The foothills of the Varanesian Peaks lay beyond the great pine forest, hidden today, as on most days. On those rare occasions when the cloud cover broke and the sky shone bright and blue, the mountains were visible, rendered in sharp detail, the land displaying a rare beauty. It was everything Sebastev’s home world might have been were it not covered from sea to poisoned sea in gas belching, city-sized manufactories.
We may not have the same grand vistas, Sebastev thought to himself, but at least Vostroya is no traitor world.
He turned at a muttered curse from behind him. His comms officer and adjutant, Lieutenant Kuritsin, was crouching by the rear wall of the trench, adjusting the frequency dials on his vox-caster back and forth in tiny increments. His motions betrayed a mild frustration.
Still, thought Sebastev, you’ve a lot more patience than I have, Rits. I’d have blasted the damned thing to pieces by now.
Long-range comms had been unreliable since they’d landed on the planet. Some two thousand years after massive volcanic eruptions in the far south had kick-started this Danikkin ice age, tiny particles of volcanic debris in the high atmosphere still played hell with signals over distance.
Short-range vox, at least, was somewhat less affected.
“Captain,” said Kuritsin as he joined Sebastev on the firing step, “that was a message from the colonel’s office.”
“A full message?” asked Sebastev doubtfully.
“I’m afraid not, sir. The last half was mostly static.”
“Sometimes I feel guilty for making you carry that bloody thing, Rits. Just give me what you’ve got.”
“Yes, sir. Lieutenant Maro just wanted to let us know, sir. A Chimera left Korris HQ a few minutes ago, heading for our current position. It shouldn’t take long to arrive.”
Not an inspection, thought Sebastev. The colonel knows better than to trouble us at a time like this, and Maro wouldn’t have warned us if it was good news.
Sebastev frowned under his scarf and said, “I don’t suppose you know who’s riding it?”
“I’m afraid we didn’t get that far, captain. Would you like me to keep trying?”
Sebastev was about to answer when the vox-bead in his ear crackled. It was Lieutenant Vassilo, commander of Third Platoon. Vassilo to company leader. “Movement among the trees. Lots of movement.”
“No, Rits,” said Sebastev to his adjutant, “it’ll have to wait. It sounds like we’re about to have our hands full.”
Sebastev keyed the company command channel on his vox-bead, cleared his throat and said, “Captain Sebastev to platoon leaders. I want all squads on full alert. Wake up, gentlemen. Expect a charge from the tree line any minute. I can bloody well smell them coming.”
Sebastev’s officers broke through the static with brief confirmations.
“Rits, get a message off to First and Fourth Companies. Tell them we’ve got activity at Korris East, grid-sector H-5. Make sure they get the message, and keep Korris HQ updated on our status.”
“Yes, sir,” said Lieutenant Kuritsin.
As Sebastev raised his magnoculars again, Kuritsin transmitted his message to the company commanders in the neighbouring sections of the trench. Each Guardsman wore a vox-bead. The devices didn’t have much range, maybe five kilometres on a good day, just one or two as standard on Danik’s World, but they were absolutely vital for coordinating operations. Anything over that range required a heavy vox-caster set like the one Kuritsin carried around, strapped to his back. Every company and platoon leader in the Sixty-Eighth had a comms officer beside him.
Sebastev didn’t have the faintest idea how vox worked, but that was the Imperium for you, he supposed. If the Priests of Mars understood it, they guarded the knowledge jealously. No matter. So long as everything worked as it was supposed to, that was enough. Sebastev’s own regular obeisance to the machine-spirits seemed to keep his equipment in working order.
He flexed his fingers. That feeling had descended on him again, the tightness in his muscles, in his gut, as if he needed to piss. He knew it was partly the cold, but it was more than just that. He pulled the folds of his thick, white cloak tighter around his body, glad of its protection from the worst of the winds, and for the tall fur hat that warmed his head.
Slow adrenal increase. He always felt it before they came. Another tide of violence was building, about to spill over, to shatter the relative silence of the deep winter. The feeling was so strong it left little room for doubt.
How many will I lose this time, he wondered? Twenty? Thirty? By Terra, let it be less.
If he worked smart, and if the Emperor was with him, maybe he could keep the numbers down. It was what he excelled at, so Colonel Kabanov had told him. Sebastev hoped the old man wasn’t just blowing smoke up his backside. Good men still died under his command, and bad ones, too.
He keyed his vox to the company’s open channel and addressed his troops. “Ready yourselves, Firstborn. Check your kit. Follow your platoon leaders.”
Up and down the line, he could sense the men preparing themselves, switching mental gears at the sound of his voice. These were the times he missed his old friend and mentor, Major Dubrin, the most. The man had always been ready with an inspirational phrase or quote to bolster the troops. Conscious of this, Sebastev struggled for something to say. “Ask for the blessings of the Emperor. Do your duty without hesitation, free of all doubt, and when those ugly green bastards come charging over the snow, drop them with a lasbolt to the brain, and buy us all another day of righteous service in the Imperial Guard!”
That’ll have to do, thought Sebastev. I’ve never been much of a speechmaker. You should be standing here, Dubrin, girding these men for battle. An old grunt like me has no business in officer’s clothes. Any blue-blooded bastard in Twelfth Army Command can tell you that much. If it weren’t for my damned promise…
Lieutenant Kuritsin spoke from behind him. “Captain, First and Fourth Companies report movement all along the line, sir. Looks like a big one.”
As if on cue, an all too familiar sound erupted from the distant trees: the rage-filled battle cry of an ork leader. If the sub-zero temperatures of the Danikkin day weren’t enough to chill a man’s blood, an alien roar like that would do it. More sub-human roaring sounded on the air, racing over the white drifts to the ears of the anxious Guardsmen, signalling the start of the battle.
Sebastev tapped a finger on his adjutant’s vox-caster and said, “Monitor the regimental command channels for me, Rits. Keep me updated on the status of the First and Fourth. I’ll need to know what’s going on in their sectors. We don’t want any surprises.”
“Understood, sir,” replied Kuritsin, “but transmissions are really starting to break up between here and Korris HQ. I think the weather is worsening.”
Sebastev looked up at the sky. The snowfall was getting heavier, but the gusting winds had eased a little. He spoke again on the company’s command channel. “Ready yourselves, Firstborn.”
Lasgun charge packs were drawn from pockets all along the trench, and clicked into place under long, polished barrels.
“Maintain fire discipline. Power settings at maximum. Choose your targets. I want redundancy minimised. Remember, all of you, that temperature, visibility and the nature of our opponent have reduced lethal range to approximately one half. Any trooper wasting bolts on long shots will immediately forfeit his rahzvod allocation. You don’t fire until I bloody well say so.”
Despite the usual groans from nearby soldiers at the thought of losing their alcohol, Sebastev knew he hardly needed to warn them. He was proud of them, his Fifth Company. Their discipline was rock solid. Most of his men were as dedicated and faithful as a commander could have wished for, committed to a life of fighting for the honour of Vostroya and the glory of the Imperium of Man.
Faith is the armour of the soul, thought Sebastev. That’s what Commissar Ixxius used to say.
Commissar Ixxius was another friend and mentor who’d been lost to the campai
gn. The man had been a pillar of strength to Sebastev’s company after Dubrin’s death. He’d been a fine speaker, too.
In scholas and academies across the Imperium, officers and commissars were taught how to tap that faith. There were entire study programs dedicated to battlefield oration, but that didn’t help Sebastev, because his was a field-commission. Everything he knew about leadership had been learnt the hard way, through blood, sweat and tears shed on battlefields from here to the Eye of Terror.
For better or for worse, litanies and the like were firmly the province of Father Olov, Fifth Company’s aging and slightly insane priest. Sebastev hoped that the men at least drew some strength from his insistence on fighting alongside them, shoulder-to-shoulder, in these freezing trenches or anywhere else the enemies of the Imperium dared to show themselves.
As if summoned by the thought, they showed themselves now, bellowing their challenge as they broke cover. They crashed from between the trees, a thunderous green tide of muscle-bound bodies, kicking up great sprays of snow as they raced over no-man’s land towards the Vostroyan lines. Orks.
“Mark your targets,” ordered Sebastev. “First volley on my order. Not one shot till we see their breath misting the air. Let them extend themselves. Grenades and mortars on dense knots only, please. I will be watching you. Your platoon leaders will be taking names.”
From the bead in his right ear, he heard his officers acknowledge.
“Sir,” said Kuritsin. “First and Fourth Companies both report enemy charges in their sectors.”
Sebastev raised his right hand to his chest and the holy icon that lay beneath his clothes. An image, rendered in Vostroyan silver, hung from a cord around his neck. It felt cold against his skin. It was a medallion given to him by his mother some thirty years ago on the day he’d left to begin his term in the Guard: the Insignum Sanctus Nadalya, the holy icon of the Grey Lady, Vostroya’s patron saint.
He mumbled a quick prayer for the Lady’s favour and drew his gleaming, handcrafted bolt pistol from its holster. “Let’s see what they’re made of, eh Rits?” he said.
Lieutenant Kuritsin slammed a power pack into position on his lasgun. “Aye, sir. On your order.”
Sebastev felt his adrenaline surge as he watched the enemy speed towards him, signalling his body’s readiness for the fight. The cold lost some of its bite. His fatigue faded and all his long years of training and experience rose to the fore.
Along the trench in both directions, men made ready to fire at the tide of charging orks. “On my mark.” Sebastev voxed to them. He raised his pistol high above his head. Out on the snowfield, the green horde swept closer.
That’s it, you snot-coloured xenos scum. Keep coming. We’re not going anywhere.
Bestial roars filled the air, pouring from mouths filled with jutting yellow tusks. The wall of monstrous green bodies closed with frightening speed. All too quickly, with their oversized feet eating up the distance to the Vostroyan trenches, the orks came into lethal range.
Sebastev fired a single bolt into the air and voxed the words his men were waiting for. “Open fire!”
A searing volley of las-bolts blazed from the trenches, each shot slicing through the air with a distinctive hiss-crack. Scores of charging greenskins howled in agony and fell clutching their faces. Massive pistols and cleavers were flung aside as grotesque bodies tumbled to a lifeless heap. But for all those that fell, there were hundreds more that hadn’t been blinded or crippled. They kept charging, their hideous faces grinning with bloodlust.
The Vostroyan heavy bolters opened fire, filling Sebastev’s ears with deep machine chatter. Pillboxes and gun-platforms up and down the line laced the rough ork formations with enfilading fire, sending fountains of dirt, snow and blood high into the air.
“Fifth Company, fire at will,” voxed Sebastev. “They do not get to the trenches. Do you hear? Fire at will!”
Enemy slugs, solid rounds as big as a man’s fist, bit great chunks of frozen dirt from the sandbags on the trench lip. But the greenskins, despite their obsession with battle, were notoriously bad shots. They represented a far greater threat in close combat. Sebastev had to make sure the charging mass didn’t breach the Vostroyan defences, at least not until their numbers were manageable.
“Take those bastards down, Firstborn. The Emperor demands it!”
A knot of massive orks charged straight towards Sebastev’s section of the trench. Perhaps they’d marked him out by his white cloak, or by the gold Imperialis insignia on his hat, but it was just as likely that the monsters sought their kills at random.
Troopers to left and right opened up on the orks as they sped nearer, carving black wounds into the wall of green flesh. Lieutenant Kuritsin scored a masterful headshot that put one of the monsters straight down. But, while all this las-fire would have obliterated an army of men, the ork charge barely slowed. Las-bolts could cut and char, but they lacked the raw kinetic punch of solid rounds. The orks shrugged off anything that wasn’t crippling. The battle-lust burned bright in their red eyes.
Sebastev brought his bolt pistol to bear on a massive ork charging straight towards him. He slowed his breath, took aim, and squeezed the trigger.
The gun kicked hard, and hot blood misted the air where the monster’s head had been. The heavy body ran on, legs still pumping, muscles executing the last orders from an absent brain. Sebastev watched the headless body snag on a tangle of razorwire, ripping open with a red spray before it tumbled down into the trench.
Both Sebastev and Kuritsin stepped neatly aside. Steaming fluids poured from the corpse, freezing quickly on the trench floor. Even through his scarf, Sebastev could smell the pungent fungal stink of the ork’s insides. But this was no time to stand gaping. More greenskins boiled towards the Vostroyan defences. Sebastev turned his bolt pistol on them.
Solid firing discipline and Vostroyan accuracy were taking their toll on the orks. Out on the open drifts, the first charge broke. Stragglers turned and sped back towards the trees to join up with the second wave.
The angry rattle of the heavy bolters ceased.
“Good work, Firstborn,” voxed Sebastev, “but there’s no time for smiles and back-slaps.”
Another green tide had already broken from the trees.
“Second wave,” he called. “Ammo counters and charge packs, all of you.” He pulled a fresh bolt magazine from his greatcoat pocket and slammed it home.
If the first wave of orks had looked large and fierce, they were mere youths compared to the dark-skinned brutes that now swarmed over the snows. Their overlong arms bulged with muscles swollen to unnatural proportions. Some wore crude suits of armour strapped or bolted together from plates of scrap metal and leather. Barring a direct headshot, a lasgun wouldn’t do much damage to them, short of making those plates scalding hot. But orks didn’t care about superficial burns when the battle-lust was on them. It just made them mad. They’d come straight through, soaking up lasfire until they were right on top of Fifth Company.
Emperor above, prayed Sebastev, give us strength.
“I want heavy bolters to concentrate fire on those armoured bastards. Leave the rest to mortars and lasguns. Is that clear? Flamers, wait for your range. No wasted shots. Mortars, I want focused fire at mid-range, centred on dense knots, as before.”
Heavy weapons teams readied themselves up and down the line.
Sebastev turned to Kuritsin. “Where’s Father Olov?”
“Just north of us, sir, fighting alongside Second Platoon today.”
Somewhat reluctantly, Sebastev voxed, “Father Olov, a reading if you please. Draw the Emperor’s attention to us. I think He might enjoy this.”
And for Throne’s sake, he thought, make it uplifting for once.
The priest’s gravelly voice came back over the vox a moment later. “Something to strengthen our souls, captain. Volume II of The Septology of Hestor, I think. Ruminations on the Divine Ecstasy of Holy Service at Magna Garrovol is a particularly invigor
ating piece.”
“A fine choice, I’m sure, father,” replied Sebastev dubiously. He could hear Kuritsin groaning under his scarf. “Begin at your convenience,” he told the priest.
The second ork wave was closing fast, shooting wildly in the general direction of Sebastev’s men.
Lucky for us, thought Sebastev, they couldn’t hit the hull of a battleship at point-blank range.
Even as he thought this, a trooper a few metres down on his right was thrown against the rear wall of the trench with bone-splintering force. He slumped dead to the wooden planks of the trench floor. Fully half of his head was gone, as if something had taken a great bite out of him.
Within seconds of each other, two more Guardsmen fell further along the trench, fatal head wounds spraying the rear wall red. The blood froze before it could even run down the wall.
“Gretchin snipers!” voxed Sebastev. “Keep your heads down.”
They must’ve moved up under cover of the first assault, he thought. But where the khek are they?
Father Olov’s voice sounded in Sebastev’s ear as the priest began his reading. “Saint Hestor dedicated victory at Magna Garravol to the Emperor, as always. Blood was spilled on both sides that day, and many lamented the passing of good men. But he rejoiced in their sacrifice, since paradise belongs only to the righteous.”
“I need spotters,” voxed Sebastev, breaking through the priest’s oration. “I want those snipers taken out, now. Fifth Company, pick your targets. Prepare to fire.”
Someone to the north of Sebastev’s position fired off an early shot, hitting a massive ork in the throat. At closer range, the shot might have been fatal, but this far out, the monster just stumbled, regained its footing and continued to charge. A crude banner snapped in the freezing wind above its head: a poorly painted serpent with three heads, its yellow body coiled on a field of black, the mark of the Venomhead clan.
“Damn it, who was that?” roared Sebastev. “Maintain fire discipline. That’s an order.”
Olov continued his reading unperturbed. A messenger appeared before Saint Hestor in a dream, and said, “‘This is your path. There can be no turning from it. False hope fathers forgiveness. Forgiveness lays open the naked heart. There can be no forgiveness for the enemies of our great Imperium. Destroy the forces of the Idols Dark and you will live forever by the Emperor’s side.’”
[Imperial Guard 03] - Rebel Winter Page 2