Chapter 6
Point 220 Zone 11 "The Ridge"
150kilometers from Artima Major
0000 hours standard
It had been two hours since Robart checked in with his officers, and in that two hours the bulk of the ork force had emerged from the fog, unwillingly straight into the killzone and the claymore field. He was just waiting for the right time to set off the explosives to cause as much damage as possible. The first of the ork shells had begun to hammer into the ridge, not touched his men yet. But it would soon. The first ork tanks were beginning to leave the minefield. He sent the order to the entrenched fitter teams with the triggers. Robart had to shout over the blasts from the incoming munitions.
"Prime the claymores, fire on my command" Robart could feel his heart racing, the time for battle drawing near.
"We're ready sir, all claymores armed" The fitter's voice came back distorted. The magnetic pulse of the explosions interfered with the Vox, but Adior was doing well. And after an agonizing few minutes, that seemed more like years, he gave the order.
"Fire claymores!" The order came over the vox like a carrion call, as a kilometer of gray land was blown thirty feet in the air, taking tanks and orks with it. The firing suddenly became sporadic and weak, only a handful of ork armor surviving. Battered and burning, the wreckage of over three thousand tanks lay scattered over the scorched earth the remains of injured crew fleeing through the heaps of twisted metal and flames.
The cheer went up over the imperial lines, but it soon faded as ten minutes later the rest of the ork force came charging through the wreckage, at full attack speed, all guns blazing. Robart roared over the weapons fire and ork chants.
"Advance! Give them no quarter! Hunt down the xenos scum! We shall liberate our homeworld! Charge!" As Robart thundered over the vox, all five hundred fighting vehicles of the Artiman First armored arose as rapidly as a storm, charging down the ridge with the ferocity of a pack of wolves.
The battle had begun.
Uzslag threw a passing grot out the window in his rage. He had lost a chunk of his force in one foul swoop. The idiot humans would pay for that. No one in the galaxy dared to anger Uzslag Grubfang Grimork. They would feel his wrath and they would burn before the sun rose. The next grot that approached him was crushed against the wall and his companion was obliterated under the heel of Uzslag's iron boot. His rage continued as he issued the order to advance.
"Oi! Driver moov uz forward! Now!" His fangs dripped with saliva and his yellow, cat like eyes burned.
"A-A-Aye B-Boss." The Techboy at the helm was terrified of what the warboss was going to do if he didn't obey, so he cranked the battlefortress to top speed and advanced with the tanks.
"Wha' you boyz doin? Get thos gunz firein!"
"B-But Boss w-we'll hit our boyz at the front, b-boss" The grot gunner that replied was quickly dispensed of as a hyper velocity round atomised him.
"Anywun else wanna argu?" Uzslag swept his shoota around the cabin, searching for anyone stupid enough to forward an argument. No one replied. The batteries commenced firing. The warboss sat down in his chair again, overseeing the weapons firing into the distance. He changed the clip in his Shoota. He felt better.
Another ork round slammed into the ridge, whipping over the top of the advancing armour. The orks fired as they rumbled forward up the ridge, missing almost every shot and with the advantage of the high ground, the Imperial's were turning the ork lines into scrap metal. Each and every round fire was expertly placed on a weak point, blowing the targets into shards of metal and muscle tissue. In the first half-hour the imperial forces had stormed down the ridge and pushed over half a kilometre into the wasteland, scattered wrecks lying, still burning in their wake.
Robart scanned the battlefield through the periscope, guiding De Hellier onto a static target.
"Main gun firing. Brace." The call coming from Mikal, even polite in the heat of battle, another AT round flew from the long Vanquisher gun and tore through an ork tank, showering the heart with shrapnel and smoke as the magazine ignited. Another ork tank swerved around the burning corpse of the first. Traversing its turret around to face the Heart, Robart could clearly see the screaming ork in the hatch brandishing a spanner.
"Gunner?" The tension was rising, Robart waited for the ork round to smash into the front of the Heart.
"Loading sir!" De Hellier shouted over the intercom, his voice told everyone that his confidence had not wavered as he rammed another round home.
"Hull AT, open fire!" Robart roared through the intercom
"Firing Sir, target taking hits!" Ersia screamed back over the link, sounding stressed, her autocannon pounding as the loader thumped in round after round.
"Firing solution acquired Sir, permission to fire." De Hellier shouted through the intercom, aligning the sights for the main gun.
"Fire at will, Gunner!" Robart replied to his layer, releived and braced for the recoil.
"Firing main weapon, brace!" As De Hellier completed his sentence the tank rocked as the blast send the AT round straight through the enemy's front armour destroying it outright. Robart looked round with the periscope, seeing the rest of the column moving up behind, destroying ork tanks as they went.
"Kenny, move us up, we're on point remember. You ok Ersia?, sounding stressed down there."
"Little shaken sir, nothing a victory can't fix, theres just so many" She still sounded on edge.
"Moving Sir!" Kenny replied over the intercom, the thunder of ork rounds almost drowning his voice out entirely. The Heart swung round the wreck it had been covering behind and out into the battle.
"Adior, link me up to all units!" More shells fell around them as Iros and Ersia let loose with the sponsons and Kenny dodged falling shells with the rest of the armour following behind. Robart shouted over the vox link as Adior struggled with the caster to keep the line open.
"A section, form up on me...keep moving avoid a slug fest at all costs. Attack formation, B section keep moving with us, follow up the formation. When we get to the wide ground open up and extend the formation." Robart ended the transmission and flicked back to intercom.
"Gunner! Do you have a target?" Robart roared over the increasing volume of the ork weapons.
"Over forty solutions sir!" De hellier shouted up to his commander, Almost relishing the thought of forty enemies.
"Fire on all targets gunner, keep them suppressed" Robart's confidence was building again, if they continued like this it was winnable.
"Will do Sir" De Hellier smiled broadly and began loading another round into the breach.
"Iros, how's the ammunition?" Robart asked his sponson gunner.
"Brace!" De Hellier cut in, his drilled firing method working superbly.
After the tank had recoiled Iros replied "Third gone already sir, it's like a bloody harvest, just mowin' down the infantry Sir"
"Good man, Give them hell." Robart returned, gazing through the periscope at the raging battle outside.
"Brace!" Mikal shouted again, announcing another shot. Robart looked out over the formation, both sections had fanned out, the entire width of the battle field was covered by the imperial tank line. Robart punched the hatch open standing up out side the tank. Roaring over the battle noise.
"Onward! To glory!" He roared over the vox link, every trooper under his command hearing the same words, each and every man and woman inspired to victory, each and every trooper having renewed confidence and having the eternal ferocity and passion to drive the xenos foe from there homeland.
"All sections! Box them in! Go!" As Robart spoke, Every unit in the Artiman First moved. One hundred and fifty tanks coming in on each flank, pinning the orks in, and two hundred Tanks thundering in straight ahead of them, the odds... a mere eight to one ratio in favour of the orks. Nothing like a little competition. The morle was high, it looked like a white wash for the imperials.
"Dare not falter!" Robart thundered with the might of a god, reaching behind him and hauling his dual plasma rifles from his holster rig and firing into the ork hoard. All five hundred tanks of the First throwing shells into the tightly packed ork armour.
The gap between the imperial forces and the xenos forces was closing rapidly, as the orks made a last ditch armour charge into the advancing Imperial tanks. To Robarts left a Demolisher pattern was cut in half by a gout of bright blue energy, he recoiled as the light burned his eyes, roaring through the vox.
"Emplacement guns! Emplacement Guns! Cover!" The sudden barrage knocked his confidence badly, his doubts were rising again and he could sense it coming from his crew. Another lance of energy struck the ground as Robart continued to fire his rifles into the horde, more lances of energy rained down through the dense fog. Then it came into view. A massive tower, easily five storeys high, and bristling with weapons. Another tank to his right was blown apart by a bright blue lance. The Heart recoiled as another round blew an ork tank into shrapnel. And Robart ducked down into the turret as machine gun fire spanked off the hatch.
"Adior! Call all section commanders, what's the status?" Robart roared with anger, they were so close to finishing this quickly. It was going to be drawn out now, a hard slog with this tower thing.
"Sir!" Adior cried over an explosion close by.
"De Hellier, target the tower now! Ersia keep those damn tanks off us! Iros watch for AT infantry. Kenny get as close as you can to that thing, we're gunna strafe it." Robart called to his crew as more machine gun rounds pelted the Heart.
"Sir! C section's in close, reports of boarding coming in, holding well." Adoir cried over the hammering of an Exterminator outside.
"Good, what's happening with E and D?" A shell detonated close by, rocking the tank violently.
"Sir, we're getting close!" Kenny was shouting from the front of the tank.
"E section is reinforcing C and D. D section is locked in a stalemate, they are winning but it's slow." Adior turned to his panels in a hurry, panic beginning to set in as the enemy began to swarm the imperial line, trying to co-ordinate a counter push.
"Good. Keep us moving in Kenny." Robart flicked his microbead to broadcast. "A section on me, B section support, pincer with D, E and C Move!" Robart thought clearly to himself for the first time in the hour and a half of fighting. It was getting bleak again, he could feel the adrenaline surging through his body and pulsing in his ears. But as he had always told himself. Never doubt the human will to survive.
Uzslag looked out of the command rooms long view window. It was a massacre; the damn humans were destroying his tanks. But there were starting to slow down now. His tanks were holding the humans at bay now and his battle fortress was giving them hell. Uzslag thought of the perfect way to finish off a victorious battle. He turned to his deck crew and roared.
"Send in da Stormboyz!"