The reaction was both expected and immediate. The guardsmen nodded, processed what Alaric had told them and immediately began shouting about how insane Alaric's idea was. Alaric let them voice their dissent until a Chimera came speeding by the door in the plaza and abruptly exploded. Capitalizing on the men's sudden silence, Alaric spoke up once again.
"If we step back another inch, those heretics will be able to swarm us. There's no way we're building an effective cordon in an area larger than this plaza, our only chance is to close the bottleneck, force them through there and grind down their reserves until they can't swarm us like they're doing now."
"Sir! There's a damned tank!" Dactar shouted, waving in its vague direction as if Alaric was blind. Alaric simply gritted his teeth and shook his head.
"Doesn't matter, Dac! If we stay here, the retreating heretics will double their number and smash us, and if we don't move up, then the tank will just get closer! We move now or we die!"
"I'm not doing this! I say we retreat!" Shouted one of the Guardsmen, and he received several nods. Alaric seemed to have no supporters in the motley group of survivors, Dactar glancing between his colonel and the other Guardsman as if trying to decide. Luckily however, they didn't have to wait long for a decision.
The rebellious man's eyes widened as a hole appeared in his forehead and he toppled over a bit of rubble, Lasgun flying out of his hand. Every man raised their weapons up, only to see Tauron standing in a hole in the wall, several Guardsmen behind him with their own weapons pointed in. Alaric lowered his gun immediately, nodding at the commissar and welcoming his presence for the first time that he could remember.
"It seems that we will be advancing. Tauron, how many men do you have with you?"
"A full squad, colonel. Fifteen men in all." Slowly, the Guardsmen in the room lowered their weapons, following Alaric's lead, and Alaric let out a small sigh of relief as the rebellion he had been dreading still did not spark.
"Good. Get your men ready to move, we don't have long. Dac, get whoever the warp is left in this plaza and have them get ready to advance on my order. How many of you lot can run?" Alaric got a quick accounting of the rest, six men too wounded to follow, twelve others still standing.
"Sir, 3rd and 4th Squad are ready to move! The survivors at least…" Alaric glanced out the open doorway to the buildings across the plaza, mentally picturing where the two squads would be.
"Right, you six, give us covering fire from the windows. Everyone else, get ready to move down the street. Keep your corners covered and eyes forward, we're going to need to push hard."
"What about the tank?" One of the men asked, glancing down at the corpse of his former comrade.
"Tauron, do any of the men you brought have a Tread Feather?" A short nod from Tauron answered the question. "Good, then we'll get them in one of the buildings flanking the tank and hopefully coordinate our fire with 3rd and 4th. Everybody else, we're going to be moving behind the vehicle. We'll have to distract it as our boys line up a shot. Is that clear, everyone!?" The chorus of affirmations helped relieve some of the tension in Alaric's gut, as well as Dactar informing him the other squads were ready, but something was telling him to be cautious.
Ignoring his paranoia, he nodded to the men around him.
They moved out soon after, the men slipping through the remains of the back wall and moving alley to alley, doorway to doorway, down the streets toward the wall. Alaric could see the bend they had blown through up ahead, the remains of the traffic barriers just visible through the gloom of the night (the floodlights around the wall helping illuminate some of the scene). Alaric could see several figures sprint up the stairs and disappear behind a building to their left, no doubt continuing further into the city.
When it was clear the figures weren't returning, they moved up further, almost halfway between the tank and their starting position. They could hear the withering gunfire behind them, and Alaric knew the men were hoping to rush in order to ensure their comrades lives. Alaric had similar hopes, though his reasoning was more akin to the fact that if the men they left behind stopped shooting, his job would get much more difficult.
"Up ahead! These vekkers survived the bloody shelling!" The accent was unrecognizable to Alaric, and if he hadn't been trained in linguistics in the Schola, or if he hadn't interacted with over a dozen different regiments of varying accent in his time with the Guard, he was sure he wouldn't have been able to even recognize the words. The Deeprokers themselves, who no doubt never even heard anything but the differing accents of Deeprok, clearly had no idea what they had just heard.
"Down! Down!" Alaric whispered, just quietly enough not to be heard. The Deeproker's training thankfully kicked in, and they quickly slipped behind whatever cover they could find. Alaric found himself ducking into an alley.
"Shut it! Keep moving!" Came another heretic's response, the sound of boots getting clearer. Peeking his head out, he could see a squad of the 99th sprinting down the road, obviously not expecting an ambush. Alaric glanced over the pieces of cover in the road to see almost every eye on him, Guardsmen in the opposite alley or behind cars in the street waiting for his order.
Alaric held up a hand to stall any movements, slowly bringing his lasgun up to bear, and waited. The pitter patter of boots, scratching across the sand covered stone as they ran slowly began to become clearer and louder to Alaric's ears as the hostiles approached. Finally, the first man came into view, glowing green night-vision goggles lightly glowing in the night, his armor kept together by tight straps and bandoliers, a well used lasgun in his hands.
The men glanced at the heretic and then looked back at Alaric, the man sprinting by the Guardsmen and not noticing, Alaric keeping his hand up. Soon, the second and third man passed, then the fourth and fifth, and finally Alaric shouted.
"Open fire! Open fire!" The night was immediately illuminated by las, the air snapping at the sudden intrusion, the smell of ionized oxygen filling the street as a brutal crossfire was established.
To the heretic's credit, they managed to try and put up a fight before they were cut down. Alaric ducked slightly as las flew over his head, the renegades firing off highly inaccurate shots in the general direction of their enemies. This only lasted for a moment, and soon, the last heretic was shot to pieces by the Guardsmen all around him.
Silence quickly filled the street, and Alaric looked behind him, a Guardsman leaned into his lasgun, waiting for the next heretic to run into his sights.
"You, what's your name?" Alaric asked. The man glanced around before realizing he was being spoken to.
"Haidan, sir."
"Haidan, go and move up. Be careful, we need to establish if there's anymore." The man's dark face paled slightly as he realized what he was being asked, but he quickly nodded and slipped out of the alley. Alaric motioned for the other nearby Guardsmen to cover the man, and they watched as he carefully slid up the street, keeping himself behind cover and moving as cautiously as possible.
After a minute, Alaric motioned for the men to move up, and they quickly began moving to the next pieces of cover between them and the end of the street. The bend was coming up ahead, a single building, their target, between them and the wall. Alaric was almost ready to call for a sprint when he saw a green flash in a window, a light passing by.
"Halt! Halt damn it!" He told the surrounding men, trying his best to ensure his voice didn't spread too far. The men immediately fell back into cover, and he crouched down, running over to a sergeant who was sitting, lasgun aimed forward, behind a staircase that led into a building.
"Sergeant Bedouit?" Alaric asked, and the man nodded. Tauron had told him who exactly he had picked up just before they left, and Bedouit's men had the Tread Feather.
"What is it, sir?" The man asked, slightly testily, glancing between Alaric and the building and obviously wondering what his colonel was stalling them over.
"How many rounds do you have for the Tread Feather?"
"Fuadene is carrying six last I checked, but the damned Nomad probably lost some of them." Ignoring the fantastic racism, Alaric nodded.
"Put a round in the second story of that building."
"Sir? Are you feeling alright?"
"I saw their goggles through the window. Put the round through before they see us or the tank fucking blows up whatever's left of our men."
"But… sir, we're going to need-"
"Sir! 3rd and 4th Squad have reached their objectives and are waiting for orders," Dactar whispered, hiding behind a car that had been crushed by a Chimera at some point.
"The Tread Feather sergeant. Now." The man frowned before nodding.
"Fuadene, go help Arstide with the damned Tread Feather. You heard the colonel. One round rapid." The men quickly got to it, one man pulling a rocket from his pack and helping the other load his launcher. A moment later, they ensured the area behind them was clear and then fired. Smoke immediately billowed out the back of the launcher, mixing with the dust and sand and flying back in a huge cloud as the scene was briefly lit in a warm glow.
The rocket spinned down the street and Alaric was briefly afraid they'd be off target, but the rocket hit home, and flames billowed out from the second floor of the building before the walls seem to expand and then exploded in all directions. A column collapsed somewhere in the building, and the remains of the roof and the second floor came down, obviously some structural weakness from the prior bombings assisting their attack. Several bodies came tumbling down with the rubble, scorched from the explosions and only a few groaning in pain.
Lasfire immediately came down, heretics leaning out from behind buildings and out of the windows of others, but with the center of their ambush stopped so violently, they were easily beaten back. The firing became sporadic as the disciplined response of the Guardsmen cut the ambushers down, and what reinforcements they brought in was quickly halted, Sergeant Bedouit having his men set up a stubber behind a car.
"I want two teams with me, we're going to take what's left of that building and open fire. The rest of you get into the building to our right, try and hit the tank in the back before it kills us, if you may. Move!" The men nodded and quickly began sprinting down the road. The rocketeers and their help disappeared into the doorways of the building nearby, and Alaric's men pushed hard forward, moving into cover and firing before moving again.
The heretics knew they were flanking now, and the Imperials began meeting stiffer resistance the further they pushed up the street. He didn't feel comfortable letting the Tread Feather fire until they could get the damned tank distracted, and he ushered the men forward despite the heavy fire they were beginning to receive. Despite this however, they were soon passing the bend, the men splitting up to either climb the building or find other cover.
The corpse strewn pile of rubble gave several of the men access to the second 'floor', or the pile of rubbles, broken supports and a small bit of flooring which hadn't collapsed that now constituted it. They quickly opened up fire from their superior vantage point. With their cover, Alaric soon ducked behind the remains of one of the traffic barriers, not trusting the collapsing building to give him a stable base, other men doing similar or bunching up around the corner of the building. At a few sharp words, they quickly began running inside to find positions by the windows.
"Open fire! Get that thing's atten-" Alaric's breath caught as he saw a second Leman Russ in the plaza. He could see the chords he had seen the heretics pulling earlier, now hitched to the back of the second tank. The vehicle moved forward, men grabbing the chord and helping pull, and slowly the form of a third tank was brought over the pile of rubble that filled the broken portion of the wall.
He didn't know why he was so surprised. They were heretics after all, but still. He had expected the wall to keep them safe from armor, even in destruction, and he had no idea how the first tank had gotten in until now.
"Sir!?" Dactar shouted, obviously confused.
"Take out the tank with the chords! Open fire now! Get them firing!" Dactar began shouting some orders and Alaric watched with barely contained trepidation as the tank slowly began cresting over the hill of rubble. The second tank was slowly turning to their position, lining up a shot while attempting to bring its front armor to the source of fire.
The tank pulling the other, however, did not have the advantage of movement. With the chords connected, the only way to move was forward, and the tank seemed unsure of in which direction to fire. If it found a target, it didn't have a chance to use it, as rockets flew out from either side and scored shots on both of its lightly armored flanks, snapping the treads. Although the vehicle didn't go up in flames like Alaric had hoped, one of the rockets impacted near the back, one of the chords snapping and the third tank suddenly tilting to the side, its movement up the hill of rubble halted.
It slowly began turning its turret towards them when Arstide and Fuadene proved their ability with the Tread Feather and managed to get another round in the air before the tank itself could find a target to fire at. The rocket slammed into the turret and destroyed most of the vehicle's top. Without its treads or turret, the vehicle was soon useless, and Alaric yelled for Dactar to fire on the first tank again, the vehicle once again adjusting to meet the anti-tank weapons.
A groan and a snap heralded the last chord connecting the two tanks snapping from the stress, and the third Leman Russ came sliding back down the rubble and out of view, hitting the ground with a loud crash and a snap that heralded a broken tread.
"Reinforcements are pushing through the back of the plaza, sir!" Dactar shouted, and Alaric nodded happily, his mood only hurt by the explosion demolishing one of 4th Squad's hiding spots. Even when the cannon didn't annihilate Alaric and his men, the bolter fire was keeping their heads low, and he could see several heretics sprinting towards their cover, getting far too close for comfort.
3rd and 4th Squad's Tread Feather's rockets bounced off the hull of the Leman Russ, the vehicle pointed straight at them. Arstide and Fuadene got a good shot into the vehicle's back, popping the engine and causing a blossom of fire to expand outwards. The vehicle's turret still turned to take out its newfound target however, pointing straight towards the building their anti-tank sat in.
Alaric could have sworn the anti-tank troopers and their escort were doomed (on the bright side, Tauron was with them), when another rocket came from elsewhere in the plaza, the shell breaking through and detonating inside the tank's ammo stores. The sound of bolter rounds popping off and no doubt eviscerating the crew filled the air, the scene looking as if firecrackers on Emperor's Day were being thrown at the vehicle, before the cannon's shells themselves detonated and the vehicle popped open like an overheated tin can.
"Fire! Keep them down on the gap! Get 2nd and 3rd Company to charge, we need those heretic's pushed back!"
Alaric was sure that Captain Ghadee and Captain Basill of 2nd Company wanted to impress him, because their men went about their work so well that he was sure Ollanius Pius was off by the Emperor somewhere, tears in his eyes at the pure eagerness to be the first to die. A roar filled the air as hundreds of men charged the remaining heretics, bayonets out.
Cover in the plaza, besides what rubble remained, was thankfully low, and the heretics were unable to find any stable firing positions to hold the Guardsmen from. Besides those hiding behind the remains of their tanks or the one or two piles of rubble suitable for hiding, the heretics had to remain prone in a vain attempt to present a smaller target. When the Guardsmen reached them, the heretics began breaking ranks to try and resist the charge, but in the chaos of the battle they were quickly overran.
Sure his men, judging by the looks in their eyes, would end up doing so whether he ordered them to or not, Alaric himself quickly ordered a charge for the men with him.
They went running down the stairs, some jumping over those entirely, or dropping down from the remains of the building. They armed bayonets as they ran, Alaric slipping the knife from his uniform and locking it in on the barrel of the weapon. The movement was a bit unfamiliar, but he remembered his lessons well enough, as well as some of the more desperate moments of the Horones V Campaign.
The heretics were now pouring through the gap with a vengeance, no doubt realizing it was their last chance to maintain their opening. They came down the gap, skidding down on the balls of their feet to move faster, or stumbling down as their legs moved too quickly for them. Others simply collapsed at some point during that process as las cut through their bodies. Some sat at the top, trying to fire down, but as the sky slowly began to turn from black to grey, their silhouettes and glowing goggles stood out clearly, and they too were cut down.
Alaric felt his bayonet bite deep into a man's chest, and he yanked the weapon out before whipping it around and slashing another man's gut. The fight was obviously beginning to favor the Deeprokers, and soon Alaric watched as they began taking up the heretics old firing positions, gunning down the renegades as they either climbed back up the pile or jumped off the other side.
A screeching noise sounded behind him, and turning around, he saw the burnt and twisted hatch of the useless first tank pop off. A disheveled looking driver popped his head out, and soon lost it as Alaric shot him in the forehead. Reaching down, he grabbed a grenade off a man's belt as the rest of the tank's crew slipped back inside to cover. Judging the distance briefly, he lobbed the explosive over, and had to smile when it rolled around the lip and then fell inside as if he was playing a game of Barlball back in the Schola.
He heard a shout from inside and then smoke popped out the top, the tank immediately going silent as inky smoke drifted out of the hole. At the rather theatrical blast, the nearby Guardsmen cheered before he allowed himself to be beckoned into cover behind the erstwhile tank. Alaric found Dactar, at his side as always, and shouted over the din of battle.
"Get the PDF over here! I want defenses shored up yesterday! And tell them to bring demo charges, mind as well prepare some surprises." As Dactar began repeating the information, Guardsman Haidan leaned back into cover and turned to his colonel.
"Sir! How are we going to keep them out?!"
"We're not going to. Welcome to the war, guardsman, it just began."
"Daskan, get me a report from the companies. I only see three stubbers, there should be at least six here."
"Yes sir! PDF command just reported that they're bringing in three more Leman Russ's for our use."
"That's a lot of tanks. Who requisitioned them?"
"General Luveaux is back on his feet."
"He's a tough old bastard, for an Urbaner… get those spotlights on, we might be able to blind them while the sun is still down. Shame it's rising in the east, but what are you going to do? Tell the men to keep their goggles down, just in case the sun comes out while the attack is still going on."
"You think it'll take that long, sir?"
"The next hour is going to decide whether we hold them here or we hold them at the Governor's Estate. I fully expect it to take that long."
"Yes sir." Saveer nodded as Daskan complied, watching from the inside of one of the many buildings in the street, his choice of command post directly facing the city's gate. He didn't plan on staying long, knowing his supervision would be more helpful in his command post, but the defense had to be planned perfectly, and he'd be damned if he let anyone mess up the most important stage. His men would trust him to do what's best he knew, unlike the 12th's Foreigner. He felt a brief pang of pity, knowing the man would face open rebellion if he dare leave his men and go pack to his command post, and that briefly went away. What did he care if the Foreigner was deposed? Maybe Duret could take over, somebody Saveer didn't completely dislike. Better than Attelus or Naveed at least.
He watched as the spotlights flickered to life, beams hitting the heavy doors to the outside world. They expected demo charges, so the men were well back from the door. If the barrier could protect the city from the eight meter tall Cragdevils with their skin of rock, he very well doubted that the heretic's armor was going to break it open, and that only left one possibility in his mind for how they were going to crack it.
No, nothing but blasting charges, and so the men sat well away. Over a hundred lasguns were pointed at the door, the Little Ace's and their Leman Russ's along with twelve Chimera's also placed at key firing positions. They could still hear the cracks of lasfire from down the wall, and he idly hoped Attelus at least proved useful enough to not allow the heretics to flank them, but that was for later thinking.
The sound of engines had been filling the air from the assorted vehicles, but it grew louder as more vehicles came within earshot, just beyond the wall.
"Here they come! Everyone get ready!" shouted Major Dellatre, his thick Urbaner accent carrying an air of annoyance, as always. The man was still dependable enough for Saveer's high standards however, having been hand chosen by Saveer for the spot of XO from their former PDF company, and he added his assent.
"You heard the Major, Daskan, times up. Where are the reports?"
"Guns are now online as requested, Captain Caronnas, Dumortier and Lieutenant Kelska all report that they are ready."
"It's Captain Kelska now, Daskan, with Captain Illxi dead."
"Y-yes Sir. Of course, Sir." They were all still shocked at the death of Illxi, one of the most decorated Nomads on the planet. Nomads had a hard enough time getting a leadership position on Deeprok, the only significant one besides himself who he could think of being Naveed, who got his position out of luck and money. The Nomad's morale had sagged at the loss, but the fact that Kelska was also a Nomad helped them go on.
Finally, the courtyard lapsed into silence. And they sat that way for a minute, then another, then ano-
BANG!
Saveer winced as dust flew off the door as it shook, but otherwise nothing happened. No big blast. Not even one on the other side to mark a failed demolition.
"Did they just try and ram us?" The nearby Lieutenant Courso wondered aloud, a bit of humor entering his voice.
BANG!
Another hit, more dust shaking off and a dent forming. Saveer frowned at this, a Leman Russ could simply not cause that much damage.
"Everyone, eyes open! Get ready!" Saveer shouted as loudly as he could. He rarely let his voice rise beyond a soft, neutral tone. His men, knowing it was serious if he was shouting, quickly shut up and got back to business. Saveer tensed up as the next bang popped the doors open slightly, showing a small place in between the dented metal, where something moved towards them again.
BANG!
And then the doors were off. Both went skidding across the plaza, and Saveer's breath immediately caught in his throat. He had simply never seen anything like what he now looked at, nothing that big, nothing that deadly.
It was the single largest ground vehicle Saveer had seen in his life.
A squat cannon built into the chassis fired a round straight into the building three down from Saveer's, rocking the ground below them and collapsing a nearby wall, the weapon easily smashing the stone and wiping out over a dozen men. Twin-linked Bolters on both side sponsons soon began chewing up the Guard positions around it, two Autocannons easily breaking through whatever defenses they had carefully laid down.
And it didn't end there. Las shot out and pierced through one of the Little Ace's treads, the vehicle shuddering and leaning over slightly as the bright red light cut through like a knife through butter, nearly blinding Saveer. To further hinder his view, a searchlight on the side of the main cannon flickered to life, temporarily blinding anyone who dared look at the tank as the cannon passed over them. The top hatched popped open to allow the vehicle's commander to play with his pintle-mounted stubber, and the main cannon fired shortly thereafter.
The cannon was squat, about the size of a Leman Russ cannon, which was miniscule in comparison to the rest of the vehicle. Despite its relatively small size however, it fired off with a bang of thunder, Saveer wincing as the scene suddenly filled with smoke. The Little Ace with the broken tread immediately erupted into flames, the commander, Lugo Masque, who Saveer had known for nearly twenty years, diving out of his position in flames, screaming bloody murder.
Several of the Deeprokers didn't have the sense to run like the warp, and the flamers on either side of the vehicle quickly showed them the error in their ways, Guardsmen screaming as they were burned alive. With each of its weapons showed off, the vehicle shot out cannisters from the smoke launchers.
Or at least that's what Saveer expected, a smoky haze to mingle with the smoke thrown out when the cannon's had fired, to finally prevent any chance of return fire. And to an extent, Saveer saw what he expected, the canisters popping open and filling the air with smoke, obscuring the vehicle from view. But there was something off about the color, a greenish, yellowish gas filling the air instead.
There was screaming and coughing as the smoke filled the plaza, and then the men started stumbling out of it.
He watched in horror as the survivors, at least those who could find their way out and were still able enough to do so, stumbled out of the smoke, trying to scream. Huge blisters covered their bodies, red and dripping with pus. Their eyes were shot red, and several reached up and scratched at them in pain, only for their hands to dip in as if they were pushing through warm butter.
Most hands however scratched at their blister and pustule covered throat. Their necks all swelled up, clogging their air pipes, and soon the men who hadn't already fallen began spasming on the ground or started falling to their knees and suffocating. The blisters continued to grow with contact to the gas, and the skin seemed to rot before them, one man reaching up, only for the withered remains of his arm to collapse in on itself, gore dropping next to the man in a heap as he fell forward, dead.
"Oh, by the Spirits, by the Saints, by the Holy Emperor of the Skies and Dunes!" screamed a panicked Lieutenant Atyah as he stumbled by, the Nomad evoking every single holy term their people had as he began looking for a way out. One of the men began puking on the floor from the sight, joining those outside who did so as soon as the gas entered their lungs.
The gas was soon filling the rest of the plaza, as if following the Guardsmen who were now openly retreating from the horror before them. One man stumbled out of the gas, blood running down one eye from where it had melted, his face an unrecognizable mass of blood and puss and Emperor knew what else, and collapsed for the doorway, briefly croaking out a request for help before expiring.
"Everyone! Away from the windows! Get your damned scarves up!" Saveer screamed, his voice cracking for the first time in his life, backing away from the gas that shifted in through the shattered frames. Lieutenant Courso opened his mouth to say something, but instead simply got a good wift of the gas and immediately began coughing, his desperate attempt to inhale only welcoming more in. Saveer quickly raised his scarf, customary for all Deeprokers, and raised it over his nose before grabbing the lieutenant and yanking him deeper in the building.
"The back door!" Major Dellatre shouted as the Guarsdmen slammed it open, the men tumbling into the hallway beyond as if their lives depended on it, which they very well did. Saveer was the last one out, dragging the wheezing Courso with him, and the Guardsmen slammed the door shut behind them. They heard someone slam on it briefly, but friend or foe, they couldn't tell, and no doubt the person was already doomed regardless.
Guardsmen quickly began dragging in tables, chairs, even a pict screen, bracing all of them against the door in an attempt to stall whatever was on the other side. One man ruefully tore off his scarf before rolling it up and shoving it in the crack of the door. The scarves were the mark of a man for Nomads, and he was sure it pained him to throw away his scarf, almost as much as some gas in his lungs would have.
They could still hear the bangs and shouts of the battle, which still raged where the gas cloud had not yet reached. The distinctive boom of the tank's cannons constantly filled the air, almost always answered with the brief sounds of screaming, which were almost always cut off shortly after.
"W-what do we do, sir?" Daskan asked, his normally dark face a milky, off colored grey. Saveer glanced around, trying to decide what to do with the ten or twelve men who had escaped with them, his thoughts broken by Courso collapsing onto his hands and knees, coughing furiously.
"Medic!" Atyah shouted, falling next to his fellow lieutenant in an attempt help him.
"F-fine! I'll be-" Courso's speech was cut off by more coughing, flakes of blood splattering the floor in front of him.
"The closest medic is at the command post…" Daskan said, glancing back towards the door as if to remind everyone that whatever medical personnel they had dragged along were stuck outside. Saveer winced, even if they found a medic who had managed to survive so far at the command post, he doubted they could help the dying lieutenant.
But he was their commander damn it, and the alternative, giving up and running, was unthinkable.
Summoning back his usually calm, brisk demeanor, he nodded and slipped the laspistol from its holster.
"Men, we have a defense to begin. Let's get moving."
Alaric frowned as he saw what look like a yellowish gas float up into the air by the gate. He had expected a breach there, or at least an attempt at one, and the thickness of the metal doors no doubt meant he'd see smoke from whatever they used to blast the things open, but he hadn't expected that. In Alaric's long years (comparative to the Deeproker's, at least) in the Guard, he hadn't quite ever seen anything like that, but it set quite a bad feeling into his gut.
"Uh… sir. You might want to hear this…" Dactar said, looking aghast as he listened to no doubt dozens of contact reports. Alaric stepped behind the broken heretic tank, trying not to look at the scorched and broken symbols of dark gods beyond his comprehension, passing by the barriers of rubble and sandbags the PDF had been erecting as his men kept the heretics at bay in the gap.
His young Vox-operator handed him his headset, hands shaking uncharacteristically as he did so. Alaric frowned at that, and slipped the headphones over his head grimly, knowing whatever he heard wasn't going to be good.
"T-this is Lieutenant Kel- fuck! Captain Kelska, Deeprok 11th, 3rd Com- I mean… this is Crassus-Three-Ac- Emperor on Earth fuck it! The line is broken! They're using poison gas! 1st Company is… it's all gone!" there was brief static, no doubt caused from some sort of explosion, and before he could figure out if Kelska had died in the interim, another voice broke over.
"Major Dubois, acting CO of 5th PDF Light Infantry. I'm getting contacts all along sectors 3, 4 and 6. We were told we would be the reserves, what the hell is going on-"
"We're taking fire! We're taking fire! What the fuck is that thing?! It's a damned monster tank! Somebody send some help, we're in Pius Lan-"
"This is Guardsmen T-T-Tashen of the- everyone's dead! I've got three dozen refugees holding down here and there are heretics coming up the street! P-please, there's women and childr-"
"This is Colonel Saveer, we are reestablishing-"
"By the Spirits they're everywhere!"
"Oh- oh god- oh god I can't breath…"
"We're falling back! We're getting the dirt out of here!"
"My lieutenant's dead! Who the warp is running this-" Alaric felt a bit of sympathy for his Vox-operator as he pulled off the headset, handing it back to him.
"What's going on over there?" Tauron demanded, and Alaric stared at the gap blankly, where several heretics sat, trying to keep their Imperial friends busy. Las pitter-pattered against the side of the broken tank, met with a chorus of a dozen shots, and Alaric didn't even flinch.
"Dactar, get whoever is leading the constabulary and the Arbites on the line, and whichever PDF squigshits aren't fighting or running and have them break open whatever half buried armory they can find in this city. Gasmasks, chemical suits, everything we have its going to every single person we can get it to. Military personnel are the priority. Not much use helping the non-combatants if the heretics are just going to kill them."
"Yes sir." Alaric turned around until he saw the man he was looking for, Basill, the captain of 3rd Company who was ducked behind a pile of rubble while yelling off something to his men.
"Captain Basill!" Alaric shouted before running between the two bits of cover, more out of habit than a fear of accurate heretic fire.
"What is it?" Basill demanded, snapping around with a scowl. He was one of the ones who outright hated Alaric, and the tired colonel couldn't be bothered to care.
"I'm going to leave 3rd Company and the PDF, 1st and 2nd are moving to reinforce the gate. Vox if something happens, but try and keep things organized."
"You want me to hold this damned gap with a company? A single company?" Alaric glanced around at the PDF troopers who sat stupefied behind cover, gaping like the good country bumpkins that they were.
"You have plenty of PDF troopers around to help you, captain. If you don't want to lead the defense, I'm sure one of them would love to."
"You fucking offworld…" Alaric's eyes narrowed but the man trailed off, the captain glancing around suddenly. Alaric noticed it too, and realized that the entire plaza had gone silent. Even the heretics had stopped firing.
"What the warp is going on…" Tauron said as he jogged over to Alaric's cover, Dactar close behind him. Alaric glanced around again. He could see the lasfire and explosions in the inner city, but he couldn't hear any of that. The night was perfectly still, and hardly anyone dared break the silence, and for some reason the sky seemed to be suddenly getting darker.
"S-sir… the vox…" Dactar said, handing him the headset again. Alaric felt a tingling on his skin, his hair going on end, knowing that some foul forces beyond his control were at work. Ruefully, he put the headset on.
"Hahahaha! HAHAHA! Khaos'Aqshyash! I'tzeen Aqshyash! I'kar Khaosek!" The laughter became shrieking and Alaric tore the headset off, a single high pitched squeal coming out of the headset. He wasn't sure what had hurt his ears more, the dark language that had droned out or the shrieking noise. Still, something about the voice nagged him, and he sat in contemplation for a second before his vision suddenly swam.
He collapsed onto the barricade. He was already still a bit nauseous, and moving around too much set the crack in his head flaring again, but suddenly he felt worse than he had all day. He heard the sounds of Guardsmen around him throwing up whatever food they had in their stomachs, and even Tauron seemed to sway. He felt his throat begin to clam up and his brow begin to sweat, and his clothes suddenly began to feel tight and constrictive.
"Colo-nel, what's ha-appening…" Dactar asked before falling on his ass, looking ready to burst.
"Sorcery! W-warp, fogging sorcery!" Alaric gasped in reply, leaning against the tank for support. He was about to ask, stupidly in retrospect, who was doing it when the laughter boomed across the plaza.
None of them had seen him come, but Margos Pale had arrived.
Zech aimed down his sight once again, sitting on a bed on the back wall of what used to be a three story apartment building. He aimed through the window, the closed shades only allowing an inch or two of room to aim, and squeezed the trigger when one of the heretics poked his head out of cover. The man's helmet popped off his head as he pitched backwards, and Zech fired off at the hand that reached for the man to dissuade any further movement, smiling as he took off three of the fingers.
They had been holding the heretics on the street for ten minutes now, intent on holding them as long as they could until reinforcements arrived. Zech had a fear that there weren't going to be any, but didn't voice them, throwing all of his thoughts into destroying as many of the heretic bastards as he could. He felt good every time he fired off a shot, and the satisfaction of a kill was something he couldn't begin to describe.
The heretics suddenly leaned out of cover and began firing at the building on full auto, one of their men sprinting forward to new cover. Zech locked onto the man's chest and squeezed the trigger again, but cursed as nothing came out of the barrel of his Long-Las.
Glancing around, he looked for another laspack but the six or so scattered around him were all empty. Cursing, he slammed his hand on the wall next to him, feeling pain flare across his head as a migraine formed from frustration. Thanks to this, he wouldn't get another kill… and the heretics would move further down the street.
"I'm dry!" He shouted, and Olivares quickly ran into the room.
"Alright! Go get some ammo!" Zech cursed, knowing it'd be several minutes until he had another chance for a kill, and relinquished his seat to her.
"I'll be right back."
"You'll be back in here when I run out of ammo, Zech, you know the plan." He did know the plan. One person on, one person off, they had all planned for that for half a week now. One person takes a break while the other takes the shots. Zech found it infuriating, he had to fight! But a look at Olivare's face, stern and slightly worried, sent him leaving with a nod. They both knew he wasn't one to argue.
He quickly ran into a hallway and down a staircase, passing Silneen on the way up. The man nodded at Zech, but Zech didn't have time for chatting, especially not with some Nomad, and ignored him as he ran down. He could hear lasfire from the first floor of the building, where a squad of the 11th's men had dug in, and out a doorway and into an alley.
The alley was filled with the detritus of battle. Wounded leaned against walls as medics operated on them, ammo bearers sprinting past with whatever they could loot from the armories, followed closely behind by runners from various units that had lost their vox-capability in the chaos.
"It just finished off the men at Pius Landing! The thing isn't stopping!"
"Send 5th Company with as much anti-tank gear as they can find! Get mines set up on 3rd of St. Augustine, and tell them to wear their damned chemical gear!" The shouts quickly died as Zech ran into another building, and quickly passed into their impromptu armory. Crates and racks of weapons were being lifted out, vehicles outside being filled with whatever gear and wounded they could and other crates simply being dragged by hand to their next holdout. The heretics were getting too close for comfort, and had broken through their first line of defense faster than any of them had expected.
Apparently the reinforcements weren't coming.
As he sprinted in, he nearly slammed into another sniper. The man was a head taller than him, and his scarf was pulled up above his nose, his goggles, pulled down, obscured a view of far-off looking eyes. His helmet was down tight, and he moved about with the cool ease of a veteran used to his gear until Zech nearly slammed face first into him.
"Who the dirt are you!?" He demanded, scowling at the man for getting in his way. The other sniper frowned and took a step back, raising his hands placatingly.
"Zech! Get a move on! We're leaving in six!" Arash shouted as he lifted a crate of magazines, his muscles on full display with his sleeves rolled up. Zech scowled at the Nomad and then at the sniper again, and then quickly grabbed several new magazines, shoving one into his Long-las and another three into his belt. The man followed close behind, loading up his own weapon and stuffing gear in his own pouches.
"That gun's not reg…" Zech said as the weapon caught his eye.
"Grendel Zech! Move!" Arash shouted again, jogging by with the crate. The man and Zech exchanged one last glance, Zech glaring into that infuriatingly placid face, and then he went running back to Olivares.
Dactar tried to raise his weapon as the heretics began jogging down the pile of rubble, the traitors leaving plenty of room for Margos Pale and his cohort of monsters to carefully step down. Arstide stumbled against a pile of rocks and sandbags and carefully braced his lasgun against it to take aim, despite their collective nausea, and was quickly shot in the head by one of the heretics.
The other Guardsmen who did similar met the same fate, and Dac felt the colonel's hand grip around his shoulder and pull him back down behind cover before Dactar could get himself killed.
"Surrender yourself, colonel! Surrender! I'll spare your men, give you powers beyond imagining!" The voice at this point was more of a backdrop to the heretic's murder than an active participant. The colonel looked between him and the commissar and winced as he made the movement, motioning for the two of them to listen.
"You both remember that voice in the vox this morning...?" the colonel asked, a bit of drool dripping down onto the scarf around his neck as the man made a visual movement not to throw up.
"Now really isn't the time, Attelus," the commissar asked, barely opening his mouth as he grit his teeth.
"It was a different voice."
"What?" Tauron demanded. Dactar's eyes widened before he clenched his stomach, then leaned back with a groan.
"That means there's more than one Spirit-bender" he told them. The Nomads were said to have had power over spirits, all of which were commanded by the Emperor himself. He had no explanation other than that in his mind.
"Exactly... " the colonel said with a nod, "and they're called psykers, Dactar. Say that outside Deeprok and they'll shoot you."
"If we make it off Deeprok…" Dactar groaned. After a moment, Tauron glanced back out and then looked at the two again.
"Where is the other psyker? City gate? Or wherever the heretics have pushed to…"
"No, that gas isn't from a psyker. From what the vox says, I'm guessing it's a Baneblade or some monstrosity on a Baneblade chassis…" the colonel flinched as a Guardsman collapsed next to him.
"Is this really important!?" gasped Sergeant Bedouit from his cover behind the ugly rolled over head of the plaza's statue, some former governor that Dactar had forgotten the name of.
"Oh, right…" the colonel smiled wanly, "I'm just waiting for that idiot to step on one of the charges the PDF set up. Then we're running." The colonel reached into his pocket and yanked out a detonator, gripping the side of the tank and pulling himself up, and with a tug, looking over the edge.
"How long?" Dactar asked, trying not to allow the silence to be broken, only sometimes filled with gasps or the quickly cut off cries of wounded, and looked up at their foreign leader.
"Oh… one or two more- HGURK!" Dactar's eyes widened as a hand, blackened from burns and dripping blood from shrapnel wounds, gripped the colonel's throat and lifted him from the ground. The vehicle's commander stared their colonel in the eyes, his own empty and soulless, blood still pouring from the hole the colonel had made in his head earlier.
"By the Throne!" Dactar exclaimed. Tauron was a bit more expedient, raising a laspistol and firing through the monster's eye. It paid no heed however, and Attelus's legs began to kick as the hand tightened. The detonator fell from Alaric's hands as he moved his own hands up to claw at the fist, and Dactar stared at it as the bit of metal fell between his legs.
Quickly, he scooped it up, and looked up as the heretic's bodies around them slowly began to rise back to their feet. Without another moment wasted, he pulled the trigger.
Immediately, it felt as if a bubble popped. The darkness seemed to recede, and he realized the sun had pulled over the horizon. The colonel fell onto his ass as the creature's grip slackened, and the man let out a shuddering gasp as the heretic's stumbled and fell back to the sand covered tiles. The ground shook and rubble flew past, and everything went mute as Dactar winced from the loud noise of the blasts.
When his eardrums recovered, he could hear the long and angry shout.
"AAARRRGGHHHH!" Margos Pale screamed, and Attelus seemed to realize where he was for the first time.
"Fogging leg it!" He shouted, scrambling to his feet and sprinting for the nearest set of stairs. Dactar and the rest of the men quickly followed as the heretics gathered themselves, sporadic lasfire beginning to whizz at them.
"This isn't the end, you poxy corpse-worshipper! You had your chance to live! Now you die!" Dactar followed the colonel in diving behind the nearest building, voices starting to blast from his vox as the foul warp magic stopped blocking communications, and winced as bolter fire shredded the ground around them. When it stopped for a moment, Alaric ushered them onward, and they ran like the warp itself was on their heels. That term had never seemed more accurate to Dactar.
Zech sat, his back to the balconies wall, taking a long and deep breath. They had just managed to break, break, one of the heretic's advance. Over a hundred had died in the plaza they were now holding, using the remains of a chapel as their holdout, and now they had a respite. The urge to kill still consumed him, the red haze clinging to the edges of his vision.
Olivares sat next to him, wiping down the parts of her Long-las. The sun reflected off the weapon as she gracefully moved, one part to the next, somehow keeping cool despite the battle they had just participated in. She didn't linger on any one portion of the weapon too long, quickly wiping down the next before reassembling the entire weapon. He looked at the tally etched into the side of the stock, numbering over twenty kills, right next to a crude heart.
"Probably should track down a tech-priest to do that, next time," Olivares said with a mutter. Tech-priests were rare on Deeprok, at best, mostly due to how dated all the technology on the planet was, and most of the Guardsmen had learned to maintain their own gear without the assistance of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
"Have fun finding one in this chaos," Zech told her, feeling the red haze recede as he spoke to her. He had been thinking about what she had said the other day, how nothing would ever be the same again, and desperately wished he had been a better person to her before they had been embroiled in war.
He leaned out quickly to see Guardsmen diving behind cover, a man sprinting down the corner of the street that entered the plaza, slipping and quickly recovering as he did so, and screaming to the assembled men that the heretic's were coming. Olivares smiled and nodded at him before looking out.
"Back to the grind, eh?" Zech felt the red haze slowly nudging itself back into his psyche.
"The hunt continues." Olivares frowned at that one, but nodded soon after and lifted her rifle, turning around to aim it down the street. Zech stared at her for a moment, before making to follow, when he heard the sound of air popping and saw the las strike the wall in front of him.
He snapped around just in time to see Olivares collapse against the ground, a wide open hole in her chest where the las had torn through. Blood didn't squirt out, the wound cauterized immediately, but Olivares took in a long and shuddering breath. Zech guessed the shot had cut off a lung.
"NO!" he screamed as he threw aside his rifle and tore open the medical kit at his belt, looking for something he could use. Anything. Olivares reached up and gripped his wrist, stopping his searching, and looked pleadingly into his eyes.
"G-Grendel…" blood spurted out of her mouth as she tried to speak, tainting her tan scarf red, flecks of the blood dripping down Zech's face. The sniper looked on in horror.
"Medic!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, looking around for anything he could use to help her. He looked back into her eyes when she squeezed his wrist.
"O-one… one la-ast thing…"
"Anything, Jaymie. Oh Terra, anything."
"Kill t-the fu-ucker..." and with that, the light seemed to go from her eyes, her head falling back and her grip slackening.
"Jaymie! Jaymie no! Stay with me!" Zech gripped her shoulders, trying to will her awake. He leaned down and kissed her lips, ignoring the blood, a part of his mind telling him that the kiss wouldn't suddenly bring her to life like one of those old pict movies for kids. He stared into her blank eyes yet again, tears dropping down onto her face, and cried out as the red haze seemed to consume him.
Grabbing Olivares' rifle, he leaned out of cover and aimed towards where he could only guess the shot had come from. He immediately dropped back down as las flew over his head, and leaned back out a moment after to take the shot. The firefight had begun down below, the heretics returning in force to try and drive the Guard back once again, but he put that out of his mind.
He saw the flash of a scope and quickly zeroed in on the other sniper who sat in a building half a kilometer away. When he looked and saw Deeprok tan however, he paused for a half a second, and then suddenly it was gone. The colors flashed in another window to the right before disappearing, and Zech screamed out a curse as he lost his mark.
Glancing down, he saw Olivares eyes still wide open and squeezed his own shut. He only knew one thing now.
And that's that he would kill the bastard. No matter what.