As the Chimera lurched forward, Trooper Anders recited the Litany of Loading as he checked over his lasgun. His platoon had to redeploy, but no-one seemed to know why - or if they did, they weren’t telling him, the youngest in the squad. Barely eighteen, yet already being thrown into one of the bloodiest areas of the warzone.
Sergeant Blake looked up from the vox-caster he’d been listening to. "Alright, men, the words just come through. We’re moving to just ahead of the Ork advance. The Lieutenant says we’ve got to hold the region at the border, until they can get some reinforcements to us. There’ll be some artillery fire, but not a great deal. They reckon we’ll have to hold for a day at most, then they’ll have some support to us. Get ready, and let’s kill us some Orks!"
Like all natives of Armageddon, Anders had a hatred of the Orkoid race. Ever since he’d heard the war stories from the veterans who’d survived the Great War, he’d wanted a chance to get some measure of vengeance for all the civilians who’d been killed by the Orks, for all the people who’d been herded into the labour camps and been forced to work until they’d died from exhaustion or malnutrition. His hands tightened on the stock of his lasgun as he thought of the tortures that they must have endured, the pain, the suffering.
He looked around the Chimera at the rest of his squad, seeing their expressions harden as they too thought about the upcoming combat. No-one was ever keen to get into combat the veterans said, unless he wanted to get himself killed. Kloonie seemed to notice the look Anders was giving him, and smiled encouragingly. Everyone else was too preoccupied with their own thoughts to worry what he thought, what he felt.
Anders noticed the noise from the engine getting quieter - they must be there. He rushed a final check, making sure he had all his equipment - bayonet, rations, grenades, night sight. Everything was there and ready, and as the ramp dropped at the back of the Chimera, he said one final prayer to the Emperor.
Outside, the hab-complex was a smoking ruin, where the crude artillery of the Orks had smashed what had been there into rubble. Now it would provide shelter once more, to the men of the Imperial Guard. Men rushed to and fro, setting up defences, building foxholes. The Chimeras parked, blocking up streets while being able to fire when needed. Sentinels hunkered down behind buildings. Heavy weapons were manhandled into position, and the gunners started to do final checks on the machine spirits.
A shout went up, and Anders turned to see one of the other Guardsmen pointing to the horizon. Dust clouds had started to appear - the Orks were on their way. Anders ran over to where his squad had been placed, powering up his lasgun as he did so. Dropping to the prone position, he flicked open his telescopic sight and played it over the horizon. Crude Ork vehicles filled it, roaring towards the waiting Guardsmen. Dreadnoughts, so unlike their Imperial counterparts, stomped forwards, Killer Kans following them. Ork boyz rode in their trucks, firing their weapons off into the air, racing their allies onwards. They were well out of range, but closing fast.
"Heads up, boys!" shouted Sergeant Blake. "We’ve got incoming!"
Anders heard the whistling shriek as the Earthshaker shells descended through their long arc, dropping towards the Orks ahead. Instinctively he covered his ears and opened his mouth, not wanting his eardrums to get blown out by the pressure wave of the impacting shells. Looking up, he saw a wall of fire blossom in the front of the Ork force as the shells did their deadly work. Trucks disintegrated under direct hits, and Anders could see body parts fly around. But even with the damage inflicted by this, they kept coming.
With a bark, the heavy bolters around him opened up, spitting their explosive shells out in a long stream. Anders could see a line of small explosions of dust as the first few shots landed short, but the gunners quickly corrected their aim, playing their rounds across the exposed Orks in their transports. Missile launchers spat their projectiles towards the foes, blowing parts off trucks and walkers. The platoons sole lascannon joined in the calvacade of heavy weapons fire, a beam of searing white fire briefly connecting it to one of the Kans. The Kan stopped moving, a perfectly circular hole drilled straight through it. The multilasers opened fire on squadrons of war-bikes, spraying them with energy shells. One of the bikers swerved to avoid being hit, only to crash into another of the bikes in his squadron, and both exploded on impact.
"Wait for it lads", the sergeant said. "On my command, FIRE!"
Anders had picked out one brute on the back of the leading truck, and triggered a three round burst at him, as he had been taught. Two of the shots hit the Ork in the chest, burning through its thick outer hide, but the Ork appeared to roar out in defiance. It was the third shot, hitting it inside the mouth, that killed it, exploding what little brain it had out through the top of its skull. Even then, the Ork stood for a few seconds before crumpling and being thrown off the back of the transports.
Anders was about to fire at another Ork, but through his eyepiece he saw the truck explode, cartwheeling end over end as it threw its passengers off in every direction. Most of them got back up again, but he concentrated on those Orks getting closer to the battleline, seeing as they were more dangerous.
Beams of laser fire lashed out from the squad, washing over the Orks as they came every closer. A harsher sound came from further down the line as Gastner fired the squad’s plasma gun at the approaching vehicles, trying to slow the Ork advance. The Orks began to return fire, shoota shells hammering into the cover that the ruins provided. Crude rokkits smashed into the armour of the Chimeras, creating huge scorch marks, but doing no real damage.
"Fix bayonets!" came the shout from the Sergeant as he realised just how close the Orks were. Anders scrabbled at his scabbard, loosing the blade and sliding it into place on the hot muzzle of his weapon. Taking aim once more, he put a burst of fire into the driver’s compartment of the nearest trukk. Nothing appeared to have happened, but the trukk changed course into a wide turn to the left. Another of the Ork vehicles smashed into the side of it, the ram-bar on the front biting deep into the metal and flipping it over. At the battlelines, Anders was amazed to see the other Ork vehicle back up and drive straight over the damaged trukk, crushing the vehicle and its survivors alike.
More and more firepower hammered into the Orks as they jumped off their transports, ready for the final charge. Guardsmen crouched nervously behind their cover, waiting for the howl that would signal the start of the assault. The surviving Dreadnought and Kans clanked up to the line of greenskins. At the edge of his hearing, Anders could pick out a whistling noise. He cringed - if artillery hit this close, there was a good chance it would take the infantry with the Orks.
From deep in the Ork lines, a guttural roar emerged. "WAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!" the Orks yelled as they charged. "For the Emperor! For Armageddon! For vengeance!" the Guardsmen shouted in reply as they fired their last few shots before engaging the greenskins in close combat. Choppas descended into human flesh as bayonets stabbed into the tough Orks. In the back of his mind, Anders could sense the whistling sound getting louder and louder as he fought, stabbing and firing as he attempted to exact revenge for those of his people who’d been killed by the orks so many years before.
An especially brutal Ork ran at him, choppa raised and its crude pistol firing shots at him. Anders dived forwards, under its shots, rolling and firing as he came back up to his feet merely a few strides away from the greenskin. A lucky shot hit the Orks hand, the shock rather than the pain causing it to drop its gun. The Ork grinned, lashing out with the choppa as he got within striking range. Anders swayed back, allowing the choppa to pass in front of him before stabbing the Ork in the throat with his bayonet. The Ork grunted, apparently not noticing the stream of blood emerging from its neck. Finding his bayonet stuck, Anders pulled the trigger, blowing the Orks head off and its body away from his gun.
Looking around, Anders could see the thin line of Guardsmen was barely holding against the Orks’ close combat might. He moved back into the fray, stabbing at Orks already engaged as he did so, trying to help out his comrades. Anders could see Blake wrestling with a particularly muscular specimen, but being slowly forced to give ground. Anders got behind the Ork and clubbed it with the butt of his rifle. The Ork didn’t even appear to notice, concentrating as it was its fight with Blake. Anders reversed his rifle and stabbed the Ork at the base of its skull, then shot it for good measure, showering his sergeant with good measure. Blake fell over forwards as the resistance ended, knocking Anders over as well.
As his view switched to the sky, Anders noticed a number of black dots rapidly increasing in size. Ignoring them and the whistling noise for the moment, he got back to his feet to fight once more. A clanking sound behind him drew his attention, and he whirled around, to see a metal monstrosity stood there, one arm terminating in a huge whirling blade, the other in a flame-thrower. Anders backed away, knowing there was no way he could fight it - the only weapon he had against it he had were krak grenades, and he doubted that he would be able to get close enough to attach them. The Kan moved towards him, its buzzsaw moving in wide deliberate sweeps to stop him closing on it.
Anders stumbled, falling backwards over a low section of wall, but as he did so he felt a succession of hard impacts on the ground. He cringed, thinking the artillery barrage had hit after all, but saw no explosions. Instead, he had to roll quickly to avoid being cut in two by the Kan, firing blindly at it as he did so in the hope of putting off. A burst of mechanical laughter emerged from the Kan as the blasts merely melted the paint work and burned off some of the rust. As it moved in for the attack which Anders knew would finish him, he heard a huge cheer emerge from the remaining Guardsmen. A harsh barking sound started up, and the Kan in front of him was rocked to the side by a number of explosive impacts.
Looking around wildly for the source of these shots, Anders felt his heart lift as he saw marines of the Adeptus Astartes advancing towards the beleaguered Kan. Even more impressively, he saw another of the drop pods open up, allowing the huge armoured bulk of a Dreadnought to emerge, the barrels of its assault cannon beginning to spin as it prepared to fire. Even though he’d only seen Space Marine Dreadnoughts in the training holo-vids, Anders thought this one looked odd. A large metal star was affixed to its sarcophagus, while there appeared to be a huge Stetson on the top. Clouds of smoke swirled around it, and Anders could see what appeared to be a cigar emerging from one corner of the Dreadnoughts torso.
The Kan turned and started to move towards it - the Ork pilot obviously feeling that a puny human was beneath its attention. The Space Marines were storming through the combat, dropping Orks with boltgun fire and flashing chainsword blades. Anders heard a triple phut as the Dreadnought fired its smoke launchers. The Kan hesitated, not knowing where its foe had gone. An amplified voice emerged from behind the smoke.
"Hey you, Ork scum, you gotta ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky? Well, scum, do ya?" With that odd-sounding challenge, the Marine walker charged through the smoke cloud from one side, power fist raised ready to strike. It slammed into the Kan, making it stagger drunkenly to one side, as the power first grasped the vehicles close combat arm, tightening and tightening until with shriek of distorted metal the arm snapped off. The Dreadnought threw it to one side, impaling an Ork on the still spinning blade as it did so, punching its power fist forwards once more. The ancient weapon slammed through the armour of the Kan and the Dreadnought removed its arm, holding the Ork pilot in its fist. The Ork battered the arm with its bare fists, but it could have easily been trying to move a rock. With a quick clench of its servomotors, the Dreadnought crushed the pilot and dropped it to the ground, stepping on it as it moved off in search of other prey.
Anders followed the dreadnought, for the sheer power of the behemoth had entranced him. Its assault cannon spat death towards the Orks, the shells blowing a number of them apart. It raised its close combat arm and a sheet of flame washed over the survivors of that unit, charring them down to the very bones.
The Ork Dreadnought had finally noticed the threat that the Marine walker posed to its forces, so it turned away from the squad of Guardsmen that it had been slaughtering and moved over towards it. Anders started to shout a warning, but the Dreadnought’s sensors seemed to be better than his eyesight, as it had turned its torso before he had opened his mouth. It opened fire with its assault cannon, a line of impacts stuttering over the hull, but they didn’t even slow the crude Ork construct down. The Marine appeared to notice this, and its aim dropped lower, its shots hitting home in a bunch of hydraulics around its legs. In a spray of oil and other fluids, the cables gave way.
The Ork walker noticed the problem immediately, as one leg refused to work, meaning that all it could do was move in a circle. The Marines heavy flamer fired again, covering the Ork vehicle in a sheet of liquid fire. The Ork didn’t even notice that, and it lowered its close combat arms, only to raise the two rokkit launchers it had attached as well. The Marine carried on with its steady advance, but Anders could heard it drawing in a large breath. Finally, just as it looked like the Ork was going to fire, the Marine breathed out, expelling a cloud of choking smoke, so thick that as it enveloped its majestic form Anders lost sight of it. He halted, looking around for any Orks near him,. But the main close combat appeared to have slackened off with the marine assault, and the majority of the surviving Orks were clustered at the far end of the defensive line. Once more, an amplified metallic voice emerged from the smoke.
"You gotta know one thing and one thing only, Orkoid - this hive ain’t big enough for the both of us. Right?" The inside of the smoke cloud lit up with the sound of an explosion, and Anders cringed, thinking that perhaps the Ork had fired at the Marine. Ponderous footfalls made the ground shuddered slightly, and he looked up to see the Marine Dreadnought walking out from the smoke, the banner from the Ork Dreadnought held in its power fist. On seeing this, the morale of the few remaining Orks broke, and they fled back towards their surviving fire, Marines and Guardsmen alike pouring firepower into their backs as they ran. |
