Yeah...sorry for the long delay. Just a short update cause I was running short on time.
Enjoy.
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CHAPTER TWO
Elim's bolt pistol bucked again as the muzzle flashed with another shot thrown straight in to the mob of on rushing bodies. The bolt clipped an armored shoulder plate of a front cultist, jerking it back and into his comrade behind him where the bolt had already penetrated. A blast of gore and bone shot out of the cultist's chest and they both fell to the ground.
His lines won't be able to hold off this charge. They just kept on coming, one dropped and three more just merged in and filled the spot. Firing off another two shots, Elim counted another kill, seeing an Archenemy Icon bearer crumple over holding his spilling innards over the bloodied and pitted earth. "We can't hold them off forever!" Bently yelled to him, his las rifle snapping at what ever he saw as a target. A burst of three las shots sent three bolts down range and vaporized the shoulder of one, and burned into the stomach of another.
"I know," Elim hissed biting his lower lip he drops the box magazine of his bolt pistol and digs for another in his thigh pocket. Las fire and heavy slug rounds crack past him inside the small dug out. "We need to hold on for n-"A clap of metal on metal and the magazine he just managed to fish out is blasted out of his hand. Cursing loudly he drops back and pressed up against the sand bag wall. "Frack! Frack! Frack!" He shouts peaking over the edge of the pit.
He glances to the magazine that was now lying at his feet, eyes going wide. An auto rifle slug had buried it self about a two centimeters into the metal casing of the ammo magazine. Glancing to Bently who was equally wide eyed, he slid out his las pistol from his hip holster and handed it to Elim. "Sir, think you might need this now." He chuckled and tossed it into his lap and then went on to firing over the wall of sand bags again.
Elim grinned and lifted the small Mk. III Cadian pattern las pistol and switched the power toggle to half charge and leveled it down range; depressing the trigger letting one las bolt burn into the chest of a leaping cultist, throwing the trooper back wards into the mob.
Leair's small company of Leman Russes rolled through the main through fair towards the North Gate. The ceaseless thumps of the constant concussions of detonating munitions loosening the damaged inner sheeting of the interior; a stray shell punched through upper level of the wall bringing down several cat walks, light fixtures, vents and all sorts of other scrap that landed just a few meters off to his left.
Flinching to the sounds of crumpling and snapping metal, Leair looks to the pile as they speed past it. Holding his ceremonial saber in his gloved hands he shouts over into the vox bead the Litany of Protection and Prayer of Victory over and over with the others; each one reciting each verse in return. Finishing the final lines of the Prayer he slides back under the copula leaving the hatch open, peering down into smoke and dust filled insides of the armored hull, Leair looks to Loader Hawthorne and Driver Murdoc just below.
"Aye sir, everything ok?" Hawthorne calls over the reverberations of the moving tank.
"Yes trooper, just seeing if you all are." He grins back, his aged face accenting the folds of his wrinkles. The Loader salutes and leans back against the turret hold and snaps a salute to him, returning to rechecking the Vanquisher rounds that are stacked on the wall adjacent to him.
The vox channels crackled to life once again, sputtering loudly at first before the signals cleared and a voice squawked through. "Acheron's Bane to The Hollow Saber, sir I have foot mobiles twenty meters ahead, counting at least a hundred, sir. Call on the R.O.E?"
Leair picked up the head set hanging beside him and placed it on him, pressing the ear piece to and mouth piece to where they went and dialed the channel. He spoke into it. "Acheron's Bane, they armed? Vector? Anything?" He asked back.
"No sir, plain clothed civvies, carrying baggage, their vector….I would say eighteen meters to my twelve o'clock moving to us." The officer replied back.
Leair opened up the top of the cupola. The hatch clattering loudly behind him as it struck the top of the Vanquisher turret. His short cropped white hair, and weathered face look out ahead past Acheron's Bane, his eyes widened and his jaw slacked. Out before him were at least hundred to two hundred bodies packed in the sidewalks and street ahead of them. Muttering a curse to himself he presses the vox bead to his ear. "Be on guard, but let's give our citizens some hope of our defense."
Outside, the guardsmen and women held firm against the oncoming hordes of Chaos filth. The air was thick fire. Bolts of light and solid shot cut through the sky. Smoke and fire choked the sky line. The day turned to even as the sun's light filtered through the thick, oily smoke. A dim light of the morning barely broke though. The day was now the dusk.
In front of Eilm's dugout the lined troopers managed to hold their own for most of the morning. Fire from the wall top, and heavy weapons behind them held off most of the Chaos mob back from the initial trench line. But their weapons couldn't hold out the sea of bodies for long. Before long, the Archenemy will be upon them in a matter of hours, if not minutes. They needed help and fast, but they didn't show that sign of weakness in the face of the fallen and traitorous forces.
In the face of it all, they were going to stand and hold, and die if they had too. They were going to die standing the line.
The vox crackled, Bently ducked under the sandbags once more discarding an empty battery to the corner where is last five were piled along with Elim's. Reaching over the table to reach the horn of the vox caster, he handed it to his officer. Once it was passed on to the Captain, Bently raised up his las rifle once more. Pulling another battery from his hip pouch and slammed it back into it hold. The weapon whined as it warmed back up.
Elim crouched under an over turned table, his original sandbag cover was taken out by a lucky grenade that threw him on his back. Which was why he was wearing a helmet because his treasured peak cap was blown off his skull, he tilted the helmet to the side to give some space to press the receiver to his ear. Listening closely over the sounds of battle, he tries to focus on it.
Staccato las and auto fire echo and ring against the sound piece. Sporadic and garbled yell, but one thing did make it through. As loud as any thing else in this hell hole, the static of someone picking up the headset and someone breathing meant that there is some life on the other end of it.
Trooper Dinnae scrambled over to the vox caster's body, Comms Specialist Omar had taken a full on spray of las fire blowing his shoulder to bits and burning away his chest and face. She nearly gagged as when she rolled his smoking body over smelling the burnt fat and flesh to reach to reach the Specialist's headset.
Tearing it off his burnt face, she put on the head set. Gripping her auto pistol she looked around the trench. Trooper Daniels convulsed and crashed to the muddy floor as auto fire splintered the duckboards with fire. Trooper Halt and Meters dashed past her to the second line. Sergeant Reynolds was left, but he was little good with a bleeding head wound and shrapnel wounds to his leg. It was pretty helpless right now.
"This is section two nine, two nine to anyone who can hear me they have broken through. Repeat they have-"She spoke quickly but stopped as las bolt splintered the duckboard beside her. Dinne looked up and snapped her auto pistol to the top of the trench. Two shots rang out and a cultist's body toppled in and landed beside her. "We are pulling back over, we ar-"Dinnae's voice cuts out.
A smoking hole in her stomach from a las rifle shot, four more troopers clad in red long coats leaped into the trench and fired at her and Reynolds, the Archenemy soldiers emptied their clips into the two bodies and Dinnae's body splashed into the mud. Her body blasted and burned beyond recognition.
The line went dead, but the sounds of trampling feet and hollering laughter resounded through the head set. Elim pulled away shocked from the horn. His face looked to the device in shock. Tossing it to the side he crouched low and pulled up his monoscope. "Shite!" He yelled. "They're breaking through the left flank. We need to get that hole fixed." He said.
He grabbed the horn again and dialed the channel. "Break in the left, shift fire left to hold off that front." He ordered through the vox system.
The lines of fire split to counter act the lost trench section. Las weapon and heavy weapon fire shifted to take that open space and clear it of its new owners. Mortars in the back at the base of the wall adjusted coordinates. The four tubes angled themselves to aim for the trench; a spotter just a meter in front of them raises an open hand; pressing a vox bead to his ear with the other.
"Baker, mortar fire mission, forward section, trench line 30 meters; fire for effect." The vox crackles.
"Shot, over!" The spotter calls back, throwing his hand down.
The signal cast, the others did their part. Each loader leaned over and slid the shot down the tube. Everyone ducked back as each tube thumped loudly and launched the small explosive shell into the air.
With a slight whistle the four shells dipped and arched downwards towards the trench. The twenty-seven or so Archenemy troopers that huddled there for a belief of sanctuary in the small slit in the earth. They were about to follow the two guardsmen that managed to escape their fire when one stopped.
"You hear that…?" It hissed beneath its black scarf. The others stopped and listened, but the sounds of the fighting masked the whistling of the light artillery that was bearing down on them. The one that noticed sound tugged the scarf down seeing a deep scar running from the top of his left eye down to his mouth. A small scowl tugged at his lips as they twitched.
"Coverrrr!" He yelled as the first mortar shell landed just over the side of the trench. The duck boards caved inwards from the concussion bringing a wall of dirt down on six of the chaos soldiers burying them alive. The second one made a crater in the trench blowing the mud and wood six meters upwards, taking the bodies of four more.
The others tried to break and scrambled over the sides of the trench. The other two shells land on both sides of the trench. The explosions and flying pieces of heated metal scythe through the air, the cultists drop to the ground, some tumble back into the splintered and pitted trench. The few that still managed to live, lie broken and torn up in the mud. They call out helplessly into the air as they die slowly from stomach, chest and a multitude of bloody wounds caused by the pieces of metal.
"Shot, over!" The spotter calls once more. The mortars thump once more. Lobbing their shells into the heavens once more, with its low whistling breaking through the war just below.
On his back, the Chaos sergeant looks up to the smoky sky once more. An open wound t o his stomach left him paralyzed and feeling cold. Hissing in pain, blood pouring out of his mouth, the heretic mutters darkly. Feeling his intestines, running a hand over the stomach wound; "There will be more of usss….more to fight you Imperial bastardsss! Death to the false Emp-"His final word cut short, a mortar silencing him forever as the explosion vaporizes his body into ashes leaving only a two meter wide hole of mud and earth.
Tonia ducked back behind the wall once more, discarding her spent las battery, to the plastcrete floor. Tugging her khaki beret down over her forehead as more shot stitched pass, she presses the vox headset to her ear hearing Elim's voice call over it. Hearing the words; "Break in the left flank." She peaks over the edge of wall.
A stray auto slug rips the wall edge beside her face blowing chips of stone and plastcrete into her cheek. Cursing loudly falling sideways from the splash of the slug and crashes into Haldwan. "Sergeant, ya alright?" He asks helping her sit up against the wall.
Pressing her gloved hand to the side of her face she nods moving it off showing a few cuts from the plastcrete debris, but other than that she was fine. "Yeah Hal, I m fine." She smirked getting back up into a crouch against the wall; Tonia taps the trooper's shoulder. "Hey, you with me;" she pauses to press the bead of her headset to her mouth. "Relts, Moore, Henniger, on me now."
Cocking his head slightly seeing her call the rest of her surviving squad over, Haldwan looks over Tonia's shoulder. Seeing the three troopers run up to where they were. One dropped to a knee and slide to a halt in front of Tonia. Tilting his helmet up from his eyes the gaunt looking trooper spoke up over the fire. "Sarge, what's the problem?" He asked.
"We're heading down to the lower floor, seems part of our left side had folded." She said to them. "We're going to fill that space." Tonia smirked. Grabbing her las rifle from the floor and dusting it off. She ejects the battery, examining it quickly she slams it back into its hold and lets it warm up. "Hope your ready boys, our day might have just gotten interesting."