Zavka, the Skaven's "Terra," lay within the dark reaches of the galactic north. Consequently, the Skaven's expansion and their campaign of vile conquest largely overran former Imperial worlds currently occupied by the forces of Chaos or various xenos breeds.
This created the perverse illusion that the Skaven were loyalists of the Imperium, for they annihilated more xenos and heretics than they did the remnants of mankind. Of course, the Skaven cared nothing for such distinctions. These foul, treacherous creatures sought only to indulge their bottomless capacity for madness and cruelty, breeding their chittering swarms until they infested every corner of the galaxy. To the Skaven, this was the divine manifest destiny ordained by the Great Horned Rat.
Following the conclusion of the divine war for the Forge of Souls, the Great Horned Rat's reward manifested through the domain's mad-science aspect. Across the galaxy, forces that abused technology without restraint, primarily the Dark Mechanicum, began to suffer a horrific transformation.
Their residual flesh sprouted coarse fur; thick, muscular tails erupted from their spines; and eventually, their entire physiognomies warped into the loathsome visage of the rat. Only those who utterly denied both the xenos and the power of the Great Horned Rat were spared this degenerative curse.
As the Skaven "Trash-Fleets" ventured further, the Great Clans like Skryre and Moulder established their own Hive Worlds upon planets best suited to their morbid crafts, spreading like a viral contagion.
Yet, the fleet of Clan Rictus, one of the formidable seats on the Council of Thirteen, did not halt its advance.
In the World-That-Was, Clan Rictus had dominated the Ivory Road and the trade hub of Crookback Mountain, growing wealthy by enslaving Night Goblins, eventually becoming second in riches only to the Four Great Clans. Thus, the Warlord of Clan Rictus, Kratch Doomclaw, understood that the location of a nest was far more critical than its size. While he seeded every planet he passed with a verminous infestation, Doomclaw and the Rictus main host continued their relentless, far-reaching crusade.
In recognition of their high mobility and contribution to the Great Skaven Crusade, Lucius was not stingy with his favors. He bestowed upon them divinely-blessed Breeder Queens, making their already prolific females even more robust, capable of suckling vast legions of pups.
Aboard the fleet's flagship, the Doomclaw, which resembled a colossal, drifting mountain of industrial waste, a Skaven navigator sat within the cockpit. Wearing a warpstone-lensed monocular that gave him the air of a sophisticated yet utterly depraved degenerate, he spotted a sudden blip on the ship's auspex.
"Enemy! Enemy detected! Sudden… sudden appearance... Green-things! Orks!" the Skaven sensors shrieked in terror.
"Fools! Inform the Warlord Master! Or... tell Lord Rikcruk!"
A claw lashed out across the face of a shivering Clanrat, leaving deep furrows. Ignoring the pain, the rat scrambled away to notify their leaders.
The Orks had always been the natural rivals of the Skaven. Both specialized in subterranean warfare and overwhelming numbers; battles between Skaven and Orks invariably devolved into meat-grinder wars of attrition. However, though Clan Rictus had faced a dozen major Ork Waaagh! fleets or ambushed them themselves, they always emerged victorious through a combination of Stormvermin tides and supernatural, uncanny luck.
The Ork fleet that had just transitioned from the Warp was small, but it noticed the Rictus vessels instantly. Orks possess only one mode of diplomacy: WAAAGH!
The greenskin fleet immediately gunned its engines, steering for a direct collision course with the Skaven!
Kratch Doomclaw, receiving the news, remained unfazed. He leaned on his Warp-blade, his command casual yet cold. "More... more pathetic junk-meat. Slaves! Let them come-come to rot and die! YES-YES!"
The command to engage was swiftly relayed to the two legendary figures of Clan Rictus.
One was Tretch Craventail, an infamous coward whose luck was matched only by his staggering treachery and capacity for self-preservation. The other was the polar opposite: the "Butcher of Skaven," Rikcruk Sliceblade, who sat eyeing the Warlord's throne with murderous intent.
When Doomclaw's messenger arrived in the slave-pens where Tretch was "disciplining" his subjects, Craventail's face fell into a mask of misery.
"The Warlord... the Warlord favors you, Lord Tretch! YES-YES!" the messenger said with a thin, mocking smile, his tail thumping the floorboards rhythmically.
Tretch straightened his back, swearing a solemn oath. "YES! The Warlord can always, ALWAYS trust Tretch!"
But as soon as the messenger departed, Tretch began scratching his ears in a panic. "What to do? What to do-do?" He was loath to commit his personal retinue to the fray. He knew Kratch Doomclaw despised him and wanted him dead. Though Tretch's legendary luck always brought him back alive with rewards in hand, his personal forces never seemed to grow in number.
Soon, the Skaven host assembled, waiting for the Orks to fall into their trap.
"WAAAAGH!!"
The Ork fleet, bristling with massive ram-prows, slammed into the Skaven vessels. Though the junk-mountain ships of the Skaven fired massive green beams from their broadsides, vaporizing dozens of boarding craft, they could not blunt the greenskins' enthusiasm.
Powerful solid shells and missiles roared from the oversized muzzles of the Ork ships. The two fleets began a savage exchange of fire across the void.
But a long-range duel was not the Ork way. They closed the distance with terrifying speed, and upon finding the perfect angle, the Orks slammed their boarding pods into the enemy like torpedoes.
With the protection of a Waaagh! field, the Ork boarding rams punched through the Doomclaw's hull as if it were soft butter. The green-skinned Orks, armed with chain-axes and welding torches, kicked open the hatches and began hacking through everything in their path.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A flood of Slugga Boyz poured into the corridors, forming a green tide.
"GET 'EM! SHOOT 'EM!" The Slugga Boyz roared, waving their choppas in a frenzy as their high-caliber sluggas discharged wildly into the gloom.
Blocking their path was the standard Skaven counter-measure: a wall of emaciated Slave-Rats, whose only purpose was to absorb the enemy's momentum with their broken bodies.
Whish-whish-whish—
Emerald warp-bullets tore through the thick muscles of the Orks, dropping several Boyz, but the scent of blood only stoked the greenskins' ferocity. In the narrow, claustrophobic corridors, green skin met grey-brown fur. Amidst the bellows of the Orks and the high-pitched squeals of the slaves, blood began to spray across the Skaven bulkheads in a grisly rain.