Chapter 35: Greenskins
The enormous space hulks that were floating all around were more than enough to tell him that he probably ended up in some sort of battlefield or spaceship graveyard.
However, what caught his attention was a peculiar spaceship that was floating in the middle of the star system, mainly due to its appearance and architecture.
A space hulk is a term given by the Space Exploration Association to the wreckage of a starship or a mangled twist of various starships and artificial debris found drifting through the vacuum of the known Universe without apparent direction.
But this one looked rather peculiar even among the other kinds of space hulks because it was ramshackled together, patched up in various grotesque ways, that it almost appeared ridiculous at first sight.
Even though, Arcturus wasn\'t living in this new reality, he knew that this belonged to the Orks.
"This one should belong to the Orks, right?"
He looked at the space hulk, that was painted in red and green colors, with white skulls that were on the hulls of the ship. It looked like a vessel belonging to some kind of criminal organization or, rather, to some gangsters.
<Yes. However, it appears to be much smaller than the standard space hulks that are used by the Orkoids across the known universe. Probably this one belongs to one of the pirate bands of the greenskins.>
The Orks, also called Greenskins, are a savage, warlike, green-skinned species of bestial, asexual humanoids who are spread all across the known universe. They are unique in that they possess the physiological features of both animals and fungi.
Orks are seen by their enemies (pretty much everyone else in the universe) as primitive, barbaric, hyper-violent, and crude, but they are the most successful and widespread intelligent species in the whole known universe, outnumbering possibly every other intelligent starfaring species.
While their technology was primitive, there was an undeniable powerful psionic potential of the Orkoid species. Not to mention, their reproductive capabilities were unmatched, and they were natural warriors and fighters.
Their bodies were killing machines on their own, and even the weakest of the Orks was the Epsilon-Grade Warrior. Due to these factors, the Orks often managed to overrun even more advanced and superior species to their own with sheer tenacity and numbers.
"What should we do?"
The last thing that he wanted right now was to pick a fight with the Orkish pirate band; that would spell his doom because, on that space hulk, there could be thousands upon thousands of the Greenskins.
<I would recommend unleashing the full power of the Obscurus on the space hulk to destroy as much of it as possible. As we are speaking right now, I have detected that the greenskins are preparing to either crash or board our ship.>
Arcturus wanted to curse hearing that because it seemed that the fight was inevitable. The dammed greenskins were unleashing some sort of psionic field on the entire Star System, making the hyperspace impossible.
So the only thing that remained was to fight against enemies.
According to the information on the Extranet and Imperial NetSphere, this was a common strategy of the greenskin pirates, who were utilizing their latent psychic potential to disturb the space, rendering the hyperdrive useless.
Then, when the ships exited from the hyperdrive, the pirates would strike, obliterate the defending crew and take their ship for themselves. So, Arcturus wasn\'t surprised by this development...
"Do... full power ahead, unleash the full power of the Obscurus onto the space hulk."
Even during the orbital bombardment of Helios IV. during the siege of the Solar Cult, he didn\'t order Red Queen Alice to use the full power of the Obsucurus during the orbital bombardment; this time, he was going to order a total overload of the canons.
Red Queen was already controlling the droids to the engines and carrying out supportive operations onto the engines and weapon systems to prevent them from malfunctioning, as overloading the weapons was dangerous.
He had one advantage in form of the super-advanced Artificial Intellignece of the Red Queen who was able to perfectly control and coordinate every single aspect of the spaceship, which unleashed the most powerful barrage of laser weaponry on the space hulk that belonged to the Greenskins.
Instantly, the previously silent and quiet Star System was awoken and turned into a hell of lasfire and deafening sounds of artillery shooting, which was cleaving away the space hulk part by part.
From the windows of his master chambers atop the Obscurus, Arcturus was able to observe the hell on the Star System, as previously huge space hulk was right now, smaller at least by one half because most of it was destroyed entirely by the barrage of the Obscurus.
It seemed that the choice to focus on the overwhelming firepower was right now because, just in a few moments, he managed to destroy a large part of the hostile ship because Red Queen began evasive maneuvers.
Just as the space hulk or at least the remaining half was about to crash into the Obsucurus, the ship went into full drive as the sublight engines roared into life and dodged into the side, completely avoiding the clash of the Orkish space hulk.
"Activate the secondary weapon system, target the remaining auxiliary engines of the space hulk and render it immobile. Aim the main cannons on the central area and destroy it, use the remaining firepower to target the parts of the ship with the largest population."
The Orkish ships were peculiar in one aspect, in a way where they housed large part of their population. Contrary to the other spacefaring species, one Orkish ship could house tens of thousands of greenskins at least.
The bigger the ship was, more Orks it could house, reaching the staggering heights of the world ships, that could house population of entire worlds, numbering in billions of greenskins that were ready for war.