Here's my first Warhawk fic in a long time. Hope it's good.
Predator on the Prowl
Gunner Jopeth shook his head as the growling Predator Destructor, nicknamed Emperor's Wraith, slewed down a sand dune, trailing a column of dust. He could not see the rest of the Company through the dust. He glanced down at his three different outside view-screens. One was for the turret-mounted autocannon that lay about a third of a meter above his head and another half meter to his right. It was already loaded with AP shells. The other two were for the sponson-mounted heavy bolters. Each view-screen had various read-outs, one for ammunition, another for temperature, another for auto-targeting. Not that any Space Marine would need aide targeting, but if he was busy, it was useful. Especially in this war-zone.
The damn orks were gaining renown for tearing apart tanks with gigantic hydraulic claws, or using the smaller slave creatures to swamp the treads with their pulped up bodies. The world of Janis IV would have been worthless and probably abandoned to the orks, but a huge Adeptus Terra complex prevented that. Calling on ancient blood-oaths, the Adeptus had summoned the Warhawks. The world was almost completely featureless, just a big flat, desert, really, and the Warhawks 1st Company had to deploy all of their armor and transports.
Shaking the thoughts from his head, he glanced back at his screens, scanning for targets. He saw one, just as the driver, Brother Ermastes called out on the internal-vox, "Light armor right, three hundred meters and closing!"
It was a group of light buggies, the most ramshackle things imaginable. Armor was bolted and welded on crudely and mechanics clung onto the sides. When one of the buggies would slew to a halt, engine overheated and smoking, the damn little bastards would swarm over it, striking with hammers. Then, amazingly, the buggy would start up again. The closest was painted red and seemed to be going faster.
Jopeth switched the controls to the auto-cannon. On the view screen, a tiny aiming cross appeared. Turning the turret around, the cross centered on the buggy and turned red. The machine-spirit chimed, "Target lock." Jopeth squeezed the twin triggers on the controls and the autocannon fired. The first shell struck the lead buggy smack in the center. Jopeth thought he saw the rider flying forward before an explosion obscured his vision. He could not see where the shell hit; the smoke was too thick for even a Space Marine to see through.
"More targets to the left!" again Ermastes called out. Glancing down at the view-screen, Jopeth saw it was a giant mob of orks, a particularly huge ork at the fore, waving a massive axe. They did not live long. A pair of Razorbacks and a Rhino plunged through a small dune and slid to a halt, squads of green and red armored Marines pouring out, bolters blazing from the hip.
Jopeth swung his attention back to the buggies. The auto-loader, a pasty-skinned and scrawny servitor, had finished loading the cannon. The Predator had closed with the buggies and Jopeth swung the turret around, depressing the gun firing almost point blank into one of the buggies. The shells punched through the wretched thing and detonated in another, penetrating the fuel tank, which erupted into a ball of flaming debris.
Sighing, Jopeth switched the controls to the heavy bolters, each one of the controls now commanding one of the bolters. Glancing at each of the side-screens, Jopeth squeezed the triggers and moved the bolters in a wide arc, clearing out the last of the buggies. The noise of the bolters drowned out the roar of the engine.
"Target front! Medium armor!" called out Ermastes as the Predator swung right and crunched over the smoking and charred remains of one of the buggies. Jopeth checked the view-screen and gritted his teeth at what it was. It was a Leman Russ, obviously looted and now foully decorated, covered with human heads and crude ork images.
"Ermastes, get us around the flank!" Jopeth zoomed the screen in, intoning a prayer to the Machine-God at the same time, and noticed a pair of green helmets, with a red stripe down the center. Dead Warhawks.
"I'm trying to do that!" came back Ermastes.
Jopeth switched back to autocannon and tracked the turret over, working on a target lock, but the all the damn sand dunes and craters they hit screwed with his aim. The target cross finally turned red as it centered on the left side of the Leman Russ. "Target lock." The Machine Spirit chimed. Jopeth squeezed the triggers again and the tank rocked back. The Leman Russ was momentarily obscured in smoke and dust. The Wraith slewed around again. They were behind the still moving Leman Russ. The big tank had noticed them and the massive tank tracked around. The barrel of the gun looked big enough to swallow a man. Jopeth glanced down and shook his head again.
"Orks right!" he called out on the vox and switched the right heavy bolter to auto-fire. The Machine Spirit of the Emperors Wraith would automatically target infantry and light armor.
Seeing the autocannon was loaded again, Jopeth centered the target cross on the rear of the tank, where he could see a poorly maintained power-plant. There was no target lock this time, just prayers to the Emperor. Squeezing the twin triggers again, the tank rocked back. This time, the shells penetrated and the Leman Russ blew apart in a shower of dust and debris, cutting down how far he could see. The damn smoke was confusing him.
"Emperors Wraith, there is an armored column coming from the right flank, your needed there now!" came the strong, powerful voice of Captain Mepesto from his command Land Raider Crusader.
Next time: Defending the flank