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Long Live Da Red Gobbo – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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CHAPTER ONE

Orks hated space.

Travelling through space was just so boring. There was nothing to fight except other boyz, and even then you couldn’t go krumpin’ each other too much or the warboss would get mad.

A warboss liked a fight as much as – or probably more than – the next ork. But warbosses knew that arriving at your destination with a ship full of dead boyz because they’d all killed each other wasn’t a very productive start to a campaign of galactic domination.

Sometimes when a ship travelled through the warp, you might get lucky enough for some in-flight entertainment, because occasionally some really weird stuff you’d never seen before would appear on board and you got to krump it. Apart from that, though, space travel was just loads of long and boring waiting about.

So, when the black of space was filled with a sudden explosion of violet light and the ork kroozer called Big Thumpa tore open realspace to emerge from the warp, it should have been a relief to all the orks aboard. It wasn’t though, because there were no orks aboard. Instead, Big Thumpa was crewed exclusively by grots.

The door to the kaptin’s cabin slammed against the wall as it was flung open. Slipbit, one of the grots aboard this previously ork-owned ship, burst through.

‘Boss!’ he called, barely able to contain his excitement. ‘Boss, we is finally out of da warp!’

The kaptin of Big Thumpa – and leader of not just the grots aboard this ship, but the symbolic figurehead of Da Revolushun everywhere, Da Red Gobbo – was lying on the bed staring at the same patch of wall he’d been watching for days. He rolled over to look at Slipbit. His glazed-over eyes barely comprehending who he was seeing.

‘Wot?’

‘I said we is finally out of da warp, boss.’

‘I told you to leave me alone, Slipbit.’

Slipbit stared at Da Red Gobbo. He’d been in this cabin for so long that Slipbit had lost count of exactly how long it had been – at least a few months, maybe even as many as heaps. It certainly smelled as if it had been heaps.

The orkoid species barely noticed the damp, rancid odour they left behind whenever they settled anywhere for long periods, but this was particularly bad. As it turned out it wasn’t just orks that got bored lost in warp transit. It affected grots too. They didn’t get quite as antsy for a fight as orks, but even the grots had started arguing amongst themselves and occasionally smacking each other around the head or perpetrating a minor stabbing or two. But Slipbit knew that whatever had afflicted Da Red Gobbo during their time in the warp was much worse than boredom. It was like he was sad all the time, proper depressed.

Generally speaking, orks had a hard time empathising with emotions because they ordinarily didn’t feel much other than anger. The same went for grots, though in their case it was usually fear. The only time either of them felt anything even close to sadness was when an ork missed out on a fight because they were at the back of the charge and arrived too late. Usually it was a grot who took the brunt of this disappointment. Punching something, even something as runty as a grot, would make the ork feel better. Still, what else would make Da Red Gobbo stay in his kabin for so long if it wasn’t being sad? Slipbit had no doubt that something was sapping the spirit right out of his boss.

Slipbit idolised Da Gobbo. He was, unofficially at least, his second-in-command. He didn’t think the other grots knew exactly how bad Da Red Gobbo had become. They occasionally asked where their leader was, but they were mostly preoccupied with trying to figure out how to fly Big Thumpa without strangling each other. But Slipbit knew Da Red Gobbo wasn’t himself. Da Red Gobbo was supposed to be a symbol for gretchin everywhere, but you couldn’t be a symbol for gretchin everywhere if you just stayed in bed all the time.

‘Boss,’ Slipbit said. ‘We’z been in da warp for proppa ages, but we’z finally out now and we need to know wot ya want to do.’

‘I don’t know, Slipbit,’ Da Gobbo said. ‘Do whatever you want.’

‘Boss, you is Da Red Gobbo. You is our boss. You is the one wot led us to be revoltin’ against Warboss ’Ardgutz and ’is boyz. You is da one wot showed us dat we don’t need to take orders from orks no more. It was your kunnin’ plan to lure ’em into dat big cargo bay and open da big door, shootin’ ’em all out into space. That was proppa good leadership. We need your proppa good leadership again now.’

Slipbit saw, at the corners of Da Gobbo’s mouth, just the hint of a smile. ‘Yeah, dat was proppa good.’

‘Yeah, because you is Da Red Gobbo. You is da symbol of Da Revolushun Kommittee. You needs to come and give us our orders.’

Da Gobbo looked at Slipbit. ‘You want to know da truth, Slipbit?’

‘Ah, yeah sure, boss.’

‘Da truth is, I don’t know wot we is supposed to do.’

‘Wot d’ya mean, boss?’ Slipbit asked. ‘You freed us from da orks. Wot do we do now?’

Da Gobbo sighed. ‘Dat’s wot I said. I don’t know, Slipbit. I ain’t got no purpose any more, do I? If dere ain’t grots to be revoltin’ den dere ain’t no need for Da Red Gobbo. Once you is Da Red Gobbo, dere ain’t no goin’ back to bein’ an ordinary grot, but no one ever says nothin’ ’bout wot Da Red Gobbo does when ’e wins, eh?’

‘Boss, I is your number two.’

‘No, you ain’t.’

‘I is your second-in-command.’

‘No, you is just da grot wot ’angs around the most.’

‘And, as your trustworthy executive officer, you can say all dis to me, but ya can’t say all dis to da uvver grots. Dey can’t see you like dis. Dey ain’t strong enough in da ’ead like me. Dey need to see Da Red Gobbo givin’ dem orders again. Da grots need you on da bridge, kaptin.’

‘And wot orders do I give ’em?’

‘Sure you’ll fink of somefing, boss. Wot do free grots do?’

‘Fine,’ Da Gobbo said as he swung his legs around to climb up off the bed. Slipbit could’ve sworn he used to be taller, more intimidating, at least for a grot. ‘I will tell ’em to be free. I will tell every grot on dis ship to go and do wotever dey want. Dat is wot free grots do.’

‘Dat’s da spirit, boss,’ Slipbit said. ‘But you is gonna tell us wot it is we want to do though, ain’t ya?’

Da Gobbo stared at Slipbit and shook his head. ‘You’re free, Slipbit. Do you know wot dat means?’

‘Yeah, no orks.’

‘It means no bosses at all, Slipbit.’

‘Yeah, ’cept for you, boss.’

Da Red Gobbo sighed again. ‘Let’s just go to da bridge, den.’

Da Gobbo started for the door.

‘Boss, wait,’ Slipbit said. ‘You gonna need this.’ Slipbit bent over to where an old red cape lay discarded on the floor. Beside it was a small sceptre topped with an ork skull. This skull belonged to the first ork the grots had killed during their uprising on Big Thumpa and Da Red Gobbo had held it aloft during the revolushun that followed.

Slipbit picked up Da Red Gobbo’s tools of office with a sense of reverence, handling them gently as he passed them over. He didn’t feel worthy to hold them. Da Red Gobbo, with apparently no similar sense of ceremony, grabbed the cape first, tossing it over his shoulders and pinning it around his neck. Then he reached out and took the sceptre. He let it hang down by his side. Slipbit knew he’d never done that before. He’d always held it up for the other grots to see.

Da Gobbo glared at Slipbit as if to check whether he was happy. Slipbit nodded and Da Gobbo headed for the door again, kicking in annoyance at the cape as it swooshed around his feet and tangled between his legs.

Definitely shorter than he used to be, Slipbit thought.

The door to the bridge was one of the fancy sliding doors that makes a real quiet swoosh when it opened and closed. Slipbit thought whatever mekboyz had built Big Thumpa must’ve pinched that door from a humie ship or something. It was much too quiet to have been made by an ork, though at least one of the mekboyz had hammered a nail through it that scratched along the wall every time it moved. When Slipbit approached, the door slid open and made a sound like a squiggoth dragging its claw down a rock, which was much more pleasing than some quiet human swooshing nonsense.

Slipbit stepped through onto the bridge. Around him was a cavernous space filled with a ramshackle collection of whirring and smoking machinery. He didn’t know much about mekanikal engine-hearing but he could see bits that were obviously scavenged from da humies and da pointy-earz and maybe even some stuff from da fishboyz. All of it was jumbled in with ork-built gubbinz linked together by a tangle of exposed wire coiling over the floor and hanging from the roof like something left behind by an enormous, disorganised spider.

Some of the dangling wires sparked hazardously, and other things frequently burst with high-voltage, blue-white arcs of light, or exploded with jets of hot gas. Covering the front wall of the bridge was an enormous screen that was flickering and buzzing with snowstorm static.

Everywhere around the space, with no semblance of order, were control stations covered with myriad levers and buttons and twisty knobs. Most of them were unlabelled, and those that were labelled had unhelpful things scrawled on them in messy ork handwriting like DIS BUTTON, DAT BUTTON, UP, MORE UP and NOT UP. Scrambling between the stations, jumping over consoles and yelling at each other were a dozen or so grots trying, as they had been for months, to fly Big Thumpa.

Slipbit, standing just inside the door, cleared his throat before calling out, ‘Kaptin on the bridge!’

To his pleasant surprise the gretchin clambering over the consoles all stopped and turned. Slipbit made an exaggerated display of stepping aside to reveal Da Red Gobbo. The grots cheered at seeing their leader, but Da Gobbo did little but wave away their enthusiasm as he climbed down a rickety series of steps to the enormous central command throne.

It was from here that Warboss Gorg ’Ardgutz had commanded Big Thumpa before he was outwitted by a puny grot he’d considered no threat and found himself spiralling away into the frozen black of space, impotently trying to scream at the grots stealing his ship.

The first time Slipbit had seen Da Red Gobbo sit in the command throne, it hadn’t been long after they’d achieved freedom. Da Gobbo had raised his sceptre and shouted, For Da Revolushun! That had sent a shiver down Slipbit’s spine, and a roar from the gathered grots. This time, though, Da Gobbo did little but slump into the chair.

‘All right den,’ Da Gobbo said, looking at the inactive screen on the far wall of the bridge. ‘Wot’s out dere? ’Ow do ya know we is outta da warp?’

Glik, the grot who’d been left in charge of flying Big Thumpa, turned from where he was standing on top of a control console. ‘Well, cos dis ’ere light ’as gone off an’ it was on before.’

‘Yeah,’ another grot, Flinka, said from across the bridge, where he was trying to move three levers, two with his hands and one with a foot. ‘Plus dem weird things ’ave stopped comin’ through da bridge like dey was before, like pink ghosts or somefing.’

‘And da light,’ Glik said. ‘Cos it says da warp under it, don’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ Flinka said. ‘And no ghosts.’

‘Shut up ’bout ghosts, Flinka,’ Glik said. ‘I is using da proppa equipment.’

‘No ghosts, too,’ Flinka said in a whisper.

‘Oi,’ Da Gobbo said, pointing to the useless screen in front of them. ‘Can you make dat work?’

‘I’z been tryin’, boss,’ Glik said. ‘I is sure I figured out it’s one of dese buttons.’ Glik pressed every button along the console in front of him, one at a time. Several caused bursts of smoke and sparks, others didn’t seem to do anything and some just made noises from other junk on the bridge, but eventually he pressed a blue button and the screen flickered from static to black and then to a view of outside. ‘See,’ Glik said. ‘Like I said – one of dese buttons.’

The image on the screen was fuzzy, but there was definitely something out there. Da Gobbo leaned forward in his chair, showing the first interest Slipbit had seen from him in months.

‘Wot is dat?’ Da Gobbo said. ‘Fix it, Glik.’

‘Um,’ Glik said, looking for the ‘fix it’ button on the console. When he couldn’t find it, he jumped up and down on the console instead. The screen flickered and became clear. ‘Look at dat, boss. I is proppa fixy today.’

The image on the screen coalesced into a planet. A yellow-orange ball directly in front of them. A yellow-orange ball that was getting larger at an alarming rate.

‘Glik, we is gonna hit dat,’ one of the grots close to the screen said – a small grot named Blip.

‘I can see dat,’ Glik said. ‘Flinka, turn us to da right.’

‘My right or your right?’

‘We is facin’ da same way, ya git,’ Glik said. ‘Just turn da ship.’

‘I thought dat was da turnin’ knob over dere, wot Nibba ’as?’

‘Wot?’ Nibba said. ‘I ain’t got da turnin’ knob, you ’ave.’

Glik tried the button labelled UP, but the ship didn’t go up – it didn’t change direction at all. The only thing that happened was the small chair near the console rose on a hydraulic strut.

Meanwhile, the planet was growing to fill most of the viewscreen, looming ahead of them. Da Red Gobbo ignored the clamour around him and stared at the screen. He clambered up until he was standing on the command throne.

‘Boss?’ Slipbit asked. ‘Wot is it?’

‘Orks,’ Da Gobbo said. ‘Dere is orks on dat planet down dere.’

‘Dere is?’ Slipbit turned to look at the screen, squinting his eyes like he might be able to see little green dots moving about. ‘’Ow can ya tell?’

‘I can feel it,’ Da Gobbo said. He hadn’t looked away from the screen as the planet continued to grow larger. ‘And dere, look,’ he said, pointing to the screen with his sceptre. Something had been highlighted in a green circle on the planet’s surface. ‘Dat’s an ork rok, innit?’

Slipbit turned his head to the side, trying to make sense of the crater on the surface. Eventually, the screen magnified the image – whether automatically or by some grot luckily pressing the right controls, he wasn’t sure, but he could definitely see a black shape in the centre of the impact crater, something that might have been a massive asteroid except for all the spikes and guns on the outside.

‘I fink you is right, boss.’

‘Of course I is right,’ Da Gobbo said. ‘I is Da Red Gobbo.’

Slipbit could almost see Da Gobbo’s back straightening. He lifted his ork-skull sceptre above his head. The change was palpable. Slipbit could almost taste the metallic buzz in the air around him. Something was happening to Da Red Gobbo to make him Da Red Gobbo again. He hadn’t seen this much life in their leader since they freed themselves from the orks, but whatever was happening now, Slipbit was glad to see it. They needed Da Red Gobbo, and it looked to him like Da Red Gobbo was finally back.

‘Wot we gonna do, boss?’ Slipbit said. ‘Wot are Da Red Gobbo’s orders?’

Da Red Gobbo turned to look at Slipbit. He smiled wide. ‘Dere is orks down dere, Slipbit,’ he said. ‘An’ if dere is orks down dere, den dere is grots down dere. When dere is orks with grots den dere is purpose. Da Red Gobbo’s purpose.’ He spun to look at the grots still trying to figure out how to turn the ship. ‘Oi, you lot. Set a course for dat planet.’

‘Ah, well, we is kinda already on a course for dat planet, boss,’ Glik said. ‘A collision course.’

‘No we ain’t,’ Da Red Gobbo said. ‘We is comin’ to da rescue.’

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2024.
This eBook edition published in 2024 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Karl Richardson.

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