Dukagsh Tells it Like it Is Pt 1

No need for much intro fluff.  Enjoy, if not take it up with the scro 
historians.

In the Beginning...

 	The battle worn scorpion flew in a lazy circle above the elven 
outpost, firing occasional catapults and jettisons to sweep the weapons 
emplacements.  The deck was a bustle of activity, as orcs loaded weapons and 
swung the ships legs to maneuver it from one course to another.  The leather 
armored crew was well trained and had worked together long on this ship, 
having been hand picked by their Great Captain to work on this vessel.
	That great captain watched from the bow between the claws of the 
scorpion as the base returned fire and elven flitters and man-o-war scrambled 
for the sky.  He knew he was out numbered heavily, his one ship being no 
match for the elven outpost and its small squad of 12 Flitters and 3 
Man-o-wars.  Yet he had directed his shaman to fly here to this elven outpost 
in Lonespace on a small moon of the air planet Zaxia.  The outpost was a 
courier point and resupply station for many long ranging elven patrols.  It 
was well defended against a half dozen ships.  The Great Captain knew this.
	At this point in the unhuman war such a venture seemed foolish and 
without reason.  The unhumans were being swept from the stars systematically 
by the consistent tactics of the elves and their superior vessels and magic.  
Most ships were loading refugees from once captured worlds and outposts and 
fleeing to deeper spheres far away from normal spacelanes.  Some of the races 
had completely abandoned the stars and gone into hiding, the kobolds and the 
bugbears namely.  It seemed likely the goblins would soon follow, leaving 
only the orcs and hobgoblins.  Times being what they were it would not be 
long before they would turn against each other and the war would be finished 
with little effort from the elves at all.
	The Great Captain knew this too.  He had argued long and hard with 
the other warchief’s and rulers, throughout the length of this conflict to 
forge a unified front and strike with intelligence and guile.  Because 
despite their overwhelming numbers, the goblin races were weak, magically and 
mentally.  Their only chance he had often declared was “to fight our way, 
make the elves fight as we do, not from a distance with arrows and rocks!”
	It had been to no avail.  He had known this too.  His part in this 
war had been small at first, having been a chief on a back water world in 
Gannixspace.  He had answered a call to arise with arms against the elven 
invaders and drive them back to their forested worlds.  What he had found was 
little more than an organized rout as battle after battle was lost before it 
began by the inept bumbling of the goblin forces.  Finally he had taken 
control of his small fleet personally and begun to do things differently.
	Ever after their fleet had never lost a battle.  There had been close 
calls.  Losses that were to be expected.  But they had won, time after time.  
They never remained in a single sphere, moving to avoid entrapment.  He had 
worked with the orc shamans and witchdoctors and employed the first 
witchlight marauders, a truly glorious victory.  The sphere of Bronzespace 
had been entirely cleared of elven resistance.  Two planets were dead worlds 
now, but that was of little consequence.
	But the witchlight marauders met their match in the magic of the 
elves, spirit warriors and bionoids and elven wizards later destroyed all but 
one of the great marauders that traveled between the spheres, the last having 
fled into the void after the shamans controlling it were destroyed.  In a 
battle where he had not been present, their secret weapon had been lost in 
one quick maneuver.  The tide continued to crush the unhumans. 
	So the Great Captain and his undefeated crew came to the Shiar 
outpost to prove a point.  He knew it was a great gamble, a risk to be 
avoided.  To others, he thought, for Dukagsh knew that he could change the 
odds.
	“You certain he is there?”  An orc shaman asked again, questioning 
his leader with his one good eye, the other having been offered, as is 
mandatory to Gruumsh, for his powers as a priest of the great orc god.
	Dukagsh did not turn from his position at the bow overlooking the ram 
claws and blunt ram of his ship.  He knew what Karzat thought of his plan, 
and what the shaman hoped would happen to the Captain if he failed on what 
Karzat finally believed had been Dukagsh’s great error.
	“The information is certain.”  The huge orc shrugged and chain mail 
links rattled about his body at the motion.  Dukagsh was close to seven feet 
tall, a huge orc that some had secretly accused of being an ogrillon or orog. 
 But whatever his heritage he was a leader of orcs and all goblins he met.  
His crew was all orc because he trusted them the most, and they would follow 
him through a Sargasso and back again.  His high leather boots were steel 
tipped and spiked, his chain armor was black and hung past his knees and to 
his elbows.  He wore metal gauntlets that were spiked also and doubled as 
bracers in combat.  At his side hung a large double edged axe of strange 
design, having a handle that seemed too short for such a blade.  All of his 
orcs had seen him in combat, with elves and humans, even other orcs and 
ogres.  All had seen him victorious.  They knew his speed and keen skill with 
his axe and the other weapons he had about him, including the long arquebus 
strapped across his back.  The shamans said his skill was a blessing of 
Gruumsh.  His followers said it was because he had studied with anyone who 
was willing to teach him, humans, xixchil, even, some whispered, the drow.
	Dukagsh raised the spyglass to his eye again.  The elven ships were 
now in flight and heading toward them.  The small outpost rested within the 
bowels of a small asteroid, the hundred year old base being already overgrown 
with elven art and trees.  It was also, as he looked beneath the beauty and 
patterns of the architecture, well defended and designed to weather much.  
That was why his quarry had come here at this point in the war.  It seemed 
completely safe and easily hidden from the broken goblin spy network.  His 
prey had come to welcome a family member home from a successful foray against 
the ogres who had all but destroyed themselves with their infighting and 
stupid maneuvers.  It was unusual considering the high rank of this elven man 
to do something like this in time of war.  But Dukagsh knew, he could almost 
see, the haughty elf had pointed out to his peers that the war was all but 
over.  This was no more to him than an inspection of a forward base.
	Thus the Grand Admiral of the elven fleet had come here.  Dukagsh had 
been advised in a most unusual manner.
	“You would doubt He-who-never-sleeps, Karzat?”  Dukagsh had turned 
now and faced down to the elder shaman who was no puny goblin himself, but 
rose only to the Great Captain’s sheer thick chin.  “Where is your faith?”
	He did not answer as Dukagsh knew he would not.  The knowledge had 
come directly from Gruumsh in a dream.  Dukagsh had taken it as a sign.  
Karzat had taken it as an affront.  Why would Gruumsh speak to a chief and 
not the shaman who had followed him faithfully for years?  Why indeed?  
Dukagsh smiled and Karzat’s face twisted further in his inner turmoil. 
	Dukagsh knew he had been chosen because he was the best suited to 
dealing with the information.  He was the best orc for the job.  He looked 
over the looming horizon once more.
	Zaxia was a large planet of clean sweeping winds and multicolored 
clouds.  From a distance its roiling power and sweeping, flame like clouds 
were magnificent to the eye.  Within its limits were many hundreds of small 
asteroids up to the size of small moons or planets.  All throughout the 
planet were great masses of floating plants of different colors and sizes 
drifting about in the wind currents.  The heliotrope plants were like the 
forests of Zaxia, but mobile and shifting.  Of course the elves had drawn 
several near their colony admiring the complex plants which grew as if there 
was no gravity.
	“You risk much of our resources if you fail, I hope you are right.”  
Karzat finally replied.  “I go to send the signal.”
	The shaman moved away without bowing, and soon the signal was set as 
the elven ships began to move into pursuit of their ship.  Wild firelight 
from a smoking ballista bolt arced through the sky and dropped into the 
outpost.  To an observer it appeared to be a misfired flame bolt dipped in 
pitch, a common tactic of the orcs against large bases or planet based towns. 
	But the signal meant more than that.  At that moment eight of the 
smaller heliotropes that had recently blown into the vicinity of Shiar began 
to fall apart and tumble down and away with the breezes.  What was left were 
six scorpions and two Hammerships that began to open fire on the outpost and 
drop fire bombs as they came over the outpost walls. 
	Dukagsh smiled.  He knew the elves would not have watched their 
lovely plants for an ambush.  The pursuing ships now faltered and began to 
turn about, heading back to defend the outpost.  One man-o-war that had been 
in the lead was now the last to turn and head back.  That was the one, the 
one Gruumsh had shown him.  The Grand Admiral was on that ship.
	“Close with that ship!  All speed!”  At his commands the orcs all 
reloaded their weapons with new vigor, cries of battle chants and enthusiasm 
rang out as his plans worked as they always did.  Below decks a new slave was 
placed in their new lifejammer, and the ships speed picked up.  They were 
closing quickly.

	As they closed with the battered man-o-war the orcs began to slaver 
and work themselves into a fury.  They would board soon as the ramclaws found 
purchase, then they would taste elven blood.  His best marksman had already 
found and hit their battle mage, they had swept the deck three times with 
their jettison and stone shot.  It was time to finish off the admiral who 
would no doubt be barricaded behind his inner chamber and guards.
	The ships closed, the orcs below deck cranked on the large gears that 
operated the claws and the steel claws plunged into the elven ship like ripe 
meat, tearing and scoring the surface, opening a hole at one blow and firmly 
clenching hold of the ships arching wing with the other.  The elves were 
trapped.  Dukagsh smiled. 
	“Boarding parties, attack!  Bring me the Admiral!”  He roared from 
the foredeck.  Just at that moment he saw from the corner of his eye a flash 
of light, he threw himself to the deck even as his hand went to his axe.  A 
bolt of lightning crackled and roared within feet of him, stopping nine orcs 
in their tracks as they leaped to the elven deck, and damaging the ram claw 
that held their ships together.  Dukagsh bounded back up with his axe in hand 
and hurled it at the elven mage that stood still quite lively a short way 
off, chanting once more.  His crack crew had already fired a volley of arrows 
in answer, but none found their mark, deflecting from an invisible barrier 
the mage had summoned to defend himself.  Dukagsh’s axe flew in a gleaming 
arc and collided with the barrier and then passed through.  There was a 
scream of panic, cut short in a wet gurgle as the mage fell to the deck, 
nearly decapitated by the blow.  A few moments later the axe returned to his 
gauntleted hand.  The orcs surged forward with a cheer once more, twenty of 
them striking the deck hard, a few elves surged from hatches and ladders, 
some using minor magic as they led into the orcs. 
	It was over quickly.  The few remaining elves had obviously fought a 
delaying action to the last.  Dukagsh admired their tenacity.  It took much 
for him to get the same from even his trusted warriors.  He went aboard as 
the orcs brought up to the deck a struggling wizened elf that was bleeding 
from many scratches and a slap across his face.
	“Captain, we have the admiral!” one of the crew shouted as they saw 
him striding across the deck.  In the background the battle over the outpost 
was still much of a stalemate, the defensive emplacement countering the 
numbers of his ships.  But the elven ships had taken a beating, all but one 
of the flitters were gone and one man-o-war had crashed to the ground 
already, landing just outside the walls of Shiar.  Dukagsh had expected this 
too.  Timing was of the essence.  The elves would have no doubt already 
summoned aid by magical means of communication.  They were several other 
ships in the sphere that he knew of, not to mention the elven Armada that was 
inbound with the Grand Admiral’s kinsmen.  But none would arrive in less than 
an hour.  Their time was running short.
	He assessed the elf as he approached, who was held between two of his 
stronger orcs.  The elf was older, wrinkled and with gray hair that flowed 
about him wildly as if he had been roused from bed.  The elf seemed about to 
say something when Dukagsh drew his axe and gutted the elf.  The orcs let him 
fall and watched eagerly as his blood pooled around their feet.
	“That is not the Admiral!”  Dukagsh bellowed, “I want him found!”