Lipstick on an Old Biddy
The ancient doors grind open slowly on rusting tracks and whining motors that just barely have the strength to shift such a heavy portal. Clouds of soot-stained ice flow into the long-sealed storage bunker One-Nine-Nine-Alpha from the frozen tundra beyond. Flakes of snow settle into the tracks soon blocking the doors open. It matters not to the men gathered on the other side of those doors. Their eyes are locked on the shapes huddled beneath treated oil-sheets in the darkness.
Men swarm through the doors, their haste given voice by the low crump of artillery fire in the far distance and the screaming engines of Thunderbolts overhead. The sounds of a war soon to be brought to a close, and the sign of an imminent redeployment. Tarps are ripped aside to reveal the grey hulls of Leman Russ main battle tanks sitting in their ordered rows. A full company's worth of tanks, twenty of them standard Leman Russ variants with a Battle Cannon and sponson mounted heavy bolters.
The last platoon's worth of tanks stand separate from the others. Three of them are armed with the wide barrels of Demolisher cannons. The short-barreled weapons appear stubby next to a standard cannon but are far wider to launch a more explosive shell that is favored for shattering fortifications and obliterating packed infantry. The Demolishers are up-armored with extra sheets of plasteel welded across all surfaces to protect them against the intensity of the return fire they will receive as priority targets. A fourth tank is armed with an Eradicator cannon.
The massive muzzle break and support struts are studded with crumbling purity seals and strips of tattered parchment indicating its relative youth compared to the more ancient vehicles nearer the entrance. It is the fifth that draws most eyes and grimaces of pity among the arriving crews.
When the Colonel read off the inventory of the warehouse to the newly combined company and the crews to man them it came as a great relief to many that they were spared the death trap awaiting the crew assigned to LR-117-9-Chromata. For Sergeant Jeremiah Young and his crew of misfits and outcasts it seemed like a dream come true rather than a death sentence.
The grizzled sergeant has served as part of the 55th Cadian Armored Regiment since it's re-founding twenty-years before. Working his way up from a support role as a Whiteshield to the command of his own tank. He and the crew of Rolling Thunder fought across seven planets and bested vehicles of every kind and make in nearly every environment that a tank can fight in. That was until a run-in with a company's worth of Ork armor on Ryza saw the mighty Leman Russ and most of his crew lying in a burning heap on the battlefields.
As that war concluded and the Imperial Guard began to redistribute manpower once more, he drew another command slot and a new crate thanks to his exemplary record. He gnaws on a fat cigar as he eyes his new tank speculatively. Trooper Muntley murmurs a prayer of thanks to the Emperor and the Omnissiah at his side, clutching the twin icons tightly and squeezing his eyes shut.
The gaunt gunner is the only member of Young's last crew, the only one to survive the pair of solid shells that punched through the flank of Rolling Thunder causing her to catch fire. Purple eyed and pale skinned like most Cadians he is the only familiar face on the new crew. The other four, despite sharing features, are all new and still unknowns to him. Gunners Oblast and Proctor are both squat youths built strong by their labors as part of the logistics companies for most of their life. They are both blonde and purple eyed with unmarked skin and rough hands.
Loader Tybalt is an unknown quantity still as the only survivor of his last tank and in fact his entire company. The burly trooper is well used to hauling heavy shells which will soon be put to good use in the turret basket. Driver Hilton is well known for his daring and steady hands on the controls if not for his dependency on good booze and stimms to keep him going. As a result his icy-blue eyes are bloodshot from withdraws and rimmed by dark circles from lack of sleep. The nightmares get to them all in the end.
"Well, let's get her cleaned up and prepped for the Enginseer to consecrate her," Young growls around his cigar and begins to clamber up the track guards. His crew follows suit, and he examines everything he can think of for faults before the Enginseer and his gang of Servitors arrive to go over the old tank with a fine-toothed comb.
The Leman Russ Executioner has a bleak reputation among the tankers of the Imperial Guard for its notorious habit of exploding if fired too quickly, and for its lack of prolonged fighting power from its lack of ammunition stowage. Instead of the forty rounds carried by the standard Leman Russ variants the Executioner has to make do with only twelve shots from the fuel cell.
The photonic fuel cells needed by the massive plasma cannon are volatile at the best of times and require careful handling. Exposed coolant cables running from the momentarily dry coolant flask mounted at the rear of the turret and into the complex cannon offer a tempting target for marksmen as a breach of the cooling lines can lead to a catastrophic meltdown. The turret is also equipped with extra heat shielding and vents to aid in protecting the crew and in cooling the cannon itself.
The Sergeant squeezes the coolant lines testing their elasticity and ease of movement. He grunts in satisfaction and moves to the turret, grunting with exertion as he overpowers the rusted hatch hinges. He drops into the dark interior of the tank and pulls a torch from his harness. The illumination beam highlights the interior of the tank; cramped and claustrophobic with cracked upholstery on the seats and a layer of dust covering every surface.
Young glances at the empty slot where the fuel cell that will power his gun will rest and sighs heavily. Every shot will have to count. He glances to his left and sees a small panel of dormant displays labeled "Coolant Temp." and "Mag. Field Stab."
"I guess that's how I monitor the gun," he mutters to himself and begins testing various mechanisms and covers for signs of decomposition and in need of replacement. He shouts out a warning before trying the manual traverse wheel and mutters a curse as the wheel refuses to budge. He hauls himself free of the silent machine with no small amount of grunting and low cursing.
He looks up from the turret basket and right into a pair of bright red optics. He takes a bit of pride in the fact that he only flinches. Enginseer Theas has been with the regiment since the founding tending to the machines just as the Ministorum Priests tend to the men. The red robes and twitching mechadendrites do much to hide the mostly human figure beneath all the metal and dogma.
It is impossible to tell how old the tech-priest is but even the oldest member of the regiment has sworn that he talked to the Enginseer at some point during his childhood. The enigmatic being tilts his head exposing the cables running from his facial augmentic all the way back to the harness and the four mechadendrites ending in various tools.
"How do you find this glorious machine Sergeant Jeremiah Young?" the tech-priest warbles in a voice made tinny by the vox-grill in his mask.
"She's old and has been sitting on her arse for too long, but she'll be purring like a kitten once again once you're done with her," the Sergeant responds with a smirk.
"Indeed. What issues have you found in your inspection so far Sergeant?"
((-))
Captain Wilford Marks sighs quietly to himself as he observes the crotchetiest Sergeant in his company explain every minor fault in his new crate to the attentive tech-priest. He felt bad that such an experienced commander is being stuck with a mismatched crew in a rolling coffin like an Executioner but at the end of the day…he needed to do it. The next campaign deserves nothing less than the best they can offer.
More red-robed figures appear from out of nowhere and wordlessly approach the tankers each trailed by their own cart of parts and a team of Servitors. The Captain crosses his arms and nods in satisfaction.
"How is it coming Wil?" a soft, cultured voice inquires over the sound of boots crunching through snow. The Captain turns and salutes Colonel Maxi "Iron Bollocks" Bollard, eyes raking the stooped figure of the old tanker. The Colonel was once a tall man and lean with muscle from time as an infantryman before extreme losses caused his former regiment to merge with the 55th and then he earned his way to command the whole thing. His black hair is receding and split by a long scar starting from his right eye and trailing all the way past his ear. His back has the natural slump in it from a lifetime spent in the armored coffin of a tank with bionic replacements for lower legs after a tank brewed up around him as a young tanker. His uniform is obscured beneath the heavy greatcoat he wears to ward off the cold, only the slightest hints of the dark green of a Cadian dress uniform peeking out from beneath the grey fabric.
"It's coming sir. The boys are as giddy as kids on the Sanguinala. The Cogboys are going to have a busy few days though, some of these crates have been here for almost a hundred years."
"And what about our new Executioner?" the Colonel asks with a cocked brow. The Captain winces and turns back to regard the tank in question as the servitors begin opening the engine compartment and Theas clambers into the turret after Sergeant Young, no doubt to begin the arduous repairs that the ancient tank will need to become operational.
"She'll need some work but…it's been a while since I've seen Young this excited about something," Marks shrugs. The Colonel grunts in agreement. The ill-humor of the grizzled sergeant is matched only by his dogged determination and skill with a tank and crew. Still, they both know the statistics for rookie crews on Executioners.
"Well your boys will have plenty of time to get accustomed to their new machines. We've got a three-to-seven-month long transit and a berthing on one of those Mechanicus super haulers. Training fields aplenty in there. Work your men hard and get them ready to fight."
"They'll be ready sir. They're Cadians." The Colonel chuckles and smacks the younger man on the shoulder.
"Good man."
((-))
The roar of a HL320 V12 Multi-fuel engine, the clanking of the tracks, the heat of the crew compartment and the stench of Mechanicus ointments burning away from components in a newly revived tank.
Throne of Terra I've missed this! Sergeant Young crows internally as his tank rumbles along the practice fields inside the Medusan Cog. The entirety of E-Company roars across simulated icy plains at top speed in a classic assault spearhead with the Chimeras of the 60th Vostroyan Mechanized sheltering in the lee of the battle tanks. Blood and Steel roars in agreement as Hilton slips her into fifth gear and they reach top allowed speed.
The Executioner plows across the snowy artificial hills easily keeping pace with the Captain's command tank. Mock targets come into view over the crests of the hills, servitor driven decoy trucks given armor plating and mocked up weapons programmed and controlled by a Magus to better provide training for the Imperial Guard being transported to their next combat zone. The vox-panel flashes the command frequency and Young flicks the switch over.
"All tanks prepare for firing on the move. Remember to pick your targets and make every shot count. Accuracy before fire rate. On my mark!"
"Rig main gun for firing! Gunner traverse right, target armored truck. On my mark," Young orders over the crew intercom and then quickly switches back to the command channel. Muntley voices his affirmative while Tybalt flips a series of relays over to the primed position allowing the magnetic field within the Plasma Destroyer to gain power needed to focus the ball of plasma into a coherent shot. Young glances at the monitors for the gun and nods to himself, coolant levels and temperature good and the magnetic field is stable.
The firing sequence is a more complex process than a simple battle cannon and requires the loader to act as a safety mechanism for the gunner and the rest of the crew in general. A trio of relay switches and a release valve control the power to the magnetic coils and the actual flow of the unstable hydrogen mix into the firing chamber to be turned to plasma. Without those relays and the valve being opened the weapon will not fire and by that same token will not explode killing them all.
It makes the loader a position that must be trusted by all members of the crew, even more than usual. And considering that this is the first time that the cannon has been fired in two-hundred and fifty-three years…
"All tanks fire!"
"Make it count Muntley! Fire!"
"Gun is lit, flows open, firing!" Muntley barks in a trance like state that Young is all too familiar with. The cannon hums and whines, the sound building to an unnerving pitch before the magnetic coils spit the searing bright blob of plasma out at an incredible velocity. The shot, taken on the move and with a weapon that lacks a gyro-stabilizer like the other tanks in the company, is guided only by the instincts and skill of the gunner…and the Hand of the Emperor.
The plasma strikes the target exactly where Milton aimed it. The incredible heat and destructive power of the plasma strike rips through the plasteel and flak plate welded and bolted onto the targeted truck like it was wet paper and leaves nothing behind but the front quarter of the truck. Residual heat wafts from the destroyed truck and the ragged edges of the wound drips and sags like heated wax.
Young grins savagely and pounds his gunner on the shoulder in excitement. The Sergeant eyes the temperature levels and grins again. The readings are exactly what the Enginseer predicted; the temperature of the coolant has risen by thirty percent for an expenditure of half a flask. The rest of the exercise is a blur to the crew of Blood and Steel.
The Vostroyans supported by Cadian armor assault a strong point manned by servitors armed with paint guns in place of real rounds. In the ensuing battle across trenches and through tunnels the Vostroyans lean heavily on their armored support to punch through the defenses and reach the objective: a simulated ammunition dump. The attack gives Young's crew plenty of opportunity to test every system in the tank from the sponsons to the thermal sights of the main gun.
The thorough work out shows the crew what they need to work on, what still needs to be fixed on the tank, and instills trust in each other and their machine. Exactly as the exercise was intended. As the training day winds to an end and the crew drives their tank back to the garage the Sergeant places the first of many decorations on the inside of the tank.
A charred piece of plasteel retrieved from the wreck of his last tank threaded onto a simple chain like that used for dog-tags. A reminder of past mistakes. The tanks of the 55th roar into their resting places to be overseen by the Enginseers and their attendants, exhaust stacks spewing black smog and tracks leaving clods of dirt and snow behind. Sergeant Young pats the side of his tank fondly as the garage doors roll down hiding the artificial field from sight.
"You'll do alright old gal."
