TEN
Whether it was from a keen perception or merely an over-active sense of paranoia, Cain's assessment of our new development seemed very reasonable and very disconcerting. The prospect of a traitor was not something we needed at the moment, as everybody made aware of this fact would spend the rest of the campaign looking over their shoulder. Now it couldn't have been anybody from our landing parties because there would not have been any time or means to send a covert message ahead of the fleet to warn the Tau in time, so chances were it was somebody in the fleet or one of the original three regiments. Since the likelihood of a mere trooper knowing how to send covert messages and having access to the necessary data seemed slim at best, chances were we were dealing with an officer or a specialized vox operator, which, thanks to the Tau and Kroot, were fewer in number at this point. There was a chance our traitor might have been killed in the fighting since our arrival but I wasn't willing to put any money on that – he or she would have found a nice, safe place to hide and wait out the storm.
Unfortunately, since nobody in our party knew how to read any of the xeno's text, all we had were a handful of pictures to go on. Though we were needed back in the convoy to help continue pushing the enemies from the city, Cain insisted that we find a means to get the information back to the command center. There was, however, the risk of inadvertently alerting the spy that we were on to him, which could cause further complications. I suggested we first transmit the data to our own regiments, whom we knew we could trust with the data and then further action could be decided by those with the wisdom and authority to make them. However, that meant we couldn't double-back to the command center, which given the day I was having, my preferred choice. Watz suggested heading straight for the Traitor's Lament, which had the necessary equipment to make such a sensitive transmission. Since we saw no viable alternative, we continued forward on the centaur.
In the meantime, Cain raised Colonel Kasteen on the vox to report the situation. Though disappointed with the troubling news, she didn't seem all too surprised. Apparently when dealing with a war against the Tau, one had to always expect the possibility of your own ranks turning against you.
"Are you sure this means there's a spy?" Kasteen asked in hopes that Cain may just be overreacting.
"Not likely, maybe they got my picture from the propaganda posters but there's a very nice picture of you and the major on this thing as well," Cain reported, clicking on the various buttons that brought up different images including the ones he mentioned. There didn't appear to be any pictures of me, which was actually both a little disappointing and a bit of a relief. The Tau must have thought I wasn't a big enough threat to warrant putting any extra effort into killing. Well, I planned to make them regret that decision. "There's a lot of information here as well, which I would be willing to bet money on pertains to our regiment's strength and layout. I recommend you start discretely looking into all the senior staff of the Cadians and the Catachans, as well as all the guardsmen who have been working as vox operators today. We should also exercise caution over the vox…we have no idea how much information this guy is feeding to the Tau."
"I'll get people working on it right away and I'll see about finding a translator with a sense of discretion," the colonel acknowledged and left us to our work.
"What do the Tau think they will accomplish by killing you?" Heilmit asked. "I know you are a hero and everything but do they really think this whole war will just stop the moment you die?"
"They could very well," Cain answered, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "The death of a high-ranking Tau has been known to make their armies fall into disorder. They could easily be trying to apply the same strategy with me. That or they think I'll personally interfere with something."
"Well then, by the Golden Throne I swear I shall not let the Tau lay one wretched finger upon you!" Were they soldiers from any other world I might have had doubts about the veracity of such a pledge but I knew that for a Kriegan such words held as much weight as a baneblade. I had no doubt that Heilmit would throw himself in front of a battlesuit if it meant keeping Cain alive and, though it might seem selfish, I wasn't about to let his willingness to protect us go un-exploited.
"Your enthusiasm is quite appreciated but I would not feel right depriving your regiment of your valuable services," Cain modestly replied, which only further whipped Heilmit into an over-eager putty. At this point, he probably would've jumped into an Ork mob if Cain so much as hinted. It never ceased to amaze me how Cain could get the even the simplest of men to practically eat out of the palm of his hand…and it always made me wonder just how often he did that to me. Of course, part of being a hero and a leader is that ability to convince people yours is the best option and doing it without threatening the other person with death just added to his reputation.
"I wonder why Commissar Waffans is not on the Tau's hit list," Watz wondered out loud. "He commands the Traitor's Lament, after all. If anybody's death would be considered a blow to our campaign, it would be his."
"The Tau's concern would be on the tank, not the commander, and it's not too hard to find a tank that's the size of a house," Cain explained. Unlike the commissar, finding the Traitor's Lament would be easy, though what the Tau hoped to field in order to counter the stormblade was a mystery to me. I suspected, and no doubt Cain did too, that if the Tau were aware of his participation and had planned for accordingly, then there were going to be plans in place for dealing with the stormblade. Naively, I figured whatever was planned would be handled accordingly by those in command and, most likely, a few well-placed plasma blasts.
I voxed ahead and alerted Waffans to our approach and were carrying an important package. Though he seemed reluctant to halt his advance, he trusted me enough when I said that it was top priority. We caught up to him about eight blocks from the main gate, waiting patiently as he had said with the Lament placed at the center of a concave formation of battletanks facing towards the gate. About a half-dozen Leman Ruses and other heavy battle tanks were waiting alongside the Lament but we could see the rest of the regiment continuing to push up ahead. There was no sign of the Valhallans, which meant our allies were getting more bogged down than we hand anticipated, which puzzled me why such a large contingent of enemy forces were still inside the city when so many seemed to be retreating. When Cain voxed the convoy's CO he got a general reassurance that progress was being made but it was a conversation cut short as the CO had to 'get back to killing bluies.'
"I was wondering where you bunch had wondered off to," Waffans said in greeting as our centaur parked alongside the Lament, the sheer size discrepancy staggering to behold. "I thought you knew better than this corporal. I should have you shot for running off like that." Apparently Watz's little detour might have been in dereliction to current orders, which was an infraction that Waffans would normally employ a very swift execution for.
"But I would highly recommend against it," Cain spoke up on Watz's behalf. "Without the initiative and valour of these two men, as well as that of Trooper…uh…"
"Gustav," I whispered into his ear.
"Right; as well as that of Trooper Gustav," Cain continued, "Commissar Abel and I might not be standing here today. I would, in fact, like to put their names forward for an accommodation for their selflessness." Though I could certainly attest that I would have faired quite sufficiently on my own I wasn't about to interrupt and take away the glory the two troopers had striven so hard to achieve. I figured it'd probably be the only high point in what would likely be an otherwise short and average career in a Death Korps armoured regiments (which typically meant short, bloody, and ending with being blown into a thousand pieces). Little did I realize that their careers were just getting started.
"I'll be sure to pass the word on when I can," Waffans replied, sounding a little sceptical of Cain's high words. No doubt Waffans knew something about the two soldiers that we had yet to discover. Since the veracity of the soldier's deeds was not the primary concern of our visit, Waffans promptly asked what was so important that it couldn't be mentioned over the vox. Suffice to say, the news of a spy did not sit well with him.
"Damn them all to the warp!" Waffans said angrily when he first heard the word 'spy.' "It's bad enough having to fight enemies wearing Imperial uniforms but now we got one running around behind our backs? When I get my hands on him I'm going to put the fear of the Emperor back into him right before I gouge out his eyes and-"
"Commissar, please! The matter at hand," Cain interrupted before Waffans could descend into a hate-filled tirade, which could last for quite some time if he hated spies as much as he hated a pair of cold leather boots in the morning. "We found this device on one of the dead xenos, we need what's on it to be sent to Colonel Kasteen," the commissar continued explaining as he fished the device from his pocket. He handed it over to me and I proceeded to climb up the side of the tank to Waffans, who seemed too concerned with his vox to meet me half-way. I hung up there for a bit even after handing over the device, taking in the view of the surrounding area.
"You think he's hiding in one of the other regiments?" Waffans was quick to reach the same conclusions we had. He fiddled with the device in a similar fashion that Cain had, managing to bring up various pictures, maps, and globs of alien text that could have been outlining the next day's breakfast for all we knew. "I guess you were right all along…" he muttered before disappearing into the labyrinth that was the Lament. "Hey Tak! VIP transmission to the Valhallan CO! Everything on the device and if I so much as hear you breath a word of what's on it to anybody else I'm using your head as a hood ornament."
There were times where I wondered if Waffans had ever actually carried through on any of its inordinate threats but I always got the sense from the troops under him that Waffans' threats were rarely taken seriously. In fact, the more fanciful the threat, the less serious he was. I think it was only because Kriegans viewed death so casually that he was able to get away with it. I doubt the Valhallans would have been so receptive. After a few minutes he finally emerged and returned the device to me.
"Could be worse, I suppose. We could be dealing with those damnable Eldar. You can never tell what in the warp those frakkers are up to," Waffans remarked. "Wish I was just dealing with Khornates – no mystery with what they want."
"Yeah, could be worse I guess. The Tau don't seem too bad compared to some of the others," I said with an indifferent shrug. "They don't leave planets in a huge mess for starters."
"That's probably why Segmentum Command isn't as concerned with them," Waffans agreed. "The Tau might be taking planets but at least we can take them back down the road – you can't do that with Chaos or the 'nids; and good luck trying to dislodge a fully entrenched Ork horde from a planet believe me!"
"Still, the last thing you want is to ignore a small problem and then wake up five hundred years later and suddenly it's a huge problem. We need to show these xenos that we're not going to just sit back and let them pick off our worlds."
"Preaching to the choir miss," Waffans explained, making me feel a bit sheepish. "Not going to find anybody more interested in blasting these xenos off-world than this guy. We hand this lovely posting on a paradise world that was pretty much nothing but miles and miles of white, sandy beaches. Then these bluies show up and I have to slog it half-way across the sector and fight through this damned rain and if I don't get a chance for a hot cup of tea soon I can't be held responsible for the property damage that ensues."
I laughed quietly picturing Waffans on a rampage in the stormblade, shouting his demands for a cup of tea over the vox amplifier. The lightened mood was promptly snuffed when Waffans' CO called for him on the vox. I didn't catch much of the message but it sounded urgent and the exasperation in the commissar's tone afterwards did not leave me feeling confident.
"I swear to the Emperor, I don't know if I should throttle that Trevek guy or just cut out the middleman and go for Frick and Frack," he explained before I even got an opportunity to ask. By that point I was already piecing together what had just transpired. "Those damn rookie Adumbrians are engaging the Tau rear guard outside the city walls. You should get back to your regiment cause I need to go bash some skulls and I ain't talking about the bluies." He was about to disappear back into the bowels of his war machine but I was quick to intervene.
"Can I bum a ride off Watz? Or are you going to make Cain and I walk all the way back?" I asked. Since Watz and Heilmit were technically under Waffans' authority at this point I couldn't just walk off with them and I wasn't sure if they were going to be needed in the upcoming assault, though I suspected they wouldn't since they were merely driver and navigator of a small transport. They were, in fact, part of the motor pool and were primarily responsible for ferrying equipment and people around; their presence so close to the front was merely out of a necessity for mobilizing troops. In short, Watz and Heilmit were armed, glorified couriers, which would certainly explain why they were so willing to defy orders in hopes of rescuing Cain.
"Keep them for as long as you need them. In fact, until I tell you otherwise, don't give them back…please."
Waffans' eagerness to unload the pair had me worried at first and a quick search through the Imperial archives later on revealed the reasons rather quickly. Apparently Watz had been drifting through the various companies and squads of the regiment since his recruitment and never managed to stay in a role for very long before being passed off to some other unfortunate lieutenant. The man certainly wasn't stupid as his training accolades can attest to but apparently the man was just…lazy to put it simply, not to mention some difficulties with dealing with what he considered to be 'overbearing authority figures.' He seemed to have little sense of ambition and his position as corporal was mostly due to a necessity of having somebody in that position to fill out the rosters. In a way, he just wanted to do as little work as possible, which was hard when you were in the Death Korps.
Heilmit, on the other hand, hadn't caused the commissar any problems until he wound up being paired off with Watz. He was young and inexperienced and while he didn't lack in technical knowledge, he lacked the proper judgement that typically came with time. I got the impression that Waffans just wanted to get rid of Watz at any cost. Since at that time I had yet to see any evidence to make me second-guess Waffans' decision, I was more than happy to take Watz and Heilmit off his hands. Despite the occasional bout of frustration they brought, I would never come to regret my decision.
Except maybe that time Heilmit used General Rhodan's prized rockhound to test a tank's new thermal targeting system. Good thing there wasn't enough left to get a positive identification.
"Have fun stomping the xenos," I said as I hopped back down to the centaur. Had I known this was to be the last time I would have a face-to-face conversation with Waffans, I would have thought of something better to say.
Cain was just finishing his vox conversation with the colonel when I dropped back into the centaur. Apparently, according to Kasteen, some sisters from the Orders Dialogous had been on Magnus Viridis for quite some time, translating recovered texts from the Eldar raiders and diplomatic documents from the Tau. They were more than willing to aid us in our campaign against the Tau invaders and few doubted there would be anybody more trustworthy to remain true to the Imperial cause than a sister of the Adepta Sororitas. It had quite accurate information on key figures, primarily the regimental commanders, and even had which transports they were landing in. The only glaring error they found thus far was that my transport was misidentified as Cain's. Though I was curious what else the Tau knew, a full analysis would have to wait until after the city was won.
"I take it I'm driving you to back to the Valhallans?" Watz asked, figuring we wouldn't still be in the centaur without good reason.
"Lieutenant Lustig reports the convoy is making good progress, it might be more prudent to simply wait here for them," Cain suggested, "plus if I'm drawing the Tau's attention it would simply endanger the convoy even further." I whole heartedly agreed with Cain on that suggestion, though for entirely different reasons – I simply didn't want to drive through enemy-infested streets in another open-top transport with the one man on the whole planet the Tau wanted dead at all costs. If he had insisted otherwise I was half-inclined to hitch-hike my way back. Working with Cain was proving to be very hazardous to my health, though I was blissfully ignorant that this was only just the tip of the iceberg. Though waiting wasn't particularly fun, I didn't have to worry about dodging plasma bolts or painting the walls with my viscera, which was infinitely preferable. While we waited, Heilmit adjusted the vox caster until it was broadcasting a feed from Waffans and the rest of the Kriegan armoured regiment. He was eager to listen in on Waffans verbally duke it out with the Adumbrians and I couldn't blame him since I, too, wanted to see how Waffans would play this out.
At first the vox conversation played out exactly as one would expect; the Adumbrians, facing a sudden, fierce resistance from the Tau were delighted to see the armoured chassis of the Kriegan tanks emerging through the main gates. What proceeded was probably the most uncivilized discord between military men since Sanguinius and Horus.
"You better start frakking explaining to me what the frak you frakheads think you are doing chasing those frakking xenos outside the frakking walls!" Waffans began, not even building up to his full-level of frustration. This was all the more amusing because the man Waffans was spouting his rage at was none other than the regimental commander, Trevek.
"Doing my Emperor-given duty commissar," Colonel Trevek replied. "Now I might be new to the Imperial Guard but I know how to fight a war dammit and I know you're outside your jurisdiction in trying to order me around. These xenos have desecrated these lands long enough and I intend to cleanse every inch of soil in their blood. Suffer not the alien to live, remember?"
"Those passages are not a substitute for your brain colonel and I might not have the authority to put a lasbolt through that useless knot on top of your spine but if you spout excuses like that again and I won't suffer your stupid to live!" Waffans could be a very, very angry man I learned at that moment. He was toeing a lot of lines in the general authority of a commissar but, quite frankly, I don't think he cared. His primary concern was for the safety of the mission, which regrettably required the Adumbrians to live for at least a little longer.
"My commissars are completely behind me on this decision and…"
"I know they're frakking behind you - if they had their hand up your ass any further I might be able to see them wave to me whenever you open your mouth. Maybe you should put mommy and daddy on the line instead and let the big kids talk about waging a proper campaign." I have to admit, I was sort of giggling by this point and even Cain seemed thoroughly impressed, if only a little put off by Waffans' prolific use of profanities. Cain wondered why Waffans was doing the talking when this was a matter that should have been left for the regimental commander but, according to Watz, the commissar was, by far, the more diplomatic of the two.
"We're already listening Commissar Waffans and I suggest you calm down and save your anger for the enemy," Wren suddenly intervened, trying to play the supposed peacemaker, if only so that when the tribunal inevitably convened he could point to Waffans' anger and make the case for irrationality all the easier (not that this ever came down to a tribunal).
"I've got enough anger to drown every one of you back-water frak-nuts in and still have leftover to hand-wash my stormblade in."
"With all due respect Waffans-"
"I neither want nor need your respect Wren. I wouldn't even wipe my ass with it so you can just stuff it down the gullet of that walking trash compactor of a compatriot of yours and listen to these words because I'm only going to say them once before I start blasting anything that's still in front of me; pull your troops back inside the city and pray to the Emperor that I'm in a better mood when I come back. Otherwise, I'm going to rip off your nuts and hang them from my auspex viewer!"
"You…treacherous dog, what gives you the authority to bark orders at another regiment?"
"The Office of 'I've got a bigger frakking gun than you.' I am not here to save your butt because I want to; I'm here because I have to, so pull your men back inside that city before we hang your scrawny ass out here to dry!" This would continue on for several more minutes, mostly with Waffans shouting more and more threats and repeating the same order to pull back into the city but the Adumbrians seemed to stubbornly refuse to give in to the orders of one commissar, even if they were technically the same orders that the lord-general would be giving were he in communication range. Wren knew there was little Waffans could actually do barring opening fire on the Adumbrians but that would just guarantee that the Kriegans would be nailed as traitors for attacking another regiment (not that I believed for a moment that this fact acted as a deterrent for Waffans). I was wondering if Cain was ever going to intervene but he likely realized, just as I had, that Wren wasn't going to change his mind for anybody. For a moment, I was actually beginning to worry that Waffans might actually carry out one of his threats for a change and we could have a full-scale revolt on our hands all while the Tau would be taking pot shots from the sidelines. It would be a catastrophe, not to mention a huge embarrassment for the entire Imperial Guard – I imagined the Tau standing off the distance watching Imperial Guards suddenly turning on each other, which they would no doubt flaunt to other worlds in the sector to show just how flawed the Imperium was.
To be honest, if I was a civilian and I saw such a scene, I would be having second thoughts about the Imperium as well.
However, if there's ever a unifying force in the galaxy, it's hate and when the Tau began pressing hard against the two regiments, the vox caster became a flurry of orders and calls to action. Even Waffans and his overflowing fury immediately ignored the Adumbrians and started ordering the plasma cannon to full charge. I quickly gathered that the Tau had begun a counter-attack, though the scale of which I had yet to realize. Cain seemed worried about something and I suspected he was seeing something in the situation that was eluding me. Suddenly Cain pushed past everybody and grabbed the microphone for the vox caster.
"Trevek, Vismarck! Pull your men out of there now; you're being pulled into a trap!"
"What are you talking about?" Trevek was the first to reply, sounding understandably sceptical of Cain's sudden outburst. "Wait a second…those xenos are dressed in red and…merciful Emperor, where did they all come from?"
"It's a whole other regiment!" Waffans shouted, in a tone that left me unnerved me since out of all his highly-inflective tones, worry was not one he displayed often. "Fire! Fire everything dammit! Maximum power to all batteries! This is Commissar Waffans to all Imperial troops; we are under heavy fire from Tau reinforcements, estimate enemy forces to be of regimental strength or higher. Request immediate support to our position at the Vertens main gates."
Of course, everyone in the centaur turned to Cain for an explanation of what he knew. I imagined Cain would often grow weary of his near-paranoid hunches always turning out to be correct; that's the problem with being perceptive, though, you always see the truck that runs you over well before anyone else does. "Tau tactics love two things – lighting-quick strikes against vital targets and luring armies into massive ambushes. Rushing into the starport, stretching their forces so thinly, was likely part of a desperate gambit to eliminate me and potential end this conflict quickly. Now that I've joined up with the rest of our forces, though, I'll be much harder to get to so now they're turning to their other trademark tactic."
"Luring our units out into the open where they can hammer them into dust," I finished with that stunned realization you usually only got when you realize the grenade you're holding is missing that all-important pin.
"So if they had all these forces in reserve, why didn't they just deploy them into the city?" Heilmit asked, trying to follow Cain's reasoning.
"Most likely to lure us in," Cain answered. "That means that taking the city probably isn't an objective of theirs." Again, Heilmit was confused but as a soldier his understanding of military campaigns was limited to 'take and hold territory,' so the idea of intentionally ignoring a major city was a bit of a mystery to him. Cain, however, had his theory as to why but he said he would explain later as our immediate concern was getting our forces back inside the city walls.
"Colonel Vismarck, you have to pull your troops back into Vertens. The Tau will not pursue you once inside," Cain advised over the vox.
"I hope you're right about that Commissar," the colonel agreed. "This is Colonel Vismarck, all units are to pull back into the city immediately and if you're still alive Trevek that means you better haul your arse along or we're leaving you to entertain the xenos by yourself."
It wasn't how any of us envisioned the end of our battle to retake the city but if it still resulted in victory than I could learn to live with it. However, no sooner had the colonel agreed with Cain's advice did we hear a strange set of alarms sounding off, emanating from the direction of the main gates. Since never in the history of the Imperium has an alarm meant something good, we were all quite concerned and wondering in exasperation what the heck was going to happen now. The panicked shouts over the vox quickly answered that question.
"What the frak is going on? Somebody is closing the main gates!" Waffans shouted after a very long string of profanities. "Headquarters, we're still outside the city walls, why are you closing the main gates?"
"We didn't," Major Currae replied. "Just before the Tau launched their assault we lost contact with gate control and all remote access was severed."
"Well thank the frak for letting us know that beforehand! Somebody get in there and open that damn door!"
Cain and I both reached the same realization that we were probably the closest people to the main gates. "Watz, drive!" I ordered, though redundantly since he had likely reached the same conclusion as us and was already revving the engine. "Headquarters, this is Commissar Abel, I'm roughly half a kilometre from the main gate, how do we reach the gate's main control room?"
"The main service entrance is roughly fifty-eight meters to the left of the main gate," Currae explained. "Take the stairs up to level A-5 and follow the marked corridor."
Watz needed no further instruction beyond that, pushing the centaur's engines to its limits as he drove straight for the entrance. He barely even hit the brakes when we arrived, instead throwing the vehicle into a slow spin that ground the vehicle to a halt so that the centaur's rear door was right in front of the aforementioned service entrance. "Looks like we get to play hero again," Watz remarked, tossing a lasgun to his fellow guardsmen before we all exited the vehicle. Our two Kriegan friends were in a particular hurry, barely even waiting for Cain, Jurgen, or I as they raced up the stairs. When we heard lasguns firing, Cain and I picked up the pace.
"We've got contact; single hostile, probably a traitor," Watz informed us as we arrived.
"Why do you say that?" Cain asked, though when a laser bolt zipped past his head from down the corridor the reason became pretty obvious. Due to the poor lighting conditions as well as the long stretch of hallway that separated us from our attacker, who appeared to have bunkered down in the control room, we had no idea how many we were actually facing or who they were. However, we never heard more than one lasgun firing at a time so Watz' assessment appeared to be accurate.
"We can't stay here, we need to push forward," Cain said, though it was a bit redundant. Unfortunately, the narrow corridor provided minimal cover and the assailant had impeccable aim, making our superior numbers almost useless. Since we needed the control room intact the obvious tactic of flushing him out with a grenade was counter-productive. We had no choice but to fire and advance and pray to the Emperor that he didn't have any grenades of his own. As Watz laid down suppression fire, Heilmit started advancing up the side. Normally the amount of fire Watz was putting down range would prompt any sane person to keep their head down but apparently we were either dealing with somebody very brave or very stupid as the assailant managed to snap off a couple return shots, one of which struck Heilmit in the shoulder.
"Gah…frakking bastard!" Heilmit cursed, raising his lasgun with his good arm and spraying several shots downrange, hitting nothing but the walls.
"To the warp with this," I grumbled as I pushed ahead of the others. I reached into my coat, pulled out the krak grenade, and hurled it down the corridor. Before you think I acted rashly, I had simply tossed the grenade without priming it so it was about as deadly as a rock with the words 'boom' written across it. Hopefully, whoever was at the far end of the corridor wouldn't realize that fact until I had already finished sprinting the whole distance. With my shock maul and laspistol in hand, I chased after my bouncing grenade, fuelled by burning rage and a desire to beat the bloody blasphemy out of him. The krak grenade had barely finished its third bounce when I barged into the control room, shock maul held up in preparation to thump someone's skull...
It was perfectly-executed plan, except that the room was completely empty when I arrived. All there was were dusty rockrete walls, lined with various control lecterns, and a krak grenade still rolling across the floor.
"What…the…frak?"
I ran through the past minute and a half in my mind a dozen times over, wondering how the heck I wound up with an empty room. I knew for certain that we were being shot from this direction and I had four witnesses to back up my sanity, one of whom had a burnt hole in his flak armour to serve as testament. Cain caught up to me just in time to hear a huge string of unlady like profanity escape my lips because at that moment my eyes happened to glance upwards and I noticed an open ventilation shaft just overhead.
"Kind of pointless to try and chase after him now," Cain muttered as he looked in the same direction as I. The ventilation system was probably a maze of ducts and chutes, which meant that our assailant could be in any of a dozen locations by now. Given the size of the opening I doubt anybody aside from myself would have been thin enough to fit through and there was definitely no way I was going to try and crawl through a bunch of air vents to Emperor knows where. Firstly, I'd get lost in a heartbeat in such a confined maze. Secondly, and I state this with great reluctance and embarrassment, I may have been (and still am) a bit on the claustrophobic side. Now I wasn't at the level of 'let me out of the chimera,' but something really tight and narrow like an air vent or the inside of a Leman Russ and I'd be trying to cut my way to freedom with a laspistol.
"We need to get that gate open," Watz said, for some reason helping Heilmit along to the control lecterns. The flak armour appeared to have absorbed the bulk of the heat and impact but even then I imagined his shoulder was hurting a whole lot. Despite what pain he might be in, he seemed to ignore it as he started looking over the lecterns.
"You know how to work this thing?" I asked, slightly puzzled by a mere trooper apparently trying his hand at such religious matters.
"I used to go out with an enginseer…you'd be amazed at what you can learn from them when they're trying to impress you," he replied, though straining through the pain. "I mean…don't ask me to repair a holoprojector but I can make sense of most of these controls." After taking a careful look over the various controls, the young trooper began turning some dials and tapping on various control runes, all the while muttering what I assumed to be various litanies to complete the ritual.
"So…what happened to you and the tech girl?" I asked curiously since there wasn't much else to do at this point but wait and pray that Heilmit could figure things out.
"Well, things gradually declined the more techno-bits she got installed. By the time things finally fell apart, most of her was mechanical. I really regretted having to end things cause she was still the same girl as when we started…at least the parts of her that were still a girl. Still, when you're half-machine it just gets harder and harder to relate to the flesh and blood type."
"Plus you can't put your dick into it," Watz added.
"True…well, you can but it's not as fun anymore."
"Can we focus on the gate please," Cain interrupted, forcing them back on topic.
"Then pray to the Emperor this works," Heilmit said as he tapped one last control rune. There was a loud, promising grinding noise emanating from the walls around us, soon overlapped by a loud groan-like sound and a repetitive clacking noise that reminded me of a tank driving over a car wreck. All of these sounds, though, ended abruptly, leaving only a blinking red light and a faint buzzing noise from the control lectern.
"That's bad isn't it?" I muttered and sighed.
"It means I got shot for nothing," Heilmit replied. "The command links from these lecterns have been completely severed. We'll need a team of techpriests just to get this thing functioning again."
That was definitely the news we didn't want to hear, though I had partly expected that our assailant would not have fled had he not ensured his plan would not be interrupted. I took it upon myself to relay the bad news to Waffans, who was as pleased to hear it as could be expected under the circumstances – I didn't take any of the dozens of slung profanities to be against me personally.
"That does it then, I'm making my own entrance," Waffans announced. Seconds later, the whole earth seemed to quake as the first of several salvos were fired into the main gates. Since there was little good in us remaining in the now-useless control room, we made our way back to the centaur. Driven more by curiosity and concern than a belief I could actually be of assistance, I wandered over to the main gates while Watz and Jurgen took care of Heilmit. I heard Cain mutter something a few steps behind me but with all the noise I couldn't make out a word he said. Waffans had already succeeded in blasting a sizeable hole through the towering forty-foot-high gates and scores of troops and vehicles were pulling back into the safety of the city. I can't really say what compelled me to continue forward, moving towards the chaos that everyone else was intent on fleeing from but I needed to see for myself what was happening. Through the breech in the gate, I could see that the withdrawal had almost turned into an all-out route. Scores of tanks and chimeras were already ablaze with the dead littered everywhere, many of which were crushed beneath tanks that were too busy retreating to notice or care.
The Traitor's Lament had positioned itself ahead of the breech, valiantly shielding the retreat with its own mass. The stormblade was being hammered from all sides, smoke already billowing from ugly breaks in the armour. Without a turret the stormblade would have had to turn about completely in order to blast apart the gate, exposing its weaker rear armour to enemy fire. The desperate gambit had worked but even a cursory glance at the stormblade revealed the price it had paid in takings it attention away from the enemy. The weapon sponsons on the left side were completely wrecked and the remaining heavy bolters had fallen silent having spent all their rounds. I could see Waffans sitting in his hatch behind a heavy stubber, remaining defiant as he emptied belt after belt of ammunition.
As more and more guardsmen retreated into the city, those outside fell under greater pressure as the Tau heavy armour began to focus their fire. Another blast of plasma took a chunk out of the Tau front line but in response several railguns fired in rapid sequence, gouging a huge crevice through the starboard treads, immobilizing the behemoth. Though the realization that we were about to lose our largest weapon hit me hard, what stung worse was the realization that Waffans had no intention of abandoning his post. Even as the last of the able-bodied guardsmen found refuge behind the city walls, Waffans remained defiant behind his heavy stubber, barring any infantry from attempting to pursue.
"Come on Waffans! You have to get out of there! You can still make it," I pleaded even though I knew it was pointless.
"Life matters not, only duty!" Waffans replied, reciting an old saying in the Death Korps of Krieg. "You'll just have to do the rest of this without me. I know you and Cain can get the job done – you two make a good team. Oh, and next time you see Commissar Wren could you punch him in his fat, ugly nose for me?"
"I'd be more than happy to," I replied, trying to keep a level tone.
Just then there came a bright flash from just over the stormblade, some sort of stun grenade I presumed as it even left me seeing spots for a few seconds and I was standing quite a distance back. My vision cleared just in time to see a Tau battlesuit land right on top of the stormblade, looming silently over Waffans like a judicator ready to pass judgment. I recognized the white-painted head and scorch markings along the sides as belonging to the same battlesuit that accosted me when I first landed. Realizing his end was at hand, Waffans simply stared up at the towering machine.
"Go ahead and kill me," Waffans goaded. "I do not fear the darkness, for the Emperor's light is my torch."
At least his end came quick, vaporized in a flash of plasmatic energy that burnt a deep crater through the top of the stormblade. The battlesuit fired several more close-range blasts into the tank, ensuring that there was nothing left for us to salvage other than a giant pile of broken metal. Rage and sorrow combated in my heart, leaving me feeling nothing but a shocked daze as the battlesuit rocketed to the top of the main gates, landing upon them in a remarkable display of balance and dexterity.
"Soldiers of the Imperium, your great weapon lays defeated and your soldiers in ruin," the battlesuit suddenly spoke, his voice magnified by some Tau equivalent of a vox amplifier. His heavily accented voice was slow, articulate, and deliberate, carrying with it a sense of calm, yet unwavering fortitude. "I am Shas'O Tau Lar'shi, military commander appointed by His Eminence, Aun'el Tau Sho'aun'or'es. This planet has languished under the neglect of your Emperor for too long and its citizens and leaders have embraced the call of the Greater Good. This world is now under the protection of the Tau Empire. So go…go and return to your Emperor and tell him that the people here have chosen freedom and prosperity over his tyranny. Leave while I am still feeling merciful. You have twenty-four of your standard hours to comply."
I think Watz summed up everybody's feelings rather accurately when he launched a krak rocket at the battlesuit. He missed horribly as the battlesuit simply disappeared behind the remains of the gate but I think he got the point across nicely.