+2 Insanity
"Well damn, haven't seen so many people looking like s%+* since those 2 school buses crashed on the highway. Looks like I'll get one hell of a job here. Better get to work. I'll check out the area starting with the bunker."
With that she takes off with Aubrey in tow to check out the bunker and walk along the trenches to note locations with enough room inside the trench to treat patients without having others stomping over them in the process
That would be the bunkers, and the most of the second line. In desperate times you could also work at those places where the trenches do an angle, as there they are a bit broader. You notice that there seems to be more dried blood at these locations than in most other parts of the trenches.
After flipping through her primer for a few minutes to check the relevant section, Ashora scrounges the trenches for a torn length of tarp. Affixing it to stakes & draping it over her nest of piled dirt & debris, she covers the makeshift construction with a light layer of brush, dirt, and other local debris. Crawling in underneath, she carefully checks her field of vision with the long-las, moving dirt around to give her a clear field of fire without being too exposed.
Celephix reports to the bunker, Six in tow and examines for maintenance requirements.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
x2= 18 woop!
-Posted with Wayfinder
Soon after you began to setup, your combead start to whistle and then the deep, energetic voice of Cpt. Jutr comes through. "Squads 1 to 4 your orders are simple: Hold the line. The 4th Battalion is spread over 10 trenches covering over 12 clicks of the line. I will move between these and will stop by every 3 to 4 days if possible. Your NCOs will be in operational command as long as I am not here. Long range vox contact codes for me, the HQ the local artillery sub-command are stored in your devices. Daily status reports on me. If no contact is possible, sent them to HQ. That's all. Stay alert and kill any Xeno on sight. Knutr, out."
The rest of the day goes by slowly as you set up for guard duty. Lots of digging, moving heavy things around, trying to discard the stench of blood and coping with the knowledge that you may die at this sole piece of dirt on a planet that will forever be foreign to you and without allied forces closer than one and a half click to you.
As most preparations are done and the sun starts to set, an awkward silence drops onto you all. No whistling of trees or gras, no bird songs, no one seems to talk and you do not dare to move for the sound seems to echo for miles. You begin to feel the exhaustion (both physical and psychical) and wish desperately for a bed. It's time to prepare for the night, decide on watch schedule and so on.
Crawling out from under her tarpaulin, Ashora rolls her shoulder to work out the kinks and goes to find her sergeant. "Any chance they left us an auspex, or magnoculars, or a heavy weapon of some kind? I have a bad feeling about all this. What's the watch order, sarge?"
The smells were funny and all these teeney tiny people sure did try hard, but Thud'dr ends up doing the bulk of the work just by virtue of the sheer volume he can accomplish at once.
He sets up his post at the front of the salient ("that bit that's stickin' out") and packs earth in front of the already doubled sandbag layer. He settles in and makes that point his own. He digs down and forward under the sand bags, making a kind of dugout where he can sleep without getting in the way and scrounges bits of steel from the surrounding wrecks to stabilize it all.
Thud'dr beds down on the dirt. This planet is actually closer to the desolate, frozen wastes of home than he's seen in a long time. The noise of the aggro world and the ship in transit had left his sleep a little lacking. Here it was as silent as the winter tundra and he sleeps soundly until his time at watch.
Celephix examines the damage and files it away to do something about it when some materials are secured Celephix then turns her attention to the Vox, manipulating the controls to try and find anything else interesting on the local airwaves.
"Sadly Private, all we've got are our NV Goggles apart from Thud over there that is." She says motioning to the Ogryn who just set down to rest.
"Since you're our sharpshooter, I'd say you get late watch. Preferably, Thud would watch while its still relatively light out. Don't want him being all skittish in the dark if possible. I don't even know if Phix needs to sleep so thats up in the air until I can determine that. Otherwise, since Leni decided to make...sacrifices so that we can get the rest of our stuff, She's likely to be in the first rotation too while its still light out. Between 'Shaw an me, I'd preferably get the late watch." she continues on, constantly shifting her gaze around with a slight emphasis on the "Greenskin Hills".
So, ideally since we seem to be mid-day or afternoonish at this point, peeps on watch would be Leni, Ren, Cele and Ashora. Once Leni's shift is done, I get up. Once Ren's shift is done, Thud is up, etc.
At least, this makes sense in my head :p
"I fear that the shackles of sleep are still mine to bear. My flesh and mind are still mostly in their original state."
Thud settles into first watch with the medic. He props his huge Shredder Gun up on the sandbags and scans the blasted battlefield. The occasional pillar of smoke from burning vehicles was a slight problem, but he didn't worry too much. He had a medic right here.
Notch takes up a position beside him on the other side and the two fall into a comfortable silence.
Yes, totally forgot about the utility mechadrite. Most work can be done with that, but you would need something able to cut armor (like a las/plasma cutter) to easily salvage destroyed vehicles or the-like.
You are able to reach a couple of others stations during your first hour of flipping through the vox channels. The network seems to be full of stations. Two of the other stations are other trenches manned by the Serenus first - both a couple of clicks to the north. Both seem to fare well, without any enemy contact so far. The last station seems to be part of the actual frontline. You can hear a nameless CO shouting orders into the vox, heavy gunfire and a sound that sounds like 'Waaagh' or something alike in the background - you dare not ask any further questions and quickly skip that channel.
You are going to the burned out vehicles to rip some parts off? You can find some blown off plates - probably enough for your application - but ripping off armor from even a wreck is kind of hard, so you would need tools or much time and lots of brute force to accomplish that.
The leftovers from the previous soldiers are pretty useless. Some ration bars, the camp beds (although you suspect that they were not theirs in the first place - and some other small stuff of daily life, that is easily forgotten in a hasty departure.
"Not that I'm complaining but ain't I supposed to be up for double shifts thanks to commissar a!&@#@@ and his merry game of I hear what I want to hear? Doing shifty stuff under their nose is one thing but I'm pretty sure that was a direct order to you Sarge. Forgetting about that and having him read it in the after action report will get you killed.
Anyway I'll be wearing nv googles since Aubrey can't spot for s#~# anyway but only 1 person with em on my shift so same difference."
She'll take a moment to think about what she's seen on her tour of the trenches.
"Oy big guy, I'd say we take watch on the 2nd set. They are a bit higher up so we might see enemys easier looking from above. On second thought, I'm pretty sure the guard primer should have something on that..."
She starts digging through her stuff to read up on guard practices for watch shifts.
Faye and Jorgen her ever-silent-and-not-truly-helpful companion fill out their days as such:
At the start of their watch, which is more or less the last of the rotation, will send in her daily SitRep to the Captain or HQ.
She then performs quick inspection of her gear to make sure its in working order. Once that is done both patrol up and down the trench before finding a vantage point behind cover and starting their watch trying to make sure that she is evenly spread out along the trenchline with everyone else who is up and about at that time.
The whole time, she's just either suddenly turning her head towards the hills as if she saw anything or just glancing ever-so-frequently in that direction if he main focus at that time isn't on it.
If there's a need for "All-Clear" call ins every so often she also makes sure that they're on top of that - at least while she's awake.
Knowing that she isn't a demolitions expert or anything she doesn't really attempt to lay any mines or improvised traps.
But she does do her best to train and maintain physical form where possible and every so often (on the hour or the line) either walks the trench to each squadmates location to make sure they're doing fine or combeads in much to the same effect.
+++
"Yeah, I know it was a Direct order and you'll be pullin' double shift aight. Might as well start now and for the next two days why not? Its not like we're in actual trouble. Being posted here is fething punishment enough and I don't want you to start gettin fatigued and delirious later on when rest might be hard ta come by, eh?"
It has brought to my attention that I missed a clear description of who else is with you, so here comes a quick summery...
Trench Occupation:
1st and 2nd in the northern trench, 3rd and 4th in the southern.
1st: Three mid-age grumpy Storm Troopers (one action as NCO), one silent young heavy weapon team (stubber), 2 ugly weapon specialist no one seems to like with flamers and a couple of sleepy rank&file.
2nd: <== you
3rd: Two funny heavy weapon teams (stubbers), 2 angry weapon specialists (flamers), 1 sneaky chimera operator, one cheerish NCO and the usual rank&file
4th: 3 Ogryn and their company, 1 Psyker (nuts), 1 Priest (nuts, but in another way), 2 rank&file (poor ones), 1 COMMISSAR acting as NCO
Ashora spends her time on watch exploring the upper second trench; when she gets bored of that she and Malchior sit on the berm, pointing out craters and other landmarks and making arguing about the range to it. After realizing she was hungry and eating one of her ration packs, she hopped up and wandered over to ask if anyone in the other squad had some dice or a deck of card she could trade for.
Sadly you have no luck on your search for gaming utility. The two weapon specialists (George&Cliff) of the 1st do have cards and in fact are playing cards but are shooing you away as you close on them, even before you can ask. Those two are really annoying, aren't they!
Celephix will note the other stations and pass them onto Marbray.
Celephix spends her watch peering into the distance, trying to work out which wrecks look most promising to salvage - once the Chimera returns, if the front remains quiet it may be worth dragging one or more of them back for salvage. Without a decent cutting tool the armour plating may have to go to waste, but even burned wreck may have some components that can live again.
Whenever he can (which may not be yet) Thud'dr finds his way over to the other Ogryn and makes friends.
Give me a Common Lore (Tech +10 or Imperial Guard +0) to determine the type of vehicles.
You do notice 'your' Ogryn ripping off parts out of the vehicle to reinforce his self-digged sleep hole, so maybe you do not need a plasma cutter to get basic parts out of the vehicles after all ...
Should be good enough for you to find some metal stripes to reinforce your fox hole.
Befriending Ogryns is very easy, even more so if you are an Ogryn yourself, so count that as successful. They are also eager to shoot their guns at some enemy - like a child is eager to fire new-year fireworks.
, Celephix isn't used to identifying things far away...
Though if Thud'dr is heading out towards the vehicles Celephix will follow him, on the logic that if there are any mines, traps or other dangers out there, the Ogryn will walk into them before she does.
She'll even try not to cringe too much when he tears apart the precious machines.
Offering a low whistle as she and Malchior watch Thud peel armor plates by hand, Ashora clicks on her comm-bead and remarks. "Sarge, I think Thud's got the right idea. When we get our Chimera's back tomorrow, we should maybe look into dragging those hulks back towards our trenches. Pile some dirt & sandbags on 'em and maybe they'd make halfway decent cover? At the very least it'd make the killing field more open."
"So, do we just shout something every 10 Minutes so we know everyones still alive or how is this going to work? I mean the brutes are not gonna go Jaimech Bonez on us and start pickup us up sneakily but we might as well do this by the book for now right?"
Leni spends her days doing the double shifts and sleeping - clocking in at 16 hour shifts then 8 hours of sleep to stay at full battle potential.
Her regular shifts are spent switching between reading the primer and watching the field. Her extra shift is spent trying to figure out what the 'caffeine pills' do by dissolving little parts of them in water and other available liquids like oil and observing how they react and how they dissolve in it - while looking up to watch at least every half minute.
She'll also try to see if anyone has a pack of cards to play poker but I suspect that'll have to wait until we get back to grab a set.
Anyway her Lasgun is always propped on a sandbag next to her watch position so she has it braced there right away when she needs it.
The sleeptime is spent in the bunker on one of the beds, getting comfy with all the blankets she can get - that includes those of you guys if you happen to not pack them away.
-> Bunch of chemyst rolls for an extended action on those pills.
After spending most portion of your first shift working on the pills you are pretty sure that those pills will keep a dead Ogryn awake for a day and a half. Your medical training tells you that such a pushing of the body will certainly have dirty side effect once the primary one has stopped. At the very least the user will drop to a dead-slumber after the effect passed - maybe even falling into a real coma if his body cannot cope with the stress.
Everyone reading up the primer about guard duty will find the following list of 'recommendations on guard duty':
- Guardsmen should never be alone during guard duty.
- Guard times shall not be longer than 8 hours without a break.
- Guards may perform simple activities (weapon cleaning, report writing, reading the primer) to keep their mind sharp.
- Guards that forget their duties while performing simple activities shall be reported to the Commissar for punishment.
- Guardsmen should walk at least every hour for at least 50 meters to keep them sharp and awake. This does NOT apply for covered guard duty situations.
- Guardsmen on guard should check in with the current CO or other guards in a frequent period of time. Recommended time: 10 minutes or less.
- Guardsmen on guard should have a clear view over their assigned quadrants at any time.
- A periodically (at least daily) changing passphrase should be defined and shared with all allies.
- Guards shall ALWAYS check the passphrase if they encounter a person within their quadrant.
- If any of the above is violated by your CO, immediately report this violation to the Commissar, as it may indicate heresy.
"Well, putting more stuff in between us and them is never a bad thing in my book especially if it helps us stay alive longer an' not them. So, sure, once we have our ride back, I ain't against dragging back a few wrecks here and there. Might want to check with 'Phix that it doesn't offender her or whatnot first."
"And hey, if we're lucky theres some abandoned ammo in them too."
"As for Commin' in, Primer says 10 mins or less and we all have Microbeads, Leni, so we'll use those. So 10 minutes on the dot, just state your name and 'all clear' should be fine." and raises an inquisitive eyebrow at her with the mention of all of us having a Microbead.
"Also, this goes for everyone: We've got a fethtone of Recaff. Make use of it and stay sharp."
"No worries I only traded the googles and the stinking uniforms. And that's mainly for medical supplies the mags were just a bonus. Speaking of recaff and the trade - I got some non-standard pills along with it which will screw your eyes open by force for a few days but knock you out like a truck once they wear off - we could use them if a prolonged battle breaks out. Better knocked out dead later than dead by sleeping now."
"Good to hear and good to know Leni. Hand out a few to the squad and, if you've got extra try and get us into the good graces of the other boys and girls nearby, eh?"
"...Though probably try and avoid the Commissar. They're probably just itching for a reason to liberally apply bolt shell to skull case."
The day gets old, and one watch cycle after the other passes without any incident at all. You already get bored by the repetitive 'All-Clear' calls. The only real thing that happened during Thud'dr and Leni's shifts, is the sudden shouting of the Commissar from the other trench and some deep voice answering in a hushed tone. You recognize the second voice to be one of the Ogryns, and as the dark is approaching it isn't hard to figure out what is going on ...
Finally you give over to Celephix and Ren'Shaw and drop dead.
The night is as dark as in a closed locker and you praise the Emperor for the night vision goggles as they let you see the outline of your surrounding in a light grey and any person as a deep yellowish-red blobs.
The silence grows even deeper as nearly anyone is sleeping - only the snoring of the Ogryns is audible like a distant storm.
Finally Celephix' turn is over and she wakes Ashora who sets out to her prepared hideout.
Just before you start your recuperation period you see Pvt. Green - the younger of the heavy weapon team of the 1st, heading out to the latrines behind the trench with primer and toilet paper in hand.
About an hour after Celephixs shift is over and Ashora started her turn, a sudden noise from the battlefield draws the attention of all guards in the northern trench. It sounded like someone stumbling and hitting the ground. Your goggles quickly show you a single blobb of heat, with a humanoid shape, about 50m in front of the northern bunker laying on the ground like someone who has toppled over ... Or is sneaking towards you on the ground.
As you watch the unidentified through your googles you wonder about its size. As far as you know, Orks should be way larger than a man, but the target seems to be at the lower end of the human size scale rather than above.
One of the grumpy Storm Troopers of the 1st cries out a warning.
The cry is way too loud for anyone with an active combead and who is used to the silence - easily loud enough to wake anyone in the northern trenches at once. One moment later the sharp crack of a hellgun, and a blinding flash destroys anyone's clear night vision. The shot of the Storm Trooper must have been a hit or a close miss as far as you can tell. Immedietly the trench bursts with noise from awaking guardsmen and shouts.
For anyone sleeping:
Imagine being waked from a loud cry about enemy contact nearly immediately followed by the crack of a Lasgun firing.
A Guardsman not sporting armour is a dead one. A Guardsman not sleeping with easy access to their gear when deployed in an actuve warzone is a foolish one. She is neither. (Or at least she thinks it.)
Faye snaps awake at the call and weapons discharge and slaps on her combead first before tossing on her chestplate and helmet and grabbing her Lasgun before finally putting on her preysense goggles. Her companion Jorgen does much the same but omits the helmet in his haste.
As soon as she gets the combead on she asks the following:
"Sitrep! Whats the commotion? Anyone with eyes on?"
She then takes a careful look out of the bunker and tries to make visual contact with the squadmates on wacth. If theyre not actively being shot at shell grab her Chainsword and latch it to her waist before moving out to regroup. Otherwise she hustles.
"Oh for f~$*s sake I liked that sleep. That was my freaking favorite sleep! Aubray get off your lazy ass we might get work to do already!" She rolls out of bed from under her mountain of blankets, puts on her microbeat by reflex and starts putting on armor and the belt with her extra ammo. Once that's done she grabs
- her lasgun
- her medikit also containing her diagnostor, injector(stimm) and extra supplies
Then she turns to Aubray and kicks her in the shin "Stop fiddling around with that last strap. It's armor not a fancy dress it doesn't have to LOOK the part. Grab your gun and tools and get to the trench" with that she takes a quick look outside the bunker before heading to the trench
Up on the second trenchline, Ashora takes a knee and carefully scans the area around where the hellgun flashed. Unslinging the longlas from her shoulder she raises the rifle and carefully tracks back and forth. After a moment she hisses at Malchior, about five meters to her right, "Do you see anything?"
Thud'dr rolls to his knees immediately after the call. Contrary to appearances, Ogryn sleep very lightly. Deep sleeping is dangerous when your planetary average temperature is below freezing.
Notch takes a few seconds to don his gear and goggles and such. Thud'dr has his combead in and weapon ready in seconds. He steps up out of the his dugout and scans the darkness, weapon at the ready.
Celephix runs through scenarios as she awakens, and upon analysis grabs her combead and speaks quickly "Status update requested, where am I required" as she grabs her lasgun
As most of the squad scrambles for their equipment, the shared vox channel explodes with questions for a sit-rep, calls for support and general confusion. The deep voice of the commissar bellows orders to hold the enemy at a distance and orders the southern troops to prepare an immediate flank attack.
Between all that confusion are the sharp crack, crack, crack of multiple lasguns and hellguns firing on semi-auto into the darkness.
Attacks:
Evades:
Fear:
Between the reports of the lasguns there a distinctive sound of a jamming lasrifle followed by lots of cursing. The shots are widely spraying the battlefield and you doubt that they hit anything.
You quickly decide that your heat sensitive goggles are no real help to decide what exactly is happening with all those hot lasbolts flying around but as you put them away and look very close at the target of all the commotion, you can see one humanoid shape highlighted by all those deadly lasbolts running for his life in the direction of the hills. You are not entirely sure but the humanoid appears to be green, but you are not sure if its clothes or its skin.
From what you were told, you imagined Orks to be bigger, but there was also some talk about different species of Orks of varying size.
You cannot detect anything else on the battlefield.
"Found you." she whispers as she pulls the stock into her shoulder and carefully lines up the shot.
A whopping 10 Degrees of Success!
Subbing one of those 5's for a 10 and that's 27E damage.
++Where is the enemy?!++Damn it, I have a jam. RELOADING!++Where is my Lasgun?!++How many enemies are there?!++Which direction?++Where is the heavy weapon fire?!++How long until the flank attack?!++Dammit, Jeff where are you?! Heavy weapon team is one man down!++Hold them for 2 minutes, then we will rip their flank to shreds!++Flamers prepare defensive spraying!++The Emperor protects! Fight for the Emperor for he is the light!++Enemy currently out of flamer range, Sir!++
In the middle of the choas, the slightly stronger lasbolt from Ashora's long-Las does not stand out much.
Following your shot with the eyes of a true markswoman, you see a a perfect body hit. Your Target simply topples over, before catching fire the moment it hits the ground.
Flicking on her comm bead, "Sergeant Marbray, this is is Private Kail, I've eliminated one target. Not seeing anything else out there but I'll keep looking. Changing position now."
Grinning at Malchior, she mouths an excited I got it!, then stands and hustles over to her sniper nest, carefully crawling inside and before resuming her careful scan.
"Roger that Private. Everyone, if ya haven't already: Preysense on and be on the lookout for Hostiles. We don't know if there's any others coming and I haven't heard of quiet or solo operative Orks before."
And with the lull she'll quickly put on the rest of her Flak armour.
Since Ashora reports no targets Celephix grabs her flak vest on the way out, hooking her lasgun onto a 'dendrite so she can buckle it into place. She will then make her way to fill the largest gap in the line
Thud'dr and Notch hold their fire. No use in wasting ammo on empty air.
Once fully armed and armoured, Faye's going to survey the field with her Preysense Goggles on, her paranoia in full swing as she settles into her spot on the trench line.