[Mark: 32.06.33]
- Ra'Chaal counter attack inbound, Kattegan 12th Super heavy armor division falling back, immediate plea for Astartes reinforcements.
*Motion for Censure issued by Vanguard Commander Centermerius.
== Seconded by Master Diaconus Bruis Le'Scot.
/Re... Cowardice in the Line of Duty/
; Legion Strike Cruisers, Shining Dew and Crimson Skies ordered to brave remaining defensive fire and take up interdiction positions.
…
- Status of The First Curse (Unchanged.)
- Master Astropath demands audience with Praetor Vaurion. Meeting promised after XIth Legion combat operations ease.
/:::::/
Thought for the day.
"I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Attributed to ancient Terran revolutionary spy hanged for treason Circa M. 1.7.
"Pasanius engage!"
Another phalanx of Xeno Knights was pressing towards our position led by a truly massive rotund machine that radiated heat from the oversized vented pack high on its back. Carrying a large single shot launcher in its giant hands.
The ends of which bore complex clawed thermal energy projectors, the Knight held up its right hand sending out a burning vortex shield to block the las cannon shots from the Deredeo pattern Dreadnought Raylan advancing through the narrow pass of dark shadowed walls with tactical squads by his feet.
Over the latest rubble pile the Legion had made in its Hacksaw March.
Another technique favored by the warriors of the Eleventh Legion, used to advance through heavily fortified areas quickly and to use our own might to bolster the auxilia forces we had sworn to stand by. A solid line of battle brothers and armor advancing behind multiple probing points of the most elite forces of the Dawn Stalkers. Veteran fast assault units, Destroyer squads, Dreadnought talons and terminator wings.
Points like the teeth of a saw blade, biting into the enemy.
And then the saw began to cut.
The lead Xeno machine lowered its energy shield down as it neared one of the army's entrenched positions in the bomb blasted lobby of one of the Xeno's towering glass hive spires. Men panicked and broke ranks fleeing from the approaching hulk abandoning their mortars. Lasgun shots and small auto weapons having no effect against its heavily armored frame.
A single gun metal cylinder launched from the Knight's back and landed in the midst of the soldiers brave enough to stand in its way. Green gas spilled from this canister filling the air and choking the troopers. Until a single fire trailing projectile spat from the walker's weapon igniting the swirling clouds with explosive force, troopers barely even had time to cry out before they were consumed by the scorching blaze.
The Knight walked undaunted through the flames, bones and body armor crunching beneath its feet. Pausing to sweep the burning shield down over the mortars. Melting the launch tubes to slag and detonating the unspent rounds.
More Knights fell out of the sky in the open plaza behind this beast and picked themselves up from their kneeling positions. Some of their patterns stripped down lightweight and made to move while others stood out like ogres of steel. Literal walking tanks like the lead machine coming right at us. Most however were in the middle ground of the style we had first faced at the elevator yesterday.
Their acrobatic pilots came down from the nearby buildings or emerged from the shadows leaping into the cavernous cockpits of their mechanical steeds. Some of these soldiers absent their walkers made use of the jump kits on the small of their backs to leap up against the canyon like walls of this transit route and assail us from above.
Bolters raised up and quickly plucked these Xenos from their attack like troublesome flies. But not before a multitude of thrown explosives rained down on the legionnaires. Blasting battle brothers off their feet, forcing our heavy weapons to take cover.
A vox gnarled voice crackled in my ear, "Gladly Commander."
Ancient Pasanius was easily a match in size for this pyromaniac Knight, he walked his Contemptor chassis right through a blast scarred wall on the right flank into the fire and flames coming to grips with his own twin close combat fists and their built in heavy flamers.
The Xeno Knight reloaded and fired its weapon at Pasanius, the flaming shell shattered against his armor. Whatever compound it contained lit and began to burn against his adamantium shell.
I zoomed out with my helmet's magnification from my position several meters behind the Deredeo Raylan next to a stalled Stormblade super heavy. Indirect mortar fire had shattered one of its tracks when we finally crossed into the Xeno's kill zones and their counter attack began. Other super heavies backed up and faltered the whole march in their retreat from this tiny display of aggression. Much to my ire I had to deploy my chosen and the one hundred and eighty ninth company after dispatching a pack of gunships at the artillery position to save this crew who despite being immobilized continued to lob plasma blasts at the approaching walkers.
Such bravery was worth preserving.
I brought my attention back to the battle before me. Once we crossed this plaza half of the entire elevator complex would be purged and under our control. This vast parade route of smooth white stone roads, great sweeping plains of bright green grass surrounded by long reflecting ponds. The largest open space in this continent of conveyors to the elevators. These Xenos were very fond of this design in their worlds. It would be pleasing to the eye if built by Humans.
Pasanius kept advancing like the burning thermite lodged on his armored chest was only a little lodge candle and had as much chance of harming him. The alien walker cast its weapon away it must have realized how long that would take to bring down the Dreadnought. So it chose a new approach, raising its hands glowing with bright thermal energy.
The ancient's voice blared out over vox speakers, "I shall not be out done alien!"
The Contemptor crashed its twin fists up together the twin smoking streams of promethium almost merged together as they splashed over the Xeno's armored front. But the bulky machine had been designed and built to take such punishments.
The walker went into a fighting crouch, legs wide and arms wide to welcome Pasanius into its reach. I doubted however its alien pilot knew of its foe and just what it was getting into. Before his internment in that coffin shell, Sergeant Pasanius had loved to wrestle.
The Dreadnought's powerfists came up catching and crushing the Xeno's own with little effort. Unstable coils of glowing energy sputtered out and scattered in showers of sparks against the ferrocrete. Pasanius pushed his opponent back and off balance. The Knight stumbled half a step flailing its crushed hands still spewing energy at the bronze figure approaching.
The ancient one rushed forward ducking beneath the burning sprays, body checking the walker back. Even I heard the dull thud of it back by the Stormblade. The Knight tried to stab its flaming hands into the joints of Pasanius's hull in a last ditch effort to do damage, the Dreadnought smacked them aside. Brought his right fist back and slammed it into the Knights cockpit.
Pulling its wriggling pilot free of its sealed control center through the jagged edges of this new hole. Holding the alien up to the focusing helmet on his Contemptor frame as the directionless Knight balanced on its last legs.
"Any last words Xeno?" The ancient one growled,
I don't know if the alien actually responded, and I didn't speak their language anyway. But whatever its response, cryptic grunts of its tongue or some unintelligible gurgles of blood and pain made Pasanius laugh.
"Well said my green friend," He shouted with a hearty bark of amusement before igniting the power field around his closing fist and turning the creature into purple mist then turning the heavy flamer within the opposite against the crippled Knight,
"Good game,"
Promethium could melt anything given enough time. The alien war machine would be a pool of slag within the hour with the amount Pasanius sprayed all over its broken frame. Whirlwind rockets screamed from the sky and landed in the ranks of the approaching walkers. More barriers of blue light sprang up in front of the phalanx from open palms or as sudden walls from nowhere blocking the worst of the barrage.
"Hold fast brothers," I called over the open vox, "Form in the plaza and let them break upon us."
The incoming bombardment from our two strike cruisers wouldn't be nearly as effective if we let this force push into us amidst the cover of the buildings. We needed to pin them down in the open and smash them like an ant on an anvil. See how well their infuriating shields stood up to capital weaponry.
Pasanius ducked into one of said structures, clearing the line of fire for Raylan and brothers from the Thirty Fourth and Hundred Eighty Ninth to fire.
Two servitors finally finished their work on the Stormblade's left track, standing and halting the shower of sparks which had been raining for the last five minutes from their welders. Quickly rolling away on their own tracked feet for the safety of the approaching Army lines.
I did not expect such a mix of troops from our comrades in arms. Leading the charge was a Major Kenneth, summarily put in charge of the Kattegan twelfth super heavy battalion after Master Bruis had removed the Colonel who had ordered a retreat. The major was grinding over already pulverized streets in his heavily armed Stormhammer. The tank sporting two twin linked battle cannon turrets, an inbuilt forward arcing demolisher siege cannon, and four heavy bolter turret sponsons on its flanks over a pair of quad las cannons and heavy flamers. One of the most impressive display of guns I had ever seen on one war engine.
Behind him and the lighter battle tanks sortieing into place behind our own rhinos and predators were the swarms of the army infantry.
I had no small amount of shock upon seeing the weapons these mostly fur cloaked barbarous levies were armed with. The only firearms the poor bastards even had were ones looted from the enemy dead. The rest were bearing a motley assortment of crude spears, swords, and axes which I didn't think were even steel let alone accompanied by power fields or chainblades. Five thousand infantrymen readying for a battle in the wrong era beside the greatest tanks known to mankind.
The moment was not lost on me.
One of our techmarines balked at the levies using the Xeno weaponry, but I reasoned with him there was no harm in the practical short run of them having some semblance of proper equipment to use in service of the Legion and Imperium. They filled into the gaps alongside our Astartes squads where they might find some use against the synthetic infantry I knew were due for another appearance.
The levies parted around me as I approached the Stormhammer. A hatch opened up behind one of the battle cannons and the major emerged. His features hidden behind the heavy drab helmet with glowing green eyes and rebreathing mask with his jumpsuit riding high on his neck. Finding easy footholds on the many edges of armor I climbed up and crouched down beside the man.
"We go, now," I said, memories of his superior's feeble will giving my voice an even harsher tone than the vox projectors could.
I could tell from his body language that he was nervous even in his mighty steed obviously new to the harsh ways of war, and his words confirmed it.
"Should we not wait for your orbital support lord?" He asked,
"You are lucky Major," I told him, "Other Legions would have forced decimation on the Kattegan twelfth for what your superiors ordered,"
I brought up my right hand and lightning claw, "Here you stand in humanities golden hour and you still feel fear?"
Kenneth managed to regain some composure, "Only of failing Captain, should we not use our superiorities to their full advantage?"
"Which is what we are doing, if they cross this plaza we will lose the advantage of open ground then we will waste precious time turning back and hunting them down. We halt them here."
His helmeted head shook, "Astartes, mad the lot of you. Running out right at the enemy."
It almost churned my stomach picturing the way these soldiers had been taught to fight. Something needed to be corrected. I thought of a dozen separate lessons from my dead Captain Oenomaus, and all the Diaconus I had ever sat at the feet of.
To set an inspiring example,
"Mad we may seem Major," I told him, "But I will tell you this and perhaps you will understand what compels us… We will not shame our absent Primarch when he is returned to us with tales of dishonor and cowardice in the line of duty. The right to our future belongs to the brave and the bold, seizing our destiny will require courage."
The man sat there, in deep thought I hoped,
"Fug it…" Kenneth finally said, "Today is a good day to die!"
He reached back grabbing the admantium hatch and sealed himself inside. The engines within this great beast of steel rumbled to readiness and I stood on the Stormhammer's hull, voxing out to the whole of the Vanguard.
"Forward! Their last day Dawns!"
First, half a dozen rhinos accelerated away from the front lines into the open. The approaching Knights targeted them immediately, ripping the personnel carriers to pieces with the cannons in their hands.
Just as planned. The rhinos were unmanned with their controls jammed forward and their crew compartments full of smoke bombs. Clouds of grey ash billowed out from the burning hulls, blocking both our eyes and those of the Xenos. Now the battle tanks and the rest of the Dawn Stalkers moved forward, stray rounds flicking through the smoke screen but not doing nearly as much damaged as they would have if they'd been aimed.
I had been trained as an outrider during my days as a sergeant. Finding my balance on top of the shifting Stormhammer was child's play compared to those many hours spent at break neck speeds on a jetbike. The other just fixed Stormblade shifted to the right as it began to advance letting our tank come up side by side. Shaking even my gene enhanced bones with the power of their engines.
This was how they were meant to fight, first in the line of fire, first into hostile lands anchoring the battle line. We rolled out into the blinding sunlight and my visor automatically dimmed to compensate.
I keyed into the tank's vox frequencies, "Show them our true fury Major,"
"Target acquired, shots out!"
Five cannons roared as one, blue cutting beams flashed out from the las cannons followed by the flash of a miniature sun from the Stormblade's plasma cannon firing as the whole Imperial force let loose with every single cannon it possessed. The crushing symphony of the explosives landing beyond the smoke was one of the sweetest sounds I had ever heard.
Our rounds sailed through the smoke screen leaving neat little holes,
Letting in the blue glow from more of the alien energy shields. Tall cyan walls shimmered after they recovered from the tons of explosives hammered against them, or caught in the vortex of energy projected from raised fists.
I almost snarled in frustration the Major voiced the reason mere seconds later,
"No effect on target Commander." The vox remained open for a moment longer letting me hear his nervous swallow. But partially deserved for the mortal, we may as well have been throwing pie plates with those shields up.
"Drive us closer," I ordered, "We shall grind them to ruin beneath the treads."
He responded with the crank of massive shifting gears lurching the Stormhammer forward as the battle cannons let loose another volley and the chatter of heavy bolters sang like rain on a roof. We rolled through the smoke clouds just in time to witness the alien energy barriers finally fail beneath our barrage. One Knight uselessly peppered the front of our tank with a massive laser rifle before being sucked beneath the Stormhammer.
A Xeno cannon round exploded against the comms array to my right, sensing the gunsights lining up on me I leapt from the tank. The crushed walker emerged from the shadows beneath the Stormhammer, attempting to rise until I buried my claws in the power plant on its back.
Its right hand rose up as if the artificial automata could feel the pain of the mono edged blades biting deep as it collapsed back, and the cockpit began to open. But instead of salvation the Xeno pilot found a horde of screaming barbarians ramming their spears down into its purple guts.
Satisfied the machine was no longer a threat I turned back to the battle. Astartes disembarked from their Landraiders and Rhinos and every single Dreadnought in the Echelon charged forward behind the ancient Pasanius. Assault cannons and in built bolters spun up, I heard the familiar growing whine of their multi-meltas and las cannons powering on while their power fists opened and closed in anticipation.
They would not be wanting for long, the Knights closed the gaps around our tanks firing into the weaker side armors or at the now vulnerable troops especially our auxiliaries. The giant chain guns, explosive cannons, laser rifles, blue electricity projectors, and off-hand mounts reaped a bloody toll on the light infantry who uselessly hurled spears and axes against the walkers. But the machines lacked the stopping power to penetrate and truly cripple our armored battle tanks,
Yet they did not need their guns to render our vehicles inoperable,
Their flickering body shields warded away the mass of bolter rounds crashing against them for a moment, the alien Knights gripped their clawed hands low on our light vehicles and flipped them end over end. I saw one Predator fall backwards and crush four Astartes and their sergeant blind to the danger as they fired on another Knight breaking through the lines. But our heavy battle tanks and Landraiders resisted their efforts, one machine could not flip any of those quickly without leaving itself exposed and defenseless.
The aliens were relentless, I sensed the appropriate time.
"Tyr now!"
The heavy weapons Captain acted at once, I trusted him to guide the tanks on our flanks to close in like a great claw on the armored Knights. Their flanks turned to deal with the threat while I voxed to my chosen and the Dreadnoughts once more, we needed to get in close.
"Charge!"
One ancient Contemptor bearing twin assault cannons opened up with everything he had at a Knight walking past the Stormhammer still firing its earth shaking battle cannons into the phalanx, the alien machine raised its left hand catching all of the high explosive shells in its swirling field. Undaunted the Dreadnought kept up the barrage,
Right until the Knight uncurled its fingers and shot it right back, blowing off each of the assault cannons and shredding the front armor of the ancient who toppled backwards to the ground. My heart burned for the fallen one, but cooled in the looming shadow of the one whose dead heart burned even hotter.
Pasanius vox growled a challenge at the walker, "Let me show you how to really catch fire alien."
Once again his bronze power fists clanged together, the merged promethium torrent immolated the other Contemptor's final slayer. The pilot must have panicked for he made no move to block the twin power fists that swung down then back up behind Pasanius like the hands of a clock and hammered the Knight down into the ground where it belonged,
Shattered before the might of the Eleventh Legion,
Snapping off shots from my wrist bolter around the twin super heavy tanks I tried to gauge the flow of the wider battle closing in. From the right of the Stormblade another Knight appeared hefting one of their explosive firing rifles, rocket pods rising up from its shoulders aiming straight for Pasanius and myself.
The Dreadnought immediately stepped in front of me crossing his massive iron arms, I could not count the amount of rockets Pasanius blocked with his own body. All to save me.
I broke for cover to my left trying to keep my crested head low, Pasanius swung a left hook at the now much closer walker rotating his whole torso on the mid joint. These machines were much more nimble than the ancients, in one smooth motion it spun and ducked down to one knee then launched another missile barrage and fusillade of cannon fire at the looming Contemptor. But the tech priests had gifted his iron-form with a stronger alloy than most others of his kind, Pasanius yet endured.
The giant rifle butt crashing against his chest instead of the targeted helmet focuser did even less to penetrate his hide. Moving quickly I raked my claws across the back of the Knight's vulnerable knees hamstringing both legs in one fell swoop. The ground rumbled behind me as I began to head toward the right flank where I knew the majority of our signal masters were taking cover. I had no time to turn back and see what Pasanius was now doing to that machine.
Vaurion had ordered two ships to come into low orbit for support no matter the danger of the remaining defensive fire. But to mitigate the risk I myself had commanded Arminger to find and neutralize one last trio of defensive laser batteries that covered the heart of the city.
I voxed my second for a status report, knowing it was me and predicting my wish for expedience the assault Captain spoke as soon as the link was established,
"The control room is barricaded, give me two minutes." He said, sounding out of breath.
"Do you require reinforcements?" I asked,
"Negative, just take some picts for me when the ships burn these creatures."
A corner of my mouth crept up in a smirk, "Understood."
Close range bolters and meltas from every direction along with the sponson las cannons whittled the Knights on the right flank down one by one. But the battle still raged on the left flank, these Xenos appearing more skilled their fellows. Giving ground while being forced back into our captured territory by Captain Rameus's iron resolve.
He was often said to be only one numeral away from a legion more to his battle character.
Ancient Raylan stood before me, picking his shots with the two las cannons on his Deredeo frame while the missile launcher on his back sent explosive death up into the sky. I scanned for the signal masters about to step over his bronze clawed foot when a different shaking drew my attention downward.
At first I thought it was the thunder of guns that had accompanied the battle ever since we made hard contact. Until the cracks began to appear,
Black lines spread like veins in the blink of an eye through the dust covered slabs beneath our feet, the sound of ferrocrete tearing apart making my helmet senses automatically dull. Raylan looked down from his targets, I shared one look with the ancient above me before the ground gave out beneath us.
I fell several meters straight down, armor and the Emperor's genetic gifts saved my legs from being broken. Training and instincts saved my life by rolling forward from beneath the Deredeo that crashed hard behind me.
Finding my balance and direction took a moment in this pitch darkness and clouds of dust that flooded this subterranean system, luckily I hadn't impaled myself on my own lightning claws, a death to embarrassing to contemplate. I could imagine brothers and battle tanks as the source of the other rending crescendos of heavy things hitting the bottom of this deep pit. Theoreticals of damage to the hive's sub structure were prominent in my mind, but a deeper animal feeling told me this was definitely a trap.
A thought confirmed seconds later as I watched the army of little red lights emerge from the shadows ahead. Single upright bars and other twin slashes of crimson seemingly floating towards me. As I saw them, they saw me. Hundreds of synthetics advancing through the darkness, shaking the ground with the weight of their metal bodies. Rank and file no larger than a human forging ahead as cannon fodder, laced with squads of heavy frames built to fight hand to hand and carry the heaviest of infantry portable weapons.
All coming right for me.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
There was nothing else outside of this hole.
I saw little but sparks flying from machines shredded by my claws, tracer rounds and plasma blasts briefly illuminating this pit of violence and death I was trapped inside. It did not matter looking for a way out, the enemy was here with me. My forces would know what to do, tactical squads and the Dreadnoughts would be lining up along the trench that had cut our Vanguard in half waiting to rain fire on whatever hostiles emerged.
But I wasn't remembering any of that, I was as an animal trapped in a corner. Fighting because that was the only thing I could do. Unable to count how many synthetics and aliens I cut down aside from the next in line.
As the flaming hot hand around my hearts clenched tighter and tighter, like something was trying to burst forth in my struggle. Killing to try and beat it back down,
More combat automatons emerged from the intact substructure, the shorter cousins to the Knights on the surface. Something struck me in the back and I fell to the shattered ferrocrete. I rolled back firing the bolter on my wrist ineffectively against the robot that had struck me.
It raised a claw glowing with plasma fire getting ready to incinerate me. Rage leapt from my throat in a wild defiant roar.
Before Pasanius kicked this Xeno machine through the air back against the wall.
The chatter of bolters firing into this mechanical horde began burying the howls of our auxiliaries meeting the machines finally on semi-equal footing. Pasanius's heavy flamers immolated the machine, melting armor and turning wires into veins of smoke and sparks. Behind the Contemptor Ancient Raylan lay defeated and smoking, I knew not whether he was just incapacitated or had died his final death. Pasanius looked down on me,
I knew he knew,
His voice projector growled, "Ground and center yourself Commander."
I got back on my feet, hearing his words but choosing not to respond. Taking deep calming breaths and letting them out almost explosively. The burn in my chest slowly subsiding down to embers and then just cold ash. Instead I voxed to Captain Arminger,
"John, status?" I demanded,
"The array is offline," He told me, "Call the ships brother."
"I need a signal master!"
One legionnaire carrying multiple antennas on the back of his bronze mark II plate and a data slate on his left wrist slid down into this trench upon hearing my company wide call. His boots pushed away some of the debris and I saw the familiar shape of a railway beam that had been buried. The Xenos were dug into this place like a nest of ticks.
"Commander?" He spoke the word in reverence and as a question for orders.
I pointed my left claw back to the front lines, "Link with the ships. Clear them hot and weapons free, attack direction west burn everything ahead of our march five kilometers away from tower four."
He nodded in understanding then muted himself as he linked with the incoming strike cruisers. Pasanius looked up into the sky, some system in his ironform alerting him to an incoming danger.
"There are two alien ships approaching in atmosphere from the west Commander." He rumbled to me,
I turned back to the signal master, "Get those guns firing now."
Shoulder to shoulder and screaming their lungs out another wave of auxiliaries charged into the synthetics. Pasanius and I turned to face the mechanical battalion as well.
Flamers from up above splashed torrents of fire into the robotic ranks. I fired the last rounds from my wrist mounted bolter into the smoking carnage, downing a few frames but not enough to make a difference. But at least those last few shots had not been wasted on more Knights or Automatas.
Fury and insanity amongst our unaugmented allies almost seemed enough to carry the battle. Razor points broke flimsy joints and strong arms dented box like heads into artful messes of ruptured edges. Stolen weapons were pressed barrel to breast plate and proved equally as effective against the synthetics.
I could have forced my way through the crowd of screaming warriors back to the front, and for the Dreadnought by my side it would have been even easier. But I had my fill of combat for the moment, again reminding myself of my elevated position. I needed to find my way back to the surface.
Once again explosions shook the ground dangerously close. It was not hard to discern how close as half a heartbeat later a vibrant crimson spray coated me from head to toe. Droplets fell from the bronze and black paint and I reflexively brought one clawed hand up to try and guard my eyes behind the red slit.
A bloody hole of some thirty dead auxiliaries had opened up right next to me. More shouting and waving swords further down the line preceded a second bloody explosion of dead men. The warriors began to retreat in panicked sprints, their officers shouted and beat at their men trying to get them back into the fight.
Weight suddenly fell on my back, I tilted my head upward as far as I could. Right into the path of the narrow pointed blade in both hands of the Xeno on my shoulders. The tip slammed into my visor filling it with cracks. I swung up with my right claw with a cry of disgusted surprise, and brought it down again on my side covered in purple blood. The creature's mass disappeared from my shoulders although the cracks in my visor remained. I shuddered at how close it had come to me.
"Commander! Go!" Passanius shouted, swinging both powerfists down against the ground in a rippling energy shock wave. Auxilaries and synthetics alike were crushed and flung up into the air by the sheer force of the ancient's ground clearing swing. He could not afford to be cautious.
A red disc sailed over the violent mire of killing.
It landed four paces away in front of the signal master, four tiny jointed crab like legs sprouted from the device as the circle expanded upwards into a red flashing cylinder.
Lights painting targets,
The signal master wisely drew his bolt pistol and fired. The little machine leapt as the mass reactive round flew towards it, dodging and jumping right at the Astartes who adjusted his aim and put another shell through it in midair. The shell exploded first sensing mass and fulfilling its designed purpose.
Setting off the other explosive charge in the Ra'Chaal creation.
One powerful enough to send me stumbling back several paces while I raised my arms to block red hot shrapnel. The signal master was not so lucky a mere arms reach away, his pistol exploded along with his left hand. To his credit the Astartes gave no visible or audible sign of pain. But too late I saw one of the cloaked aliens slide on its back between his legs from behind and fire a plasma shotgun into his face.
The Mark two helmet and the warrior's head beneath were blown clean off his bronze shoulders. The Xeno soldier brought its terrible weapon to bear against me, its bare reptilian fingers just began to squeeze the trigger when I nailed the creature to the ground with the claws of my right hand. Shredding the weapon to pieces as they passed through woven fibers and purple meat.
"Grenades! Bury them!"
My voice blared out over the vox and through projectors on my own helm when I stood. The auxiliary commanders stopped pushing their men into this meat grinder and began a full retreat. Dozens of strong Astartes arms hurled the called for explosives down into the trench. The legion of robots was shredded in fire and shrapnel where they stood, support beams from the deeper tunnels fell after the shockwaves, blocking their routes up from the under hive which I made note to have purged later.
Sergeant Ryder was there to offer me an armored hand up out of this bloody pit, careful to grab onto only my wrist and not the lethal claws all while keeping our proud banner high. Luckily the brutalized ferrocrete held up beneath our combined weight.
Cannon fire and explosions still echoed over the left flank, but I finally redirected my attention back to the front. Our tanks and warriors giving the coup de grace to the last of the alien phalanx. Reloading their weapons and resetting their sights on the new threat.
Down from the clouds the ships descended.
Two just as Pasanius had foretold, not like the void faring battleships I witnessed yesterday however. Still large enough to eclipse several hab blocks in a hive city. Massive thermal plumes vented from their arrow headed underside bearing thousands of metric tons aloft. Giant cutting fans dipped from the wings into the air guiding the vessels down. Dozens and dozens of Xeno Knights fell from its belly. The first of the pair made landfall, landing pads crushing down on green grass beds. One giant ramp extended down to the ground and out from its cargo hold marched rank upon rank of their synthetic soldiers.
Thousands of them.
More Knights fell from its sister ship, and interceptors screamed out into the skies from the port and starboard sides. Prime targets for our brothers still looking to the skies. But I adjusted my previous order,
"Ignore the flyers. Concentrate all fire on the walkers and infantry."
There was no more need to beware of death from above. Yes the Xeno craft were still hanging overhead. But we could leave them to our own interceptors now.
The sky was catching fire.
Single man craft fought and exploded in balls of fire battling each other in the vast distance between their home ships. I surmised most of the Xeno's ship borne weapons were made for point defense as they weren't raining flak and missiles down on our battle line they were shooting into the raging dogfight. Their troops disembarked, and their fighters launched the two ships were now looking to punch through our screen and escape.
But it was too late for them to escape.
Ants on an anvil, and here came the hammer.
I couldn't track the first beam of light that came screaming down but I saw the results of it landing. The shield it struck on the hovering ship lasted for half a second, saving the hull and hundreds of Ra'Chaal lives from the rolling fireball that spilled over its back. But weapons of this scale were always deployed in combinations, the first strike crippled shields and armor the second delivered the killing blow.
The light of cannon fire pulsed overhead in the burning clouds lit with thunder and lighting. The atmosphere breaking apart around the hulls of the Shining Dew and Crimson Skies as they lowered themselves as far as they dared towards the war world readying to smite everything beneath them with capital weaponry.
A full fusillade from one of the great vessel's macro cannons literally burst the hovering ship at the seams. Metal wings and entire decks burst out in a ball of fire from the reactor going critical, decimating the still marching infantry with debris. A credit to our gunnery crews, few legions could match our precision with close orbit bombardments. And no other would dare authorize any danger close fire mission like this.
Having all the destructive force available to our legion vessels unleashed only a few kilometers away from our Vanguard felt like the whole planet was shaking itself. The most powerful nonnuclear or cyclonic weapons in the Imperium turning this marching host into nothing but plumes of flaming dust and broken rock. Sending buildings tumbling into ruination leaving naught but cleansed glass behind.
This must be what an Exterminatus felt like.
This was what victory felt like.
The capital weapons cleaved through the hive structures, on their way to their designated stopping point burning thousands of square meters of Xeno architecture and sending an un-guessable number of their warriors and workers into oblivion.
The closest blast waves broke upon the fronts of our vehicles like water on rock, only a few unbalanced and braced Astartes fell to the ground, their pride wounded but nothing else.
Human tankers rose up like moles from the depths of their war machines through the top hatches all along the front, taking in the glorious sight with their own eyes. Shouting in adrenaline and triumph at the top of their lungs. Disciplined Astartes simply looked for any impossible survivors to make it through the carnage after they adjust from the shock of the bombardment landing almost on their toes.
But each indulged in the little swell of pride blooming in all of our chests.
Pride not yet completely earned.
I looked over my left shoulder to the last three Xeno machine's standing before half a dozen Landraiders that had closed the noose around their throats. Our warriors disembarked in the inner circle standing behind the defiant stone wall of Captain Rameus stood atop a dead Knight surrounded by slaughtered synthetics and legionaires.
He had forsaken his captain's cloak for a las cannon power cell on his back which had sustained him through this bloody day. He was a master of this heavy laser spitter, knowing the exact millisecond his weapon was ready for another shot. And just where to fire it to the most devastating effect.
Blowing the leg off the right most Knight trailing behind its shield as it took another step forward. Making the machine fall flat on its face, easy prey for the Astartes who swarmed over it revving their armor rending chain axes and crushing crackling powerfists. Shifting his aim again to blast the chaingun from the hands of the Knight on the left and when its rocket pods sprung from its shoulders to rain death on the battle brothers Rameus fired again destroying one and crippling the other with the first premature detonation. All the Landraiders focused now on this defenseless machine and quickly blew it to pieces.
The last machine was something else entirely, its standard rounded hull colored black as night trimmed in blood red paint, a long serpentine dragon decal coiled around its ocular port glowing bring blue. The Knight who had kept his dwindling comrades fighting and delaying this whole wing of the Vanguard far longer than any of the others that had stood before us. This phalanx's Seneschal if I had to guess.
It's raised shield swallowed bolt after bolt and cannon after cannon shot. But Rameus aimed straight for this arsenal of taken munitions and fired a single shot.
A cascade of carnage erupted in the middle of his field, the Knight's armed was ripped to shreds and split open like a cooked sausage cored by the Captain's shot. And all the stolen bolt shells and missiles detonated and devastated the front armor of the black machine.
Yet still it advanced.
I made to step forward and join melee with this walker. Sergeant Ryder held me back however with his powerfist on my shoulder. I made to twist free but the vox crackled to life.
It was Captain Rameus,
"Back away!" He both commanded the men around him and demanded of the looming Titan of violence, "You shall not!..."
But the machine did, battered and beaten the machine crashed to its knees an arm's reach away from Rameus.
Its hull began to glow.
Sparks and blinding light flew from cracks and voids in its shell. The machine stretched out its remaining hand and smashed Captain Rameus to the ground pinning him in place. He shouted more in anger than pain his las cannon crushing down on him beneath the clawed hand. A wave of pressure hung heavy in the air, noise began roaring from the one handed Knight met with screaming defiance from the old Captain and his warriors rushing in to free him.
I thought one of our ships had misfired.
That was the power of the Knight's self-destruct.
A blinding flash, another earsplitting boom. Sending Landraiders almost flipping backwards and bronze Astartes flying like rag-dolls. The ones that weren't incinerated instantly in the last Xeno standing's bitter ploy to take some of us into oblivion with it.
My chosen and I were sheltered by the now white hot heavy armor of the Landraiders, their drivers stunned and shaken by the point blank detonation of the reactor. But not even our senses were immune to the sheer force of what just happened.
The Captain…
It was a forlorn hope that moved me forward with the squads at my back.
Rameus had armor second only to terminator plate, he could have shimmied free and ducked behind the dead Knight he had made his last stand on for cover.
I ran forward looking for any sign of the gallant devastator, calling his name into the dead silence.
"Captain! Captain respond! Captain Rameus!... Tyr!... Tyr!"
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A/N
Well you know the drill,
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