Shadowhive Datastacks Plundered

Warp Mek Sizzlegrub's Warband

With the coming of Gork's Grin (also known as the Cicatrix Maledictum), Waagh! Drillteef has seen their forcess split nearly in twain. While Drillteef himself amused himself by pestering Ultramar during the Plague Wars, the other half of his forces were trapped either in Imperium Nihilus or even the Great Rift itself. This half of Waagh! Drillteef quickly splintered into disparate warbands, each bent on their own ambitions.

Thanks to his genius with powerful shokk teknology, Warp Mek Sizzlegrub wrested control of a sizable portion of the fleet which had not been totally swallowed by the Cicatrix Maledictum. Several upstart warlords and kaptins did make plays for power, but a few well-placed shots from the massive Shokk Destroya Kannon mounted in the mouth of his Kill Kroozer, Mork's Laugh, quickly put thoughts of mutiny to rest.

Warp Mek Sizzlegrub had long been Drillteef's most adept scavenger. It was said that he could smell the best salvage on the wind, even many systems distant. The splintering of the fleet didn't stop this predalection. In fact, it was absolutely crucial that Sizzlegrub continue to stay at the bleeding edge of invention, for it was this and this alone that soldified his role as master of the warband.

It was Sizzlegrub's nose for salvage which brought him and his fleet to the world of Shadowhive.

Sizzlegrub's Armada Assaults the Shadowhive 

Whispers of technological marvels buried deep beneath the surface of a damned planet echoed in Sizzlegrub's mind. His dreams were plagued by visions of countless corridors lined with tantalizing vault doors having sealed away a treasure trove of secrets for centuries. For months the fleet plied the dangerous space at the edge of Gork's Grin in search of the world promised by Sizzlegrub's dreams. The Orks were not disappointed.

The broken world of Shadowhive languished in the hellish light of the Rift. The world swarmed with the cursed simulacra of Imperial and Mechanicus constructs. The manufactora toiled endlessly to forge more and more machines twisted by evil and infused with the souls of the damned.

These things did not really concern Sizzlegrub. His focus was on the hidden places where even the gaze of the ruinous powers had not yet penetrated. Mork's Laugh and its escort of smaller vessels plowed through the haphazard planetary defenses with brute force. A few wild shots with the Shokk Destroya Kannon followed by the eager ministrations of a flotilla of brute ramships gave the fleet plenty of breathing room to make planetfall.

Sizzlegrub himself led the invasion, allowing his instincts guide him to the location he desired. While the other Kaptins in his armada assaulted targets of opportunity and pilfered what they could from the shocked denizens of the fortress world's outer defenses, Sizzlegrub sniffed out his quarry.

A nondescritpt cluster of bastions and crumbling defenses stood guard over an ancient and long-forgotten cluster of datastacks, formerly the Shadowhive's key Administratum tithe cogitator and tally-store. It was here that all the world had to offer the Imperium was recorded and encrypted here and reported back to the Administratum's High Lord on Terra. Of course, the tally had not been sent to the Imperium for quite some time, but the data remained.

As the world crumbled, however, the psi-shielding around the Administratum Datastacks began to erode. The secrets held within began to leak out, but only for those with the skill and patience to listen. The powerful minds at the heart of the Datastacks' machine spirits cried out to be set free and Sizzlegrub answered that call, but he wasn't the only one.

Battle for the Datastacks

The nondescript scattering of light fortfications and ruined buildings hid the many secrets of the Shadowhive deep beneath the surface.

The forces of Big Mek Sizzlegrub mustered for battle, including two powerful Gorkanauts and a Deffskullz boss on a Deffkilla Wartrike eager for loot. Every squad was entrusted by the Big Mek with a special locating/transmitting device. None of them really knew how it worked, but all that mattered was that the data tranferred to Sizzlegrub's Grot assistant who documented everything flawlessly.

A mixed warband of sensates, humans and xenos, devoted to unlocking the secrets of the world in the hopes of expanding the horizons of their experience. They are led by a talented Lord Discordant particularly blessed by the God of Excess. A fallen Knight joined their forces, bent on the pleasure of burning.

Vital Intelligence was the perfect scenario for this battle. Several key points on the battlefield leaked information, both through conventional wireless and psychic.

The forces arrayed against one another. With their speed and the element of surprise, the Orks had the upper hand when it came to pure momentum. Of course, they made such a racket on their approach that the Lord Discordant had plenty of warning to set up a layered defense.

The Orks advanced forward, the Deffkoptas taking point while to heavy machinery strode forward as best they could, hosing down the entrenched enemy with as much firepower as they could muster.

The Orks' opening salvo rips several Chaos Bikers to bloody shrapnel.

The surviving ancient Astartes were more than happy to experience the shrapnel that was their brothers' exploding corpses. The surged forward and poured hot, plasma death into the Deffkoptas.

The Lord Discordant heeded their desire to tear into the speedboss.

The speedboss was more than willing to oblige.

In a flurry of deadly attacks, the speedboss was dragged off his bike by the Lord Discordant. The huge machine tore into the Ork's body with mechadendrites and interfaced with its victim's central nervous system. In a blurt of binaric glee, the Lord Discordant experienced the last tortured moments of the speedboss's life as he tried desparately to fight back, resisting to the very last.  

Squads of Burnas bailed out of the Gorkanauts and turned their flamers on the Kroot thralls. The aliens' tainted flesh bubbled and seaed, until naught remained but broken piles of ash.

The Gorkanauts stepped up to the challenge put forth by the Lord Discordant and his bodyguard of Heretic Astartes cavalry.

On the flanks, Raptors harried several squads of Trukk Boyz along with Boss Wagonkrumpa. A huge scrum erupts on the Orks' left flank.

Wagonkrumpa fears no Raptors.

The Trukk Boyz, bolstered by Wagonkrumpa's enthusiasm and cajoling,  waded into battle against the enemy's command structure.

The Gorkanauut smashed into the distracted Lord Discordant, crushing them to death with its massive klaw. The Ork construct lumbered past the twitching ball of fleshmetal Its screams were burbling static, but that didn't seem to bother the Orks one bit.

Although the Trukk Boyz were dwindling in number, that did not stop their enthusiasm for the battle at hand.

The craven Raptors jumped away from Warboss Wagonkrumpa in order to line up better shots with their Plasma Guns. Several shots glanced off the Warboss's power klaw while only one found purchase in his flesh. He shrugged it off and waded deeper into enemy lines.

A Hellbrute, ancient and angry, spied a delicious target...

... and eliminated the threat!

Almost as if out of a sense of Revenge, the other Gorkanaut crew turned their huge, lumbering hulk of steel towards the Renegade Knight.

With the weirdboy onboard shouting encouragement at the crew, the Gorkanaut surged forward.

... but it wasn't fast enough. It was gunned down without mercy by coruscating beams of hot magma death from the fallen knight's pimary guns. The weirdboy managed to bail out as the Gorkanaut collapsed around him.

Sensing easy prey, the Raptors jumped towards the Weirdboy...

...who promptly bashed their brains in with his Force Staf.

All the while during the battle every squad of Orks had been unwittingly collecting information from the leaking Datastacks.  Sizzlegrub gave the order to fall back and a few of the Orks actually followed that order. Wagonkrumpa dealt a final blow to an Armiger while the few surviving Trukk Boyz finished off the Hellbrute, ending his eternity of torment.

Aftermath

In the end, Sizzlegrub and his warband collected a great deal of information. Of course, even Sizzlegrub's own lieutenants understood very little of the importance of the data they had collected; the were just happy to be engaging in a proppa ground war again. Void war is fun and all, but a Deathskull lives for the opportunity to wrest life, limb, and belongngs from their foes directly.

Warp Mek Sizzlegrub, now armed with an instinctive understanding of the vaults beneath the Shadowhive, has decided to recall his forces temporarily. He is not so certain he can plunder the vaults without assistance. Moreover, the rest of the Orks have felt the siren call of conflict. Somewhere in a nearby system other Orks are fighting for their lives and the Boyz want a piece of that action.