Freezing wind roared all around, buffeting Girard's gear and nudging him to and fro as he plummeted through Knossos's upper atmosphere. Around him, the silhouettes of his comrades sailed through the hazy blue expanse, eyes fixated on the swathe of green and brown below them. Surrounded by the sound of his own breath in his pressure helmet, he stared through his visor at the flickering rune that marked their landing zone. Up here, racing through the atmosphere of yet another embattled world, the surface looked deceptively peaceful. In all but the most war-torn hellscapes, a planet could easily be mistaken as such from this high above, but he and his men knew better – Emperor alone knew what horrific atrocities were occurring down there at this very moment. Girard was pulled from his thoughts as he glanced around the formation of free-falling troops.
"Streeter, mind your drift." he voxed, watching as Streeter rolled a shoulder forward, and slid carefully back into the formation. Fixed to the lad's side was a grenade launcher fitted with a full stock and strapped to his flak pack. The newest addition to the squad had made a name for himself, for his uncanny skill with a grenade launcher. The bandoliers of krak grenades he possessed lent even greater armor-busting power to their squad.
"Approaching chute activation zone in ten," Lt. Maksachova spoke for the first time since they leapt from the shuttle. Everyone braced themselves, grasping the activation switches.
"Mark,"
At once, 2nd Squad lurched backward, their descent suddenly arrested by the blast of the grav-chutes. They swung forward, feet aimed at the world beneath them as the Vidal Mountains came roaring into focus. The moments slipped by as the deep greens sharpened into patches of pine trees and vegetation, and boulder fields and cliff faces resolved out of the browns and greys. The world was no longer a spinning orb in a briefing chamber, or on a high-res dataslate. The war for liberation was now very real, and Girard and his men were plummeting into it feet-first. An open patch of mountainside emerged as they fell further, revealing their drop zone. Girard finessed the grav-chute controls with practiced precision, angling into the center of the grassy field.
In a slow, majestic swoop, he hit the ground feet first. He skidded across dew-soaked grass, sliding and tumbling in as controlled a fashion as he could manage. With his rifle tucked in close, he tugged the quick-release straps on his chute and sent it rolling away in front of him. There was a flurry of impacts all around him as the sounds of his men sticking their own landings and tumbling to a stop. His legs, struggling to arrest their breakneck pace, until he slowly gained control of his movements. Beside him, a gray and green blur shot ahead, cursing as it yanked the ripcord on its chute.
"Boots down! Ah frak me, thought for sure I was headed for those rocks," Wulfhausen grunted, moving out of a forward roll up to Girard's side. He tucked his cut down hellgun into his shoulder, immediately scanning the sight lines around their landing zone for threats. As more and more shouts of "Boots down!" sounded all around him, Girard signaled for the squad to rally. He scanned the clearing, and spotted Lt. Maksachova and her team. He, like all of his squad, had doubts about the void-dwellers' ability to participate in such specialized work; he was more than a bit impressed that they had made their landing without issue. As they all hustled toward the rally point, Girard took in the scene around him.
Large, puffy banks of clouds drifted lazily through an early morning sky as the squad gathered on the mountainside. Beside them, over the edge of a nearby cliff, the landscape of Knossos stood in quiet splendor. The mountains swept back away to the north, and below them the plains stretched on for miles, bisected by a wide and powerful river that wound like a sapphire ribbon across the land. Distant highways and clusters of roadside towns were punctuated with towering infrastructure, and squalls of dust dotted the landscape. Over the horizon, mixing in with thunderheads were vast plumes of smoke, marking the burning cities most recently taken by traitor forces and bringing the reality of the conflict into sharper focus. Turning their view upwards, 2nd Squad looked to the summit, in the direction of their objective: far above them, Observatorium Primus awaited.
"…fzzzk…-ver… Broadsword Prime to Broadsword 2, come in, over." Girard's satellite vox crackled to life. He grabbed at his handset, calling out to the disembodied voice.
"This is Broadsword 2 attending, send it." Girard said.
"Broadsword 2, status report."
"All elements are up, moving to 'primary," Girard said.
"Affirmative Broadsword 2, take note: Mechanized assets are already engaging perimeter defenses. Additional armor inbound to the 'primary, large foot elements and walker squadron supporting. Route is confirmed – projected arrival time: 3 standard hours."
"Duly noted, Broadsword Prime – moving to 'primary, now." Girard finished, clipping the handset back to his flak.
"Very good. Broadsword Prime, out." Metzger said, and closed the channel. Girard looked to his squad:
"Quickly now - An advance party is already engaging the defenders, with more are on their way up. I want to be properly dug in when the main force hits."
[] [] []
The squad fell into a defensive formation, slinking through the grass and into the fine forests beyond. After several minutes of racing through the sunlight-speckled forest, over beds of pine needles and leafy brush they came to a utility road, its faded grey surface dusted with long-rotted leaves and debris. Even a casual observer would posit that this road had not been travelled or maintained for some time. 2nd Squad pelted across the open space, down the shoulder of the road, and up into the adjoining brush.
The climb, even for men like Girard and his squad, was a challenging task. They scrambled to find purchase on the dusty rocks and scrub brush, and maintaining such a fast pace tested their endurance. With their rebreathers and visors of their helmets removed, grunts and heavy breaths echoed around the rocky outcrops and meadows that they crossed, climbing ever closer to their objective. Lt. Maksachova and her cohorts kept admirable pace with the stormtroopers. Though they rarely engaged in protracted planet-side operations, scaling the long ladder wells and crawling through jungles of cabling and service chutes during naval engagements did its share to prepare them for the climb. Girard heaved himself over the lip of a boulder, rising over the edge with his rifle up. He had begun a slow trot forward, followed quickly by Wulfhausen and Solly, when they were stopped in their tracks.
The sound of battle reached their ears. The frantic cracks of las-fire, snap-pop of solid munitions, and the thumps of explosives drifted on the wind. Girard turned and waved the squad forward, redoubling their efforts. The winding utility road once again crossed ahead of them on its rambling, switchback path up the mountainside. They moved silently through the edges of the forest, until they were within a stone's throw of the roadside. The squad dispersed without a word, scanning the surrounding area for threats. A hand went up at the far right, and the squad went low. Girard crept up through the squad to stop at Johannsen, whose hand remained in the air. Girard tapped his shoulder, dipping to a low crouch beside him.
"What is it?" He asked. Johannsen lowered his hand, and pointed up the winding road. At a hairpin turn some hundred meters ahead was a large utility pipeline, twice the height of a man, that ran down the mountainside. Tracing its path upward, rockcrete maintenance stations fed into the pipe at even intervals. The stations were boxy structures, with a roof access hatch hemmed in by rusted railing. It was what stood at the top of the closest station that drew Johannsen's attention.
"And the enemy is revealed – Veidt, get up here," Girard said into his vox bead. He shifted in place, drawing his rifle optics up to his eye. His hand steadied, and he zeroed in on the rooftop:
Brown flak plates laden with combat webbing, tiger-striped uniforms spattered with dried blood, and blocky las-rifles fixed with serrated bayonets filled his view. A heavy weapons team sat at the parapet, manning a rust-flecked, tripod mounted stubber. One man sat behind the gun, while the other leaned against the railing smoking a lho stick. Alongside the weapons team was a pair of riflemen who paced the top of the structure. He watched as one man leaned to spit over the edge, his helmet clipped to his chest plate and leaving his head exposed. Veidt took a knee beside Girard.
"Hm, first contact. Drop on sight, yeah?" He asked. His needle rifle was already tucked into his shoulder, drawn to the ready. Girard nodded. Veidt brought the bulbous scope to his eye:
"Spotter first, then the gunner. Anything that comes out of that doorway is yours. Stand by for shots." Veidt went still, lining up his first target.
Girard and his men readied their rifles in the event of return fire. Two quick pairs of muffled shrieks issued from inside the rifle as he squeezed the trigger, pivoting the sleek weapon as he fired. Girard watched through his sights as the standing riflemen tumbled like dominos, pinprick holes punched through their armor to deliver near-instantaneous death by way of a toxic payload. One man stumbled and flipped over the railing, landing on his neck in front of the pipeline. The echo of plaintive cries reached the stormtroopers' roadside hiding spot, and Girard settled his sight triangle just ahead of the doorway.
"Gunners down," Veidt breathed, keeping his rifle aimed directly at the station. The main door clanged open and out poured several more of the traitors, rifles in hand and scrambling outward in a fear-induced frenzy.
"Wrong choice, swine." Girard sneered. He and his squad opened fire.
A muffled tak-tak-tak! echoed across the rocks and the traitors twisted and fell in the dirt. Fist-sized gouges crumbled out of the rockcrete structure beside them, dribbling pebbles and swirls of dust. Sizzling, bloody chunks of flesh were blasted from the traitors' bodies, and they squirmed over several seconds before lying still.
"Move up, sweep and clear on the shed," Girard whispered into the vox. As one, they slipped through the foliage, invisible from the road.
In silent, deliberate maneuvers, 2nd Squad surrounded the structure, a weapon facing in every direction, with the Lieutenant's teammates falling in with deference to the stormtroopers. Girard and Solly stepped inside, weapons panning about in the enclosed space. Dim lights cast the interior in a muddy glow. The area was no larger than a barracks room, and whatever instrumentation occupied the center of the space had been ripped out in favor of sitting space for these traitors. A row of long-range packs lined the back wall, along with scattered piles of rations and a high-gain vox caster. Indistinct transmissions warbled from the squawk box, laced with static.
"Looks like they were getting settled in for a while," Solly murmured.
"Make a retrieval note, stash the weapons in the brush, and let's keep moving." Girard said, before turning to step outside.
The others quickly and thoroughly picked over the bodies, pilfering their power cells and pulling grenades from their bandoliers, piling the enemy's weapons out of sight before resuming their climb. Presently, they reached the utility road once more, and the sounds of combat intensified. The squad fanned out into an advancing wedge formation, across the road and into the trees. As Girard fell into step with his men, Lt. Maksachova slid up beside him:
"We have reached the summit; the observatorium is a kilometer due north of our position." She said, tucking a terrestrial-positioning unit back its pouch. Girard keyed up his satellite vox:
"Broadsword Prime this is Broadsword 2, summit now, I state again, summit now. Moving to contact."
"Affirmative, Broadsword 2. Standing by for status report." It was Beleckis's voice that crackled back this time.
They advanced toward the sounds of battle like ghosts through the vegetation, an intimate familiarity with woodland maneuvers leaving their approach swift and utterly silent. They drifted in and out of standard dispersion with the concerted movements of hive-minded organisms. Delicate pacing avoided the snapping of brittle underbrush, and their nimble weaving advance left the low-hanging branches undisturbed. The Navy team found such silent maneuvers far more difficult to manage. While still respectably discreet to those without a reconnaissance background, to the stormtroopers they sounded more like a pack of stampeding cattle.
With the objective still out of sight, the next elements of the Novum Tempestus were revealed. The entire squad went to ground as they spotted a trio of Chimeras clustered in a grassy clearing. The tracked vehicles were sprayed in a speckled khaki scheme, a stark contrast to the surrounding vegetation. The engines idled noisily, obscuring the conversational tones of a gaggle of enemy guardsmen in well-stocked field kit. The abundance of specialized gear, and the minor modifications to their weaponry marked them immediately as junior officers and platoon leadership.
Girard frowned: rebellious militiamen and traitor armies were certainly not an unfamiliar foe, but the implications posed by such an organized force were troubling. They stood together, maps splayed out across a flat boulder at the center of the clearing. They talked conspiratorially, gesturing at various points of interest. At the edges of the clearing, small fire teams were on patrol. The confident assessment of their surroundings showed in posturing of the rank and file: their eyes wandered carelessly across the trees and surrounding brush, their rifles often angled steeply toward the ground in a resting stance, and a pair of them even left their helmets unclipped or had taken them off entirely. Girard glanced to Solly and Johannsen, the outermost men in the formation. They gestured to their flank and communicated with a quick series of hand-signals:
One target, hidden. Behind vehicle. Idle/inattentive.
Vehicle - Communication/Signal equipment.
Girard looked across the chimeras as Johannsen indicated; two of them sprouted long whip antennas and sat-vox aerials. This was most certainly the command element. Girard nodded, craning his neck back across the rest of the squad. The next hand up was Lt. Gianos, auspex in one hand as she signalled with the other in basic, Munitorum-Standard signal language:
Reserves-in-readiness, 50m, left oblique. Squad-sized element.
Girard pointed to the armsmen, indicating that they follow Solly and Johannsen. Then to the Lieutenants, to follow him and the rest of the squad. They nodded in unison. Girard brought his own carbine up, putting himself in line with the command squad. In his headset came the clandestine double-click of a vox transmitter that indicated Solly's group was in place. Girard responded with the triple-click signal to engage.
The squad bled out of the wooded landscape and descended on the unwary traitors. A hail of fire erupted from the tree line and shredded the fire teams in an instant. They cried out as they crumpled to the grass, smoking holes blasted through their armored bodies. The commanders milled about in panic at the center of the Chimeras, scrambling away from the surprise attack. Girard and his men surged across the clearing, firing at the fleeing men as they moved. Lt. Maksachova's stubgun barked twice, two perfectly timed bursts punching bloody holes through the underarm portions of their flaks.
"Crews! Hit the crews!" Postigo shouted, waving Veidt and Streeter forward.
Each man split off from the group and surged up the open troop ramps. Postigo and Stark both circled the formation and caught two more crewmen, clad in dirty grey coveralls and soft tanker helmets, scrabbling out of the clearing and toward the more distant sounds of battle. They fired together, burning smoky holes into their fleeing backs before they flopped lifelessly into the vegetation. Veidt and Streeter emerged from the Chimeras, bellowing "Clear!" before rejoining the fight.
A chattering blast of hellgun fire erupted from somewhere beyond the formation of Chimeras. Following it was the report of stubgun fire, mingling with the crack of lower-powered lasguns. The traitors' reserve team, much like their comrades, had thought themselves alone in the mountains and free from a loyalist surprise attack. When Wulfhausen's hellgun went silent, the victor was clear. Girard keyed up the squad's voxnet:
"Everyone, on me. We're not far now."
[] [] []
Girard and his men arrived at the edge of the forest, and Observatorium Primus was revealed. Beyond the trees was a grassy slope of no more than fifty meters, edged with rockcrete drainage channels that marked the edges of the facility. Beyond the gently sloping field and past a ruined perimeter fence, a semi-circle arrangement of dark brick structures huddled at the center. An overlapping patchwork of scorches, heavy weapons impacts, and clusters of bullet holes blemished the facility's refined architecture, telling of many such battles in the recent past. They rose over a sprawling courtyard, now reduced to a muddy moonscape of craters and detritus and scattered with the flamed-out hulks of Chimeras and broken bodies of long-dead troops. Squads of the traitor guardsmen crouched behind the wrecks of their vehicles, engaged in a bloody stalemate with the defenders. Clusters of khaki and brown, the colors of the rebellion, bobbed and scurried behind the dead tanks, searching for gaps in the defense.
The report of heavy stubbers burst from the windows of the ancillary structures, raking the courtyard with a storm of solid rounds. Miniature eruptions of dark earth heaved upward around the enemy's cover and sparks leapt away from impacts against the vehicles' hulls. Behind hastily erected cover that combined wreckage, rocky outcrops, and portable barriers, heavy weapons teams were setting up their stubbers and recoilless rifles. Solly and Postigo sprang into action, driving the squad forward:
"Wulfie, suppressing fire on the left arc!" Solly voxed, dragging an armsman by the sleeve with Veidt close behind. He had slung his needle rifle to conserve the specialized ammo, and now brought his lascarbine to bear.
"Streeter, Johannsen, same-same – right arc, 30 meters!" Postigo called out. They joined up and began their approach through the trees, just out of sight. Girard waved the two remaining armsmen and the Lieutenants to him, with Stark at his side.
"Solly, Postigo, keep those teams down – widen the gap. We're pushing up through the center," Girard voxed.
2nd Squad raced across the grass and toward their foes. As a comparatively small force, speed and aggression were their greatest advantage. They announced themselves with a volley of fire, carving into the groups of traitors and throwing their coordinated assault into disarray. A shockwave ripped through the earth and set ears ringing, staggering Girard momentarily and ratting his internal organs. He glanced to the right and further across the field, watching as a gout of earth and rubble rose upward, hurling ragged body parts and weapon components across the grass - Streeter's aim was true. The heavy weapon crews reacted swiftly, exchanging violent curses between one another. They leapt up, pivoting their weapons around toward their unexpected enemies.
Before they could bring their weapon to bear, two crewmen were slashed down by a controlled shot group from Veidt. The assistant gunner's neck and shoulder exploded, spattering his comrade with hunks of sizzling meat. The gunner tripped over the lip of their gun pit, and he scrambled back to the gun before absorbing another pair of shots. His body seized as they cut through his collarbone and lanced out of his back. He sank lifelessly into the dirt, blood streaming from the wounds. The heavy weapon crews were forced down before the lightning advance overwhelmed their positions entirely.
Girard sprinted forward, weaving between rocks and wreckage as he fired at the traitor rifle squads. With the Navy troops at one side and Stark on the other, they drove the troops away from their smoldering shelter and into the teeth of the defenders' guns. Lt. Maksachova used her stubgun to deadly effect: each growling burst brought a traitor low, shredding limbs, perforating armor plates, and piercing helmets. Bright arcs of blood sprayed from their wounds as men were punched from their feet, knees buckling beneath them as augmetically enhanced targeting systems sent the rounds home with frightening accuracy. Lt. Gianos and her cohorts maneuvered competently enough, always fanning out to either side of the Lieutenant and defaulting into a covering formation. Girard fell into step with the Lieutenant, cutting through the flak of a less cowardly traitor. The fabric beneath his armor flared as it ignited under the intense heat of the impact, dropping the man to one knee. Before he could raise his weapon again, Girard put another pair of rounds through his face. The traitor toppled sideways, his head a smoldering bubbling wreck.
From inside the facility, the onlookers saw the opening the new arrivals had provided. At once, a concert of fire erupted from the observatorium's windows, raining onto the traitor forces. The air filled with the cacophony of a combined arms barrage, shredding those foolish enough to remain outside of cover. The effect was nearly instantaneous: caught between an entrenched foe and a new, rabid, and quickly advancing force, the surviving traitors opted for flight. Panicked soldiers, unwilling to fight through to their now-overrun fallback positions, clamored over one another in their rush for survival, shedding gear and weapons as they went. Scampering over scorched craters and the mangled bodies of their comrades, they fled the observatorium for the safety of the woods.
Their shelter was fatally out of reach. Bursts of hellgun fire raked the backs of the fleeing troops, scything away limbs and boring scorching holes through flak plate. Solly and Wulfhausen focused their fire into tight groups, carving the fleeing troops apart with the calm, practiced ease of a groundskeeping servitor. The last traitor flopped to the dirt and the report of gunfire bled away in an instant, swallowed up by the surrounding woodlands.
"Clear! Weapons down," Girard called out to his men. Without a word they rallied and consolidated their positions with the Navy in tow. They knelt in the dirt beside the flame-gutted hull of a chimera.
"No 'casters on this lot, everything was back at the vehicles." Wulfhausen breathed, flexing his grip on his hellgun.
"Then we move on to the facility. Keep an advancing wedge, on me." Girard rose to his feet, tucking his carbine back into his shoulder and moving forward at the alert. His men trailed behind to either side, and the Navy contingent formed their own patrol column behind them.
The central command structure loomed overhead, its scarred edifice silent after the furious combat not moments before. No onlookers or weapons protruded from the windows now, nor was any sound audible from within. Quiet anticipation built on both sides of the facility's walls. Girard slowed his pace, drawing back up to his full height and raising a hand toward the flak-boarded windows of the Observatorium. He sucked in a great lungful of crisp mountain air, and called out to its inhabitants with the greeting he could conceive in the moment:
"The Emperor Protects!"