Chapter 29: What Little Wrench Overheard
The first thing Little Wrench turned out to be useful for was maintaining greenskin-modified equipment.
The Imperial devices captured from the Mekboy workshop had been purified of Chaos contamination by the Armoury system, but the physical greenskin modifications had come through intact. The portable force field generator, a lasgun with several extra barrels welded onto it, and a collection of miscellaneous greenskin tools — in human hands, these were objects that raised more questions than answers.
That lasgun with three additional barrels welded on still had three additional barrels welded on after purification.
You needed to know which barrel was the original, which ones were decorative, and which one would explode if you touched it.
Little Wrench knew.
It went over each piece of equipment with its long calloused hands, tapping and prodding in a pattern accompanied by a stream of muttering that only a greenskin could parse, and then adjusted everything in a manner that would have caused any Imperial Tech-Priest to suffer an immediate cardiac event. A few movements and it was done.
"Ready, works now, big humie boss."
Rosen took the adjusted lasgun and checked it over.
It worked. The firing accuracy was noticeably improved compared to before — Little Wrench had apparently corrected the barrel alignment angles in the process.
"Good work," Rosen said.
Little Wrench's large ears flapped with excitement at the praise.
But the second thing Little Wrench turned out to be useful for was what genuinely changed Rosen's assessment of it.
It could translate greenskin communications.
Throughout the metal skeleton of the hulk, the various Ork tribes communicated over distance using a crude but functional method — percussion signals. Different rhythms and frequencies carried different messages: mass mobilisation, prey located, request for reinforcement.
Inside the hulk where electromagnetic interference rendered every Imperial communications device useless, this method worked surprisingly well.
Little Wrench had spent every day in the Mekboy's workshop listening to the Mekboy hammer signals into the walls to send messages to other tribes.
After long enough exposure, it had absorbed most of the common percussion codes.
"Big humie boss!"
Little Wrench suddenly grabbed the cord around its neck and began hauling itself toward Rosen as hard as it could, bouncing on its feet.
Number 1's belt was dragged sideways by the force.
"What is it?"
"The walls are talking!"
Little Wrench pressed one pointed ear flat against the nearest metal bulkhead. "The big greenskins two corridors over are telling someone to move things — the big boss is calling everyone together — move it all down!"
Rosen walked over and pressed his own ear against the bulkhead.
He could hear it. Extremely faint, rhythmic, metallic.
Thud. Thud-thud. Thud. Thud-thud-thud.
Without Little Wrench's prompt he would never have noticed it — it was completely buried in the background noise of the hulk's internal workings.
"What does that mean exactly?"
"The big tribe is moving soldiers!"
Little Wrench's eyes lit up. "Moving weapons down lower — that means the big tribe is taking weapons to a lower deck to fight! The big boss is calling for a big battle!"
The main Ork warband was shifting heavy firepower toward the deeper decks.
It confirmed what Rosen had already deduced. The greenskin main force was engaged somewhere deeper in the hulk, and the fighting was apparently escalating. The intelligence value here was substantial. Greenskins moving strength and firepower inward meant the outer zones were thinner than before — his hunting routes could push further. And knowing the direction the main Ork columns were moving meant he could avoid walking into them during transit.
"Little Wrench, starting now, you put your ear to the wall every half hour. Any percussion signal you hear, you tell me immediately."
"Yes! Big humie boss! Little Wrench has the best ears! The sharpest ears! Won't miss a single word!"
Little Wrench was so excited it nearly launched itself off the ground. If not for the monofilament cord limiting its range of movement, it would probably have run three circles around Number 1 by now.
A Gretchin on a leash, pressing its ear to the wall, reporting Ork tribal military movements to a human in a half-greenskin half-Imperial pidgin.
Any Inquisitor in the Emperor's service who witnessed this scene would have had grounds for at least three separate charges of heresy on the spot.
But Rosen was not an Inquisitor.
Rosen stood at the top of the gantry crane at the highest point of the base and looked down.
Ninety Catachans spread across the two-node base. Some were cleaning their weapons. Some were eating. Some were running final equipment checks before a patrol rotation departed.
The force field barrier at the main entrance put out a faint blue light.
Down the corridor, a patrol's footsteps were fading into the dark.
In the corner, Little Wrench crouched with one pointed ear pressed to the wall and the other standing straight up on alert.
One man with a knife. Now ninety-one personnel, nine squads, a two-node base, a hunting route network, and an intelligence system.
He had built a small army inside a death maze packed with three million greenskins.
"Big humie boss!"
Little Wrench snapped away from the wall, both large ears standing upright like a pair of green sails.
"Iron Fang tribe! The Iron Fang tribe's big boss is calling out! It's saying big battle! Big battle is coming! All brothers come! Go down and kill the red-skin daemon-things!"
"Iron Fang tribe," Rosen repeated.
"Yes yes yes! Iron Fang tribe! Big tribe! Very very big!"
Little Wrench nodded hard. "Little Wrench heard the old Mekboy talk about them before — the Iron Fang tribe's big boss is called Iron Fang Grukk! Very powerful big Ork! Can smash through really thick iron doors with one punch!"
"How many greenskins does Iron Fang Grukk's tribe have?"
Little Wrench's expression stiffened for a moment.
It blinked its large eyes. Its mouth opened and closed twice.
"Uh... a lot?"
"Specifically how many?"
"A lot a lot?"
"Combat strength? Any Nobs? Any Mekboyz? Heavy weapons?"
Little Wrench's brain was clearly severely overloaded.
It tilted its head and thought hard, its nimble claws waving vaguely in the air, and finally delivered an answer that made Rosen exhale slowly.
"Little Wrench doesn't know. Little Wrench is just a screw-turner."
It dropped both large ears and put on the expression of something fully prepared to be hit.
Rosen didn't hit it.
"Do you know which direction the Iron Fang tribe's camp is?"
"Yes!"
The ears came back up. "The old Mekboy fixed the Iron Fang tribe's cannons twice before! Little Wrench came along! From here it's that way."
It pointed one claw toward the northeast of the base. "Walk very far very far, go through that very wide big corridor, then down two deck levels, and you'll see their camp!"
General direction confirmed. Specific route and camp layout unknown. Rosen filed it away.
That was enough.
He had the bearing. The rest was what scouts were for.
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