly and placed the canteen down on his chest. Orks were shouting all around her now, and the steam wouldn’t hide her for long. She sheathed her powersword and picked up Prax’ lasgun. It was wet but a standard issue las gun would fire under almost any condition imaginable. The power readout showed empty. Almost any condition. She pulled open several pouches on the dead corporals webbing, but this had been his last powerpack. She lay the rifle beside the canteen and pulled herself to her feet. It was getting time for that last stand she owed the Omnissiah. Suddenly the timbre of the ork shouting changed. The cry of Waaaaagh! still predominated, but it was interspersed by the guttural barks of their speech in what sounded like interrogatives. A pair of brutes charged passed Katia, not even noticing her in her dark greatcoat as they splashed through the ankle deep water, rushing back towards the entrance and howling for blood. Katia shook her head and pushed herself to her feet. What in the Emperor’s name was going on?