Valhallan advances further into the city

 

 

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. 

Freedom Fighter's view point - escaping the Battle of Chibli into the City

8793207X3 Named Man Owerr Wourbun,

Devos IV 2^nd PDF Regt “La Guardia Presedentiale” 

3^rd Squad (Call Sign “Bright Shark 99”), 9 Platoon, B Company, 1^st Battalion.

His legs burned.  He’d never run so far, so fast in his life.  He crouched in cover from force of habit and the pain in his thighs brought tears to his eyes and an audible sob as he sank down.  He was out of charged cells and not sure if his las carbine would even fire if he had a charged cell for it.  But after four years with it in his hands day and night he couldn’t have thrown it away if he tried.  His Personal Role Radio, noosphere linked to a comm bead in his left ear, was dead as well.  “Bright Shark 99” might be still running but he wasn’t talking to anyone.  Was there even anyone left to talk to ? 

He reached up under the rim of his blue bowl shaped helmet and pulled out the comm bead, reflexively pushing it into one of his ammunition pouches rather than dropping it.  They had been hard to replace in the first year of the war and now were all but impossible to come by.  His grey uniform was looking a bit worn and he hadn’t eaten since before the battle broke out, when the smartly turned out Palladians assaulted the first positions.  Their white trousers and cap bands made for pretty aiming points and the black IFVs with signal yellow trim were punished by the dug in heavy weapons.

His fingers fumbled with the lid of his canteen as his trembling hand barely got the spout to his lips before he spilled it.  He remembered with satisfaction how vehicles and infantry in the killing zones of the deliberate ambushes tried to run and hide and fled straight into the minefields that he and his comrades helped lay.  There was something to be proud of, not the destruction of the invaders, they were still men, after all.  But a job well done.  They had laid and executed a proper ambuscade and stopped the invading army in its tracks.  Quite literally. 

His legs still hurt.  He was very hungry but the swallow of body temperature brackishly aluminium tasting water had stopped him jittering quite so badly.  Once the Palladians had been stopped, he’d roused his team: Mincer, Gurge, Abze and Tunk.  They’d moved silently, quickly, as intended, to their next position, confident that the emplacements they’d just left would be marked by the invaders. 

The amount of artillery fire directed onto their former positions was truly humbling.  They had cowered, hands over their ears, mouths open as clods of earth and the odd sandbag rained down on them from over a hundred meters away.  The bombardment had lasted for ever.   The noise and vibration had broken a few more men in the Platoon, even after four years under fire.  And the skull-fethers were practically on them as soon as the barrage ended.  Those insane bastards must have taken casualties from their own artillery fire, following it that close.  And these were a whole different story to the rest of the invading armies.  They were relentless, advancing regardless of casualties and even seemed to shoot straighter.

They had barely escaped that one.  He didn’t know it, as his Personal Role Radio was losing signal and his ears were ringing from the bombardment, the 79^th Tank Battalion had counter attacked and eventually found the invaders Leviathan and destroyed it.  So whilst the skull-fethers were seemingly unstoppable and the Bright Sharks had gunned a fair few of them down, where they were on the line which had benefited from the counter attack by seeing the invaders slack off a bit.  If he’d have known, he’d not have seen it that way.  The squads either side had been picked off by the skull fethers and their sharp shooting.

Again they fell back, now to their prepared positions alongside their own field artillery.  The last throw of the dice for the PDF manticores and basilisks before everyone would flee into the city.  When the god machines appeared there was no hesitation, the word was sent down the lines of La Guardia Presidentiale by runner.  They weren’t going to fight God Machines with bayonets and empty las guns.  They, as professional full-time soldiers, already knew that the rest of the PDF were going to follow the preplanned evacuation plan and use the mag-rail tunnels to get into the city.

Without power for over three years, the tunnels were dark, confined and would rely on strict enforcement of discipline to prevent fatal overcrowding.  The mag rail equipment was still in there, along with the odd abandoned train and under repair AFV, hidden from aerial surveillance. Add in a routing army and the chances of making it out the other end were by no means assured.  But his regimental command had made a decision independent of High Command and had it’s own escape plans.

The men of La Guarda were already briefed, they would split down to their smallest tactical groups, squads and in some cases, even fire teams and scatter through the blasted suburbs and regroup in the city at pre-designated Citidef positions.  There would be bunkers with charged cell packs, rations, water and rest.  As the peacetime ceremonial unit they were familiar with the capital city, they knew where the caches were, knew which ones to go to.  They expected to ready to stand and fight once more, much sooner than the rabble crowding through the dank train tunnels.  If, indeed, any of them made it out at all.

He suddenly felt quite alone.  The journey into the city had not quite been as smooth as he’d imagined.  The skull fethers had chased them into the ‘burbs.  Death Riders and the invader’s Salamanders seemed to be everywhere.  With no grenades, maybe enough charge for six shots between the five of them, there was no chance of any sort of micro snap ambush.  They had no comms with anyone else.  But the terrain was the biggest thing.  This was where Tunk grew up.  They had expected him to be able to lead them through the streets double time and on to their destination.

One of the first things they came across was Tunk’s Scholae.  It was smashed to blithereens and had obviously been occupied when it was struck.  That must have been early in the war.  So part of the aerial bombardment campaign then.  Tunk barely held it together, unsurprisingly.  Probably thinking of when he was a youngling and his parents would send him off every morning and be there for him when he returned home safe everyday.  Blown to bits.  After that, the destroyed infrastructure, the smashed bridges and roads that weren’t there any more disoriented Tunk even further.  They seemed to spend far too long in each hab zone, with Tunk looking alternatively numb and on the verge of breakdown whilst they all took cover, waiting for him to save them.   

At least it seemed that the skull fethers had stopped chasing them.  But of course there was a reason for this.  The god machines were now on the edge of the city and taking speculative shots into the outlying zones.  Anything tall enough was being systematically reduced.  God Machines using Titan weaponry to remove possible sniper positions before they advanced any further.  Seemed like overkill, especially when you’re on the receiving end. 

That’s when he’d lost the others.  As they were moving through another ruined complex, a gymnasium, something shot the upper floors and the whole place fell down, collapsing like a house of cards.  He’d run and not stopped.   Now here he was, alone, legs spent, effectively unarmed, in a ruined city with little idea of where to go to fix any of his problems. 

He heard a noise from his right.  He had great cover to his left.  He’d need to move forwards, as he was oriented, towards a small generator station in front of him, to have cover from anyone coming around from the ruins there.  He was halfway across when the man who had caught him in the open burst around the corner.  The skull fether who was going to kill him didn’t shoot.  And in that split second, he turned out not be a skull fether.  He hadn’t seen any bit of his life flashing before his eyes, and was too dehydrated to piss himself again. 

Mincer didn’t shoot.  He did, and would have definitely killed his target at this range, three blast burst from his Kantreel pattern Mk19.  But the cell was dead.  So his target wasn’t.  He recognised Wourbun and immediately felt guilty at ‘shooting’ at his friend.  Although no one could tell.  So no one would ever know. 

“I thought you were dead” said Mincer, more a breath than an exclamation.

“So did I.”  Wourbun waved him and the others back to his cover, such as it was.  They automatically turned out to cover their various arcs.  “Where’s Tunk ?”

“In the ground.  He was struck by a huge piece of masonry when the building collapsed.”  Answered Mincer.

“He was having a bad day anyway.” Reflected Wourbun.