A battered door, stuck ajar, absorbs my focus. Move! Move! Move! I repeat over and over in my head.

A second mob of boyz, backed up by a trio of gretchin piloting scrap mechs with buzzsaws and flamethrowers for arms, burst onto my scanner, two hundred metres distant. All of them open fire, even the gretchin, firing their sluggas through the open canopies of their cockpits.

Under a hail of bullets, I force open the door, the impacts leaving me dizzy and bloodied.

“Warning. Body integrity at 73%. Deploying blood reserve. Clotting agents dispersed. Wound mitigation, twelve seconds. Bionic heart engaged.”

“Warning. Machine integrity at 84%. MP at 55%, EP at 50%. Repairs postponed. Redistributing power reserves.”

I stagger through the door and fall to my knees.

“Warning. Concussion detected. Switching to distributed machine network.”

E-SIM’s final warning is a complete shock. As it engages yet another failsafe I had no idea about, all my emotions are stripped away. My thoughts are reduced to possibilities and percentages. Picking the actions with the biggest numbers, I grab a bent panel and drag myself upright.

I try to push the door shut, but it’s stuck. Diagnostics flash through my head and update the numbers. Whipping out my pipe, I jam it between the door and the floor and lever the door up by a millimetre. Next I put my back to the frame and my boot on the door and kick it. After a couple of kicks the door slams shut and my pipe clatters to the floor.

Last, I pull the emergency lock handle in the upper centre of the door, sealing the door in place.

As my wounds seal, my warp tap comes online. E-SIM pulses the safety on and off three times, distorting the air around me. Slick, rapturous energy seeps beneath my skin, yet my forcefully detached emotions and the absolute nature of E-SIMs numbers keep me grounded. Demonic whispers claw at my thoughts but find nothing to grasp on.

The air twists as something tries to rip the veil and manifest, only to be ripped apart by E-SIMs endless thirst. A furious howl rattles the prime material as the remains of whatever tried to force its way through is consumed.

A sudden silence descends as the orks stop shooting and I dash down the hidden corridor as fast and silent as I can. The numbers tell me this is a wasted effort. I appease them by labelling my attempts as live practice.

Bullet holes and vents shine light on my shadowed passage while rusted junk and rotted bags of crumbling ork teeth litter my path. I limp onward as fast as I am able, picking out the most efficient path with ease.

Metal cries as brutal blades hack into the door behind me in an atrocious screech, and a roar, the loudest I have ever heard, rattles the panels all around me.

A massive power claw punches through the wall just behind me and a broad green head, with a rusty metal jaw, pushes through the sundered plasteel.

“I see you, Rusty Slayah. Fight me or give me my teef!” yells the massive ork

Must be the boss, or one of his close lackeys. Even for omnicidal xenos, the only two options are death and taxes.

I continue my limping sprint; my breath grows ragged and the numbers tick downwards as my scanner populates with ever more enemies.

++All is not lost, Aldrich. Chin up, chest out, and don’t look back. You are nearing your goal.++

The light at the end of the corridor is simultaneously encouraging and discouraging. Beyond lies a cavernous room, many times the size of the STC library. At the metaphorical gate, a mass of chitinous xenos heave through the exit door, fighting to get at me.

I plough into writhing tyranids, their sharp claws scrape and scrabble on my armour, hooking into the joints and slowing me down. My power weapon hums and I swing, scything through the wolf sized creatures. Hormagaunts, I think they’re called.

Acidic blood splashes everywhere, burning away my damaged undersuit and pockmarked armour, though the new armour paint is hydrophobic, keeping the worst violent sprays from crippling me, or disabling my weapon.

A massive ork, followed by a squad of well armed and armoured orks thunder down the adjacent corridor and swarm the room, followed by a massive horde of boyz and hundreds of gretchin.

I clear the tyranids and dash across the hangar, angling away from the orks, who spot the mass of tyranids and their gathering reinforcements on the other side of the immense room.

The far side of the hangar is choked with organic growths of alien flesh and bone. Grey and green spires churn out infectious spores filling the air with an obnoxious haze.

Five stubby vehicles with large engines and blunt noses litter the hangar. All of them have poorly cut slabs of metal and ceramics bolted to their silvered hulls. Extra engines have been welded on at random and dozens of mismatched guns bristle from every spare surface, all facing forward.

Beneath their desecrated hulls lies something more. I feel it tugging at my awareness, distorting the numbers in my favour, eager to serve, if only I would free them.

The shuttles are, however, in the opposite direction I’m running in. I task E-SIM with starting up the shuttles. My power use ticks up as E-SIM fires up the E-WAR module and rips into the restrictive programing restraining the shuttles.

One by one, they begin to wake up, their lights flickering and their engines igniting with a smoky clamour.

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Meanwhile, a squad of boyz, led by one of the ork boss’s armoured lackeys, breaks away from the mob and chase me down. The other orks spread out and line up, forming a thick green line against the hissing tyranids.

The orks start catching up. I swing round in a big ‘U’ running as close to the tyranids as I dare while both sides stop posturing and watch the squad chase me around the hangar.

Orks hoot and jeer. Tyranids wait in silence. Then the voice of a single ork nob cuts through the din.

“Boss, is dat yer missin’ power claw on da ‘ummie’s sparkle burner?”

“Wot? You serious?” the boss says.

The orks go dead quiet.

Dammit Bola, you squig teammate!

“Snik ‘im!” the boss yells.

At the boss’s command, the orks lumber into action. This sets the tyranids into frenzy and, they too, join the frenzy, all of them heading to me. At the back of their lines looms the biggest tyranid I’ve seen, tall as ork, but far more spindly, with smooth grey skin, clawed hands, and a swept back skull. The humanoid tyranid clicks and hisses. Its orders ripple out through the swarm.

The tyranids break up into groups, the smallest ones push to the front like a wave, while a third of the dog-sized, sinuous quadrupeds split from the horde and gallop towards the edges of the hangar.

The slower ones separate out and rear up. Each of them has one clawed appendage replaced with a bio-rifle. Their long tails spread behind them and then they open fire.

A mix of parasitic and weblike projectiles slam into the ork flanks, cutting down the gretchin that were pushed to the front of the rush. Many smaller boyz go down as well and the ork boss bellows orders.

The orks create gaps in their lines while still running at me and, from behind their mob, two squads of four warbikes rumble forth, looking like the mad max version of Harley Davidson motorcycles, with long handlebars, oversized suspension, and thick tires, adorned in spikes, blades and guns.

The bikes stream through the parted lines, which close behind them, and drive through and over the flanking tyranids, killing more tyranids with their wild weapon swings and fungus-brew fueled driving than the raucous guns pumping explosive rounds into their forward arc.

As the squad closes in on me, many orks open fire. Most of the shots go wide and hit the tyranids, but enough slam into me I stumble and slow. I am incredulous and grateful the alloy this library shelving is made from is so tough. I’ll die from shockwaves way before these ork rounds can scrap it.

“Hold yer fire,” the boss yells. “Dis one’s mine.”

I don’t stop running, even as the ork shootas redirect towards the tyranids.

The orks begin to surround me in a big circle and the boss stomps forward.

I pull my weapon up and point it towards the boss, who fires the oversized gun attached to his armour into the air. One of Bola’s little horrors pops up on the ork’s back, swings down his arm, and reloads the attached gun before returning to the little basket on the ork boss’s back.

“Don’t even think about it, ‘umie.” He draws a massive choppa. “You fire dat fing and we’ll see who has da flashiest dakka.”

I try to break the circle, but there are too many orks, and they knock me back with their sharp weapons.

The boss points at his armoured lackeys, “Oi, nobz. Go stomp some bugz. I’m gonna take my time wiv dis one. Make it special.”

Panting, I look the boss in the eye, “How about a last drink then, and your name, so I have someone to pay my respects to.”

The boss pauses and scowls, then grabs a large leather flask from his belt and tosses it to me.

I catch it, feeling the heavy liquid slosh back and forth. The flask is the size of my head.

“Go on den, squishy. Show Boss Spikesnik who’s da real ork around ‘ere.”

“From the boss’s own table, eh.” I eye the flask. “What a way to go.”

I pop the flask and pour the musty brew down my throat. It burns on the way down; the constructor implant fires into action, neutralising the 80% booze and turns it into complex chemicals and energy.

“Oi,” says Spikesnik.

I hold up one finger and continue to drink.

“Oi, ‘umie.”

I finish the flask and toss it back at the boss’s feet.

“Now dat’s just rude.”

The orks jump and shout. Some fire their guns into the air, which ricochet off the ceiling and bring hot scrap down on everyone’s heads.

The boss squints at me, “I don’t ‘ear you praisin’ me.”

I scoff, “What praise? That was my victory drink.”

A handful of orks jeer and the boss promptly shoots one of them, along with the surrounding orks, then stomps towards me. The other jeering orks quickly get stomped into the ground by their fellow greenskins.

“Dat’s enough outta you. Time to fight.”

I draw my pipe.

“Dat’s it, Rusty Slayah. Show me ‘ow you krumped da spiky gitz wiv dat fing.”

The boss makes a lazy swing with his choppa, a large slab of shiny metal on the end of a two metre handle. To a human, it would be a halberd, to the boss, it’s a small, pointy stick.

I duck beneath the blow and my powerfield envelopes my battered L-shaped pipe. Rushing forward, I jab at the boss’s leg.

Spikesnik steps back and flicks my pipe aside with his power claw. I yell and almost drop my weapon. I’ve become unnaturally strong over the last few months, but I’ve got nothing on this ork.

The boss is 4 metres tall, and his arms are almost half that. He continues to swing his weapon in big, lazy circles and I repeatedly try to get past him, occasionally damaging his choppa, but not much else. I can’t get close or overpower him.

“Is dat all you got?”

I toss a handful of stikkbombs at him.

Spikesnik batters them aside, knocking them into the encroaching tyranids. His face crinkles and flushes a deeper green.

“I’ve seen enuff.” Spikesnik ceases his casual swings and hammers into me.

Grabbing my pipe at both ends, I hold fast. Spikesnik sheers his own weapon against my own. The broken end clangs against my armour, and the remaining force throws me to the ground.

I roll as best I can and get back up, then gradually chip away at the boss’s choppa. Twice, he rushes me and swings his spare power claw. Each time he tries, I turn and run at the surrounding orks, who quickly back up, trying to avoid their boss’s power weapon, and I nearly manage to break out.

He doesn’t try a third time, and after a minute of fighting, is left holding the stump of his choppa. He tosses it aside and growls, then levels his gun at me.

I guess our ‘duel’ is over.

“Cut dis, Slayah.”

Spikesnik fires.