"I calculate that the odds of regretting this are in excess of 99%."
With little space to dodge Celephix users the superior strength of her mechadendrite arm to brace herself from the oncoming rush.
If you two make it through this without becoming grease stains in the snow Thud might actually bestow upon you the title of Li'tl One.
After pushing Leni to the side, Faye and Celephix muster all the strength their bodies (and bionics) can muster to stop the wild charge of the Ogryn with a joined effort.
Still ringing with the Ogryn, the singsong of Thud'dr - that would probably fear any child out of his mind - manages to calm down the second Ogryn as well, and he to falls over into the snow from exhaustion.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
After making certain that his brothers were'nt going to do any more damage, Thud gathers Faye and 'Phix in front of him. He sits in the snore in an effort to bring them to eye level. It doesn't work, so he scrunches himself down a little. He starts speaking in Ogryn as Notch translates.
You have saved my brother. This is an act expected of the Clans, but not of you.
Thank you.
I will now call you Little Sarge and Little Phix because you saved my brother.
He then stands back up and nods purposefully. It was done.
Celephix is too busy concentrating on not collapsing after being crashed into by a living bulldozer to take in what Thud'dr is saying, so simply nods in acceptance.
Faye numbly nods to Thud and then points back to the tunnel where their biggest concern probably is and absentmindedly reaches for the Injector filled with Stimm but stops herself short. Running on fumes she might be, she didn't want to overly strain herself or piss of their medic.
Leni is still doing her snow angel while occasionaly pressing her combead but what she's saying is not heard on the squad vox.
In one break where she is not talking on the bead she shouts; "I DON'T HEAR BIG MOTHERF+%$ING BULLDOZER BABIES CRYING ANYMORE, WHERE ARE THOSE PATIENTS YOU GUYS OWE ME?"
Celephix snaps back to attention, "Ogryn-class troopers are pacified. They do not appear to be in immediate danger, more pressing threat is the phenomena causing reality disturbance." she peers down the tunnel trying to get some inkling of what is down there.
Just as you are wondering if reality will ever get its s++! back together, you get the feeling of someone ripping at your eyeballs and the weird warp flux is disappearing as fast as it came.
The tunnel before you is pitch black, but you can make out one big, semi moving heat blobb some meters inside the tunnel another big blob some meters further back which seems to cool down and two smaller blobs another several meters back inside the tunnel, somewhat intertwined.
Celephix looks to Sergeant Marbray "Do we enter the tunnel try to immolate whatever is in there with grenades... Even if the Commissar is alive, he is likely irrevocably twisted by exposure to warp-space anomalies by now."
Thud motions for his brothers to report to the child- play-snow-medic and takes point going into the tunnel. (Unless he's told to 'nade it. Then he'll unload on whatever's in there) He doesn't particularly want to go in. It's dark in dere after all, but he needs to know why his brothers were running like that. Anything that could cause that level of fear in an ogryn must be eliminated.
"Sarge I've still got multiple heat sigs in the tunnel, only one's moving though and pretty feebly. Can't get a clear read though, are we going in?"
"At this stage, whatever that heat signature is, its probably not an Ogryn and its definitely not human. Thud, if you would do the honors and blow that thing to hell? Ashora, make sure that its down and out."
And she just moves back into cover and takes aim at the tunnel entrance.
"Yes m'am, here comes the double tap."
6 DoS Subbing 2 --> 6 so 23E Pen2 + 1 Critical
Thud'dr is happy to obey that command and unloads several of his explosives - including the two big ork bombs - into the tunnel.
Ashora who is providing cover cannot detect any movement as the grenades fly into the tunnel until she must close her eyes to not get blinded by the multiple explosives...
After you waited for some more seconds you carefully enter the tunnel which now looks like a slaughterhouse. Blood, gore and bone fragments litter the tunnel linking the trenches. The first corpse you pass obviously was once an Ork - now thoroughly blasted to tiny bits.
The second one was a Ogryn, but his head lies a few meters beside and you suspect that this was not done by the grenades.
Then in the back of the tunnel, quite at the end of the blasting radius and nearly on the other side already, you find two bodies on the floor. The upper one wears the robe of an imperial psyker. It's eyes are bloody ruins and a grenade fragment has pierced his skull open.
Beneath the dead witch lies the commissar. His hat gone, the left side of his face cut open by fragments and a big bullet hole in the chest.
You notice blood is still pouring from the commissars wounds and he breaths - but his breath is the slowest and most rasping and gurgling you ever heard.
Thud moves past the bodies to secure the area. Everything green here was probably dead. Probably. He was going to make sure.
"LENI! Get your ass up here now! The Commissar is alive! Barely, but alive! Everyone else, try and recover as much equipment as we can; can't let anything go to waste. We're going to have to call this one in."
Thud immidiately starts securing the area and gathering supplies.
You are able to recover the slightly damaged ripper gun of the ogryn and the badly damaged boltgun of the commissar. His chainsword is cleaved in two and the lasgun of the witch lies as a slag of molten metal on the ground beside him. You are able to find 2 frag grenades as well.
Both weapons have the unreliable trait until repaired and will cause havoc upon a jam.
The commissar is in really bad shape and on the brink of dying. You diagnose a penetrated lung, two-to-three splintered rips and major blood loss.
-> 1 DoS
-> 3 DoS
Leni has sat up by the time the shout comes and is just in the middle of checking out the two orgrynns. Hearing the shout in the distance she taps her combead
"For f#**s sake sarge use your tech you're instead of shouting you're still in a bad way, be over there in a sec." taking her finger off the combead she addresses the orgryns: You're hurt bad, no reckless anything. I'll be back to deal with you when I'm done with the psychopath. Stick with the group for now.
She crams her stuff back into the medkit and sprints towards the tunnel with the almost dead commissar but still only uses pathes in the snow that have already been treat by the others.
"For f@!@s sake I can't even see anything with all this BLOOD. AND THAT'S BAD IN ITSELF"
She carefully cleans some of the blood away to look at the injuries
"Dammnit this is bad, I can't treat this here. Someone needs to get to the vox and call for a properly equipped medical chimera RIGHT F!#&ING NOW. I'm getting him stable for now. I don't care if they don't have one with a surgeon I'll do the procedure if I have to just get me a proper place to do it!"
-> 3DoS
She gets out that single pack of blood plasma she got and sterializes everything before hooking it up to the commissar and starts to stop the bleeding with clamps from the medkit. After about a minute of frantic work she wipes away the sweat that has formed despite the cold and snow and sits up.
"I've delayed his death as far as possible without a proper facility but we need that medical chim and we need him somewhere they can pick him up. We need him at the bunker or in our own chimera if we can get it up and running so we can head towards them. Either way someone has to carry him. CAREFULLY"
"Our Chimera is still sealed, but we should be able to burn away the sealing agent, what happened to our flamers?"
Thud points towaed the twin mounds of half melted snow on the friendly side of the tunnel. Flamers 'dere.
The flamers are not exploded (otherwise half of you were thoroughly crispy by now) but they don't look good. While you are not trained on these weapons, you guess that the guard primer would tell you to not use such a damaged weapon without great immediate danger before letting an engineer repair and calm its machine spirits.
Can I syphon off some promethium with my 'dendrite injectors and then apply it to the sealing gel with those, igniting with a controlled lasgun shot? (can't remember if promethium ignites on contact with air or not?)
(5DoS)
Celephix carefully loosens the valve on tank of sacred promethium, her vox casting a quiet prayer to the machine spirits as she does so. When she feels she has enough of the volatile fluid she returns to the Chimera "I advise you to stand clear of the rear entry in case our extraction does not go as planned" she calls, running her vox to increased volume to try and penetrate the armoured plating.
She then carefully applies the promethium to the foul gel-based sealing agent, before standing to one side and firing a single low-powered shot... hopefully burning away the gel in a quick and harmless flare up.
If there's enough Promethium (and no unexpected problems) she'll start to apply it to the other sealed hatches, mostly because she doesn't want volatile promethium stored in her delicate injector canisters for too long.
Celephix is able to clear away the sticky ooze from the hatches with careful application of promethium to burn it away.
After most of the ooze is burned away, the ramp of the Chimera finally gives way and opens up with a strained sound. Four troopers of the 1st stand with rifles ready, but lower them immediately upon recognizing their ally from the mechanicus.
The oldest of the four quickly thanks her for finally rescuing them from their enclosure, nodding to the youngest of the four who is slightly green in the face. "Pvt. Hill here doesn't like enclosed spaces much. Panicked as we were attacked and he couldn't get out. How's the situation? Com-Bead connection was bad at the best of times. Were are we needed most?"
As the squad loots and finds the Chainsword and Bolt Pistol "'Phix, you'll be in charge of safekeeping these, maybe even fixing them if you can. Once we get the report in the Schola and/or Command will probably want his gear and lying to them is not in my agenda of 'things to do', alright?"
"Thud, try and see if you can't get the other Ogryns to help Leni carry Yeta and any other equipment back to our bunker if needed. Ashora, as usual Overwatch. If you could get a read of how the southern trench's situation is going."
Faye will then head to the Chimera with her and see to the boys trapped inside first before going to their Vox Caster.
"Spread out across the lines and keep your eyes out. We mostly need eyes on the Southern Trench, men, the Commissar is down and we have to get a Medivac down here or we'll lose him and I, for one, don't have to explain to command how a Commissar got downed. Keep your eyes peeled, it was Kommandos for the most part there are very likely mines placed in and around our trenches. Groups of 2-3 at all times! No one goes anywhere alone and outside of combead range, understood? 'Phix, I'll leave this to you, you know how to work machines best."
And not even waiting to see them get into action, she jogs over to their bunker where their Vox Caster is, all the while keeping an eye peeled for any sudden traps or movement and her injector, given to her by Leni, handy in case the effects of Stimm starts to wear off; she didn't want to be passing out as she radioed in.
Leni is still with the commissar, waiting for someone to carry him with her.
"Getting more bodies and our chim back is nice and all but THE IMPORTANT PART IS GETTING THAT BLOODY VOX MESSAGE OUT FOR A PROPER MEDICAL ONE. I ALREADY NEED A PROPER FACILITY AND HE'S NOT GETTING ANY BETTER. AND WHERE ARE THOSE EXTRA HANDS TO CARRY THE PSYCHOPATH IN BLACK?" She actually screams into the combead to get the point across.
You make double time to the bunker, dodge another Suspicious heap of snow' and are about to enter the bunker as you feel your legs getting all wobby and you barely reach the vox caster before collapsing to the ground beside the machine.
You feel like someone has drained your body of every ounce of energy, like someone had removed all your blood from your veins at once. The hardest handover and the deepest tiredness you ever had is nothing compared to this feeling. You are barely able to move your fingers and hands. Your tongue lolls around in your mouth like a blind snake on the search for prey. You probably are able to get the vox going but you are not entirely sure whether you actually can speak coherently at the moment at all.
The words of the medic comes to your mind, telling you that the second dose would be WAY worse than the first one - you can barely believe it. But on the other hand ... What if she is right with that assessment?
Leni can hear Thud shouting in Ogryn and soon the other two walking tanks arrive to provide medical transport.
Faye will weakly, head swimming with fatigue with the most intense cottonmouth she's ever experience, get onto the Vox's preset channel for Central Command and attempt to get the following message out:
"Chommand, this is shergheant Faye Marbray of the Sherenus firsht positioned on the Shouthern Ahpproace's trenchline. We've been hit by Ohrk Khommandos and have successfully repelled them but Chommisshar Yeta was gravely wounded in doing so. Requesting medevac or we may lose him, over."
As much as Faye would like to just use the second Stimm injection right then and there to make sure her orders got through clearly, she didnt want to risk not being alert and ready in the event of another Ork attack occurring and so soldiers through the sensation of being suspended in high-gravity molasses or other rough equivalent.
In her attempts to get the message out to command, she totally 'whitenoises' what Leni was currently shouting into her ear over their combead network.
Leni sights seeing the two orgrynns coming
"Patients doing patient transports now? Well whatever not like we have many people left who aren't patients by now. "
She does a quick inspection whether the greatcoat is still in shape.
"Finally some use for that ridiculous greatcoat they like so much. You. You grab the the coat at the edges. Noooo I'll show you. Alright like this. And you. Yeah you the other big one. You're at his shoulders and use those big hands of yours to carry as much of his back as you can. We're going THAT way. Nice and slowly. Only walk on snow that someone already walked on. Any more mines and this is over."
She keeps prattling while directing the strange patient transport to the bunker. Not the most pleasant things most of the time, but a lot more comfortable than the yelling she does when things are the most urgent.
At first you do not get any reply, then a nervous voice (you think sounds like a 8 year old boy) asks you to repeat.
But to your great relief, the voice is cut out by a much louder voice breaking into the channel.
"This is Cpt. Knutr's command tank for the 1st to 4th Squad of the second Battalion of the Serenus 1st.
Confirm your ID, Soldier.
Then try that status report again. Over."
If the circumstances were any less severe, the procession of two Ogryns, a commissar and the medic and her helper would sound like the start of a bad joke. Nevertheless do they reach the relative safety of the still ugly smelling bunker, just as the last part of the Vox reply echos through the defensive position.
Lenis face distorts into a mask that clearly says: "unhappy". She storms into the bunker and grabs one of the field beds. She puts it outside the bunker just next to the door and directs the Orgrynns to place the commissar on it.
Tapping her Combead: "Aubray, we're bringing the wounded to be bunker, you're getting some help in a moment."
Towards the Orgrynns: "Very good work. More wounded towards that way. Please help Aubray. Only go snow already walked on." She gives them a blanket from inside and indicates towards where Aubray is taking care of the burnt flame troopers.
Having managed that she stays a moment to make sure they actually go there and then teleport-dashes next to Faye.
No yelling yet, she keeps it bottled up since Faye is talking to command but the effort not to go 'IM A MEDIC GET ME STUFF' actually physically shows - her brow is wrinkled to death and her cheeks actually puff out a little with unyelled yelling.
Hearing the Captains voice on the other end fills Faye with relief that her call-in wont get shoved under the rug. Taking a deep breath and trying to get as much spit into her mouth to avoid it from drying up all the while doing her best to ignore Leni's barely contained medical fury, Faye does exactly as she's ordered.
"Captain! This is Sergeant Faye Marbray, 2nd Squad, Serenus First Mechanized Infantry requesting medevac for Commissar Yeta who was gravely wounded in a successfully repelled Ork Kommando Ambush, over!"
She does her best to keep it short, brief and clear as to minimize the risk of anything shes trying to say being lost in transmission for whatever reason.
Once done she glances towards Leni and nods her head towards her very forgettable aide, pvt. Jorgen, to make him useful as she does all she can to keep herself from passing out.
"One thing at a time Leni..."
"Acknowledged, Sergeant.
We are en route to your position already with some supplies and reinforcements. ETA ... about 4 hours if everything goes smooth.
We have Sister Melial of the Orders Hospitaller with us.
Do you have further enemy contacts within your sector?"
"We do have a Chimera here to meet them half-way?"
The vox goes silent for some moments - clearly the comm-officer is asking back with the commander.
"Negative. Orks have started artillery fire and bombing runs all over the southern approach.
Halfway meeting would mean dangerous exposure and reduced mobility for some time.
Is your medic there? Sister Melial asks for a med-status of the wounded."
As the conversion continues at the bunker Thud and Notch finish de-Orking and gathering the salvageable gear from the surrounding trenches. They carry the whole load (well, Thud carries. Notch does his best but he's only human) back to the main bunker for safe keeping.
Ashora and Malchior clamber down into the trench to help the wounded stagger towards the bunker, then move south to find a decent vantage point up above the second trenchline. Scooping snow away to clear themselves a dry patch, they go prone and start carefully scanning the no-man's-land and distant hills.
This time, despite the cold and the gnawing concern for her comrades, she keeps her focus. No damn Ork is getting by me, not tonight.
"Our Sniper is currently verifying that the perimeter is secured but we have dealt with all current hostiles in the trench line. For the Commissars status, he is stabilized but without extended care, he won't make it, Over."
The only trace of life you can make out from your vintage point, is the far off groans of wounded guardsmen coming from the southern bunker...
Nothing alive in the trenches, the battlefield or even the hills to notice.
Vox:
"Roger that. The drivers are told to floor it. Await our arrival within the next three to five hours. Cpt. Knutr's command, out."