Six

"The reinforcements were greatly appreciated... erm, have you got any more?"

Colonel Strickland, 23rd Roane Deepers

Sergeant Almdudena was not having a good day. In fact, the sergeant could not remember the last time he had a good day. Though it was probably somewhere before the xenos invaded his planet and everything went to shit.

He warily looked at his surroundings, it was a two story farmhouse reinforced with sandbags and whatever junk he and his men had found lying around, they even managed to install an autocannon. They had also cut back the overgrown corn stalks for a more effective field of vision. So far their little fortress had proven sufficient to repel small probing attacks. But Almudena had serious doubts that it could withstand a serious assault if the xenos finally decided they were worth the bother of exterminating.

They had bunkered down here with other survivors of the massacres that had wiped out most of the PDF presence in the region. All told their small garrison counted forty souls who all fervently wished they were somewhere else. The sergeant took some solace from the fact that they were able to vox a warning to the capital. But he wasn't sure if it had reached anyone with the authority to do something about it. Frak, he wasn't even sure there was still a capital left.

His gaze turned to trooper Alejandrino who was trying to keep the younger Fulgencio's morale up. The lad was close to his breaking point, he was constantly checking his lasgun and muttering the Litany of Maintenance over and over again. His eyes were wide and dark circles formed underneath them from lack of sleep.

Alejandrino locked eyes with his sergeant and he gave him a sad smile as he shook his head. It was clear to everyone that Fulgencio needed professional help, but they had none to give here. Not for the first time Almudena cursed their fate.

The other troopers were a mixed bag. Some had the look of proper career soldiers, while others looked and acted like they had been given their lasguns and uniforms with a box of cereals. It also did nothing to help lift his spirits that he held the highest rank, as everyone of lieutenant rank and higher was lying dead in a field somewhere. Which meant that he was in charge of these soldiers' safety, yet another cruel twist of fate that made Almudena wonder what it was he had done that pissed the Emperor off.

An explosion in the forest of corn stalks snapped him out of his lamentations.

'What the frak was that?' He snapped at no one in particular.

'Looks like a mortar round.' Came the reply from a trooper upstairs. 'Probably finding their range!'

'Ah shit!'. Almudena exclaimed, that meant an assault of the magnitude he was dreading was imminent. 'Take cover and move to position when the mortar fire slackens!'

A ragged, disheartened chorus of argument rang out. It made Almudena despair.

Emperor on the Throne, we're all going to die. He thought.

'Incoming!' someone yelled right before a mortar shell impacted through a window upstairs. The explosion was followed by the screams of men and women who were riddled with shrapnel from the blast.

After a few harrowing minutes the deluge of shells lessened and finally ceased all together.

As if to confirm Almudena's fears guttural cries went up throughout the corn field, the monsters were here.

The sergeant peeked through a ruined window and saw the wolf like xenos advance towards them. Their crude, segmented armour plates were festooned with grizzly and rotten trophies. Severed hands, ears and heads all dangled from barbed hooks. Almudena looked away as he saw the decapitated head of Tacito, his milky eyes staring accusingly at him.

'Open fire!' He yelled. 'Blow them to frak!'

His troops needed little encouragement as forty lasguns opened up and sent forth bolts of energy into the ranks of the lycans. The roar of the autocannon soon joined the hiss of the lasguns forcing the xenos back.

'Don't like that, do you?' Almudena roared, taking heart from the broken corpses littering the kill zone. 'We've got more were that came from, you bastards!'

He immediately regretted those words as a rocket came screeching towards them. It impacted with the crew of the autocannon. They were killed instantly by the resulting explosion which also tore a huge chunk out of the house.

The lycans roared and charged once more, bolstered by the knowledge that the teeth of the snake had been ripped out. Now there was only meat to be butchered.

'Fire at will!' Almudena screamed. 'Fire at will! Kill the bastards!'

More lasfire was hosed into the alien horde, but it was all in vain as the lycans's blood was up. They were firing from the hip and their muzzles were covered in foam, no doubt in anticipation of the feast to come. They ignored their wounded and fallen, all that mattered was to close with the enemy and kill.

We can't hold this frakking position, sarge!' Trooper Fulgencio yelled at Almudena. 'We're going to be overrun if we don't get out of this damn house!'

'The lad's got the way of it,' Alejandrino agreed, 'we're dead if we stay here.'

'Do you see a path to safety?' Sergeant Almudena snapped at Alejandrino. 'We're completely surrounded you nitwit, now take that gun of yours and start firing out of the frakking window. Take as many of these monstrosities down with you and shut your damn mouth!'

Alejandro nodded grimly and fired his lasgun at full auto. The sergeant was right. There was no escape, only death.

'When are the damned Valkyries getting here?' Fulgencio whimpered. 'I don't want to die out here, sarge. I don't want to die out here!'

'It'll be underway, just a little longer now,' Almudena didn't have the heart to tell him that the Governor probably didn't give a flying frak about a handful of soldiers hunkered down in a house in the arse-end of nowhere. And that it was there for highly unlikely that a flight of Valkyries was going to swoop down from the horizon with their guns blazing and fly them all to safety.

'Oh shit!' Fulgencio whimpered as more and more Lycans assaulted the farm house. 'Oh shit! We can't win this, we're all going to die down here! Frak this, I'm getting out of here!'

'No! Almudena yelled as he saw that Fulgencio had snapped and he what he was about to do. 'Don't!'

But Fulgencio paid him no heed and jumped out the window. Almudena looked on in horror as the young trooper began to run for it. A xeno bullet hit him in the leg and he fell to the dirt, desperately scrambling to escape.

A lycan's claws dug into the flesh of his injured leg and dragged him back.

'No! Please!' Fulgencio's screams tore at Almudena's soul. 'Help me! Somebody help me!'

A pack of Lycans now appeared around the doomed PDF trooper and began to slice strips of flesh from his body with wickedly serrated blades.

Fulgencio's screams reached an even higher crescendo until the lycan's bloodlust overcame their cruel sadism and they fell on the young trooper in a frenzy of snapping jaws and tearing claws.

'God-Emperor on the Throne,' Alejandrino whispered and almost dropped his lasgun, his eyes whet with tears as he mouthed a silent prayer for Fulgencio's soul.

'I don't think the Emperor is listening anymore,' Almudena said and affixed his bayonet to the muzzle of his lasgun. 'But I have a feeling we will see Him in person soon enough.'

"Looks like the LZ is hot.' The voice of the Valkyrie's pilot sounded oddly metallic through the communication's system of Maharbaal's helmet. 'Looks they're waging a small war down there.'

'Can you clear us a drop zone?' The Sacred Band sergeant asked.

'I'll do my best.' Came the reply. 'Make sure your men are ready to drop when I give the all clear.'

'The Emperor protects.' Said Maharbaal as acknowledgement.

The house was now a scene of utter bedlam as PDF troopers were trying to keep the xenos out of their makeshift castle with lasguns, bayonets and sometimes with pieces of wood torn from furniture.

Almudena winced as he heard more explosions, reckoning that the lycans had brought up heavier guns to finish them off. But something did not ad up, he thought he heard the sound of lascannons firing and nothing he had seen so far suggested the lycans employed energy weapons.

'Sarge, look!' Alejandrino was pointing at something in the distance.

Almudena's heart leaped as he recognized the Emperor-blessed shape of a Valkyrie from which bronze armoured figures were making a combat drop, their hellguns blazing.

'Stand fast! He roared at his men with renewed courage. 'Looks like the God-Emperor remembered us!'

'Go, go, go!' Maharbaal snarled as the light in the Valkyrie's hold turned green and it's ramp opened. 'We're moving in hot!'

With silent efficiency the Sacred Band leapt from the Valkyrie and into the battle below, their hellguns made short work of the lycans who were lurking at the edge of the battle. The ten Qdosim formed up in a circle around their sergeant, hellguns pointing outward.

'Maharbaal scanned his surroundings and located the farmhouse and the desperate fight being fought there. He drew his bolt pistol and unsheathed his sword, his bulky hellgun was mag-locked to his backpak.

'The objective is up ahead.' He pointed two fingers at the house. 'Form up on me and don't stop for anything!'

The Sacred Band moved forwards, their hellguns scything down the lycans who were still reeling from the mauling they had received at the hands of the Valkyrie's guns.

More xenos turned to meet the threat from their rear, but all they received for their trouble was a high powered lassbolt to the face as the Sacred Band rushed them.

Maharbaal fired his bolt pistol into the chest of a nearby alien. The monster's fellows were showered in gore as the explosive bolt penetrated it's armour and exploded it's ribcage.

Maharbaal rolled under the wild swing of a serated sword and sliced his blade across it's owner's belly, the lycan fell to the ground as it tried to hold in its guts.

More lycans died as the Sacred Band carved a path through the xenos towards the farmhouse. Maharbaal checked the vital signs of his squad on his heads up display, some injuries but no fatalities yet.

Lets keep it that way. He thought.

Almudena noticed the lycan assault was faltering in its ferocity. He could hear animal howls of pain and confusion as parts of the lycan assault force turned back into the cornfield to confront the threat behind them. After a few moments the PDF sergeant could hear the lycans shouting fierce war cries in their guttural tongue, which were answered by shouts that sounded human but were in a language he did not understand.

Sensing an opportunity Almudena rallied his troops and made to sally forth. The PDF troops followed him and crashed into the lycans, shooting at point blank range and stabbing wildly with bayonets. Caught between the ruthless Sacred Band and the onrushing PDF charge the lycan force disintegrated. The fight seemed to have gone out of them now that the odds were no longer in their favour.

Almudena rammed his bayonet through the neck of a prone lycan with vicious glee and looked at Alejandrino who was pointing at the cornstalks.

'Oh that can't be good,' Almudena said as the cornstalks began to rustle again as whatever had slaughtered the Lycans to their rear made its way to the farmhouse. The surviving soldiers warily levelled their guns at the corn.

Alejandrino was about to reply when ten figures in black fatigues and bronze armour emerged from them. Ornate helmets looked at the PDF troopers, the expressions of the faces behind them were utterly unreadable.

The sergeant's mind began to race, these were Imperial Guard!

'I am sergeant Maharbaal.' The one armed with a sword and a bolt pistol said with accented Low Gothic. 'I have been ordered to extract you to safety.' A slight pause as he scanned the PDF troopers. 'There are more of you than we expected.'

'You sound surprised?' Almudena ventured.

'Not at all.' Maharbaal said and sheathed his sword. 'I am always pleased to see fellow soldiers of the Imperium survive against the odds. We will have to call in more birds though.'

'You and a squad of your men can evac if you wish.' Maharbaal indicated the Valkyrie which had now landed amongst the lycan corpses. 'We and the rest of your men can hold the fort.'

'No, best if the wounded were allowed to leave first.' Almudena said. 'I could never forgive myself if they died will I escaped to safety.'

'As you say.' Maharbal said. He decided he liked Almudena.