Red River Valley, Ostermark
"We cannot miss this time Eberhard, only one more salvo left."
"Tell me something I do not know. I take the left one."
"Acknowledged."
This time the disk in his sight changed course once he set his sight on it, trying to evade him. Guns winked an evil light at him and the tracer reached for his plane in seeming slow motion. His hands and feet itched with the need to evade while he found to his absolute joy that he was not afraid. He could see, hear and feel more clearly than ever before and knew exactly what small adjustments to make.
When the moment came fire and smoke erupted from his fragile craft, connecting him with the disk in a divine moment. He pulled up while the disk under him belched fire from all openings, developed a list to one side and then fell to the ground.
The victory cry in his earphones told him that Eberhard had been successful as well and both pilots pulled their planes into a turn while climbing to attitude. They did not like what they saw before them. There was one disk still in pursuit of the artillery and two others were making their way towards the battle. And that was when their best weapon had been expended.
"One more go with the guns, eh?"
"One more-this time we do it right."
Heinrich Klement knew where his enemies were and where his wingman was. He had selected his target and laid a course that would intersect with the point where the disc would be in a few moments. Manipulating the stick and the pedals with easy small movements he made the disk hover in his sights as if it were not moving at all. From afar the disk had looked featureless and impregnable, when it grew in his sight it revealed all sorts of openings for weapons and whatever arcane purpose its makers had come up with.
He settled the ring in his HUD on a slit that contained two barrels that aimed for him. Silencing them would be good, exploding their ammo the goal. He waited a bit longer than sanity allowed for. He had one long burst to give before the guns would overheat, he had to make the most of it.
When he finally pulled the trigger his "Falke" shook from recoil and muzzle blast. The guns he fired were meant for bigger and more sturdy craft as his, yet they were destructive as all hell. Heinrich was pretty sure that he would have downed the disk with ease if he had been equipped with armor-piercing ammo, yet the targets that had been expected had not asked for that.
Tracers lept from both aircraft, bullets tore at the Falke, digging through wood and fuel tanks. The bladders inside the plane's wings were pierced in several places and leaked fuel inside the wings. Before anything could ignite one of the several layers that made up the fuel tank swelled when it was doused with Kerosene and closed the leaks again. By that time a dozen shells from Heinrich`s guns had reached the disk and had expended their fury without visible results. Klement did not think about it, his hands and feet just steered a slightly different course and the next brace of shells found the aperture which held an autocannon. Two shells made it inside, one got into the ready ammunition. The chain reaction that followed needed a second or two before it ripped the disk apart most violently.
Heinrich let shouted his elation into the mic when his Falke flew over the explosion.
It was not a big fragment, just the size of a pinkie. It was not especially aerodynamic and lost speed quickly while it flew on the course set by physics. It was not aimed with malicious intent, the virtual address fate had inscribed on it was "to whom it may concern". The fragment penetrated the plywood of the "Falke" easily enough, was deflected by the ejection seat`s supports and expended its last energy inside the pilot`s tight. Its tip sliced the femoral artery open for nearly an inch and blood immediately soaked the trousers.
Heinrich felt a punch, something hot and then icy cold from his leg. As the leg lost most of its strength the curve he had already begun tightened up and showed him the battle again. He did not like what he saw, one disk was limping away, with deep gaps in the armor that were lit red from within. Another enemy closed with an artillery piece having set on fire already and a third one chased Eberhard.
He knew what to do, and to his utter amazement he was still not afraid. Pushing on his injured leg with one hand his held on the stick with the other in a death-grip that became more shaky with every second.
"What are you doing Heinrich?"
Ah Eberhard, the noble and self-styled knight of the sky, the insufferable twit who had become a good friend during training. The man who could now count to 20 without taking his shoes off thanks to him and who had pushed him when he was about to falter. The Eberhard who had told him so often that the knights protected those who could not do so themselves as if commoners did not do their share.. Now he could return the favor.
"We protect…" And then his "Falke`s" nose crumpled on the disk before him without leaving a scratch, he was flattened against it without result and even the engines just managed to put a dent into the armor. The fuel bladders burst and clad the disk in flame, flames that seeped through apertures and sought combustibles within. Eberhard von Roon was still trying to make sense of Heinrich`s last call when the enemy exploded most spectacularly.
"Sigmar protect you my friend" went through his mind, but not his mouth. He was far too busy shooting the remaining craft, just to see his shells bounce off again. He snarled in frustration and for the smallest part of a second an old memory gained his attention. Him mounted on a horse, wielding a brace of pistols shooting at Chaos Knights who wore armor he probably could not lift like he would wear a shirt. The last shot he had fired at one of the brutes had hit the carapace armor to a side, just leaving a bright smear on the blackened surface. And then the second pistol which had hit dead center and went through, earning Eberhard his current position.
He pushed the throttle forward as far as it would go and pulled the stick all the way back. He gained attitude quickly and shed speed as rapidly despite the best the turboprops would do. Just when the unresisting stick indicated he was about to lose control he pushed the left pedal to the stop, turned his "Falke" in the air and dropped down as vertically as he had climbed. A few tucks on the stick and the upper side of the disk was squarely in his sights. He screamed when he pulled the trigger and the shells punched through the disk`s armor as if through paper. It dropped a few meters from the artillery it had wanted to kill. Eberhard pulled on the stick with all his might and his vision started to close in and lose color from the G-forces. The "Falke" creaked alarmingly around him and he was not sure where ground stopped and the sky began.
A few seconds later he was still flying, was climbing to attitude again and changed channels at the wireless.
"All Eagles, this is eagle three. The disks are vulnerable from the top, repeat, shoot them from the top."
"Eagle three, this is lead. We saw that, well done. All Eagle elements, remove these pieces of junk from my sky."
Uli Hemnir knew that he could not rely on the humans the same way that he could rely on Dawi. Humans would never stand together like Grimnir`s sons, would never refuse to give up like Dawi did and would not refuse to give a single step, wouldn´t they. Well, at least one would and Uli would find out who he was and remember him the right way. He would inscribe his name into the grudge shells he made and was sure they would hurt. That would be later, now he had to survive.
"Björn, get the crew of No. three on board. We need to move, we no longer have air defense."
Lord Hrothgar crawled forward behind another boulder before raising his head again to get a view. Two of his aides had learned that lesson already and paid with their lives for tuition. Somebody on the other side was an excellent marksman and wielded something to powerful that it did not merely kill but convert the body parts hit into a red mist. Hiding behind substantial trees helped only until one was spotted, then the shots penetrated many inches of solid wood and still killed with impunity. There were mixed messages in what he could see. On the one hand the humans had indeed retreated from their line across the valley. The last ones to move were two horseless chariots with huge guns on top. While his DawiZharr had not gained the far side of the valley yet they could shoot anybody who tried to leave it to pieces from where they were while staying in decent cover.
On the other hand the push for the human train had failed miserably after a promising start. One of his companies had managed to storm the place and silence a machine gun that had taken more than its fair share of lives. When the company was still reeling from the assault somebody had taken up the weapon again and committed a slaughter that Hrothgar would have heartily approved of if his forces would not have been at the receiving end of it. And when the companies he had sent to reinforce the attack had started to leave cover a small vehicle had appeared between the enemy`s tents and started to shoot him with a weapon that he wanted to have so badly that he could taste it. He thought it might be four machine guns, but if so they were far stronger than those he possessed. Wherever the fire of that vehicle fell his DawiZharr just disappeared, leaving bloody chunks behind.
That was an attack which had obviously failed and by now the humans had formed a line facing his soldiers, shot from cover and while they could not assault him where he was without taking crippling losses neither could he.
Well, if they declined to run into his DawiZharr bayonets he could make them regret staying where they were.
"Runner, contact Battery Leader Limash, his mortars are to fire on the human line before us. You, get to the company leaders, they are to get ready for an assault."
"We hear and obey Lord."
Hrothgar did not have to wait for long before he heard the whistling of incoming mortar shells. He still remembered how unimpressed he was when he had seen these weapons first, so small and such a low caliber. He had hardly believed his own eyes when the crew dropped a dozen shells on target per minute and the effects on the slaves that had been fettered in the target area were spectacular.
The humans would either assault him in a few minutes or he could attack them while they had their heads down. He had trained his soldiers to the point where they would accept a few losses by their own weapons so they could close with the enemy while they were still seeking cover. It had worked with the Greenskins several times, why not here.
The first explosions tore up their instant-poplar-tree shapes of dirt and were still adjusted when he heard a different kind of rumble in the sky above him. There were explosions behind him that were definitively more powerful than what his mortars would have managed.
The artillery duel did not last long, whoever was directing it had been to school for sure and had wiped out most of his artillery.
Time to pull back a little and let Lord Gholam do the heavy lifting, he was the DawiZharr with the heavy guns anyway.
The rounded shape of the "Marauder`s" pod had deflected the last shell that Nathan Kerenski had shot it without much effect. Fuck.
"Loader, AP."
"No AP left Sir, HE or Grudge."
"Sh..give HE, wait-Grudge it is."
"Grudge up."
The shell that his loader fed into the breech seemed normal enough, yet Uli Hemnir had inscribed runes with his grudges in them. The hate of a whole race was with these shells and unlike the AP-Shells that Nathan had fired they were present in the warp as well.
When the tank commander pulled the trigger the shell flew true and hit the small window at the front of the "Mech`s" pod. It penetrated without a hitch and for a moment nothing seemed to happen, but for a bit of red light that shone through several gaps and apertures. The very next second the Mech dropped like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
"I`ll be damned. Loader, Grudge."
"Grudge up."
"On the way"
The next "Mech" was a Crusader again and it dropped like a stone.
"Grudge up, only two more Sir."
In the end it did not matter, the "Mechs" retreated after having lost half of their number. Nathan had no such option and together with gunslinger two he was the only combat-capable vehicle the Black Widows had left.
Night had fallen in the Red River Valley, yet sleep not an option for most of the combatants. Heinrich Hemmler actually welcomed the activity, as long as he was needed every minute he had no time to lapse into a gloom about the disaster that had befallen his unit. So far that had worked, but now it was time to face the hard truth, it could no longer be denied.
"So Dr. Reichert, how bad is it?"
"Sir, as far as we can tell now we have lost about 820 men. There are more than 200 killed and I think a quarter of the wounded will not see tomorrow. That we can achieve that much is already a miracle, one that Dr. Kramer wrought. Without her we would have lost the capability to treat the wounded."
"Yes, I heard about it. How is she?"
"Bad, real bad. But she is a fighter and she might pull it off."
"Please doc, make it so."
"No promises."
"None asked for."
The rest of the reports were as bleak as the casualty list, if not worse. Most combat vehicles were out or low on ammunition, a great lot of small arms ammo had been used already and morale could be much improved.
On top of that nobody could tell him if and when any reinforcements would arrive. He would have to manufacture his own miracle to get what was left of the Dragoons out of this trap and he did not have any idea how to pull that of.
100 kilometers from Karak Azgal
This time Joakim did not have to jump, this time the enemy did not have technology advanced to the point where it trumped mere magic, this time they would not lose anybody just jumping into the LZ.
This time the enemy just commanded death itself, this time the mission was to prevent Nagash`s ascension into something close enough to a God and to do so they needed to protect a God who was having a little nap for the last couple of thousand years. Oh, and keeping Valten alive somehow was still a priority.
Just business as usual for the Reiksbund Paladins, really. Joakim Vos shook his head and tried to shake the feeling of having stepped outside reality. Six years ago he was punching tickets in the train to Altdorf and now he was XO of a unit that could wipe any like-sized infantry in two worlds, that had stood up to demons and monsters before.
He had no idea about the opposition's size, about the battlefield or the allies. Wonderful, just so very wonderful. He wouldn`t miss it for the world, well maybe for a dinner with Sophie at McDonald's.
By now the Zeppelin carrying the Paladins and their support had nearly reached the LZ, time to get things rolling. The Paladins were about to step between a goddess and something that wanted to become one, it would not do to be late for the party.
Red River Valley, at night
Uli Hemnir pulled on the torque wrench with nearly all the force his dawi muscles would grant him. Finally the oversized lug that held one of the Unimog`s wheels moved for a quarter turn. When his hands felt the "click" of the release he let go immediately, it would not have done to rip the thread out. This was the last wheel on the "Gunslinger" combat car that needed changing and it was the last task he had promised to perform on it. Walking to the front where three humans had their heads under the heavily armored bonnet he addressed the red-head.
"Wheel is back on, suspension is in place again. Interesting idea taking the parts from the other vehicle."
"All parts are standard size so they have to fit and no. 1 will not drive before we find a new engine and a new crew."
"Should have thought about that myself."
"Don´t be too hard on yourself, you know of exchangeable parts only for a few years now and the old M101`s were very good, but not stellar examples of that. Want a coke?"
"Hmmm, thanks. So how about that engine?"
"Nothing major. Shockwave blew the connecting hose from the aftercooler, when we fix that it is good to go again. How about your pieces?"
"Nothing much-my trucks are either ship-shape or totally busted and a few kilometers from here."
"Sorry to hear that."
"That way I could lend a hand. And it could have been worse. Your crews in the Sweepers fought well Nathan, did not run and tried their best against these disks. Didn`t shot one down, but they knew they have been in a fight. But without the kids in those planes we would be with Grimnir tonight."
Kerenski had already started to wonder about the amicable mood of the Dragons` artillery commander, offering to help and engaging in small talk was just not him. The tale of the sacrifice of a "Young Eagle" had made the rounds several times already and Hemnir had been the one whose ass had been saved by the pilot.
"Heard about it, did not see it, but that is hard to do when you are in that turret."
"Ha, I believe that manling. Something I always wanted to ask, what is this "Black Widow Company" thing all about?"
"Nathan?"
"Ah well, you`ll hear sooner or later. When I accepted the Imperial commission and the post with Wolf`s Dragoons I was asked if I'd have any name in mind for the armored component. I have a hard time not giggling like mad when I have the interview. So I joke around and tell them "Black Widow`s Company." and think they will see the gag, ditch the proposal and name it after some suitably heroic and noble warrior.
I come back from the holiday and find the name on the roster-and every second German who sees it snickers ever since."
"What is so bad about it?"
"Well there was this game called Battletech about battles with giant combat machines very much like the Mechas we fought today which had a Wolf's Dragoons unit in it and a Black Windows Company led by a redhead called Natasha Kerensky. A game for youngsters I might add, even if enough adults play it."
The coke flew past Uli Hemnir`s beard and missed Nathan by a few centimeters. Laughter and coughs mixed in such a way that Nathan had to slap the dwarf's back a couple of times to keep him breathing.
"Laddie, you managed to name the most potent part of one of the Empire`s most powerful regiments after a game for children?"
"That sums it up, yes. Mind you, people here were quite understanding when they learned about it and we had a hot Battletech tournament when we were in winter quarters in Nagenhof. Just there is a less funny side to it."
"What manling?"
"The golems we fought look like spitting images of some of the game`s units. That cannot be coincidence and I think that some German helped making them."
"Oh joy."
"Yes. Finish up, then I get my guys help yours with redistributing ammo."
Red River Valley, Command Tent, two hours later
The tent allowed Heinrich Hemmler and his staff to use lights and maps, the enemy had shown his willingness to mortar any place that was lit up for more than a few seconds. A map with an overlay for markings was spread on a collapsible table, showing blue for the Dragoons, yellow for the few Goblin positions they knew of and red for those enemies that had been spotted. Nobody liked the picture-the blue dots were in the middle of the valley, a cluster of red dots was to the west and a much larger one to the east.
Everybody was listening to Captain von Wahlstedt who just finished his presentation about the remaining supplies.
"So, in short we can sustain two days like yesterday for the small arms, one with regards to artillery and the armored units, and about the same for medical supplies. Food and POL we have for a week at the very least, we all planned for a very different campaign."
"Thank you Captain. Kerenski, how about your people?"
"Thanks to the help we received from arty and others we have three Gunslingers and one Sweeper in working shape. We have full ammo loads on all of them, but we are very low on AP and Grudge, the latter two are the only ones which can hurt these Mecha units. We have enough HE and Frag rounds, but they are only good against infantry."
The next in line was Franz von Sprangel, the Captain leading the first troop. He looked tired and weary and his hoarse voice only underlined that.
"First troop has lost nearly 30 out of a hundred troopers, with more than 15 of them dead or so badly wounded that they will not make the night. 2/1 company was so badly hit that I had to split them up and divide the survivors among the others. They occupied the leftmost part of the line and when these..Mechas showed up they got hit by several salvos of missiles. When the survivors tried to pull back, on my orders I might add, they were machine gunned before the air support intervened. Without them we would all be gone, my men simply have no weapons with which to combat these monstrosities.
We are still fully stocked with ammunition as we had few targets to shoot at. The enemy tried to assault our rally point once and we repulsed them, but we got more than those from these expenditures from those who did not make it.
Sir Heinrich, with all due respect, who are these assholes and how could they surprise us so much?
"Thank you for your report Captain, von Rennenkampf will state what we think we know later."
The tale of all mounted companies was one of woe, one of losses against an enemy not anticipated with capabilities far too close to their own for comfort.
Karl von Rennenkampf, the Dragoons` Chief of Staff stepped forward to the table between them.
"We finally identified our enemy."
That made most attendant to the meeting draw in breath.
"The corpses that we managed to retrieve all look like Dawi until you look a little closer. Their facial features are different in several regards, their hair and beard is very different and most tellingly more than half of them had mutations of some sort. I think everybody here know what Dawi do with infants who show any sign of the fell powers and their dwellings are well-warded.
Given all that the working assumption is that we were attacked by the DawiZharr, the Chaos Dwarfs. Until a few years ago all reports about these have been treated as stories and legends. German recognizance has show that there is a real core to these stories, but they were deemed to be too far away to be a problem. Seems that we were wrong.
The Chaos Dwarfs were always thought to be able to construct powerful machinery, but what we have seen today exceeds any assumption by far. Also the rifles and the one machine gun that the Widows managed to capture are very close to weapons historically used by Germany.
This leads us to the assumption that Germans work for them, willingly or under coercion.
We have no exact information about the size of the enemy forces, but we assume them to outnumber us considerably. When they disengaged we still counted at least six Mecha of various kinds and several flying disks.
The enemy uses bolt-action rifles, machine guns and mortars with his infantry, they have tactics to go with them and are quite aggressive. Without the losses the flying disks incurred against our air support and Major Kerenski who managed to kill three of these "Mechs" in a few minutes I fear that we would have been defeated.
By our current recon the enemy is divided in two forces: One is blocking the way to the east. This is where the armored units are deployed and it seems to be the major one. The second group is to our west. They occupy the north face of the valley and have well-concealed positions in the rocks there. While we encountered no armored units there this group has machine guns, mortars and something that sounds suspiciously like an autocannon.
From the way the DawiZharr surprised us we assume that they use tunnels inside the valleys side for concealed movement of troops. Their positions do not stretch clear across the valley but they can enfilade anybody who tries to pass them.
We have contacted the Reiksbund about reinforcements and help. We can expect a number of air strikes tomorrow, but the next Reiksbund airbases are at Altdorf and Nuln. They will attack the enemy but the only strikes on demand will be by the "Young Eagles" from Nagenhof.
We are told that the Germans can deploy their Paratroopers in two or three days, the Ostermark Militia lacks transport to come here anytime soon and will probably be deployed to protect the Ostermark anyway.
Tomorrow and the day after that we are on our own. And that is a problem: If the enemy mounts another attack like the one yesterday we will not be able to fend it off as we will lack the ammunition to do so. This brings us to the plan for tomorrow: We will attack the enemy's position to the west and force a breakthrough. We are probably more mobile and can trade space for time until reinforcements arrive. Also, once the enemy "Mecha" are in the open the Luftwaffe can attack them.
We have to fight two actions here, one will be an assault against the enemy in the west, the other a holding action against the assault the enemy is sure to launch from the east once he sees us retreating. We need the time to load the wounded, supplies and some equipment.
As the defense in the east needs to be able to redeploy quickly and as we need their weapons this task will fall to the "Black Widows" and the 3/1 troop.
Artillery will support both actions while all other combat troops will attack the enemy here. As we need air support we will attack no sooner than 09:00 tomorrow, the Eagles need to see what they aim at. If the DawiZharr are like the dwarfs and have very good night vision we know attacking in the dark would be a losing preposition anyway.
By now the murmur in the room had risen to a perceptible level. Heinrich Hemmler had ignored it as long as there was hope of it dying down by itself, now it was time to intervene before thing got out of hand.
"Karl, keep your word for a moment. I think I need to make a few comments before we can go on. Yes Gentlemen, we got caught with our pants down today. It is not every day that you are surprised by an unknown enemy with unknown capabilities and surviving with most of our units intact is already as much of a miracle as Sigmar would grant us. You all have dealt well with a devastating attack and I do not think anybody could have done better.
And now we all fear tomorrow`s attack. Now we are all unhappy as the almighty Germans do not come to our aid within hours and now we do not want to attack a prepared enemy who has modern weapons. And why is that so? Because we are spoilt, that is why. The Germans gave us marvelous weapons, they gave us doctrine and training to go with them and we used that to defeat our enemies easily. Be it the Skaven at Altdorf, the Orks last year or the Goblins a few months ago: Whatever happened, we got the machine guns and they have not. All fine and dandy, but now the enemy has nice toys too.
And the question on the table is: Are we the Emperors soldiers when things get tough or will we only come to play when we know we will win and the danger is low? Have these weapons we received made us cowards or do we still have heart? Answer me, horse brothers: Do we still have heart?"
It took a second too long for comfort, but the acclamations came from heart.
"Yes we have."
"So we shall assault these assholes tomorrow, we will receive our licks, we will still keep coming, kill all those who stand and send the rest packing to the Dark Lands whence they came from. Will we do that horse-brothers?"
"Yes we will."
"Mors or plunder horsebrothers, Mors or plunder."
"MORS OR PLUNDER."
"Better Horsebrothers, much better. And now Karl can tell us how we will defeat our enemies."
Nagenhof Airfield, same time
"Oh, the bold aviator was dying
And as 'neath the wreckage he lay, he lay
To the sobbing mechanics about him
These last parting words he did say
"Take the cylinders out of my kidneys
The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain
From the small of my back get the crankshaft
And assemble the engine again"
Two valve springs you'll find in my stomach,
Three spark plugs are safe in my lung, my lung,
The prop is in splinters inside me,
To my fingers the joy-stick has clung.
Take the propeller boss out of my liver,
Take the aileron out of my thigh, my thigh,
From the seat of my pants take the piston,
Then see if the old crate will fly."
Andreas Hoppe shook his head while he walked by the mess hall. He had allowed his pilots three beers per head, they would have cheated otherwise. He didn`t know where they had learned that old song which was as old the first attempts of flying humans to kill each other, but it fit. They had lost two pilots today, Klement in a fight with these "Flugscheiben" and Voss had been too close to one of these Mechs. All in his pilots had handled themselves much much better than he had expected given the surprise they had been handled. All had acquitted themselves well and seemed to be eager to have another go at the enemy. Hoppe had released several weapons more appropriate to the new opposition and hoped that this would allow his planes to do the job properly tomorrow.
He went into the hangar to look after those whose work made all that possible. The mechanics were working ever since them planes had landed, restocking, refueling, checking and mending holes that had appeared on nearly all planes. Hoppe had never been too sure about all the Imperial understudies who slowed everybody down, but now he could see them mending the damage in the wooden fuselage and wings with loving care and competence. The spots they had patched already were of lighter color and the German pilot winced when he saw how many some planes had but the structure seemed to absorb damage at least as well as their "Mosquito" ancestors.
One Imperial was busy painting something on the nose of the "Falke", from the name and the livery under the cockpit Eberhard von Roon`s bird. Wondering what outrageous thing the pilot wanted written on his fighter Hoppe stepped closer.
"We protect"
Ah, that, Eberhard had been good friends with Heinrich.
"Something wrong Ser?"
"Not at all..Friedrich. In fact when you are done paint it on my plane as well."
