"By the fury of his gaze, what are you doing on Terra?!" yelled Sister Rajulia.
She stormed into the barracks, power armor whirring as she leveled her bolter, requiring all her patience and control not to pull the trigger and scythe down the guardsmen in her sight. The men, all dressed, armed, and waiting beside their foot lockers, looked terrified, hands clutching their las rifles.
"Sister Palatine!" said one of the sergeants. He came before her with a hurried half-walk, half-run, and saluted. Sister Palatine Rajulia Tandrik timed her blow unintentionally with the deep tremors of the assault, backhanding the sergeant just as he began to speak, her superhuman strength sending the man bleeding and reeling, sprawled onto the floor.
"Why are you all cowering in this barracks?!" she demanded, aiming her weapon down at the man. "We've been under attack for nearly eight minutes, and I struggle within myself to understand whether it is even possible for you to describe to me any situation in which I do not kill you for dereliction of your duty!"
To the man's credit, he recovered quickly, not rising but instead prostrating himself before the Sister of Battle. She made ready to kick him, to crush his organs beneath the ceramite boot of her powered sabaton.
"S-Sister, we are awaiting deployment orders!" he said.
She still kicked him, though not even half as hard as she had planned to.
"And you think that excuses your inaction?! Go get your orders, soldier!" she scolded.
"W-We tried!" he cried out as she raised her boot over him. "Major Flecken left the barracks four minutes ago to ascertain Colonel Patrin's will. We were ordered to wait in cover!"
The sister stomped down, but avoided the man's body, crushing the ferrocrete beneath her heel instead.
"Sergeant, consider yourself promoted to major until otherwise instructed by someone of equal or greater rank," she yelled over the booms of artillery fire, which was, even then, hammering their position.
The man looked up, blood spilling from his mouth and nose, and yet looked more struck by the news of his sudden promotion than by any of the abuse she had laid into him. In part, this was because she technically did not have the authority to promote him, temporarily or otherwise. She was of a high rank, to be sure, but she was not part of his organization, strictly speaking.
Rajulia did not care in the slightest, and as she cast her glare about the room, she had a strong suspicion that no one would question her orders—not here. She redirected her baleful stare back to the newly promoted, if utterly unofficial major, and continued dispensing her will.
"Order the Basilisk turrets to start returning fire. I do not care if their firing arcs are impeded by the buildings. Flatten them, clear the skyline if you have to, and get these men up and marching! I want that artillery column flattened before another ten minutes rolls around. I don't care what you need to get it done, just get it done!"
Without another word, she spun around and exited the barracks, her face a mask of near-berserk rage. Two of her Seraphim were waiting outside for her, each one ready for battle, their flight packs sparking and sputtering flames, ready to send them skyward at a second's notice. They turned their helmed faces to regard her.
"What is their excuse?" asked one.
"What are our orders?" asked the other. Both sounded eager, even as Sister Rajulia shoved past.
"Get your squads ready to repel invaders at the gates! Pull the reserves we have guarding the generators and Requisition Points. Call back all patrols, and one of you will make sure that Sanctus Command knows that we are under attack!" she ordered, still moving.
"As you order, Sister," they both said in unison, though only one left.
"What are you waiting for?" Sister Rajulia asked.
"Well, I was going to ask you two things before rallying the gate defenses," she said.
"Then ask and be done with it!" Rajulia scolded.
The Seraphim warrior nodded and proceeded.
"Should we contact the Tempestus Scions? They have a field base only a few clicks away."
The Sister Palatine almost paused as she considered the option. "No, I don't think—" she started to say.
She was cut off as a durasteel shell slammed into one of the anti-aircraft towers several meters away. Where the blaster technology of these natives had thus far failed to impress, their artillery was a whole different story entirely.
"On second thought," Rajulia said. "Call them in. Emperor willing, we won't need them. But from the density of these salvos, I'm doubting that more and more."
"And where are you yourself going, Sister Palatine? The gate is not in that direction," said the remaining Seraphim.
"Where else?" the commanding sister barked. "I'm going to the command post to force these idiots to take some kind of action! Now go, you have orders to relay!"
The Seraphim nodded and kicked off the ground, arching into the air on wings of fire as she sped to do her duty.
Sister Palatine jogged the rest of the way to the command post, angrily tapping her access code into the oversized number pad deployed on the bright green console outside the post.
It took her two tries to get it open, stomping inside, seeing all the men at their consoles, the Major and the Colonel standing in the center of the room, both men looking down at something on a central table between them.
"What in the Emperor's holy name do you think you are doing?!" she roared.
Her frenzy peaked as she fully absorbed what she was seeing, and before anyone in the room could react, she squeezed the trigger of her bolter, rocketing micro missiles from the weapon at her hip, and blasting craters into the control consoles. The men who had been sitting at their stations were blown into blood smears. Even the two officers were not spared, strafed with the others and sent falling to pieces over the table they had been looking down at.
She spun on her heel, completing a half-circle of carnage before the bolt mag in her gun emptied and slid out, colliding with the hard ground with a bell's clear chime, smoking and red hot.
To most, this seemed like madness, but the Sister knew, knew from the moment she had entered, that this was the only appropriate answer. Where most would have entered and seen only a room of silent men, she had instantly seen a room of dead men. The shredded torsos of both officers hung in the air as if suspended on invisible wires, their lower bodies and arms having fallen away.
The sister threw her bolter down as their corpses finally began to fall, as they should have done all along. She reached down to her belt, drawing forth her blessed power maul, activating it.
"I said, what do you think you are doing?" she yelled as she spun around.
Shaak-Ti's blue blade collided with the head of her power maul, activating its power field and causing a pulse that repelled the Jedi. She kept her balance, her blade before her in a ready posture as she faced down the canny warrior sister who had barged into the aftermath of her mission.
"Xeno scum," Sister Rajulia spat, raising her weapon in one hand while she reached for the bolt pistol at her waist with the other.
Shaak-Ti narrowed her eyes. She had been hoping to escape as silently as she had entered, and had hoped again when she had heard the Sister trying to enter the command post that her distraction would have proven enough to allow this to be finished with a single, decisive blow. But the ferocity and swiftness of Rajulia's response had caught even Shaak-Ti off guard, and now there seemed no other choice than to engage in a duel, a duel she needed to win quickly, lest she be lured into yet more undesired combat.
————————————————————————
Sergeant Kallak Norn never relaxed. His blood pressure had been too high because of it, and the medicae had told him he'd die early. The Hospitlar even offered him pills. But in the end, he settled for the certainty of steel. A pump system was installed into his back, a blood pressure regulator. No need to remember prescriptions or rely on supply drops now, just get checked up by the Omnessiah's chosen, and you're good to go. Because Sergeant Kallak Norn never relaxed. He didn't have time to count pills or rely on them.
And he certainly never had time for downtime. Stress wouldn't kill you half as fast as the bugs would, or the green skins. Oh, the green skins! Out of the two, he actually found the latter the more terrifying. The Tyranids were just... just animals, hungry, ravenous animals. But the Orks… No! No, never relax!
That's what he was thinking, that was what he was reminding himself of when he noticed it, the sound. He was behind the fortifications, which were mostly composed of thick, flash-cast fero-crete walls that insulated the area.
The vehicle bays, Mechanicus shrines, and field generators had all been landed and constructed here, so there were plenty of noises in the air. But this noise was not the warbling buzz of the power generators, nor was it the binaric drone of the priests communicating their sermons to the machines. It wasn't even the repeated, shuddering booms and blasts of the enemy artillery, which had been pounding away at the walls and taller fortifications for several minutes now.
It sounded almost like... almost like jets, or rather, jump packs! At the realization of this, Kallak, who had been sitting on a crate, listening to his squad babble on about inconsequential things, threw himself back, scattering his rations from his lap and hands as he snapped out his lasgun, holding the rifle up, starting to sight it even before his back thudded against the hard floor beneath him.
"Raid! Aerial Raid!" Kallak bellowed, opening fire even as the first syllable left his mouth.
His squad did as he did, throwing themselves onto their backs or knees as they aimed up, firing before they even knew what they were firing at, not questioning the well-honed instinct of their sergeant. But he knew. Looking up, his vision was filled with three things: the bright blue sky which framed everything, the gray and silver shapes of the spires around them, stretching as if to hold that vast tapestry up above them, and the white and yellow armor of thousands of descending clones. They had scaled the surrounding spires, using them as cover to get far above them before descending in a surprise raid. While some squads near them took his hint and did as his men did, not nearly enough aped his reaction to make a large difference.
Commander Bly and his jet troopers opened fire using their DC-15A Blaster Rifles, each set to maximum charge. The rifles were rarely used by jet troopers or even most clone troopers due to their weight, but after having been briefed on the last encounters with Imperial forces, the clones had chosen to favor firepower over convenience, and it served them well now.
The sergeant rolled and scrambled after having unloaded a hefty spray of las fire into the sky, narrowly avoiding the returning fire sent at him. Looking around, he spotted a parked set of vehicles less than twelve meters away, a Taurox and a Chimera. He grinned a manic grin, and then flinched as a nearby pile of munitions took a stray shot and exploded, wiping out the eight men who had been standing around it. But none of his men.
"Alright you lazy sludge, up, to the Chimera, now!" He bellowed, scrambling to his feet, lasrifle clutched in both hands. He didn't look back to see if his men were following; he didn't survive out till now by being the kind of man who looked back. He just had to trust that they would follow, or trust that they were better off without those who could not follow. He ducked his head as the clones broke over the top of the secondary base, splitting into squads of six and sweeping about, hunting the Guardsmen below them with sprays of focused fire.
"Where's the damn commander?!" cried Pikvet in his Rushlander accent.
"How the Horus should I know?!" yelled Kallak as he came to the door of the Chimera. He looked at it again, his eyes growing wide. Most Chimera's had turreted multi-lasers mounted on top of them, which would have been help enough. But not this one, this one had a beautiful Heavy Bolter! It only made his spirits fall all the harder as he tried the door and found it locked.
"Daemons!" He cursed, turning back to face his squad. "Alright, try all the doors, hurry it up!" he called, and his men scrambled to try, but no sooner had they started pulling on handles before they were noticed.
Terron and Jalasta both died, peppered suddenly by a shower of blue bolts. They jerked and spasmed with each shot, their bodies cooking even as they fell. Kallak took aim and fired, and for the first time, noticed with growing horror what effect his shots were having. One of his shots struck a trooper in the forearm. Normally, that would have been enough to blow the arm clean off!
But instead, the white armor wrapped around his bicep turned black and began to smoke and deform like burnt plastic. The man shuddered, clearly feeling it, but also clearly retaining the use of his struck arm. Kallak's next shot struck another in the back, and this one did not even react, his armor blackening in a foot-wide circle and smoking like the armor on the other clone had.
"Creed's fekking tits!" The Sergeant cursed. "Cover cover cover! Get under that Taurox, now Guardsmen, move!" he screamed as he saw the jetpack soldiers coming back around, with friends. His men stopped pulling on the doors and broke into a full run, chasing after Kallak as he dove and slid on the hard artificial ground, the last of his men narrowly avoiding a cascade of blue bolts which pinged and sizzled against the hull of the Taurox above them. They were crammed underneath the profile of the truck-like APC.
"...They are surrounding us, they are going to land!" Kallak barked. "Roll around you wretches, rifles out! All directions, make a wheel damn it!"
His men obeyed, scrambling around each other in a tangle of bodies as they arranged themselves in nothing you could call a circle, but something certainly approaching 360 degrees of coverage.
Then they waited, watching, listening. All around them they could see, but more than that, hear the carnage being meted out to their fellow guardsman. Perhaps if their anti-Air towers had all still been operational, this kind of assault could have been averted!
But many minutes prior, the enemy artillery had begun lobbing rounds at them. They seemed unwilling to strike certain targets, perhaps because of the buildings in the way, but that only left them with three of their eight anti-air defenses intact when the attack had started.
And as soon as the white clad "toy soldiers" had gotten near enough to the ground, those defenses had become their first targets. The sounds of explosions rolled through the hidden guardsmen, deafening the unaugmented men among his squad, and shaking the ground beneath them.
"Damn, that'd be the tanks on B patrol." Said Private Granger, who had gotten lucky and was laying on top of more of his squad than were laying on top of him.
"Oh thrones, this ain't right! You saw their armor? Drank my shots right up it did!" said Private Rejjon, who was trembling despite the three bodies pinning him, struggling to keep his sights steady.
Private Janus groaned angrily. "Oi, Farnus, get your damn boots out me ars-"
The clones landed, grenades held and ready to be rolled, and the guardsmen fired. Now, Kallak could not claim his men were veterans. Not all of them, anyway. He, Janus, Galla, and Turquoise were all veterans, at least by now, but his squad was a hefty mix, even before they had been further mixed in with all the other regimental units after the big jump.
But if there was one thing he could claim, it was that his men were well drilled, because he drilled them himself!
No shots flew wide, and those that missed their mark were quickly compensated for, the lasguns flashing like tactical strobes, pegging the clones surrounding them many times in mere mili-seconds.
More importantly, Kallak and the more experienced members of his squads had aimed for the grenades. He was pleased to see, just before he landed his own shots, that once blackened, the toy soldier's armor seemed to provide them with no protection at all. The tagged clones screamed only briefly, shins, thighs, and arms bursting into superheated explosions of blackened gore before all being swept away by the explosions of the grenades in their hands, or going off right beside them.
Two troopers did manage to roll their explosives under the Taurox, something Kallak managed to catch from the corner of his eye.
"Two hot ones under the truck, toss em toss em!" He yelled, lips moving as quickly as they could while still being understandable.
Three of his men, Private Yara Tolza, Private Pikvet Jorkan, and Corporal Turquoise, scrambled out on hands and knees from under the vehicle, making a dash for other cover. Other covers they never reached. Yara was dolt, and she had chosen to try to run for the overhang at the walls, which would have barely provided her any real cover at all!
What's more, she had to cross several meters of open terrain, and doing so was an invasion to get shot, an invitation many of the toy soldiers took, peppering her with their blue bolts.
At least her death seemed quick, unlike Private Pikvet, he ran for the vehicle bays. Perhaps because he had scrambled out after Yara, or perhaps the clones had simply known it was coming, but the jet troopers did not open fire on him. Instead, three speeding shapes suddenly swept through the open ground between the bays and the Taurox.
What Kallak had initially taken to be missiles, were actually men on speeder bikes, and while two missed him, the center bike clipped the running soldier, sending him spinning and broken to the ground, where he lay, stunned for a moment before he began to scream. For whatever reason, the toy soldiers did not feel inclined to finish the work of their speeders.
Ah, but the true tragedy lay with the Corporal, for Turquoise had not been running like a coward, but had been using the opportunity provided by the two others to make a dash back to the Chimera. It had not been jet troopers or speeder bikes that killed her, but simply sheer rotten luck. Private Farnus had just been doing his duty, just doing as he had been instructed. He had no way of knowing that Corporal Turquoise was going to make a run for the vehicle.
Had no way of knowing that he was going to toss out the enemy explosive right out into her path. The explosion went off, and Turquoise was sent flying, colliding with a thud and a crunch into the side of the Chimera, falling to the ground and remaining there, completely still.
"I-I-" Farnus began to say.
"Stow it Farnus, you didn't mean it. Take your crisis on your own time, and help me save those who are left." Kallak ordered.
"B-But sarg-"
"I said stow! Another word and I will blame you for that! Now eyes out! I'm assuming from that fact that we are all still alive that we cleared all of those hot potatoes, yeah? Squad Report!"
"C-clear!" Said Farnus.
"Clear!" said Galla.
"Good here." Said Granger.
"Oh Emperor, Oh throne, c-clear!" Stuttered Rejjon
"Clear." Said Janus.
"Right. Throne, that's half the damn squad already! You lot better not disappoint me any further by tossing out your lives so cheaply! You copy?!"
"Y-Yes, Right Sarg!"
"Copy!"
"Copy Sarg."
"Oh god emperor, spare me, spare me…"
"Damn Right Sarg."
"Alright, now shove it! They'll be back, so keep your eyes sharp while I try to figure this out!" Kallak barked.
He looked out and around from under the vehicle. It didn't look good, the sergeant couldn't spot any bulwarks or lines being drawn anywhere near them. If their forces were rallying somewhere, it wasn't where they were at, and he had a sneaking suspicion that every second they stayed trapped under this Taurox only made them more and more isolated from the rest of their forces. He could still see men fighting and dying, even tech priests trying in vain to save their sacred machines, but it was little more than a frenzied route. His eyes found the body of his corporal again, and he swallowed hard.
What had she been thinking? Had she really gambled her life on the chance that the Chimera's passenger door would be open? No, he couldn't believe that, Turquoise had been far too clever for that, she had been a hiver in her life before the guard, and she always had a plan.
He looked at the Chimera again, trying to see what she had seen, and nearly smacked himself when he spotted it. The turret, the heavy bolter turret sitting at the top of the Chimera...Its hatch was open!
"Rejjon, Galla, pop smoke and toss' em out, east and west! We are going to rush the Chimera!" Kallak ordered.
"But it's locked!" Janus said.
"The damn doors are locked, but the turret hatch is open! I'll get up there and open it all the way, then hop down. Everyone move down the damn Chimera, make room for everyone else! We are getting the hell out of here. You slugs ready?!" Asked Sergeant Kallak.
"Aye!"
"Aye!"
"Aye sarg!"
"A-Aye"
"Damn right!"
"Then pop the damn smoke and get ready to move on my mark!"
They did as ordered, and he waited, listening to the smoke hissing as it escaped the two canisters, watching as the edges of his sight were quickly filled by the shifting clouds of smoke. He waited and waited, taking his best possible mental image of the vehicle, its rear facing towards him. And then, gathering his courage and energy into an explosive burst, he began to advance.
"Move move!" He called.
First, he crawled on hands and knees until he was sure he was out from beneath the Taurox, and then he climbed to his feet and began to run. He let his rifle hang from his harness by its shoulder strap, both arms extended out in front of him, cushioning his body as he ran into the back hatch of the Chimera. Knowing it was locked, he blindly fumbled in the smoke, moving to the right side and finding the tank treads of the vehicle. He dug his fingers into the seams in the rough tracks and hauled himself up and out of the smoke. Briefly, he had a clearer view of the battle. It was every bit as bad as he had feared. The fact that he and his squad had been attacked when they were cycled out to eat and rest told him that it was likely that the whole camp had been hit by this attack, and these toy soldiers knew how to identify and prioritize targets.
He didn't waste too much time ogling their sweeping jet pack strikes and lightning-fast bike raids. Instead, he climbed over to the hatch that led into the Chimera and pried it all the way open. He climbed inside the tight confines of the APC, getting down into the wider, main body of the vehicle and getting on one of the lasguns mounted onto the sides.
The Sergeant peered through one of the thin slits in the armor, which provided him with just enough sight of the outside as he swiveled the weapon on its mount and began to fire. His crew began to drop in, one by one, and while Janus took a shot in the left shoulder and dropped into the APC, cursing and spitting, he was alive, and that would have to do.
"Rejjon, take a look at Janus, and be quick. I need you both on these lasguns!" Kallak spat.
"Galla, get up in that bolter turret and start laying down some real fire! See if you can't clear us a way out!" She nodded and climbed back up into the turret controls without another word.
"Farnus, get in that driver's seat and wake this thing's machine spirit. We need it to get us out of here before we are overrun!" Farnus nodded and scrambled into the driver's seat, humming something to himself as he began to put his training to work.
"Granger, get your hands on the lasgun opposite me! You, me, and Galla are going to buy Farnus enough time to get us out of here!" Kallak said as he turned away from them, looking back through the slit in the armor and taking aim.
He began to fire, and soon Granger and Galla joined him, though it was the latter that made the biggest difference by far. As Galla loaded the belt of heavy bolter rounds into her turret gun and sealed the doors above her securely, her turret suddenly transformed into a blistering storm of thundering death. The iconic barking of bolter shells filled the air in a near hum of continuous output. Galla smiled to herself and then screamed triumphantly as she began to strafe the line of bolts across the hovering and flying clones nearby.
She felt as powerful as a space marine, armored within the confines of the turret controls, feeling the bucking power of the weapon in her hands. She watched as flying clones, in both pristine white armor and blackened, smoking armor, became nothing but sprays of limbs and organs as she dragged the snaking trail of her weapon across every cluster of the clones she could spot.
Meanwhile, Kallak and Granger, as well as Rejjon and Janus soon after, speared clones out of the sky with focused volleys of las fire, shooting men off their speeders and sending the bikes flaming and careening into the nearby terrain. Their counter-attack was going well, but they had no hope of actually driving off the whole assault with just one Chimera.
"Farnus! Movement! Now!" Kallak roared from his position on the lasgun.
"I-I can't! It won't move!" The guardsman called back, panic riddling his voice.
"Why the hell not?! Don't tell me this thing doesn't have fuel for it!" Kallak said, looking down at one of the bulbous fuel tanks, which partially protruded from the floor near his feet. He kicked it, and the sound it made didn't sound empty.
"No Sarg, it isn't that at all! This Chimera is keyed to one of the Tech Priests around here; it won't start without their accessing code."
The Sergeant wiped his face, feeling himself aging to death by the second.
"Then start guessing codes!" Kallak ordered.
"W-What?!" asked Farnus, incredulous.
"You heard me, private! Either you get this thing moving, or we all die in this box! So start guessing!"
Farnus looked down at the console before him, particularly the number pad he had to use to dial the code in. He felt all the blood draining out of him as he swallowed hard.
"Oh Omnissiah, please have mercy upon this machine of flesh and bone, who seeks only to do your will. Please send upon us the motive force, and awaken this servant of the Emperor to ferry us to safety...in your holy name I pray…" The young guardsman began to mutter as he typed in his first of many attempts, trying to ignore the more and more desperate sounds of his comrades behind him.
"Oh machine god, in your name I pray, please send salvation onto the servants of your will…" He continued as he began the second attempt.