Leni does not even move to the front, she stays and observes from the trenches
close to the vox unit but still doing so through the sights of her lasgun.
She was about to raise her voice herself when Ashora chipped in, so she stops
and waits for the answer.
She raises her voice, in the eery silence it is most likely not necessary to
shout.
"Enough smalltalk. We are the ones assigned to this position by command so
we are asking the questions. We have you in our sights and according to command
there are no firendly forces within 5 klicks. Obviously you are not orks so you
have this opportunity to positivly identify yourself and you will not move
until command has verified the identity you give or you will be treated as
hostile, orks or no orks."
The last remark got the slowly raising heads down to the ground again. A moment of silence follows, then the voice answers.
"I am Sgt. Wallace. We were posted ... I guess two positions north of you, got shelled-out. Long-Range Vox lost. Serenus capitol is Numerta. My ID ... 8529-10-40A. Can we come over? I have wounded here."
Every native Serenus knows the name of the capitol of course ... But already the foreign specialists (so Thud'dr, Celephix and Monia) will not know that name.
Well they got the capital right Simmins says over commbead Story fits too. If some of those ork shells had fallen a bit differently we'd be in the same boat or worse.
"You have me convinced sergeant but trust pays in death out here so hold on a
minute or 2 longer."
She moves to the long range vox and changes to the command channel:
"Command
this is Serenus 1st southern approach reporting. We have stopped a group of guardsmen
claiming to be from 2 positions north. They have identified themselves as
Serenus 1st commanded by Sgt. Wallace, ID 8529-10-40A. Please confirm identity.
Requesting to let them join our force uppon confirmation."
Confirmation of ID arrives and you call them over.
The arriving group of soldiers is in an overall bad shape. Their faces and skin grey from exhaustion, blood loss and recent horror. There are four heavily wounded between the 15 soldiers that look really bad. You see a couple of lost fingers, extreme burn wounds, the sort of rattling breathing that reminds of closing doom and a lost leg that is covered in bandages.
A three-men heavy weapon team carries an autocannon between them, one woman is equipped with a flamer and is followed by a Priest who wields a gigantic, two-handed chainsword and misses half his face. The rest is equipped with lasguns, a few only carry their sidearms.
Sgt. Wallace is foremost, striding along with a kind of robotic parade ground march in front of his men. He is only equipped with a bloodied chainsword and a custom-made grenade-band around his hip featuring no less than ten grenades of different types. He is a heavy muscular man with a haunted-empty look in his eyes - that is reflected in the eyes of all his men.
As soon as he arrived, he looks around those present, before raising his voice is weary and exhausted but still with that commanding tune that seem to be drilled into him a long time ago.
"Where is your CO? Who's in command of this position?"
"Where is he not? Poor bastard took a direct hit from the xenos artillery on the second barrage. As for who's in charge, Cpl. Tivnan's been giving the orders and we've been following them, so I guess she's acting command." Ashora feels a tickle of guilt as she looks over the wounded newcomers and in her own squad alike--but contrast, other than some scrapes and a rapidly-healing cut from the Ork she'd gotten off light.
She hopes the others don't resent her for it.
"Okay guys nice work, everyone who is not on guard duty help us welcome our
guests with a bit of food-and-tell back inside the safe position.
Sergeant, please have your soldiers follow exactly after one of mine, we're
going inside the safety of our minefield."
Having lead them inside and started the breakfast circle she starts to put up
the field hospital while talking with the sergeant. "Im Leni Tivnan, Medic
and acting officer by virtue of just having done it when the psycho in black
exploded. Which means, unless I'm mistaken, that we're now under your command
sergeant, having joined us as an actual officer. Probably for a few more hours
before the counter push reaches us here."
Putting up the hospital takes a minute or two since there is no shooting and
immidiate dying to hurry Leni. After that she checks the wounded and tells them
numbers, starting with the most heavily wounded. She does a quick stop to ask
'Phix to help her with the wounded and asking the troopers if they brought their
medkit since ours is starting to run low and it was not intended to supply 2
large groups of soldiers to begin with.
After that she calls over the heavily wounded by their number, so starting with
the worst wounds.
"Thank you, Private. It's good to see some friendly faces - and a medic on top of that. Look for Pvt. Johnson's leg ... I fear he has wound fever on the stump. Some meal and a proper rest will work wonder for most of us now that our odyssey is finally over now.
We were positioned two posts north of you. Then got overrun in the previous night by a Kommando ambush followed by a Stormboy assault in the early morning.
I ordered fubar bombing of our position and we legged it southwards - our vox operator and his com was taken out by a stray artillery round together with our medic - and about all our medical supplies as well. Arrived at the position to your north at noon - its completely wiped out by massed artillery fire or bombardment. No one can tell if from friendly-fire or Orks though. So we started our march to your position. A few minutes out in the plain and we discovered a huge Ork convoy approaching. Thought we were done for, then they got bombed to little green gits.I guess it was you calling a nice artillery strike?
Anyway, hows your commands? Can't really lead if I don't know the orders and situation. Our last command from Regiment HQ was to hold out until the counter-push arrives at the line..."
Pvt. Johnson is the soldier with the lost leg. He really looks bad, having received no proper medical treatment and only basic pressure bandages to stop the bleeding. Leni fights a long battle, but then has to amputee the leg whole to prevent blood poisoning from the rotting stump.
The sounds, screaming and smell is so bad, that all guardsmen take detours around the medical tent for hours, but Leni is able to help the soldier through the worst of it. A few of the others soldiers receive quick aid as well until the medical resources run dangerously low (4 more uses), especially painkillers, disinfect and bandages are running low.
Leni receives two level of fatigue for the prolonged work after no sleep whatsoever.
"You guys and gals got any AP weapons or sharpshooters with you? Also check with our Techpriest before wandering anywhere, we've been planting some mines."
A rather old looking man with only his side arm remaining answers Ashora with a low voice. "We have traded two krak-shaper. Should make your standard krak grenades formidable anti armor tools ... Or so the primer and our trader said. Also the Autocannon is good against light vehicles. But that's it I think.
Bastards hit us with quick-into-melee infantry that ripped through all our defenses ... Lost 10 to the five Kommandos ... And another 8 to those weird f%!@ers with their jetpacks... Then two more from friendly artillery as they shelled us out and started early ..."
As Leni starts to work on Johnsons leg she whinces.
"Our orders are to lay low until the counter push arrives, not start any
fights and order artillery strikes via quick response authorization on any orks
that dare pass through here.
- Johnson, hold on to this while I cut it. -
So yeah that artillery stike was requested by us.
- no, that is bound too hard, it's SUPPOSED to cut the blood flow -
We have no one that is actually trained in the use of this spiffy navigation
utility but we had a few hours to get used to it so with the help of Monia and
'Phix - our Spook and Enginseer - we managed to put down some coordinates that
seem to have worked out well."
She stops for a moment to wipe away the sweat on hear brow before deciding what
to do. "Well Soldier, I'm afraid that stump has to go to safe your life but
don't worry. I hear the munitorum hates soldiers laying around lazily because of
something small like lost limps. You'll get a shiney new one in time. Litteraly
shiney.
The position to the north was reported lost about the same time we were attacked
by a crazy driving convoy and enemy artillery, so my money would be on they got
bombed by both - first xenos, then ours to clean up the filthy greenskins. That
was the attack we lost our second commissar in. The first actually got shot up
badly by the kommandos the night before. Along with so many of our guys,
including the sergeant that we got a fresh batch and that second commissar. No
new sarges tho, they seem to be running low on command personel."
'Phix moves to assist Leni as requested, her face-mask concealing the scent of rot and infection from her senses.
"While we are low on other supplies, our heavy casualties mean we have a surplus of weapons and charge-packs. Should you need to resupply." otherwise Celephix remains quiet.
"My thanks, Enginseer. Our supplies should suffice for now. No one got less than two clips on him. We packed everything we got as we departed. Leaving those damn creatures no plunder at all..."
Thud and Notch move to help the autocannon team. Lugging that thing around was probably the toughest part of that march short of doing it with less limbs than normal. Thud takes the heavy weapon while Notch handles the ammo. Notch voxes Simmons, Hey Simmons, where do you want this auto cannon?
The heavy weapon team looks in awe as the giant Ogryn approaches and lifts the heavy barrel (the weapon is dismantled into three major parts, the barrel being the heaviest) with one hand and no sign of stress.
One of them cannot hold back a grinning remark. "Man... He would have been a hell of a help on that march. But thank you big one, we will keep that thing for now ... Didn't hurled it all the way here to start tossing stones at greenskins while someone else have fun with our love."
Meanwhile Wallace keeps talking to Leni as she works on her new patients.
"Good job there - without proper training. Could have ruined our day if you had messed up that call. We were not far away as your show started. And yeah ... They hit us pretty hard. 'Basic Orkoid Infantry' they said, 'nothing too bad, main battle front is way north of your position' they sad. B$$!&&%! I say. Lets hope that counter push actually arrives ... Or is even a thing and not just s~%@ they told us to make us 'hold the line'."
Ah, would love to have had one of those when we were almost getting overrun with trukks Simmin says as he looks longingly at the auto cannon. But yeah, I'll stick with ripping the green bastards up when they get out of their tin cans fer now.
As for the counter push sarge Simmins says as he helps out in the medbay as he can I came here as a reinforcement so they were sending at least some backup to the front line here. Emperor only knows if they keep doing it.
"Thanks for the praise but in the end it's just easy trgonometry in a weird
coordinate system. Ashora has been doing a perfect job in supplying the distance
and direction for the ork artillery yesterday and 2 points of the ork convoy so
it was easy to calculate their speed. Oh probably easiest if you check out the
notes for it."
She hands him the map, which has the coordinates of the major features around
the trench noted, the line of ashoras sightings on the convoy, they coordinates
made from that calculation and the time they were at that place and of course
the line with the expected times they would pass those points.
"And yep, Simmins didn't get a date with the kommandos. Maybe better that
way. They didn't exactly give us a chance to set up our heavy stuff. The push
should be here in a bit. They told us 10-12 hours and that was something around
9 hours ago. Personaly I believe it will arrive. Simply because our orders are
not to hold the line but to hold out until it arrives - if it wasn't a thing
they would've commanded us to hold the line at any cost or even some crazy
heroics like retaking the position to the north. You can't hold a line that has
been broken already."
"You can't hold a line that has been broken already."
"The next two positions north are confirmed wiped, and we haven't gotten any word from the south. The line feels pretty broken right now, Corporal."
The orks heading back to the hills seemed pretty darn happy too, until we blew their damned hides to smithereens Simmins observes Chanting and singing and everything
"Which is exactly my point. The line most certainly IS broken. I can only see
2 responses to that on the defensive: Reform the line by spreading the available
personel more, which is pretty stupid since there was not enough personal before
to hold it. Other choice: fall back somewhere where you can reform into a
smaller line, thus holding it with the personal you have left.
Neither of those match ours orders, so I'd say we're not going for a defensive
solution, we're taking the aggresive route. The push will come through the
broken part of the line and push everything out that came through and go beyond
the line.
On that note, I don't remember being made a corporal, or is that a different word for the sarges rank here?"
What I'm worried about ma'am is all these Kommandos and Jump Jet orks. They ain't going to call it a good day's work and go home. They're going to keep hitting us. I haven't tangled with 'em before but it seems like they're gonna get right in our face no matter what we do.
Thud takes the barrel and leads the heavy team to a nice spot with good firing lines. We can get this set up. You guys go get checked out and get some chow. The way I see it the counter push will be here in a while, so we'll either be moving again soon or we'll be in the middle of our guys and a huge Ork wave rushing them. Go rest while you can.
"Well, Ashora spotted them I believe so they are not invisible. Got a hint how to
spot them girl? And anything that gets through, kommando or jumpy greenskin will
land in our mines for now, that's why we put them so close to our position and
made such a tight net. Plus Thudd did a freaking awesome job when things got
down and dirty. Not like I want them to come that close again but I'll trust my
back to him any time"
Seeing the Priest with an Eviscerator in the newly arrived group, Monia will tense up and hold her tongue for as long as she can (ie: not directly spoken to).
"Field promotion?" the sniper offers. On the subject of Kommandos she shrugs. "They've got some kind of heat-shielding effect that makes them hard to spot with the photo-visors, but it's not perfect so you just have to stay focused."
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Leni laughs. "Pretty sure someone of higher rank has to decide on that so
they can fill out the appropriate form in tripplicate once they get back to the
munitorum. Anyway, I'll finish my patients and then grab as much nap time as I
have left before we get recruited into the counter push or whatever."
"You're probably right. Or maybe you are just raising my spirits, so that the later s~&&storm can throw me down even deeper. Whatever. Good job on Jankins - I guess. Need some sleep now, or I'll collapse right here."
With that last, sarcastic remark, the Sergeant leaves, takes a final walk around the new position and then settles down on a spot between the autocannon and the Ork wrecks.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Some hours of uninterrupted sleep, low talking and resting. The eastern horizon already shows the first light of the dawning morning ... As a sudden flash lights up the western horizon - like a thousand flashes of lightning striking in union or an explosion of gigantic proportions happened somewhere beyond the Greenskin Hills.
A few seconds later you can make out several ... unknown flying objects that trail a kilometer long wave of fire behind them coming from the west with a direct east course, slowly drifting apart. You cannot dicern the actual makeup of the thing, but they are large, all different and ... somehow the whole lot look like falling meteorites. Then you feel the ground shake and a deep, slow rumbling sound wave washes over you. It's like ... A massive explosion from a few dozen meters away ... But you cannot make out such a explosion at all. The flying objects pass over you and disappear somewhere to your westEAST - on a clearly ballistic trajectory - now highly scattered.
"The Optimist part of me is hoping that that was the Hives power core melting down and levelling the whole place and killing pretty much all of the Orks. The Pessmimistic part of me thinks that we're in for a wild ride and that dung is about to hit the proverbial fan." and Monia clutches her staff and starts to pray / meditate before going about her duties unless something goes wrong.
Leni is shaken awake by the explosion. Only grumbling curses in a low voice,
barely audible to anyone except her, she starts putting her armor back on by
rote before she even registers the reason why she woke up.
With a yawn she presses her Combead: "Okay girls whats the commotion this
ti... HOLY S~+~"
She stares at the fireworks with mouth slightly open before finding her wits
again. "Ooooookay. Someone wake the sergeant if he managed to sleep through
this, we should probably tell command about this and that's his job now. Ashora,
I want your eagle eyes to the east unless sarge says otherwise."
having handed off the most pressing job nicely she starts making her round
taking care of the heavily wounded, most importantly Thudd and Monia. She
contemplates not putting up the field hospital for procedures this time but
decides that the minute it takes to tear down is time well spent.
Ashora stares in transfixed horror at the fleet of burning...somethings...flinching as the roar and pressure bears down on her as they pass overhead. "Righteous Saints," she breaths and makes the sign of the Aquila. "Is that what an orbital bombardment looks like? We don't have HAZMAT gear!"
She gives Leni a rushed salute and sprints to the xenos truck, clambering back into the turret and doing her best to ignore the smell of the gretchin corpses. "Orks to the west, f##%ing meteor storms to the east...the Emperor's servants have their work cut out for them..."
Leni finds Thud and Notch up and ready. Emperor's butt cheeks! Notch mutters as she approaches. I really hope that push gets here soon.
Notch helps her with the tent as she checks out his charge.
Simmins, in a deep sleep, after the many interruptions to his rest overnight doesn't wake up until the terrible rumbling is felt. He crawls out of his bedroll and looks up with bleary eyes just in time to see what look like massive rocks falling on their back lines.
By the Emperor's holy backside on the Golden Throne. he swears What is happening now?
Sgt. Wallace comes up like a spring-propelled knife as the detonation washes over the group of soldiers.
"What in the ... Give me that vox. Probably to late to warn them of what will come but that something one should report I guess?
See ... you hope for a better day ... and the world throw some f*+~ing meteorites towards you... F#@* it!"
With the last curse, he grabs the vox and starts calling for the command - but with not much success. After a few failed attempts he hangs up again.
"The vox-net is ether down or - more likely - on total overload. Guess everyone tries to call HQ about this s#~#show right now.
Sniper-Lady! Anything you can see from up there?"
Nope. ;-)
Hearing the bitter and just a liiittle bit unhinged complaining of the sergeant Leni prepares a quick injector with tranq and hangs it into her combat webbings where it is secure but easily accessible... just in case
"Nope! Which, given the size of the explosion those things would probably make that can only be a good thing!"
Leni sights and voxes on the squad frequency: "All eyes to the east, if that
was an attack then we need to see the attacker soon enough to call a
bombardment. If the artillery still exists that is."
Then she switches to the frequency of the other squad: "Sir, may I suggest
checking on the status of the local artillery hq? Our quick response code is
our best defense right now so knowing whether or not they are still alive will
influence our choice of tactics greatly."
"Well, the upside is that, as far as I can tell with a cursory reading, is that its not warp-related. But still, thats a big boom so I'm still betting on Hive-Reactor Meltdown..."
Wallace looks surprised, but then nods and changes the vox frequency.
After some moments the connections goes life and the Sgt. starts talking - just to stop a few words in. His somewhat livid face goes pale again, then he hangs up without another word.
"Oh well, there goes the fire support. They are packing up and prepare to move behind the push. Told us that the convey passed them a few hours ago. Then they got to hang up as a connection from HQ was requested.
Ah whatever... Someone wake me before we die..."
With that, he slide down to the dirt again, shuts his eyes and went to his blackout-sleep in an instant.
A common flash of bright light in the west.
Howling, flaming objects passing overhead you to the east.
A deep, shaking shockwave of sound ripping over you.
Everything repeats, exactly one hour after the last!
Awareness +10
The objects that fly overhead pass at a little bit less height than preciously. Also the shaking of the ground - after they disappeared beyond the horizon - is a little heavier.
"I really hope that's freaking out the Orks as much as its spooking me..." the sniper mutters to Malchior, but the both of them try to put on a brave face as much as possible for the other troopers.
To test her hope, Ashora trains her scope on the xeno-held hills, not even sure what it is she's hoping to see.
Notch and Thud had passed back out, but they're up again in an instant as the fire steaks overhead. Nothing comes of it again, so they pass back out.
To Monia, all these recurring explosions and ejected debris mean nothing but possible danger at any time and doesn't notice relatively minor changes in their trajectory.
"Alright, so, I'm glad we don't have a Commissar nearby to hear this but, what do we do in the event of all hell breaking loose and a potential wall of literal death starts heading our way that isn't Orkoid in any form? Because I'm all for dying in the name of the Emperor to kill humanities enemies. I'm NOT for dying for the sake of it due to environmental hazards wasting me." she asks her squad doing her best to make sure that, at the very least, the Priest doesnt overhear her.
Leni regards the rain with supicion, but suprising calmness
"Actually I'm pretty sure if you ever found a commissar who hasn't had his
brain replaced with a boltgun shell then it'd be exactly his job to reassure you
about this. Anyway we're not going to die from that s!%# show up there. I'm not
sure what EXACTLY it is but I have some ideas what might be possible.
Highest on the list would be they started bombarding the orks with ship guns
since it started when our artillery post started packing up and can't give
support fire anymore - and the stuff is just coming back down.
Next highest would be they just shot down some ork... space ship kind of thing.
Whatever they use for that, they don't strike me as a race of master
shipbuilders.
Also even if's some kind of artillery barage aimed at us - you saw the
difference between getting hit on open field, like the orks did and being hit in
the trench here - most of the shrapnell just passes straight over your head
unless it lands on your face to begin with."
"I mean, you'd think Orbital Lance Strikes would light up the whole area and be anything but subtle...no, I don't think this is orbital bombardment, its something else... IF they ARE shooting Ork Roks behind our lines...well, we're probably in big trouble."
As the second group of things pass overhead, loud curses of careful selection confirms that Sgt. Wallace is back up as well.
As he grabs the vox and flips it active, everyone within earshot can literally hear the vox explode from a powerful, obviously automatically repeating transmission.
+++ ALL Imperial Units BELOW Alpha-Status: Priority Target announcement: Move to Sector Spire and attack the Hive. Confirmation Schedule #47-A. +++
Alpha-Status: This is the top mission priority, usually only issued for deep strike, all-out assaults and the like. Your current mission status is likely a Gamma (lowest level) mission.
Confirmation Schedules: To prevent bogged-down vox-nets, there exists a LOT of traffic schedules for different situations. You don't know what this schedule actually means. That's something a trained vox technician should know.
All in all: It's a broadcast message, that calls about EVERY Imperial Unit withing receiving range to pack their stuff, move in the general direction of the hive (that one towards your west, conquered by the Orks) and attack it. This IS uncommon.
"Well ... someone wants to see that Hive conquered, eh?" Sgt. Wallace grumbles after a short silence where the massage repeats itself.
"This does not leave us with much possibilities ... or we could say we didn't received it ...? Hey, Sniper, how's the horizon looking? Any signs of movement?"
Ashora takes a quick sweep over the horizon. As she looks eastwards she stops for a moment, taking up her sniper scope for aid then replies with a excited voice.
"There's smoke or dust in the east, a little towards north I think. Since we have no wind ... Guess theres coming something large. Maybe the push force?"
Wallace nods. "Let's ..."
He is interrupted by the Priest - who speaks for the very first time since their arrival - his voice is unsettling guttural, a gift from half his face ripped to shreds by an Ork weapon.
"It IS. HIS majestic army marches and will crush any unworthy under it's track. Have faith. The Emperor protects. YOU are his sword. Do not hesitate to draw it. DO NOT HESITATE. To Hesitate is weakness and the weak are not worthy of the Emperor's protection!"
Sgt. Wallace winces at the last words, then continues his sentence. If it is still the same content remains a secret to the man himself.