Morgenstern, far side of the Warhammer Sun, Christmas eve

Even the light itself took 16 minutes from the Warhammer World to the spaceship. Any message had to be relayed through two satellites, making the delay even longer and so making any attempt at real-time communication with the world Nathan Alpers had left behind was pointless. So he had sent a long video message back to his family, after he had recorded and edited it several times. He had still not been happy with it when he sent it, thinking it woefully inadequate as he was not home with his family for Christmas.

The most important people in his life, and he was not there for them. He had received a video in return and had retreated to the cubicle that tried to be his cabin to watch it.

Heinrich and Julia, the twins were great. They had grown again since their last video and Nathan could see more than a little of old Baron Heinrich in the boy. They were dressed for summer and told him how much they enjoyed the gifts they had received. They related to the great School Christmas party and that the nativity play was for the young kids only and boring for them. Nathan managed a wan smile at the aged wisdom of 11-year-old children before realizing they both played at being happy and upbeat. There was a sadness below their prattle and he felt guilty as sin that he was not with them. He was proud of them that they managed to do so and deeply wished that they would not have to.

He had to blink more than a few times when that video was done. It was a good thing that he had watched it in his cabin, the crew needed the illusion of the unflappable captain when they were that far from home.
He was about to shut the computer off when the placeholder picture was replaced by his wife's face. Hermine of Wolfenfels was as beautiful as she had been when they first met in the castle's great hall, it was a mature beauty these days.

"Hello lover. I won't say that I and the kids do not miss you, we both know it would be a lie. We all need you here, sharing the feast that is for the family with us. We all hope that you will be back for the next Christmas and the one after that. But while the kids do not yet understand, I understand why you cannot be here. You have given your word, you have to do your duty.
Father raised me to become the wife of a knight. Before I met you I fully expected that my husband would be away for years at a time, out of reach and unheard, off on some campaign he might not return from. When I met you, I learned that a better fate was possible, but I can take it if needs be.

I am not happy that you could not tell me what your mission is about. But that you cannot do that and some of the things I hear tell me it is more than a little important. Important enough in fact that I believe that there could be no Christmas for anybody if you fail. So, my champion, go forth to make us all safe if you can and come back, so we can have a good feast the next time. I'll hold the fort till then."
Oh, how he loved that woman.

Two days later Bashurr Rogach brought Morgenstern's Tungsten Rune of Fire Reactors up and a set of turbines produced more than 200 megawatts of power. They were fed into Morgenstern's VASIMIR engine and accelerated small amounts of argon to very, very high speeds indeed. They needed to scrub some of the spacecraft's speed off as they had a rendezvous to make.

Wolfgang Böhler's office. Leviathan

The Wild Geese's CO kept the keys to a safe next to his chest and its combination in his mind only. In case of his demise, there were instructions with several officers on how to open it, they could achieve this only in unison. Any other attempt to open it would result in the destruction of its contents. There were orders in there, the instructions on how to access several surprisingly large anonymous accounts and several memory sticks full of random nonsense. The latter were the most important things in the safe. Their data had been generated by monitoring the radioactive decay of a block of Cobalt 60, and exactly two sets of data had been written on a set of two sticks. One was with Wolfgang, the other with his real employers. Messages between them were exchanged via commercial Satcom these days, which meant that their exchanges could potentially be monitored.

Therefore, their messages and reports masqueraded as very different things, were hidden in pictures and videos. With the right algorithms and keys, the important bits and bytes could be extracted from owl and wyvern pictures, from porn and recorded prayers. And when that was done the extract was matched against the random data on the memory sticks. They would reveal the real message, erasing the codes while they were read. One-time codes were as close to unbreakable as anything could be, and that was a blessed thing.

The last set of messages had contained a changed set of orders that would have devastating consequences if known outside a very small circle and made any chance of them succeeding nil. Even so Wolfgang Böhler had to find a way to make them happen. Not only did he have no clue how he might accomplish what was asked of him and the Wild Geese. He had no idea how to survive that mission either.

Command Bunker, Neustadt

Torsten Breitkopf looked like he had been through a wringer, which was not surprising given the emotional roller coaster of the last several days. For far too long he had stared oblivion in the face when the Black Guard besieged Neustadt. Then the Reiksbund had come at last and he could relax that tiny bit. Then the worst assault on Neustadt, by Khorne's demons no less had threatened them all, just to be beaten back with heavy losses.

And now the damn Chaos Stumpies threatened them all. Which would not be a problem if reinforcements arrived in time. But they could not land unless the Druchii were evicted from Neustadt's vicinity, which meant assaulting a division or so of elite Spitzohren. Without armored or air support, over open ground. Enemies that Torsten had equipped and armed. So the three Reiksbund officers on the other side of the table were giving him the looks and he could hardly blame them. It did not really help that he had to count his sins in front of them. It might raise their chances of success minutely, but every bit helped.

"So, what did we sell to them? The Black Guard has the Mk2a rifle. It was one of the first rifles we made after the change to full-metal cartridges. It fires a bronze or brass-jacket round of some 12 grams at 650 meters per second. It has an internal magazine with five rounds and loads from stripper clips. It accepts a bayonet, but that bunch prefers their halberds when it comes to melee. Their officers often have a revolver, firing a 12mm round at roughly 280 meters/second. Most soldiers will have a couple of hand grenades. They will have the latest type, they can be used with a stick for more range or without, and they can also attach a frag mantle to the head.
I have heard that they use several grenades with a central stick grenade to make satchel charges. They are said to be quite dangerous to the user, but their only man-portable weapon when they encounter DawiZharr mechs.

As for crew-served weapons they have two variants of the medium machine gun. Both use the same ammo as the rifles and have a rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute. One has water cooling and uses cloth belt feed, the other is air cooled with a 70-round magazine. I am not sure if these Spitzohren have any of the 13mm machine guns. They have roughly the same kick as a Browning M2 and are a threat to the smaller mechs. They could give your weapons carriers a hard time too, but we never saw them with the Black Guard.

They have 80 and 120 mm mortars for artillery, also some 75 mm field pieces. We did not see any of those after the great assault, generally they seem low on ammo.
Last ,but not least we made a hundred or so of the combined mounts. They have a 13mm ranging machine gun and a 37 mm cannon, either semiauto or fed from ten-round magazines. We had not mentioned them before as we never saw them in action. We do not have anything that flies, so the Druchii have no reason to use them against us.

Joakim Vos breathed deeply a couple of times before he trusted his temper and voice again.

"You have been an eager beaver Herr Breitkopf, haven't you? Well, that is neither here nor there, thanks for the info anyway. We can use the intel when we plan our assault. We have to go tomorrow at the latest if we want to be resupplied before the Chaos Stumpies arrive."
Torsten Breitkopf's head sunk for a moment before he straightened up.
"Whatever my sins may be, what can we contribute to the mission?"
Joakim sighed before he answered.
"We will certainly need to talk about the use of your artillery to soften the Druchii up. With our drones we should be able to direct your guns when firing indirectly. I would ask you to accept one of my officers as liaison. I plan to attack following a creeping barrage and that has to be controlled very tightly. Apart from that I do not believe your people can contribute to the assault."

"And why do you believe we cannot fight for our own lives?"
The voice was undeniably feminine and contained more resolve than any other in the room. Anja had not contributed to that meeting so far, which was obviously at an end.
Vos swallowed once before answering.
"No disrespect meant to your people, but they lack the training for these kind of operations. They did very well defending fortified positions, militias are usually good at that. But now we have to go over the top, exposing ourselves to enemy fire. We are trained to do so and we have the armor to protect us, your people not so much."
Anja did not raise her voice and still every Reiksbunder in the room cringed.
"Oberstleutnant, we may all have been slaves a few years ago and our Patron, my husband, may have joined a rather questionable cause and horrible people. I still believe that our actions during the last years have proven that we will stand and fight and that my husband did more than could be asked of anybody as soon as he could make his decisions stick.

You have seen the trenches and bunkers that we have built and defended, fought from them yourself. We defended these fortifications as best as best as we could. But no matter how vigilant our people were, Spitzohren managed to infiltrate the trenches and attacked the bunkers. Sometimes there were a few, when Druchii assassins bypassed the defenses without being observed. And once in a blue moon they got into the trenches in numbers. We could not allow them to entrench there, so our soldiers counterattacked. Former slaves, with no armor and very short training went after the slavers. They assaulted warriors who had been through centuries of warfare, who had tortured their former victims till they broke down. And still they killed or expelled the Spitzohren every single time. They suffered horrible casualties with each counterattack, but they never lacked volunteers who made up the numbers. Do you really think you cannot find a use for our soldiers?"
Joakim was still searching for an answer when Thorgrimm Steinier's voice rumbled through the meeting.
"If all of your people are as good as those who tended the mortars they will do lass. The moment they will go over the top they will start to bleed like no tomorrow, but you know that already, don't you? You want to earn your safety and freedom, at least that's what you'll tell yourself. But in the end, this is about grudges, and you have more than anybody else that I care to name. Good for you lass, and we will take everybody willing to leave the trenches. We will just have to make sure the bullets fly in the right direction, that's all."

Briefing Room, Graf Zeppelin, 600 meters AGL Sea of Chill

The room they called the briefing room was also the officers' mess, there was simply not enough space on the airship to have a specialized room for that. The screen behind Andreas Hoppe had displayed "The Battle of Papenburg" yesterday, it showed the air components TO&E, loadouts, courses and targets today.
Some pilots before him sat on lightweight armchairs, others lounged on sofas. All balanced clipboards on their knees, all listened intently. If they missed something important they might kill themselves if they were lucky. They might kill their comrades and fail the mission if they were not.

Andreas Hoppe's voice was the result of many years of being a soldier. He was easily loud enough to be heard by all attending , but he never shouted or sounded stressed.
"All right Eagles, this is where things get serious. The Reiksbund contacted both Malekith and lord Astragoth during the last several days. The embassy at ZharrNaggrund was put off for a few days, now they are being told that they can't locate Lord Mordred and that the DawiZharr operations in Naggaroth were not covered by the peace accords. Malekith reportedly flew into a rage, told us he would kill any free human in Naggaroth and probably destroyed the wireless set at the end of the call.
That means that all attempts to relive Neustadt peacefully have failed, so now it is our turn. We currently have two targets, the DawiZharr column on its way from Hag Graef to Neustadt and the Druchii besieging the town. To start this off we confront out (our not out) old enemy, the Flugscheiben. We need to make the most of the limited air-to-ground ordnance on board, we cannot allow the flying disks to interfere."

The latter got an ugly growl from the pilots. The first ever battle by the Young Eagles had been against the Flugscheiben. Inexperienced and equipped with ordnance for a very different mission they had bled badly. Now they were better pilots by far and their Jagdfalke fighter-bombers different planes. Everybody in this room was hungry for a rematch.
"From 12:00 today we will keep a two-ship CAP in the air with two more in the launch cradles. This will be the job of First Flight. The Second and Third will carry out a strike against the DawiZharr, with Second providing top cover and Third going for the enemy's Battlemechs. If we can down these the guys and gals at Neustadt can take care of themselves. Then we will…."

Johann Prossy's Quarters, ZharrNaggrund

Martina Hartwig awoke in stages. Her brain took its time to parse the passage of air over her skin and the shivers that went through her, it finally concluded that she was naked. The sounds around her and the texture of whatever she was lying on was wrong, so she was not in her home.
Her eyelids refused to open as they were caked over by the dried remains of something she refused to acknowledge. When she found the energy to move her arms to wipe that from her face she felt something restraining the right one and it felt like rope when she pulled it over her skin.

The pain of freeing her eyes forced a ragged breath from Martina and her throat hurt from being abused by things that did not belong there. Her mouth was dry as parchment, but even so the taste of its insides drew memories of last night she desperately tried to suppress. With vision finally restored Martina found herself on a "bed" that was considerably bigger than necessary for two people and had enough attachment points for ropes to double as a quay. One arm still had several windings of rope around it. The other had marks and abrasions enough to show where her bonds had been and that she had tried to escape from them. Further inspection revealed her tights being soiled by liquids that she really did not want to speculate about. Her nether regions emitted a dull pain that flared up when she started to move.

Each pain and every mark she discovered on herself brought up flashes of last night and they started to form a horrible whole. Martina Hartwig shuddered and needed a moment to still her shivers. She listened intently and to her relief heard nothing of those who had done this to her. She found her clothes, but most had been ripped into uselessness. Martina wrapped her former tunic about her and fled the engineer's quarters.
She made it to hers without mishap and none of her slaves dared to question her, actually they tried their best to become invisible. Hartwig made it to the bathroom under her own power and began the painful process to remove last night's filth from her. With every speck of blood and every moment her mouth tasted of nothing but herself her resolve surged.

"See you soon?" She would show the raping bastards what she thought about her "enjoying" what they did. She had two derringers, she would go packing next time. And if this asswipe Prossy would approach her again she would shoot his balls off. She could explain this to, she could tell…

Jasla

And her problem with the storage at the Brot-aus Luft plant. Jasla would administer another "motivational session".
The thought hit her like a hammer and seemed to remove all the air from the room and all the bones from her body from her body.
Martina Hartwig collapsed on the bathroom's floor into a fetal ball and cried.
She did that for an interminable time, until her throat was hoarse again, until her face was raw from tears. In the end she picked herself up, clothed herself, gathered the gear and went out of her quarters with her head held high.

Druchii trench, before Neustadt

Kouran Darkhand ground his teeth in his anger about the idea that the Black Guard needed to entrench their lines when facing slaves. He immediately regretted that. The mage had worked her usual miracles, regenerating missing teeth and reshaping his nose. Even if she wanted to she could not have prevented the regenerated flesh from hurting like hell when stressed. Even he had to use every bit of self-control to keep the pain from showing. It would not do to display such weakness to his warriors. After the many failures in taking the slave's city some might get the idea that they would serve Malekith better than him.
Until the day somebody actually bested him he would serve the Witch King and a new opportunity to do so had offered itself. There was a DawiZharr army on its way to Neustadt, they probably wanted the same as him: The factories and the slaves to work them. He would occupy this place and keep the slaves and their lovers from being resupplied. He would then vacate this place under cover of the night and let the Stumpies and the humans murder each other. With any luck the survivors would be weakened so much that he could take them out and finally give Malekith his due.

Launching Cradle, Graf Zeppelin, 5000 meters AGL Sea of Chill

The launching cradle lowered Eberhard von Roon's Jagdfalke from a relatively quiet, orderly hangar into a storm below. For the first time since the airship had slipped its mooring mast for this mission the huge turboprop engines were lit and added a Banshee howl to the roar of the slipstream. Adding several times the horsepower provided by the Rune-of-Fire engine they allowed Graf Zeppelin to reach a speed and altitude that would have amazed the airship personnel of old. And every meter above the black waters added a bit of direly needed safety to the launch of the Young Eagles.
Unlike on a seaborne aircraft carrier the planes could not start their engines on the deck, which would have destroyed the zeppelin right away. That was fine if the planes were launched by pairs or four-ship formations. The engines could be spooled up in the cradle. That took a couple of minutes per plane, so the rest of the flight would circle the carrier until the last plane was dropped.

For a mass launch that would not work, by the time the last plane was airborne the first ones would be looking at their fuel gages. Had the Graf been a Luftwaffe airship the evolution about to begin would be utterly forbidden. As this was a Reiksbund airship and an Imperial air element the rules were very different.
He and his WSO went through a rather abbreviated check list this time.

"Fuel pump to on"
"Fuel pump is on"
"Fuel Pressure 2 bar"
"Fuel Pressure is 2.03"
"Prop to feather"
"Props are feathered. Graf control, this is Falke Actual. Ready to drop on my mark."

"Falke Actual, this is Graf. Read to drop on your mark"
Eberhard von Roon, Knight of the sky and the first Imperial ace allowed himself a deep breath.
"mark mark mark."

And on the third mark the cradle released his fighter-bomber. The moment of weightlessness combined itself with his uneasiness into a uniquely unpleasant sensation. Adrenaline surged through his veins, calming his stomach and making conscious thought that much harder.
Now he had about 4500 meters of altitude and a little more than a minute to light his engines.
Norbert von Bruch's voice contained a bit of urgency when he went through the next items on the check list.
"Props to full"

Eberhard changed the propeller's pitch from one where it would mill along causing the least wind resistance to a setting where it milked every bit of energy it could from the roaring slipstream. A gear box and a shaft transmitted that energy to a turbine stage at the back of the engine, and it started to suck copious amounts of air inside. The turbines at the front compressed them while Eberhard and his WSO were pushed into their seat belts by the deceleration from the props.

"Props are full"
"Injection on"
"Injection is on"
A white steam emerged from each engine and marked the Jagdfalke's descent to the black waters below.
Norbert vom Bruch's voice contained a bit of urgency, given that the plane had lost nearly 500 meters of altitude by now that was understandable.
"Ignition to on"
The pilot pushed two buttons side by side and relaxed a bit when he saw two green lights.
"Ignition is on"

Small flames, the size and intensity of welding torches lit inside each engine. The fuel mixture around them ignited immediately. The roaring inferno propelled the second set of turbine blades that had so far milled listlessly in the slipstream. That provided power to the propellers and eased the crews' stomachs. Eberhard gently pulled on the stick trading speed for altitude.

While Eberhard had gone through the emergency launch procedure Graf Zeppelin's launching cradles had dropped another fighter-bomber every 30 seconds. None of them failed to light their engines on time, but one plane had to make do with one engine for a terse minute before the second turbine deigned to work properly. The planes arranged themselves into their formations, so Eberhard von Roon decided it was time to get to work.

"All strike elements, this is Eagle Actual. Course is 060, keep it at 400 knots. Good hunting Eagles."
Eberhard flew one of the planes equipped for air superiority, which would allow him to stay in the air longer if he needed to. Once he had the Jagdfalke on the right course his head moved as it were mounted on a swivel. Checking course and speed, checking the position wingmen, looking for anything in the air that was not flying Reiksbund colors and back to the instruments. There was no time for deep thoughts or chatter when in Indian country, not if he wanted his men to live through the mission.

His eyesight was still excellent, a Jade mage had made sure of that last year, but the electronics still beat them. His WSO's voice broke his concentration for a moment.
"I have several airborne contacts at 061 to 062, profile is consistent with Flugscheiben. They are heating up, and I have bearing changes I think they have made us."
Eberhard's mouth was hidden by his oxygen mask, it kept a really ugly grin from the world.
"Second flight, flying disks at 062, break and attack. First Flight, keep your distance till we have cleansed the skies."

The pilot moved his throttles forward till the detent that kept him from emergency power. The powerful turboprops deftly accelerated the Jagdfalke to more than 700 kilometers per hour. After checking that his wingman kept position Eberhard uncovered a couple of switches and activated a pair of IRIS missiles. Taking a clue from the FLIR sensor the seeker heads of both acquired their targets within seconds.

The missiles warbled their readiness into his headphones, asking him for permission to start their final flight. He kept them from doing so for a few moments longer. The Flugscheiben were not particularly fast, but they could perform maneuvers that aircraft relying on aerodynamic forces could not. Better to fire at a range where the missile was still powered during the terminal approach and much more maneuverable.
Finally, he could depress the firing button and was rewarded by a clean launch of an air-to-air missile. He held off on firing the second missile until he saw the results of the first.
His call of "Fox five, Fox five" denoting the launch of an IRIS missile was joined by others within seconds of each other.
The missile obscured his view for a second before its smoke dissipated. It tracked true and hit the flying disk squarely. Its warhead contained quite a bit of high explosives with a tiny bit of Warpstone and killed being that powered the ungainly Flugscheibe right then and there.

His victory was not the only one, many smoke trails crisscrossed the cold Naggarotian sky and burning flying disks dropped to the black waters below.
Eberhard von Roon's breath caught when one of the Flugscheiben still flying shot a burst at one of his planes. The ones he was used to had ridiculously short-ranged guns, but this one came far too close at nearly a kilometer. Looked like the Eagles were not the only ones who flew upgraded craft.

He managed to keep his voice calm when he pushed the to-talk switch.
"All Eagles, this is Eagle actual. Keep your distance from the Flugscheiben, use missiles. I think the water here is a bit too cold for a bath."
Heeding his own advice, he pulled his Jadgfalke into a lazy curve that would allow to face the flying disks from a few kilometres distance. That brought the ground into view and he blinked twice. Something was seriously wrong there.

100 Kilometres from Neustadt

Erutan Doomshackler's howdah had been heaving this way and that ever since he left Hag Graef. It had been a strange feeling at first, and only the fresh air provided through the ventilation slits had kept him from becoming sick. It was far worse below, in the belly of the beast where a company of DawiZharr warriors were crammed together in hot, dark humid quarters that moved. Down there it had been a puke fest for a day straight and he hoped that the soldiers would do Lord Mordred proud when the day came.
Now the movement had ceased, the huge war machine had gone down on its haunches as it were. Once the DawiZharr force had stopped in place all Mechs had started to emit huge amounts of smoke that covered Mordred's chosen like a cloak.

Ever since the German bombers had forced the DawiZhrr into feigning submission, air defence had been a priority for the true dwarves. And while their pet Germans were unable to provide weapons to shoot down the aerial menace, they had developed the means to cover. The smoke that hid Ernutan and his forces was so thick that he could barely see the two anti-aircraft mounts on the Mech's back, even when they were only a few meters away. The smoke did not just block light, but according to the Germans, also something they called infrared. Small mortars barked at times, lofting bright metallic strips aloft which slowly settled on the ground. It was supposedly good against radar, whatever that might be.

The new ways of warfare as revealed by Lord Mordred had lifted the DawiZharr high and his servant Ernutan with him. But as with all good things there was the bad and the stout Chaos Dwarf warrior experienced one of its worst sides. He did not see the threats that might very well end him. He could no longer control this battle, he relied on others that they might save him. Being so helpless chafed on him, made him irritable and prone to mistakes. He could watch the two antiaircraft mounts the Golem carried on its back. They were served by DawiZharr, but the demon bound to the war machine aimed and fired them. It needed neither clear skies to see its enemies, nor a radar to estimate range and speed. It aimed at souls and no smoke could ever hide these. And so the slender barrels rose and bursts of autocannon fire assaulted Ernutan's ears. They turned here and there, firing at ever increasing elevations. There were explosions somewhere that briefly lit the smoke, and fragments marred the paint of the war machine's sides. None ever came close enough to rock the massive beast though and Ernutan lived through the encounter.

Brot-aus-Luft Plant, ZharrNaggrund

Martina Hartwig stood at the foot of the mountain that marked one of her greatest achievements and her doom. The DawiZharr had ruined their arable lands to the point where the very soil poisoned even them with its heavy metals. Their attempt at conquering new territories had been foiled by the Reiksbund.
It had been Jasla's son that provided an answer. He had magiced up a family of plants to cleanse the lands.
The flowers that Mordred had somehow provided extended surprisingly deep roots into the ground, leeching the heavy metals into their petals which then started to glitter enticingly. They were so poisonous that even the DawiZharr treated them with care, had them harvested by slaves about to die anyways and smelted metals from the ashes of both.

But that left the ground a well-watered desert, a place without nutrients that would support any mundane plants anybody cared to eat. It direly needed fertilizer to come to life. Unfortunately whatever dung or guano-analog was available was also contaminated to the point of uselessness. So the DawiZharr had to make the fertilizer from the very air around them.
It was an undertaking of epic proportions. Martina had designed reactor vessels that withstood the pressure of corrosive gasses of more than 2000 tons per square meter at interesting temperatures. She had to obtain all manners of semi-modern high grade alloys from people for whom metalworking had religious undertones. All of that had to be scaled up to industrial proportions, so that enough fertilizer could be had once the soil was finally cleared. There were only very few people who could have done all that and Martina Hartwig had succeeded. Most DawiZharr might despise her, but the inner core of those who worked for the bread-from-air plant respected her deeply for her knowledge and drive.

The chemist started to clamber up the off-white mountain before her while she thought about how everything turned so wrong. It had started with the discovery that the soil was far more contaminated than previously estimated, and that Mordred's flowers took longer to extract those poisons. And all the while the factory she had built produced ammonia in copious amounts. And all of that toxic, corrosive gas was then converted into ammonia nitrate, a very, very good fertilizer. That would be free of the poisons and finally loosen the noose of food shipments from Germany around the DawiZharr necks. A noose that had been tightened during the last several weeks when the German ambassador had hinted that those shipments might cease if the DawiZharr would not stop pursuing what they thought was their destiny in Naggaroth.

They had produced so much that the ammonia nitrate had to be stored in in a series of huge piles under what went for an open sky in ZarrNaggrund. The piles had grown together into a humungous mountain of fertilizer, waiting to be used. If Mordred's plants had done their job in time, if the air in ZharrNaggrund would have been less humid and full of chemicals all would have been well and good. Martina could have basked in the success of a job well done and reaped lots of benefits.
The way things had worked out the fertilizer had degraded under the conditions in ways that made it unusable. Not only was it no longer a powder of sorts, but it had hardened to the consistency of plasterboard. But it would not only require jack hammers and a rock crusher just getting it ready to load. It had also degraded chemically and if anything would grow on a field "fertilized" with that was an open question.

Jasla had heard that there was something wrong with the ammonia nitrate, but certainly not the size of the problem. She had warned Martina to "fix that" and the chemist was pretty sure that last night's group rape had not been a spontaneous outbreak of violent desire, but a warning.
Hartwig used a hammer, a chisel, and a small shovel to excavate a hole into the monument of her defeat. She had had quite a run during the last years. Not only was she allowed to invent new procedures and influence the course of major players. She had gained access to real slaves, not just people who wanted her to perform in the cinema in their heads .

Below the chemist a small crowd of humans and DawiZharr assembled, looking at what she was doing. She ignored them, never hearing them, not really. Her mind was elsewhere.
She had been able to perform her magic on so many, mostly humans, and so very few Druchii. They had all thought there were things they would never do, loved ones they'd never hurt or indignities they would never subject themselves to. She pulled the prepared charge from her bag and placed it in the hole she had just made while she remembered them. They had all done things she asked them to, had all hurt their loved ones, they had begged to be humiliated. They had given up the very core of themselves, only to gain a short break from what Martina did to them.
And when she had brought them to that place something within them had died. They might be amusing for a few more days, like dogs that performed tricks, but they were broken toys. The chemist had usually killed them within a week past that point. Their last torments could provide some entertainment, but usually they were too broken to be amusing any more.

Jasla would bring her to that place, she knew it for sure. The light behind her eyes would go out and her only goal in life would be to avoid her displeasure. She could not bear imagining what her "fellow" Germans would do to her once her status was reduced to this level. That thought made her nether regions twitch, and that was what provided the final motivation.
A group of DawiZharr was only two meters from her when she ripped the cord from the charge.

It had been coated with a phosphorus compound that violently reacted with the liner of the channel it was ripped through. It ignited a fuse which burned for two more seconds, then it reached a few picric acid crystals that exploded with enough force to take some 50 grams of TNT with them. Their shockwave had enough time to dismember Martina Hartwig, one of the worst sadists that ZharrNaggrund had ever seen. Before the limbs could land anywhere the huge mountain of ammonium nitrate got the message and ignited.
16,000 tons of explosives went up in a detonation that triggered every seismic sensor ever placed by Germans on the Warhammer World.

A silvery wave of destruction ran through ZharrNaggrund at several times the speed of sound and a fireball followed in its wake. It flattened every structure in its path for kilometers and filled the rubble it left with fire. It killed masters and slaves alike with supreme disdain for their status and incinerated their remains. It pulverized the huge pane of glass of Jasla's office and reduced both the Druchii mage and her German slave to a mangled heap of ashes and bones. It was channeled inside Lord Astragoth's Ziggurat by its V-shaped entrance and lifted the massive roof off. When it came crashing down it crushed the DawiZharr who thought himself ruler of all Chaos Dwarfs under it to a pancake.
The explosion flattened Johann Prossy's workshop while he bent over the drawings of what never would become the first submarine reactor powered by enchanted lava. The firestorm that followed fused his remains with those of the slavegirl under his table.

The shockwave raced through the many glass houses, converting their glass panes to so many razors to flay all working within them. It collapsed the walls of the many new factories that had sprung up around ZharrNaggrunds Ziggurats and dropped the ceiling on slavers and slaves alike. The fireball that followed the shockwave ignited their pyre.
Within seconds half of the denizens of ZharrNaggrund died and whether the survivors would stay alive for long in the hell of mortal making was an open question.

The explosion vented some of its fury into the ground and many foundations cracked under the onslaught. The silvery front that raced at the very tip of the shockwave sped ever onwards, the power behind it weakening with every second as it occupied an ever-greater volume. Finally, it stopped expanding and collapsed into itself. And for a very few, lethal moments it was replaced with a very low pressure where the overpressure had already wreaked havoc.

It tore the lung tissue of DawiZharr, men, and Greenskins, apart like wet napkins, leaving its victims to down in their own blood.
The greatest of ZharrNaggrund's temples was Hashut's temple. The Ziggurat had been erected above an open lava pit. A humungous statue, said to contain the tiniest piece of the god itself stood proudly above the boiling mess on a cantilevered plinth.

The heat and the chemicals released from the pit had not done the plinth any favors over the many centuries of its existence.
The heaving ground had capitalized on these faults and the partial vacuum had been the straw that broke the camel's back. There was a creaking and a groaning, a scream of tortured stone and the huge statue finally fell into the lava below. The bronze started to melt soon enough, revealing the remains of its builders as it did so.

The statue had indeed been consecrated by Hashut itself, symbol to its covenant with the DawiZharr.
The god felt the statue's destruction in the warp. It converted the ember of Hashut's anger at the Chaos Dwarfs who had taken another god besides it into a roaring flame. It would show the DawiZharr and the world to fear the God of Fire.
ZharrNaggrund might be largely destroyed now, but the DawiZharr might rebuild it from the ashes.
Let them try when the heart of their realm became a Trap volcano.

Command Bunker, Neustadt

Satcom allowed for both video and high-quality sound communications between the Reiksbund forces in Neustadt and the Graf Zeppelin

Joakim Vos would have gladly changed the broadband connection for a scratchy wireless call and better news. The way things were he could see the grief on Eberhard von Roon's face all too clearly. The good sound quality did not make the facts any better.
Roon's voice was firm despite all that.
"The bloody stumpies use smoke generators that work in the IR spectrum too. They simply hunker down and hide in a fat cloud whenever we approach to attack. They do have effective AA-defenses even so and managed to shoot Colonel Hoppe down. There was no chute, there is little chance of him surviving. I have assumed command of the Eagles for now.

Unless we land and resupply from von Schiller we have fuel and munitions on board for one more major action. We do not possess enough dumb bombs to attack an enemy we cannot target accurately and expect to weaken them sufficiently. If you ask us to we will attack the DawiZharr force again, but I cannot promise that we will stop them. We could also support your assault on the Druchii forces. If that attack is successful, then we can resupply and support you properly. I understand that this is not the news you wanted to hear, but these choices are the only ones I can give."
Joakim Vos needed a moment to compose himself. What he had just heard had killed his one hope of avoiding a charge that could easily kill his command and leave half a million innocents at the mercy of slavers.
"Please accept my condolences. I knew Colonel Hoppe, he will be missed. I will not lie, this is not what we hoped for, but can't be helped. My staff has prepared several different operation plans, let's see into which you fit best.

Druchii trench, close to Neustadt

The trench had been hacked and laboriously dug from Naggaroth's frozen grounds by the few slaves still available to Kouran Darkhand. Some of its length had actually been dug by true elves in lieu of punishments that could no longer be meted out for a lack of warriors. It was hardly surprising that the trenches were none too deep. That the Black Guard needed them at all was an insult by Neustadt's rebellious slaves that the Darkhand would never forgive, one among so many. He stretched the bit needed to peek above the parapet and aimed his glasses at Neustadt's defenses.

He could not help seeing the remains of the former Druchii camp, the one erected in full view of the slaves. It had been shelled twice before Kouran had to acknowledge the folly of that. Now his camp and the trench he had to dig against slaves were on the reverse side of a ridgeline. He was still in range of Neustadt's artillery, but without any means to control their fire the slaves did not waste their munitions. Now his warriors had reported activity in the trenches. Given that the Germans and their allies had joined the slaves that was worrying. It might be another round of repairing the city's defenses that had badly suffered under the demonic assault. The last rounds had been accompanied by vicious sniping and counter-sniping. Kouran would probably not order a repeat of that. The last time the German vehicles had joined in and their rapid-firing cannon had killed Kouran's best marksmen messily.

The Darkhand made sure that his binox would not disturb the camouflage on the top of the trench and tried to make sense of what he saw in Neustadt's trenches. It was hard going, as the slaves had dug far deeper than him and had covered a lot of the trenches as well. There was definitively movement in the first line, with soldiers coming from behind and fanning out along the length of the trenches. Kouran still tried to make sense of that when he was distracted by a buzzing above. Lifting his head he saw something like one of the thrice-damned German planes, but much smaller. It did not screech as those things were want to do, but purred. It did nothing but circle above and the Druchii was about to dismiss it when deep rumbling caught his attention. It came from the parts of Neustadt that he could not see from here. The parts where the slaves had their artillery. Kouran took the time to scream "Incoming, take cover" before making for the next dugout. Seconds after he went into it a set of feet nearly broke his nose again. Before he could act the first explosions threw dirt all over the trench he had just vacated. The bombardment was absolutely fierce, with many detonations so close that his breath was stolen by their violence. It took true elven ears to perceive them over the din, but an evil whispering told a story of fragments that wanted to flay his flesh.

Kouran Darkhand, master of the Black Guard, the Witch King's most feared enforcer, had to hide like a frightened animal before a bombardment by slaves. Oh how he would make them hurt for that.

First trench, Neustadt defenses, same time

Joakim Vos had punched tickets in his new life on the Warhammer World. He had also fought warriors made of otherworldly flesh, abominations the size of busses made by man-sized rats, demons, and a literal god in the flesh once. He had not ever faltered and his path had shown him what it took to take up fights he might very well not live through.
And the fight before him might be the worst he had ever faced. On the other side of that ridgeline were several thousand Druchii warriors, armed with rifles, machine guns, and cannon. They were veterans, they knew how to use their tools and served a god of murder.
History knew quite a few cases where a force inferior in numbers was able to fend off a superior force. But the vast majority of those had been defences, not assaulting a superior force. A decade ago Joakim would have ordered this assault in a cool minute. But the Spitzohren, like some other parties on this world, had upgraded to the point where they were a creditable threat.

To go out with such a forlorn hope he needed three things: Good people that covered his back, and he could hardly think of any better than the Reiksbund soldiers who had jumped into Neustadt with him.
A good mission worth doing, and the former slaves in that city made for a very, very good cause.
And he needed a dose of hate. That helped forgetting about his fears, about the horrors he was about to face and the losses his people were about to incur.
He had learned all about hate during the dozen years he fought for Germany and the Reiksbund. He had seen it in his enemies, lots and lots of hate. And he had felt it burn through his veins, turning all doubts, all aches and fears to ash.
He had seen his enemies and some of his allies lose all reason to hate, had seen things done and losses incurred that should not have.

He had learned from that, learned that hate is like fire, a useful servant and a very bad master. Hating the Druchii was easy, they were a walking horror that should not exist. Curbing the hate to a useful amount was an art. He and the sword were good at that too. That hate needed an outlet, something to kindle the flame and Joakim's forgotten memories provided one that was older than the state he served.
And to the shrieks and rumbles of the artillery that put the Druchii under an iron flail he pushed the icon that connected him with all the Reiksbund soldiers about to go over the lip of the trench.
"Raise the black flag folks. No pity, no remorse. Up and at them."

His call ended with the recording of a shrill pipe that sent everybody over the trench lip. Joakim's armor was powerful enough that it propelled him right over the edge and allowed him to jump the wire belt before the trenches. It allowed him and his fellow soldiers to run over the broken ground, despite their heavy equipment, armor, and arms.

Their target was obscured in a dirty gray smoke that was lit from within by explosions.
Neustadt's artillery hammered into the ridgeline and beyond with unrestrained fury. Every step they took brought them closer to razor-sharp fragments that sliced through everything in their way and the hammer of shockwaves. They ran towards it like a child that has spotted her lost mother and for the same reasons. It was the one thing that promised salvation.

As long as the artillery put the Druchii under its iron flail they were unlikely to shoot back effectively. They could not see much through the smoke and Neustadt's mortars and howitzers reduced the trenches defense considerably. So any Druchii who wanted to live cowered in whatever bombproof shelter he or she could find. They banked on the hope that the artillery would cease firing before an assault on the trenches itself. Then Kouran Darkhand's warriors would step to the parapets in seconds and would slaughter the enemy, who would struggle with the wire before them.
And with any normal infantry assault that was a valid tactic. But the troops that ran through no-man's land were clad in power armor and artillery was a far lesser threat to them. They would attack very closely on the heels of the artillery barrage indeed.

Still, not all Druchii were subdued by the hurricane bombardment. There were several low-slung bunkers along the line with top cover sturdy enough to ignore all but the heaviest hits. The warriors inside could not see much but for a few meters before their vision slits, but that did not render them harmless. Their heavy machine guns were mounted on tripods that allowed them to limit their traverse to their assigned zones. They elevated their barrels to whatever range was screamed at them and then they fired salvo after salvo into the zones they wanted to deny to the enemy. Their bullets screamed and whistled through the man-made smoke, pulling short-lived trails where they left it.
A few actually managed to hit the spidersilk and titanium in a ceramic matrix, they hardly did anything, but slow the soldier down. One such bullet collided squarely with Nar Stonebenders face plate, making sure the dwarf would never see his Karak again.

The barrels of the Druchii machine guns heated up considerably, which made them stand out. One of the Wiesel Weapons Carriers had stopped on a convenient rise five seconds ago. It fired a couple of three round bursts, silencing all but one of the bunkers.
A sudden gust of winter wind was the work of a Druchii mage, it removed the smoke that clung to the enemy's trenches. Joakim's HUD depicted more and more hot spots where courageous Spitzohren peaked above the trench line. Druchii rifles and machine guns opened up, in one case a heavy weapon that managed to kill three Paladins in one burst.

If Joakim had been running without his armor or even the first generation of Power Armor shooting back would have been useless. Both armor and the man inside had upgraded considerably. Green boxes appeared around those hot spots the armor deemed viable. They flashed when his Mauser was aligned with one and the three-round bursts went out without a conscious thought by the Paladin's commander. He was not the only one shooting and the blobs exploded into short-lived flowers in his HUD. More and more such blobs rose. Some dropped into the trench again when their comrades caught an explosive bullet, even more died to Neustadt's artillery. But they did not die quickly enough. Kouran Darkhand had trained his troops with frightening intensity, now they were able to shoot accurately, even when the world around them burned and every second might be their last. They kept their brains sufficiently to use the rare armor-piercing ammo they had been told to use only in an emergency.

The Reiksbund Power Armor was mostly proof against their fire, but mostly meant that steel-cored rounds still found the links between armor plates, the softer fabric that covered joints and faceplates. A dozen Reiksbund soldiers died within as many seconds, leaving red markers in Joakim's HUD. And they were the lesser danger to his troops, Neustadt's artillery was a far larger threat. He slowed the seconds needed to contact the wounded Paladin riding herd on the artillery teams in the city behind him.
"Barbara actual, this is Paladin Actual. Shift barrage forward to phase line Bravo, repeat shift barrage forward to phase line Bravo."
The Paladin's calm voice was a jarring contrast to the murderous madness all around Joakim Vos.
"Paladin Actual, Barbara copies shifting barrage."

Of course that changed nothing, as shells were still in flight and orders had to be relayed, understood and acted on. Joakim Vos could just hope that von der Marwitz's calculations were as good as the German had promised. Given that he could not just halt the assault in a beaten zone he could do the only thing possible and charged towards the explosions behind him. He started hearing the evil whizz of fragments that passed him far too closely, he started to feel the hammer of the grenades' shockwaves. Still he charged into his own artillery fire as if his life depended on it, as it indeed did.
He still slowed without conscious thought, making him a better target, when the shells stopped falling so very close. Instead they started an evil drumbeat that walked over the Druchii rear, closing the trenches to all elven reinforcements. Given the inaccurate mortars and their less-than-professional crews some errors were to be expected. A 120 mm shell dropped right into a heavy weapons team, killing two and maiming the others. A howitzer shell detonated so close to a dawi fire team that they were blown off their feet. Two would be insensible for the rest of the fight, the lungs of another were shredded so badly that he drowned in his own blood.
There were others who lost a limb or had to fight with metal in their bodies. Joakim saw the icons that denoted the losses, using his hate to stop the grief and acknowledged that the Reiksbunders had been exceedingly lucky.

And then he was before the wire belt. Such a simple thing, a few strands of barbed wire strung over posts at hip height. Hard to impossible to shift by artillery, impossible to clear under fire this simple contraption had caught the youth of a generation and filled the fields of Flanders with poppies.
Others would have used tanks or explosives to clear the wire, the power-armored Reiksbunders simply engaged the jump function of their suits and cleared the obstacle in a long jump. It brought them right before the trench that started to grow Druchii heads again. Joakim stopped for a moment, checking the situation in his HUD while many of his soldiers threw grenade after grenade into the trench before them.
Very, very few came back, lacking the power to hurt his men. Other had a muffled detonation, indicating where alert warriors had kicked them into grenade traps. The rest caused a massacre in the densely packed warriors.
The Reiksbunders jumped into this mess, with assault rifles, bayonets and hate. They were met by Druchii warriors who thought themselves the kings of melee combat.