11.
Daybreak was minutes away, or what passed for a sunrise on Kursk. Prizler crawled slowly in the penumbra towards the looted tank parked a handful of meters away. The siege breaker had stalled, against all hope the Pangeans had succeeded in damaging the monumental engine. The rush of endorphins that had flooded through him when the contraption had stuttered to a stop had quickly died out. He remembered gripping his long las as his heart pumped madly in his chest ,but no matter how long he paned his rifle sight along the Ork machine, he couldn't see any of the Sentinels lopping away.
The Pangean really had died trying.
Despite their earlier clash about putting his scouts in danger, he certainly could not hold it against the Pangean captain now. The valorous charge and impossible success of his peer had set him on this present course. He breathed slowly, making sure not to disturbed the reddish dust on the ground as he inched his way closer to cover. It would take him and his men out of the open and one step closer to their true objective.
Knowing his platoon sergeant was dozens of meters behind him with another squad of dispersed scouts reassured the lieutenant, but it didn't make this operation any less suicidal. The last of his men were spread out along dry scrubs and wasteland depressions, which hid their approach to the Ork's giant moving fortress. As if that wasn't hard enough, Prizler and his men needed to slowly infiltrating the picket lines left by the Orks camping around the behemoth.
When it became evident the Mek boy's siege breaker wouldn't start any time soon, the orkish escort had gathered around it to break camp. The Orks seemed unconcerned of their vulnerability out in the open, and the scouts watched as they made fires to gather around. The Orks sat there, drinking out of large metal canisters decorated with tribal glyphs.
Him on Terra had blessed the galvans with an opportunity to sabotage the great construct before it took its toll on imperial lives.
Prizler froze as he heard a grot clamber up the side of a tank and squabble with its kind. It was right on top of him. It wouldn't take much to notice him beside the tank's tracks. The long coat camouflage netting was useful at a distance, but up close, it wouldn't stand up to even the most casual of glances.
With an agonizingly slow hand signal, he halted his squad's approach and crawled to the enemy engine at a glacial pace. The grot seemed unhappy with its lot and paced along the hull of the tank, whining bitterly at having been pushed from the fires to stare into the nothingness of the horizon.
Prizler dared a glance at his squad, taking a few seconds to spot each one. He was proud of them, virtually ghosts one and all. Nodding and signaling silently, he let them know what he was about to do. He saw the slow movements of his men as they unsheathed their blades for some wet work. When he was assured they were ready, he moved.
He reared up suddenly and grabbed the grot by the foot to drag him off the tank. His men surged forward to reach the cover of the vehicle. As the yelping greenskin lost its head to Prizler's war blade, his men crawled under the tank, unlimbered their pistols and preparing themselves to eliminate any enemy unfortunate enough to have heard the dying grot.
The grot's partner, an equally vicious looking dagger eared greenskin, hissed unintelligently as he rounded the tank to see what had happened. It was dragged to the ground and stabbed repetitively by two scouts, who made sure it had a mouthful of dirt to stifle any further complication.
So far so good, thought the lieutenant. He signaled Sergeant Chorus' squad to move up to their second position. It would take long few minutes, but at such a precarious stage it wouldn't do to rush, even if the day's muddled light was making its first appearance.
If they could make it silently to the enemy construct, past the parked war trukks, bykes, and buggies, they had a real chance of destroying this beast. A few well placed demolition charges would do wonders to the ammunition stores of that monstrous cannon. At least that was the plan. Then they could exfiltrate and break radio silence to call in some kind of support, or even long range shelling. If they were lucky, they could even manage to disable a few of those tanks and even out the odds.
He saw Chorus take out a few more gretchin sentries with his squad and thanked the emperor the Orks were too lazy to man their own perimeter. A grot was a spindly looking malnourished child at the best of times, stinking and baring those needle like teeth at everything around it. They were faster and smarter than their bigger cousin but a few stiff thrusts of a good knife could silence them. That would never do with even the smallest of Orks.
Sergeant Chorus sent him the all clear sign and Prizler moved into the receding shadows. He and his men ghosted from cover to cover, often time coming within meters of loudly grumbling Orks and their promethium distilled rot gut. Another twenty minutes saw them ducking under the siege breaker's hull to escape the touch of the morning light. They had set a dozen charges strategically along the way without firing a single round, or even eliciting an alarm.
He sighed in relief as the last of his men made it into cover before sending them in search of an entry point. Prizler signed Chorus over, and they both took a knee while they conferred in hushed tones.
'Well done Nate, by the book and in record time. These greenskins are going to have a hell of a surprise,' said Prizler. His friend smiled as he imagined the explosions ripping along the camp.
'Now for the hard part,' Chorus boasted. A soldier dropped by the pair and interrupted them.
'Lt, you're going to want to see this,' scout Uriah's tone was heavy with reverence.
Prizler and Chorus followed the scout as he brought then to the wreckage of a sentinel, long scavenged for all it's worth. Although there was plenty of room under the chassis of the siege engine, the scouts moved at a crouch and took advantage of the deepest shadows offered by the nightmarish construct.
Pistons, hydraulics, wires, and all manner of auspex and gears had been cannibalized from the sentinel, leaving only the shell of the pilot's compartment behind. It wasn't empty. A dozen meters away, Prizler could see the same scene played over as more of his scouts investigated a second wreck.
There wasn't much to say. He leaned in and searched for the Pangean's cognomen tags. They normally would have been around his neck but it looked like the Orks had managed to shoot the legs out of this sentinel, allowing them to rip their way inside and hack the soldier to pieces. Finally, after holding back the urge to purge his stomach from the sight and smell of heat ripened flesh, he found the man's tag and used his thumb to clear the smears of dried blood.
'Captain Ri'Zal'Om'Pa, Emperor keep you.'
Finishing the silent prayer he turned to his men, spread out under the hull, and signaled them to split into four teams, find an entry, and set charges on targets of opportunity. Then he turned to his veteran sergeant.
'Alright Nate, take care and get it done. Whatever happens regroup at the perching rock and move out with or without me by,' he looked at his blackened chrono, '0600, understood?'
The sergeant nodded, 'the 5th finds the way.'
'Yes it does,' Prizler tapped Chronus on the shoulder and parted ways to climb up a massive track. He kept to the inside of the immobile metal thread using the supporting parts of the locomotive system to aid him. He finally reached the upper part and swung himself on its outside to stealthily use it to climb the last two meters to the gangway bolted under the chassis for emergency maintenance. It was gretchin size and Prizler crawled along the 4 feet gab between the gangway and the hull to an access hatch.
He had a feelings things weren't going get much roomier than this.
...
The perpetual hazy sky of Kursk loomed over the marching soldier like the mirage of a sunrise. Its light, filtered through the gaseous nebula above them, cast everything around them in a surreal orange light which melted with the ruddy vermilion colors of soil along the horizon. The wasteland was occasionally broken up by outcroppings of rocks or shallow dips in the ground, carved by centuries of wistful wind. It was endless, like this march towards certain death, and covered the sky blue uniforms of the guardsmen in a reddish dust.
Still they marched on bravely towards their destiny, with the same discipline they had earned in the Emperor's service. Rommer's 3rd company, now commanded by Lieutenant Della, headed the column with misfit ahead as a vanguard, while De la Croix's 5th held the center and Van Helger's 8th brought up the rear. All told, nearly three hundred men were left from the thousand strong battalion.
Soon, none would remain.
The Emperor demanded sacrifice, and the master of mankind knew well the meaning of such a thing. For near on ten millennia, the Emperor had sat upon the golden throne and guided the brilliant light of the Astronomicon, by which all travel through the warp was possible and the continued existence of humanity assured. It was a harrowing ordeal even for a mind as powerful as that of the God-Emperor. Agonizing, dreadful, eternal, what were three hundred more lives when he had suffered for so long and would continue to do so to keep the forces of darkness from swallowing His mighty empire, this Imperium of Man.
Della reminded herself of this every moment of this suicide mission, but guiltily wished that the Emperor would have seen fit not to have her share her last hours in the company of specialist Savana Zephira.
The two women walked side by side at the head of the 3rd company. They could not have been more different from one another. Della was regal in her parade kit, despite the staining grit that robbed it of its white, gold, and blue, while the other was encased in a carapace of now lusterless black. The storm trooper checked the specialized power attachment hanging from her hell gun, all the way to her backpack. Neither spared a glance at the other.
'Tell me again why of the three storm troopers attached to this little expedition, it's you I have in my company?' asked Della irritably.
'Because I asked for it,' said the storm trooper without breaking stride.
'Are you set on making my life miserable to the extent you risk death to be there when I fall?' grumbled Della.
They two had only ever met during the training exercises required for the assault drop at Thunder Ridge. Zephina had been a relentless bitch to Della's platoon then, and their relationship had immediately turned sour. It had all come ahead on the last day of training when Della had confronted the Macharian storm trooper on the beach and Zephina had made her loathing of Della's breeding and leadership qualities obvious.
'It's not like that at all Lieutenant,' said Zephina, without bothering to explain.
The wind whipped by as it changed direction without warning. It sent Della's long blond braid flailing behind her and Zephina smirked. The storm trooper had shorn hair and even without her helmet she didn't have a problem with the wind.
'I really wonder why you keep your hair at such a ridiculous long length,' Zephina said as she shook her head slowly. When Della had finally wrangled her braid back over her shoulder to rest down her chest plate, she turned to offer the storm trooper a piece of her mind but stopped short when she realized Zephina was being genuine.
'Its...tradition,' answered Della as she increased the pace of her walk to make up the lost time her braid wrangling had cost her.
'That's all?' said Zephina, easily matching the lieutenant's pace.
'What more do you need?' said Della annoyed. 'It's part of who I am, what my home world is like, it gives me something to do on when I'm on leave.' Zephina noticed that Della had started playing with the end of her braid, stroking her fingertips against it without noticing.
'It's just, really not practical,' chuckled the usually hard edge trooper.
'Yeah, it really isn't, and tedious to keep clean with all this red crap flying around,' laughed Della in a rare moment of camaraderie with the cankerous woman. 'So why did you ask to be attached to my command? You didn't say earlier.'
'Oh, that,' mused Zephira.
'Well?' Della refused to let her push it aside. Whatever the reason Zephina had for opening up, Della intended to take advantage of it. If not now, then when?
'I thought I had you figured out on the beach. Had you figured as a prissy Persy who cared more about what she looked like, both as a commander and woman, than the mission. Except I was wrong.'
'Persy?'
Zephina nodded, 'yup, it's what people call you Persephonians, that or S. , but Persy is really the bad one. Effete, some would say.' The trooper rolled her shoulder to ease the tension in it before giving her pack a boost to redistribute its weight.
'You had every right to knock me down and I was waiting for it,' Zephira confessed. 'Your men would have loved you for it too, but you didn't. You walked away and got on with the mission. I respect that.'
Della nodded, remembering that day months ago. 'I just thought you were a colossal bitch, to be honest.'
The women burst out laughing and attracted some curious stares from the soldiers around them.
Della caught Siggurd's eye and sobered up, the veteran's gravitas immediately reminding her to put her war face on. None the less, the mood along the column had eased up a bit. The men from the other platoons didn't know her very well and she reminded herself that her command of the company had come at a horrible cost, despite of what many had thought of captain Rommer. She knew that her peers would hold the line though; Both Wessler and Lomis were good junior officers, just like her. All they needed to do was walk up to a massive war engine and give the basilisk batteries the coordinate. Surviving was the hard part, that and somehow holding it in one place until the hammer dropped. Speaking of which, where was that thing? They should at least have been able to spot it with the long sights by now.
...
Misfit was navigating the shallow dips and low hillocks of the wasteland a few kilometers ahead of their pathetically depleted battalion. Jensen was barely even trying to keep the squad in line at this point; he kept thinking it didn't matter anyway.
Freddy was, as always, at his side and as nervous as a rabbit caught in a snare. The survivors of the unit followed behind in a haphazard line, Corvin plowing forward with his head down and a white knuckle grip on his rifle. Jensen wasn't sure if the trooper was angry at his fate or just aching to shoot something. The heavy weapon gunners closed the rear without as much as a word. This was all that remained of the unit Gus had left, albeit unwillingly, in Jensen's hands.
He couldn't help but feel he had let his friend down. As he climbed up a small hillock, for the hundredth time today, he grudgingly forced his aching limbs to make it to the top. When he finally did, he dropped to his knees, not from despair but rather from ingrained muscle memory hammered into them by Siggurds' training.
Freddy flung himself to the ground in a shocked impulse and Corvin cracked a smile. Down a depression in the lay of the land, was the largest monstrosity any of the guardsmen had ever seen. Misfit snapped back into a disciplined unit and hid their outline against the hill's rounded peek.
The Ork construct rose a dozen of meters in the air, festooned with large metallic fangs and parapets. Massive tracks bore the weight of the siege engine idly as a small force of light vehicles and looted tanks waited at its base. No smoke belched from its high smoke stacks and its massive form rested quietly without power, its engine shut down. Even motionless, the machine appeared to carry its own atmosphere of dread and carnage, as innumerable greenskins crawled over its hull and gangways between its armaments. The greatest of which was the bowel loosening canon protruding from its hull, easily worth a battery or more of Basilisk artillery.
'Well...' sighed Jensen as he flattened himself against the ground and reached over to Freddy's back mounted vox set. 'Explains why we couldn't spot it. Damn wasteland looks flat from afar but it's got more curves than a house matron on a cake binge.'
Freddy nodded emphatically in agreement, his wandering eye slowly pulling away from the other as it was wont to do when he panicked more than usual.
...
'This is it ladies and gentlemen' said Van Helger as he hung up the vox receiver on Honig's back. Della had been angered at her senior's breach of protocol when he had taken up the communication intended for her but now was not the time to debate it.
'Seems your vanguard spotted the beast, Della, and what's more, it's not on the move.'
'Come again?' said Della, surprised.
'I'm as stumped as you lieutenant, no pun intended' said Van Helger as he rapped his knuckles on his metallic leg. 'Whatever the reason, it seems the Emperor has seen fit to give us a bloody break.' The three officers held their own council as the men halted and established perimeters to observe and defend, every guardsmen keeping their head down and adopting a kneeling position to try and limit their exposure.
De la Croix grumbled, worst for ware for his lack of drink and his creeping withdrawal symptoms. He clasped his hands together at his waist to stop them from shaking, but he was only fooling himself if he thought no one had noticed.
'Maybe we should just call it in now and same ourselves a martyrs end?' he said.
'Come now Arthur, you know as well as I do that we can't do this thing in half measure. We need to make sure it stays put otherwise our last shells will be in vain.' Van Helger offered his friend. Della was of a similar mind. If the Orks had the ability to mobilize then they had to be engaged to keep them in place, even if it did cost them their lives.
'Fine, fine,' agreed De la Croix reluctantly before adding, 'Is it me or is it terribly warm out here?'
The two other officers regarded themselves and agreed wordlessly to keep an eye out for the self-afflicted captain and his men.
'Not really Arthur,' Van Helger said, not without a hint of empathy. 'You should get yourself checked by the medicae before we engage, just in case.'
De la Croix was about to defend his state of preparedness when he realized he was offered a way to save face. 'Perhaps, it wouldn't do to make the lads suffer any more than they already have. Heh, Jordan.'
Della didn't dare speak, she didn't want to intrude on the informal agreements her seniors had, but was relieved to see Van Helger give her a thankful nod for playing along.
'Right then, to work,' said Van Helger as he started carving on Kursk's dusty soil with his combat knife. 'I suggest that we spread out our forces with Arthur's 5th and my 8th taking the north and south flanks, while Della's 3rd hold the center.'
Van Helger's patrician features smiled reassuringly at Della, his soft green eyes encouraging and protective all at once. 'Because it's your first company level engagement, we will make sure to take good care of you Lady Della. Please understand this has nothing to do with that unpleasant business with Rommer. You will, in a sense, take the brunt of the risk, but if the worst comes to pass, Arthur and I will be able to fold in and give you a chance at retreating.'
'That won't be the case sir,' Della assured her seniors. 'Today the Sons of Persephony stand or fall together, in the name of his most holy majesty, and for the honor of our home world. There will be no retreat.'
'Bloody well said Della,' smiled Van Helger.
'Please, call me Josephine' offered Della.
...
The battalion had crept forward as silently has they could. In low crouches and finally, crawling on their bellies, they took their position along the last Hillock overlooking the Ork monstrosity. As per the Tactica Imperialis, Della's men formed the spine on a concave formation, with De la Croix and Van Helger forming extended arms to her flank. When the Orks charged, as they surely would, they would be met with over lapping and enfilading arcs of fire. What would normally lay any mortal force low would probably only slow the Orks down. More importantly, the Persephonians hoped it would keep the siege engine in place while the greenskins focused on the business of killing. Only the Emperor knew if any of the guardsmen would survive, but with his grace, the Basilisk artillery would find its range with the last of their armor piercing shells and destroy the abomination.
Siggurd made sure the men were lined up and in firing positions. He looked over to Wessler and Lomis' platoons at his sides. He nodded to himself, their ranks meeting his exacting standards. Although he had no authority over the other platoons, he was not the kind of man who would overlook other's faults for the sake of professional amiability. Their veteran sergeants could piss and whine all they wanted about his interference. Right was right, and he had payed the price for that belief many times over his life. None more than the first time he had acted on that belief. He spared a moment of inattention to run his calloused fingers over the rubbery flesh that covered most of his face. The scars would always remind him.
...
This was not what he had expected. Darkness was all he knew now, the dark and the pain. He had lost count of how many days it had been since he had been taken to this chamber of torture. He had lost the ability to see long ago. His stricken senses screamed out in pain as they were rendered impossible to use one after another. He had expected justice, what he had received was agony beyond any he had known in his short life.
His waking moments had invaded his dreams and he could tell neither apart. He tested his restraints, feeling the barbed razor wire dig into his swollen wrists and sliced him to the bone. Had his throat been able to give voice to his pain, he would have cried out, but all that escaped his horribly mangled lips were gurgling sobs. His face and neck was so wretchedly ravaged that it had swollen beyond any measure of proportion to blind him, choke him, and make any sound distant and muffled.
He prayed the Emperor for release, for the death he had expected to find the moment his crime had been revealed. He should have known his torturer would not have given him such a painless release for his blasphemy. No common man would ever have dared raise a hand against his betters, but he had not only done so, he had murdered a house patriarch out of some lofty ideal of righteousness. It was clear to him now that such notions were for the priests of the Ministorum to undertake, not him.
His flesh was burning with fever, on fire with a thousand cuts and a hundred bruises. The simple wooden chain he had been broken upon and bound to, in the most unnatural of ways, was the same he had discovered the servant girl in, just a short time ago. The irony did not escape him.
The house guards had found him easily. In the Lord's study making sure his master rested in a dignified manner. Whatever the punishment his master had deserved for his cruel enjoyment, he now had paid, and Bellechance insisted he deserved the proper honors fit a man of his pedigree.
They had set upon him like enraged dogs, clubbing him to the ground with fist, baton, and pistol butts. This, he had accepted without resisting. He knew his guilt deserved as much. Then he had been bound and brought to the lord's Hurscarl. Again, the manservant had thought, it was only fitting that the protector of his lordship's life be the judge of the man who had dishonored him. He expected a round to the head and an end to this entire unseemly affair.
His dread came after the Hurscarl had vented his rage upon his already broken body. Death was too sweet for such an affront. At least it became obvious that the loyal Hurscarl believe it to be so. The young steward was dragged unceremoniously past the lady of the house as she shrieked, having just received the horrible news of her husband's murder. As discordant as the sound was, it was the small child clutching at her leg, in her soft white night gown, that struck Bellechance the most. Her eyes were filled with confusion and fright, but despite this, she showed concern for the friendly steward that had always been very nice to her. He blinked the blood and tears from his eyes as he was dragged across the floor in front of her. His thoughts were a strange mix of shame and distress, for his crime, and at the knowledge that his blood was ruining the lord's expensive carpet. Then, he was brought to the estate's cold dark recesses.
It was though a pain addled mind that he realizes what the depraved Hurscarl had in store for him. He moaned deplorably as he was sat upon the torture chair and left to the ministration of the dishonored bodyguard.
'You're going to regret ever killing him,' he had promised with bared teeth, and with that the man had begun to do his worst. Beatings and mutilation were just part of his revenge. The Hushcarl carefully kept him alive through the aid of life sustaining machines. Clear tubing ran from the buzzing and beeping apparatuses to his flesh. Feeding him a life preserving serum while his body wallowed in its waste.
Whatever the Lord had taught his life ward in this vile chamber, he had learned well. The Hurscarl set upon Bellechance's flesh like an artisan, whose work would be the Magnus Opus of his life. Somehow, the steward knew that when the last stroke of the butcher's blade was dealt, the bodyguard would wash the stain of his dishonor with his own blood.
Unbeknownst to both Bellechance and his victimizer, that end was fast approaching.
...
Prizler had had just about enough of this. He had crawled, squeezed, contorted, and slinked through all sorts of gaps and machinery fluids since he had entered that damnable access hatch nearly 40 minutes ago. The interior of the maintenance areas, if this is where he was, followed neither rhyme nor reason.
By now Chronus and the other teams would surely have found something vital to plant the charges on and on their way out. Twenty minutes left to regroup and he was still lost inside the capillaries of this monstrosity. To make matters worst, he had disturbed some kind of nest and tiny greenskins, the like he had never seen or heard before, which had poured out to bite and stab him with rusty nails. He had squashed and pounded a few of the snot green creatures against the walls in his panicked struggle and the rest had disappeared as quickly as they had come upon him.
This was quickly turning into a disgrace. He managed to find a fuel pipe and decided to follow it until he came upon another hatch set higher in an open compartment. Well, as open as the inside of these tunnels got anyway. Reaching up, and tearing a few jagged nails out of his great coat, he lifted the hatch and was buffeted by horribly dry heat.
He had found the confines of the access ducts unbearable after crawling along them for so long, but he was now forced to reconsider. Already swimming in his own sweat, he climbed out of the hatch into a large room filled with rows and rows of large idling motors. The sound easily covered the squealing of the hatch's hinges and Prizler was happy for the small mercy. He quickly hid amongst a forest of feeding pipes.
'Maybe all that crawling around was worth it after all,' mumbled the lieutenant to himself. He peered around the walkways above him and the isles between the rows of idling engines.
Three large Orks the size of nobs, wearing overalls and carrying oversized spanners, walked about adjusting bolts and valves, seemingly at random. Amongst them were a slew of emaciated gretchin who looked as dried up as prunes. One of which slipped and fell into a cycling engine to be mulched instantly. The larger Orks laughed and quickly gathered to watch the dismembered creature get spit out of the chortling machinery.
Now 's my chance thought Prizler, as he moved away from them on the lower level and began to distribute tube charges on fuel lines, hydraulics, and barrels of ill contained mechanical oil. He would start a fire the likes the Orks could never extinguish, if they even had something as elementary as fire retardant in a colossus this size. Just as he set the last of his charges he felt, more then heard, a commotion outside.
The massive engine lurched forward and then stopped in a crash of grinding gears that sent a splitting drive chaff flying. The Mek boys hollered angrily as their domain filled with smoke and bursting pipes.
Prizler was knocked to the ground right before an exploding gear sliced over his head and ricochet further down the engine room. Gathering his wits about him, he gave the Emperor a quick thanks and used the chaos of the moment to slip out through an adjoining corridor. The time for subtlety was well and done with.
He imagined one of the charges had detonated prematurely, or perhaps an Ork had found one and had set it off with its blundering. Whatever the case, it didn't matter now, he raced along the corridors despite the inherit danger of running into Orks. The maintenance ducts were no place to be if this thing was falling apart. He'd just have to be faster than the Orks, or luckier than a blind man walking through a mine field.
He became suspicious of his luck when he made it all the way out onto the parapets without seeing a single Ork, then he found out why.
The Orks were streaming out of the siege breaker and were running towards a hillock. Their buggies and bykes were already cresting the hill and spraying random bursts of fire all over it. Then he saw them, the dust covered blue of the Persephonian infantry. Looted tanks thundered onwards, shooting salvos at the hill and blowing men apart with lucky shots.
Why were they here? There was no reason to throw themselves at an enemy they couldn't hope to defeat unless...
Prizler dropped to his knee and fumbled through his kit to get a grip on the wireless detonator that controlled the explosives his men had stashed amongst the Ork escort detail. Flipping the cap, he depressed the arming stud and heard a rippling of explosions.
A dozen looted tanks felt the hit of the charges set against their vulnerable areas. Turrets blew off of hulls; tracks splintered explosively, becoming deadly shrapnel to the Ork infantry running at their sides. Fuel reserved ignited, flash burning dozens of Orks in their immediate surroundings. It was a sight welcomed by the Persephonians, who used the shock and confusion of their enemies to redouble their fire and pelt them mercilessly, buying precious seconds before the wave of orks engulfed them.
The shock wave of the explosions buffeted Prizler, even behind the parapet, and he felt his rib cage vibrate at the sheer power of so many detonations. But it wasn't over yet. He screwed his comm bead back into his ear and pressed the general channel stud.
'Attention all Imperial forces, this is Lieutenant Warner Prizler of the Galvan 5th light infantry regiment, come in, I repeat, come in.'
'Lieutenant Prizler, was those fireworks your doing?' the voice on the vox sounded relieved. 'Where are my manners, captain van Helger, Persephonian 1st. Not that we're not grateful, but what's the meaning of this?'
'Sir, the Pangean hunter-killers managed to immobilized the siege engine in front of you. They died to give us this shot, so we decided to infiltrate and finish the job. I take it you're here to call in a strike?'
A long moment passed before van Helger answered, 'Sorry lieutenant, greenskin got a little close for comfort there. A strike indeed, standard Tactica Imperialis doctrine, you know your procedures well.'
Prizler cursed, 'I have men all over this rig setting up charges, tell me we have enough time to bug out before the earth shaker rounds hit!'
'Afraid I can't promise you that son, it's in the hands of the emperor now,' said van Helger sadly. 'The storm troopers are damn quick with all those bombardment calculations, efficient buggers. Listen, try and make a break with your men on the north side, we'll give you all the cover we got, strider's speed lad!'
Prizler looked around him, getting his bearings as to where north was, and tapped into the squad level comms. 'Sergeant Chronus, we got a slight change of plans...'
...
He had been riding hard across the wasteland for most of the night. With the help of the Ranok guard captain, he had been able to speed through the check points without too much trouble and past the Kursk battle line trenches. The no man's land was devoid of life for kilometers on, nothing but wrecked trukks and bykes, which had been burned to a hollow husk weeks before.
The dust plains were littered with the refuse of war and the craters of artillery, made all the harder to navigate in the dark of the night. Had Trevin been any less of a skilled rider, the strider would have broken a leg by now. The going had been slower then, but beyond the debris field it had been nothing but a straight shot towards the canyon that formed Thunder Ridge.
The strider's speedy pace had eaten up the kilometers much quicker than Trevin had expected. The equine was truly a marvelous specimen, but even for its breed, the pace of the gallop was taking its toll. As the young sergeant dismounted to give it a rest, he noticed signs of its exhaustion. The mount's mouth was frothing at its edges and a thickening layer of sweat had accumulated along its flank and haunches. He knew he couldn't keep driving the beast onwards like this without risking its life.
'Common girl, stay with me.' He stroked its neck affectionately but the horse's glazed eyes simply added to his guilt. The strider wasn't responding, and any Persephonian worth his salt knew it was a bad sign. Trevin tried to make it drink some water but the mount also refused. She was heat stricken from her long sprint through the dry wasteland of Kursk.
At least the night air had done some good for the strider's endurance but it also brought on its own complications. He guided the horse into a safer spot, between rolling hillocks to hide it from sight, and began cleaning the frothy sweat from her body. If they stayed put for too long, the air would cool the sweat to the point of freezing. The poor creature would never get moving then.
'You know, I don't even know your name,' Trevin spoke to the horse as well as to himself. 'A mighty ride like you needs to be remembered good and proper like, even if they just end up shooting me for stealing you.'
He did his best to ease the horse into a more comfortable state, keeping it from freezing up while relaxing her tense muscles from the long gallop. He tried name after name, seeing which would attract her attention. Finally, the strider reacted, her eyes sharper and looking at the source of the questing voice.
'Arabella? You like that one huh, alright then,' he smiled, trying again to convince her to drink some water. When she did, he nearly teared up with relief, and quickly added some salts to help her vigor. Had she not decided to drink, his suicide mission would have ended right there and then. Stranded behind enemy lines, which with all the blessings of the Emperor's saints, were so clearly empty of Orks.
Fitting name then, Trevin thought, for his father had once told him Arabella meant the beautiful altar, and his self-appointed task was clearly hanging on nothing but a prayer.
...
Morning was starting to make itself seen and Captain Olivar of the Ranok 568th artillery battery was waiting for his firing orders impatiently. He had expected the Persephonian battalion to have made enemy contact by now but still, he waited after command to relay the firing coordinate of this last ill-fated attempt to deny the greenskins.
The self-propelled guns were all lined up, the Basilisks' long cannons raised high saluting the sky, or as Olivar liked to think, the Emperor and his throne on Terra. The last of the powerful earth shaker armor piercing rounds were at the ready by the loaders, each and every man under his command checking and triple checking the guns' readiness. They scurried about the artillery pieces of the battery with rolled up sleeves and open collars, despite the chill of the dying night's air.
Olivar stood on his own Basilisk, the Hell Raiser, and panned his magnoculars over the western horizon. With the added height of the self-propelled gun, he could easily look over the sunken bunkers and ad-hoc constructions of the Thunder Ridge plateau and down its slopes. What worried him was the lack of any enemy signs. If this Ork contraption was so massive, why couldn't he see it yet, and more importantly, if he couldn't even see a dust or smog cloud from here, then he doubted his guns had the range to hit it, despite the Basilisk accurately being able to hit a target at 20 kilometers.
Danzer, the officer of 4th section clambered up the side of the Hell Raiser and joined Olivar with a crisp salute, and heaved breathlessly. 'Firing orders?' asked the battery captain eagerly.
The man shook his head and gulped down some air to speak. 'No sir, still in the dark as far as that's concerned, but you won't believe what my man just spotted coming up the ridge's eastern flank.'
Olivar raised an eyebrow in curiosity. He really didn't have time for this kind of distraction when the fate the operation was so close to being decided. But the look on Danzer's face was hard to deny. 'Alright, but this better be good.'
...
'What do you mean I won't believe what just arrived at the base, are you wasting my time captain Olivar?' Petra snapped back into the vox thief of the comms station. The duty officer beside him shirked away from the irritable colonel, his chair's wheels squealing on badly maintained bearings. Petra didn't notice how much of the strategium was now paying attention to his conversation, instead of their duties.
'I don't have time for this captain, you mind your guns and I'll decide what I do and do not believe. Now sit tight and wait for your firing orders!'
Colonel Petra turned around looking for Commissar Carver and finally noticed all the eyes in the room looking at him. 'What!'
The command staff quickly returned to their duties.
'Where the hell is Carver?' he asked to no one in particular as he searched the room. 'Never a Commissar around when you actually want one' he grumbled.
The comms officer coughed discreetly at the colonel's side and Petra turn on him like an angry bear. The last few hours had not been easy for the commander of the doomed garrison.
'I believe I might be able to raise him on the channels sir, what should I tell him?' chanced the officer.
'Tell him one of his Persephonians just rode into base on a half dead horse claiming he has a message for me, captain Tavko's daughter, and asking permission to fight with his unit. Tell him I don't have the time right now, to sort it out, and that I don't care how he does it!'
The duty officer nodded to his colonel and turned to his console, trying the commissariat channels, and voicing a sullen prayer for the poor fool who would have to deal with the commissar.