Chapter 31: The Raid Plan
Rosen began laying out the operational plan.
He divided the ninety Death Warriors into four combat elements.
First, the trailing force. Numbers 3 and 4 would lead Alpha and Delta squads combined — eighteen Death Warriors plus the two of them, twenty in total.
Their mission: follow Iron Fang Grukk's army into the deep decks, maintaining a safe distance, with no direct engagement against the main force.
Once the Ork horde engaged the daemonic entities, the trailing force would infiltrate along the flanks of the battle's outer edge and pick off any isolated or badly wounded Orks and daemons caught in the chaos.
Rosen was silent for two seconds before giving that order.
He knew what it meant.
The deep decks were the most dangerous zone on the hulk.
Fezekks had told him: organised daemonic entities operated down there. Bloodletters. Plague Bearers. Heralds of Khorne.
Twenty Catachan Jungle Fighters entering that area would face more than just a chaotic battlefield where Orks and daemons tore each other apart. They would face reality distortion from warp energy seeping through the hull, unpredictable environmental mutations, and whatever worse things might come bleeding through the walls.
This was a force that might not come back.
Rosen gave the order anyway.
Because he needed Warp Energy.
The battle about to erupt on the deep decks was the only available opportunity to acquire large quantities of it.
"Numbers 3 and 4."
"Your mission is to kill as many daemons as possible."
Numbers 3 and 4 answered without hesitation. "Loyalty, Commander."
The main assault force would be led by Rosen personally: Bravo, Charlie, Echo, and Foxtrot squads, plus a partial reserve element — fifty men.
After the Iron Fang army marched out, they would hit the emptied camp, eliminate the garrison, and seize the supplies.
The mobile force would be led by Number 11: two full ten-man squads, twenty men.
They would establish blocking positions at key corridor nodes between the main assault force and the camp, and intercept any greenskins that turned back from the main army to reinforce the garrison.
Ten Death Warriors would hold the base and protect the rear.
Little Wrench was coming along.
Its ears were still going to be useful in the operation ahead.
Rosen pushed the full operational plan to all the Death Warriors through Shared Awareness simultaneously.
All ninety received it and began their pre-deployment preparations in orderly sequence. Weapons checks. Ammunition distribution. Grenade and demolition charge configurations. Withdrawal route confirmation.
When Little Wrench was told it was coming outside, both of its large ears flattened at the same moment.
"Outside... big green ones... lots and lots of big green ones..."
It cringed, then looked at the plasma pistol on Rosen's hip and at the wall of blank-faced Catachan soldiers behind him. Its ears came back up.
"Little Wrench follows big humie boss! Big humie boss is the best!"
The monofilament cord was still tied to Number 1's belt.
* * *
Two days later, Iron Fang Grukk finished assembling his force.
Through the perspective feeds of the forward scout Death Warriors, Rosen watched the Ork army march out.
Six thousand greenskins, pouring from the Iron Fang camp in a flood.
At the front came a mass of Gretchin, used as pathfinders and cannon fodder, screaming and shoving each other, some of them tumbling forward from kicks delivered by the Ork Boyz behind them.
In the middle came more than four hundred fully armed Ork Boyz, packed into a formation that only greenskins could have understood — which is to say, a single enormous green mass of flesh surging down the corridor.
Among them, five Nobs moved like five mobile fortresses, each a full head taller than the Ork Boyz around them, wearing the heaviest armour, carrying the biggest weapons.
At the very front of the column, one figure stood taller than any of the Nobs.
Iron Fang Grukk.
Even at several hundred metres of distance, Rosen could make out the warboss's outline clearly through his scouts' feeds.
Close to three metres tall.
Encased in heavy full-body armour built from multiple metal plates welded together with brutal workmanship, the plating thick enough to rival the side armour of an Imperial tank.
Its right hand gripped a power claw enormous to the point of absurdity — five thick metal knuckles, each tipped with a power field blade.
Half the tusks in its lower jaw had been replaced with precision-cut metal prosthetics.
"Waaaaaaaaagh!"
As the army marched out, Iron Fang Grukk let out a war cry that shook the air.
The sound carried at least two kilometres through the hulk's metal skeleton, its echo bouncing between countless corridors and compartments, building into a rolling thunder that lasted several continuous seconds.
Six thousand greenskins answered together.
"WAAAAAAAAAGH!"
For one moment the entire deck shuddered.
The green tide surged toward the deep decks.
From a concealed position in the distance, Rosen watched the Ork army through his scouts' feeds until the last of them disappeared at the far end of the corridor.
Then he counted the greenskins remaining in the camp.
As expected. Iron Fang Grukk had taken nearly every combat-capable body with him.
Left behind in the camp: roughly two hundred Ork Boyz and several hundred Gretchin.
The garrison Ork Boyz were listless, every one of them. The combat billets had all been claimed by others, and being left to guard the camp was a humiliation. They drifted aimlessly around the base — some kicking Gretchin to pass the time, others simply lying down in their shelters to sleep.
Their alertness was effectively zero.
"Move out."
Rosen gave the full assault order.
The trailing force under Numbers 3 and 4 moved first.
Twenty Death Warriors in two columns of ten, advancing quickly toward the deep decks along the path the Ork army had left behind — footprints everywhere, scattered refuse, and the thick smell that only came from several thousand greenskins passing through in one mass.
They held at least five hundred metres of distance from the main force.
In the hulk's complex corridor network, five hundred metres combined with the overhead ventilation shafts for concealment was enough for twenty trained Catachan soldiers to maintain a tail while staying well outside the Orks' awareness.
At the same time, Rosen led the fifty-man main assault force and the twenty-man mobile force out on their parallel routes.
The mobile force established blocking positions at three key corridor nodes between the camp and the deep decks.
Each node: six to seven men, equipped with boltguns, lasguns, and directional mines.
If any part of the Ork army turned back to reinforce the camp, they would walk straight into overlapping fire from those positions.
Rosen took his fifty men and Little Wrench and completed deployment at five preset positions surrounding the camp.
The ambush ring covered the three main access points on the camp's northern face — the entrances facing the direction his force had come from, the corridors most likely to see garrison patrol traffic.
In the fifty to a hundred metres outside each entrance, the Death Warriors spent two hours laying a dense trap network: directional mines, tripwire grenades, and gravity drop traps built using the corridor structures themselves.
When the traps were set, everyone fell back to their prepared positions and firing points.
Then they waited.