by Gav Thorpe
‘We cannot allow the enemy to get between us and Koth Ridge,’ Naaman told his Scouts. ‘We will wait for the enemy to pass us and engage them from the rear. If the Free Militia on the ridge are paying attention, they may even see the fight and send assistance.’
The Scouts nodded, wide-eyed and filled with adrenaline. They took up their positions, using clumps of grass and bushes to conceal their weapons, crouched against the waist-high mud bank. Peering between the fronds of a plant, Naaman watched the orks, his bolter resting on the bank in front of him. The enemy were three hundred metres away and approaching at a reasonable speed. This was no reckless dash for Koth Ridge, this was a considered advance. The idea of orks showing this kind of circumspection unsettled the Scout-sergeant. Orks were dangerous enough without them actually thinking.
Naaman could feel the ground trembling as the vehicles came closer and closer. The heaviest was a slab-sided half-track with a driver’s cabin on the right-hand side, an open turret sporting a long-barrelled cannon on the left. There was a rickety gantry behind on which stood two orks holding guns strapped to a rail. Behind them, above the tracks, over a dozen more orks hunched behind the metal sides of the troop compartment, peering over the side, guns in hand. Smoke billowed from a cluster of exhausts along the far side, dirt sprayed from the tracks in the transport’s wake.
The other two vehicles were about half the size, with four balloon-tyre wheels that churned through the mud and grass. He could see the drivers hunched in a wide compartment at the front of each, a gunner beside them standing behind a pintle-mounted weapon. Ammunition belts trailed onto the open deck behind, where more orks squatted close together, their helmeted heads turning this way and that as they kept a lookout for enemies. As they came nearer he could hear the guttural chatter of the greenskins among the noise of engines.
The battlewagon crossed the stream bed about fifty metres upriver, crashing across the gap without halting. The trucks found it harder going. One driver revved the engine in a huge cloud of black smoke and tried to jump the gap. This met with mixed success: the truck surged into the river and smashed into the far bank, tyres ripping through dirt and plants, dragging the vehicle free as half the orks on board tumbled out of the back. The second truck approached more cautiously and bellied into the water with a loud shriek of tearing metal. It stayed there, smoke dribbling from the exhausts. Naaman guessed an axle had snapped.
There followed an argument punctuated by shouts, punches and kicks, which culminated in the orks deciding to abandon the vehicle and continue on foot. Naaman gave the order to open fire as the last of them were scrambling up the opposite bank.
Bolts screeched into the orks’ exposed backs, blowing out chunks of flesh, shattering spines and ripping off limbs. Naaman directed his fire onto the abandoned truck, stitching a line of explosions across its flank until something ignited. Flames crackled, and with an explosion that sent a ball of fire dozens of metres into the air, a fuel tank exploded. Pieces of armour and chassis scythed through the nearby orks. The waters of the stream swirled with thick blood.
It was difficult to see what had happened to the battlewagon: it was lost behind the pall of smoke streaming from the exploded transport. The other truck turned around and drove straight at the Scouts, skidding across the grass, the gunner spraying a hail of bullets at the bank.
Teldis gave a shout and flew back into the water, his right cheek and eye missing. He looked around desperately with his other eye, one hand flapping at the water, the other still holding tight to his bolter. Naaman blocked the Scout’s pained grunts and snorts from his mind and swung his weapon towards the fast-approaching truck. Heavy-calibre bullets ripped through the dirt and sang over the Scout-sergeant’s head. Naaman sighted on the driver through the cracked glass of the truck’s windshield.
He loosed off two rounds in quick succession, the first punching through the glass to explode in the ork’s chest, the second missing by the smallest margin to tear into the troop compartment behind. The ork wrestled for control of the vehicle despite the gaping hole in its ribcage, head lowered protectively.
Naaman heard a dull thud. Less than a second later a shell exploded on the stream bank behind the squad, showering the Scouts with dirt and water. He realised that Teldis had stopped making any noise, but did not break his gaze from the truck. More fire from the pintle gun sprayed along the bank and Ras ducked back with a cry.
‘Emperor’s hairy arse!’ the Scout yelled, waggling his hand fiercely, blood spraying from where a finger had been shot away.
‘Cease your blasphemy!’ snapped Naaman, firing another burst of shots, this time aiming for the gunner. The ork fell away from its weapon, head split apart by a detonation within. ‘Do not speak of the Emperor in vain!’
‘My apologies, sergeant,’ answered Ras, taking up his firing position again, altered blood already clotting his wounded hand. ‘I shall report to the Chaplains for penance when we reach our brothers.’
The ork slewed the truck to a halt a dozen metres away. The greenskin pulled a pistol from within the cab and started firing as its passengers spilled over the side. Naaman ignored the driver and directed his fire at those disembarking. Two orks were dead before they hit the ground, their bodies mangled by multiple bolt-round explosions. Four more dashed straight at the Scouts, cleavers in hand, pistols spitting bullets. A lucky hit caught Naaman across the right side of his head, smashing his comm-link and taking off the top of his ear. Out of the corner of his eye, Naaman saw the driver slump backwards, a neat hole in its forehead from a sniper round.
‘Good marksmanship, Scout Kudin,’ Naaman said, swapping his empty bolter magazine for a fresh one.
There was no reply. Naaman glanced to his right and saw Kudin doubled up in the stream, blood pouring from a vicious gash across the side of his neck. Gethan was using the wounded Scout’s rifle.
Naaman rose up to his full height and pulled out his combat knife as the orks lunged towards the stream. A greenskin tried to vault over him, but he slashed at its groin as it went past, opening up a cut along its thigh from pelvis to knee, slicing through muscle and tendons. The greenskin floundered to one side as it landed, unable to keep its balance on the ruined leg. Naaman turned and fired a bolt-round into its face.
The battlewagon opened fire again. This time the shell exploded in the stream, shredding what was left of Teldis and ripping apart two orks as they dropped down into the water. Gethan fired past Naaman as the last greenskin splashed along the waterway, the shot taking out its throat.
There came a brief pause. The orks from the first truck were all dead, those from the other were running along the bank to close with the Scouts. The battlewagon ground forwards slowly, smoke drifting from the muzzle of its cannon as the ork gunner clumsily reloaded.
‘One thing at a time,’ Naaman said to nobody in particular. He reached down to his belt and pulled free a perfect sphere of dull metal. There was a rune etched into it. The activation sigil glowed red as he rubbed his thumb across it. Pulling himself up the bank, Naaman took aim on the battlewagon, bullets zipping around him, and hurled the grenade. Upturned ork faces watched the globe arcing through the air until it sailed into the back of the battlewagon.
There was no explosion. Instead of fire and shrapnel, the stasis grenade erupted with a shimmering globe of energy, engulfing the battlewagon and everything within ten metres of it. Inside that hazy bubble, time slowed almost to a stop. Naaman could see the gunner with a hand on the breech lever of the cannon. He saw the scowling face of the driver, flecks of saliva flying from between its fangs. Bullets fired by the two pintle gunners on the gantry hung in the air, moving so slowly they had appeared to have stopped. Orks were frozen in mid-leap as they bundled out of the troop compartment, flecks of rust and sprays of dirt colouring the air around them.
He had only bought a little more time. The stasis field was already weakening, the sphere of energy slowly but perceptibly shrinking. Naaman felt Gethan come up bes
ide him as the sergeant took aim at the mob of orks running towards them.
‘It’s just us, sergeant,’ whispered Gethan.
‘No it isn’t,’ Naaman replied, firing a volley into the orks, cutting the legs from beneath a greenskin.
The rumble of engines Naaman had first heard a few seconds earlier became a roar of throttles as the Ravenwing bikes leapt across the stream just behind the sergeant. Their bolters chattering, Aquila’s squadron drove straight at the orks, ripping a swathe through the unruly mob. Return fire rang from their armour and their bikes as they ploughed into the midst of the enemy, chainswords in hand, hacking and slashing.
With an audible pop of air pressure, the stasis field imploded. Bullets fired almost half a minute earlier suddenly screamed over Naaman’s head. The throb of an engine being gunned brought Naaman’s attention back to the functioning truck; gunner and passengers dead, the driver accelerated straight at the sergeant.
‘Down!’ he rasped, hurling himself into the stream, one hand dragging Gethan with him.
The truck hurtled over the bank and tilted to one side, front wheel catching on a rock, sending the whole machine cart-wheeling over Naaman and Gethan. It crashed in a plume of water and smoke, the driver hurled through the remnants of the windshield in a shower of glass shards. Amazingly, the ork was still alive. It dragged itself through the mud in Naaman’s direction, pistol clicking empty in its grip.
‘Kill it!’ Naaman told Gethan. The Scout raised the sniper rifle and put a crystal-tipped round through the wounded ork’s left eye. It shuddered for a few seconds as the sniper bullet shattered on the inside of its skull, releasing toxins through the alien’s bloodstream.
The distinctive crump of the battlewagon cannon echoed along the stream. A moment later, a shell exploded in the middle of Aquila’s squadron. Naaman saw two bikes and their riders flung high into the air, armour plates spinning, engine parts flying in all directions. The twisted remains of Space Marines and machines crashed to the ground trailing smoke as debris rained down into the burning grass.
‘Time to move on,’ Naaman said, pushing Gethan onto the bank. Scrambling up afterwards, Naaman saw the two pintle gunners on the battlewagon sighting in their direction. Even as a warning left Naaman’s lips, Gethan was shredded by the hail of bullets, holes punched through his armour and body.
The Scout fell backwards, red froth bubbling from his lips. Naaman spared a second to see if there was any chance of saving the Scout. There was none. Had Gethan received some of the later implants, his wounds might not have been fatal, but he was simply too young, his body too normal, to survive such punishment. Naaman put a bolter round into the youth’s skull to spare him any more pain and rounded on the orks with a fierce cry.
‘Death to the xenos!’
Though his body was filled with the fire of fury, Naaman directed his rage, siphoned it from a wild, uncontrollable flame into a white-hot focus. The orks that had spilled from the back of the battlewagon became the object of his wrath as he advanced with bolter levelled, every burst of fire hitting its mark, every salvo of rounds ending the life of an enemy.
Aquila and the surviving member of his squadron circled around the battlewagon, raking it with fire, but its armour was too thick for the explosive bolts to penetrate. Hunkered in its turret, the gunner was almost impossible to hit as the cannon fired again, this time missing the speeding Ravenwing by a considerable distance.
Aquila’s course brought him swinging around the battlewagon and up to Naaman from behind. The sergeant throttled down and came to a stop beside Naaman, and addressed him through his external speakers.
‘Head for Koth Ridge, brother,’ said Aquila. ‘I have sent warning to Master Belial, but what you have seen is far more valuable than my report.’
‘You have nothing to take on that battlewagon, brother,’ replied Naaman. ‘You should withdraw while you can. My life is not worth the sacrifice of yours.’
‘It is, Brother Naaman,’ said Aquila. He slapped a fist to his chest in salute. ‘Not just for what your head contains, but also for what is in your heart. You make the Tenth Company proud, Naaman. Exulta nominus Imperialis. I can think of no other to serve as the best example to those who would be the battle-brothers of the future.’
Before Naaman could reply, Aquila opened up the throttle and sped away, the Scout-sergeant’s parting words lost in the bike’s roar. The two riders lanced through the ork mob with mounted bolters and flashing chainswords. In the thick of the fighting, Aquila’s companion was wrenched from his bike when his chainblade caught in an ork’s chest. Surrounded by greenskins, he battled on, cutting down two more foes; his defiance was cut short by another shell from the battlewagon, which tore apart the Dark Angel and orks without distinction.
All that remained was Naaman, Aquila and the battlewagon. The Ravenwing sergeant lifted his chainsword to the charge position and drove straight at the flank of the armoured vehicle. The prow of his bike smashed into the battlewagon’s right track, shredding links and buckling wheels. The impact hurled Aquila forwards, the sergeant bouncing against the slab side of the armoured transport; as he tumbled Aquila grabbed the top of the troop compartment. The bike exploded as Aquila dragged himself over the side of the truck. Flames crackled from the battlewagon’s engine as ruptured fuel lines sprayed their contents across the grass. Through the smoke and fire, Naaman saw the black-armoured figure smash his way through the back of the driver’s cab. A moment later, a severed ork head sailed from the window and bounced through the burning grass.
‘For the Lion!’ Naaman shouted, believing that Aquila would make it out alive. All he had to do was kill the gunner.
With a blast that hurled Naaman to his back and sent debris hundreds of metres into the air, the battlewagon exploded. Track links and pieces of engine showered down on the flattened grass and fell into the burning crater where the battlewagon had been. As ragged shards of metal continued to thud into the dirt around him, Naaman headed into the devastation to look for Aquila. There was a slim chance that the sergeant had avoided the worst of the detonation and his power armour had protected him.
He found a black-armoured leg, sheared bone jutting from the cracked and stained ceramite. After that Naaman gave up. He didn’t want to find anything else.
Returning to the stream, Naaman piled the bodies of his dead Scouts under the lip of the bank and covered them roughly with branches and ripped-up clods of earth and grass, hoping that the orks would not find and mutilate the corpses. When the Dark Angels had destroyed the orks, Naaman would come back and ensure the remains were returned to the Chapter for the proper funeral rites.
He took one of the sniper rifles and refilled his ammunition pouches. Buggies with searchlights and the headlamps of half-tracks were panning left and right in the distance, scouring the pre-dawn gloom. The fight had obviously attracted attention from the orks. He had to get moving.
Veteran Sergeant Naaman once more broke into a loping run, heading for Koth Ridge.
THE TALE OF NESTOR
Hold the Line
The crest of Koth Ridge was a mess of activity. Like ants building a nest, hundreds of Piscina troopers were using spades and trenching tools to dig what defences they could. Empty ammunition crates were filled with the dirt from these foxholes and used to make barricades, while clearing teams worked further down the eastward slope, using saw and flamer to hack and burn away the cover provided by scattered trees and thick mats of waist-high thorny bushes. Other squads laboured at digging up the boulders that dotted the hillside, but only the smallest could be moved and rolled up the slope to improve the defences.
Amongst the grey-and-green fatigues of the defence troopers stood the green-armoured figures of the Dark Angels, both directing the labour and keeping watch for the approaching orks. Apothecary Nestor walked through the throng, his white armour standing out amongst his brethren. He was looking for the field commander, Sarpedon. Nestor spied the Interrogator-Chaplain’s black armo
ur and bone-coloured robe amongst a squad of Devastators standing guard from a sandbagged position to the north.
The troopers stayed clear of Nestor’s path as he strode along the line. A few bobbed their heads and touched a finger to the peaks of their caps in deference; most turned away and busied themselves with their work. Nestor could sense their fear even though they tried to keep their nervous expressions hidden. The tang of the sweaty air was tinged with adrenaline. The back-breaking work was as much to keep their minds occupied as it was to erect a defensive line against the orks. Anticipation – foreboding – was just as much a threat to the Koth Ridge defenders as ork guns and knives.
Sarpedon finished his conversation with the Devastators as Nestor approached. The Interrogator-Chaplain walked away from the squad as the Apothecary waited respectfully for his superior to join him.
‘Brother-Chaplain, I wish to speak with you,’ Nestor called out when Sarpedon was a few paces away. The Chaplain’s skull-faced helm was hung from his belt, revealing Sarpedon’s square-jawed face, his broad cheeks each etched with a scar in the shape of the Dark Angels’ winged sword symbol.
‘Brother Nestor, how can I be of assistance?’ asked the Chaplain, stopping in front of Nestor.
‘I am concerned by the lack of medical supplies possessed by the Free Militia,’ said the Apothecary. ‘It seems that they have brought only the most basic medikits from Kadillus Harbour. Could you request that Master Belial sends more of the Apothecarion’s supplies from the city?’
‘Do you have sufficient supplies and equipment to attend to our battle-brothers?’ asked Sarpedon, his expression impassive.
‘I foresee no shortages if the estimates concerning the coming engagement are correct,’ replied Nestor. ‘You have told me that we should not suffer any significant casualties. Is that estimate to be revised?’
‘Negative, Brother-Apothecary. Master Belial has passed on the report of Ravenwing Sergeant Aquila, which estimates enemy numbers to be in the low hundreds. We have good fields of fire, an elevated position and our defensive posture is highly advantageous. There are no reports of heavy enemy vehicles or war machines, and little if any support weapons or artillery. We dominate the field. Additional forces are en route to our position from Kadillus Harbour.’