After Activation 1193 - Origin Universe
After Insertion 1154 - Cultivation Universe
Millennium 166-32M - 40k Universe
The Imperium's ground forces had been severely savaged by the Ork threat. They had faked the fact that they were underground and then rose up to strike at the Imperium while they were attempting to consolidate their own forces.
As it was, they were unable to even land more troops in fear that they too would be destroyed, reinforcements were being dispatched but just how effective they would be in the face of the Ork threat was debatable.
Something had to be done and the advocacy of some for the invasion of the underground as gaining traction. It was the only option that many of them could see as an out for the situation.
As to how they would be doing that was unknown. There was nothing in the fleet as it was that could initiate an invasion of the very planet itself. While they could fight above ground with ease, doing the same for the crust of the world below then was another matter entirely and it was highly debatable as to whether or not they would be able to even breach the surface. The Orks as it was were far too spread out, far too disparate, or so was the thought. The other being that they were organized and waiting for them underneath.
Both were questions that needed to be answered and frankly the Imperium did not want to waste time considering them.
When given a chance to consider perhaps they should use vast machines not seen since the Great Crusade, vehicles that were able to breach the very crust of the planet, capable of tunnelling through any and all defences, or using the orbital cannons on the ships of the imperium to crack the surface and allow their men to pour in unmolested by the Ork Menace. The Imperial High Command pondered, their decisions would influence the direction of the entire campaign, one that might lead to disaster or the greatest of glories.
One would allow for their Regiments to enter the planet's no doubt massive underground tunnel network with surgical precision, and the other was simply cracking open the planet and picking where they wanted to enter from. There would be a plethora of choices, what with the planet's not even existing anymore, not whole at any rate.
The Orks had deposited something in the area of several hundred ships into the system, each of those ships containing a ridiculous number of Orks. They all had to have gone somewhere, inside of the planet being the most likely option, which in turn meant that in terms of numbers, the currently available forces were whole inadequate. Something would have to be done and even now there were more ships warping in from around the Imperium.
This was one of the greatest threats in the last 1500 years, the Orks growing more powerful was something that had to be avoided at all costs. The fact that the Orks were continuously warping in ship after a ship meant that they were being attracted to what was very likely a massive amount of Waaagh(!) energy.
While it was nothing now, the fact that there were so many Orks in a single place was incredibly dangerous in and of itself, the longer they stayed alive, the more Orks would come.
So long as it kept happening, the ships of the fleet could be confident that the threat had not been removed as of yet. That they would need to continue the work, continue fighting. Only when the planet was scoured clean of the Orks could they declare their work done.
And so it was that the decision was made to begin the bombardments. They were going to crack the planet open, demonstrate the power of the Imperium as a means of reassuring the Imperial citizen as to the continued might of the Imperium while also demonstrating to the enemy that humanity was still ready and willing to fight.
And so it was that the massive Macro Cannon shells were being loaded. They were not going to be firing the Lances or the other energy weapons at this point in time. They did want for the planet to be cracked after all, not turned to glass as the heat based weaponry was known to do. Glass would make getting inside rather difficult.
Each and every shell was the size of a Hab block, several hundred meters long, 2 thirds of that high and each shell capable of ripping through a hapless ship dead in the Void, quite literally punching a hole through the hull if the cannon made its way into the internal workings and the adamantite armour. There was very little that would be able to stand against the might of a Macro shell, but that did not mean that there were not a large number of them who tried to do so anyway. Upon breaking through the shell of the vessel, it would then explode with the fury of a thousand suns, tearing apart the hapless foe.
To load one, an entire army had to be employed. First came the hundreds upon hundreds of men that had to clamp the shell to the pulley system that rose above the chamber in which the ammunition was presented. The crew would then work to pull the massive shell across the gun room floor until they were at the gun, itself a massive entity, one that had to be fired by a trusted Engiseer, one that would be able to ensure that there was nothing wrong and they were not in fact, doing something stupid like firing the shell out a barrel was warped in some way.
In doing that they might as doom all of them to the Warp. There were many things that man could survive, being in the same chamber or rather the same general area that a Macro shell that was about to explode was not one of those things.
Humanity tended not to do every well when they were being made into paste, not a delicious one either.
Once the shell was loaded, the truly massive breach close and the crews told to vacate the area. There were still stragglers, there were always stragglers, doing something that only they knew the importance of.
What it was mattered not, for the Gunnery commanding officer would then fire the cannon and any still inside of the room would be turned into paste by the sound, the shockwave of the cannon firing.
Then they would load the cannon again, a process that took hours if not days to do given the size of the thing.
The Imperium of Man still used slave labour to load the cannon, it not having the autoloader which was ubiquitous in the Adepts Mechanics. The exact reason for such was unknown, but it was known that the mechanicus loved to horde their technology and keep it for themselves regardless of the cost of doing so.
It was these cannons that Mechanicus assistants were now going to be putting holes in the surface of Ullanor Prime with.
The ships of the fleet that had them turning onto their sides and preparing to fire the massive cannons that was the first part of the new plan.
The Orks were waiting inside of the planet and they were going to force them to fight the Imperial Guard as they made their own way inside of the giant fortification network that was proving to be impervious to attempts by the guard to get inside of it and taking the fight to the Orks.
Each cannon of the fleet, every single one of the Imperials who were there and the Space Marines were preparing themselves to descend into the planet and take it back from the control of the Orks.
There had been no human survivors on Ullanor, the civilian population wiped out. It was therefore in their standing orders to let no Ork die painlessly. They were going to die, that much was a given, how they were going to die was another question, however.
Complete eradication was the only answer.
And so the fleets prepared themselves to crack open the planet.
Luft of the Cadian Shock Troops saw inside of his dropship. It was a gargantuan beast, capable of holding 200 Imperial Guardsmen, their transports, and support. Each vessel shaped like a very large and squat cylinder, each of them able to descend from orbit, enduring the stresses of atmospheric re-entry and then depositing its troops before lifting off again, all the while withstanding enemy fire.
Each and every dropship therefore, was useful in the greatest definition of the word and Luft was glad that he was able to be inside of on. It was certainly much safer than being outside of one that was for certain.
The mission briefing had set a picture that looked rather grim from Luft's point of view. A planet that had been invaded by the Orks, taken over, the population killed, and now the Orks were waiting underground for the Imperial Guard to dig them out, ready to engage anything that went down into the depths of the planet.
Meaning that in simple terms… this was not going to be a pleasant trip.
He was going to be fighting underground which was never a pleasant prospect, not when the enemy outnumbered you and had all the advantages in a cramped environment. They were bloody Orks after all, each one of the buggers was able to withstand Lasgun shots, able to use their bulk to cut through multiple guardsmen at the same time, able to tear their way through dozens of Guardsmen before finally succumbing to their wounds… and in the underground where the fact that they couldn't shoot for shit didn't matter… well, he was going to be having a very bad day, that much was for certain.
Still, as Luft settled into his chair, he considered that maybe things would not be so bad when it came down to it. It was not as if the Orks had any way off the planet, they should be able to do this slowly and just clear them out one tunnel at a time, able to just win the day… safely.
Luft smiled at that, the idea of pushing through and defeating Orks "safely" being a massive joke.
"What's so funny Luft?" Asked Roger, the heavy gunner of the squad.
"Was thinking about being able to safely fight Orks in tunnels," Luft replied, grinning at Roger, both of them had been serving the Imperium for several years already. They had been fighting the Orks for 3 years now, 3 years of constant fighting when one measured it out. They were raiders more than anything else, however, dropping onto planets, trying to take whatever they could and leave.
But with the Warp Lanes, the Imperium was able to drop ships in behind them, crippling their ships and then dropping their Regiments to the ground to engage and destroy the Orks on the ground.
It was as if they were able to just pick them off with little to no effort, all thanks to the Imperium's faster reaction times.
Some of Orks were able to set up their little warrens that they used to feed themselves and breed, the warrens that the Imperial Guard then had to get into the and clear out. Each and every meter, each and every turn had the potential for an Ork to be there, growling and ready to tear apart whoever it was that had invaded their little home.
It was hell on earth for those that tried to do as they were ordered and take out the Orks. A hell that they were heading into right now, only instead of a few warrens and rat tunnels… it was an entire planet's worth of them.
Every single Cadian on this dropship knew what it was that they were getting into. Every single one of them knew what was about to happen to them.
Most of them would not be coming back, the Orks had control of the close combat arena, the very same arena that they were heading into and throwing their bodies at. They were not going to make it out of this one in one piece.
Luft chuckled to himself, grinning at the others in the squad. Each and every one of them grinned back.
They knew what they were getting into and they knew that they weren't going to be making it out of this.
Still, they were Imperial Guard and they were going to do their duty.
After Activation 1193 - Origin Universe
After Insertion 1154 - Cultivation Universe
Millennium 166-32M - 40k Universe
Luft fired his lasgun. The red bolt slamming into the Ork that tried to emerge out the other side. Its face split into a growl as the forehead simply evaporated in a burst of blood and gore, the shot was accurate, the thing was going to die very soon. Hopefully…
Just to make sure, Luft fired once more, twice more. The jaw being destroyed and the rest of the brain just pouring out of the hole that was already there.
It toppled forward and he grinned at it. The corpse was steaming, the Ork releasing the spores that would allow for it to breed. As for Luft, he didn't care about that, one more Ork was dead and the path forward was open.
Lifting his right first and waving it forward, Luft was aiming down the misshapen tunnel that was what the Orks considered to be a "corridor." The damned things were disorientating, the metal, the rust, the way that there were twists and turns all over the bloody place.
Just aiming down the line and punching the Orks that came through in the face with Lasgun bolts. That was all he could do since trying to predict where the damned things came out was simply impossible.
This damned warren.
An entire frakking warren.
Seriously, what the frak.
Did they not know how to design a bloody tunnel? He had been here for weeks now, going deeper and deeper into the facility. Just heading ever downward, just fighting through the Orks, just punching through the… defensive lines?
There were a few Orks here and there, just a few of them fighting back, just a few stragglers. It made them complacent and it was certainly a dangerous little here, going for days without seeing an Ork, and all of a sudden seeing one jump out of a little crevice here and there, a wave of little Gretchins and Grots.
On the surface, he had heard rumours that they were fending off massive numbers of the damned things. Unlucky bastards, or maybe lucky that they didn't need to be in here.
Luft considered that maybe… just maybe that they were walking into a massive ambush of some kind.
Just… maybe.
Luft cursed his own thoughts. He had thought there would be an ambush and then suddenly there was a giant frakking ambush.
There was a large cavern of sorts, a large frakking gap in the sheets of metal that formed the rest of the tunnels corridors. The bloody Orks were planning this and it was probably what was claiming the lives of squads and companies that Luft had heard of. The Orks were pulling them into ambushes and that was just frakking terrifying.
They had to get out of here. There was nothing in here that they could do, they were going to die, horribly. Very horribly.
"Fall back! Into the tunnels!" Luft roared, trying to get the men and women of his squad back into the little tunnel that they had pulled out of. "We can take them one by one in there. We're sitting ducks out here!" Luft shouted, his voice high, the fear threading through it.
Only for an explosion to destroy the tunnel entrance behind him and the tunnel itself.
Frak.
The Orks were waiting for them, this was an ambush and he wasn't insane.
Frak.
Luft dived back down, joining Roger as he crouched behind his Heavy Bolter and hammered away at the Orks that were pushing their way forward. Trying to get to him and his squishy human counterparts.
Luft frowned and propped up his lasgun, joining Roger as he blew away the bloody greenskins.
CrackCrackCrack
The lasgun punching holes in the beasts, the horde roaring and hollering as they jogged forward. Their little Ork slug-throwers firing wildly at the Cadians who were hugging the ground and trying to keep themselves alive.
Luckily the Orks were inaccurate and the Cadians were alive… for now. The damned Orks were unable to hit them and that was thankfully going to be keeping them alive. For now, that was.
Luft couldn't even dig a little trench for them to hide behind, the damned floor was made of metal. It looked like they were going to die here, they were going to die well.
The damned Orks wanted to kill them? Well, they were going to go down with as many Orks with them as possible.
"Frak them up lads! They want us dead! They die first!" Roger roared, his face flashing in time with the Heavy Bolter, his arms jerking wildly as he fired.
"11 O'Clock!" Called out the right flank, Luft directing his fire on the lead Ork that was trying to get close enough to throw what looked like one grenade… stuck with 10 heads more around the original. The Orks really did come up with a great deal of things when it came to making weapons, that much was for sure. Just how much of it was useful on the other hand had to be debated. The fact that they were Orks certainly didn't help there.
One just had to ask "how much explosives until this is functionally useless".
Still, he fired at the explosives in its hands and grinned as the grenades detonated with a bang, the Ork and the ones around it caught in the explosion, all of them shredded into little pieces as the shrapnel spread out in a curtain of death and pain.
As for Luft, he was back to aiming at the Orks, pulling the trigger and generally not having a good time as the damned things just kept coming. Heavy sounding fire was coming from the rear, which likely meant that the damned things had bigger guns that they were not deploying. Which naturally meant that he was not going to be getting out of this one in one piece was he…
Luft sighed briefly before redirecting his fire.
His eyes were scanning the area, trying to spot the Orks with the big guns while his hands moved almost instinctively, laying bolts down the range at the Orks advancing forward to his position. Just how useful it was had to be called into question.
He was putting holes in one or 2 of them, but they just kept bloody coming.
As much fire as they were putting out, there was only 10 of them and the Orks were about to close in.
Luft resolved himself to the fact that he was going to die now. He might be able to stab one of them in the head, but that wasn't going to be doing very much now was it?
Luft closed his eyes and rose to his knees, flinching slightly as the gurgle to his right and the silence on the Heavy Bolter told him that Roger had been hit. He was going to rush forward and try to maybe bayonet one of the things, try to get it in the eye for the best effect.
He closed his eyes and was about to rush forward, only for a loud crashing and a whirr to resound through the cavern.
The fact that it was a cavern meant that it was loud in the first place, the place reverberated like a bastard, but this took the cake. The Orks themselves looked confused and even turned around to investigate what it was. For that matter, Luft himself looked back.
Only to be blown on his back, it looked like it was a bomb and oh shit.
There was a small cloud of red mist that told him the Orks had been caught in the blast, enough of them that he hadn't been killed, the Orks taking the brunt of what looked like a truly terrifying blast. The fact that the walls to the rear of the cavern had been blown out was enough indication of that.
"For the Emperor!" Came the roars, made infinitely more terrifying by the voice modulators on the helmets of the Space Marines.
They dropped from the hole in the ceiling.
Not just any Space Marines either.
These were Black Templars, their armour and the fact that they all had swords gave that away. What the rose on the chest plates meant he wasn't sure about, but it was enough that they were here at all.
Luft grinned and hefted his lasgun to his shoulders, if the Orks wanted to ambush, then maybe they should be prepared to be counter ambushed.
Pulling the trigger, Luft signalled the squad… or what was left of the squad to begin firing as well. They were going to be killing their way through the Orks and surviving this one.
The Orks roared in response to the Black Templars and rushed at them, shouting things along the lines of "squishy 'uumies are 'ere" or the like, charging headlong into the blades of the Templars, only to be torn apart in what Luft could only describe as truly terrifying sword work.
It was… so well executed that he wasn't sure that he was even watching actual humans do it. Even if they were Space Marines, the fact that they were able to slide and transition in and out of different stances, all looking like they were dancing while they tore their way through the Orks that came too close was enough for him to stop firing at all.
The fact that they were standing on literal mounds of Ork bodies was enough for him to get an eye on them. The Orks were at least as tall as he was in the first place which made it several times harder to even see past the first line of the damned things in the first place. As it was, he was still not out of this one. The rear Orks might decide to turn around and slice in him half if he wasn't careful.
Which meant paying attention to the situation and not allowing the Orks to get away from this one in a single piece, not if he wanted to not be cut in half from behind or something equally ridiculous.
Luft raised his lasgun and prepared to once again start shooting, the faster they did this, the faster that he could look at the wounds that Roger had, assuming he was still alive at all.
"Guardsman. This is your unit?" Asked one of the Templars, the towering Space Marine stood over Luft as he tried to patch up Roger, the poor bastard had taken a slug to the left lung and was probably not going to make it.
Worst came to worst he would deliver him the Emperor's Mercy, but that was not for a while yet.
"Yes my Lord," Luft said, his eyes looking up at the figure, his hands still trying to keep pressure on the wound while their squad combat-medicae did his work.
"You held the Orks for a time. Commendable. Do you need an exfiltration?" Asked the giant, much to his Luft's surprise. It was certainly very strange for a Space Marine to interfere themselves with the affairs of an Imperial Guardsmen… especially these Guardsmen. It wasn't like they were worth very much when compared to a Space Marine, a Chapter of them was worth many dozens of Regiments when it came down to it.
"If that would not trouble you, my Lords, my squadmate is lungshot and we need facilities to treat him if he is to live," Luft said, bowing his head.
The first of them instead walked over and directly picked up the body or Roger and walked back over to the back of the Cavern where they had made their original entrance.
Looking up, Luft could see the hole in which the Space Marine had dropped from in the first place. One that was… Luft didn't finish his thoughts as he was pulled back by the Space Marine.
"Watch yourself, Guardsman." Said the Space Marine as what looked to be a large pod dropped through the hole and slammed into the ground before him. It looked like the Drop Pods that the Space Marines used to land on planets, but this one looked larger… and connected to a massive cord… strange.
"This is the Delver. A gift of the Adeptus Mechanicus. It will take you to the surface." Said the Space Marine depositing Rogal in one of the seats.
Motioning for Luft to follow… well, this was going to make things easier… why didn't they have one of these in the first place?