AN:I hate the indent from the Chapter Scroll.
My Armor is Contempt
Book 2:Into Darkness
Chapter 2:Lightning Strike
"With a Commissar in tow and with the support of two other regiments, we went over. Our baptism by fire. It was brutal, fast and efficient for the first few hours."
-Naomi, Officer of the 33rd Saunders Regiment, on the battle of Gehenna
Hive Geron
Mustering Assault Force
Planet Gehenna, Talos system, Sabbat Worlds Sector.
Bulky, angular Imperial Fighters and Bombers had broken atmosphere above them with a thunderous sonic boom. Armed to the teeth with cannons and missiles, the aircraft were meant to be the first part of the Operation to retake the next hive over, with the Marauders, heavy bombers belonging to the Aeronautica Imperialis, aiming to drop their payloads of heavy unguided munitions onto the outer trenches. Their shadows stretched over the massive open desert ahead, where the corpses of tanks and soldiers alike lay, half-buried, dead or burning still. Following them in would be the Harakoni on their Valkyries and the Cadians on their Chimeras and Sentinels.
Tracers filtered into the clouds, lines of gunfire erupting across the main areas and suburbs of the Hive City ahead. Explosions thundered and thumped as the Marauders dropped their payload and the Thunderbolt and Lightning Fighters tore into the enemy's air support. Kay watched as the first bomb fell from afar, feeling the detonation in her chest, before raising her hand and ordering "Charge! Charge! Charge! Company, begin assault!"
She poked her head through the hatch and ordered, "Get us moving, Jay! We're leading the formation!" as her own heart started to beat to the rhythm of distant autocannon fire. Beads of sweat flowed down her forehead, soaking her hair beneath the suddenly very heavy tank helmet. The vehicle lurched forth alongside the thousand others of their Regiment, a massive cloud of dust kicking up in their wake.
The Harakoni Valkyries boosted ahead, their guns tracking and engaging any stragglers left by the Imperial Air Cover. The first ground shots came from small outposts and Heretic positions meant for ambushes. A thousand-odd tanks, plus thousands of Chimeras and scouting walkers weren't going to be easy to placate, though. A Cadian Chimera caught a tube launcher rocket from its side and spun, its inner hull ablaze and its track links sheared off.
Kay gasped, noticing the position. A dozen of them, clad in black uniforms with helmets and masks with hooked beaks, like those of the old Plague Doctors. Kay called out to Ellie, "GUNNER! TARGET AT ANGLE FORTY-FIVE! ELEVATION NEGATIVE ZERO DASH THREE!"
The turret's electric drive whirred as it spun to track the target, the stabilizer kicking in as the rabid, fearful Kay barked "Loader! HIGH-EX! NOW!" whilst watching the enemy load in the next rocket. The turret aligned, Colleen called out that the weapon was loaded and Kay ordered with little hesitation, "FIRE!" rocking the vehicle to its side as the cannon shell left and struck the Shell-hole from previous combat. A burst of flame wrapped around the bodies of the twelve Heretic soldiers and their Anti-Tank launcher moments before they could fire, turning them into ash to be blown away by the winds.
Kay stared with wide eyes at the enemy's former position, suddenly going deaf to her surroundings. She'd just done it. She'd just ordered the death of twelve people. Her body felt numb, cold. Racked with guilt for the death of a foe that would just as easily have killed them, Kay had partially frozen. It took her head slamming into the open turret hatch for her to wake up, her ears ringing, breathing heavy and sweat draping her from head to toe.
"KAY!" Colleen called out. The woman dipped back down into the turret, staring with wide eyes at her loader. The burly girl smiled weakly, then said "We got the bastards... Stay with us, boss, y'hear?!"
Kay nodded, feeling the adrenaline coursing into her veins and the acrid scent of cordite. She poked her head back out of the top of the vehicle, watching as Autocannon rounds bounced off the front plating of the Leman Russ. An AT position ahead exploded to a superheavy shell and Kay caught sight of Alisa's tank rushing up beside her, cannon and bolters smoldering. The diminutive redhead smirked, nodding to Kay from the top of her tank and dipping back down into it.
The enemy's own tanks had started coming out. Urdeshi-pattern vehicles ranging from STeG-4s to Usurpers and Reavers came out to greet the Guard's armored fist in force. Shells flew over their heads as the tanks, painted the stark black of the enemy's uniforms and bearing some unknown type and number of vile, gut-wrenching runes and effigies, engaged.
A round struck a second Cadian transport, sending it careening into a shell-hole left by the enemy's artillery, one that was still smoking. Following that up, Kay watched as another shell struck one of their own transports dead center. Her eyes grew wide as the hatch of the turret blew sky-high thanks to the over-pressure ammunition of the Autocannon cooking off. She'd managed to hear their screams over the Vox just before the fire turned them into smoke and the tank into a static 'decoration' for the battlefield.
Kay didn't feel fear at what she'd just witnessed.
Those were their girls. Their pals from the Infantry.
And these bastards had just fucking burned them alive in their own tank! Feeling that same anger from aboard the transport so many days ago, Kay gritted her teeth, glaring at the enemy tank that'd shot and was charging them, before calling out "Dead-ahead! Enemy STeG! Load Armor Piercing and FUCK THE BASTARD UP!" to the gunner and loader. The turret traversed as Kay readied her Las-carbine to empty into the crew if they bailed out. She heard the confirmation of Colleen and Ellie, then barked "FIRE!"
The enemy tank was struck almost point-blank and between the turret and hull by the high-cal AP shell. Its innards blew as the ammo inside cooked off and the vehicle blossomed into an explosion, leaving behind a blooming-flower-shaped wreck of twisted metal, burning rubber and seared flesh. Their tank rolled over the wreck and through the fire, the heat-wave washing over Kay and flash-drying some of the sweat on her face.
She rolled up her sleeves, to reveal her more muscular arms and to allow her some breathing room in the heat of battle. She spotted another enemy tank, an Usurper, called out its position and ordered the girls to fire. Side-on to them, the enemy self-propelled gun took the hit and damn-near fell on its side, ablaze. With a single cheer of confirmation for the kill, the girl continued calling out targets.
They burst through the burning wreck of another STeG-4 as a Sentinel and one of their other Chimeras took shots. The lightly-armored walker blew apart under Autocannon fire, while the Chimera had lost a track link and was forced to disembark its crew into the thick of the battle while awaiting for a Trojan to come and recover them. Scarlet light flashed by the battling armor as the dismounted infantry fought against enemy-occupied foxholes and anti-tank positions, clearing them with lasgun, shotgun and bayonet.
Up above, two Thunderbolts deviated from their intercept course and strafed one of the open-topped Usurpers with high-caliber autocannon fire in a top-down attack, before banking away to engage the incoming squadron of Valkyrie gunships. Past the walls, Kay could see the faint specks of yellow that were the Harakoni Drop Troops, their Hellguns flaring even as they dropped into combat to outflank and to outdo the enemy, their Colonel at the forefront.
Taking lead of the formation of tanks from her Company, Kay engaged. Their frontal Lascannon howled threateningly, the beam of blue splitting an enemy STeG-4 down its midsection and detonating the ammunition inside. Kay called out the coordinates for one of the other Usurpers, Ellie aligned, Colleen loaded. A thundering roar of a heavy gun later and the tank was out of action. The twins, meanwhile, let loose with their heavy bolters as they spotted enemy infantry. Kay smelled the scent of cordite, spent promethium and ozone growing thick in the midst of combat.
To her right, Kay witnessed proudly as Naomi put deadly-accurate shots onto the enemy's second line of defenses, lobbing them over the current area of the clash into supporting Usurper SPGs. The tanks broke through the first line like an armored spearhead, the companies evenly splitting to encircle the first line and hammer at the second with their guns and sponson weapons. Kay pulled her Lasgun out of its rack and switched it to full-auto, opening fire and hosing down into the trenches with scarlet streaks, either killing or pinning down the traitorous Gehennites.
Alisa lead the flanking maneuver, rolling her tank over a trench-line and letting the sponson-mounted bolters scour it clean with heavy automatic fire. Their Executioner fired not far behind her and a boulder of high-intensity, burning-bright ionized gases slammed into a Reaver and vaporized it and every single Infantry unit around her. Rockets from tank-killers flew in, guided by Fire-and-Forget systems and Kay gasped as she saw two of their own burst ablaze, followed by a group of Cadian Chimeras, thankfully unoccupied by the infantry.
She growled, turned to the right and looked to see the enemy aircraft, Valkyries armed with some kind of Krak missiles. She called out into com, "Jaguar actual to Aquila! Enemy Valks, up high! The bastard things have ATGMs!"
"Roger, Jaguar. We're already in contact with the Air Support." The Colonel responded rather monotonely, clearly well aware of their losses and bloody seething while the thumping of an Autocannon muffled by the armor plating of her command Chimera echoed, "Raise them on Vox Frequency Thirty-Three-Dash-Five and give them solution for the bastards. Callsign of Squadron is Phantom."
"Roger that! Emperor protects!" Kay growled, before flicking channels and shouting, "This is Jaguar Actual, 33rd Saunders, requesting air support from Phantom squadron!"
"This is Phantom Actual, give me tasking and I'll relay to the appropriate detachment, Jaguar." Replied the Squadron leader, one Lieutenant Maray.
"Enemy Valkyries armed with Anti-Tank Guided Munitions hovering over sector sixteen of the defense area! They just took two of our girls and several Cadian Mech units out!" Kay reported, watching as another pair of missiles streaked into the crowded combat area. Up above, the thunderclap of aircraft's engines roared, followed by the thunder of autocannons and scream of AAMs. The enemy gunships were raked with rounds, two of them falling and bursting ablaze overhead of the main City Gates. The others received severe damage across the board, forcing them to retreat.
"Phantom, Jaguar. Problem solved." Kay heard the woman proudly declare.
She smiled, "Thank you, Phantom. Emperor have you in his watch."
"And you as well, Jaguar. Phantom, out."
Kay called over com, "All company assets, reform and prepare for the thrust into the enemy's second line! Colonel's gonna want us at least inside the gates before nightfall, I bet!" and watched as the rest of the tanks formed up behind her, with Meredith's Company following suit. Their infantry scoured through the trenches alongside the Cadians, Hellguns, Lasguns and Flamers purging anything that moved and wore Gehenna black.
The girl pulled out her binoculars as the vehicles veered onto the main road, their heavy guns roaring against the enemy's own tanks. Another Usurper caught ablaze, its heavy cannon flung by the detonation pressure into the desert-colored mountain that the Gatehouse's right tower was built into, where it embedded itself. Lascannon fire slashed across the battlefield from atop the Gate-House and the multiple positions built into the rock faces around it. Heavy Bolters and Autocannons followed, traces striking and sparking off the hulls of the tanks.
Chimera turrets swung about, directing autocannon and Multilaser fire into the mountain faces as the tanks raised hell on the main line. Once again splitting into two prongs and encircling the enemy's positions before STeGs and other tanks had any chance to turn and engage them, Saunders's Thirty-Third fired and evaded, leaving the husks of burning Traitor vehicles in their wakes.
Kay held onto the hatch of her tank, firing with her own Las-weapon into the trenches once more as the enemy tried to retreat. She'd either pin them down or kill them as they came out, her heart racing, her mind focused and her adrenaline spiking. She gritted her teeth as she emptied two of her Charge Packs into the damn traitors, dumping them inside and swapping them out for fresh ones. God-Emperor, she'd need to ask about actually mounting a pintle weapon here, a stubber or something.
She laughed darkly as she realized. She wasn't even flinching. What once would've felt morally and godawfully wrong felt normal now that she was in the thick of it. Combat against the enemy, killing the enemy, winning. That was all that mattered now. This was no fun game, no simple sport like Sensha-dō. This was War! The Galaxy of Endless War! And she partook in it with little hesitation, despite earlier reservations.
She watched as their own Infantry jumped into the Trenches, bayonets glistening in the light of muzzle-flashes and flamers belching long lines of promethium into areas yet-unoccupied by their own troops to clear a path. Bunkers exploded outward, shards of Rockrete and wood and steel raining down onto both their tanks, pinging off of them harmlessly, and onto the enemy's backs and front. The scents of charred flesh and of cordite, of ozone and promethium, the smell of battle filled her nostrils.
To Kay, the old Kay, the one from Earth, this would've been horrific. To her, now, it felt amazing. The sounds of war filled her ears. The slaps and snaps of her Las-weapon, the thunder of Bolters, the roar of cannons, it was all suddenly home to her. She watched as one of the bastards tried to place a shaped charge onto their tank and found himself rolled over. The crunch of his bones was only muffled by the rest of the fighting around them, gore covering that section of their left tread.
She scanned the hull of the tank quickly, to ensure the shaped-charge magnetic mine hadn't been attached and found the front and sides of her tank to be blessedly empty. Her attention focused on an enemy tank to their right, coming out of the shadows, its gun thundering and the shell skimming and bouncing off the front armor before detonating in a trench. She called out the target elevation and coordinate to Ellie, then roared "FOR THE EMPEROR AND FOR OUR HOME, BLAST THAT MOTHERFUCKER!"
Ellie complied, her foot stomping hard enough into the firing pedal that Kay heard it all the way up from her turned-out position. The tank shuddered, shook and tore in two as the shell basically struck point-blank. Careening over into a trench, it stopped there, dead, its crew eviscerated. Kay grinned viciously, proud of the kill, before calling to Ellie "Good fucking shot! Smoked that one!"
"Thanks, chief!" Ellie grinned.
"You all as well, girls! Fucking beautiful job so far!" She called over Vox to the others.
"Thank ya, boss." Colleen smirked, "We ain't done yet, though."
"Not by a long-shot." Sara stated, her finger squeezing the trigger of her Heavy Bolter, spent casings falling into the basket over the ejection port of the gun.
"There's still the city." Mara completed her sister's sentence, similarly emptying her box-magazine of Bolter Rounds onto the enemy with disregard. Jade stayed silent, simply rolling ever-forward toward the mountain. Kay smirked at the reactions of her crew, nodding. They were all great girls, amazing crew and would probably soon become as close as Alisa and Naomi were to her in terms of friendship.
She smirked, "Roger that, girls! Let's do the Emperor's bidding and KILL'EM ALL!"
"HOORAH!" Chorused the crew as the vehicle turned toward the third and final line before the entry into the city itself. Above the Gate and its last line of more heavily dug-in trenches, bunkers and murder holes, the Gunships that carried and dropped the Harakoni flew in, their nose-mounted guns and wing-mounted unguided rocket pods lighting the top of the gatehouse up, as well as some of the defenses.
The tanks slammed into the line next as artillery rained, probably at the behest of the Harakoni, into the Hab-Blocks nearest to the Gatehouse. Burning-white Hellgun shots filled windows and doorways and Kay saw the hundreds of Harakoni Drop Troopers surging out, some of them with armors stained a deep scarlet due to their close-quarters combat. They were pouring into the two Gatehouse defense towers and their attached mountainside bunkers.
Soon, as the Guard tank and mechanized corps neared the last line, the flashes of las, bolters and Autocannons winked off from each hole in the walls, leaving only the frontal gate with any semblance of defense emplacements. Emplacements that were quickly being overrun by the assaulting infantry. Kay gasped as she saw the Colonel disembark from her Chimera, pistol and power sword in hand. Beside her, one of their Commissars urged their soldiers and the Cadians forth with rousing cries of glory and promises of honorable deaths.
The tanks pummeled the last remaining enemy force after losing a few more of their own. A dozen Usurpers, thirty Reavers and over sixty STeG-4s lay as burning husks in front of the great, Aquila-topped gate as the Harakoni gunships and the Aeronautica's fighters flew past, dodging enemy Flak from inside the city. Luckily for them, it seemed the enemy's guns couldn't track proper. Most of the aircraft made it back unharmed. The little damage there was was on one of the fighters, which, as far as the girl could see, was damaged by shrapnel across its aft.
The Great Gate of the City creaked, its ancient chains and mechanisms groaning as it was pulled down into the ground. From above, Kay saw Harakoni, Cadians and their own waving down at them, smiling atop the Gate and cheering. Kay sighed, her heart still racing, before she saluted the Colonel and their Commissar and waved the tanks forward, into the breach.
They'd managed to secure a beachhead into the city. Reinforcing units poured into the 12 square kilometer area in the lower hab-block and manufactorium sector, with infantry already mounting up in houses and setting up their barracks and 'bunkers' around the perimeter to ensure that if the enemy, which seemed to have fully retreated from the area, would come back, that they'd have defenses.
Kay watched from atop her tank as their forces streamed into the place, the Colonel leading the other two Regimental officers from their allies' units into the newly-established Command Post. Up high, fighters and bombers ran the gauntlet, trying to identify and relay the exact location of the enemy's Triple-A in the suburbs, attempting to dodge the traitors' gun fire before it struck them. The bombers, meanwhile, seemed intent on actually finding targets to bomb properly, but were presumably staved off by orders and the fact civilians could still be in the AO.
"Woo!" Colleen leaned back onto her seat, smiling proudly as a river of sweat flowed down her face, "That was fuckin' awesome! Throne, Ellie, crack shooting there!"
"Thanks, Cee." Chuckled the girl, "Jade and the twins weren't bad either. Heck, nice dodging there, Jade."
The girl pushed the glasses onto the bridge of her nose, blushing slightly as she stuttered "T-Thanks, girls..."
"Boss did a pretty good job," Sara noted
"She led well." Mara finished.
"Heh. That, you're right about." Colleen stated, looking up, "Ya hear, boss? Baptism by fire and we did real well! Uh... Boss?" She saw Kay staring out into the city, her face pale. Climbing up onto her seat, she poked up in front of Kay, startling the girl, who yelped. Colleen grinned, then asked "You alright there, Kay? Looks like the Gyrinx got your tongue or something."
Kay breathed in, then forced a smile "I'm okay, Cee... It's just... A bit much." And that was the biggest lie she'd told herself or any friend of hers so far. As the adrenaline high of Combat faded, it was replaced by the horrid realization that she had ordered the deaths of humans, or as close to them as the Imperium viewed heretics and traitors. She blinked, pushing herself up out of the tank and saying "Excuse me..." before jumping off the vehicle and rushing to the back of an alley, much to Colleen's surprise.
There, the girl fell to her knees, grasping her stomach. She felt everything she'd consumed up to that point coming back up as her mind raced. The kills they'd made, they were all on her order. The first kills of any soldier were probably horribly tough to deal with... She hoped they would get easier, but at the same time, she feared that they would. She retched.
Leaning against the wall, staring up at the soot-laden sky as anti-air shells exploded on blossoms of fire up high, she blinked away the head-ache she'd gotten from throwing up. She wanted to go home so much at this point, go back to the things were. Combat there was just a sport and it paled in comparison to the brutality she had just witnessed. She slid down the wall, sat on her ass and watching as a Thunderbolt danced with an enemy Valkyrie before blasting it apart and out of the sky.
She breathed in, then out, trying to calm her racing heart once more when footsteps came from her right. She gasped, standing up, only to see Alisa and Naomi walking into her little hiding spot. Alisa smirked, then remarked "Colleen said you went this way. You alright?" and took to Kay's side, stepping away from the vomit stain on the concrete below and offering Kay her canteen.
The girl took the canteen, uncapped it and chugged down half the damn thing without even breathing, before using another third by pouring it on her face, to clean up the snot, tears and remaining bile. She breathed out again, then spoke, her voice cracking, "It's not exactly easy to think we just killed people." before wiping her face with her hands. Alisa hummed.
"Well, they told us that killing wasn't going to be easy..." Naomi noted, taking a deep drag from the cig, "Listen, Kay, I know we can't exactly say anything to make this feel better, or normal, or whatever, but let me tell you, I'm pretty sure your crew, much like ours, is feeling the same way... They're just hiding it behind jokes and smiles and... Whatever... That, or they're lucky enough to remember that the same bastards destroyed our home."
"And they're dehumanizing them through that, pretty much." Alisa stated, "It's a really simple process. Just... Remember what these fuckers did and you'll be golden. Not like you really get to retire in the Guard."
"Thanks, Ali, really thoughtful." Kay sighed, rubbing her eyes, "How're you two holding up?"
"Just thinking of the foes as bugs to plink off the windshield." Alisa noted.
"Whatever they put in the Lho-sticks." Naomi returned.
... Kay soon realized that she hadn't had time to ask about the whole thing with Earth Saunders while they were in transit. Too busy ensuring their teams were up to par when they arrived. She leaned back her head, thinking of the best way to ask while tiptoeing around the idea of it not being a 'dream'. In fact, "Hey, girls... Have you ever had-" And she was cut off.
"Dreams about Earth? About Saunders, the school on a repurposed Aircraft carrier? About Sensha-dō?" Alisa smirked, watching for Kay's reaction. A mix of shock, relief, awe and a hint of anger. She looked to Naomi, who smiled and closed her eyes, taking another drag from the cigarette and blowing the smoke forward. The redhead dminutive said simply "We thought you'd never ask us, Kay..."
"... W... What?" The blonde paused.
"You aren't alone, Kay." Naomi stated, "Our mothers? Your mother, I'm sure. They all remembered Saunders as it was. And we did too, when we were really, really bloody young. I did when we were all about 5... Alisa did when we were all 3 and we'd first met."
"We both figured each-other and our mothers' memories out when we were ten and we started Saunders," Alisa explained, "We asked you once, when we were twelve, but you didn't recall anything of the sort. We figured, hey, maybe we were alone, just me and Nae in this big, wide world that is the Imperium... Then, we saw you suddenly starting to 're-learn' the Imperial Faith and everything and... Well..."
"We figured it'd come." Naomi hummed, "That you'd remembered."
Kay took pause, eyes wide, as the memory of that one, single time she was asked about Earth and Saunders and her mind slowly processed this. She narrowed her lips, then, with a frown and anger in her mind, yelled "WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TWO SAY ANYTHING WHEN I LOST MY FUCKING ABILITY TO BREATHE THAT ONE TIME!? OR WAKE ME UP PROPERLY WHEN I FUCKED UP TALKING TO MAJOR ROSA?!"
Alisa chuckled, "Honestly, boss? We had to make sure."
"Sure that you're really you." Naomi smiled, "And, well, we were waiting for you to ask."
"For a whole-ass year!?"
"Yeah, well..." Both girls shrugged. Kay rubbed her eyes in dismay.
"Swear to the Emperor, you two couldn't do shit if I wasn't around, could you...?" She chuckled, "Alright... Well..." She beamed, "It's good to know both of you remember, at least..." then she sighed, content to learn she really was not alone anymore. She spoke, "C'mon... My stomach's hurting and I'm starving after puking up my entire lunch... I'm still gonna need a therapist after this."
The other two laughed as what little good they could find in the day finally came out.