Home Fires – Chapter Twenty: Betrayal
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Thraknar Zan Gulga seethed.
Almost as if on cue to punctuate his frustration, another titanic explosion sounded in the distance. Greasy black smoke filled the sky. Its source: his fleet of Landas. What scrap was left of them filled the fields as far as the eyes could see. Bodies of Gretchin and Boys lay strewn at random here and there.
Pillars of smoke wider than industrial blocks rose in the distance. His ammo dumps burning. Thraknar’s rage intensified; not only had he lost a great deal of dakka, he had not even been present to enjoy the explosions.
Thraknar’s rage was occasionally vented on an unlucky lad or grot, but it returned redoubled each time he received another report of a unit wiped out by the Beekie raid. Most hadn’t even had time to form up after leaving their Landas. All in all, he had lost lots and lots of lads, A Big Blitz Brigade with some nasty Zzap gun upgrades, a whole squad of warbikes, five wings of fighta-bommaz, and three Morkanauts. Worse, the loss of most of his Landas made it nigh impossible to resupply from the fleet in orbit. What few Landas Thraknar had left were in orbit at the time of the attack, and had escaped the Beekie’s fury. With so few, the invasion would slow to a crawl.
His rage reached a fever pitch as he saw the perpetrators. The Beekies. They were points of dark blue in the distant sky.
They were flying away.
Their armoured column had smashed through Thraknar’s lines, blown the ammo dumps, mowed down his lads, and turned his fleet of Landas into scrap. Then, in a feat of cowardice, they called down their own Landas, picked up all the Beekies and shiny tanks, and flew off into the distance.
Zoggin’ cowards couldn’t even stay and give him a good fight.
One thought began to percolate through Thraknar’s mind, eventually overtaking all other thought processes:
Who’s.
To.
BLAME?
It couldn’t be the mighty Thraknar Zan Gulga, Arch-Lord of the Karaman Neb-you-luh. Some other git had been responsible.
Thraknar slapped one of the Weirdboys out of a tower built on top of a Battlewagon and rode for the front lines. From this height, he surveyed the Orks advancing on the city and tried to see where the Beekies had broken through. It didn’t take him long to figure it out.
Gargatok Gitsmasha and all his lads had vanished.
At first, Thraknar thought Gargatok had simply been flattened by the Beekie advance. However, lads on the line told a much different story. They claimed Gargatok’s lads had received orders to head east. They had even “commandeered” some Trukks at Thraknar’s orders. Thraknar had given no such orders. In a rage, he halted the advance. He pulled a bunch of lads from the lines and headed east. On foot. At a slime-squig’s pace.
So, that miserable git had made up orders, abandoned his position, and let the Beekies ruin his WAAAAGH. But there was one more sin that Gargatok committed that put all the others to shame.
He had lied to Thraknar. The Beekies weren’t blue. They were dark blue.
Thraknar already HAD a dark blue helmet on his bosspole.
Gargatok was going to answer for this.