The Price of a Mile

by Darth Garak

The Imperial Guard march onward into the fires of war. When a Hive city taken over by heretics needs to be taken out, what price will the Guard pay to achieve victory? On the bloody battlefields of the 41st millennium, only one thing is certain - Death.

The Price of a Mile

Do not ask how you may give your life for the Emperor. Ask instead how you may give your death.

+++ Warmaster Slaydo +++

The roar of the Gorgon's engines was drowned out by the thunder of the artillery, the sounds heralding the brutality of their destination. Watchmaster 1520 looked up just time to see a flight of Marauders heading toward the Hive City, doubtlessly the bomber pilots were all eager for another attack run. She had heard that an entire Marauder squadron had been wiped out in the early stages of the siege and since then the pilots were eager for revenge. She too was eager to reach the battle, her hatred of the heretic demanding that blood be shed. Once they reached the Hive, they would cleanse it with fire, purging the followers of the Ruinous Powers from Blessed Imperial soil.

As she was lost in thoughts of battle, Lieutenant Gamma approached her, pushing his way through the tightly packed soldiers. Her vox operator, 2512, noticed the Lieutenant and gave her a slight nudge. 1520 snapped back to the present and saluted the Lieutenant.

"At ease" he said, returning the salute. Gamma's voice was flat and emotionless, the result of having his jaw blown off by a las bolt. The mechanical replacement worked well enough but it gave him a toneless voice, which made hearing him swear an interesting experience. It also deformed his masked face in disturbing ways, the rebreather stretching almost to its limits. Gamma held up a case, big and armored, and held it out. As 1520 took the case, the Lieutenant said "Keep that case safe Watchmaster. Every platoon has been issued with one and the survival of those cases is vital to the success of this assault."

"What is it?" she asked, wanting to know how a case could win them the siege.

"You don't need to know that" Gamma said. "All you need to know is that once you have reached your objective, you are to strike the red rune on the side of the case."

"And then?"

Gamma shrugged, "Then we win". Clearly he didn't know any more either. "As the Emperor wills" he said, before he turned and left. He quickly disappeared amid the tightly packed guardsmen aboard the troop transport. 1520 passed the case to another of her troopers and was just telling him to guard it with his life when the massive 220 ton Gorgon shook like mad, throwing a few soldiers from their feet, and they could hear metal screaming as it was bent out of shape.

"We're passing through the outer defenses" said the driver over their comlinks.

"What was that noise?" came the Lieutenant's voice.

"Wrecked tank in the way" replied the driver.

1520 nodded to herself and felt for the pouch she kept around her throat, under the greatcoat. The pouch contained the finger bones of fallen comrades from her squad. She squeezed the pouch and prayed to the Emperor for victory in this battle. Overhead, the heavy stubbers opened up, spraying the enemy without mercy. They were followed a few seconds later by the heavy flamer sponsons. As 1520 looked at the sky, most of it dominated by the Hive, she could see it was glowing red and gold. It looked as if the world was on fire. It probably is, she thought. Just then something exploded next to their transport and showered them with dirt and gravel. One trooper was struck by a severed arm.

"Fix bayonets and prepare to disembark in thirty" said Gamma. A chorus of acknowledgement followed his statement. 1520 turned to her squad and said "As the Emperor wills".

"As the Emperor wills" they replied. Everyone had his bayonet fixed, the blade mirrored in the lenses of their rebreathers. A wall of blades, 1520 thought, that's what we'll give the heretics. Before she could further contemplate the coming battle, the main ramp dropped away with a deafening noise as it crushed through the face of a bunker. Smoke and dust instantly enveloped them, cutting visibility down to almost nothing. Before the dust had a chance to clear, Gamma yelled "Glory to the first man to die! Charge!" 1520 and the others followed without hesitation, lasguns held ready to kill any foe.

"For the Emperor" screamed the men and women of the Death Korps of Krieg 12th Siege Regiment as they charged into the fires that raged in the Hive.

-G-

"Death to the followers of the Corpse Emperor!" cried former Class-5 crane operator Demetra, firing her autorifle at the charging Imperial soldiers. She saw a couple go down from her shots and she yelled her triumph to the sky. A cultist beside fell, his neck a burned ruin from a las shot. He writhed on the rubble strewn ground, desperately trying to breath through a neck incapable of performing its basic function. The man's blood seeped into the mortar and dust on the ground, creating a red-ish muddy substance that soon coated every single cultist fighting in the shadow of the broken wall. Screams, both of fury and of pain, constantly sang like a choir to the sweet and glorious music of weapons fire and explosions. This was life. This was glory. Sacrifices, death, blood and carnage. This was what serving Khorne meant.

She had been a nobody in her former life, when she had worshipped the Corpse Emperor. But now she had embraced a true god and all he demanded of her was that she try and sate his thirst for blood. When her husband and son had seen her carve the sign of Khorne upon her face with a knife, they had cried out in horror and revulsion. The very sight of the Mark of Khorne had left her son a gibbering wreck and she had smiled when she had torn out his still beating heart from his chest. Her husband had run, trying to find an Arbites to report her too but she had caught up to the pathetic weakling. She'd broken his legs, torn out his eyes and strangled him with his own guts. Now she wore his ears, along with those of other victims, on a string around her neck.

A cultist crawled in front of her, his guts trailing behind him, and she put her left boot on his head while she fired another burst the Imperial lapdogs. Throwing all her weight onto her left leg, she laughed maniacally as she heard a crunching sound from beneath her. Another wretch was dead and more blood had been spilled in Khorne's name.

The Imperial lapdogs stubbornly kept advancing through the firepower, stepping over the bodies of their comrades without any sign of noticing or caring. As solid rounds and las shots began to thin the numbers of the attackers, more heavily armored Guardsmen pushed to the fore. These Guardsmen wore heavy carapace armor and were armed with deadly hellguns. Their gas masks were covered by steel skull masks, giving them a sinister appearance, and making Demetra think of Khorne's massive Skull Throne. As the grenadier platoon of the Death Korps 12th Siege Regiment pushed forward, las shots and solid slugs harmlessly bouncing off their heavy armor, they unleashed a deadly torrent of las shots that tore through the cultists mercilessly. They were ripped to shreds by the heavy hellgun fire, their broken bodies carpeting the ground in ever widening pools of blood.

One grenadier spotted a cultist trying to set up a tripod mounted heavy stubber. Without waiting for an order, the grenadier charged forward. He blasted two cultists that tried to get in his way, parried half a dozen badly aimed axes that tried to split him open and reached the heavy stubber. He hit the cultist with the butt of his hellgun, sending him sprawling to the ground, before he stabbed him in the back with the bayonet. Turning around to man the gun, the grenadier shot a cultist that tried to charge him and stabbed another that had gotten to close. Letting go of the hellgun, he grabbed the stubber off its tripod, checked to see that its belt of ammunition was secured properly and turned the gun upon the cultists. Bracing himself for the recoil, the grenadier opened fire and began mowing down his enemies, the heavy stubber rounds tearing through them like they were made out of wet paper, their bodies dancing and jerking in the air from the high speed rounds that tore them apart.

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" screamed Demetra at the top of her lungs, her rifle tearing out the brains of another soldier. "SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" she continued as her clip ran dry. With barely a shrug Demetra threw her rifle away, drew her blade and charged the Imperials with another cry of "Blood! Blood! BLOOD!" Others followed her mad charge, their blades drawn and hungry for blood, their eyes full of psychotic insanity and their mouths open and drooling at the thought of the warm blood that would flow down their throats.

They had almost reached the Imperial soldiers when, with a cry of "For the glory of the Emperor!" the Death Korps of Krieg leveled their bayonets and charged. Demetra tried to kill one of the soldiers, her hatred burning with all the fury of a nova, but the Imperial had the longer reach. His bayonet stabbed into her stomach and she cried out as the soldier twisted the blade in her guts and fired a shot for good measure. Her rusty, blood drenched blade slipped from her mutilated fingers and clattered to the gore covered ground as the soldier ripped his blade free of the grasp of her entrails. With barely a moan she fell, face first into the gore.

Just before she died, and just as Imperial boots began walking over her body and grinding it into the gore, she realized that Khorne, the Blood God, was satisfied. For he cared not from where the blood flowed just so long as it did.

As the last of the heretics died, the Death Korps of Krieg advanced into the Hive upon a path of blood and corpses. They had offered the heretics absolution in death. It was, in truth, more than the wretched scum deserved.

-G-

"The 12th Krieg have broken through the breach in the curtain wall. The 20th Mordian and the 387th Jumael are moving in to support them" said Manfred, tactical advisor to Death Korps General Manheim, the overall commander of the campaign to bring the Tyrelius Cluster back under Imperial control. The General's masked head nodded, his attention fixed on the battle raging outside his command vehicle – four kilometers from the Hive. From this vehicle, a gigantic tank known as a Capitol Imperialis, he had a perfect view of the assault. Behind its meters thick hull, in the bowels of the giant command vehicle, a Narmenian tank regiment was readying it's vehicles for the coming battle.

"The siege towers of the 14th Kanak Skulltakers have been destroyed" Manfred continued keeping a running commentary of the situation as the Ecclesiarchy choir filled the command bridge with the uplifting words of Behold His Glory. "Apparently the penal legions failed to discover all of the enemy's mine fields. Thought it looks like the assault ramps of the Cadian Whiteshields have reached the wall safely."

"Casualties?" asked Major Huron from the Elysian 4th Drop Regiment just as the choir reached its crescendo.

"Casualties are high across the board" said Manfred, his hands sweeping to encompass the tactical hololithic display in front of them, where the battle played out in miniature. It showed the Imperial forces attacking along the entire length of the Hive's south wall. All twenty kilometers of it. "Vostock Hive had a population of ninety million before it fell to the influence of Chaos. From past experience we know that the entire population will be armed and fighting us, those too young or too old will doubtlessly be used as sacrifices." He paused as a rune representing a Gorgon, and the platoon it carried, flashed red and winked out. "Against a dug in force which numbers anywhere between ten thousand and ninety million, we have sent four million men. They have air and artillery support but little in the way of tanks." He turned toward the Major and continued "Of course, we can expect around 80% losses in the opening phase of the operation. If the attacking force is wiped out, then we send in the rest of the vanguard."

"I still say we can avoid all this bloodshed" said Major Huron. "My boys could still strike at the enemy HQ. We have the plans to the Hive, thanks to the storm troopers who went in two days ago, so we know where it's located."

"We know where it was two days ago" corrected Manfred. "By now, the heretics might have moved. Nor would killing their leaders stop the rest of the cultists from opposing us. Besides" he continued, cutting off a protest the Major was just begging to say "the storm troopers could not find any plans to tell us what lies beneath the Hive. We know there is a shaft that leads deep underground, located in the Main Spine, and the Adeptus Mechanicus claims there is a massive energy signature down there." Manfred stared at the hololithic display where a flood of blue runes was invading Vostok Hive, green runes falling back before them. "There could be anything down there. For all we know they might even be preparing to summon a daemon." Shocked gasps and prayers to the Emperor followed this statement.

"Still" muttered Major Huron "it's much better than sending all those men to their deaths."

"Their deaths are irrelevant" said Manheim, joining the officers at the table, the air now filled with the sound of His Holy Wrath. "All that matters is that they do the Emperor's will and reclaim this world in His name." Manheim's masked face stared at the hololithic display, blue runes where flooding through the breach in the left flank. Manheim noticed a group of green runes, which were identified as corrupted Leman Russ tanks, bearing down on the infantry. No matter, he thought, we have more weapons we can use.

From Manheim' point of view, their capacity to fight and willingness to die exceeded that of the Archenemy. As far as the General was concerned, this battle had already been won – they were simply going through the motions now.

Behind him, the choir sang of holy flames purging the unclean and impure.

-G-

Transport D-103 had almost reached the trench line in front of the Hive when it was struck by a lascannon emplacement which blew the left track. The guardsmen onboard, a platoon of Savlar Chem Dogs, poured out of the stricken vehicle, right into the enemy guns. Most of them were cut down immediately but a few managed to reach the lip of the enemy trench. A Sergeant, known as Laughing Skull by his comrades, looked to his right and spotted a fallen comrade carrying a demolition charge. Picking it up, he quickly dived into a shallow crater in front of the trench. As he began inspecting the demo charge, praying to the Emperor it was still functioning, he heard the screams of his fellows. One of them had a vox-caster and was desperately calling for support from the gunships. Judging by the conversation he was having, it was clear the Vultures were having trouble spotting individual units in this insanity. "I repeat, we are in front of the enemy trench, about ten meters from the big fracking burning Gorgon." Their deaths didn't mean much to Laughing Skull, they were just the latest bunch of penal legionaries he had shared a cell with.

Twelve years had passed since he had been sentenced to the penal legions as punishment for selling lasgun clips on the black market. Since that time, he had made a habit to never socialize with others. He had no need of friends, it was a friend who had sold him out to the Commissars. Laughing Skull hoped the treacherous bastard was dead.

With a sigh of relief he saw that the demo charge was still working, it machine spirit eager to release it explosive fury upon the enemy. Setting the timer he scrambled to the lip of the crater and was just getting ready to thrown the demo charge when a shadow fell over him. Turning to look behind him, he saw Commissar Hask standing over him. The Commissar had his las pistol aimed at his head. Frak, he thought.

"You have fled before the enemy of His Divine Majesty" said Hask. The left side of his face was burned, the skin blistered and weeping. His left hand still clutched what remained of his whip and there was a manic gleam in his eyes. Laughing Skull had seen that gleam before, on the faces of shell shocked people or those who had seen too much, too fast and were driven mad.

"By the powers the Commissariat and the Divine Emperor have given me -" Hask never got to finish his sentence as Laughing Skull drove the demo charge into his gut. The air was driven out of Hask's lungs and he instinctively grabbed the charge as Laughing Skull jumped out of the crater and hugged the ground. A second later, the charge went off. The force of the blast tore the Commissar to bloody pieces which were scattered around in a fine spray. Laughing Skull was also picked up and thrown by the blast, his legs turned into a mangled ruin and his spine broken upon landing.

Well, he thought, could have been fracking worse, at least there's no pain. With any luck a medic would stumble upon him and stop him from bleeding out. Eventually he blacked out.

When he regained his senses the first thing he noticed was that the sounds of gunfire had moved further away. We must be advancing, he realized. That meant that the medics couldn't be too far behind.

No sooner had he thought this that for the second time that day, a shadow fell across him. He looked up, his hopes rising, and saw the last thing he expected. Above him stood a man wearing a dark blue greatcoat, his features hidden behind a sinister skull faced rebreather, his torso protected by a breastplate shaped in the form of human ribs. Laughing Skull felt his hopes wither as he saw the two lobotomized servitors standing behind the man, each servitor leaden with gear taken from fallen soldiers. A servo skull appeared over the man's shoulder and approached the wounded man. It gave a few clicks and whirrs as it ran some sort of scanner over his wounds, its anti-grav unit giving a few coughs from time to time.

Its job completed, the servo skull hovered above the masked man's shoulder. The man, Laughing Skull knew he was from a Death Korps regiment, reached for his holster and drew a battered looking las pistol.

"Wait" stammered Laughing Skull weakly. "I'm not that badly hurt. I just need some time in the infirmary and I'll get better." The Death Korps soldier was silent, the gun in his hand steady. "Come on" pressed on Laughing Skull "Give me a chance. What do you say?"

The Death Korps quartermaster pressed the trigger.

Ignoring the body he ordered the servitors to strip the man. His gear would be used by another soldier – either a fresh recruit or a veteran, didn't matter which. Taking a data slate from his pocket, he began noting down what was being salvaged from the corpse.

-G-

"Will you take a look at that?" said a voice from behind him. Lieutenant Holtz looked to his left where his weapons chief was pointing. Their brother Cadians were storming the top of the curtain wall using huge assault ramps that had been dragged into position by specially modified Gorgon troop transports. Now it looked like the Whiteshields were going to get massacred by the Chaos soldiers on top of the rampart. Heavy weapons had been set up and were pouring a veritable monsoon of firepower down the assault ramps, tearing the leading elements to shreds. Bullet sponges, thought Holtz sadly. Already the ramps were slick with blood and guts and the young soldiers were slipping and tripping on bodies while their Commissar and Sergeants urged them on.

"I think they can use some help" Reims continued. Holtz knew that this was probably the first battle the Whiteshields had ever seen. He knew that those who did well would be promoted into the Cadian Shoocktroop regiments. This was their baptism of fire and they would either win or die. It had been the same for every Cadian soldier since they could remember.

"Alright, let's strafe that rampart" he declared. He swung the Vulture gunship around from its station keeping position and, praying to the Emperor that the enemy ack-ack had been taken care of, headed for the nearest assault ramp. He looked over his shoulder at his weapons chief "I'd appreciate it if you could clean them all out in one pass. I'd rather not have to make a second run over the place." Reims just gave him a thumbs up.

As the Vulture swooped low over the rampart Holtz opened a general channel and said "Guns. Guns. Guns." That would be all the warning the Whiteshields would have not to approach the top of the curtain wall. Behind him, Reims said the prayer of Accuracy to the Machine Spirit, and opened with several salvos from the rocket pods slung beneath the Vulture's wings. The barrage of missiles hit the top of the rampart and blasted the Chaos soldiers into oblivion. Those not killed by the initial explosion were shredded by shrapnel and bits of masonry. The concussion from the multitude of blasts threw men from the wall to crash like broken dolls at its base. The Vulture raced along the top of the wall, firing from its rocket pods and chin mounted heavy bolter, blasting apart the defenders. As the Vulture veered away sharply, it left only broken bodies in its wake. Some were still alive but the armies of Chaos had no medics and the worst of these men died quickly. Others crawled to the lip of the rampart and dragged themselves onto the assault ramps were they pulled the pins from their grenades, taking out as many Imperial soldiers as they could. Most of the gaps in the defense were quickly filled as the Chaos reserves rushed into position but in some places the Cadian Whiteshields managed to gain a foothold and engage the enemy with their bayonets.

"Damn, those bastards are quick" muttered Reims.

Holtz was forced to agree. The Chaos reserves had gotten there sooner than he had expected. Except for all the blood and the bodies, it was hard to tell that he had ever made an attack run on the wall. "How much ammo have we left?"

"The rocket pods are empty but we still have two Hellstrike missiles and about a thousand rounds for the heavy bolter." That was at least a minute and a half of sustained fire.

"Right" said Holtz "we're going in. Find some juicy targets for the Hellstrikes and then mow down those bastards."

"Roger."

Again the Vulture swooped in. Reims quickly saw a pair of targets for the Hellstrikes. Two enemy squads were setting up lascannons on the wall. While they wouldn't do much to the infantry horde, the lascannons could blow the gunship right out of the sky. He launched the missiles and followed them in, letting out a whoop of joy as the missiles struck on target and blew the lascannons to bits. The Chaos soldiers were reeling from the twin detonation as the Vulture opened up with the heavy bolter. The explosive rounds tore the enemy infantry to bits, exploding them into bits and pieces.

"Bingo fuel" said Reims as he saw they had reached the safety limit needed to return to base.

"Roger" replied Holtz. Opening the squadron frequency he continued "This is Viper Lead to Viper Squadron, we are bingo fuel and returning to re-fuel and re-arm. Viper Two has the lead."

"This is Two, roger Lead. We'll try to leave some for you when you return."

"You better" replied Holtz. With that he turned the Vulture around and flew back toward the resupply base.

-G-

Crouching behind a bench in what was the House of Legislature in the Main Spine, Judge Bellian knew she would not live to see the liberation. If it even succeeded. Of that, she was convinced there was little chance. She didn't know any details but the heretics had become excited about something they had found under the Hive. Whatever it was, if the foot troops of the Archenemy were excited about it, then Judge Bellian knew it would not be good news for the Imperium.

As far as she knew, she was the last the member of the Adeptus Arbites still alive in the Hive. Probably the last loyal servant of the Emperor in the entire Hive. It was a depressing thought.

The Arbites Precinct House had been under siege for two days straight when the heretics brought their heavy infantry into the fight, the skitarii of the Dark Mechanicus – the cybernetic soldiers of techpriests who either sided with the powers of Chaos or had been branded as heretics by their fellows. The skitarii had quickly breached their defenses and proceeded to slaughter everyone inside. She had taken down at least two, their cybernetic bodies no match for her shotgun in the tight corridors of the Precinct House. Even so, they kept advancing, the lasguns fitted into their arms pouring relentless fire into the Arbites.

Bellian glared at the skitarii standing next to a hololithic display, its gun arm relaxed and a chainsword hanging from its belt, its black armor adorned with spikes. She wanted nothing more than to grab the sword and hack off the skitarii's head. But that was a little hard to do when you were still feeling the pain from wounds received a month ago. Her left arm still felt as if a cyber mastiff was chewing it – even though the arm was gone, having been reduced to ash by a passing plasma beam.

She gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the pain. After all the trouble she had went through to sneak in here, after all the trouble of staying alive in a city taken over by the Archenemy, it would be stupid to get caught now. The skitarii was giving his report to a magos of the Dark Mechanicus. She couldn't understand a word of what was said.

She knew, from talking to their own enginseers, that among themselves the techpriests conversed in binary – a language known only to them, which they guarded jealously and which they believed was the holy language of the Machine God. Bellian had never really understood why the Ecclesiarchy tolerated the Mechanicus' beliefs in the Omnissiah, the Machine God. True, some of them claimed that the Machine God and the Emperor were the same being. Somehow Bellian couldn't really accept this. After all, what would He care about the insane mutterings of the cog boys?

She shook her head as she realized her thought had drifted again. Damn pain, it's getting to me. She had already taken enough pain killers that she couldn't even feel her other wounds. All except her damn blasted arm.

The magos blurted something in binary – or was it scrapcode? Some of the enginseers had been babbling about the scrapcode corrupting the machine spirits of their weapons and vehicles but Bellian hadn't paid too much attention to them. Whatever it was, the skitarii turned on his heel and marched out of the chamber.

Seeing the magos move toward the far window, Bellian quietly began to creep forward. She tried to be as silent as possible but she still stepped on a broken piece of wood that cracked under her weight. The magos turned around and blurted something in binary. When no answer came back to his enquiry, he raised his left arm and proceeded to hose the benches with solid projectile fire.

Bellian ignored her instinct to dive for cover as she saw the bullets pass through row after row as if the benches were made of wet paper. She ran toward the hololithic display, praying to the Emperor that the magos wouldn't manage to gun her down before she reached cover. That'd be the crowning moment of my career. But even as she ran toward the solid cover, she knew that once there she would be pinned down, unable to do anything but wait for death to claim her. Screw this.

Drawing her own chainsword, she changed direction and began running toward the magos. He quickly targeted her and fired, several bullets impacting on her black breastplate but thankfully none managed to penetrate the carapace armor. As she activated the chainsword, its roar filling the room, more gunfire flashed from behind her. The skitarii had heard the noise and came to investigate. No matter, she was in range now. She swung the chainsword, the monomolecular edged teeth biting into the mago's neck. The sword gave a high pitch whine as it sawed through the cybernetic neck and Bellian felt the heady rush of victory. She had managed to kill one of the bastards responsible for this heresy.

Just as the magos' head dropped to the floor, she felt several impacts on her back and she realized, with dread, that her momentum was too great for her to stop. She ploughed into the corrupted techpriest's body and the glass window behind it. The window shattered when they collided with it, the sheer bulk and weight of the dead magos ensuring that.

Adeptus Arbites Judge Bellian screamed as she fell from the top of the Main Spine, six kilometers above the ground.

-G-

1520 ducked back behind the corner and allowed one of the grenadiers to take her place. She took out the empty clip and slammed home a new one. She was slightly out of breath and the wound to her leg pained her but she was Death Korps, she would survive.

After they had breached the bunkers the enemy had raised just behind the curtain wall, the Death Korps had pushed further into the city, other regiments quickly following them in. The enemy had fallen back fast at first but 1520 knew that they simply hoped to leave the Imperial advance strung out and then attack from the flanks. That would have been the logical tactic. But the forces of Chaos never had any use for logic. Instead they had thrown tanks at the advancing infantry. The heretic soldiers, upon seeing the tanks, also charged – only to be annihilated by the fire of their own tanks. It was obvious the armored force, the tanks adorned with the tortured bodies of loyal Imperials screaming in pain, didn't care what it killed as long as blood flowed. The Death Korps troopers quickly dived behind what cover they could as those Guardsmen armed with krak grenades and demo charges surged forward to the horror of their Commissar. They made a mad dash toward the tanks, many of them killed by merciless gunfire and others crushed under the weight of the tanks.

Those that made it quickly climbed up on the tanks, swarming over them like ants over a wounded grox. They primed demo charges, chucked grenades down barrels, exhaust pipes, vision slits – whatever they could find. They were all frenzied, knowing what would –what must- follow. The resulting explosions were not long in coming. Tanks after tank exploded, as ammunition was cooked off, as crews were shredded to bits before being consumed by the raging fires, as the suicidal Guardsmen died along with the tanks they had killed. Bodies and shrapnel were sent flying through the air, only to rain back down with vicious force, killing and maiming both heretics and Guardsmen.

After that, with an entire company wiped out in that action alone, the regiment pushed forward, not waiting for the others to catch up. The 387th Jumael tried in vain to keep up with the swift and bloody advance but they were halted by enemy suicide squads. The 12th Krieg fought their way to the Main Spine and managed to locate the entrance to the shaft. Ignoring the elevators, as that would leave them too vulnerable, they took the stairs. Heretics opposed them all the way, fighting for every platform, charging from defiled chapels to the Machine God, some even climbing up the elevator shafts. Not long after their descent began, they were attacked from the rear as well, heretic forces cutting them off from any reinforcements. Trapped between the two forces the Death Korps of Krieg did the only thing they knew.

They advanced.

Step after step, platform after platform, they fought and they died and they advanced. Over the bodies of fallen comrades they advanced, heedless of their own lives, praises to the Emperor on their lips. They advanced like an avalanche that crushed the enemy in grinding waves of men willing to die to achieve victory. The horrors these Guardsmen saw were many, the odds against them were high, but they did not falter for to do so would be to bring shame upon themselves and their world. So they pushed onwards, pitiless and remorseless. Without cease and without mercy was their doctrine and they applied it to the letter. Their seemingly endless and sinister ranks marched ever forward, faceless behind their rebreathers, seemingly materializing out of nowhere from the smoke that quickly filled the shaft. Four kilometers down did the shaft go, four kilometers down the Death Korps advanced, flamers and lasguns sending the enemy into flight, bayonets gutting and killing those who stood their ground. In their wake, the stairs were awash in blood and choked by the bodies of the fallen. Those Guardsmen who were too badly wounded cried out, prayed to the Emperor or waited silently for death to claim them. There was no quartermaster to give them the blessing of the Emperor's peace. Some died slowly, wracked by terrible pains, those who couldn't take the pain any more often took their own life but most them gripped what weapons they could and waited for an enemy to show himself.

1520 glanced at her vox operator, 2512, seeing him struggle to stand, his left hand keeping his greatcoat taut across his stomach, lest his entrails spill out. 1520 nodded to him and once more picked up the armored case the Lieutenant had given her. Lieutenant Gamma was dead, she had last seen him priming a demo charge before a tank ran him over. It had triggered the charge, which killed the tank and 1520 knew the Lieutenant would have been pleased. Their Colonel was dead as well, his body lying on the ground in front of her. He had been the first to charge around the corner and the first to run into the skitarii.

"Can you see anything" she asked the grenadier.

"I can see a door of some kind, guarded by a platoon's worth of skitarii" he replied, leaning out and firing his hellgun at the skitarii.

"A door?"

"Yeah, it's big too. Made out of the same black surface this chamber is from."

That's when 1520 realized the chamber they were in was not Imperial in design. The walls and floor were made out some black, shining metal. There were symbols carved into the metal, glowing an eerie green and she knew this place was unholy. This place is important to them for some reason. She looked at the Colonel's lifeless body. We must find a way to stop them. She scanned the room, hoping to find a corridor that will let them flank the skitarii or maybe find another way into the chamber they were guarding. That's when she saw that there were no marks upon the walls. There was a firefight going on in this room yet the walls were unblemished. Feeling dread seizing her heart, she set her lasgun's power at max. Aiming at the wall she fired a shot. The blast left a dark patch on the wall but, to her horror, the wall seemed to run like liquid and the small damage she had done to it was erased.

"What the frak was that?" asked the grenadier, his skull mask turning toward her.

"I've heard about this place" 1520 stammered.

"What?" the man was confused.

"Well not this particular place" she went on, the words spilling from her mouth in a rush "but the Lieutenant once told me of a battle against the xenos knows as Necrons. I think this is a Necron tomb."

Without a word the grenadier turned back to the skitarii and begun laying down a barrage of fire. He understood that they could not allow those Necrons to awaken. If that happened, the whole planet was lost. Even as it was, the planet would be to dangerous to remain on, it would have to be declared Purgatus.

More Guardsmen crowded at the corner. They looked at 1520 for confirmation and she realized she was the one in charge. All the other officers and Watchmasters had already been killed. In fact, most of the regiment was dead. The forty men in the room were the last remnants of the 12th Siege Regiment. She took a deep breath before shouting "For the Emperor! Charge!"

They rushed the skitarii, the first of rank of men falling to the concentrated fire. Those that followed them jumped over the fallen bodies and pressed forward. They had gotten this far due to sacrifice, endurance, aggression and unbreakable loyalty to the Emperor. They wound not be defeated now. Bayonets clashed against cybernetic bodies, fists grabbed gun arms and punched augmented jaws. Power mauls and chainswords cracked against helmeted heads, trench shovels and picks were put to use against flesh and steel. It was the culmination of a bloody and merciless assault.

A chainsword roared and 1520 felt pain as it ripped through her torso, shredding her lungs and heart, showering her killer with blood and bone splinters. She fell on her back, darkness engulfing her, blood pouring out her mouth to flood her rebreather. The case fell next to her as the skitarii killed the last of the guardsmen.

The silence that descended was almost unreal after the brutality of the combat. The ten surviving skitarii regrouped before the door, silently watching the other end of the room, which led to the mining tunnel and the elevators.

None of them looked down or they would have seen that a man designated 2512, his entrails spread out underneath him and blood leaking from his ruined rebreather, was still alive. His hand reached out slowly, so slowly, and pressed the red rune on the side of the case. With that final act of defiance accomplished, 2512 allowed death to claim him.

A low buzzing filled the room as the rune flashed an angry red- the teleportation homer shouting its location to the vessels in obrit- and the skitarii looked around, recognizing what was happening. The air felt heavy as if lightning had struck recently and they knew that someone was teleporting in. A flash of light appeared in front of them and they raised their gun limbs, ready to kill whoever was coming. The light intensified and flared impossibly bright for a second before it disappeared and the skitrarii were left baffled. They had expected to see more guardsmen or maybe even Adeptus Astartes before them. Instead there was a large, blocky machine. One of the skitarii approached it and saw a timer on the side of the device. Before he could say anything, the timer reached zero and nuclear fire purged the Hive.

-G-

Major Huron opened his eyes and wished he was dead. He couldn't move and the pain that flooded his broken body was too much to bear. His skin was blistered and in places it had simply fallen off, along with the muscle underneath. Damn you Manheim, he thought, you knew.

He had been so relieved when he had managed to get Manheim to allow him to attack the enemy HQ. They knew one Death Korps regiment had breached the Main Spine but all contact had quickly been lost with them and it was assumed they were all dead. The following regiments had been stalled some distance from the Main Spine and were being ground to pieces. In places they were even being pushed back. So Manheim had relented and allowed Major Huron to take two companies and assault the enemy HQ.

But before they could reach the Main Spine, the world had exploded. Huron's Valkyrie had been at the rear of the formation but even so it had been brought down and all within had been killed. All except the Major and he was beginning to wish he was dead. He had been thrown clear of the transport upon impact and he saw the huge mushroom cloud that covered the sky. Ash was falling, coating everything in a thick layer and he knew what had happened. A nuclear device had been set off – either by the heretics or by their own forces.

It was a good bet that this had been Manheim's plan for dealing with the heretics. Typical of the Death Korps, to treat human lives as if they meant nothing. After all when Krieg itself had fallen to secessionists hadn't they unleashed nuclear fire upon it? They had turned their own planet into a nuclear wasteland rather than let it secede from the Imperium. And what was Krieg now? Gripped in an eternal nuclear winter, the population living under ground, the entire planet was devoted to the creation of soldiers. Krieg's sole purpose was to turn out Death Korps as another planet might mine ore and harvest wheat and it was all so that they could redeem themselves in their owns eyes for allowing rebellion to take place on their world.

He felt the urge to vomit but managed to refrain, afraid he'd only vomit his own entrails. As he was lying in the ash, waiting for death to claim him, he heard movement. He looked up and saw two men dressed in greatcoats, their faces hidden behind rebreathers. They spotted him and moved toward him. For a moment Huron thought he was saved. They had found him, he was still alive, and maybe they could fix him up. Then he reminded himself that the radiation poisoning would kill him no matter what they did.

"Poor bastard" said one of them "he's still alive."

Huron wanted to thank them when he saw the second aim his lasgun at him. He tried to open his mouth and speak but no words emerged. The Death Korps guardsmen muttered something under his breath and pulled the trigger.

"He's not alive now" said the man, lowering his gun.

"As the Emperor wills" added the first. They continued their search for survivors. Then they would report to General Manheim and they would advance through this breach in the enemy defenses, their march to the capital now unopposed. The great warmachine of the Imperium of Man would continue its merciless, remorseless and tireless advance.