The Commissar’s foot jolted away from the crunching of the
icon. These people had been devout
once. This city was the religious
epicentre of What amounted to a shrine world.
The commissar stared down at the tiny hand carved bone effigy of a man
on a high backed chair, cracked where it had been stood on. He made the sign of the aqilla and said a
silent ‘Ave Imperator’ under his breath.
Hopefully his service to the Departmento Munitorium might be enough to
absolve him of this new blasphemy.
If he hadn’t been wearing a re-breather, his breath would
have been clearly visible in clouds in the cold morning air. The sun, Devos, was rising over a devastated
city sector. This area had been
residential. Not affluent, quite densely
populated. It had suffered four years of
systematic bombing by the Imperial Navy’s aerospace superiority Devastator
squadrons. Then, as they surrounded the
city, near around the clock bombardment by the 72 Army Groups Artillery. Endless sporadic harassing fire and the obligatory
‘daily hate’ where at a random time every local day, the whole duty bombardment
group pounded an area to dust.
There wasn’t much of the city left, really. The artillery’s Forward Observers, for want
of anything better to shoot at, had spent the build up months flattening each
remaining tallest structure in turn. The
commissar watched the sun rise over dust, broken bricks and the last remnants
of what had once been people’s homes.
The whole of human life had taken place here, births, deaths, marriages,
joy, sorrow, boredom, excitement and fear.
A lot of fear. There had been
nothing left alive here for a long time.
He knew without checking that the white flecks glinting in
the dust and the rubble was smashed human bone.
But there was still risk of the enemy infiltrating back into
these areas. He reflexively checked the
cell on his las-pistol. He re-holstered
it and his off hand moved to the hilt of his power sword. Muscle memory is a wonderful thing. W Company was on the right of the Valhallan
line. They were the southern most
sub-unit and to the immediate right of their TAOR were Death Korps of 902
Div. W Coy had been issued re=breathers
and told to wear them as the Death Korps made no distinction between what the Valhallans
viewed as conventional and forbidden weaponry. There was clearly a likelihood
of pockets of gas or radiation.
W company’s officers felt that the Death Korps provided a
secure rail for the company’s flank. If
the Death Korps wanted to burn the air and salt the earth, W Company just had
to make sure that they were adequately protected. The Death Korps were supported by their own
sappers, griffons and tanks. W Company
were not un-supported, but on call artillery and fast air were never quite as
responsive as on the ground support who were sharing the same battle. Nonetheless, they had achieved their
objective in Operation Redrake.
W Company had gone firm at the pre-planned 3km line at D+18
during Operation Redrake. Y Company had
made the target much sooner due to having a Ozark Mountain Combat Engineers
detachment and then a fully loaded bomber crashing directly in their line of
advance with a full load of over thirty tonnes of HE on board. There was a certain amount of pressure to
keep up with better supported units on each flank.
There had been a pause of eight hours. Not a pause for the soldiers of 17 Korps, all
along the front they had been digging in, preparing trenches, leaving range
cards showing distances and arcs of fire for their positions. Others would follow on and improve these
positions with sandbags and flakboards.
Aegis lines would be moved up to key locations. But it was now D hour for Redrake 2. In another 3km, 17 Korps would dig in again
and then rotate it’s front line units to the rear to be the reserve and todays
reserve units would take over.
But for now, through what used to be people’s homes, the men
of W Company would again rise up from their recently dug positions and advance
across a flattened suburb towards the ruined city in front of them.
The Commissar stood alone, a stone’s throw in front of the waiting
Valhallans. They watched as he hopped
and paused, expecting some sort of bomb or mine. The Commissar checked his weapons and they
watched as he drew his sword and keyed the power, so the dust in the air
crackled as the Kopp Etchells effect charged the dust particles in the
air. He raised the sword up and waved
them forward.
Officers shouted their orders and men began to clamber out
of their positions, some with less enthusiasm than others. With an eye to the officers their sergeants
encouraged the men forward. They would
move as they practiced, two squads knelt in overwatch and two moving a few
meters forwards, in theory rippling evenly all along the line of their
advance. In reality, due to different
speeds of movement over the broken ground the leaders would need stop every
forty minutes or so to let the rest catch up.
This would take tens of minutes and then there would be another pause
whilst the order to move again was shared.
At this point, orders like this are shared by runner or signal flag, due
to concern over electronic listening devices left behind by retreating rebels.
The flattened houses and hab blocks were a forbidding place
to move across: largely apparently featureless, with little cover to move from
or to. There was relief in the
landscape, where larger hab blocks had been, there would be larger piles of
rubble. Some of these had been pounded
by artillery and spread out further, but all of these could still potentially
hide bunkers or other positions for infiltrating heretics. A gun group of a handful of intelligently
placed heavy stubbers could inflict a huge amount of damage on the advancing
Valhallan infantry.
Starshy-Corporal Ganna hefted his shoulders. As his platoon’s vox-op his place was at the
back of the platoon command squad. His
V-800 set lacked the range of the sets worn by the Cadian and Cadian supplied
units, but was significantly lighter and had a much longer battery life. The communications plan for the operation was
based around runners and signal flags.
His semaphore had improved with practice and the flags were now in a
sleeve strapped to the side of the vox set.
He was monitoring. The Division’s
grey slime had given out a number of frequencies which they said the heretics
could be using. So he was switching
between these every few minutes. The Grey Slime had briefed all of the vox-ops
before Operation Redrake began, they would not be able to understand the
language of any enemy signals they picked up, but had been taught to listen for
words which sounded like ‘Be-a be-a bo.’
This was an order for an immediate attack. His hand strayed to the rattle tucked into
his waistbelt. This was the signal – if
he heard the words, he shook the rattle.
‘Be-a be-a bo’ was an indication of a major counter attack and their
orders were then to fall back to their previous start line, breaking radio
silence to alert the units either side, so that the enemy could be enveloped.
Ganna moved the dial slowly through the bands, the rise and
fall of the static his practiced ear listening out for the squish of a carrier
signal. He moved over something and
then, he wouldn’t ever know why, just rolled the dial back to a quieter bit
where the static subsided. And then he
heard it. Quite clearly, “Ba de
gah”. Another key phrase the vox ops had
been taught to look out for. He shouted
at the top of his voice “Incoming !” even as he heard the dully ringing ‘doink’
which always preceded the fall of the mortar bombs. Everywhere, Valhallans threw themselves flat.
Out in front the Commissar heard the shouted warning, but
the stress of providing the exemplary bravery required meant that unexpected
shouted warnings in a thick Valhallan accent didn’t process. Heightened sensory overload can produce
temporary paralysis even in highly trained humans; with utter unflinching
concentration on hidden ambushers trying to shoot him, the commissar was the
last to hit the deck, seeming to the Valhallans to do so in a relaxed,
desultory manner, contemptuous of the mortar barrage; Assuming a prone position
in the open, still well ahead of the Valhallen intrusion into the ruins
ahead. The barrage lifted, bonesaws
advanced from the rear to tend to casualties and bag up the dead.
The commissar did not feel any braver. It was one thing accepting that one’s place
is to lead from the front, to lead the charge and potentially to plunge into
the melee, to lose one’s life for the emperor.
But the strain of advancing time and time again through a blasted and
ruined city, being the first to step time and time again into ambush zones and
now to be mortared in the open, he more or less thought that he was almost
through his stoicism. He breathed another
silent ‘Ave Imperator’ into his mask and mentally assessed whether he’d been
wounded or not. ‘Not’, as it
happened. He took a while to compose
himself, before rising to his feet and dusting himself off, flexing his sword
arm and looking at the power field before swishing it about two or three times,
just to make sure that it was still working.
It was very old, after all.
The men of W company
looked up. Guardsmen Iend rose to the ‘firing
position, self supported’ the first man scanning his arcs down his lasgun. Out
in front their commissar laconically rose, brushing off the dust and small
amount of rubble showered over him by the mortar fire. As they also rose to follow this invincible
man who was clearly untroubled by any bombardment, who walked nonchalantly into
obvious ambush sites. Again the
commissar brandished the power sword, leaving a scintillating trail of charged
particles in the dusty air.
Guardsmen didn’t take to commissars, as a rule. But this man, who had not been with the
Valhallans for very long, was inspiring when it counted, And he was clearly
living a charmed life. Lucky leaders are
popular with soldiers. Iend lifted his
lasgun clearly above his head and gave a throaty cheer “Urrah !”. Along the line, even in the other platoons
out of sight of the commissar took up the cry.
“Urrah !” rolled out across the rubble.
The long-trained pepper pot tactical advance went out of the window as
the Valhallans reverted to type and a brown coated human wave surged
forward.
Four hundred meters to the north, another platoon would
catch the four mortars in the process of being broken down to be carried away
and be set up again. W Company was
encouraged and now in a good mood. Half
an hour later, the advance had slowed back to a steady walk. They would regroup and prepare to move off
again, order restored and reverting to the more tactically sound advance with
half of their number covering the others as they advanced.
Even further away, Y Company advanced through a recently vacated
first aid post. Bandages, syringes and even
an amputated lower leg all lay around, blood soaking into the rubble and
dust. Old cupboards of toy musical instruments
had been used as tables. Tiny chairs for
very small children were pushed out of the way to allow the medicae to do their
job. The Valhallans did not linger, the
enemy would have this location mined or marked as an artillery target.
The orders group had just closed. The commissar gratified but somewhat
surprised by the gushing praise of the Valhallan officers. He was actually feeling a little vulnerable. He looked down and saw another one of the
little bone throne carvings in the dust.
He crouched down to pick it up.
The long las bolt missed the back of his head as he stooped
and hit Starshy Lieutenant Helluk squarely in the chest, burning through his
greatcoat and flak armour and killing him instantly. The Emperor protects. The
group scattered into the rubble. They
would spend the next few hours hunting the sniper. This would slow their advance until they
could ‘borrow’ a Leman Russ Punisher from the Death Korps to the south.
