Leni is still up and looking after stuff as the 2nd shift hits - she was part of
the sleepers group before the artillery hit so she's actually only 4h + fight
time awake. As she notices the shift change she goes over to the vox and calls
command.
"Command, this is southern approach reporting. No contacts in the last 4
hours. Continuing to lay low and watching for enemies. Report over."
Afterwards she grabs some of the entrenching tools and gets to work on making
positions on the ridge. Preferably using sand bags, but since so far none of
those were mentioned she'll probably settle for shallow holes to lie in with a
bit of ridge at the front to act as cover and brace your weapon on. The work is
slow because she spends most of the time looking out onto the field to spot
enemies and she goes down to look after Thudd and Monia from time to time.
For their part Thud and Notch sleep the shift away. They need it. The cramp will inevitably hit the fan, it's just a question of when. Survival depended on the greenskins not looking at anyone else.
During the start of the second shift, you notice flashes of light in the far distance - to your north-west and probably beyond the horizon. A few minutes later there are also flashes and distant thunder in the air and you can see the unmistakable streams of Anti-Aircraft fire coming from the same direction. The spectacle continues for a few minutes then it dies away again.
Near the end of the second shift, you notice the distant sounds of engines and ... some noise that may be ... music.
The sound origins directly north of you.
Looking hard in the direction the noise comes from you are able to see a chaotic mass of heat signatures and light sources.
From the shape of it you guess around a dozen Ork Bikes or Buggies, a couple of Trukks and 1 giant heat signature that must be some kind of heavy battle tank are currently passing through the open ground, about 1 click north of your position.
They are passing just between your and the northern imperial trench with direct west course.
And they move fast - at least 40-50 km/h and are definitely the origin of the 'music'. With a scope or monocular you may even notice some of the Orks hitting the metal with clubs and singing with full lungpower.
Simmins voxes Got Bikes, buggies, Trukks, and what might be a tank. And they're moving fast!
vs Per.81 (31+50) for 4 DoS so, yeah...
Monia is awakened by the orkish cacophony happening in the distance"By the Emperor, its like these idiots want to get bombarded. Think we can call in some artillery strikes on them?"
"Looks like they might be making a break for it in between our station and the one north of us...? uuuhhh if they are, and they get through we might want to gear up and hop into Doombringer and book it back to the spaceport."
They're moving real fast. But ain't veering around or anything. If you smart types can figure out where to call in a bombardment then that sounds real good cause whatever they're heading towards is in for a world of hurt Emperor preserve us
Ashora opens her eyes, not sure at first what had awakened her but trusting her instincts. As she hears the distant "music" and rev of engines she rolls to her feel, longlas already in her hand.
Sprinting up to the top of the trench for a better view she places the scope up to her eye for a better view of the vehicle column and clicks on her combead. "Hey Leni, Phix, we've still got those artillery assets on-call, right? Let's light up the bastards." Carefully gauging the xenos' speed, distance, and heading she feeds the info to the others in a calm, steady voice.
Thud and Notch are soon up. If the commotion from the orks doesn't do it the sudden bustle in the camp does.
Thud spots the "coloumn" almost immediately. He can't really do anything about it, so he scans around for any sign of a sneaky second advance somewhere else. He did NOT want to get jumped again.
Leni is busy digging a firing position on the ridge at a place littered with small rocks when the sound hits and actually manages not to hear it over the crunching. She reacts to the vox messages coming in from the team tho and stops working to check out the commotion, then sprints over to the vox to get the local artillery command on the line
Celephix rouses herself, she's used to working long shifts, but her workload keeps increasing, her respite minimal.
"We should watch our line too, this may be some sort of feint or prelude to summoning a larger horde."
Then again, we're supposed to be laying low right? They're not coming for us so maybe we should just let 'em be.
Combead: "Lay low and order artillery strikes on hostiles. Just watch the
fireworks and make sure your don't have your googles set too bright or you'll
get blinded when they start shelling them to shit"
Hoora. Notch replies. I say light'em up!
Ashora's sniper-eye and tools of trade reveals a very good range estimate - 975m - for the position to the tank which runs in the middle of the ... Lets call it Ork formation.
You can now ether use the direction, distance and your position to try and calculate the right coordinates by yourself, or just hand over those information to the artillery for them to process.
To come up with the right coordinates requires some hard thinking and math but given your previous activity, its really not THAT hard .
"Hmmm hard to tell with how dark it is and I'm having trouble getting a bead on them with the prey-sense sights and the loss of a fair bit of depth perception is throwing me off. I'm currently envying any animal that can echolocate because I hear them just fine."
Just kick the rough numbers over to the artillery. Let them do their job. Notch suggests.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Don't give up that easily." Leni gets out the map and the coordinate
tool and lights it up using the rechargeable flashlight from her guardsman kit
"So if we take these coordinates from Ashora and add the range she gave
that should be this point. Now heading straight east is this line. Okay now
take the scale of the map into account means that much of the line is one km and
they take... oh f$%* lemme write that down..."
She writes down:
40 / 60 = 0 0 r40
400 /60 = 6 360 r40
400 /60 = 6
"0.6 repeating klicks per minute, so if the point the line starts is 2
minutes ago when Ashora gave the numbers then they are 1.3 klicks along that
line and adding a marker every 0.66 klicks on that line makes a nice ruler to tell the
artillery boys where to shoot at"
Command Channel: "Command, this is Serenus 1st southern approach reporting.
Large motorized orkish warband spotted at coordinates xx,xx heading east,
proceeding to call in artillery strike from local command, please confirm."
Local artillery command channel: "Artillery command this is Serenus First
southern approach. Large motorized orkish warband spotted at xx,xx at 0312(insert
current time) hours heading 0,+1 at 40km/h or 0.6 repeating clicks per minute. Requesting artillery
support under authorization Serenus 1st #89-A. current target yy,yy before
adjustmen for shell travel time. Please confirm."
Vox:
Command: "Copy that, Serenus First. We will warn our forces. Try to keep track of remaining enemies and directions after the artillery strike. Command out."
Artillery:
"Fire mission confirmed. Coordinates received. Loading AP rounds. Fire for Effect with first round. We have a nice surprise for them. Hold it ... " A few seconds of silence follow, then you hear a number of heavy gun reports over the vox, although they seem far from the vox receiver.
"Rounds out ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ..."
As Leni has stopped talking quickly into the vox, you suddenly notice a couple of flashes on the eastern horizon. For a short moment you are compelled to look at your watches - no, it is not time for the sunrise. And then its over. As you still look east, you notice a couple of light-trails rising into the sky ... Then falling back down on a ballistic course towards the Orks. Rockets. Three tightly packed groups of six.
You follow their trails all way down to the rushing Orks. In the last second, a few greenskins seem to have notice the danger and open fire with their guns but with no success other than lighting the scene a bit.
Then the rockets explode all around them, spewing fireballs into the nightly sky, blinding you with their lights for a brief moment. Just in time you return your gaze as round after round of heavy artillery shell add their destructive power to the chaos. Then the sound reach your position, a wave of noise, like a dozen or more thunderclaps at once and you have to shield your ears.
For more than twenty seconds the barrage continue to wreck hell all over the Orks, only a couple of shells landing in a safe distance, the rest hits home. Then, as sudden as it started, it stops.
"Fire mission done. Status of target?"
It takes some time to notice anything through the thick smoke that billows all over the place of the barrage. Then you can see a lot of burning vehicles. The only visible movement comes from three bikes razing away in random directions. You search instinctively for the tank ... But there is none in sight. Given the fact that already the first group of rockets nearly scored a direct hit on the tank, you guess that it is all but gone.
Calculating its position and looking at that position more closely, you detect a giant crater witch spews out giant black clouds and it seems to be lit from the inside of the crater - probably fire.
stand by for status report from the scouts."
Combead: "I can't see shit through that smoke, can anyone confirm they are
dead?"
Commbead: I see three bikes runnin' away in all directions and a giant crater where the black smoke's coming from. I think we got the blasted tank dead on!
No contact from my angle, too much smoke. Notch reports.
"Simmins, where are these bikes? I don't have visual."
5DoS
"Alright, looks like some setting or whatever got fudged on my goggles, much better now. Confirming at 3 bikes are all I see that remain; two fleeing <direction> the last fleeing <other direction> in random swerving paths. No visual on any survivors within the crater with all the smoke and fire, I doubt any of them are left will; continue observing for confirmation."
Yeah Too small to target by artillery I think. Bomb boys did a heckuva job with your orders. Think they dropped their rockets right down an open hatch the way the thing went up.
Combead: "Nice, no idea why that screaming motherf++#er didn't do that
yesterday. No shooting at the bikes tho. We don't want to give away our position
unless we get attacked directly. Like, using a giant flashlight that burns holes
through ork hides and is visible from several klicks away at night."
Local artillery channel: "Southern approach scouts confirm targets destroyed,
only 3 bikes left. Awesome work guys. Southern approach over"
waiting for a reply of course, then switching
Command channel: "Southern approach reporting. Motorized ork warband
at coordinates yy,yy destroyed by artillery fire. Only 3 bikes surviving and fleeing.
Report over."
Combead: "Awesome work guys, nice spotting Simmins. Don't party too hard tho,
the counter push is still not here and I need you guys rested if or when shit
hits the fan - and 3rd shift is coming close. So rest while guy can."
Copy that. Thud and I are signing off. Notch says. Moments later both are back in the land of the unconscious.
"Roger that, standing down."
After the fireworks during the second shift and the resulting joyful shouts is over, the third watch takes over, including Monia and Celephix.
It's about 4 o'clock as you hear low voices and slow steps coming from north. Your night vision goggles show a quite large, shifting heat signature closing slowly towards your former position. It's ether a medium sized group of individuals staying close together, or a disturbing large creature which outlines are ever changing. The grizzled outline of the blobb and its weak signature indicates that its near the absolute maximum range of your goggles for an object of that size and heat emission.
"Mistress Celephix, I have eyes on...something...coming from the north, can you confirm?" she calls over the squads combead.
"There is definitely something there, possibly another Kommando group? Challenge them?"
A Tech-Use +0 may allow fine tuning of the goggle for the given circumstances.
It's definatly a group of humanoids approaching. They seem smaller than Orks but you cannot be entirely sure at the moment.
But they appear to be armed - or at least carry heavy items.
"I feel like remaining hidden for now is more prudent, for now at least..." she replies.
"I shall wake/alert the others so we can prepare, keep an eye on them?" and Monia will move to where the rest are either sleeping or just relaxing and appraise them of the situation:
"Comrades, we have eyes on a....blob of something coming from the north, we've not made contact yet but be prepared for anything."
Thud and Notch are up, locked, and loaded in no time. One should not take a report of possible contacts laying down.
Leni stirs and slowly opens her eyes. She looks around in the darkness before
she becomes aware of what was actually said.
"Damnit, someone tell those greenskin motherf$+%ers to respect my f~~&ing
sleep times." She starts putting on her armor while asking "Okay now
define 'something'. Orks are large, ugly and loud. Shouldn't be so damn hard to
say a group of orks now should it?"
In The time you needed to wake up, understand the situation and gear up, the contact has closed another 50-100m and bow is within normal operation range of your goggles (~100m).
It becomes evident that it's indeed a medium sized group (somewhere between one and two squads) of average-size, humanoid shapes coming from north, about 100m from your position - so about 40m from the destroyed bunker. Some of them seem to limb and altogether they seem to be in bad shape. Their movements slow and sluggish. From time to time one of the group seems to stumble and nearly falls to the ground.
You can tell that they are armed - quite heavy from what you can make out.
Awakened again, and none too happy about it, Ashora stifles her impulse to complain in favor of stealth. Quietly picking up her longlas, she moves away from the group a short distance, hoping to get a slightly different angle on the approaching group if hostilities break out.
As she focuses her scope on the group (finger off the trigger for now), she clicks on her combead and whispers. "Guys...I can't tell for sure if they're friendlies, but even badly injured Orks don't act like they're hurt. Someone should hail them."
All the same, she keeps the crosshairs on one of the figures that seems to be toting a heavy weapon...but exhaustion and the memory of the platoon-mate she'd killed two days ago takes the edge off her battle lust.
"Okay so no orks this time... Probably. Monia, what does your super hearing
say? And try to hail them using the combeads. Phix try to pick up their com
traffic with the big vox and its superior pickup range.
Everyone else groups of 2. Get prone with a good view on them and pick a target
as team. If it comes to it I want 2 lasers hitting one target until it goes
down, then switching to the next one to the right. Ashora is excempt on account
of murdering targets in one shot on her own."
"Pick off the heavies first, I've got [] so the rest of you find someone else!"
'Phix transmits on standard imperial frequencies. [b]"Approaching group identify yourselves."
Yawning heavily Simmins sets his jury rigged tripod on the ground and sets his Stubber on it and trains it in the direction of the approaching group.
They way they're movin' they'll be cut down by auto fire on your mark. Simmins relays to the medic in charge Just give me the word.
"Either I'm suffering from some hearing damage due to all the artillery that just got rained on us earlier or they're just ever-so-far away, probably both, but I can't make anything out."
At these ranges Thud's Ripper would be ineffective at best. In its place thud braces the heavy stubber he got from the unit's first heavy weapons ttooper.
Celephix listens intensely for a reply, flipping through some standard frequencies without success.
The imperial survivors scatter into groups of two, trying to stay low as they do - but the movement seem awful loud in the eerie silence of the pitch black night that surrounds you.
Monia hears the whispering of two soldiers heading past her: "What if they are Kommandos again ... Doing everything to not appear like Orks?"
You hear low whispers coming from the approaching group. The foremost seem to speak to those at the rear, waving his hand in a wide gesture.
The words sound like low gothic, but it is really hard to tell if those words come from them or your allies spreading out.
As the guardsmen around you still rob into position, the group also starts to fan out, a small group of five stays together at the front of the group, the rest head some meters to the side, drop to their knees and raise their weapons in a general - ready for action - pose.
The groups action resembles the typical spread-out on possible contact within enemy territory Imperial Tactic that was drilled into you during your basic training as well.
On the other hand ... It IS a really good idea to do that after all, and nothing Imperial specific.
What in the Emperor's name are they doing? Simmins grouses. shifting so that his Stubber keeps the clump of five in range while also trying to keep at least some of the others in his arc of fire.
Orks don't usually hesitate like that...They are whispering. Sounds like Gothic, but I can't make it out. Notch comments.
"By the Throne they think we're Kommandos..." She tells the team, figuratively facepalming.
"Oh, they're also fanning out around us, standard Primer stuff so far as I can tell so be on guard for shots fired."
And she otherwise braces herself for any hostilities.
Hesitating as she sees the other group spreading out in a combat formation, Ashora decides to take a risk and prevent a potentially horrible tragedy.
she shouts out, then ducks down below the lip of the trench in case any fireworks start.
The shout from Ashora causes the approaching figures to stop dead and reflexively drop to the ground. A few long seconds of heavy, pressing silence follows, before a commanding, rasping voice answers in low gothic that has the same kind of speech color than your own.
"IMPERIAL GUARD ALSO SERENUS FIRST! STATIONED AT THE SOUTHERN APPROACH!" Monia shouts back so that they hopefully dont get a full bead on Ashoras location.