Title: Unlucky Number
Author: C. Isaac
Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40K or anything to do with it.
Planet Ishmael IV, Imperium of Man, M41.986
Colonel Reiner von Koertig watched the troop deployment of the Armageddon Steel Legion's 7th Regiment with something approaching pride for the first time in months. The Lucky Seven was finally seeing action that didn't involve guard duty at Infernus Hive or mopping up feral Orks in the Armageddon hinterlands. Reiner was glad for it, and he hoped he could finally get his men to feel something other than morbid gloom for getting assigned to the regiment that was infamous for being most likely to get you either killed or drummed out of the service.
Reiner had spent a great deal of time rebuilding the regiment after the Third War of Armageddon. The Seventh had performed admirably the entire war, but during an enemy attempt to break open Infernus Hive, the Seventh had barely stopped the Ork. Less than ten percent of the orignal Regiment had survived the battle, and it had been reduced to only disorganized pockets of resistance when the Black Templars had landed en masse to relieve the regiment. Reiner had been a mere lieutenant then, but he was the last remaining officer of the old guard of the regiment. He refused to let them disband it, and with the rest of the veterans, had begun training new recruits as the war came to an end.
It was said, though, that the ghosts of that battle at Infernus Hive still followed the regiment. Soon after, the Lucky Seventh suffered debacle after pitfall after setback. The Lucky Seventh quickly turned into the Unlucky Seventh, and nothing that Reiner could do would shake the lingering superstition. Commissars, Inquisitors, and Reiner himself could never find anything truly wrong, but still the miasma pervaded.
The regiment suffered from constant mistakes, vehicle breakdowns, malcontent, and somehow seemed to always pull the worst duty assignments available. From armored carriers collapsing in on themselves due to a steel devouring bacteria (from where, no one ever found out), to misassigned support units (clearing out Ork remnants while artillery had been shelling an empty field), and to having bad field intel (attacking a feral Ork stronghold defended by a squiggoth with no heavy support due to being told it was a 'shanty town') the Unlucky Seventh would always battle through, and even in victory would feel broken and defeated at the end.
Reiner smiled at his troops as they arrayed themselves in parade formation before his review stand. The commissariat and officers had been working extra hard at getting the regiment presentable. They wanted to break the belief that the regiment was cursed as much as the Colonel did, and felt that a fresh chance at blooding the unit on a different world would do just the trick. He could see more companies marching out of troop transports behind the muster field, contrails of the ships holding the precious armored carriers and infantry support tanks still high in the sky.
Commissar Volk was to his left, looking almost happy for the first time in years. "Well, Colonel," he queried, "What do you think?"
"I think we will do the Emperor, may His light shine always, proud with what I see here today. Time for us to be the 'Lucky' Seventh once again," returned the Colonel with a broad smile.
No one on the command review platform could see the two drop carriers maneuvering nearly directly above the formation.
Motioning to his staff sergeant, Reiner asked, "Sergeant Fiedler what's the ETA on everything being down on the ground and us ready to move?"
Fiedler pulled out a data slate and tapped at the keys on it, "Sir, the Navy says that those companies coming off the ships now are the last of the infantry. Armor will be complete..." tap, tap, tap, "... in seventy five minutes. Most of the Russ pattern tanks are already down. Most of what's left are crated Chimeras and Hellhounds. Oh... and the Executus."
Reiner and Volk both smiled at the name. The Executus had been assigned to the Seventh to ensure that Armageddon gave a good showing on Ishmael. It was a Mars pattern Baneblade super heavy that had been in the planet's arsenal for millennia. It had participated in the destruction of three Orkish Gargants during the third war, and at least one other in the previous war.
"Excellent." Reiner smiled proudly. "Everything's ahead of schedule. We'll be to forward rally half a day early at this rate. We'll show those Ishmaelites how real men fight a war, and by the Emperor, we'll make our home and the Imperium proud of us." He slapped his gloved hand down on the railing of the review stand to punctuate the statement.
The men on the review stand looked up at the sudden whining sound from directly above them. One lumbering transport was trailing thick, black smoke from one of its maneuvering jets. It was wobbling back and forth through the air badly, and a second transport was trying desperately to get out of the way. Both were directly above the regiment's parade formation.
Volk began to quickly usher the lesser officers and other comissariat members off the stand. Sergeant Fiedler quickly began to follow them, forgetting his data slate and paperwork. Reiner grabbed a megaphone provided for the assembly and looked out over the men. They had seen the transports as well and were starting to panic and flee. He would be the last man off the officer's stand.
"Ordered formation. Advance at double speed march!" ordered the Colonel through the megaphone, "Your brothers are your life in combat as they are here on this field. Do not panic. Advance. Officers, look to your companies and organize the withdrawal. Make space so they can land."
To Reiner's relief, the panic turned to a fast jog off the tarmac of the field. "Follow the sound of my voice!" he shouted into the megaphone as he looked up and prayed.
The prayer went unheeded by any god as finally the two transports collided. One, unable to maneuver at all, the second too laden with equipment to get anywhere it wanted quickly. The sounds of their impact reached the ground well after the event itself occurred, stunning the helpless witnesses to it first by the sight of it, then the sound of it. Like a god shredding a mountain with his hand is how it would later be described.
The drop ships quickly became comets, racing down to the planet below them as if in hopes of piercing it to the core. What order had been bestowed in the regiment below was gone in a flash as men fled away from the tarmac that would receive the blow of the crash. Even the officers and commissars would be swept away, now as concerned with their own survival as for the discipline of their men.
The impact itself was shattering. The massive ships crushed and pulverized the tarmac that had previously been occupied by hundreds of men and then detonated. Thousands of tons of promethium fuel for Hellhounds and the ships themselves, along with tons of ammunition cooked off at once for a conflagration that would be seen for miles. The concussive force of the explosion immediately sent every man within a quarter mile to the deck. Vehicles were flipped over and toppled. Those things that stood too near the impact site such as tanks, fuel storage vehicles, Trojan haulers, and the hangars themselves would be shredded by shrapnel and then detonated as they were superheated.
Reiner pushed himself up out of the bushed he had been thrown into. He wryly contemplated the fact that he had been thirty feet closer to the explosion when it happened than when it was over. The carapace breastplate around his chest had protected him from the worst of it. The sound of coughing alerted him to the fact he was practically standing atop his senior commissar. He leaned down, then helped Commissar Volk to his feet.
"Let me guess," ventured the Colonel, "Executus was in that drop ship."
"Yes." Volk sighed. "Yes it was."
Not counting the crews of the two ships dozens of men would die, hundreds more would be wounded, many of those complaining about hearing loss due to the sound of the explosion. Reiner and many of his officers would receive ribbons for the commendable level-headedness of saving the regiment from this horrible accident. The death of the navy pilots in the crash would be seen as 'adequate' punishment for their failure to convey their good safely.
The Colonel knew that the 'negligent' loss of something as valuable as Executus would guarantee he was never going to go home to Armageddon again, nor would any of his men. Armageddon and the Departmento Munitorium would throw his men at battle after battle until they were all gone, to rid themselves of this cursed unit.
The curse of the Unlucky Seventh had struck again.