-XIV-
The hive was ruined, the buildings had hundreds of pocket marks from small arms fire, explosions took out chunks of the rockcrete and gothic statues littered the ground in many pieces.
The local temple was ransacked, its roof collapsed in itself leaving the giant statue of the Emperor standing over a pile of rubble. The ground was littered with all kinds of household items scattered around. The lofty lifestyle of the Pleasure world allowed its inhabitants to have many possessions which were now all around.
Houses were either looted or burned. Several corpses lay around.
"This is no Ork work, perhaps some kind of riot happened here." said Achagon investigating the scene.
"What does it matter, dealings of the heretics are of no concern to us." cut in Horatus in a harsh voice, happy to dismiss Achagon's thoughts aside.
"We don't know if they're heretics or not." said Julius just to shut the Assault sergeant up.
"Guilty until proven otherwise." sneered Horatus clearly content with his standing on no mercy policy.
"Julius, Horatus, move forward and take point." ordered Ioras and the debate came to an abrupt end.
Apothecary was harsh as ever, in war the caring Apothecary became a murder machine. There was talk in the Chapter that Ioras went against daemons on several occasions in his long record of service but none of the higher ups confirmed it to the lower ranks.
The two marines took point.
Horatus reported "I see Orks engaging guard positions."
"Numbers?" asked Ioras.
"Low, several ragtag boyz." said Horatus back.
"Squad Extus move in towards the plaza street, be cautious." ordered Ioras and the squad moved.
As they move Horatus smirked "At least we got Orks to kill on this damned rock."
The plaza street was one of the few places that were the same landmarks on the map Ioras managed to acquire. It was a very old and very neglected part of the city section. Building was old and there were garbage everywhere. It was quite distant from the main hive structure so Ioras assumed this was the main base of any gang and underground organization before the Ork menace came to Echtesia.
"Ork group moving in from south street." said Julius taking cover near a broken rockcrete column.
"I count at least twenty Orks, probably more down the street." reported Achagon looking through his sniper lenses.
"They're coming this way, they also have some sort of armoured vehicle." said Julius.
The Ork group moved towards them unaware of their opponents. The armoured vehicle was a box shaped unimaginative tank. Its wide bulk had several turret type shoota emplacements and at the centre a short muzzled cannon turret turned around looking for targets. Its front was well armoured and fitted with grinders to chew through the debris of the streets.
"Achagon take position over that roof and take down the gunners, we don't want that thing firing." ordered Ioras.
"Yes, my lord." replied Achagon and disappeared at the nearest door.
"Iulius take cover at that ruin of a building, open pinning fire on my command."
"Horatus take Xiphos members along with Rexus to engage the Ork from their flank."
"Julius, Cussax on my trail. Move!" ended Ioras with his orders.
Affirmative transmissions returned to his vox but he was already moving towards the right flats.
They get into position and waited Ork unit to move into bolter range.
"Protocol four-three." ordered Ioras into his helmet vox unit and Iulius opened fire and two Orks at the from of the unit fell down.
His heavy bolter rang at the long street and Orks went into cover.
Julius was able to hear Orks shouting about thanks to his accurate Astartes hearing.
"Oi!, Ya gitz, mov da StreetBlocka on dem firin humies!" one Ork shoted.
"Fire da big gun, fire da big 'un!" shouted another as Iulius' bolt rounds fell around him killing one of his Ork comrades.
Iulius didn't spent much ammo, he fired short burst and kept his monster of a weapon in control. If a novice were to handle such a great weapon she would empty the ammo halfway, at the first auto firing.
"Horatus, now!" ordered Ioras and the assault marines charged out of the side building, chainswords roaring.
They struck the Orks with their chainswords and shot the ones on the vehicle with bolt pistols.
Ioras and his group revealed themselves and started firing on the shoota turrets disabling several. The other turrets were already firing their shootas on full auto at Iulius' position with no effect, Iulius was well entrenched.
As the Orks became aware of the Horatus' unit killing their brethren they charged forwards to their position.
"Horatus, fall back." ordered Ioras as he laid down covering fire. The fire plan caused the maximum casualties and provided them the maximum cover.
The StreetBlocka lurched forwards and crushed the few unlucky Orks happen to be in it's path. Its remaining turrets chattering with no effect at Ioras' position.
Horatus, Herean and Deciaci fell back as the huge StreetBlocka moved forward leaving their position exposed. The sudden gap allowed many Orks to fell in their trail and into the buildings. At least a dozen Ork followed them into the narrow buildings.
Horatus let his brothers pass him and stood a moment to shot the closest Ork with his bolt pistol. He blocked the next one's choppa with his chainsword and kicked him in the guts.
The Ork fell on the mass of Orks packed behind him. They shoved the Ork and crushed him underfoot as they charged forward ignorant to their brother's demise.
Horatus ran through the narrow corridor with Orks at his heels. Horatus turned a corner and Rexus appeared at the end of the corridor. His heavy flamer was in a heavy grip, it made a sucking noise then fired a full flame column of promethium at the corridor. The closed space carried the burning gas into farther and farther and a dozen Orks lay dead, black and smoking.
"Move get back and take position." ordered Horatus and the four marines moved deeper into the building. The entire building was their kill ground and no Orks followed them after the first fiasco. The flames had poured from the doors and scared the rest of the Orks from going in. Instead they amassed their numbers outside and taking strength from the giant metalic StreetBlocka they moved at it's heels like scared children.
StreetBlocka moved rumbling ahead, it's Ork engines roaring and puffing up black smoke. It was obvious that no clever engineering went into the construction of this thing. The engine barely kept it going and its gun positions was placed so next to each other a simple grenade would take out several. Also the main cannon position was open topped and provided little protection to its manning Ork.
The cannon started to turn towards the Iulius' position but Achagon already had his sights upon the Ork manning the cannon. He fired once. Ork's brain and skull become one red liquid and blew from the back of his head splattering all around the turret.
Ioras, Julius and Cussax was picking strangler Orks one by one as Horatus' unit came out into the open and moved towards their position. The rest of the Ork
hid behind the StreetBlocka and too afraid to get out of it's covering metal hull.
Iulius stopped firing preserving his ammo while Ioras' unit fired only if Orks show their ugly faces behind the StreetBlocka.
The gun emplacements and the main cannon of the StreetBlocka was disabled and it tried to rumble backwards and escape from the Space Marines ambush.
Horatus wanted to give chase and kill the Orks but Ioras ordered otherwise.
"Stay put Horatus, we need to go."
"Yes, lord."
StreetBlocka crushed the remaining Orks under its threads as it tried to go backwards and got stuck once the pile of Orks clogged its threads. The vehicle was 'designed' to go forward and it probably broke several gears trying to force its engine to go backwards. With the Ork dead the task became impossible. The engine died out giving out dark black smoke and finally started to burn. A dozen grots came out of the vehicle, some started running away in the opposite direction. Some stayed a second to loot the dying Orks nearby. One of the Orks took out his slugga and started firing at the Grots looting him. The grots continued to loot him as he tried to shoot them, the Ork had his legs and one arm missing so they were aware that he couldn't turn. Most of the shots went into the air but one lucky bullet found its home into a Grot's skull, that saved the Ork from further being looted. Looting grots collected teeth of the fallen Orks then ran away.
"Why are the wretched Xenos collect teeth specifically?" asked Iulius perceptively.
"Probably to enact their heathen rituals." concluded Horatus then spit to the ground. He put on his helmet back on and moved to cover the front as Ioras ordered before. Julius did likewise.
"They penetrated this deep into the city." said Ioras.
"There are Orks on Echtesia and the Lion Warriors are not able to stop them coming this far?" reasoned Iulius.
"It's odd, they tried to keep this planet away from us but also don't have the means to stop it's invasion." said Ioras puzzled.
Achagon just came down from the building and came next to Ioras to get new orders.
"That was some fine shooting, marine." complemented Ioras.
"Thank you, my lord. Emperor guided my aim true." replied Achagon.
"Julius was right about you, I wasn't so sure myself about you." said Ioras.
"But you allowed me to come." pointed out Achagon.
"Yes, I learned to trust Julius' instincts, you see he is stubborn and hot headed but he also has a great grasp in the matters of war." said Ioras.
"I know, lord, I felt it since the day I was under his command." said Achagon.
"With that deal at the Wallfire bastion, if it was anyone else leading you, the casualties would be absolute." Ioras said.
Achagon just nodded, feeling bad talking about the Wallfire bastion, demise of his brothers was still fresh in his mind. He couldn't blame Julius for what happened but it happened anyway.
Rexus came in lumbering with his giant heavy flamer.
"Clever thinking Rexus. Burning them in closed spaces." said Ioras.
"I hope we get urban warfare all the way, I am of little use on open ground." said Rexus.
Ioras stopped listening to his internal vox.
"The Thunderhawk Poletemica sent us it's survey images. There seems to be a great battle going at these coordinates." he said and relayed to the visors of his squad members.
Away from the market plaza there was a great dry riverbed. The entire route of the former river was red colored. Gun fire was present even on the still images.
"We need to find the Lion Warriors command headquarters." said Iulius.
"We trail our path into these rich districts then we can make a shortcut through them and into this riverbed. Then we can came across some guard officers and locate where their communications are coming from." Ioras outlined the plan.
"Sounds good to me." said Iulius.
"Lets move." pointed Ioras towards the rich district.