Zesty Boyz

The Zestarsi Executor Malik Vulpes Daniels-Daniels Montblanc stared at his heavy steel office door as he heard the blast downstairs. The Orks had finally breached the Executor's Offices, then. About a week ago, he had realized it was only a matter of time. He raised his waxed paper cup to his lips and took a sip of his cocktail. Not so bad for a last meal.

For the last four months, he'd had plenty of time to think about the loss of life among the Human colonists of Zestarsi. From the initial discovery of its sun, generically labelled "Zed star" for its categorical lack of importance, to the discovery of its rocky planets labelled A through F, to the eventual realization that planet Zed-Star-C could support Terran life, no one had thought much of it. Too out of the way to assist in force projection, too poor in rare minerals to be worth holding, nothing but a sleepy ball of soil and water.

For the first settlers, it sounded like a dream. An earthlike planet no one would ever want. An Eden. The soldiers laughingly called it a retirement home, and the colonists laughed along. All they wanted was a little peace, and as Uninhabited Planet Zed-Star-C slowly changed into the thriving little farm world they came to call Zestarsi, they felt sure they had selected wisely.

And Executor Montblanc, born and raised on the planet five generations later, agreed with them. Until nine standard years ago, when the Orks discovered Zestarsi.

Nothing here for them to use. Nothing here for an Ork Warlord to brag about. But Ork Warlords don't simply come from nowhere, blasting green havoc through the galaxy without warning. They emerge from the ranks. They learn. They start small. The colonists came to realize that for the Orks, the planet wasn't a retirement home. It was a bike with training wheels.

The first three Ork Incursions were difficult, but the Zestarsi had adapted and fought fiercely. Each Incursion led by a different young Warboss, hoping to prove his mettle with his first planetary capture. Each defeated. Each routed. It was this fourth, led by a "Gar Weirdkilla," that was going to finally succeed.

Montblanc had always heard Orks were notoriously difficult to interrogate, less out of any proclivity toward opsec and more because they were too full of plain berserk rage to ever convey useful information. But when a few of Weirdkilla's men had been captured alive, they'd been different - excited to talk, thrilled to describe him, raving with the clear-eyed confusion of evangelical cultists.

Have you heard Da Good Newz: Weirdkilla was meant to be a Weirdboy, not a Warboss. When he switched careers, he brought that talent with him. Superstitious. Cautious, for an Ork. Listening to the flows of the universe. Obsessed with totems, symbols, the power of sigils. Not an easy task to get an Ork to back down from a fight, but Gar rewarded his men heavily for coming to him with their "Bad Feelinz." Whole battles were called off based on hunches. Whole battles were hastily initiated based on "Omenz."

Well. Montblanc sipped his drink. He would give them an omen. He would show them a totem.

He looked around his office as he registered the sounds of blasts and screams getting closer, downstairs to up, floor by floor. He'd had time to think about war strategy. He'd had time to plan logistics with his generals. And he'd had time to think about the loss of Zestarsi life. Here, now, in these final minutes, he could finally allow himself a maudlin little frippery: a moment of grief for the coming loss of Zestarsi culture. The Human creative spirit, arrayed in relics in the glass cases lining his office walls.

A wheel from the first landing pod on the planet's surface. From a few centuries before that: a second edition of Travanian's "Prometheus Enmeshed." From 541.M1, a fragment of earthenware pottery. From 991.M2, the paper cup that had been kept pristine and dry for centuries, now a vulgar vessel for his cocktail. Why not. Everything in here was about to burn anyway. Two early prototypes for boltguns, deemed far too unwieldy and dangerous for human usage. And here, his most treasured artifact: a Scottish Highlander's basket-hilted broadsword from 744.M2. Flawlessly preserved. Deadly sharp. Any miscommunication between Ork and Human would be cleared up right here. A nonverbal message, but he doubted he'd be very verbal after he used the bolters, anyway.

Montblanc pushed his papers, his tablets, his cocktail to the sides of his desk. In the center, he placed the sword. Point aimed at the door to his office. The Orks would see. His Totem. His Symbol. His Omen. His warning that humans would never stop fighting.

As the noise rose to a cacophony outside his office, Montblanc picked up the two massive proto-boltguns and aimed them at the door. A gargantuan foot kicked it off its hinges, revealing the Orks, green as moss and big as rhinos, sneering, bristling with weapons. Montblanc pulled the boltguns' triggers.

His arms flew backwards, shattered flecks of bone spiking through his skin, blood leaking out of flesh that suddenly seemed like nothing more than wet moth-eaten sweaters. The bolters fell to the ground like blocks of concrete, one of them still holding Montblanc's severed index finger in the trigger guard. Dizzy and deafened, Montblanc realized with a strangely removed delight that he'd managed to take out two of the Orks. But the one in the center - Da Biggest, as they were wont to say - still stood.

Tusks dripping rancid saliva. White-plated armor and rifle - the color renowned among these xenos for being "da killiest" - smeared with oil, dirt, blood from at least two species. A heavy scent of mildew and iron, like a bomb shelter opened after centuries. And from deep black sockets: wild, overjoyed, religious-ecstasy eyes of almost glowing red. This had to be him. Gar Weirdkilla.

Montblanc, dimly aware of the pain, began to lurch forward. The end of the Zestarsi people. The end of the Zestarsi culture. But he saw it. Saw Gar's eyes flick to the desk. Saw the widening. The recognition. Gar saw the Totem. Maybe that would be enough to scare him off future conquests, Montblanc thought as he attempted to run forward, arm fragments flopping and leaking, head pulled back for one final headbutt against the immovable Warboss.

Gar's eyes turned back to him, and the expression of recognition seemed to change. To - was it softening? Could the gaze of an Ork soften? It looked almost pitying, but proud, like a puppy's owner smiling at their pet's first harmless nips.

Montblanc slammed into him, thinking, finally: "At least he saw the sword."

As Gar Weirdkilla stepped onto Montblanc's balcony, holding the Executor's head aloft, his men cheered in wild frenzy. They'd done it. Conquered the world that three previous would-be Warbosses had failed to take.

"My Boyz!" Gar shouted. "You did good!" A wild cheer roared. Fires burned around them, consuming the Zestarsi capital. "But they - da Zesty Humans - they did good too."

The cheer faded. Confused whispers. The Humans? The Humans did good?

"They fought!" shouted Gar. "They was too small!! But they fought!!! They fought... like Orks."

A murmur of careful assent. This was the way with Weirdkilla, wasn't it? His strange musings. That was the Warboss they all followed. Boyz from the Goffs, the Snakebites, a couple of Bad Moons who seemed uncharacteristically unable to hold onto teef. The outcast, the sick, the strange, turning to an Ork of religion, his connection to Da Weird Stuff a beacon for those who couldn't thrive anywhere else. He said confusing things, sometimes. But that's how it was to follow a prophet. You just had to trust him. And he'd get results.

"They fought like Orks," Weirdkilla repeated, nodding pensively. "And I know why. Da Human boss, he tried to kill me, he tried his best. He used gunz, he used his head, he threw every little thing he had in his teeny tiny body. It weren't never enough, no, an' he knew it weren't never going to be. But he did. He fought for da Zesty Humans."

The Orks held their tongues. Where was this going? They'd beaten the humans. Why eulogize? What did their Weird Warboss see?

"I found his treasure there. Da source of his strength. On his table. In his war room," Gar said, smiling. He tossed away Montblanc's head, a dull wet thump on the balcony as he turned to get the Totem.

He turned to his throngs and raised it aloft. "THIS!" he bellowed. "THIS gave him his strength!! And it's OURS now!"

The Orks understood. The cheers started again, wilder than before, wilder than ever before. Of course. Gar Weirdkilla knew these things. He was connected with realms they couldn't see. They would follow. And they would triumph.

Weirdkilla held the paper cup in a massive trembling hand, feeling its raw power. "HIS CHALICE!" he shouted. "HE DRANK DEEP and he BECAME STRONG. And his sigil now belongs to US!!!"

The sigil on the cup. Of course. Vast field of killy-white, streaked with a lucky blue that tinted slightly toward green, in deference to the strength of the Orkoid. And across that: a thin scribble of reddish-purple. The colors of speed and stealth. Of course. Of course. It had made the Humans strong.

But now it would make Gar Weirdkilla's men strong.

"Under our new banner, we will WAAAGH across world after world!" he bellowed to a roar of excitement. "Da Zesty Humans are dead!!! The universe is about to face da Zesty Boyz."