The Orks of Tam'urt Chapta 11

Chapta Eleven: Pecking Order</i>

The smell of new cement plagued Marco, even while he sat eating baked beans from a can in the mess hall with Sam and Barthees. He'd had baked beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the past three days - a dangerous thing to do when you live in an underground enclosure.

"This is the last time I'm eating cold baked beans," The sergeant said scraping the last of the sauce from his can. "One of you is going to cook something tomorrow night for dinner. I don't care what it is, as long as it doesn't make me feel like I have an after burner for an asshole."

"Don't look at me," Sam said between mouthfuls. "I ain't cooking just because you have farting problems. Take some charcoal tablets or something."

Barthees glared at Marco. Immediately the young private defended himself. "You want me to cook? Forget it, totally forget it. I've been working my ass off, unlike you two!"

What Marco said was true; his search area was bigger than Sam's and the sergeant's put together, plus some more. But this didn't make the sergeant any more sympathetic.

"Cook something tomorrow night, private Fezz. That's an order." The sergeant only called Marco by his rank and surname when he was being serious (or pushy).

"Yes…sergeant…"

"There's my boy! So, what are we having?"

Marco held baked bean can close to his mouth while he ate. "Something that'll make you wish we had baked beans…" He murmured.

Barthees narrowed his eyes. "What was that you said?"

"I said," Marco replied slowly, "Something besides baked beans."

The sergeant stood up and stretched. "You're a bright lad." He grinned as a fart squelched out. "Goodnight!" Barthees walked away from the bench, threw his can in the bin, and walked out of the mess hall.

Sam pinched her nose. "God that stinks."

"No kidding," Marco replied trying not to breathe.

After the air cleared, Sam asked about tomorrow's dinner with some suspicion. "So Marco, what do you plan for dinner? Should I opt for take-away instead?"

A smile flickered across Marco's face briefly. "Well, that depends if you're familiar with wasabi. I found jars of the stuff in the store room."

Sam's eyes watered at the thought. Chillies were like mint leaves compared to wasabi. "That'll burn a hole in the sergeant's pants for sure…"


That night Marco tossed and turned in his dreams. He was having nightmares about large, green monsters - the Orks. He snapped awake, bolting upright he slammed his head on the beam of the bunk above him. "Ouch!"

Unable to go back to sleep, the private decided to go get a drink of water. He pulled his sheets away; he wore flannelette pyjamas. He pulled his slippers on, and crept over to the cupboard and got his dressing gown out - and his laser pistol. He was still feeling jittery from his dream.

Marco's footsteps echoed down the corridor; the pale lights gave the place an eerie setting. "There's no Orks here…there's no Orks here… just us three." He kept whispering to himself.

On arrival at the mess hall, Marco turned all the lights on. He felt slightly better, but he couldn't help feeling a little paranoid; there was something about big empty underground bases that Marco didn't like.

Walking over to the sink, he grabbed a clean metal cup and filled it with water. On the level below, the base had its own water desalination and filtration plant as well as two generators which provided the base with clean water and electricity.

This tastes awful, Marco thought to himself as he drank the chlorine-enriched water. Why do they bother? It's not like the filter systems can't decimate any germs. Maybe they just added it to make the water taste crap…

Marco walked to sit down at a bench while he sipped water from his cup. He winced as the cold seat sent a chill up his spine. For a few minutes the private sat quietly thinking to himself; he was bored, but did not feel like going back to bed. After finishing his water, he decided to see if there were any writing pads in the storeroom – he decided to take his therapists advice and write a journal.

He washed his cup and walked through the kitchen, down a short hallway, and into a large room lined with shelves jammed with boxes of everything from food to spare parts for the sentinels. Marco found a shelf labelled stationary where all the office equipment was stacked; he found a pen and a green hard-cover grided note pad. He took them back to the mess hall and sat down again, ready to write.


Dear Military Field Note Pad:


My name is Private Marco P. Fezz, I tried to get into the Space Marines, but I failed the psychology and fitness tests. I am now an aspiring scientist in the Imperial Guard – however, I am currently sitting in the mess hall of an underground base where the water tastes like pool water. I just hope nobody has peed in it.

Anyway, I was assigned to do scientific research and planetary exploration. It was all going well until I found out the planet is plagued by Orks, and that they are our scientific research. I haven't even seen an Ork before! Barthees says they're big, green, and have a constant stupid look on their faces. Well, I guess if they're big, at least they won't be hard to spot.

Changing the subject – writing about Orks is making me scared again – the two people I am on this planet with are Sergeant Barthees and Sam. The sergeant isn't very nice, he always picks on me. Sam's likes to pull pranks of me, but at least she doesn't treat me like I'm a servant.

That reminds me – the sergeant has ordered that I cook dinner tonight. I better not write down the recipe in case Barthees reads this entry; it would spoil the surprise. I hope we have vegetables in storage; even dehydrated ones would be good. Canned stuff aint too bad, either. We've been eating baked beans ever since we got here; I'd probably even empathise with Barthees for wanting something that wasn't drowned in tomato sauce if he wasn't such a Hitler (evil nazi guy from before the start of the Empire – I did ancient history at school).

I'm not going to worry about dinner until the time comes to cook it though; I have enough on my plate. I have to finish searching Level One for substitute pool balls – the Commissar gave us a pool table with no cues or balls, and the sergeant wants to find something we can use in place of them. I don't know what he expects to find that is the same shape and size of pool balls, but I have a feeling my search is futile. The guy is nuts, I swear. Emperor forbid when he runs out of alcohol and cigars! It's just a pool table for god's sake; I'd rather just convert it into an office desk or something useful. It might even make a comfortable bed. Anything would be better that the pigeon holes we have for bunks.

Well, I had better get back to sleep now… I am feeling tired again, and I've got a long day ahead of me. If I'm lucky, the sergeant will let me get off early so I can prepare dinner. Yay! Maybe being volunteered for kitchen duty won't be such a bad thing after all.


Bye, from Marco.


Marco closed the note pad and put it and the pen into the pocket of his pyjamas. He walked out of the mess hall, turning of the lights on the way out, and made a pit stop to the toilet before returning to bed. He slept soundly in his cramped bunk.


"Reveille! Wake up slaves, time for another day of doing what I tell you to do."
Sam rolled over and turned her back on the Sergeant. "I'll be ready for work at zero-seven hundred hours. Until then, I will do as I please."

Marco tried to ignore the sergeant as well, but Barthees ripped the sheets off the young private. "Up! Up! We've got balls to find!" He threw the sheets on the floor and walked for the door. "If you're not in the mess hall in ten minutes Marco, you'll be cleaning my toe nails after dinner tonight."

The private got out of bed and changed into his uniform; he wouldn't put it past the Sergeant to make him do such a thing for being late. He hurried for the door, grabbing his helmet off the rack on the way out.

"I'm here, Sergeant!" Marco called out as he ran into the mess hall. The smell of coffee wafted up his nose making his eyes water; he wasn't fond of the caffeinated substance. Especially not the dry-freeze version the Imperial Guard issued.

"Good! Now, get something to eat, sit down and shut up. I'll be briefing you and Sam on today's mission." Barthees sculled the last of his coffee and began to make another one. "We're doing something a little different today, since our search is showing up no results."

"Caffeine makes you pee more," Marco replied. He wasn't sure if the sergeant was aware of that fact. "And hot chocolate tastes better anyway."
Barthees looked up from his coffee at Marco. "You're an idiot." He said and stirred his drink.

Marco shrugged; he tried to warn the sergeant of caffeine's side effects. Hungry, the private went over to the storeroom to search for something to eat. "Baked beans… more baked beans… spiced baked beans… honey-mustard baked beans. Mmm, actually that sounds nice." He opened the box of honey-mustard baked beans and took out a can and returned to the mess hall to eat.

"Aren't you sick of eating those?" Barthees asked. "If I eat one more can of that crap, I'm going to die."

"It's a different flavour," Marco explained. "Honey-mustard."

Barthees shivered as he watched Marco peel off the can lid and down the contents. "That's just offensive; who's ever heard of honey-mustard baked beans," he muttered. "They all do the same thing no matter flavour they are anyway."

Ten minutes later Sam walked into the mess hall; she was in her uniform and had her hair pulled back into her usual neat bun. She was as stoic as ever, neither smiling nor frowning she went about getting her breakfast like a robot as if Marco and Barthees weren't there. It wasn't until she sat down to eat a can of honey-mustard baked beans that she finally spoke.

"I like this flavour." She said expressionlessly with a mouthful of food.
Barthees averted his eyes from the offensive sight honey-mustard baked beans. "Twisted. You're both twisted."

The corner of Sam's mouth twitched in amusement. "No, I'm just not fussy. Food is food."

"Okay, okay, enough of this. Just hurry up and eat, I want to see you both down at the communications centre at zero-seven hundred hours – that's in fifteen minutes – because it's the only place in this base that has a smartboard and markers." Barthees threw his cup into the sink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's on Level Two. Take the elevator near the dormitories and go down. It's the door on your left."

After the sergeant had left the mess hall and doors slid closed behind him, Sam turned her gaze to Marco, who sat diagonally opposite her. "Nightmares?" She asked.

Marco looked a little surprised; he thought everyone was asleep when he woke up. "Well, um… yeah." He confessed blushing. "How did you know?"

"You looked white as a sheet when you left the room. And you had your pistol."

Marco nodded; it must have been quite obvious he was scared last night.

"You'll be fine," Sam spoke. "We are well protected here, despite the Commissar's obvious loathing of Barthees."

"Are you a psyker, or something?" Marco asked, looking at Sam suspiciously.

Sam stood up. "No, I'm just good at reading people's emotions and expressions. Now come on, I'll show you to the communications room."

The pair walked out and down the hall past their dorms. They entered the elevator, and as the capsule fluidly descended two doors emerged. Sam pressed a button and the door to their left slid open, revealing a short corridor with a pair of sliding doors at the other end. They exited the elevator and walked down and through the doors.

Barthees stood near the back of the room drawing something on the smartboard. He didn't look over his shoulder to speak. "Come over here."

Sam and Marco walked over; the room was full of radio equipment, fax machines, a few computers and general office equipment. They pulled out two computer chairs and rolled them over to sit in front of the smartboard.

Barthees turned to face them, pointing at the smartboard. "This is a map of our area," he explained. "And these represent old human settlements. Obviously, humans no longer live there. And this is our base, here."

"That's an awful map," Sam criticized. "Is that even to scale?"

"Give me a break private," Barthees said pulling out an old looking piece of paper. "All I had to go buy was this one-hundred year-old tourist pamphlet. Commissar Lindel wasn't generous enough to let us a spaceship to take geographic scans of the planet. And besides, we are planetary explorers after all."

"We're also scientists," Marco added.

"Yes, yes, that too." Barthees said rolling his eyes. "Anyway, back to the point of this meeting."

The sergeant elaborated on his mission plan; his primary aim was to search every ex-human settlement until they found some pool balls or something similar, and avoid being killed by any Orks they might run into along the way. Their secondary aim was to plot any Ork settlements they might stumble across for future reference.

Sam stood up and took the marker from Barthees. She labelled all of the ex-human settlements as "Ork Settlement" and threw the marker back to Barthees. "Is your brain fried? Those old cities aren't going to be empty, desolate, ghost town devoid of any life. The Orks will have infested them! If we walk into any one of those settlements we'll be facing an armada of greenskins." Sam's eyebrows were creased; it was the only indication besides her slightly raised voice that she was angry.

"Well, if we're lucky, the Orks will have over looked the pool balls." Barthees shrugged. "Orks probably wouldn't like the colours. And I wasn't just going to check those towns, there's bound to be smaller shittier towns along the way that they didn't bother putting on the tourist map because they were boring. I doubt the Orks found those places any better than humans did. If they have half a brain, they'd realise what a hole those smaller towns really are."

"Ridiculous!" Sam scowled. "Have you ever been to a planet infested by Orks before?" She asked the sergeant.

"Yes, of course I have!" Barthees scoffed as if it was the stupidest question he had ever heard. "I was at the battle for Armageddon for three days…"

"Wow!" Marco looked wide-eyed at the sergeant. "You were at the battle for Armageddon? That's amazing! What's even more amazing is that you're alive! How did you survive?"

Barthees stroked his moustache as he reminisced. "I thought I was going to die so I decided that I might as well go out with a bang so to speak. And that's how I ended up at this end of the universe, on this backwater planet. I should be a corpse on Armageddon. I would have preferred it to being here with no pool balls."

A small vein began to pulse on Sam's temple. "Get over the damn pool balls! I - and I am certain I speak for Marco too – am not going to commit suicide just so you can play a stupid game."

Barthees began to search Sam's uniform, looking all over and around. "Oh, too bad Sam, I can't see anything besides your Private rank insignia. I guess that means you'll have to do as I say, since you don't out rank me. Maybe next time we get off of this planet you can ask for a promotion. Oh wait… I almost forgot. We aren't getting off of this planet."

Silence took over the room; Sam was looking at Barthees coldly, and Marco dared not breathe, fearing that Sam might explode if he did. Barthees just stood there with a smug grin, twirling the marker in his fingers.

Sam shot Marco a sideways glance; he instantly ran from his seat and hid behind a desk at the other end of the room.

"Aaaaaaaah!" Barthees flew backwards into a filing cabinet; he bounced off and lay on the floor with blood seeping out of his mouth, gripping his chest where Sam had kicked him. "Good lord you've got the strength of a Space Marine in those legs!"

Sam paced over to where the Sergeant lay; she put a boot on his head pressing his face sideways into the carpet. "Rank will do you little good down here unless you can convince me you're not going to get us killed."

"W-what she said!" Marco yelled out from behind the desk.

"Ow, ow… Sam that's my ear, do you mind? Ouch! OKAY! I'll revise the mission a little, how does that sound?"

"Very good, sergeant." Sam removed her boot from Barthees' head, and resumed her composed, impassive appearance. "I will be in the mechanics bay inspecting the sentinels for serviceability until such time as you want to re-brief us on the mission."

Marco peeked over the desk and watched Sam walk past. He looked back where Barthees was getting up, rubbing his ear. The private stood up and headed for the door. "I'll uh… be getting dinner ready."

"It better be a god damn banquet." The sergeant replied, but otherwise impartial to Marco excusing himself.


An hour later.


Marco was standing at the top of a ladder in the store room looking for anything that looked relatively easy to cook. "Ew, dried liver? That's just gross. Liver's only good if it's fresh."

A rumbling noise came from the Mechanics bay which was connected to the store via a corridor. Curious, Marco carefully climbed down from the ladder and went to go see what the noise was.

He walked into the mechanics bay looking left and right for the source of the noise. A giant metal pad slammed down barely a meter in front of him with a loud clank. Marco stumbled backwards; when he looked up he found himself staring up the barrel of an exceptionally large laser cannon.

"Shit!" He cursed under his breath in fright. "Can you not do that!"
"Relax," Sam's voice crackled in Marco's radio headphones. "I was just doing an operational check. The armaments are not online, I can't shoot you even if I pulled the trigger."

"I was told by a very wise man never to trust safety features on a gun," Marco replied, too fear struck to move. "So please don't aim that at me!"

"Look, its fine." Sam spoke; Marco could here a vigorous clicking on his head set where Sam was pulling the trigger in the cockpit.

Marco dived out of the way even though the laser cannon remained inactive. "Thanks a lot," he said sarcastically. "I think I just… I'm going to go change my underwear. Excuse me."

"Oh… sorry, I didn't realise you had bladder problems." Sam apologised.
"I don't have a weak bladder…" Marco mumbled. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a date with Napisan."

Sam silently cringed; she wished she had just said sorry and left it at that. After Marco left the mechanics bay Sam turned the sentinel around and walked it back to its where it came from. She was about to turn it off, but as the bulkhead doors which lead to the ramp, she hesitated. No one had breached the surface since arrival; they didn't even know what the weather was like out there.

Should I, or shouldn't I… She thought to herself. I guess I better see if there's any bioscanners in the computer lab first. I don't fancy walking out into the middle of an Ork sentry party…

Sam shut down the sentinel and jumped out. She took the elevator down to Level Two and headed straight for the computer lab.

Barthees nearly jumped out his seat when Sam rushed in. "Was the Commissar gracious enough to give us any equipment to enlighten us of what lay beyond the doors to the outside?" Sam asked.

Barthees looked up from his desk, a pen grasped in his hand as though he was ready to defend himself. "What?"

"Do we have any bio scanners!" Sam replied impatiently. "Or anything similar."

"Don't get your boxers in a twist," The sergeant answered. "Check those computers. If we have any such equipment, it'll be hooked up to those. Why do you want a bio scanner, anyway?" He looked at Sam suspiciously. "Are you going to go outside?"

Sam marched over to the computers and booted them (turned them on; not apply a size eight Imperial-approved combat boot to the tower). "So what if I am?"

"I don't care if you do, but just make sure no Orks see you, or get in. If they find out where we live, we're screwed." After a glare from Sam, Barthees continued. "This sector was reported as "relatively" Ork free. Not "completely" Ork free. You can never be too careful in this kind of situation."

Understanding the sergeant's request Sam nodded and sat down behind the computers. "I don't fancy our base being compromised, either."

It seemed that the Commissar obviously didn't want the base compromised, either. Sam thanked the heavens as she found multiple programs that would be useful for monitoring the outside and even the inside of the base – including bioscanners for all levels of the base and above ground with a proximity reading of a one kilometre radius. The private initiated an above-ground scan. Results flooded the screen, revealing that there were no Orks in the vicinity; only some cold-tolerant plants, funguses and a few small creatures.

Sam looked at the computer screen amazed. "This is incredible – I can't believe the sophistication of the equipment they gave us. I was expecting these kind of programs to be second-rate, if not non-existent."

"Uhn?" Barthees grunted not looking up from his writing pad.

"The scanners are able to detect Orkoid spores," She explained. "Inside and outside the base. Also… according to the computer, our air recycling system can filter out spores and other small particles from the air."

Barthees who wasn't listening mumbled, "Mm, sounds good."

"I'm going outside now." Sam left the computer running with the bioscanners active. She then left the computer lab and went back up the mechanics bay.


The ramp doors slid open ahead of Sam and the sentinel she was piloting. Snow fell though the gap onto the ramp; it was snowing outside; her tracks would be covered. The sentinel emerged from the ground, and as it exited the ramp the doors slid shut behind it. The doors looked like an odd rectangular patch of bare dirt; the snow had been pushed off when they had retracted. It would take a lot longer to cover such a large bare patch than some sentinel prints.

We will have to be mindful of that, Sam thought as she observed the doors. If an Ork saw that, who knows what they'd think…

Sam's sentinel walked around the area; after circling the base, she walked it down a rocky path which led downhill.