Simmins doesn't really need to be told twice as all visible targets remained in the cone of his vengeance.
He had no idea what was happening behind him but Thudd's shout and the Sarge's clipped orders had him feeling light headed with relief. Still, there was work to do.
He grimly spent freely of the Emperor's ammunition. The blood loss was getting to him though as the Stubber wobbled a bit and a few bullets missed the target of his Suppressive Fire.
[dice=BS 48 +10 brace +10 short range +10 height advantage]1d100
Simmins doesn't really need to be told twice as all visible targets remained in the cone of his vengeance.
He had no idea what was happening behind him but Thudd's shout and the Sarge's clipped orders had him feeling light headed with relief. Still, there was work to do.
He grimly spent freely of the Emperor's ammunition. The blood loss was getting to him though as the Stubber wobbled a bit and a few bullets missed the target of his Suppressive Fire.
Seeing the immidiate threat dead before her Leni sinks to her knees for a moment and watches the blood drip from herself.
Then Sarges command pulls her from her stupor.
"Aye Sarge, just making sure that the red stuff stays in here for a bit longer..."
She pulls out a field dressing and starts tying it over her gushing cleaver wound.
While she has been doing this for it feels like forever for other people her skills fail her as she tries to stem her own bleeding. It might have something to do with the fact that she can only use one hand and has to hold the other end with her teeth or the awkward angle doing this basically one handed - but for Leni she can only her adrenlaine induced trembling hand and curse her own incompetence.
Though the fight raged on still, the primary threat was down. Krish knelt beside Leni, gently taking the bandage from her to attempt what she could not do with one hand.
Krish smiles slightly as she corrects his technique even as he staunches the bleeding in her own arm. Hopefully, Emperor willing, they would all survive this attack and even prevent their own forces from shelling them into dust. And if they did, one irascible medic would survive if Krish had aught to say about it.
@Cormaeg: Shouting orders over the com-bead while checking for Bigbulls pulse (with the bolt pistol) is pretty satisfying after the mayhem and doubt few moments back.
@Leni & Krish: Leni probably is pretty damn proud of her own decision and ability to teach Krish in medical procedures just now. The bleeding wound is well dressed and desinfected once the psyker is done with it.
@Thud'dr: Rolling around with all the wounds hurts like a b#*!# but Sarge orders are Sarge orders after all. Strangely enough, the burning pain actually fades after a few moments of rolling around. Not that it actually matters considering your massive pain level.
@Simmins: With no more gretchin meat-shields the Runtherder dies in your hail of bullets moments after his crowd.
@Ork Reinforcements: For reasons unknown, the Ork and the two gretchins cowering behind the desk reappear, despite the ongoing hailstorm laid down by Simmins and Cort and try to rush the Imperials. One gretchin is immediately felled by one of the latter shots from the stubber, but the other two continue their mad rush. The ork is easily overtaking the smaller gretchin despite a chest wound (and not without barking a surely nasty comment to its slower kindred) and has already nearly reached the staircase! Simmins would have to depress the stubber far down to get a shot at this one, which would prevent him from easily covering the door as well! @Leni & Krish can hear the neirby Ork stumble around and hit the wall with its cleava, mistaking it for an enemy - or something. A low crouching Ork with a purple headband is sprinting through the doorway towards the far left, making good use of the available cover! He has a cleava in one hand and a stikk grenade in the other.
There is another Ork rushing from the door, but this one is rushing to the fat right of the room, cearly heading for the smokescreen!
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"For the emperor, *BLAM*, for the Serenus 1st, *BLAM*, for the squad, *BLAM*, and for me! *BLAM*"
Having hopefully eradicated the menace that is Bigbull for good, Cormaeg gestures towards the lower leves with his Chainsword.
"Thud, the others still need you, there are still orks to fight, go!"
Knowing that time might be short, Cormaeg himself does not immediately head for the new frontline, instead he reaches into his pack and garbs the manoculars that had seen little use so far.
He also grabs his briefing slate, hoping it might contain a good map so he can find some coordinates for the General.
He then heads for a window, hoping to quickly spot the ork artillery.
The militiamen adds a couple of hits against the onrushing Ork, adding to the damage of Simmins stubber hit!
The first shot punches right into the impact crater left by the stubber round and bites deep, causing the Ork to drop face-first onto the ground!
As you step towards the broken window front behind the former head-scribes desk, you get a breathtaking panorama view over the destroyed hive city and the governor plaza from a hight of at least three hundred meters above ground level. The plaza must have once been very impressive. A three square kilometer area, featuring no less than three score of statues of Imperial saints, Astartes warriors and other figures you cannot identify in addition to a huge aquila-topped marble obelisk at each corner with several small gardens geometrically distributed around the area in between. At the far end of the plaza (from your perspective) stands the massive base of a shorter, entirely black spire, sprouting the sigils of the Adeptus Arbites. A large bridge connects a massive gate high above plaza-ground-level with the plaza itself. You can only imagine that this gate is used by the Arbites to come down onto any mob meeting on the plaza like the fist of the god emperor himself. Beside the obvious usage, the plaza must once have been an important infrastructural node, since no less than three major highways cross at the plaza.
Now the plaza crawls with Orks desecrating the statues and obelisks.
Now the Arbites spire is crawling with Orks, seemingly working to dismantle it completely judging from the amount of welding torches you can see.
Now the plaza brims with the engine sound of ramshackle Ork contraptions. Scores of Xeno walkers destroy the fine floor. Battlewagons in the dozens waltz over what's left of the gardens. Orks on foot crawl everywhere like angry ants, defacing and defiling the once-proud statues.
Now the highways leading to plaza are filled with burning wreckages of vehicles. In addition to thousands of civilian cars, a downright frightening amount of the wreckages look a lot like chimeras, Leman Russ tanks, Tauros and other Guard vehicles. All burning, not a a single moving or firing at the congregation of Orks below. You thank the Emperor that you are high enough above to not be able to see the thousand of comrades in arms that surely litter the ground around the armored vehicles not to mention the burned carcasses of the tank crews and passengers.
The data slate has a rough grid overlay over the city.
The view before you has several good waypoints that should make the calculation of more precise coordination possible.
Oh, oooooooh, Grokk....
Cormaeg is forced to shut his eyes tightly for a moment as the true horror overwhelms his senses completely.
Even as he slowly opens them again, he finds it all but impossible to look away, or move, or...anything really.
Deep inside, he feels anger rising at his helplessness, shame at letting himself succumb to fear.
However, another voice, a rather loud voice points out rather insistently that after all he has seen, done and endured so far, he can forgive himself this lapse, as long as he SNAPS OUT OF IT!
Krish places a hand on Leni's shoulder and gives a squeeze, a gesture mostly symbolic through the armor the medic wears. His head spas to the left as motion catches his eye. He rises to his feet, making a sweeping gesture with his staff and a line of rippling green rushes out toward the ork.
The ork must make a willpower test with 4 DoS or be stunned for 1 round.
"We have one of the filth trying to flank on the left!" Krish moves with a purpose a few meters in that direction, staff held at the ready.
Leni chest swells with pride - not for herself or her decision but for her student and how well he had learned. More people are going to survive now thanks to him. She regrets it a moment later when the wound is pulled taut and starts to hurt. Biting her lips she stiffles the curses wanting to escape her lips and instead answers the squeeze with a nod of thanks - and feels stupid as soon as she did because as helpful as the heat vision of the googles is - the subtlety of a nod does not translate well over them.
Instead she activates her vox bead so she can whisper without fear of not being heard.
"There is? Can't make it out. But we can't just ignore the one already in here. I'll reload and empty a full salvo on overload into it."
Thud staggers to his feet. His mind muddled by the pain radiating everywhere. He barely registers Sarge's commands and is momentarily conflicted. He really wants to beat that great foe to a bloody pulp and take his head as a trophy, but orders are orders. He takes up his sputtering Evicerator and lumbers back down toward the fight. He looks half dead, but even half dead is more than enough to deal with the remaining orks.
He hopes.
The ork running at Leni and Krish are Simmins' first priority. The last could wait. Simmins trains his stubber at that one and the last gretchen and continues to rain maximum lead.
@Cormaeg: The triple-burst of shells reduce Bigbulle heaf to a satisfying gorey mess. Stepping to the window you struggle with the view before you.
@Krish: Switching effortlessly from treating Leni (the classic way) to calling on your psychic powers you stop the onrushing Ork dead in his track!
@Simmins: Another volley rains down, this time to the right of the room, reacting on Krish's callout. As the bullets stitch holes over the area, you pick up a heat blob rushing to the smoke screen. At first you thought your salvo being horribly off target as you expected the Ork to be further back still, but then the Ork suddenly stops dead in his rush allowing your walking fire to catch up and stitch a trio of bullets over its body!
@Thud'dr: Getting back up is a bloody pain and a testament to the durability of the Ogryn sub-species as a whole.
@Leni: Slamming home a fresh power pack has such a nice sound and makes one feel at least 10% better prepared right?
@Militia: Retrains his gun at the running Ork to the far left, shouting along with his salvo: "Die you Xeno scum! T'is is for Taric and Miller! DIE!" He should have better spent his energy aiming though. He misses by several Orks width.
@Ork-in-Smoke: "T'ere ya're! Now'll show ya ma cleava!" Clearly attracted by Krish's warp power, the Ork stumbles towards the two imperials holding the stairs together. The strike is clumsy and several steps early.
@Left-Ork: Unfaced by the miss of the militia, purple-cap continues his rush through the room, ending beside the leftmost staircase, actual taking cover below the overhanging metal staircase.
@Lone Gretchin: Continues forward on his short feet, stopping a moment by the dropped Ork to return the kick with a mad cackle and actually steals the bigger greenskins choppa.
@Sneaky'Git: Held in place by Krish's powers!
Snap out of it! SNAP OUT OF IT! Snapoutofitsnapoutifit! SNAP! OUT! OF! IT!
The roar in Cormaegs ears rises in volume and insistence, slowly synchronizing with the blood pounding in his veins, and with a final wrench, he manages to avert his gaze from the window and force them down onto the datapad.
Surprisingly, it doesn't take him long to work out the particulars and notice where the coordinates are.
Hmmm, a little panic now and then is good for the focus eh?
Turning back towards the fight, he swings his chainsword and heads after Thud, stretching his steps as much as possible.
Thud's weary, pain-fogged eyes follow the shots from Simmons to find his next target. He roars again, shifting back into his frenzy to do what must be done. He breaks into a headlong charge toward the only clearly visible ork and takes a flying leap off the stairs, Evicerator roaring in his hands!
Oh no you're not. Not after all this is starting to look like we might survive
Leni lets herself get carried away by the reassuring feeling of the well practiced motion of putting in the the magazine. As the power indicator on the lasgun flashes up, bar after bar going green she flicks the power output to overpower. She slides the lasgun against her shoulder and winces just a little as the wound once more makes itself known.
She takes a breath to sight the gun on the Orks heat signature, looming before her like a mountain of fire. She answers the taunt as she emptires a full auto salvo into the ork at point blank range.
"Greetings cleaver. Meet lasgun!!!"
- crap
Hearing the thunking ull rush of Thudds frenzied charge once more Leni shouts:
"Don't you DARE die on me now Thud! We're almost done and I'm GOING to patch up my big'un after this!"
Thud barely hears his fixy body lady though the haze of pain and fury, but she's the body fixy lady and his body reflexively obeys.
Krish spins his staff as as he closes with his foe and brings the head of it slamming down on the ork's shoulder.
The psy-reactive circuits in his staff flare as Krish channels the power of the warp into the Ork's body through them, and purple lightning crackles over the ork.
The flaring of power flashing inside the smoke cloud is folowed by stygian, impenetrable blackness washing over nearly the entire room for a few fleeting seconds.
Simmins manages to come back to himself a bit, coming out of his near death haze. Seeing the ork in the smoke isn't actually moving, he eases up on his death grip on the stubber trigger sending a controlled burst of bullets, all of which hit!
@Cormaeg: Having pushed away the sense of utter dread at the witnessed sight, you turn back to soldiering, rushing to the aid of your men.
@Leni: You hit the Ork with three bolts, stopping its movements long enough for Krish to move in and land the executioners blow...
@Krish: You hit the Ork without much trouble, bringing it down to one knee before channeling otherworld fury right into its body. This time, the Ork pushes back with a troubling might and manages to keep you at bay for all of one second - then your superior mind manages to break through and force some of the energies to rip open the Orks chest, causing the Xeno to finally topple sideways and die in agony.
@Simmins: You follow the old maxim of the Imperium in your handling of the spotted Kommando: there is no kill like overkill. A second after your salvo, the Kommando falls to the ground in three parts, the stubber rounds having sawed the Ork 'clean' through!
@Thud'dr: Ogryn ferocity is a thing to be recon with. Despite the multitude of injuries you endured, you do not hesitate one moment to jump over the balcony to get at the Ork and Gretchin in level one. That 'little jump' is a sheer drop of seven meter but you travel several more considering your running start. Luckily (or by divine intervention) you judged the jump juuuust right and land soft. That is to say, you make a bone crushing landing on the Ork currently in the progress of standing back up despite half his face missing. With your whirring weapon first. What happens next is both: quickly over and far from pretty. The Evisceratorpunshes 'clean' through the Orks armor, flesh, bone, armor again and then the ground below, pinning what remains of the Ork after your crash-landing in place. The Ork is dead. And the gretchin standing only two steps to the side is looking horrified and immediately turns tail and runs screaming towards the exit, throwing away its weapon's as it goes to not be bogged down.
@Militia: Retrains his gun to the position of the remaining Kommando, clearly waiting for it to reappear. "Come out, scumbag! I'm gonna shoot you in the head like your ugly friend!".
@Purple-Cap: Does not leave his cover but instead lobs a stikk-grenade in a high arc onto the balcony! The grenade flows far, probably further than the greenskin intended and comes to a rest close to the far right corner of the level 2 balcony. It is still too close for comfort for the liking of @Cort, Simmins and the militiamen.
Watching the stikk bomb arching through the air, Cormaeg plays with the idea of ordering his squad to throw frags at the ork.
Thud was raging again though, and it would be a damn shame if he died by friendly fire now.
"Get away from the grenade!"
There really wasn't any need to give the order, again, at this stage, nothing should be left to chance.
Stretching his steps as much as possible, Cormeag rushed forward, ducking down next to the stairs.
He was close to the enemy now, and also close to Lucky.
Just a little longer, please do not turn your face away from us my emperor.
Thudd rips his weapon from the floor in a mess of blood, guts, and flooring. He spots the lone remaining ork and chargers again!
Hearing the warning about the grenade, and like his sergeant wanting to leave nothing to chance, Krish rushes to the right to get clear of the blast of the grenade and closer to the remaining fighting.
He takes cover near Thudd and can be heard muttering a short prayer of thanks to the Emperor for his leg working correctly this time.
Simmins starts to drag the Stubber with him, but the severe blood loss and shock makes it so Cort and he can barely budge it.
Abandon Gun! He grunts out and they both leg it straight West.
Hearing the sound of the nade landing above her on the balcony Leni looks up - and is reminded by a bunch of darkness that she's still inside the smoke and balconies don't have heat signatures.
So she takes 2 steps away from the balcony - hopefully enough that it won't land on her head if it comes down but close enough so it still shields her from the blast.
With a mad rush, Thud'dr brings the Kommando down despite the Ork nearly evading his sluggish blow - but the whirring teeth of the his massive weapon rip and tear something important from the Orks chest making the Ork topple down - making it easy prey for the towering Ogryn.
Up at the balcony, the Ork goes off with a powerful *thummp*, blasting a three meter hole into the balcony, floor and wall. The entire balcony to the right of the rightmost staircase lies in ruin and rubble rumbles down onto the first floor in a rockreteslide. Leni's sidestep came in due time, as several of the larger pieces crash down right beside her, but only small ones tumble into the squads medic. Not enough to really hurt but still with enough force to leave a couple of bruises.
This clearly was the orkish variant of a krak grenade.
Looking around to check the room, you catch the small green shape of the lone surviving gretchin slipping out of the room at full sprint.
Checking up on Lucky and the militiamens last know position is horrifying reminder of what could have happened to any of you if fate had twisted otherwise.
Bigbulls shell landed right beside the poor militia, blasting him apart thoroughly.
Lucky, while indeed being lucky for having a literal meatshield between him and the point of impact, was left hanging by his luck at last. Judging from the amount of blood all over him, he must have been hit my several shrapnels in addition to the blastwave, of of them cutting straight through his throat. Whether he died from blood looss or suffocation is a matter for Leni to decide, but hardly a matter you are particularly interested in.
In an act of last sacrifice though, Lucky curled around the vox caster in his death struggle, protecting it from harm with his body.
It is neither easy nor pleasant to force the heavy device out of the grip of your comrade but you get it done.
The caster seems to be still functional, despite the awful lot of blood sticking all over it and the slight burn marks from the close-by detonation.
Simmins takes out his lasgun and fires at the little green monster.
Missing he shouts out at the others. Where I'm aiming. Kill It.
Whatever happens Simmins immediately drags himself over to the rubble to start trying to find his shotgun, and more importantly, the Stubber.
Thud connects with the last ork in a big way. He really gets a feel for the guy and what he's going through. It's hard not to when his spleen ends up doubling as your hat.
Thud, now literally dripping with blood and wearing internal organs like mardi gras beads, scans the room. He looks where Simmins is shooting, but, seeing no hostiles, he loosens his grip on his Evicerator and the weapon sputters to a stop.
At first he can't escape the grip of his frenzy. His body clings to the increased survival potential of this state and he stalks toward the center of the room in search of a target. Then he stumbles on a severed limb and the surprise movement pulls him out of his haze. He sees no enemies.
Then the cumulative effect of the battle hits him. He takes a deep breath and wheezes, Leni... before collapsing with a tremendous *crash* to the floor near where Lucky is... was...
Thud'drs massive weapon continues to whir for several seconds after escaping his grip, jumping around and ripping the ground in several places before finally stuttering to a halt.
The sword could clearly have gone on for some more greenskins kills.
"Listen up squad!
Forget the little monster, we don't have the time to hunt it down.
Tivan, see to Thud, we need him mobile post-haste.
Olways, you and Cort, get back upstairs and man the stubber, anything green peeks through that door, it dies!
When Thud is mobile, get him up there with his big gun as well."
Cormaeg turns to the militiaman, "You, give every ork corpse a bullet to the head to make sure they are dead, and then check everyone on our side just to make sure we're not leaving someone alive behind."
Turning to Krish, Cormaeg winces internally, but soldiers on.
"Krish, while I calculate the coordinates, you retrieve the vox and join me upstairs."
Cormaeg then hurries upstairs, leans he lasgun against the railing for easy access, and then begins to consult his dataslate.
Secretly, Cormaeg was ashamed that he was now breaking his rule of never asking a trooper to do what he was not willing to do himself.
But after the earlier sight, he didn't trust himself not to have a second "episode".
As you recheck your distance calculations, you notice an error. The distance to the Arbites building is wrong! As you recheck the distance to the building a their time, it is different yet again! As you measure it a fourth time, you nearly drop the scope.
There is movement.
A movement of such massive scale that you struggle to comprehend what you are seeing for seconds.
Then you can no longer deny it.
The Arbites spire...
... is ...
... moving?
A horrific understanding dawns for you: the Orks, as unbelievable as it sounds, did somehow manage to transform an entire sub-spire into a walking fortress, bristling with super-heavy gun emplacements the size of ... you cannot even say, moving on tracks several stories high, waltzing over everything in its path.
Checking over the spire in detail, you see Ork walkers similar to that you fought during your first mission walking up the ramp of the once-arbites spire and enter through the portal ....
Then you comprehend.
That is no portal.
That is the gaping maw of a humongous barrel.
The walkers walk into a barrel.
To be fired in a high arc far into the Imperial lines.
This is it.
This is the Ork 'artillery' you were searching for.
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Leni goes from one adrenaline burst to another - sure killing greenskins is nice but patching up her own guys is her REAL calling.
Being back in her element she dusts off her shoulders. Who needs pain when you can stitch troopers back together? Her body does wince. Not that she notices it...
"Sarge! Thud is a MESS, I REALLY need Krish for this!"
She steps out of the dust and looks around for a place that is not dusted up and demolished beyond salvation. Eying the far right corner of the room she starts getting out the field hospital. She sets it up and washes the worst dust off of herself with disinfectant.
"THUUUUUUDD! PATCH! UP! TIME!"
As Thud arrives Leni is already preparing what looks like... everything. And
she's not done with just that ONE medikit.
"Okay big'un. Gimmeh metal box. From back. Now stand." She takes the medikit from Thuds belt and unceremoniously empties half of the disinfectant from that kit over Thudd. "Yes. Hurts. But better hurt than dead! Now down! Lie! Flat!" The burning ember in her eyes won't take no for an answer and eventually she gets Thudd to lie down and be still.
Finally having free reign over her patient she dumps the content of this medikit into the one she usually carries - except for the largest part of the kit, a hydraulic kind of scissors, ment to cut off metal stuck inside a trooper. She starts getting to work - in this case meaning she cuts the second medikit to Ribbons. As her own strength fails at the thicker corners she calls over Krish "Yeah don't ask stuff now, just help me cut this down!"
As they finally have one medkit, cut into metal 'sleeves' the REAL work starts. They disinfect the sleeves because the outside of the kit was by now a lot of things, but not sterile. Then they start wrapping the metal around Thuds thick, but cleavered up muscles. Not over the wounds mind you, but close to them. Then both of them pull with all their might to close each gaping muscle close enough so Leni can now start working on them in a more 'usual' manor.
"Thud, this gon HURT! You stay! Stay much much still!"
Thinking for a moment she takes Krish along and grabs Thuds new oversized sword. Trying to disinfect this thing is thing is a wasted effort but Leni at least tries. She then makes sure it is firmly switched 'OFF' before she wrapping a thick layer of gauze around part of it. Prepared like this she gets Krish to haul it back to the lying Thudd, at which point she tells him.
"Your sword! take white in mouth! Bite down! HARD!"
True - despite her best efforts it is unhygenic and looks crazy but at this moment Leni can't think of a single thing that might otherwise withstand the bite of this tortured Orgryn to prevent him from biting off his own tounge in the coming pain.
And so they start. Disinfecting wounds, stappling them, stitching them. Cutting to get to embedded solid rounds, puling them out with pliers before re-disinfecting and closing back up. Every now and again Leni takes a moment to wipe off Thuds sweat and gently running a hand over his thick orgryn cheek but as suddenly as those moments come they are already over again as she disinfects her hands again and gets back to work.
It's a hard piece of work but with every passing moment Thud starts to look more and more like a single living being again and at the end of it he seems almost... healthy. Not as healthy as the ox of an Orgryn he is, but stable. And able to walk on his own without looking like he'll apart any moment now.
"V...very well...Krish, help Tivnan first, THEN get me the vox!"
Cormaegs voice is dry and a little shaky, his mind swirling with what he has just realized, and the implications for the squad.
"But I need that vox post haste. And ocne you are done with Thud, see to Olways.
Nothing else though, as long as we are mobile and can make it back to camp it is good enough for now.
Time is truly important here."
Considering this massive and closely-packed enemy troop disposition, the most likely tactical call would be a truly massive, wide-area shelling with every single piece of artillery within range.
Thus, any movement of enemy troops close to the center of the target area, is all but in vain.
Whether 'basic' artillery is able to bring THAT thing down is another issue of course, but recalling your talk with the general, the was talking about 'high yield fire support' and a 'quickly closing time window' for its availability, making you think that he was not talking about 'basic' artillery like earthshakers.
Most likely, HQ for a couple of Navy ships for an orbital bombardment or something like that. And THAT should make some dents even into this spire-titan...
That is clearly above your pay-grade and something for the higher ups to decide.
You can supply them with coordinates, movement vector and speeds.
Deciding what to do with that, should be left to whatever couch potato in charge of fire support...
Simmins stumbles back to find his prized machine of death and with a similarly almost dead Cort sets it up on the balcony trained at the door they came in from what seems like years ago.