A/N: Sorry this took so long. Real life's been a bitch. Between my Grandpa getting a stroke and play practice kicking into high gear I've had no time for writing. Thanks for bearing with me guys!
Isador Akios kicked me in the butt and got me typing. He deserves hugs and more reviewers for his amazing space marine fic. Go look at it. It's wonderful. He also thinks I have fans…it makes me giggle.
Conna Dalvar paced up and down the trench. They were dug in, preparing for the final attack on the orkish stronghold. Her men were tense, well aware of the fierce battle ahead of them. Most had been fighting for weeks, some for months, and there was not a single person who didn't want this to be over.
"Well, this is it." Major Alimar joined Conna at the lookout, gazing towards the distant cloud that represented the enemy forces. Scouting missions estimated the ork force at over twice the size of their own standing army, and the enemy's ranks were swelling with every passing day.
"that's for sure," Conna said with more calmness than she felt, "But it's gonna be a doozy, Stragigic advantage be damned."
"Don't let your men hear that," he said with a wry chuckle. "It would be bad for morale." Conna twitched, trying to hide a smile of her own.
"Not with you here for comic relief," she deadpanned, making Alimar snort. "But my men are veterans, down to the last trooper, and if they haven't figured out what they're in for, I'm an ambull steak."
"Did someone say steak?"
"Head down, trooper. I have a gun," Conna said straight-faced, "and unlike some of you, I can hit a target smaller than a squggoth." Outright laughter greeted this, and Conna smiled.
These bouts of humor were a welcome relief from the stresses of waiting for battle. The restless boredom weighed heavily on many of the troops despite Conna's efforts to lighten the mood. She was only one person and she could only do so much.
"Ehm, commissar?" Conna turned to find Trooper Endicott waiting nervously at the foot of the stairwell leading to the watchtower.
"What's the situation, Cotty?" she asked, using his affectionate nickname in an attempt to put him at ease.
"You wanted to be informed when the latest scout reports came in and…Well, you have to see this for yourself." Conna felt her stomach sink at his words.
That's hardly comforting, she thought grimly, Hardly comforting at all. Conna excused herself and joined Endicott at the foot of the stairs. She was led through the warren of trenches until they were standing at the door of the command bunker. Endicott turned, murmuring about returning to his post. Nodding. Conna pushed aside the flap and entered the tent.
The sight that greeted her confirmed her suspicions. Inquisitor Anna Dejarnette and her adept Rizelle had their heads over a map along with Colonel Alio Asem of Conna's regiment, the lower command staff of Alimar's regiment and Colonel Varras DeMarr, the commander of the armored regiment that had reinforced them two days earlier. He had already rubbed Conna the wrong way by questioning her ability and looking down on her for being a woman in a "men's world". She gave him an icy glare as she entered and moved as far away form him as she could without being rude.
"Considerate of you to join us, Commissar," he said snidely. Conna bit the inside of her lip, what was left of her good mood evaporating like mist under a noon sun. She looked down to look at the slate and her blood froze.
"Squggoths, Commissar," Rizelle said grimly, gesturing to the orbital scans and scout reports. "At least four are on the front lines and they need to be kept out of our infantry at all costs." At this, Conna interrupted.
"DeMarr, keep them off our backs at all costs. Armor piercing rounds to the stomachs do the trick." DeMarr shifted, placing himself directly in Conna's line of sight. Conna grit her teeth,
"I don't need advice from a stripling, upstart female," he spat, a fleck of spittle landing on her cheek.
"I only thought—"
"I was serving in the army before you were born, girl, and I demand that you respect me!" At this Conna snapped and drew her weapon, quivering with rage. She aimed it point blank at DeMarr, holding it just millimeters away from the tip of his pug nose.
"The only reason you are not a slowly cooling corpse on the ground is that I need you to keep my men alive," she hissed, her pent up rage shattering her carefully constructed mask. "If you cross me one more time, I can promise you won't be so lucky. And as for respect, I'll promise you nothing that I am not given in return. And if you don't manage to keep the Squggoths off our lines and live to tell about it, I can guarantee you a coward's death. Now, I'm finished here, unless anyone else has something important to say to me. " She waited for a moment, then stalked out of the room, the tent flap snapping behind her.
"That insufferable, little, sodden excuse for a piece of shit," Conna muttered, pounding her balled fist into a sandbag wall. She had plopped herself down on the top of a sentry gun port, as far away from prying eyes as she could manage. Stewing in her rage, she didn't notice that Colonel Alimar had plopped himself down beside her until he spoke.
"DeMarr getting under your skin?" he asked sympathetically. Conna flinched, and then smiled weakly.
"You have no idea," she said, rolling her eyes. "That sorry piece of grox shit thinks he can walk all over me because I'm a woman. I don't see him treating you like this."
"He's not overt about it, but he's a snide bastard, and doesn't hesitate to belittle me because of the recentness of my promotion. I'm not sure there's a single person in this entire bloody encampment that likes him. Makes me pity his troops." Conna smiled, her bad mood slowly dissipating.
"I hope he gets stepped on by a squggoth," she said with a sigh. She stood, looking at her hand in mild bemusement. She hadn't realized she had worn a flushed and irritated mark on the skin.
"I should be going," she said softly, patting him on the backing a friendly gesture. "I have things to attend to, and I'm sure you do as well." Alimar nodded and they walked down the stairs together before going their separate ways.
The artillery barrage started at dawn. Conna gasped, jerking from a restless dream, grasping her gun and racing outside. Her eyes were still blurry eyed with sleep and se blinked her eyes clear. But when the calmness of the surrounding trench seeped into her sleep-fogged brain, she muttered a quiet curse. Fuming, she stalked back into her bunker, tugging on her sleep-rumpled greatcoat and yanking her hat firmly over her ears.
That little frakker wanted a little revenge for my put-down, She muttered, trying to smooth out her sleep rumpled greatcoat. Tramping back outside, she sauntered to a sentry post, taking a pair of magnoculars to scan the enemy lines.
It seemed like the barrage was doing its work. Impressive holes were being gouged in the band of green, but for every hole there seemed to be ten times as many solid blocks of orks. As she watched, the foe began its charge over the vast track of open space between the trenches.
If they didn't vastly outnumber us, this wouldn't even be a fight, Conna thought grimly. As it is, they'll still have the advantage. There's just so frakking many of them. She clenched her jaw, well aware of the fierce battle ahead. She saw the men around her tense, and knew they had seen the same thing she had.
"Men!" she cried, modulating her voice so it carried across the front lines. "The enemy comes knocking at our door. Will we let him pass without a fight?" A deafening roar met her words and she smiled, raising a fist in the air. "No we will not! We will fight until we are victorious or we are all dead. We will fight, down to the last man. You may fall, but if you die today you will die in glory. Today is a day when heroes will be made. Today will be a day seeped in glory. We make our last stand here and now! For the Emperor!"
The battle wasn't as bad as Conna had expected. It was worse. Despite her overt warning to DeMarr, the Squggoths were still a huge problem. Three of them had been brought down with long-range missiles before they became a problem, but the fourth made it into the lines, crippling the artillery. When the tanks were brought up to counter it with armor piercing rounds, it disabled three tanks by stepping on them before being falling right on top of a trio of squads who had been trying to bring it down with hand-held krak grenade launchers. And that was only the first wave.
Conna pressed herself against a lukewarm corpse. Split by an ork charge, Conna and two squads of men had been pinned behind a dead squiggoth. Her back, pressed into the ragged bloody craters torn in the thick hide by armor piercing explosives, was stick with half-dried blood and itched infernally. She craved a good swordfight, but she knew she couldn't take 100 orks on herself and she didn't have a death wish.
Merric, one of the company snipers, was taking pot shots at the mass of green bodies, doing his best to keep them off the troopers. Fortunately from the perspective of the guardsmen perspective, they were mostly being left alone, the roar of artillery and the hiss of lasbeams a more tempting target than any gone-to-ground guardsmen.
"What now?" Conna looked up into the slightly nervous face of Trooper Jansen. He was no more than 19 or 20, and he was still very green, having been a fresh recruit at the beginning of the campaign. He had a long face and big, round brown eye, framed by messy brown hair. "We can't just hide here. We'd be cowards!" Conna smiled outwardly at his loyal naivety.
"Being careful isn't the same as being cowardly," she said, making sure she was speaking just loud enough to be heard by all the men around her. "Running out here to die isn't useful and would be simply moronic. And the last time I checked, we weren't morons." The men who had worked with Conna before chuckled, and Conna felt the tension ease slightly.
"Holy Throne, what is that thing?" Conna crawled forward, joining Merric in a half crouch behind the body. He pointed, and handed Conna his scope.
"Saw it while I was doing a scan. Any ideas?" Conna gulped, trying to keep her nerves in check.
"Death," she replied tartly, turning away to talk to Anderson, who had been trying to patch into the vox network.
"Patch me in, Anderson," she ordered, crouching down beside him.
"The connection's not very good," he warned. "A lot of static."
"I'll get my message through," Conna said grimly, punching in her override code.
"Command, this is Commissar Dalvar, Come in. Repeat, this is Commissar Dalvar. Command, come in." A hiss of static greeted her, but, much to Conna's relief, it quickly resolved into speech.
"…ing you loud and clear, Commissar. State your status and location."
"Status: stuck. Location: far away," Conna said, her battlefield humor leaking into her broadcast. "But that's unimportant. A gargant has been sighted 15 degrees from our current location. Far enough to be almost invisible to the naked eye unless you're looking for it but close enough to be a real threat." She rattled off her coordinates and the rough coordinates of the gargant and sat back, awaiting a response. There was a pause as this registered, and Conna could hear the sounds of command buzzing faintly in her ear.
"Sighting confirmed, Commissar. Heavy armor is being rerouted to your location, along with new reinforcements."
"Reinforcements?" Conna asked surprised despite herself. "I was not aware that the tactical situation had changed enough for any sort of significant rerouting of our resources."
"We have been reinforced by 3 squads of Black Templars," came the reply. "It seems the situation here has been brought to the attention of some rather influential people."
"No kidding," Conna said dryly. "We will await assistance. Conna out."
The arrival of the Space Marines was a welcome relief. The assault marines reached them first, the bounding leaps of their jet packs taking them over most of the orks. The few that remained between them and Conna's men were shredded without a thought.
"Commissar," greeted the sergeant coolly as he and his men formed a tight circle. Conna could not help but shiver at the sight of the cold wall of stark black and white that closed in around them. The Space Marines radiated barely contained deadliness and Conna knew that the only reason she was still breathing was because they let her. She was in awe of the power of the Emperor's chosen sons. All of them gathered quickly including, much to Conna's surprise, a venerated dreadnought. By the time they had all gathered, the gargant was looming over the battlefield, rudimentary weaponry spitting death on armor and infantry alike. At a nod, the Space Marines moved to engage the enemy.
The battle was quite a sight. The Templars were a ruthless and eficient fighting force, letting nothing come between them and their objectives. But Conna, who belived in protecting those who could not protect themselves, was taken aback by their indifference towards the regular fighting troops. Despite their fighting prowess and clear field superiority, the Templars never once offered help to the beliegered guardmen, even when their objectives were not unsimilar to the Marines' own.
But despite all the savagery, the Templars gave the Guard a much-needed rest. The orks were pushed back allowing regrouping and resupplying. This in turn allowed Conna to regroup with her men, much to their obvious relief.
"Nice Commissars are hard to come by," said Colonel Asem, only half joking, when she returned. "We'd hate to loose you." Conna brushed it off with a smile, but was genuinely warmed by the troopers' respect and trust. But when she found DeMarr struggling out of a half crushed tank, she grit her teeth. Putting on a sticky sweet smile, she walked up to him, pulling her gun as she approached.
"Remember that little date I promised?" she asked, the smile on her face solidifying as she watched his eyes widen. "I wasn't kidding." The loud bang echoed in the suddenly silent field. Conna spat on the corpse and turned on her heel.
"Good riddance to bad rubbish."
The battle raged for days without easing, wave after wave of orks throwing themselves onto the immovable rock of the guard. The Space Marines only evened the odds, their unceasing presence steeling the determination of the normal fighting men. By the fifth day, Conna was battered and exhausted, but she led by example, her own effort exhorting her men to greater efforts. But the battle had dissolved into a bloody stalemate.
"We have to do something!" Conna slammed her open palms down on the table, begging Inquisitor Dejarnette to take some action.
"What do you recommend?" she asked coolly.
"Call for reinforcements!" Conna shouted, as if the answer was obvious. "Do you have any idea how useful a naval barrage would be? Or another thousand bodies on the ground? We can't win like this! That should be glaringly obvious!" Conna knew her men were all trying their hardest, but they were only men and the odds were just too huge. "We can throw ourselves into a fruitless battle or we can do the proper thing and ask for help. There is nothing wrong with asking for help when you really need it."
"So we need help do we?" Anna said calmly. "Very well."
Safely back on the flagship of the Anderican 23rd, Conna watched the orbital bombardment with no small amount of satisfaction. The blazes of hot white-blue light cut the clouds, slicing through the atmosphere and evaporating all the life, xeno and natural alike.
"Take a deep breath, gentlemen," she said to the room, full of her upper staff. "This is one party that's good and done. And none too soon"