The orks crashed heavy mauls and cleavers against the metal-sheathed hafts of the boarding pikes, but to little avail. Pinioned in many places, the closest orks were pushed back into their companions, the men behind the pikes twisting the shafts as they had been taught, to drive their weapons even deeper through flesh.
Kulik stabbed the tip of his sword into the eye of a transfixed alien, ramming half the blade into its head to be sure. On his right, Shaffenbeck slashed the guts out of another greenskin. There was no room for parry and thrust, cut and riposte. The captain lashed out almost blindly; it was impossible to miss, his only care to avoid his crewmen with his wide swings. It was not so much swordsmanship as it was butchery skill.
Miraculously, Sergeant Latheram had somehow survived the strike from the electro-cutters, though his chest, left arm and half his face were a mass of burns. There was smoke drifting from his hair and the ragged remains of his clothes. A single eye stared wildly from the mass of scorched tissue, filled with such loathing that it scared Kulik. The sergeant brought his glowing power maul down onto the skull of an ork, crushing it with a single blow. Another sweep caved in the chest of another.
Kulik felt the armsmen surge again around him and was happy to be pushed back away from the melee for a moment, lashing out one last strike across the throat of an ork that was trying to bite the head from one of the pikemen. Shotguns barked, lethal even to the orks at this close range, shredding bodies and obliterating heads and limbs.
Kulik stumbled out of the side of the fighting, coming up hard against the bulkhead, almost collapsing as his head crashed against a stanchion. As ever, Shaffenbeck was just a step behind, in time to grab his captain to stop him falling over.
Wincing, stars dancing across his vision, Kulik turned his back to the bulkhead and eased himself against it, taking gasps of warm, sweaty air. The corridor was filled with battle-din — noises more animal than human or ork, shouts and sounds of flesh being ruined as the last of the aliens fought ferociously against the inevitable. Glancing around, Kulik could see at least a score of his own men dead, piled on the decking where they had been shot, cut down or clubbed to death.
It then fell eerily quiet, the only sound ragged panting and the groans of the wounded ratings and armsmen. There was the bark of a shot. Men with shotguns and boarding pikes moved amongst the ork fallen, cutting and shooting off their heads to ensure they were dead. Kulik could see a few of the survivors tending to the casualties; an armsman whose arm had been ripped off was helped away as he numbly searched amongst the blood and gore for the missing limb.
‘That’s the last of them, sir!’ Shaffenbeck said with a weary grin.
‘No it isn’t,’ the captain replied, heaving in another breath. ‘A whole bunch have split off and the Emperor alone knows where they’ve got to.’
A huge shudder along the hull almost knocked Kulik’s head back against the bulkhead, reminding him that defeating the orks aboard was only one of his concerns. They were still in the midst of a massive space battle. He needed to get back to the bridge — Shaffenbeck was right that Price was not one hundred per cent capable at the moment — but he didn’t want to abandon his men to the fraught ork-hunt through the corridors of the battleship.
‘I’ll coordinate the purge from here, sir,’ Shaffenbeck said, reading the conflict in his superior’s expression. ‘Get back to the bridge where you can do the most good.’
‘Very well,’ Kulik replied gratefully. ‘Keep an eye out, I don’t want to have to go looking for another officer, do you hear? Sergeant Latheram, I commend your bravery but I am also ordering you and all other wounded to report to the surgeon’s halls. Call in more men once the flight decks have been secured, Mister Shaffenbeck.’
The armsman sergeant looked about to argue, but thought better of it and accepted his captain’s command with a stiff salute, the action of which sent a ripple of pain across his face. Two men stepped up to helped their injured leader but he waved them away and started off aft under his own power.
‘You know,’ said Shaffenbeck, watching the sergeant leave, ‘with men like that, we might just win this damned battle.’
Kulik was too tired to admonish Saul for his cursing. He pushed himself upright, sheathed his sword and holstered his pistol. Straightening his coat and his back with equal effort, the captain started back towards the bridge. Medical orderlies were coming down the corridor and he gave them a nod of appreciation as he passed.
Action shaped thought, and by acting reserved and disciplined some of Kulik’s calm had returned by the time he was back at the bridge. The adrenal rush of the hack and slay of combat was ebbing away, but as he had told Shaffenbeck, they were nowhere near the end of this fight yet.
The bridge doors groaned open in front of Kulik and he stepped back onto the command deck. It took him a moment to adjust from the frenzied shouts and sweaty gore of hand-to-hand combat, to the rhythmic chatter of servitors and the soft exchanges of the bridge crew. Behind the armoured doors seemed a different world and Kulik felt almost dizzy with the dissonance. He was brought back to focus by Price.
‘Ah, there you are, captain. I hope you enjoyed yourself disposing of our unwanted guests.’
‘It’s being dealt with.’ Kulik took in a sharp breath. ‘Admiral.’
The captain assumed his usual position and passed a quick eye over every screen and console. The ork ships with the teleporters had been destroyed and the squadron of cruisers assisting Colossus had broken through the orks. Three cruisers were crippled and that many again destroyed from the flotilla. The rest of the rimward fleet was not quite so badly mauled, having had extra time to respond to the ork ruse. The coreward flotilla, which made up the starboard axis of the attack, was almost unscathed. The patrol flotilla ships were now in a position to turn back and trap a large part of the ork fleet against the main line of the rimward fleet. Price seemed to be in the middle of ordering the relief attack, and half the flotilla had already started the manoeuvre.
‘Communication from the flagship, captain,’ reported Lieutenant Hartnell.
‘Accept transmission,’ Kulik replied, crossing his arms.
A sub-screen enlarged, filled with the static of a vid-comm burst. The face of Lord High Admiral Lansung glared down at the men on the bridge.
‘What are you turning around for, Price?’ Lansung demanded. ‘The route to the ork star base is open. You will rendezvous with Commodore Semmes and continue the attack without delay. That is my command.’
Price stepped back as if struck, brow knotted. He signalled for the comms officer to switch to transmission.
‘This is Admiral Price. If we abandon the rimward fleet now, they will suffer badly at the hands of the orks. They’re taking on pretty much all of the enemy on their own at the moment. We must provide assistance.’
The admiral turned away and started to pace while he waited for a reply. Kulik stopped him at one end of his perambulations.
‘Sir, I think the Lord High Admiral is right,’ the captain admitted. ‘We have to push home the advantage while the attack moon is virtually unguarded. The orks have been trying to keep us away from the base as hard as they can, and I don’t think it’s as invulnerable as they want us to believe. The flight wings of the Colossus are needed for the attack, along with the rest of the carrier group.’
Before Price could answer, Lansung’s message arrived through the aether. He looked calm, but his voice was edged with rage.