Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 90
The blasted wastes of Tellaris were never silent. The thunder of distant artillery and explosions and orbital lance strikes was constant. No trees grew in the churned mud, the mountains had been levelled by Atomonic blasts and the seas were dead. All that remained were craters, bodies, wrecked machines and endless trenchworks. The sole bastions of life on Tellaris were the Hive Cities, vast conurbations that soared to the heavens above, temples of industry where teeming billions laboured to fashion shells and chassis. And yet they were still worth fighting for.
Across the stinking mud they came, sallying from Holorus Hive to challenge the invader. Tracks spewed wet mud high, coating armoured flank to the height of a man. Above that they were slate grey, factory stamped armoured plates shorn of all heraldry or insignia. Many were fresh from the forges, their first sally destined to be their last, but the brave crews did not flinch from danger. Two hundred engines roaring they rode for the freedom of their world, brave and indomitable, the Land Leviathans of Tellaris.
Riding along the left flank General Severcole Vanderspeak checked his tactical-suite for threats. An array of pict-screens closed about his head and he barely had room to move his arms. Space was limited in the middle deck of his command vehicle but he was used to that. The rumbling of tracks was familiar to him as his own stench, the narrow slits of light coming through the armourglass slits comforting and the presence of his strategoes team was reassuring. Adamantine Spear had been his chariot for a decade and he would not forsake it.
"Three minutes to contact," Tactical-officer Baratel called.
"Maintain speed," Vanderspeak ordered.
"Terran Earthshakers targeting us," Tactical-officer Laval reported coolly.
"Signal Colossi to reinforce void shields."
"There's five thousand Earthshakers pointing our way."
"That's why we're here, trust the artificers, they built the Colossi to last."
Vanderspeak examined his pict-screens. The 457th Land Leviathans were advancing swiftly, crossing the no-man's land between Tellarite lines and Terran's trenchworks. They stretched far beyond this suite's ability to scan, fourteen thousand kilometres from one side of the isthmus to the other. Fourteen thousand kilometres of razorwire, burnt-out wrecks and huddled men. Every inch was pounded daily by shells and missiles, but this was the lynchpin. Within the sight of Holorus' hive's spire top, the keystone of the defences.
Vanderspeak checked the thirty Colossi were keeping up, towering machines with tracks broad as a Chimera. Their high prows were crowned with battle cannons and their flanks sported lascannons and Heavy Bolters, but the true value of the machines was the crackling Void shield generators set atop their rear hulls. Casting a dome of protection over their lesser kin, a mobile bastion, one that was about to be tested to the limit.
An explosion rang off the energy barrier, followed a heartbeat later by a dozen more. The sky flashed and thunder battered the machines, but the voids held true, yet moments later a hundred shells exploded as one. Vanderspeak rocked in his chair, shaken despite Adamantine Spear's protection. The noise would have deafened him, had he not long ago replaced his ears with Augmetics. One did not serve long in the Land Leviathans with hearing intact. The Terrans were focusing their fire, trying to stop the Tellarites from reaching their trenches, but they were too spread out, they couldn't break the voids in time. That didn't mean the crossing was bloodless though.
Vanderspeak pulled the curved vox-horn hanging about his neck to his lips, "Transport 158A, maintain speed."
The reply crackled in his augmetic ears, "Juddering badly, think we've run over something."
"Advance, you must not fall behind!"
"It's going, it's going, we're losing the whole track unit!"
"Do not stop, whatever you do, don't stop!"
"God-Emperor save us!"
It was no good, the Crassus transport had lost a track, cut on a stray piece of wreckage below. 158A fell behind, coming to a halt. The rest of the Land Leviathans couldn't stop, they had to keep going. Swiftly the column raced on, and the void coverage with them. Terran artillery was swift to exploit the vulnerability, Earthshaker shells fell like rain. 158A disappeared in a blazing corona of explosive ordnance, thirty good men blown to atoms.
Vanderspeak gritted his teeth, "Range?!"
"Thirty seconds!" Laval reported.
"Then we must say our prayers, Gun-Captain Haldrist, bless us."
From the upper deck the superheavy's commander spoke into the vox, a pious man of ardent faith, he knew better than any the odds against them, "God-Emperor, look upon your favoured this day and know we do your bidding. Shield your faithful from the depravity of these false followers, bless our guns and lay low the wicked. We pledge ourselves to the true way and swear once again to free the galaxy from the corrupt rule of the indolent and sinful High Lords. Armour us with your grace and we shall deliver mankind from extinction!"
Cheers must be ringing on every tank, but Vanderspeak couldn't hear them. Instead he ordered, "Praetor units, commence bombardment." Two hundred and fifty vehicles fell behind, dropping out of void shield coverage. A risky ploy, but they were so close that the Earthshakers were having trouble ranging. Tracked units fell behind as missile launchers on their backs elevated, bringing their payloads to bear. Mobile rocket artillery, far faster and more accurate than cumbersome Earthshakers. Before the Terrans could readjust their aim they were firing, raining down hell on the invaders.
Firestorm missiles burst over the artillery park, forcing the gunners to duck. Commissars screamed at the men to get back to their posts, they died first, set alight head to toe by incendiary ordnance. Meanwhile Foehammer missiles fell upon tank traps lining the trenches, blasting them to rubble, opening a narrow corridor for the Tellarites to advance.
"We have our opening," Lavar reported.
"Into the breach," Vanderspeak voxed, "Land Leviathans, attack!"
The column pressed on, driving headlong into the fray. Desperate Terrans fired autocannons and lascannons, trying to deny their charge but it was no good. Here a Crassus exploded, there an Olyphant ground to a halt, but it could not stop the assault. Hull-mounted heavy bolters thundered, sweeping the trenchworks clear, then the Tellarites hit the lines.
Vanderspeak's restraints dug into his shoulders as his machine crested a trench. Adamantine Spear rode high, but long treads easily crossed the gap and slammed down on the far side. A Hellhammer superheavy, its hull rang as bolter rounds pinged off the slabs of plate, but nothing could stop the tank. The Land Leviathans were going to make it, righteous in their fury, though the cost was high.
"Flyers, heading for the Praetors," Baratel counselled.
"Nothing we can do," Vanderspeak grunted.
"They need cover."
"We have none to spare, the attack is going through no matter what!"
Terran Valkyrie gunships dove hard, aiming for the Praetors left behind. Wings heavy with missiles and nose-guns thundering they honed in on the stranded artillery, eager for blood. A wave of Plium missiles rose to greet them, from vehicles specially fitted for anti-air defence. Fifty gunships fell from the sky in smoking ruins, but it wasn't enough. The rest dove like hawks, and made short work of the artillery units. Reducing them to flaming wrecks, brave lives snuffed out, all for damnable Terran pride.
Vanderspeak's grimace pulled his scars tight, the furrows on his bald head made into ravines as he growled, "Send forth the sappers."
"We're too far out!" Laval protested.
"Colossi will lay down suppressing fire, trust in our men, they won't fail us."
The forward shield envelope opened as the Colossi rained down battlecannon shells on the Terrans. The first line of trenches had been penetrated but there remained gun posts and pillboxs between the Tellarites and the artillery park. Heavy fire broke Ferrocrete bunkers open, sandbagged emplacements were consumed in fire and dugouts collapsed on their occupant's heads. Into the breach fifteen hundred Crassus transports surged, their reinforced prows shrugging off stray shots. They broke over the shattered defenders in a steel tsunami, then rear ramps slammed down and forty thousand Tellarite soldiers ran into combat, grappling with the Terrans hand to hand. Vanderspeak felt his heart surge as he watched them in the pict-screens, the decrepit religion the Terran Ecclesiarchs spouted was dull compared to the fires of true devotion that burned in the heart of every Tellarite. They would reach the Earthshakers, no matter what.
"New contacts!" Laval yelled, "Armoured units ranging in."
"They're coming from both sides!" Baratel hollered.
Vanderspeak could see the icons ranging in along the trench lines and ordered, "We must buy our men more time. Deploy the Olyphants. Lance of Righteous Truth will hold the right flank, Adamantine Spear will protect the left, Gun-Captain Haldrist you better have a shell loaded."
Haldrist replied from the turret, "Bring them to me sir, we'll give them a taste of cold steel!"
The column shattered as two groups spilt off, racing to intercept the counter-attack. To the right a classic Baneblade led a hundred modified Crassus machines, to the left Adamantine Spear led similar numbers. Vanderspeak checked his hip, where an Inferno pistol rested, though he knew if he needed use his melta-pistol it would already be too late. The Tellarites had to stop the pincer attack, or lose the day.
In the pict-screens they came on, Leman Russ tanks barrelling towards them, turrets elevating. Crude and mass-produced machines, with thin armour and light weapons, no match for the superheavy foundaries of Tellaris, but they made up for it with numbers. Set against them were the Olyphants, modified Crassus patterns, their troop compartments gutted to make room for gun platforms. Accelerator cannons, nearly as long as the machines that carried them. They could destroy anything, but were so powerful as to roll over a Crassus' with a single shot. The Olyphants were required to halt and deploy stabilisers to fire, which meant Adamantine Spear had to hold the line for precious seconds.
"Incoming ordnance!" Laval shouted. Leman Russ tanks let rip, firing on the move as the Hellhammer closed to greet them. Vanderspeak was thrown violently against his restraints as battlecannon shells exploded over the glacis plate, smashing the crew about like peas in a drum. The pit-screens crazed, losing count of their foes as the onslaught pounded relentlessly. If he wasn't deaf already, he would be now.
"Haldrist!" Vanderspeak cried, "Are you blind?!"
"They have the range!" the Gun-captain cried.
"We can't last much longer!"
"Almost… almost…."
A Hellhammer was a mighty machine, but its weakness was range. Two hundred Leman Russ tanks drove forward, only a fraction could target the superheavy but Vanderspeak felt every hit in his bones, the armour of the Superheavy straining to hold together. Surely one tank could not withstand so many, it was insanity to think it could, and yet death did not take them. Impossibly, miraculously, Adamantine Spear withstood the barrage, then returned fire.
An almighty boom rattled the entire frame as the Hellhammer cannon spoke. A Leman Russ exploded, its front armour punched straight through. A massive detonation flipped a second clean over, landing on its turret and crushing the crew inside. Again the turret spoke, again, blasting at the Terrans from point-blank range. A Leman Russ turret flew clear of its body, another became a fireball and a third simply ground to halt, a gaping hole bored through it end to end. Vanderspeak saw flaming bodies trying to flee from the turret, but the Leman Russ design was poorly designed for crew survival. The escape hatches were few and badly placed, no one managed to get out, not one. Yet more Terran waste.
"They're trying to swarm around us!" Laval yelled.
"Sponson gunners stop them!" Vanderspeak barked.
"Exterminators pushing past!"
"Stop them, stop them!"
Adamantine Spear's lascannons blazed, gutting one Exterminator with a flank hit, but two more raced past, their plasma coils blazing. Rare and precious machines, used only for the most desperate circumstance. If they reached the Olyphants they could gut the entire line. Adamantine Spear was fully engaged, it could not turn to engage. Vanderspeak's mouth went dry as he watched disaster barrelling down on the Tellarites.
A plasma blast crashed over the bow of an Olyphant. The prow melted, metal slagging inwards, drowning the crew in a molten cauldron fit for a foundry. A second blast glanced another machine and the crew died screaming, their flesh incinerated by the raw heat of the proximity detonation. The Exterminators killed quickly and well, but their time had run out. Massive Accelerator cannons came to bear, stabilisers gripped the ground and with blasts that rocked them hard the Olyphants spoke.
Two Exterminators disappeared in fireballs, thin armour shredded by hypervelocity rounds, before the shells even had time to detonate. Two hits, two kills, and the rest were no less deadly. Adamantine Spear rocked as tanks all around exploded, wrecked so thoroughly the crews didn't even have time to know they were dead. Shot after shot, fired with stunning rapidity, each hit a kill. Accelerator cannons, against main battle tanks, the Terrans didn't stand a chance. Kill after kill, so fast Vanderspeak couldn't count, all he could do was watch icons vanishing in his pict-screens, as shrapnel pelted Adamantine Spear's armour on all sides. The Terrans didn't break, they kept coming, trying to inflict every last grain of damage they could, but when the dust settled not one Leman Russ had survived.
"Scopes are clear," Laval reported.
"The God-Emperor rode at our side," Vanderspeak breathed, "Rejoin the line, what of the right flank?"
"Seventy Olyphants destroyed, but the attack has been obliterated," Baratel reported.
"Sappers?"
"Heavy casualties, but they've reached the Earthshakers."
They'd done it, the Tellarites had got in among the Terran artillery. Sappers were even now strapping demolition charges to barrels and ammunition, ensuring none of those guns would trouble the Tellarites' lines again. Five thousand Earthshakers, a fine tally indeed, but the cost was devastating. Twenty thousand Tellarites lay in the mud, their lives given for their homeworld. Half the strike force lost and the cruellest thing was that this was only one of a dozen sorties being launched this day. Vanderspeak's father would be proud, but he felt the loss of so many in his heart. Seventeen years of slaughter and it never got any easier, he prayed it never would, he couldn't bear to be as callous as the Terrans.
Laval broke into his thoughts, "Holorus command reports Marauder Bombers two minutes out and closing!"
"They don't want us getting away," Vanderspeak hissed.
"They'll kill a lot of their own," Baratel spat.
"Terrans don't care," Vanderspeak growled, "Tell the Sappers they have sixty seconds to finish, then get back in their transports. Mobilise the Olyphants and get us back under void cover. We're done here, the Land Leviathans have won another fine victory: Tellaris Triumphant!"