Reconnoitre
If there was one thing Alexei hated -aside from useless officers, highborn fools, commissars, xenos, traitors and your average Guard issue rations, of course- the very next item on the list of things Alexei Karelov hated with a galaxy-burning passion would be bugs. In very big letters.
Alexei had hated them as a child, and had only grown to hate them all the more as his service to the God-Emperor had opened his eyes to just how many of the universe's various species had a preference for blood or invasive forays into other, fleshier species. Specifically, his blood and flesh in particular. Which, when all's said and done, were his and not to be shared without his consent in the matter as far as he was concerned. He'd spent far too many nights in his life being awoken by something crawling up an orifice which, for all intents and purposes, should be labelled 'not a khekking entrance!'.
If it wasn't the rot worms on Ganf Magna it was oversized ratroaches, or those damned corpse flies and other flying and crawling annoyances.
As Alexei slopped through the boggy ground at the base of the ridge, the long grass occasionally swatting him in the face, he was trying his hardest to ignore the swarms of insects that seemed determined to drain him dry.
Where they'd all come from he couldn't tell. As per usual they seemed to simply materialize from thin air whenever he was around because that was the unspoken law of the khekking universe.
Alexei was immensely relieved when the swarms abated as he reached a dry culvert that lead up the slope towards the ridgeline.
He paused and looked behind him to check on Anatoly and Maxim, both of whom looked just as relieved as he was to be away from the buzzing, stinging hordes. After taking a moment to get his bearings, Alexei lead them both at a crouch up the slope, eventually being forced into a crawl as the grass thinned as rapidly as the mist. Barely a couple of minutes later and the trio were feeling very exposed despite the dark.
Alexei halted and looked back towards the lake. He couldn't see the team, the mist that shrouded the swamp completely hid them and the landing zone from view.
Perfect, he grinned, this is going to be a good night after all. The xenos wouldn't know what hit them any more than those abominations had.
The grass became even sparser as the trio neared the ridge. Alexei forced himself to slow their crawl up to the position he had seen one of the twins take up through his magnoculars. He didn't intend to get this far only to be discovered and get his arse shot off by some hidden xeno.
He halted for a moment in a furrow, the dry earth studded with small stones that pricked his exposed flesh. He took his bearings and heard a tell tale bird call from one of the clumps of vegetation that passed for bushes on this planet. He only hoped that the xenos didn't realise that the bird call belonged to a resident of Ganf Magna. As he neared he made out the well-hidden form of one of the twins. Even then, he knew what he was looking for and it wasn't an easy task.
He raised his fist and heard Anatoly and Maxim rustle to a halt, their breathing heavy and seeming all too loud in the still night. He turned and stuck his forefinger in the air, circling it a few times, indicating that this was the overwatch position. The two troopers turned to watch the flanks, huddling down enough to be hidden but ready to engage if necessary.
Alexei crawled forward into the bushes and found Anton kneeling in the midst of them, surveying the terrain ahead with his thermal sight.
As he surveyed the surrounding terrain he noted a number of trenches and could make out some Tau fire warrior troopers in them, their distinctive armour marking them out even in the dark. There were also a number of dugouts as well as a small camouflaged pit that on closer inspection with his magnoculars contained a number of those damned gun drones. That would be a priority for Maxim, no sense wasting a krak missile on those annoying little radniks. The one thing he had yet to see was a way into the trenches without taking some serious fire.
He keyed his vox to the team frequency and started noting down key positions so Mischa could relay them to headquarters and the pompoms. As he looked along the ridge itself he realised the there was a rise separating this position from the rest of the ridge, obscuring it and even Alexei's position from view. He gave a great grin as he realised that he could effectively destroy this position with ease under the cover of an artillery barrage and the Tau would be none the wiser until he started firing at whatever positions lay beyond the rise.
"We've already got a primary, Papa Alexei." Anton passed him the scope. "It's half hidden in a tank trench. It's not well camouflaged, but that pattern is for aircraft. Some flyboy passing overhead wouldn't notice it unless he was really close. Close enough to give us a free shave. But from here, it's just too obvious."
Alexei could see the strange camo-pattern without the scope, but from his position couldn't make out the vehicle hidden beneath. As he zoomed in with the scope he could make out the stubby shape of an ion cannon, a stark yellowish red against the background blue and green of the cold earth of the tank trench.
"So, it's one of their infantry support ones, huh?" That couldn't be the one that had taken those potshots at the armoured troops and the regimental command vehicles, so there are multiple tanks on the ridge, Alexei thought. That makes things interesting. A good opportunity for the Chomne Vasodniki and his loader to earn their beards.
He keyed his vox again.
"Mischa, tell command; have eyes on primary target, can confirm multiple armoured targets present in target zone. Continuing overwatch."
"Puyotnam, Alexei." Mischa affirmed.
"These Tau still have much to learn," Alexei said as he studied the trenches, grinning as he heard Anton snicker. "We can roll right up this position and take them apart piece by piece. To think that command believes them to be such a threat."
"Command thinks many things, but rarely ever the right things," Anton replied, wincing as Alexei punched him in the arm as he tried to stop himself from laughing at Anton's remark. "If you were a General or a Lord Marshall, then things would be different I'm sure, Papa Alexei."
"They certainly would. First off I'd boot some of those highborn fools up the arse and then I'd make your sister my personal assistant," he grinned to Anton. "Speaking of whom, where is our dear Ludmilla?"
"She's to our right," Anton replied, pointing a thumb towards the ridgeline to their right. "Maintaining overwatch on a xeno OP."
"An OP?" Alexei looked to the right and noticed the trench running just under the crest of the ridge; he couldn't see where it lead to. He turned his vox to Ludmilla's frequency. "Ludmilla, what is your position, my darling?" He punched Anton in the arm as he heard him sniggering again.
"I'm fifty metres to your right," Ludmilla voice whispered into his ear. "I can see a xeno officer and two soldiers. I think there's a dugout as well as the officer seemed to appear out of nowhere. I cannot confirm that from my position though."
"That's our infiltration point. Hold your position for now."
"Puyotnam, Alexei."
Alexei turned back to the team frequency and enquired of the status of the Chimeras.
"They're just picking up Graf and are five to ten minutes away, Alexei. Do you want us to move up?"
"Da, Mischa, get the children up here. Besides, you're the one who'll be correcting the pompoms' fire. You're not going to believe our luck on this one and I want to use it while we've still got it."
"Puyotnam, we're Oskar Mikhail..."
"Roger, confirmed. Hey, Eloni. First wave's got eyes on target and they're moving to strike," Tarriman half shouted over the noise of second wave piling into 301's passenger compartment.
"What? What do you mean they're moving to strike? What's that Karelov guy thinking?"
"Dunno, Boss, but they recommend we haul buttock, sir."
"Right, fine," Eloni sighed. Tight arse's a bit eager to get stuck in. Well fine, we're playing it his way after all. "Two, this is One, we're definitely coming in hot and heavy, over."
"Roger, One, Out."
Eloni looked back into the passenger compartment and spotted the bearded sergeant hustling the last stragglers on board.
"Hey, sergeant!" Eloni shouted, beckoning him with an urgent wave of his hand.
"Da, what is it, corporal?" Graf asked, his breath reeking of something distilled.
"Karelov's moving on the target without you, should I be concerned by that?" Eloni asked, not encouraged by the smile that spread across the Vostroyan's features; for one thing it showed how a number of his teeth were missing.
"That depends, but either way, the Emperor protects."
"I'll be honest with you; that does not fill me with confidence, sergeant. I had thought there was a plan. I heard it repeated enough when I was carting him over there."
"Plans change, moi druk, usually in the fine details. If Alexei is moving now, it is because he is ensuring to endeavour that the optimum beneficial outcome is assured. In other words: he's playing it by ear," Graf replied, the smile still hanging on his face like a smog cloud over a Manufactorum district.
"Which is a good thing?" Eloni asked, to which the Vostroyan gave a shrug.
"More often than not."
"Wonderful," Eloni said through gritted teeth, to which Graf simply laughed.
"You've never been to Ganf Magna, have you, Corporal? Trust me, a couple of tours of that accursed place and you'll learn that plans tend to be the first thing to get shot to pieces." Graf then gave a nasty laugh. "Along with the officers who make them."
Eloni spent the length of the journey with his eyes glued to his view-finder, with Tarriman feeding him the vox traffic from Karelov's team. Though, seeing as how most of what he heard was in the Vostroyans' foreign tongue, it didn't really help him that much. He even asked Graf to translate it but the Vostroyan barely said anything, shrugging off Eloni's questions and assuring him that if anything important happened he'd let Eloni know.
Eloni couldn't help but feel irked by the Vostroyan's casual attitude.
By the time the two Chimeras were halfway to the landing zone, Eloni had spotted the explosions of the mortars that Karelov had called in. It worried Eloni to no end when the occasional explosion became a torrent of fire, the loose equipment in the vehicle vibrating with each far off explosion.
When he spotted a large blob of heat signatures by the squat yellow square of the relay beacon he felt reassured; at least Karelov had left someone to watch over the landing zone.
However, as they closed on the landing zone and the image on the target finder became clearer and more detailed Eloni got a bad feeling in his gut.
There were simply too many signatures on the screen, and they were looking less and less like humans.