Lovely review :biggrin:
Keep 'em coming!
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Lovely review :biggrin:
Keep 'em coming!
Ever wonder whether an eleven year old child can pilot an XV-85 Enforcer battlesuit? Well buckle in!
Chapter 1
The children board Amity’s ship.
Talen rolls a barrel of promethium down the boarding ramp like he’s Donkey Kong, squashing a genestealer.
They fly up into space.
Amity’s entire crew consists of literally a single servitor, named Grunt. Her ship, the Profiteer, is a warp-capable craft which is barely Thunderhawk-sized.
Talen appears to have forgotten his fear of flying from Attack of the Necron.
We learn from Zelia that servitors being made from actual people, as opposed to being vat grown, is just a rumour. It’s not like that sort of thing would be common knowledge or anything. Jeeze.
Amity has a holographic map of the Entire Imperium. We learn that Targian was in Segmentum Pacificus. The ice planet (which has no name) is in Ultima Segmentum. When pondering how they got from one to the other, Amity states, ‘That’s not how the warp works’. I know, right, that’s what I said too!
Amity also has a list of (all?) Imperial worlds. The Emperor’s Seat isn’t on it.
Zelia asks Amity to help them find her mother at the Emperor’s Seat.
Amity says that she already has a mission and requests payment for saving them.
When Zelia says that they have nothing, Amity asks for Fleapit. The jokaero snarls at her and she just immediately abandons the idea.
Amity offers to drop them off at the nearest planet.
Zelia offers to pay her for her help (with what, Zelia?!) She offers her omniscope. Amity refuses.
Then Zelia offers her Erasmus’ old job. Amity refuses.
Zelia says that they really need help; and so Amity agrees for no apparent reason.
Huh?
Chapter 2
Amity knows a map seller named Milon Karter who might know about the Emperor’s Seat.
They go to Hinterland Outpost, which is a space station built into an asteroid. Think the Mos Eisley cantina. Or Canto Bight, for the audience this book is aimed at *shudder*.
Talen encounters a beastman, and calls him a goat directly to his face.
In fairness, the following exchange between Talen and Zelia is actually almost legitimately comical.
Mekki sees some guys in golden exo-suits unloading cargo. They’re cleaner and sleeker than Imperial tech. I wonder where they might be from...
A kroot steals Zelia’s omniscope. The children chase it into a market. Talen goes off after it alone
Chapter 3
Talen chases the kroot down an alley.
He steals a bolas from a weapon stall he passes by. The irony of him stealing in order to catch a thief is lampshaded. ‘...the difference here was that the feathered freak had stolen something from one of his friends’ – oh, okay, that’s fine then (?)
Apparently Talen’s father taught him to use a bolas. Seems legit.
He trips up the kroot and retrieves the onmiscope. Then he gets knocked out.
Chapter 4
The kroot - named Korok – had hit Talen with the bolas (I guess Talen was so focussed on the omniscope that he just didn’t notice the kroot get back up?).
Talen gets thrown around a bit into some market stalls. Just as he’s about to have his skull caved in by the alien, Fleapit saves him.
Zelia arrives on the scene.
Korok gets the upper hand, but is shot by a man who introduces himself as Karter. What a coincidence that the very person they came here to find found them within minutes of their arrival!
Karter shoots Korok a second time in the shoulder and tells him to get lost. He describes Fleapit as a ‘prized specimen’, prompting Zelia to explain that he’s their friend. Karter states that there are many who would not take kindly to the suggestion that humans and xenos can be friends.
Mekki and Amity arrive.
Karter jokes about Amity employing children as her crew – although this is precisely what Elise actually does! – Zelia claims that they have hired Amity to work for them. Because Zelia is a liar.
Chapter 5
They all go to Karter’s shop.
Zelia ponders whether all aliens are baddies as the Imperial Creed teaches. She concedes to herself that Elise’s policy on avoiding violence is impractical when every alien they’re encountered besides Flegan-Pala has been trying to murder them to death.
We learn that Talen kept the stolen bolas!
During some back-and-forth dialogue, we learn that both Amity and Karter know about Necrons Because everyone except the Sisters of Battle at Sanctuary 101 do apparently and that something happened to Amity’s former crew.
Zelia explains that they’re looking for the Emperor’s Seat. Karter knows where it is (!) for the right price. There are actually three possible locations.
Mekki offers him Elise’s catalogue of archaeological finds. Karter refuses – instead he wants Fleapit.
Zelia declines and they leave.
Chapter 6
Amity says that they can try something else. Zelia is sassy and demands to know what Karter meant about bad things happening to Amity’s friends.
Amity reminds the children that she isn’t being paid for her help, and tells them to wait in the market and stop being brats, while she goes to talk to a hetelfish seller.
Zelia is afraid because they are so vulnerable.
Talen and Zelia argue when he criticises her for antagonising Amity. Fleapit tries to intervene, but Talen calls him a ‘stinking alien’.
Then Talen freaks out and picks a fight with a female Tau (how do they know she’s female? Who knows) and her bodyguards who are just minding their own business nearby. Talen goes off on a full-on Monodominant rant and storms off alone.
Mekki sends his servo sprite (which he has named Meshwing, and is now female apparently) to watch over Talen while they go back to the Profiteer.
Chapter 7
Several hours later.
Zelia wants to know about Amity’s crew. Mekki tries to hack into her cogitator, but is unable to. Finally somebody has password protected their technology so Mekki can’t just hack it!
Zelia reads up about the Tau. She doesn’t know what to think of them. She apparently didn’t think that the female in the market looked threatening, despite the armed bodyguards, and her specifically thinking at the time that Talen was in danger.
Mekki has lost contact with Meshwing.
Amity and Talen return. But where is Fleapit? Talen has the location(s) of the Emperor’s Seat(s).
He sold Fleapit to Karter!
But oh noes! Fleapit still has the Diadem! *Facepalm*
Amity is concerned that the Necrons will come to Hinterland to reclaim it. She thinks that they need to destroy the Diadem. Zelia protests that she promised to take it to her mother (no she didn’t). Zelia convinces Amity to let her try to get the Diadem back without resorting to violence. Amity gives her one hour before she goes in all guns blazing. For some reason.
Talen has disappeared again.
Chapter 8
Inquisitor Jeremias of the Ordo Xenos is on the ice planet, exploring the childrens’ abandoned camp. He finds claw marks in the shelter made by Scarface, identifies them as genestealer, and immediately instructs his servo skull Corlac to send a report (where?) calling for Exterminatus!
Jeremias finds Talen’s model soldier toy and uses magic to see Talen’s memories. Then he sets off to find the children.
I guess Talen’s memories from after he lost the soldier are somehow still imprinted onto it..?
Chapter 9
It is now night time on Hinterland.
Zelia and Mekki head back through the market. They encounter some stranger danger, but know not to talk to strange men.
They meet Meshwing, who leads them back to Karter’s shop. It is unlocked. There are anti-grav candles lighting it.
They enter the stock room. A Tau drone appears and tells them, ‘Halt! / Trespassers will be disintegrated’.
It tries to shoot them with a laser, but Zelia throws some parchments over it to confuse it.
Karter returns.
Zelia says that they want Fleapit back because he’s their friend.
Karter says that’s heresy.
Zelia says the drone is heresy.
Mekki says that his servo sprite is different to the drone because it is not sentient. (Isn’t it? They do seem pretty heretical).
Zelia says that they’ll report Karter to station Master Vetone.
Karter points out that they’re guilty of trespass, vandalism, and are would-be thieves. Then he kicks them out.
Meshwing is still hiding inside the shop. Zelia and Mekki plan to wait until Karter leaves and then get back in and steal Fleapit. Mekki says that he will search Elise’s notes for a way to deactivate the drone.
Chapter 10
Zelia and Mekki get back to the Profiteer, but they are locked out.
Korok, another kroot with a kroot hound, the beastman, and a ganger with an exo-suit appear and menace them. Korok wants the omniscope back.
Zelia and Mekki split up and run away. Korok’s staff doubles as a gun (which doesn’t match the illustration of the weapon on page 110).
Amity appears and blinds the attackers with a flash grenade. Then she and Grunt incapacitate them. She says that they won’t have to worry about them anymore; but the kroot is only unconscious and the beastman and hound ran off. Maybe Korok is dead..?
Mekki explains that Zelia doesn’t use guns (isn’t this the default position for twelve year olds anyway? I know 40K is grimdark, but come on). Amity says that she needs a lesson in self defence.
They go to the Profiteer’s armoury. Amity gives Zelia three flash grenades. The text says that Zelia puts them in a pouch on her bandolier, but the illustration on page 118 shows the weapon to be almost as large as Zelia’s head, so I don’t think that is going to work.
Mekki selects a shock-prod. He almost lets slip that he used weapons before he met Elise, while he was escaping from Mars.
Amity goes off to attend to some business, leaving Grunt to guard the children.
Mekki can’t find any information on abominable intelligence, but Zelia doesn’t mind because now the servitor will protect them from Karter’s drone.
They head back to Karter’s shop.
Chapter 11
The text says that the streets are deserted now, but the illustration on page 127 shows crowds of people.
The shop is empty. They break in and are searching for Fleapit when somebody else also breaks in! They’re ready for a fight, but it turns out to be Amity (duh. She said that she was coming earlier). Zelia asks what she’s doing there (duh. Stealing the monkey back).
They open a Fleapit-sized barrel in the stock room using Amity’s sonic-pick. But it isn’t Fleapit inside!
Chapter 12
The barrel contains a tentacle monster. Mekki electrocutes it with his shock-prod.
Karter and the drone show up.
Chapter 13
Karter explains that the monster is a kraken hatchling (!) He needs to administer a sedative before it recovers from being electrocuted. The drone just happens to have a syringe loaded and ready to go, but Amity smashes it.
Amity blackmails Karter – the location of Fleapit, or she will tell the Inquisition about his trade in xenos hentai beasts. He’s about to tell them who he has sold Fleapit to when the kraken eats him and crushes the drone.
Amity, Zelia, and Mekki flee, leaving Grunt for dead.
The kraken rapidly grows huge and smashes out of the shop. It is about to kill everyone when three Crisis suits appear and blast it apart. Then the Tau take the group prisoner.
Chapter 14
The Tau take them up into a tower. There are lots more battlesuits and drones in a hallway.
The female Tau from the market is sitting on a hover throne. Fleapit is in a cage.
The Tau introduces herself as Por-Vre Tolku Paxis, aka ‘Madame Lightbringer’. She explains that she is selling Tau technology to the highest bidder, and was using the drone to spy on Karter. She sent the battlesuits to capture them because Amity threatened to call the Inquisition on Karter.
Lightbringer then orders them to be thrown out of an airlock.
Just before they are about to die in the cold vacuum of space, Grunt bursts through the door!
Grunt is wielding a severed kraken tentacle. He uses it to knock off the helmets of all three battlesuits in a single swing.
Zelia sees the faces of the three Tau bodyguards from the market beneath (never mind that the battlesuit pilots’ heads would be in the chest and not beneath the head/helmet).
Drones swoop down from the ceiling and attack.
Then a larger battlesuit (by the illustration, an XV-85 Enforcer) armed with burst cannons comes alive and incapacitates the three Tau warriors and shoots down the drones. Talen is piloting it!
Chapter 15
Talen can’t control the suit fully, and is firing wildly.
Zelia orders Amity to give her her gun – and she does for some reason! Zelia shoots the chain holding Fleapit’s cage in only two shots (not bad for somebody who has never fired a gun before). Fleapit jumps onto Talen’s back and starts pulling out handfuls of cables.
The other battlesuits from the hallway activate and attack. They are automated and have no pilots!
Amity and Zelia seal the doors so that they can’t get in.
Talen gets out of the battlesuit.
He explains that he followed Karter to Lightbringer when he came to sell Fleapit, and has been waiting for a chance to rescue the jokaero. Selling Fleapit for the information they needed from Karter was Fleapit’s idea all along (how he communicated this is left up to our imagination).
Lightbringer has escaped so there must be another way out of the room.
The doors are about to give way.
Mekki gets in the Enforcer suit. ‘There is no way a human could pilot a battlesuit correctly’ he says. Before piloting the battlesuit.
Again there is a description of the helmet being put over Mekki’s head – but the illustration on page 175 even shows Mekki’s head in the battlesuit’s chest area.
The automated battlesuits break into the room. Mekki’s guns are more powerful for some reason and he is beating them.
Burst cannons fire crimson bolts now, apparently.
Then Lightbringer re-appears and holds a knife to Fleapit’s throat, ordering everyone to stop shooting or she’ll shank a fool.
Then Amity reveals that she has a ring on with a vox unit hidden in it. She was contracted by the Ethereals of Dal’yth to find out who had been selling Tau secrets. Plot twist!
At that very moment a Tau fleet begins attacking Hinterland, highjacking every vox caster on the station to declare that it is now under the control of the Tau Empire.
Lightbringer starts to run away. Amity tries to shoot her down, but her beamer’s power pack is flat. Talen brings her down with his bolas. They put her in Fleapit’s cage.
Chapter 16
Hinterland surrenders to the Tau, and the occupation is in full swing by the time the group arrive back in the market.
A Fire Warrior is confiscating a whole stack of barrels like those the kraken came out of from somebody. This is an actual line from the book: ‘The Tau had no right to seize other people’s property’. HA!
The Dal’yth leader, Commander Firebrand, is wearing green armour. Sept colour is blue, but whatever, carry on.
Once Amity hands Lightbringer over to him, he offers them the choice of either remaining on Hinterland as prisoners or being killed, in order to cover up the dishonour brought about by Lightbringer’s crimes.
Zelia sets off a flash grenade and they all run away.
MEKKI IS STILL IN THE BATTLESUIT, BY THE WAY
Mekki knocks over the pile of barrels, and loads of kraken attack the Tau.
Zelia rouses the people of Hinterland to join the fight to re-take the station and the fightback begins.
They get aboard the Profiteer and take off – but the Tau fleet is blocking their escape.
Mekki patches Amity’s Tau ring into the Profiteer’s vox network and uses it to broadcast all of the information in his databanks at once.
For some reason this causes the speakers and video displays aboard the Tau cruiser to go haywire, and the signal blocks every communication frequency.
The Profiteer uses the confusion to escape.
Once the Tau ship re-establishes contact with Firebrand, he orders them to open fire on Hinterland, before being eaten by a kraken.
However the transmission has overloaded the circuits of the Tau ship, and it is unable to fire.
Hinterland fires on the Tau ship with its defences, presumably destroying it.
Station Master Vetone declares victory over the Tau on the vox network.
Phew! Got pretty wild there, huh?
Mekki and Fleapit get to work on the XV-85, while Talen talks to Amity.
Zelia ponders on how little she actually knows about her friends.
Amity refers to Zelia as ‘my lady’, and says that she’ll stick with them (I guess she also bought into Zelia’s claim that she worked for the child..?)
Amity is described here as having a pierced eyebrow – none of the illustrations of the character throughout the book show this feature.
Talen is about to tell the group what Karter told him about the Emperor’s Seat when...
The end.
David Tenant isn’t quoted as saying that this one is ‘A fantastic science fiction adventure’ on the back cover, so take that for what it’s worth.
Again a lot of plot happens because
For no apparent reason the characters don’t tell each other things and make terrible decisions.
If Talen had told Zelia that Fleapit was in on the plan to be sold to Karter, a whole lot of trouble could have been avoided.
If Fleapit had stayed aboard the Scriptor when they arrived at Hinterland, none of the trouble with Karter or Lightbringer would have been necessary.
Then again, if she didn’t stumble upon the children, if they didn’t sell the jokaero to Karter, if they didn’t need to rescue Fleapit and recover the Diadem leading to the release of the kraken, and if they hadn’t then been captured by the Tau, how was Amity intending to find Lightbringer anyway?
Was the whole plot her game of 4D chess?
Also
What is up with all of the theft going on in these books?
These little delinquents are kleptomaniacs!
Isn't that standard adventurer stuff? :biggrin:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Damocles
Also
What is up with all of the theft going on in these books?
These little delinquents are kleptomaniacs!
Maybe. But in a childrens book I'd at least expect some sort of 'stealing is bad' moral/message.Quote:
Originally Posted by ArnizipalIsn't that standard adventurer stuff? :biggrin:
I mean, in this book we almost got as far as 'guns are good', which is a relatively complex message; but we also got 'stealing is fine as long as you're doing it to help a friend. Also you don't have to return the stuff you steal later on'.
It's not even like they're stealing from baddies necessarily - just from random people trying to make a living. I guess the owner of the market stall probably got killed in the Tau invasion anyway, so... that's ok then?
With War of the Orks being delayed from November '19 to April '20 for unspecified reasons, you'd have thought that we wouldn't be seeing anything of our pint-sized champions for a while, but the Warhammer Animations trailer from the Open Day features a few seconds of Mekki and Zelia; who not content with simply surviving the Necrons, appears to have taken the fight to the Ketatrix within their own tomb complex.
I dread to imagine...
I thought that I should probably move this thread to GW General, since it's hardly news at this point.
Anyway...
After a whopping seven months since the last installment, it’s the turn of the Orks to take a beating...
Chapter 1
Inquisitor Jeremias arrives at Hinterland Outpost as the locals are tidying up from the carnage caused by our heroes in the last instalment. He questions a sassy female medic about what happened and whether she has seen the children. She can’t help. Then the beastman from Secrets of the tau introduces himself and says that he knows all about the children if the Inquisitor will give him passage off Hinterland...
Chapter 2
We get reintroduced to our main cast, who are aboard the Privateer.
Apparently, Captain Amity ‘had been promised a small fortune if she helped them find Zelia’s mum’ – which straight up didn’t happen in the last book – as I noted back then, Amity has no reason to be taking orders from a twelve year old.
We’re also told that, ’Talen had tricked the crook [Karter] into giving them the location of the Emperor’s Seat’ – that’s not true either! He traded Fleapit for the information. He didn’t trick him.
Karter had given three possible locations for the Emperor’s Seat – Terra (duh), which the group disregard out of hand – presumably because we need to save it for the series finale – Weald, a forest world on the Eastern Fringe, and Pastoria, which isn’t in Amity’s list of worlds; but as luck would have it Amity’s family archives contain a scroll titled Legends of the Emperor which mentions it (how VERY CONVENIENT) but doesn’t give coordinates.
Mekki is able to conjure up a hololith of a series of stained glass windows from Terra which show the Ultramarines carving a mountain on Weald into a likeness of the Emperor. Handy that they had access to that...
Zelia orders Amity to set course for Weald. Amity asks the children who wants to be co-pilot (does she need a co-pilot? Her entire crew is a single servitor...) and Talen rushes to volunteer. Does anybody else remember when Talen was afraid of flying, or am I the only one?
Chapter 3
Talen is apparently a natural at piloting a warp-capable spacecraft. Of course he is. Whatever you say book. Zelia hypothesises that he ’had a slight crush on the woman’.
The Privateer enters Weald’s atmosphere and they fly to the mountain-statue of the Emperor. They fly literally right up to it for some reason.
Then unknown attackers start firing rockets at them out of the jungle. One of the rockets blows the nose of the statue, which smashes through the Profiteer’s wing. They’re going to crash, so Amity orders them to go to the starboard hatch and jump out (!) She intends to stay aboard and crash land – perhaps this is her way of finally getting rid of these children..?
Talen doesn’t know which side starboard is. Mekki tells him ’to the right’; but if they’re moving from the cockpit back down the ship, the starboard hatch would actually be on their left.
They put on grav chutes (I guess Amity keeps a load of spares just in case?), one of which Fleapit modifies for Mekki so that he doesn’t have to take his backpack of tools off; but the hatch is stuck. They can’t just use the port hatch I guess, and Fleapit doesn’t seem willing to help, despite ripping the hatch clean off a starship in Claws of the Genestealer, so Talen holds it open. Mekki doesn’t want to jump in case his chute doesn’t function. Fleapit pushes him out before he and Zelia jump.
Mekki’s chute doesn’t activate (did Fleapit just straight up try to murder Mekki!?) but Zelia saves him because she’s also a pro skydiver. But oh no! – Talen didn’t jump because he was stuck holding the hatch open for them.
Chapter 4
Back on the Privateer Talen returns to the flight deck. Amity asks him why he’s still here, and why he didn’t just have Grunt hold the hatch open. It’s because he’s a teenage boy and she’s a hot female space captain.
They are looking for a clear area to land in when they spot some other downed craft in the distance.
Zelia, Mekki, and Fleapit land. Fleapit has lost the Necron Diadem. Somehow. It turns out that he had hidden it aboard the Profiteer before going into the whole getting sold to Karter plan on Hinterland. Apparently he had told the others this - but that didn’t happen in the last book. Why not retrieve it as soon as the chance presented itself? Because plot, that’s why!
Just then Talen contacts them on the vox to say that they’ve survived the crash landing (needn’t have jumped out, really, but the plot required it, I guess). The Diadem is inside a different micro-dimension, which only Fleapit can get into, so they need to get to the crash site several kilometres away.
The Privateer needs Mekki and Fleapit to repair it. Zeliatellsorders Talen to go and check out the other ships while she and the techs travel to them.
Talen shortens Zelia’s name to ‘Zel’ as they talk, ’Usually she hated that, but somehow it sounded right coming from him’. Ooh - are we going to get ourselves a love triangle plotline?
Fleapit converts his grav chute into a hover pack. He refuses to do the same for the children, even though that would allow them to get back to the ship more quickly and safely than walking through the jungle. He does actually want them to die, doesn’t he?
Chapter 5
Zelia drinks some water from a leaf. Mekki lets slip that his family were forced to leave Mars.
The group find a huge set of footprints amongst a path of fallen trees.
But before they can investigate they hear someone calling for help nearby. They go to investigate and find a crashed flying machine. The calls for help are coming from beneath it. Fleapit wants to carry on towards the Scriptor but Zelia convinces him to help because ’It is the right thing to do’. He takes the anti-grav devices from their grav chutes and uses them to lift the wreckage up. But oh no! It’s not a human trapped under it, but a gretchin! Who could have possibly foreseen this turn of events?!
Chapter 6
Talen and Amity are exploring the wrecked ships. They are Imperial, but have been crudely modified. They go inside one and find that the walls have been painted to show scenes of green figures battling against a large, fanged monster, which they chase into the jungle, before getting eaten by it, repeatedly. Talen finds a tooth. Then the penny finally drops for Amity and she identifies the figures as Orks.
Then there is an inhuman roar...
Chapter 7
The gretchin drags Zelia towards itself, but Fleapit drops the wreckage back on top of it. Then the gretchin starts crying and apologises for scaring the children – he explains that his name is String-Guts, and says that if the larger Orks find him here they’ll beat him up. Zelia turns to the fourth wall and explains that bullying is bad. Mekki sensibly says that the greenskins are monsters and that they shouldn’t help him. Zelia then says, ’But aren’t we no better than them if we leave him here?’ – it’s like she doesn’t remember every interaction she’s had with aliens in the last three weeks (excluding Fleapit - although she would have died due to his inaction in Claws of the Genestealer too!)
The children retreat to a safe distance and re-activate the grav devices. String-Guts doesn’t move from beneath the wreckage though. Zelia fears that he’s paralyzed or unconscious, and so goes back to help. She is unable to drag him free so Mekki also joins her. They pull the alien free just as the grav devices fail and drop the wreckage again.
Then String-Guts jumps up and overpowers Zelia – he was just pretending to be incapacitated! Who could have possibly foreseen this turn of events?! The gretchin yells that it has been attacked by humies and two Orks appear out of the jungle.
Fleapit has disappeared.
The greenskins take Zelia and Mekki prisoner and begin escorting them to the Ork leader of the Tek-Hedz clan, Badtoof the Rotten.
Chapter 8
The wrecked ship Talen and Amity are in gets attacked by a giant squig the size of a battle tank. They get thown around for a bit while Amity drains the power packs of her laspistols by not shooting it (Note: usually the pistols are referred to as ‘beamers’. I don’t think that they have been referred to as laspistols anywhere else but here across all four books) Talen then hits it in the eye(s) with his bolas, causing it to back off.
The squig is pulled back on chains by three Orks clad in bone armour. The Ork leader, One-Eye, crushes Talen’s bolas to dust in his fist, and then has a conversation with the two humans. The Orks are using the sniffler-squig to tack something through the jungle for their warbass, Nettle-Nekk. They don’t know what they’re looking for, but assume that they’ll know it when they find it. Amity convinces them that they should go back to Nettle-Nekk to find out what they’re supposed to be tracking just in case they don’t know it when they find it and anger the warboss. She agrees that she and Talen will wait there until the Orks return. This works, and the Orks are leaving, when she tells Talen to run away. She gets shot in the shoulder by a crossbow, and Talen gets taken prisoner. Probably should have waited more than literally no time at all before trying to leg it.
Chapter 9
The Orks take Zelia and Mekki to their camp in a big net. There the children are introduced to Badtoof the Rotten (who has bed teeth, hence the name) who has just finished beating up a would-be challenger. It takes Zelia literally two sentences to reveal the existence of the Privateer to him.
The three Ork bikers appear. Badtoof greets their leader by head butting him, which knocks a tooth out. Zelia collects it and starts to use it to saw through the net.
Chapter 10
Talen and Amity are taken to the camp of the Snake-Skull clan, where they are presented to Nettle-Nekk (who has a fake beard made of nettles, hence the name).
Nettle-Nekk is annoyed that One-Eye brought him humies instead of da Biggun. One-Eye says that he had a question to ask, but can’t remember what it was. Nettle-Nekk tells Talen that the Snake-Skull clan hate the Tek-Hedz because the latter don’t care about nature, whereas the Snake-Skullz do. Insert Greenpeace joke here.
Nettle-Nekk want’s to capture da Biggun – a colossal squig – in order to use it to defeat the Tek-Hedz. Talen convinces the warboss that he and Amity can capture the beast for the Orks by setting a trap for it.
Chapter 11
Zelia overhears that the Tek-Hedz are also trying to capture da Biggun.
There is a reference to[i]’...one of the sniffler handlers’[i] talking to Badtoof – but the sniffler handlers were Snake-Skulls, not Tek-Hedz. Proof readers, people!
Badtoof wants something to eat that isn’t squig-based. Zelia cuts her way out of the net, but runs directly into String-Guts and gets immediately captured again. The gretchin suggests roasted humie.
Zelia and Mekki are tied to a spit, being cooked. Mekki suggests to Badtoof that he can provide the Orks with entertainment by doing an impression of C-3PO telling stories to the ewoks, projecting hololiths of their adventures from the last three books, and offers to build machines for them. Badtoof orders the cooking to cease.
Zelia and Mekki are given armour and weapons and are going to have to fight to the death to prove how inventive they can be.
Chapter 12
Talen and Amity are taken out into the jungle and tied to a wooden stake – they are going to be used as the bait for the trap to capture da Biggun.
They manage to escape, using a micro-laser hidden in one of Amity’s brooches, and flee into the trees. They encounter One-Eye, who is armed with a bind-weed bomb firing wooden semi-auto bazooka, which essentially shoots a vine net. Talen throws some paint in the Ork’s one good eye, and then shoots him with the bazooka. The wooden nut-firing bazooka. Sure; Whatever...
They take a squig chariot and ride off (you’d think that a jungle wouldn’t be the ideal environment for chariots, but here we are...)
Chapter 13
Mekki uses a vox mast being used as a flagpole to boost his signal so that he can contact Talen (I guess the Orks had powered their flagpole..?) He sends a homing pulse along the frequency (???) so that Talen and Amity, who are in the midst of a chariot chase can come to them.
Chapter 14
An Ork with an electric guitar sings a song.
Zelia and Mekki put on a poor show of fighting to the death against one another. Badtoof sends in some bomb squigs to liven things up, but the children survive the explosions because they’re as invincible as the children in Skyrim. Badtoof orders his Orks to kill them, when suddenly Talen and Amity arrive, with the Snake-Skulls in hot pursuit.
Waaagh! A battle begins.
Chapter 15
While the Orks are fighting each other, Zelia and Mekki get out of their orky armour. The wheel comes off Talen and Amity’s chariot and they crash.
Zelia feels bad for getting them into this mess by bringing them to Weald.
Amity has disappeared.
Instead of just running away, Zelia grabs a bomb squig and throws it at Badtoof and nettle-Nekk, who are fighting. They are both knocked down by the blast. Zelia gets between them and shouts for the Orks to stop their battle – which they do, because obviously that makes sense. She claims that because she won against the two warbosses she must be stronger than both of them, and they should bow down to her (despite neither of them actually being hurt). Surprisingly this doesn’t actually work, but all of the Orks start laughing at how absurd the idea that she is stronger than them is. Zelia proceeds to give an inspirational speech about how the Orks are all the same, really, and instead of fighting against each other, they could have been working together to capture da Biggun.
The orks are inspired by the power of friendship and agree to put aside their differences and team up. String-Guts picks up the electric guitar from earlier and sings a song.
Then Nettle-Nekk puts a grenade in Badtoof’s hand during a handshake, and the Tek-Hedz warboss explodes.
Chapter 16
Zelia admonishes Nettle-Nekk for going back on his word after shaking on it. Nettle-Nekk proclaims himself the leader of all of the Orks now, and declares that together they’ll capture da Biggun and then launch a Waaagh! Against humans off-world.
Zelia, Talen, and Mekki are all captured (again). They are tied to a stake at the foot of the Emperor’s Seat mountain as bait for da Biggun.
Zelia apologises for bringing them to Weald and trying to negotiate with the Orks. Talen says that since none of them objected to coming to the planet it isn’t her fault, and them being used as bait is his fault because he suggested the idea to Nettle-Nekk.
Da Biggun appears (why was it hanging around basically just outside the Ork camp(s), and why is it attracted by the tiny morsel of food which the children represent? Who cares!) The unified Ork clans capture it before it can eat our heroes.
Talen tells String-Guts that if he frees them, Talen will trade him the Profiteer, which String-Guts can use to gain influence with Nettle-Nekk. The gretchin agrees and frees the children. Talen then pushes the greenskin away, and they flee, but String-Guts raises the alarm and holds them at guitar-point. Nettle-Nekk says to kill them since they’re not needed anymore, but just then a whole heard of colossal squigs show up!
Chapter 17
String-Guts gets stepped on by a squig. The Orks and squigs do battle, but the Orks are losing.
The children set off orky stink grenades, which repel the squigs.
Mekki tries to contact Amity. Fleapit responds, saying that he and Amity at back at the Profiteer, but gets cut off.
Nettle-Nekk attacks the children. Talen blasts him with the guitar, causing the warboss’s nettle beard to flap up into his face. Then da Biggun eats him.
The stink grenades have run out, and the strings of the guitar have conveniently all snapped, so our pint-sized heroes look doomed; but just then a voidship swoops down... but it isn’t the Privateer!
The illustration here of the children running from squigs shows them in pristine condition, despite the narrative saying that they should be covered in paint/mud, with torn clothing and various minor wounds.
Chapter 18
The black ship makes an attack run, and then beams the children up, Star Trek teleporter-style.
The mystery ship is the Zealot’s Heart, piloted by Inquisitor Jeremias. He shoots the mountain-statue of the Emperor, causing a rockslide which buries all of the Orks.
While Corlak the servo skull pilots the ship (!), Jeremias reveals that Captain Harleen Amity is an enemy of the Imperium who wanted the Diadem all along. He has also been searching for it. And now they’re going to have to get it back from her together [DUN DUN DUN]
The end.
Well that was a romp.
Why did Amity fly them so close to the mountain?
Why didn’t they run an auspex sweep of the area before flying headfirst in? (the galactic compendium section at the back of the book even specifically talks about auspexes)
Why did Amity want the children to jump out of the Privateer?
Why does Zelia think that not rescuing String-Guts would make her and her companions as bad as the Orks?
Why didn’t Amity wait until One-Eye had left before trying to run away?
Wooden bazooka.
Why didn’t Talen lead String-Guts away from the rest of the Orks a bit before attacking him?
What is up with the teleporter array on the Zealot’s Heart?
We’re obviously supposed to believe Jeremias’ claim that
Amity is a baddie (along with Fleapit, who has been her accomplice all along according to the preview of Plague of the Nurglings), but that’s clearly not going to be the case.
For a start, Jeremias is a dude, and if I’ve learnt anything from these four books so far it’s that men are antagonists. He’s clearly the real bad guy.
Secondly that would make no sense at all – Amity would have had to have known that the Diadem was on Targian; would have had to have known that it had been found and who had it; would have had to have known which ship it would end up on during the evacuation (the Mercantor rather than the obvious Scriptor); would have had to get Fleapit aboard that ship during the destruction of Rhal Rata; Fleapit would have had to have been able to locate the Diadem onboard the ship, and track it to a specific escape pod; why wouldn’t Fleapit have disposed of the children once he had the Diadem in his possession on the ice planet?; Why wouldn’t Amity have disposed of the children once she had rescued them?; Why would she even rescue them and not just Fleapit?; Why would she stop off to work for the Tau on Hinterland instead of doing whatever she was planning to do with the Diadem?; Why would she not dispose of the children during/following the business on Hinterland?; Why would Fleapit jump out of the Privateer with the children when the Diadem is onboard?; Why wouldn’t fleapit dispose of the children in the jungle – he can easily overpower them; Why would Fleapit have responded to Mekki’s vox call for aid instead of just ignoring it?
Oh well.
Colossal squigs in Codex: Orks when?