T-5 Hours until the offensive.
Junior Lieutenant Natasha Smirna slouched in her Valkyrie, having been ordered to keep her craft grounded for some unknown reason. She would have expected to have been in high demand given the amount of supplies needed.
Her Valkyrie was the only vehicle not parked near the edge of the clearing. She was surrounded by pines, but she knew that thousands of imperial troops belonging to the division whose commander she had just returned from that big meeting in the army command bunker. They must be camped around her craft. If she squinted, she could just barely see the squads hunched beside their vehicles under the trees.
Instead, she sat in her cockpit, with only the lights of her controls and a single red emergency light to illuminate the space. Not that she minded. There were worse jobs she could have. Natasha shuddered as she imagined the infantry out there in the cold. The massive black vehicles always scared her, and she internally cringed each time a larger transport or armored vehicle would grind by, rattling the Valkyrie's hull.
Either way, she was stuck to the ground flying in this rainy darkness would have been certain death with the old quirky auspex and sensors on the "Eastern Wind", or, as it was called now, Penknife one-five. Instead she occupied herself with writing little notes that she imagined sending or giving to her partner back on Caria. The faint crackles of vox chatter from the headset on the dashboard could sometimes be heard over the rain. She missed her husband's large, brown eyes. She remembered his reassurances to her as she struggled through flight school. She opened her journal and wrote her emotions to him, her clunky low gothic writing barely legible.
Suddenly, the door behind her slid open, and she hurriedly sat on the paper. If Nicholas, her navigator, found out, she would never hear the end of it. They were close with each other, as well as the door gunners, Zak and Cody, yet such sappy writing was probably beyond the pale when it came to camaraderie.
"Hear anything interesting, cap?"
"Hey, I said only use that when we're in the air." Natasha tried to give a scolding glance to Nic, the crew often joked that the old Valkyrie handled like a boat with engines strapped to it. Still, she'd heard of overzealous commissars doling out severe punishments for 'disrupting the chain of command.' She failed at intimidation, as Nic laughed at her expression.
"My deepest apologies, junior lieutenant of the Aeronautica Imperialis tactical airlift force Smirna." He bowed.
Natasha gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes, and gestured to her headset.
"You can listen for yourself. Just air controllers getting everyone else landed. I haven't heard a single takeoff since the last bird lifted off from army command."
"Could be the weather."
"Nah, welcome to Guryor two, Nic, the weather's always like this. You either fly in it or you-... well or you don't."
"Maybe some bigshot is flying around." Nic said, his eyes looking to hers, as if the boy was hoping for her to agree with him.
"Yeah… maybe…" Natasha's voice trailed off as she glanced outside. The rain had picked up, and she couldn't see anyone else from the cockpit. The dark void outside was featureless, empty. Despite knowing that she was surrounded by countless soldiers, she felt very alone.
The dim red emergency light suddenly felt far brighter than it needed to be, and Natasha began feeling a bit more envy towards the soldiers, hunched and hidden in the trees, while her Valkyrie lay dead center in the clearing.
"Nic… see if you can get the other door stubber working, I'd like Zac or Cody to be able to shoot at stuff if they see it."
Her navigator's expression turned grim upon seeing hers, and he wordlessly stood up, his pale face bathed in the red glow of the emergency lights.
T-3 Hours until the offensive.
Nobody wanted to touch the body. The soldiers stood around the corpse in the drizzling rain, staring. The rain tapped at the open, upturned eyes and rinsed the slack mouth under the glare of the lantern. Larissa, the officer who had been left in charge of the vehicle trans-loading, tried to remember the soldier's name. She recalled that the boy was a Sarian. But the elusive name escaped her, teasing just beyond her mental grasp. She only remembered making vague conclusions about him. It seemed to Larissa as though the boy had set his mind to endure the time in uniform required of him with the minimum of personal engagement. To do as he was made to do, uncomplainingly, until it came time to return to his lunar home.
Now he was dead, and the fighting had not even begun. Larissa believed that there would, indeed, be a fight, and that it would come soon. But now there was only the frantic shifting of cargoes in the middle of a rainy night. The guns, still being ministered to by the tech-priests and engiseers, had not even begun to squander their allotments of ammunition. Yet the boy was absurdly dead, as though fate could not wait a few more hours or another day.
Larissa shook her head. attempting to select the correct response, the course of action that would result in the least trouble. What more could reasonably be expected? And what did they expect, when exhausted soldiers were detailed to trans-load the unwieldy crates of artillery charges and rounds in the rain with their bare hands, without even the most rudimentary tools?
Larissa had watched helplessly in the muted glow of the safety lights as the unbalanced crate began to slip. It started with a fatal shift on the shoulders of weary boys. Then it proceeded relentlessly, a dance of silhouettes, as the crate slowly edged forward, quickening, then dropping very fast as the struggling boys abandoned it one after the other in a swift chain reaction. At the climax of the brief drama, the Sarian was a last tiny shape, twisting in a moment's terror and sprawling backward under the weight, padding its fall with his chest. By the time they heaved the crate off to the side, the boy was dead.
Larissa tried to get the thing in perspective. The rain licked at the back of her neck. How big an event was the boy's death now? In a training exercise, everything in the unit would have come to a halt. But events had moved fatally beyond training exercises. The inevitability of war had come home to her the evening before, when the Munitorum officers had suddenly stopped demanding signatures of receipt on their delivery inventories. Larissa had never known such a thing to happen in the Imperium, and it shook her profoundly. At the same time, the grinding pace of the past few days had increased to an inhuman tempo.
Larissa decided that, although the boy's death was undoubtedly a very significant event to somebody, somewhere, there was nothing to be done about it here and now. And the cargo had to be transferred. She stared down, tidying up her conscience with a quick prayer to the Emperor. The corpse appeared ridiculous and small, an ill-dressed doll. The flat, puffy face shone in the red of the safety light as though the rain had polished it with wax.
"Pick him up," Larissa ordered. "We're wasting time." When the soldiers responded merely by shifting their positions, milling a little closer as each one waited for another to begin, Larissa hardened her voice, and placed a hand on her bolt-pistol. "Pick him up, you bastards. Let's go." It was always like this, she consoled herself. The chosen few decide. And there's nothing to be done but obey, hoping you're not the one who gets crushed in the mud.
T-2 Hours, 30 minutes until the offensive
Faustus stood in the empty briefing room, staring at the map again. He was always cautious, always concerned that one small piece would be out of place, throwing his entire machinery into chaos. He was also aware, that out there, millions of men were readying themselves, and were just as frightened as their ancestors were when they first stepped out of their caves to do war with each other.
T-1 Hour
Lieutenant Colonel Castinus awoke to a hand on his shoulder. "Has it started?" He asks. Before Captain Nielson could respond Castinus realized everything was as it should be, his big "Earthshaker" guns had not begun their work. The only sound was the rain on the roof of his Chimera, modified for command purposes, and the ceaseless noise of moving vehicles which had continued for days.
"Sleep well, sir?"
"I slept, Nielson, like a peasant when the master isn't looking. Head back inside, I'll join you in a moment." The captain nodded and trotted off to the fire control post. Castinus shifted in his seat. The preparations for combat had exhausted most of the officers and men. What would actual war be like? Castinus had never been to war. Instead, his son had been recruited to the PDF, then the guard. He had been proud to see Andreus off, and yet shamed that he was staying behind. And then Andreus returned, without his legs, or his sanity. He wondered if he too would return to his wife in such a manner. He remembered her suppressed sobs as he read out his conscription notice. All he could do was ask the emperor to guide him through this. Castinus put on his officers cap, and walked into the fire control center, stealing a glance at the looming shadows of his earthshaker battery as they pointed to the sky like fingers. Castinus turned and entered the control Centre. The men inside immediately snapped to attention.
"Sit down boys, sit down." A sergeant started to brew a herbal drink, and Castinus knew it was for him. The sergeant was a Sarian, and Castinus came from Guryor, yet still the men had tried to integrate their cultures as best they could. They were all good boys, a good team. He mentally extended his plea of the emperor's protection to them too. Castinus got up, and approached a corporal bent over an array of calculating machines, charts, and measuring tools.
"Sir, it just doesn't make sense. No matter how I do it, the numbers just don't come out right. Each time I try and double check my firing solutions, the numbers move erratically and change, I can't make sense of it."
"Well." Castinus said, "In the initial barrage we'll just work the guns overtime, hit all designated targets even before the boys get across the river."
"Sir, but the guns- Already command's expectations are unrealistic. They're too used to working with Griffons and Mortar Cannons, and don't understand that Earthshakers are different."
Castinus paused. "Well, do we have enough for the initial bombardment?"
"Of course, sir."
He straightened up. "Everything past that is a projected estimate. If the navy can actually hit something smaller than a hive city we will fall below projected numbers. And besides, if the Munitorum keep dropping off ammunition the way they've been dumping it since yesterday, we may have too many rounds and not enough tractors to move them when we reposition."
Castinus appreciated the Corporal's nervousness. It was better than a lazy grifter, enriching themselves at the expense of the imperium. "Either way we'll make it work. Now, has Baumer gotten his battery out of the mud yet?"
"He's out and in position. But he was furious. We messed with him a bit. You know, getting one gun stuck may be an accident, but getting an entire battery mired is more of a plan. He's still calming down."
Castinus stopped smiling for a moment. He did not like their positions. The terrain was mucky, like nothing he had ever experienced on Caria. He had to position his guns so close together a single round could take several out at once, as an Engiseer bridging battalion and an armored vehicle recovery company had both been directed to their same ground. Castinus almost felt that the woods should sink under the weight of the sheer mass of steel and men out in the woods.
Difficulties or not, Castinus took a small comfort in knowing that his big, far reaching guns were positioned in depth behind the front line, and counter-battery fire would initially be directed against the batteries far closer to the front line than his.
But still, there was a risk. Castinus's mind thought back to his wife, to Andreus. He instead directed that energy to his men. They were in danger too. Emperor be damned, he has as much of a duty to them as to his family.
The mood in the fire control post had changed. The hectic action had tapered off.
Castinus took another look at the Corporal's adjustment calculations. Having repeatedly tried again, the coordinate points overlapped each other and almost seemed to form a solid shape. If Castinus could guess, it was some sort of wheel, or circle with spikes coming from it.
"Five minutes." A voice announced, returning his focus to his duty. Castinus turned back to his seat and waited.
Officers had sat down and the men were looking up at the master clock on the wall. Castinus looked between the watch and the clock repeatedly. Beside him, a Sergeant was sitting, vox at the ready, wired directly to the big earthshaker cannons. Soon it would be time to pick it up and unleash the might of an empire which has stood for Millenia.
The clock showed two minutes to go.
The Sergeant gripped the vox, ready. In the distance, a number of guns sounded, startling some of the junior men and breaking the perfect stillness. Castinus checked the clock. Less than one minute to go. Someone had fired early, either because of a clock which did not receive its required rites by the tech-priests, or nerves. Either way, Castinus was glad it was not his battery which deviated from the strict timetable.
The clock showed only seconds to go. By now, other batteries and full battalions had followed the example of the first lone battery, rising to a vast orchestra of explosions, rocket whines and various calibers. Castinus nodded at the Sergeant. "Give the order, open fire!"