Like RoboNob!, this is a story that came to me while working on a model. This model took a whole lot longer to finish, so there's more story. Yes, it's probably not GRIMDARK enough, but it made me laugh and it made the wife laugh. I couldn't resist the idea of sworn enemies coming together and digging up millennia old information to make a "Yer Mom!" joke that the Necrons could understand. Here's a link to the model that inspired this mess:
Looted Destroyer
Yes, I know "P'liny the Eldar" is a terrible name and I should be ashamed.
----------------
P'liny was ancient, even by the Eldar's generous standards. Technically he served as the craftworld's historian. It was supposed to be a research position, but with P'liny in the chair it was mostly just remembering. It had been millenia since he stopped fighting with Eldar mercenary crews and over a century since anything had really surprised him. Extremes of experience and Eldar prescience robbed his days of novelty.
Today there would be two surprises.
The first was when his office door slid aside and two Guardians walked in flanking an immense ork mekaniak. P'liny's hand, driven by ancient reflex scrabbled for the shuriken catapult he hadn't worn in a thousand years.
Once he had regained his composure the Guardian on the right spoke.
"My apologies elder, but this ... thing wished to speak with you."
"What? How did it get on board? Who let it into our home?"
"Our farscouts spotted his vessel exiting the warp. They were preparing to send him back into hell when they spotted a gretchin in a space-suit standing on the hull waving a white flag."
"Ork treachery is legendary!"
"We ... know that elder, however, we out numbered the intruder 30 to 1 and to be perfectly honest we were in need of a diversion, we have lacked for stimulation and this decade has passed slowly."
P'liny waved the Guardian into silence and glared at the Mek, who glared right back.
"Well then, what exactly is it that you want? Why have you come to tramp oil and dirt into our glittering world?"
It was then that P'liny received his second surprise.
The Mek told him.
Laughter echoed down the normally reserved and quiet halls of the craftworld.
"We will help you, Ork. We will help you and We only ask that you record your work so we can see the look on it's iron face."
...
The Necron Destroyer glided across the battlefield, searching for targets. The accursed living had disturbed their sleep, waking them prematurely. The main extermination efforts were taking place to the south and the Destroyer was alone searching for a group of stragglers. It anticipated no troubles.
It sensed motion to it's left and the meat noises the living make to communicate. It had started to turn when a larger target presented itself on the right. It spun silently to face the threat. It was a banner, being pushed into place by tiny green living things. The Destroyer was almost insulted to have gone all this way to find only them. They were pathetic and tiny and almost unarmed. Still, it had a job to do and it intended to do it. As it raised it's Guass Cannon and aimed it at the green thing holding some sort of video recorder the banner unfurled, stopping the Necron mid-gesture.
For almost half a minute the Destroyer simply stared at the banner, shocked into immobility. The old Eldar had not possessed all the information the orks had required, but knew who did, who to call. As messages traveled across the Warp and the Webway humans and Eldar exploded into laughter, shook their heads at the Mek's folly and opened old tomes to contribute what knowledge they had.
The research had all come together to produce this banner. A simple painting and one line of Necron runes. The picture showed a Necrontyr female, of enough years to have bourne young. She was partially clothed and locked in a compromising position with an Ork Boy. The caption, while crudely written and not quite grammatically perfect, simply read:
"I FORKED YER MOM"
The Destroyer stared. Then it started to vibrate. Then, it clutched at it's head with it's remaining arm and started to scream, a horrible metallic wail like a mek cutting saw chewing on a steel beam. It was the only time in recorded history a Necron had ever uttered a sound on the battlefield.
It's scream was cut short by a cylindrical package landing on it's rear hull. While it had been stunned by long suppressed memories of it's living days and outrage at the insult those memories had been dredged up to comprehend, Big Mek Brewnail and his lackies had moved into position and fired an EMP bomb onto the floating Necron. The bomb detonated, a shaped charge boring a hole through the Necron's hull and an EMP burst scrambling the ancient circuitry underneath. One of Brewnail's lackie's heads exploded as his bionik eye overloaded, caught in the pulse of the bomb and one of the Grotz on the banner crew went down as well, decapitated by flying shrapnel from the bomb casing. The Necron Destroyer dropped to the ground arms and body stiff.
"GET 'IM LADS!" Brewnail screamed and the Mekboyz charged forward.
Brewnail reached the thing first and slapped the restraining bolt onto the hull near the EMP charge's crater. He flicked it into life with his thumb and jumped as it arc-welded itself to the hull. His boyz stood by with modified Grot-prods, a backup plan in case the Necron's systems rebooted early.
They stood motionless, waiting. Finally Brewnail thunked the Destroyer on the head with his wrench.
"I fink it's down." He thunked it again to be sure.
"Roight! Load it into da trukk and signal da .. fing. Dat fing where we stop fightin' early."
"Da retreat boss!" one of the Gretchin piped helpfully.
"Orks don't retreat ya git" he thumped the grot with his fist "we advance in da ovver direction havin' got wot we came for! 'sides, I got a present for da Necrogits and I don't fink da boyz want a slice."
One of Brewnail's Meks fired the signal mortar while a second yelled into a radio. A mile away the rest of the Mob stopped fighting and started "advancin' in da ovver direction". A tactician experienced with orks would find this curious at least. Tactical retreat was not a traditional Ork war maneuver. Most of the orks looked confused as well, and a few stayed behind despite the order. The Nobz normally would have beaten them into obeyance or the grave, but this time they simply kept running, kicking boyz and grotz ahead of them as they went.
The Necrons annihilated the insubordinate stragglers and had begun to advance on the main ork force when a squadron of fighta-bombas flew overhead. The Necrons looked up as three large, finned cylinders plummeted towards them.
Brewnail watched the scene with anticipation. The bombs were crude, but they should work, he'd even designed them so that they'd work even if the detonator didn't go off. He knew fine electronics were not his specialty. Sure enough the first bomb didn't go off at the right height and smashed into the top of a Monolith, punching a hole in the roof and knocking it's phasing crystal badly out of alignment.
Then the whole vehicle vanished, vaporized by the crude atomic bomb. The other two bombs did airburst properly to Brewnail's smug satisfaction and their hellish energies mixed with the ground burst, twisting together.
Brewnail didn't get more time to gloat. The shockwave from the triple blast blew the entire mob to the ground, blowing over the banner and sending Grots pinwheeling across the landscape. The Grot holding the camera let out a squeak as it was torn from his grasp and smashed, finally cutting off a video signal that was causing laughter to echo across the galaxy. P'liny, watching the scene play out in one of the great entertainment halls of his craftworld was actually having problems breathing.
Brewnail briefly regained consciousness "I ... fink we wuz a bit close to dat. Does anyone else feel funny in da gubbins?"
...
Brewnail woke up in the tent of Dok Madhav. Better than not waking up at all, but not by much. His whole body hurt, even bits he was pretty sure he'd replaced with bioniks. His mouth felt like a squig had romped through the drops and then crawled under his tongue to die.
"DOK! BEER!" was all he managed to get out.
"Ha! Alive are we?" he shook a finger at two of his orderlies "I told ya little bastards he wuz too tuff ta die!" The dok lept over to his patient. Behind him two Gretchin exchanged money.
"Drink dis, it's good for ya!" The dok pushed a tankard into Brewnail's hand and waved for some of his orderlies to go get more.
"Whut. Was. Dat?"
"Radiation! It's good for ya! Builds healthy orks! You 'ad a bit too much, dis fing yer feelin', it's like a hangover, only from da special sunshine 'stead of a good fungus beer. You'll be kickin' Grotz in a day or two." Brewnail could barely tolerate the Dok's rapid fire speech even when he didn't feel like he'd been rolled down a hill made of sharp rocks and fire. He turned his bionik ears off and finished the beer while the dok scampered around his tent and waved at charts and ordered Grotz around. The rest of his boyz were in the tent as well, either on cots or in boxes marked "SPAREZ". Brewnail finished the beer, threw the tankard at a Grot and got up, ignoring the Dok's silent protestations. He kicked the remaining meks awake and they got up and staggered towards the Mek tent. They had work to do.
...
"Okay, dat should be da last of da stitches. Boot 'im up!"
Dok Madhav stepped away from his work. The Destroyer rested in a crude scaffold in the mek workshop. It was surrounded by ork force field projectors, necessary to keep it from phasing out while the meks worked on it. They had levered it's hull open and tinkered, ruining the delicate self-repair circuitry, breaking the main phase out beacon, sawing the baleful skull head off completely and rebuilding the guass cannon into something more properly orky. The Necron head had been welded to the side of another of Brewnail's crude atom bombs and then rolled outside the suppressing forcefield. As it had started to flicker out Brewnail kicked the arming switch with his boot, cackling as he watched the device disappear.
Gretchin orderlies started the pumps on the crude nutrient tank bolted to the hull while the Dok watched the tiny head green head they'd attached to the top of the Destroyer. The Grot's eyes popped open and it started screaming, a shrill piping sound that set Brewnail's teeth on edge.
"Pos'tive vitals! 'e's alive! Aliiiiiiiiiiive!" Dok Madhav's fist pumped the air with victory. "Give me a sec' ta make some adjustments to da little guy, dis is delicate work, so stand back!" The Dok slapped the Gretchin until the screaming stopped and it started staring around the room in tiny horror. It looked at the Dok, looked at Brewnail, and then looked down. Then it started screaming again. It also engaged the anti-grav engines in it's new body and lifted out of the cradle, caroming off of bits of scaffold and force field projectors as it tried to control it's new body and unfamiliar means of movement. Eventually it rocketed out of the tent and took off across the ork camp, it's scream echoing off of the buildings.
Dok Madhav looked at Brewnail. "Dat's da runnin' in started. Get some boyz ta chase 'im inna buggy. The little guy'll eventually calm down. Shoulda added some sedatives to dat first tank o' brain gruel! ORDERLY! My pencil! It's note takin' time!"
Brewnail sighed and waved his Kan Chasin' Krew into action. This wasn't the first time Dok had 'forgotten' to sedate one of his charges.
