It seemed Gromsnok had guessed right when he had picked a direction to go towards the command bridge. One could tell that the section of the ship he and his nobs were in right now was more important than the section the 'ramma 'o gork' had breached. If not by the more ornate decorations, then at least by the fact that the human crewmembers here were equipped with significantly flashier dakka than the small flashlights the smaller hoomies used. The large ork remembered the Hoomies he was facing down right now called themselves Kariskins or something. The ork did not really care about their names, nor for their history. All he knew was that the humans forming a firing formation before him were quite a bit 'arder than the weaklings that manned the lower decks.<br/><br/>The karskins opened with the signature organised firing lines of the imperial guard. Red streaks of searing hot plasma showered the slowly advancing horde of orks. The hallway was long and without cover. A perfect bottleneck to keep invaders occupied for quite a while. The strategy would have been succesful had the targets of the unfortunate guardsmen not been ludicrously well armored. Most shots that hit their mark merely pinged off the thick metal plates of the ork Nobs. And those that did strike true through the armor ellicited little more than an annoyed grunt from the footslogging ork. The orks didn't take to being fired at without protest of course. They had been retirning fire all throughout their ponderous advance. However, they were only starting to actually hit something once they were about halfway through the hallway. The decorated walls and floor around the karskins had been thoroughly decastated by the sustained fire of about a dozen heavy shootas, but the karskins themselves were mostly unharmed, save for one or two glancing hits.<br/><br/>As the orks drew ever closer though, the morale of the famously indomitable karskins was starting to show subtle cracks. "Sir... They're simply ignoring our hellguns, and it looks like they're starting to move into effective range for their weapons." One of the karskins remarked to the officer leading the salvos of massed laser fire. "A change of plans is in order men! Concentrate fire on the ork in front! I would wager he is a commander of some sort!" The kariskins complied. There was still quite some confidence left in their eyes despite the rapidly worsening situation.<br/><br/>To gromsnok's annoyance, the humans had decided to all start shooting at him specifically. The massed hellgun fire didn't do much to dissuade the Ork's advance, but even a warboss had his limits. He could feel quite a lot of the blasts penetrating his armor. He didn't mind of course, combat was what any and all orks lived and died by after all, but even a warbosss had limits in how much wounds he could take without flinching. The massed fire took its toll on the warboss, he even felt enough pain to instinctively shield his face. However, one of the nobs decided to step in. Whether it was out of loyalty or to show himself stronger than gromsnok, he did not know. But it stemmed the tide of annyoing pinpricks long enough for Gromsnok to get his act together.<br/><br/>The first salvo came unexpectedly. It tore through an unfortunate trooper on the first row. The two hige holes in his torse seares shit by the blast of plasma that immediately followed the two slugs. Gromsnok's weapon was only beginning to rev up. The other nobs had been half-heartedly firing their own shootas, but the display of their boss doing what he loved doing most. They all adjusted and started actually aiming in the general direction of the enemy. Soon, a hail of gunfire tore through the ranks of the karskin. They fell quickly despite only one in about four orkish shots actually hitting anything. This was detrimental to the elite troops morale.<br/><br/>And finally , something snapped. It was only a single karskin faltering in his stance, but it was the sinhle seed of doubt that had been planted. By the time the first row had been wiped out. Some of the men were beginning to falter in their synchornized firing. By the time the orks were about to fall upon them, some of the less veteran were actually starting to run away. The second row was brutally run down by the orkish far superior skills in melee combat. Orks were half slaugthering the retreating men, half figthing over who got to claim various body parts as trophies. Gromsnok himself had something different in mind though.<br/><br/>He had found himself a kariskin that was desperately trying to crawl away. His leg reduced to a mangled mess of gore and shattered bone from the knee down by an orkish slug. He froze as the warboss loomed over him. "Heh, a perfectly still target. Maybe deze grots on me shoulders can finally get a few hits in.!" The gretchin, who had spent most of the preceding fight cowering and trying to dodge the lasgun fire, looked up awkwardly. They shared a look of fear, it would seem Gromsnok was in the mood to mess around with them today. "Come on ya git! shoot da humie!" The gretchin briefly looked at each other some more before deciding that Gromsnok expected at least one of them to open fire. "Right... Right away boss" One of the exclaimed nervously.<br/><br/>The gretchin stared at the shoota his arms were chained to. It was quite a big weapon. Almsot entirely too oversized for him. Still, there was a good chance a target this ludicrously close might be hit once or twice. He squeezed the trigger with all the might his runty body could muster, and an infernal hail of gunfire erupted from the crude barrel of the shoota. The guardsman had resumed his desperate attempts to flee. The bullets whizzed past him. His body was carried only by the strength of desperate fear. to his surprise however, the gunfire soon died down. None of the shots having been the one that would claim him. "Did I tell ya to stop shooting ya grot!" The warboss shouted at the runty gretchin on his shoulder. "Boss... It's out of bullets..." The gretchin said fearfully.<br/><br/>The warboss took a deep breath, presumably to shout the gretchin down. "That there shoota has a hundred bullets in it ya git! Even da runtiest gretchin can hit something when he gets that much dakka!" The gretchin was shaken around brutally by the angered warboss. He looked about to die from the sheer amount of sound the ork's voice threw at him. "Get off ma armor ya run! Ya ain't worthy of being a shoulda gunna 'o mine!." The gretchin had a look of relief on his face, until he realized his predicament of being chained fast to the armor. "Um... boss... I'm stuch 'ere" He said timidly. Gromsnok reacted to this with only a snort. He raised up his mega klaw. It was a large and brutish instrument of war. The gretchin screamed out in fear as he realized what was about to happen. It was quickly cut short by the titanic wepaon crashing into him. The platform in its entirety had been torn loose from the armor and thoughtlessly tossed aside, the gretchin reduced to little more than a mangled mess, intertwined in the metal scraps of what had once been a rickety shoota.<br/><br/>Gromsnok looked over to the guardsman still attempting desperately to crawl away. "Deze grotz is da runtiest eh? Can't even krump a half-dead git like you!" The warboss bellowed a laugh out. The guardsman, again arrested by the primal fear of death, joined into the bellowing laugther with a nervous snickering. "Anywayz, I've got command bridges to loot" Gromsnok said as he thoughtlessly raised his kustom shoota and blasted the hapless guardsman into a fine, red, mist.