[color=9e0b0f][h3][b]Pentious[/b][/h3][/color]

Time passed, as it was want to do. 

The war for Pentious continued, but after the smiting of Warboss Kracker'Laker and the force he had brought with him to make the final push to claim the world for the greenskins the nature of the war changed somewhat. With the Warboss that had united them dead and no clear contender to step up and replace him, the orks splintered into tribal warbands under local bosses that had been left behind to overseer production in the captured forges or lesser camps that had been set up for one reason or another over the course of the war. 

While orks would assault Forge-Alpha over the course of the period, they would do so without the strength in numbers or tactical leadership (such as it was) that Kracker'Laker had brought to bare that made him such a dangerous threat. They died against the outer defenses easily enough (or as easily as an ork can die). But by and large, Forge-Alpha was largely ignored by the more successful would be Warbosses as they focused on each other. 

There was an understandable logic to this from a human perspective; None of the more successful Warbosses had enough military power to credibly try and take the human held Forge-Alpha individually. If they were to be united under common cause they would have been able to, but without a clear Warboss in charge, none of the contenders for the position could afford to trust any of the others to work together due to one of the primary virtues of the greenskin was 'Brutal Kunning'. Therefore, the only real way for the orks to unite again was for one of the contenders to defeat and cast down his rivals and subjugate their tribes.  

While the reprieve was greatly welcomed by the holdouts at Forge-Alpha and it gave them much needed time to recover and rearm for the conflict ahead, they did not simply lick their wounds and rest. As the various forces of the Mechanicum rebuilt themselves, a close eye was kept on the various splintered greenskinned tribes and their leaders. Calculations and stratagems of some of the best and brightest tactical minds that humanity had to offer were fed, forged and if faults were found, reforged again and again in dedication to a singular task; Preventing the greenskinned horde from reuniting under a new leader. 

When action was required, regardless of whatever form that action needed to be in, squads of Myrmdons would go out into the world to see it done. While the tech-priests of the Myrmdon sub-cult were known for their destructive dedications and abilities, they could prove surprisingly subtle when the situation called for it. It was important that actions against current threats be taken to prevent the stalemate of the greenskins from being broken, but restraint had to be shown as well; Sabotage one tribe too much and the other tribes would simply pounce on and consume it, growing stronger while removing one of the fronts of their civil war. 

Even as the orks continued to spin their wheels in the mud pointlessly, the humans of Pentious were recovering their strength. The vats were pumping out fresh humans to be converted into combat servitors, tech thralls or even skitarii almost daily, while machines of war were repaired or freshly built for the battles to come. Weapons and armor were being produced around the clock.

...And in a recovery vat, the strange child that had delivered them from Warboss Kracker'Laker continued to grow larger by the day as his body recovered at an incredible rate. Until one day, their vitals and brainwaves started to show the signs of waking up.