by Guy Haley
‘Hannick,’ came the CO’s voice.
‘Sir!’ shouted Cortein. His voice was becoming hoarse from making himself heard over the noise of the tank, the tumult of battle and Kalidar’s roar. ‘That’s a damned witch engine the orks have there. We have no Scholastica Psykana support, and there’s no way the fleet can lend a hand through this storm. If we do not withdraw it’ll be a massacre. The Illudion campaign all over again. We have no way of bringing down a witch engine, not with Lux Imperator gone.’
Hannick’s voice crackled, fading in and out with washes of static. ‘Once more you presume to tell me my job, Cortein, but I am inclined to agree with you. Taskforce Beta to fall back by section. Paragonian 7th Super-heavy Company to cover retreat. Taskforce Alpha, I advise you do the same. Once this witch engine is done with us, it’ll be gunning for you. Thank the Emperor for this storm. If it hid the orks, then by the Throne it can hide us. Retreat. Retreat. Order Epsilon 42. Fall back to rendezvous point five. And Cortein?’
‘Sir!’
‘Nothing foolish. We cannot risk our main assets. Hannick out.’
Cortein reached for the talk button on his headset, to argue that he should stay and cover the guard as they fell back, then thought better of it. Hannick would not change his mind, the machines under his command were always his prime concern, not the men, who were far more numerous. ‘How many of our men are detailed to cover the retreat?’ asked Cortein.
‘Four platoons of the 13th Savlar, five of the 63rd Paragonian have been ordered forwards. They’re taking heavy casualties sir. Most of the 42nd Armoured Regiment’s gone, only seventeen tanks operational across the whole front. The Atraxians are doing okay, but Grand Captain Olgau has confirmed that he has sounded a retreat in his quadrant also,’ said Epperaliant.
Cortein clenched his jaw and worked his teeth together. He removed his vox headset and turned round to face his men.
‘We’re to fall back, but keep our face to the enemy. Head out reactor-first, I won’t have my tank showing its rear to the enemy when it can retreat with honour, spitting fire all the way! Where possible, I want supporting fire for the infantry covering our retreat.’
Epperaliant looked to his commander. ‘But our orders sir…’ he said levelly.
‘Our orders are to not risk ourselves. Our armour is thicker to the front, is it not? And our guns face forwards, if I recall correctly.’
‘Aye, sir!’
‘Outlanner! Reverse speed, all full,’ Cortein moved the heading and speed wheels at his station in time to his orders. A loud bell rang out to inform the driver, in case he did not catch the Honoured Lieutenant’s words. ‘Gunners, fire at will, let’s try and buy those poor basdacks out there some time.’
INTERSTITIAL
‘In times of war it is better to consider this: which is of more worth? A man who will serve the Emperor through his death, or a man who lives yet whose life may not serve at all? We face an eternity of war. Those who will not lay down their lives willingly are traitors to all mankind.’
Sayings of Warmaster Ketherion.
Chapter 5
Kalidar IV, Kostoval Flats
3267397.M41
Bannick should have been dead. The turret of Indomitable Fury lay canted on its back, Bannick underneath it. The pintle storm bolter on the turret was jammed against the packed ground of the dry sea floor, preventing the lot from crushing him. It was the second time the weapon had saved him in an hour. He winced as he moved. He hurt all over, his chest bruised. He was sure he’d cracked a rib.
Carefully, he pulled himself out from underneath and stood, body shaking. There’d been a hit on the tank. The turret must have been blown off. It was possible his men still lived. He staggered around in a half-circle, searching for it.
Wind-driven streamers of smoke and of dust shrouded the battlefield, then suddenly he saw it. Indomitable Fury’s hull burned furnace-hot, fanned by the wind. Fuel billowed in orange clouds of flame to mingle with the storm. Thick smoke poured out of the aperture where the turret had sat, the crackle of bolter shells cooking off joining with the noise of the larger battle. Bannick stared at the wreck of his first command numbly. No one could have survived that. His men were dead.
He waited for the world to return to normal, for his ears to stop ringing and for his mind to come back into focus. He was not sure what to do. He turned. Behind him was a litter of dead orks, blackened hulks of Leman Russ and Chimeras guttering fire, the sands about them stained with oil. Far to the rear, he could make out the dim shape of Kennerston’s tank, gun at maximum elevation, still hurling hi-ex into the orks.
Beta formation had been broken, shattered by ambush and the arrival of the super-heavy walkers. It looked like they’d forced a few hundred metres ahead of Bannick, but the formation remnants were drawing closer to him once again. Men and machines streamed towards and past him. Dimly, through the dust storm, he could make out a crescent line of a vanguard, tanks and infantry, holding the line while the Imperial Guard retreated.
Four Leman Russ stood in line, all exhibiting some damage, starting backwards with each report of their battle cannon. Arrayed next to them was a line of six Chimera armoured personnel carriers, their turrets tracking back and forth, multilasers blazing. In front of the vehicles, a triple line of mixed infantry, uniforms so thick with sand they were indistinguishable, firing by rank into the orkish horde ebbing and flowing towards them, each wave drawing a little nearer to the line. Off to the left he could see the looming shapes of the walkers, weapons fire lighting up the storm as they waddled away after something. He was relieved to see a couple of burning walker hulks nearby.
Bannick groggily made his way forwards, only to realise that he was still tethered to the turret of Indomitable Fury by the pipes of his rebreather unit. The unit was fragged, and he realised that he’d been breathing the unfiltered storm-air for the Emperor knew how long. He held his breath as he went back to the tank’s severed head, dug into the sand a little so he could open the storage bins at the aft of the turret and, grimacing with pain, dragged out a portable rebreather and a laspistol. He tugged his mask off, and replaced it.
Men ran past him as he walked forwards, many dragging wounded comrades, officers shouting vox-amplified orders, trying to keep the withdrawal from degenerating into a rout.
A panicked face loomed out of the storm, burned hands grasping at his uniform. ‘You’re going the wrong way! You’re going the wrong way! It’s coming!’ the soldier yelled, then was gone.
Armoured vehicles roared past. Turrets facing backwards, they spat fire behind them to cover their departure. The ground began to shake, the whistle of incoming shells and roar of Manticore rockets audible above the battle and the storm. An artillery bombardment had been called down.
By the time he reached the line of men and vehicles, the ork attack had paused, and the greenskins had disappeared into the shrouds of storm-blown dust, their giant walkers with them. The guardsmen stood nervously scanning the desert. Visibility was down to a score of metres at most. Bannick leaned into the wind as he walked the line, grasping dust-crusted shoulders and turning swaddled heads towards him, looking for signs of rank. Eventually, he found a man bearing the stripes of a Paragonian sergeant on his arm, a statue of sand with eyes of glass.
‘Where’s your commanding officer?’ he shouted. The vox on his respirator was clogged with sand, the wind loud. He could barely hear his own voice; it was worse than it had been inside Indomitable Fury.
The sergeant nodded to a mash of body parts crusted with dust.
‘All our senior officers are dead,’ said the sergeant. ‘I guess you’re it now, lieutenant.’
‘What’s the situation?’ shouted Bannick.
‘The bombardment’s keeping the greenies back.’ The sergeant pointed out past the line of intermingled ork and human dead, rapidly being covered by sand. ‘Our guns won’t fire well
. Damned dust refracts the beams before they get far. We’re down to an effective range of fifty metres or less, but I think they’ve lost the guts for a scrap. If that green-eyed basdack comes back we’re well and truly dead, though.’
‘You refer to the walkers?’
‘No.’ The sergeant shook his head. ‘They were just a screen. The orks had a damned Titan in there. We didn’t stand a chance.’
‘What are your orders?’
‘Cover the retreat, fall back when orders come through, sir.’ His eyes were resigned behind the yellow plex of his goggles. The man did not expect to live the day out.
‘You getting any vox coverage?’
The sergeant shook his head.
‘How long since the last men came through?’ asked Bannick.
The sergeant shrugged like he’d already given up. ‘Five minutes.’
Bannick looked about. A pair of Leman Russ, one in bad shape, sponson missing and left side buckled, ground out of the sandstorm and passed by, its unharmed companion hurling shells blindly behind it. He waited. Nothing else came, neither friend nor foe.
He grabbed the sergeant and shook him to gain his attention again. ‘Sergeant! I’ll tell you what we are going to do. You and your men mount up, as many as possible aboard these transports.’ He indicated the Chimeras behind the ranks of men, all the same camouflage, but emblazoned with a mix of Paragonian, Savlar and Atraxian regimental markings. ‘These tanks will cover your retreat. You are leaving in ten minutes, all of you. That’s an order, got that?’
The sergeant nodded, hope in his eyes. Bannick went over to the first of the four tanks behind the infantry line. They were from a mix of squadrons, all 2nd Company. The tanks themselves were all just about combat-worthy, but the only lieutenant among them was dead, along with five other crew.
Bannick ran up the side of the lead tank. Grim-faced men looked up to him. The dead lieutenant still sat in his chair, a crater in his chest and a look of surprise on his face. Bannick pointed to his insignia and took command without discussion. He heaved the dead 2nd Company officer’s body out of his chair, pulling his tank rebreather and vox set off and replacing his own rebreather with them. He sat down, and tried to ignore the feel of the blood seeping into his trousers. Wind whistled in through a hole in the turret, signs of the shellburst that had killed the lieutenant and turned the command suite into a shattered mess. The turret hatch was jammed open. Sand poured endlessly down into the interior. He stood and signalled the infantry sergeant, and the men quickly boarded their transports, those for whom room was lacking clambering on top. The Chimeras’ engines coughed into life. One by one, they spun round and vanished to the rear, swallowed by the storm.
‘Designate tank squadron 111, tanks Alpha through Delta,’ Bannick said, using the standard regimental term for a battlefield blending of units. ‘Aye, sir,’ replied the tank crews one after another. ‘Half-speed reverse. Gamma and Delta to cover left and right respectively. Load all weapons, hi-ex. Wait for my order to fire,’ said Bannick.
The tanks began to reverse at half-speed, keeping their thicker armour towards the orks. Nothing came from the sand. Bannick had his jaw clenched so tight it ached.
Green sheet lightning flashed in the desert.
‘Sir! Sir! To the left and rear!’ said his tank’s gunner. The sandstorm was thicker than fog, and Bannick struggled to see. A further flash followed, then another.
Shapes loomed in the dense caramel air, two massive orkoid silhouettes, one much larger than the other and spurting green fire and lightning. This must be the Titan the sergeant had referred to. By the Emperor it was Gargantuan! The heavy walker looked like a child at the skirts of its mother beside it.
Bannick felt a tickling sensation behind his nose and tasted metal as the Titan cast green energy at the ground. His skin crawled. An umbrella of flickering power shielded the Titan, stopping the shots of the desperate Guardsmen dead. His training had mentioned no energy field like that; all of them, from power fields to void shields, would eventually collapse under weight of fire, but this seemed stronger with every impact.
Conflict resolved itself from a jag of shadows, walker and Titan raining fire down on a knot of retreating tanks and infantry. Explosions, muffled by the storm, sounded unreal and distant, but the damage was real enough. Bannick looked on as a Chimera exploded. Three ragged platoons of men fought desperately against scores of orks, firing, retreating, firing again, trying to stop the massive greenskins from getting to within melee range. The fight was coming towards Bannick’s ad hoc squadron, cutting an oblique line across the sand to the rear of the Leman Russ, the heavy walker and Titan reversing as they sought to keep their guns on the humans.
Then a third shape emerged from the storm. Despite the peril of their situation, Bannick’s breath caught. A Baneblade, one of the Paragonians, moving slowly backwards. Bright flashes came as demolisher cannon and battle cannon spoke as one, bringing a rain of iron plates down from the smaller ork walker. The Titan replied, crackling energies vomited forth from a spiked tongue to rip the right-hand sponson from the super-heavy, atomising a score of men to the tank’s side. Undaunted, the Baneblade fought on.
The whole of the Baneblade shook with the impact of the psychic beam-weapon. Consoles sparked and fizzed. Cortein held hard to his command station as the vehicle bucked under him. He heard Meggen up above swear loudly as the shells in the turret loading-rack clanked to the floor. The smell of ozone, smoke and halon fire- suppressant filled the tank before being sucked out of the air by the tank’s atmosphere scrubbers.
‘We lost the left sponson bank!’ shouted Epperaliant. ‘We’ve damage to main fire control.’
‘Fire?’
‘Negative. We got a breakout in the forward compartment. Fire suppression is functioning correctly this time.’
‘All crew, don rebreathers,’ ordered Cortein. The fire-suppression system could suffocate a tank crew as easily as douse flame. They were supposed to be wearing their masks; if the tank’s hull was breached they’d all be breathing the planet’s deadly dust, but Cortein had allowed his men to wear them as they saw fit – they were cumbersome, and stank.
‘Keep up our fire rates!’
‘Sir!’ replied Ganlick and Radden.
‘Vand? Vand!’ said Cortein. He half turned to where the third gunner’s station was situated on the command deck, to the left behind the commander’s station. Vand lay slumped over his twitch sticks, face studded with glass. The whole station had blown, screens gone. Marsello sat there, mouth gaping like a fish.
‘He’s, he’s dead sir…’ managed the boy.
‘Marsello!’ snapped Cortein.
The boy had frozen.
‘Marsello! Pull yourself together. Reroute all tertiary weapons systems to your station. You are our anti-infantry defence now. Do you understand? Marsello!’
The boy nodded numbly, fumbling movements becoming surer as he applied himself to his task.
Cortein fixed his eyes on the ork Titan displayed on his chart desk, the lesser walker, the ork infantry pounding wave after wave on the line of Imperial troops falling back by section, tanks at half-reverse covering them. At least the retreat was orderly, but he feared that would not remain the case for long.
‘They’ll not take another hit like that,’ said Bannick. ‘We’ve got to do something.’
The tank’s gunner spoke. ‘Sir, we have to retreat. There’s no way we can take that. No way – it’s only a matter of time before it kills the Baneblade. Best we get these tanks back and add our strength to a counter-attack.’
‘Gunner, that Baneblade is worth ten Leman Russ. We stay and fight. Squadron, halt!’ he called into the vox. ‘Follow my mark, we have to be quick.’
Three Leman Russ stood shoulder to shoulder with the Baneblade, heavy bolters carving a gory swathe through the orks. Battle cannon shots from all four
tanks slammed into the lesser walker, part of its hull collapsing and falling to the ground. Bannick’s pulse quickened.
‘Sir!’ said the gunner. ‘I must protest. No shot can get through that energy field, you haven’t seen it, it–’
‘Listen!’ shouted Bannick. ‘Look at the second walker, see how close it stands to the ork Titan.’ Bannick pointed, but the gunner was already putting his eye to his ranging glass.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘See how it is unaffected by its energy umbrella? It’s moving right through it without a problem, but it’s not covered by it. We fire at the smaller engine. If we target the smaller one’s head, there’s a good chance it’ll collapse into the Titan. That should buy the others time to get away.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the gunner, reluctantly.
‘All tanks, halt! Drivers, man hull lascannon. I want everything we have thrown at that smaller walker on my mark, do you understand?’
A chorus of crackling ‘yes, sirs’ came to him. Turrets turned, the tanks manoeuvred into position, then stopped one by one. Their hull-mounted lascannons came to life, tracking the head of the heavy walker, the battle cannons’ turrets doing the same, moving with tiny jerks. Bannick watched the giant engines do their ponderous dance; gradually they turned, entirely obscuring the Imperial forces to the front.
‘We have only one chance,’ he said. ‘Do not fire until I give the order. Keep targets locked. He held up his hand. ‘Wait for it, wait for it…’ he watched intently, watching for the right moment before giving his command. The heavy walker had to be close enough to the Titan to collapse onto it, in the right position and yet not so close that it could benefit from the energy field crackling all around the larger war machine. Further, it had to be in a position where it would cause some hindrance to the larger construct. Bannick prayed to the Emperor that the engine would not have time to recharge its eldritch cannon before they fired. The heavy walker edged closer in towards Greeneye, perhaps trying to gain some protection from the energy shield, perhaps seeking a new target, bringing it closer to the Titan’s enormous metal foot…