There was another air raid the next day. It was like the first, but no rocket-berserkers rained down, so Kins gave Cav and his troops permission to stay in a bomb shelter. When the attack was over, the captain ordered them to help with the clean-up. A cathedral had been flattened with swarms of civilians inside. The whole of the Erson City 89th Volunteers got the honour of cleaning up the debris. By the end of the day, Nortren's crushed face was one of many memories Cav had of mutilated corpses. That night, while he sat outside over their dinner of rations, Cav found himself with Josahik and Tigerson, two boys he'd met in training. Personally, he liked both equally. As soldiers, Tigerson was a better shot, harder and braver. His attitude had kept him from getting Cav's job. Where Josahik had been studying to be a mason, Tigerson had been conscripted in exchange for a pardon on robbery charges.
"I hope we ship away from here soon," Tigerson was saying. "Fight the orks in Urbanis 4 rather than sitting around and getting bombed, that's what I want."
"And carrying corpses," Josahik added, "enough of that garbage."
"I'd rather kill than die. It's not the dead guys, it's the bombs. You know? The explody things? The bodies…nah, we just pack them up into the ration soup." Tigerson grinned, sipping his soup. Cav smiled uneasily. They didn't actually do that, but…
"You know, I thought I saw one that looked like Stolce's mom," Cav muttered. Those dead faces in his mind. The only way he knew how to deal with them was to laugh at them. He might as well, he'd have no shortage of death in the coming days. Tigerson chuckled.
"It didn't make out with you, did it?" he asked. Josahik tugged Cav's sleeve and pointed. Lystartro and one of his lieutenants, a one-eyed man named Frens, were both walking towards them. Cav and the other two stood up and made the sign of the aquilla. Lystartro and Frens returned it.
"We're moving out to the edge of Urbanis 5. Command says it's going to get hit soon," the captain grimly said. Cav looked around the dark street. He could see other 89th were sitting nearby, oblivious, eating and joking over what they'd seen. He saw Mieel sitting by himself beside the ration truck. "Tell your group. I'll leave you to report to Lieutenant Frens here if you need your butt wiped. I've got to see to my own men when the greenskins come."
"An attack, sir?" Cav asked. The captain nodded.
"A lot of rocket-berserkers and some vehicles were dropped into Urbanis 4. They rampaged their way through the section and are bound for the wall. We leave right now." Lystartro left without a word.
"Alright," Cav cleared his throat. "89th! We're moving out right now! The orks are gonna hit the wall on Urbanis 5 and we've got to get on the move!" He turned to Tigerson. "Find your group."
"Yes sir," Tigerson left. Yes sir? Cav had never been called sir by anyone.
…
The wall on Urbanis 5 referred to the huge rockrete barrier that divided each Urbanis section from the others. They were not a single, eternal strip of flat rockrete, but a zig-zagging fortification of varying heights, all studded with towers and fortresses. The section of wall they were to defend was a squat, flat strip that overlooked the bombed-out streets of Urbanis 4 just beyond. There were no fortresses or towers to support them here. A half kilometer of rockrete shaped roughly like a W, wedged between two spites of natural rock, and it was to be held by the 89th, the 112th, and a number of Ersonian PDF regulars who Cav never got a chance to meet.
They arrived a full five hours before the attack and spent the whole time sleeping. It was early morning now and they'd marched through the night.
"Get up!" Frens shouted, "get up!" Cav was up and took his position amongst the other volunteers who poked their heads over the leftmost point in their W shaped wall. If he looked to the right, he could see the whole battle. The walltop was manned by a few hundred of the grey-dressed Ersonians. The dark green of the Morchaghan guardsmen showed up now and then in pockets. There were a few heavy weapons, which Cav couldn't identify at this distance. Behind him, he heard Frens oversee the placement of a mortar.
"Alright," Cav said to his ninety-eight. "Don't fire until the order goes. Or you waste shots." They were spread thinly. Why weren't there more?
In the distance, Cav heard shells falling. Somewhere out there, another battle raged. He spat off the wall and watched the saliva plummet the long drop down. It must be fifty meters to the ground…
BOOM! An explosion blossomed out from the wall. Cav kept his head up, searching those grey ruins for the enemy. It was so bleak, so lifeless. There were no civilians living in Urbanis 4. BOOM! Another explosion rocked the walls. He heard a few mortars on the wall answer. He heard Tigerson ask where the orks were. Cav spat again and imagined his fear leaving his body with the spit…
They came out of the ruins like ants. Fat dark shapes far below, crawling out from holes or from behind collapses or charging in waves over heaps of debris. They were too far away to make out in detail.
"Those are orks?" Cav asked Frens as he took his place next to Cav.
"Yup, there they are," Frens replied like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Get ready. They'll close fast." Cav could hear the heavy weapons were firing now, and dots of dust were leaping up amongst the attackers. They were surging forward now. Cav saw a few small groups disapear in blasts of dust. He aimed at them. They were closer. Now he could see their shapes amidst the ruins. Some were distinctly taking cover and returning fire at the wall. They were all carrying rocket packs on their backs. Cav heard shots skip off the wall.
"Fire?" Cav asked.
"Wait," Frens replied. The orks were close now. Throne…those were orks. Real orks. When could they shoot? A whistle sounded. When every lasgun on the wall fired, Cav joined in.
It was a rainstorm of obnoxious pops. The air grew alight with lasbolts. They streaked down into the horde, punching orks off their feet. Cav joined in.
It was hard to tell what was happening. Cav didn't think he would be able to tell if he got any kills in a fight like this and quickly saw he'd been right. He just fired as accurately as he could at those shapes down there and reload whenever his gun stopped.
"Ack!" Someone from the 89th was hit. He hit the ground beside Cav. Jissiel Chaxris, someone Cav didn't know too well. But Cav didn't think anymore of it. In battle, there was no time to lament.
Ork dead covered the ruins below. The orks were either sprinting forward or taking cover amongst the ruins and firing back. Cav could hear Frens yelling orders over the din.
Ork after ork fell. Cav kept his eyes on one group, firing at them, trying to kill one. The group of at least ten disappeared in a cloud when a mortar found them. Orks stumbled forward. Orks died. They lost bodies for every meter they crossed. But they did not stop coming. Orks were now dying wherever Cav looked, but there were so many.
Then, churning through the ruins, came a curious vehicle. Some mad cross between a flatbed truck and a crab made out of scrap. It sported a fierce cannon that blasted at the wall, causing the wall to shake. If it had aimed, it might have killed scores of humans. Cav saw another come crawling, then another. He tried to ignore them. Emperor above…he could die at any moment.
One of the rocket berserkers was suddenly no longer down there, but up here, with them! It had fired up its pack and was coming up. Cav saw a green face and goggles in front of a burning rocket pack before the ork was gone, killed by a lasgun. The ork spiraled down and exploded into the wall.
More came. Cav clenched his teeth and fired at these ones. They were cut down, flying and exploding every which way. A few exploded on the ramparts, killing men. They kept coming, dying violently on their way up. Ork after ork, face after wild face, filled Cav's eyes. He shot at them with his fellows. He saw one, with a two handed axe, spiral out of control and smash into the ramparts, knocking a heavy weapon and its crew off the wall. He saw one in a steel bowl helmet land unscathed on the wall and fire both its pistols. Cav shot, but not at that ork.
A trio of orks had rocketed up from the ruins and was streaking towards his unit. Cav shot at the largest one, a huge brute clad head to toe in sheet metal, but he wasn't stopping it. One of the orks spiraled out of control and crashed to the ground. So did the one Cav was focused on, though not by his hand. He would have shot the third, but it landed on the wall a few meters from him. He ignored it, another fifteen were coming.
He saw them shooting their crude guns as they swept up towards them. He saw one clearly as it came at him, its machine gun firing.
The brute had bright green skin and no helmet. It had goggles that looked made for a human. The ork wore the dirty remains of a pilot's jacket that was reinforced around the joints by metal chunks. It had tattoos on its face. Red renditions of lightning playing up and down its green cheeks. The rocket on its back was plump. The tip wore a long metal spike, like the ork was expecting to impale someone as it soared on its insane course into battle. Cav shot. He saw the ork grab its jaw as Cav's lasbolt hit it, then it shot straight up into the air. The ork did a loop, that finished with it crashing straight down, where it exploded into the ground.
'I killed one,' he thought. He could remember his uncle, who'd fought for Halivor during the uprisings, tell him how dreadful it was to kill someone. 'Haha! I killed one!' Whatever his uncle had felt when killing humans, Cav felt joyful. You always feel guilty afterwards, so his uncle said. Cav felt pride. He felt excited. He wanted to kill more. Destroying these ugly aliens was a wonderful privilege.
"Die!" Cav shouted as more orks swooped onto the wall. To his right, he heard one of his volunteers scream. He slipped on the blood of another. There were orks across the walltop. Cav could hear human voices screaming. He saw a mutilated Morchaghan guardsman hurled off the ramparts to his death.
"Die!" Cav cried again, shooting the nearest ork. The brute had its back to him and was presently chopping into the body of a volunteer. The ork turned to look at Cav. His vision was filled by a long, deformed alien head with pointed ears and an overbite. The beast's eyes were yellow and mean. Cav had no time to feel fear as the beast opened its mouth and roared its alien warcry.
A droplet of alien saliva hit his nose. Its breath smelt of the dirty latrines.
"Hit it!" Frens shouted, stabbing the ork's neck with his bayonet. The ork squealed and flailed its cleaver, beheading a nearby volunteer. "Shoot it!" Cav shot the ork in the hand to get rid of that awful cleaver. The ork did not drop it. Frens stabbed again, hitting the ork in one of its yellow eyes. A final stab to the neck made the monster grow limp. It stumbled like a drunken giant and flopped off the wall.
"Thanks…" Frens was already shooting down another ork as it swept onto the wall. He looked for orks who'd landed on the wall but saw none. He looked down at the ruins and saw the orkish vehicles were all ablaze. He'd forgotten about those. Down there, the orks were beat. The survivors were withdrawing, stumbling over their dead. Cav laughed in triumph as he added his fire to the pursuing lasbolts. They had won! And he killed one!
He didn't stop congratulating himself during his post battle duties of tallying his dead and writing a report to submit. He'd lost half of his group. Later, Frens would blame it on their lack of hand-to-hand experience. The morbid tally did not even register in his weary mind. He couldn't see it, past the sight of that rocket-berserker spiraling into the ground after he, Cav, had shot it. Let Kins say what he wanted. Cav had killed one!
All the while, the distant boom of artillery didn't abate. He'd won his battle here, but somewhere out there, someone was fighting an even harder battle.
…
The bombed out hotel made a poor office, but it was the best thing there was. Captain Lystartro sat behind a rotting desk and thought about the six he'd lost today. Good men, to the last. It felt like such a waste to lose so much experience to this silly ork attack. But it could be worse. He'd just received word that the whole Urbanis 5 wall had been attacked by tens of thousands of orks. Word was still coming in over the results. In fact, the fighting was still happening in some places but Lystartro had no reason to think the push wouldn't be repulsed. The wall had held good enough the past three times the orks had hit it.
"Sir?" Lystartro looked up to see a PDF volunteer enter. He threw a quick aquilla before walking up to Lystartro's desk. "I have the report from Cav. Fifty-one dead…"
"Yeah, I'll read it," Lystartro snatched the paper from the boy's hand. "Hm," he looked the youth over. "You're Tigerson, right?"
"Yes sir."
"Frens says you got three kills today." Tigerson shrugged. "You're a good shot, he says."
"I've practiced," Tigerson replied, "I'm a bit of a veteran of the streets. A…I had to learn to use a gun to keep myself fed, we'll put it that way."
"Like a ganger?" asked Lystartro.
"Sort of," Tigerson fingered a white scar on his hand. Lystartro recognized the scar those horrid machines made when they removed a tattoo. It had been a gang tattoo no doubt. Tigerson probably had more scars like it across his body.
"Gangers can't aim for the life of them. You got it from somewhere else," Lystartro replied. "I'm gonna guess training. He smiled at the boy's indignant look over his remark about gangers.
"Sir…I…" Tigerson chose his words carefully. Even a youth like him knew to pick his words around a man as big as Lystartro. "The others were wondering how you got your augmetic." Lystartro flexed his.
"This sucker? Well if you want to see it in action, I've got to disappoint you. I'm not like those heroes you see on the broadcasts who can punch through a freaking tank with their augmetics. This thing just helps me fire guns, hold spoons and, when I have to, relieve myself. It's just like this one," he waved his good hand. Tigerson nodded. "But that doesn't answer your question, does it? Lost it to a grenade." He didn't want to say more. "If you're looking for war stories, I'll tell you all about the time I fought with the space marines during the reclamation of Rynn's World." He paused as Tokrox came in and placed a sheet on his desk. "It was good to get away from there. Compared to that place, Essendrav is nothing. But longer…" Lystartro squinted at the page and looked up at Tokrox. "What is this?"
"Orders…"
"I know that," Lystartro held up the sheet and shook it. "What the hell does Vistigo think he's playing at? This isn't a circus. Get me a vox set. I want to give the colonel a good talking to. He can't be serious with these orders. These cannot possibly be ours." Tokrox squinted at the page.
"Should we argue with command?" he asked, "I'm prepared to follow them and I've never questioned Vistigo in my life. Captain, I know you and the colonel are practically brothers. He'd never make a mistake like this. That is his signature. If he thinks we can't do it, he'll argue our case." Lystartro nodded slowly. He and Tokrox had fought together throughout their careers. Back on Chazz, Tokrox had impressed everyone by knocking out an ork tank with a grenade thrown from an unlikely angle. There were many men in the 112th that Lystartro considered his friends but only a handful he considered his brothers. Tokrox was one of them.
"Tigerson," Lystartro said with some reluctance. "Go to Cav and tell him we've received new orders. We're heading out tomorrow morning." He read the orders aloud.
"Really?" Tigerson asked in bewilderment. "That sounds a little specialized for a group like the 89th"
"Yeah, well, you grew up on the hard side of life. You should be used to getting screwed," Lystartro replied.
…
Haze. Fingers, in front of his face, clutching fistfuls of dirt. He could feel the daze weighing down his limbs. He heard sounds further off than they should be, like the half-forgotten memory of last night's dream, no, nightmare. They were the sounds of a nightmare. They were the sounds of barbed wire being dragged through an open wound. They were the sounds of a steel bar beating against bone. They were the sounds of healthy flesh being slowly lacerated by freshly broken glass. They were the sounds of war.
He saw the lasgun in front of him at the bottom of the crater he'd fallen into. Curth ran his fingers across his short hair. His head was bare. The blast must have knocked off his cap. Something tugged at his arm. Curth grasped his lasgun and stood back up. Those sounds of war revealed their sources to him.
Before him, the manmade cliff of the Urbanis 5 wall rose with all its unyielding strength. It was lit from behind by flames, like a small star was nestled behind it. Smoke eclipsed the sky. It was black, but occasionally a detonating shell lit it up. When this happened, Curth could see the speck-tiny zipping shapes of rocket-berserkers sweeping through it to reach Urbanis 5. Bombed out buildings surrounded him. Their windows were empty, like the eyes of skulls. The whole street was dead. Everything was riddled with holes or the decay that war inflicted. Hot laser and solid rounds from both sides swept overhead. Bodies, mostly human, lay in awkward ruin across the street.
"I said get up!" Ghordon pleaded. Curth nodded and abandoned the crater, dodging into the alleyway with the rest of his squad. Behind him, a squad of Ersonians tried to follow him. A merciless hail of dusty blasts reduced them to bleeding shrapnel.
"Where's the captain?" Curth asked to the 112th Lieutenant he'd been assigned to follow. Of Curth's original group of twenty, fifteen remained. The 112th had two squads here, thus far unbloodied.
"No clue, you damn shotstopper," the lieutenant replied from behind his stubble. Throne…what was his name? Curth had been told it five times and forgotten it already. He was terrible with names. Until three weeks ago, he still had trouble telling Mieel and Notren apart. Those two had been together so often and looked so similar. "Alright, crew," the lieutenant barked. "I want fifteen lasguns on this side. Suppressing fire, and one half of that fifteen get across to that ruin there and we hold this street." He pointed to the side of the alley Curth hadn't come from. "Everyone else, worry about the other side." It was a long alley, big enough for a tank to hide in. Hey, it was probably big enough for three. They were wedged between two dead warehouses who's roofs had caved in a year prior.
"Get ready!" Curth heard the lieutenant shout. "Here they come!"
…
Here they came. Malreth stared at the wall ahead of him from the hole in the middle of the wrecked hab's corpse of debris. He fired his lasgun from between two fallen bricks, his bosy splayed in his crater. Eleven other 89th members hid with him, firing at the orks who streamed over the wall and rampaged up the street. A shot hit one of the bricks near Malreth's head. It threw up a spit of stone. A chunk of the brick bounced down the ruin, tumbling to the street two meters below. Malreth felt low to the ground. He was low to the ground. All the 112th Guardsmen had somehow found intact habs to shoot from. To Malreth's right rose a four story hab unit that was packed with 112th. It was too late to join them now.
Rocket berserkers swooped overhead, crashing into the habs around him. Some of them managed to land on their feet, though of their fates, Malreth didn't care. He had no time to.
Orks thundered up into Urbanis 5 from the wall, charging down on heavy feet to the roads below to join the ocean of footsloggers who stormed at the guardsmen and PDF in cover. Malreth didn't notice the ones that fell, only the ones that didn't.
"Who's got a spare?" someone shouted over the crack of his lasgun. Malreth was a generous person, who would have given up one of the eight power packs he had if he wasn't so busy. A rocket berserker slammed onto the ground right in front of their fallen hab. They all brought it down, each man shooting. It seemed to be untouched raising its hand to throw a grenade. Only when a lasbolt smashed its open mouth did the monster crumble.
"Keep going! We can do this!" Malreth shouted. "We'll make the damned captain pat our butts in delight!" Malreth ducked away from his position as an explosion shook the streets in front of him. He returned to his hole and kept firing.
The dusty- dry shade of rockrete covered the entire street, but the enemy's skin added colour. The enemy was either bold green or the colour of an evergreen. That colour once reminded him of the needle forests. Now it was the colour of the biggest orks with the most exotic and deadly weaponry the crude foe had. Now it was the colour of death.
Coming up the road from the wall raced a mob of orks with lime coloured skin, dirty with mud, and dressed in an assortment of rags. They lacked the armoured plate of the larger ones and Malreth noticed their weapon of choice was a piece of pipe, wielded like a club or a rusty knife. Only a few carried crude guns. Their bodies were not as rippled with muscle as their larger kin. Malreth could see a dead rocket berserker on sprawled across the cratered road. These orks, who stumbled over craters and bodies, were half the size of the darker alien.
Malreth loaded a fresh power cell, ignoring the berserker who swept overhead, leaving a streak of smog in his path. Let another man shoot him. Aiming at this mob of greenskins, he loosed the contents of his lasgun into the freaks. He saw lasbolts cut into the orks and kill them, spraying their dark blood across their comrades as they died, falling over each other. Whether these murderous shots were his, Malreth didn't know. There were so many people firing at them.
'They aren't big,' Malreth thought as he saw one stagger, raise its axe in anger, then fall as three shots cut into its chest. 'They're like, orkish youths.' Compared to the scarred fiends that propelled towards his lines, these lime-skins were like children. 'Young orks. Like me.' Malreth saw a few bolts leave his lasgun. The young ork in front of him, a wiry creature in brown pants with a bare chest, thudded to the dusty grey of the road, blood leaking from its muscles. That kill was Malreth's for sure.
'Five,' Malreth thought. Most of these young aliens were now dead, with the last survivors reaching the habs where the humans hid, leaving a carpet of green in their sad wake. One of them fired a rusty pistol madly at Malreth's hab.
"Kill that bastard!" Gill shouted.
The young ork waved its gun as it shot, like it was swatting a fly, shooting randomly. Malreth shoot its head. At five meters, it was an easy shot.
'Six,' Malreth thought.
"Everyone alright?" someone asked. Another explosion shook the streets. On the walls, plumes of flying orks and debris indicated other explosions. With his attention no longer on the smaller greenskins, Malreth could see the dead, dismembered orks outnumbered the live ones. Their momentum was gone and the orks were running. No more mobs crossed the street to beat themselves like fists into Imperial lines. The only orks who fought were firing from cover. He gave a quick smile when he saw a rocket berserker try to retreat. It swooped towards the wall, but was struck in the rocket and slammed embarrassingly into a buckling hab unit. Moments later, the hab's roof collapsed, throwing out a gravestone coloured cloud that hid much of the field. Retreating orks sought cover in the haze. On the wall, no more orks showed themselves and none of the crazed brutes shot down on their rocket packs. Malreth took one last shot into the fleeting aliens, clipping one in the shoulder as it abandoned its shell hole. The ork was wounded but pressed on, oblivious. Malreth liked to think the alien would wear the scar with pride.
The last ork was gone moments later, sweeping on his rocket pack up, over the wall and dropping down behind it in Urbanis 4.
Silence as bleak as the ruined look of the grey street coloured the scene. Not even the distant drum of cannon distorted the dusty air. No one was cheering.
"Six," he finally said, his heart racing. Now he had time to feel afraid. He turned from the hole. "Holy Emperor," he cursed in bewilderment at the violence he'd witnessed.
"Eh, you get used to it," replied the guardsman. Malreth blinked in surprise. There were four of them, in the grey and black of the Chazzan offworlders. One had the stripes of a sergeant. When had they come?
"Group leader Malreth Bhoge of the 89th PDF Volunteers," Malreth said. The others around him saluted the rugged Chazzans. One of them had a bullet hole in his helmet.
"Yeah, I don't care what your name is, shotstopper," replied the sergeant, "where that snot-spew captain of yours? My colonel's right mad at him."
"I…uh…" Malreth felt the world pressing down on him. What he would give to answer the dignified sergeant's question! He knew this! Malreth tried to remember which hab he'd sheltered in when they took up firing positions on this street.
"Forget it!" the sergeant blared like a siren. He and his men stalked down the ramp of debris to the ground below and walked up the street, stepping over fallen orks. One of them paused to cut an ear off an especially large ork with a pair of wire cutters. He pocketed his trophy and followed his comrades out of sight.
"That didn't go well," joked Mazer from behind the overturned table he'd hidden behind.
"Hey..." Malreth looked for a curse to threaten or shut Mazer's big mouth, but knew it wouldn't help. "Drop it," he ended up saying. He rose up. "Let's rendezvous with the rest of the group. You're all alive, right?" The others rose up to join him.
It was his first day of actual combat and he felt like a fool. He was the father figure of a hundred boys just like him. If he made an oversight like what he just did with a more important decision, what then? He was like those foolish looking lime-coloured orks with their pipes and their loincloths.
Only then did he notice not everyone stood up. Gill lay peacefully in the corner where he'd been fighting from. The top of his head was gone. The young ork with the pistol had gotten lucky. He must have been the only soul that rag-tag bunch had killed.
…
Colonel Vistigo was one of a number of colonels who looked across the battle map that was spread out like a rug across the table. The table itself was a beautiful piece of carpentry, carved and polished, with legs that resembled angelic warriors carrying spears. It was an eyesore in this room. The walls were white and studded with holes that revealed the wood beneath. The windows were shot out. Dust, debris and broken glass coated the floor. The light came from a dim lantern that hung from a nail in the wall.
"The attack has been repulsed," announced Brigadier-General Ersonnus to the room. "Good job men, good work. The marshal will be proud." There was no cheering. There was just a grim look at that thick grey line between Urbanis 4 and 5 and the silent question of how much it cost to defend that line. Ersonnus sensed the discontent in his officers and brushed a fly out of his heavy moustache.
Ersonnus looked nothing like his namesake, Saint Erson, who was a fair man with a long beard. Ersonnus' father was a nobleman in one of the eastern provinces. He was still alive, apparently half his body was replaced by machines. Ersonnus said he looked like a spider. Ersonnus himself was ninety-three, but he had the face of a fifty-year old. He had a las weapon built into his left hand and walked with a slight hunch, which came as a result of carrying a power generator inside his spine. He had an augmetic left eye, giving him the "fake eye of authority" look (as it was known on Morchaghan) that was so common to the higher echelons of the Imperial hierarchy. Vistigo did not have any augmetics and did not want any.
"Post-engagement reports are in. Please take note," Ersonnus continued as he nodded to his servitor. The room filled with the servitor's inhuman voice reciting their reports.
"Sector 1-A. Forty-six dead from artillery. Sector 3-A: Fifty-six dead from artillery. Primary ork attacks struck sectors 4 and 5. Ork assault against sector 4 repulsed. Across subsectors A to I, casualties are listed at 6110. Sector 5, subsectors A to J, losses are 8491. Enemy held in all subsectors. Enemy dead is unknown at the time."
Over 14000 dead? That was a lot, but in a city this size, it wasn't much. There were tens of thousands of men and dozens of regiments to plug the hole they left.
"Now," continued Ersonus, "my brother in Urbanis 4 cannot stomach the orks on his own. As I'm sure you all know…" he paused to look around, "we cannot remain on the defensive forever. The resistance groups in Urbanis 3 2 and 1 are holding, but they need our help. We must break the siege in Urbanis 4 and very soon."
"And I will not accept any excuses for misdirection in your command," reminded Ersonus' pet commissar…whatever his name was. "We must push into Urbanis 4."
"The enemy has just broken itself with this attack. Now's the time to counterattack," Ersonus said. "We have over one hundred thousand guardsmen ready to cross the wall and help our brothers in Urbanis 4 out. My brother has been begging for this for weeks. With today's attack done, we can surely press past the wall."
"Any word from the resistance groups in 3 2 and 1?" asked Colonel Yakasoto, from the southern isles of Ersonia.
"They continue their raids," Ersonus said with confidence. "We haven't heard much from them, but trust be my friends, they are there." He looked around the room. "Now, this is the surprise you've all been waiting for. This morning we received a report from our friends in recon. Warboss Skullkicker is in Essendrav, in Urbanis 1."
The room erupted into frantic talking.
"We must hit him, kill him."
"Killing him will knock the invasion off balance."
"Throw everything we have at him, now!"
"Unfortunately…" Ersonus spoke above his colonels until they were all quiet, "the warboss is not alone. He has brought a whole horde of his best warriors with him. A direct attack would be ill-advised at this point. Based on intercepted messages between elements of the enemy, we believe he is headed for Angel's Peak." Ersonus pointed at the battle map, to the mountain in the middle of Urbanis 1.
Angel's Peak.
Supposedly Erson first landed upon Ersonia upon the site of a great mountainside temple to the Emperor in Angel's Peak. It was one of the most holy sites on Ersonia and part of the reason why Essendrav had to be held. The legend of Angel's Peak told of how the hill clans once had to unite under Erson to combat the a horde orks that poured onto them. From Angel's Peak, Erson fought with the hill clans until he was slain, defending the temple to the Emperor. Then, an angel emerged from a cave in Angel's Peak the moment after Erson died. The angel vanquished the orks with its mighty spear and saved the clans before vanishing. A prophecy in the hill clans told of the angel's return if ever the mountain should split. The colonel was too old to believe in fairy tales but allowed some of the younger officers to wonder every time they heard the story.
As if a mountain could split!
"What is in Angel's Peak that could interest him?" asked Colonel Farson.
"Probably wants to check for iron," suggested Major Safferon, who was filling for his own colonel, who presently lay in a field hospital with a piece of shrapnel lodged in his back.
The appearance of Skullkicker was hardly the only surprise today. As soon as the meeting ended, Vistigo was summoned to his office, where a vox-set awaited him.
"How could you let us take these orders?" demanded Lystartro after he'd done reciting his problems with the mission he'd gotten.
"I am sorry but they are from the marshal himself," replied Vistigo sadly. "It is not too complicated and requires no specialty. Essendrav is already overstretched, we cannot send you support." His voice grew harder. "I am sorry, but the marshal cannot be negotiated with." He cleared his throat and awkwardly informed the captain of Skullkicker.
"Great," the captain grumbled.
"The Emperor protects," offered Vistigo.
"Aye, the Emperor protects," Lystartro answered.
…
Agent 33 ducked and jumped a flying leap through the broken window. She landed on her back, pistols out. Rattling off a spray of shots, she dropped three of her pursuers. With a twist of her legs, she was back on her feet and charging down the hallway of the office she'd leapt into. She kicked the door at the opposite end of the hall and dodged outside into the streets of Urbanis 1.
In her nimble suit, she tried her vox-link again. Nothing. She looked over her shoulder at her mad pursuers, charging, waving blades and crude guns. Their alien cries offended her. Her augmetic eye could see the sweat on their skin, the tattoos on their bodies and the hate in their eyes. There were dozens of them. She had to run.
'Emperor damn it,' she thought, 'I cannot complete my mission now.' She shot two of the orks and dodged the bullets the other fired at her. Her augmented muscles swept her across the street and up to a bombed-out warehouse. She jumped over a heap of fallen bricks as she did so, snapping off two more shots. Two orks died, shot in the brain. Agent 33 ran into the warehouse and through the maze of rubble within, crossing in and out of squares of light left by the holes in the roof, and vaulted out the door at the other end of the room. It took less than five seconds.
Agent 33 was sure she'd escaped the orks as she ducked into another ruined office. It was an arbites headquarters, a good sign to her superstitious mind. She took a second to bow to the huge gold aquilla that hung stood in the middle of the foyer. Now, she could reflect on her situation.
Like she already knew, her mission had failed. Her punishment was not as important right now as getting out alive. Her vox-link was broken so she'd have some trouble getting out. Agent 33 slipped behind the aquilla to reload. As she rose up, peeking out from her cover to check for her pursuers, she heard someone coming she was on her feet but froze as the person emerged from a doorway and into the foyer.
BANG!
"My my, silly assassin," mocked the man who'd emerged. "You cannot outrun us." Agent 33 could not reply, or even shoot back. She fell loosely to floor, all her grace and strength robbed from her by a single bullet from the man's gun. Her weapons fell from her hands. Thus, Agent 33 was killed in action.
The orks flooded into the room moments later. All they found was a bloody aquilla. The slender shadow they had chased was gone.
…
Diary
Lystartro has us going to Urbanis 1. I'm sitting in the hull of my transport as I'm writing this. I can hardly say that I'm surprised. I knew our duties would take us somewhere dangerous. I assume he knows what he's doing, taking the 112th and the 89th. He says we will be able to see Angel's Peak from where we're dropped off. It will be an honour to kill aliens in sight of that mountain, just as my own ancestors did. Heh, listen to that, I'm writing like one of those preachers you see on the broadcasts.
I'm not scared. I just have faith that this mission is doable and that the commanders were all careful. I tell myself that if this mission couldn't be done by us 89th, then we wouldn't be here.
I keep having flashbacks to that ork I killed. I keep picturing it and telling it that it can no longer threaten Ersonia. Those muscles, those fangs and that anger, all of it was removed from my world by me. Thinking about that ork gives me the motivation I need, reminding me that no matter how bad it gets or how useless I feel, I still got one of the enemy.
It's a few hours to our destination. Wow, Essendrav sure is big. Of course, this sneak-flier, whatever it's called, has to move slow to make little noise. I should get some sleep now. It's nighttime.
…
The great ship lifted up and vanished into the night sky, joining the stars. Below, the moonscape of rubble reached up towards the sky, with skeletal beams of steel standing like trees amongst the tortured urban wreckage. Streets had disappeared beneath landslides of falling rockcrete. Most of the tallest buildings had been gutted and collapsed by years of shelling. Random, wild craters punched wounds in the whole sorry mess of mazelike destruction. Every half-destroyed shadow of a building could hold the enemy. Every hole where a glass window once stood could be a trap. The disorienting chaos of this grey jungle was too easy to get lost in.
'How could anyone find their way here?' Lystartro wondered, 'much less at night?' He left that to the experts and looked out at his two companies. The guardsmen of the 112th were spreading out, their dusty fatigues giving them some subtlety in this urban mess. The babies of the 89th were imitating their weathered comrades-in-arms.
"Captain?" Frens appeared from the shadows. Lystartro jumped. "Sorry," Frens said quickly, "should the 89th be helping us with the perimeter?"
"Support," Lystartro whispered back. "Send them in to places that might hide the enemy." That was a foolish order. Everywhere could hide the enemy. These ridges of rubble and those gutted ruins above their heads…everything could hide the enemy. "I don't want any situations out there. Quick and clean." Frens nodded and disappeared. Lystartro took cover behind a fallen steel beam and peered out from behind it, at a nearby office tower. In the dark, it appeared only as a rectangular eclipse in the night sky. Lonely, it looked like a mountain, staring down at the dead flatness around it. He bet when the sun rose, he would spot an orkish glyph hoisted over the tower's front.
Orks. They were here, somewhere. The whisperwing flyer was the perfect stealth vehicle for a mission like this, but that only meant they wouldn't be killed in transit. Now that they were here, they had hundreds of square miles of ork territory to think about. The only comfort was the thought of the guerilla groups that lurked around here, living like rats in their destroyed homes and fighting like devils against the unending foe. Lystartro hoped to run into them. They too were out here, somewhere.
The overwhelming peace of the quiet night got to him as his men finished establishing a perimeter around their drop zone and dug in. Lystartro's eyes shifted from crag to crag of rubble around him. That statue, peaceful and silent, that lip of a shell crater blasted in the side of that heap of fallen rock, it reminded him of somewhere else.
Long ago.
The reclamation. Driving out in that lorry, up the steep rocky hill, filled with crags. It was a natural moonscape. That rock, that one there, shifting, revealing the pit beneath it and out comes... An ork! An ork! He fires his flamer. The lorry hits a mine. Lystartro found himself under the flipped lorry, surrounded by burning corpses. Flaming oil is dripping from a crack in the lorry's bed, now above him. Into his face. One of his arms is trapped under the lorry. He feels his hand is on fire. The pain is incredible. AH!
He is going to die! He cannot escape this hell because his arm is stuck, try as he might to pull it out. So he grabs his bayonet to free himself. He screams to ease the pain.
That was a long time ago.
"Yes Cav?" Lystartro asked, shaking off the flashback as he flexed his augmetic fingers.
"Captain, we've all dug in. Three meters apart, just like you ordered," Cav whispered obediently. "Is there something wrong?" Even in the negligible light of his light-stick, Cav had spotted the troubled look in Lystartro's face.
"It's just quiet, that's all," Lystartro walked to the closest empty shell hole and sat at its bottom, shifting a piece of broken pipe aside to make room for Cav. "I want your men to lie low, not to shoot at anyone unless I say so," he continued. "We're not here to kill, we're here to rescue. If one ork knows we're here, we all die."
"Anything we should watch for?" Cav asked.
"Like what?" Lystartro began his inspection of his combat shotgun.
"You're the veteran. Do the orks use any special kind of weapon in a place like this? How do we fight it?"
Orks with flamethrowers, hiding in pits…
"In a place like this, you fight the orks by hiding from them," replied the grizzled captain. "Usually you can see an ork coming at you. But I've heard of some of greenskins who'll dress up like a gloryboy and sneak about. Like this one time, back on Rynn's World, the Astartes had to take to the jungles to knock out a little nest of them." Lystartro knew he'd made a mistake by mentioning Astartes. Now Cav's questions would never end.
But they didn't come. Not the questions the captain expected at least.
"How did you lose your hand, captain?" Cav asked, pointing.
…
The crosshair focused square on the young soldier's head. In a press of a button, the image grew larger, until he could almost see the whites in his eyes. The young soldier was pointing to the other man's augmetic hand. At this distance, the kill would be clean and easy. That lasgun the youth was cleaning would do him no good if he lost his head and that other man's shotgun could not reach the sharpshooter, not in the ruins of the office tower. The shooter's breath relaxed.
…
"How did you lose your last name, strawhead?" Lystartro smiled back, trying to ease the question with a laugh. Cav sensed his discomfort. Damn. Now he'd have to say it. Though there was nothing that happened during the siege of Rynn's World that Lystartro couldn't handle, that one incident during the reclamation had tarnished his whole experience there.
"Got pinned under a burning lorry," Lystartro muttered. Cav was lucky, most people got a simple, heroic lie. "Cut off my own arm to keep from burning. See that on my face? It's from the same thing. They'll tell you in basic that you're all supposed to be a bunch of fearless bastards in the Imperial Guard. Not true. Look around at the older men from my company and they've all got a story they won't talk about." Lystartro brushed a moth off out of his eyes with his augmetic hand. "We've all got some daemon wrapping on our brains." He looked at Cav, who was staring at him like a grox.
"Sorry," chuckled Lystartro, "I didn't mean to go on like that. Like I said, I took it off to escape a…well, a burning truck."
"It's alright," Cav answered, "just not often a superior tells you it's okay to be scared sometimes."
"Yeah, but don't tell Kins I said that."
"I think Kins hates me."
"Of course he does. You're a strawhead and Kins fought for the loyalists during the Halivor uprising."
"Not all the clans followed Halivor," Cav replied, "alright, a few people from my clan went with him but they got rightfully put down." He rolled up his sleeve to show the captain his tattoo. "You don't need last names in a clan. I'm with clan Angelspear. See? That mountain, that's Angel Peak and the angel of the Emperor that came out of it." Lystartro nodded, recalling the story. He'd come across clan-structured societies on Imperial worlds before. Like on that little colony world of Marmaxil IV. They had had names like Clan Vistah, Clan Jara and Clan Usor. But these hill clans were more noble than the simple xenophobic families of Marmaxil IV. The hill clans had a duty to live up to. He found himself admiring the Angelspear. There was no one so dedicated on the hive world where he'd come from. Just an ocean of gangs, ruffians and greedy nobles. Unlike on Morchaghan, where profit was the only currency, these Ersonians also dealt in honour.
"It's an honour to fight so close to Angel Peak. I want to do my best and I can't have Kins being a jerk to me in front of my troops," Cav whispered timidly.
"Well, only if you deserve it," Lystartro replied, smiling. Talking bad about a commissar to a superior officer? This boy had some guts, the good kind, of course. Cav ended the conversation there when he began to clean his lasgun. Lystartro finished with his shotgun some time later, kissed it and set it on his lap. He looked at Cav working and waited for him to make a mistake to be corrected. He did not. He went through all the proper movements, said all the proper prayers and applied the proper oils like any good guardsman. What a fresh breath of air! He hoped the others were as good with their lasguns.
"Do you believe in the angel's return?" Lystartro asked.
"If it does return, I hope it's soon," Cav said.
"But do you believe in it. Do most people in Angelspear believe in it coming back?" Lystartro asked.
"My family believes it will, I guess I do too. Just…" he pointed to the land around them, "sometimes its hard to believe in angels."
…
The shooter squinted and zoomed up on the youth's arm. His sleeve had rolled up to expose the Angelspear insignia, tattooed into his skin. The shooter took his hand off the trigger and took the crosshair off the boy's head.
"They've got a hill clan boy with them," he said. "I wonder what this means?"
A moment later, he was gone.