[M] War in the Dirt - Patriots IC

[Azazeal849]

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Spoiler: Maniple Alpha-Rho-Phi, Menoth Martyrs, the Damned 88th - Baraspine 

The Agglomeration, Baraspine orbit
Zero hour +8
Patriot objectives: Defend barracks module

War had come to Baraspine. While the imperial guard took control of the hills around Allocthon crater and rained fire on the capital hive, their Navy counterparts had brought the orbital Agglomeration under a similarly intense siege. The Glom had bared its teeth in response, but from what little communication filtered through the vox net several of the defensive blisters had already been knocked out, and Navy armsmen were breaching in several places.

Frakking armsmen. Security armsmen, once suited up to repel boarders, were tough sons of bitches. Assault armsmen were worse. Armoured in heavy plate with integrated helmets that made them look more like deep-sea divers than voidsmen, equipped with magnetic boots to keep them locked to the deck, armed with breaching charges and heavy shotguns with armour-piercing slugs and room-clearing scattershot.

The Glom was more space hulk than space station, welded together over centuries from satellites, docking hubs and defence bastions, and full of cross-spliced wiring that wedded the many querulous machine spirits together by force of will as much as technical expertise. This made communication with the other sectors intermittent, but also made it harder for the Imperials to breach the often-multiple sets of airlocks between modules, or for their attendant tech-priests to hack their way through.

In a barracks module, geostationary above Baraspine’s night side, captain Kreoss and the rest of his Menoth infantry had been in the middle of training exercises with an ad mech destruction maniple before the attack. They had been spared the full-scale assault above hive Alda on the opposite side of the orbital ring, and that had allowed them to muster for evacuation at a cargo loading module, but without a friendly ship to take them off they were on borrowed time and they knew it. Forward elements of the Imperial boarders had already found them, and were shooting down at Kreoss’ men from the upper gantries.

“Where’s our extraction ship!?” a soldier was yelling as he ducked behind one of the barricades, automatically deployed by the station’s machine spirit to give them some semblance of advantage.

“Mors and her fleet will be here shortly!” answered another, who had a white-knuckle grip on the vox set he had linked to the nearest astropath’s eyrie.

“Shortly relative to what, frakking plate tectonics?”

A high-pitched shriek tore through the station, brutal as a stun grenade. The gunfire from both ends of the gallery briefly ceased as both Imperials and Patriots flinched.

“What the frak was that?”

An old soldier who had a voidsman’s wheel among his myriad tattoos spat on the steel deck. “Warp transition, close.”

Extremely frakking close, Kreoss knew. Any closer and the translating ships would have risked scouring the Glom and half the planet with a brain-melting psychic shockwave.

“I thought there wasn’t no sound in space.” a plasma operator grunted, gritting his teeth against his weapon’s hissing discharge.

“Yeah,” cackled the void veteran. “Tell that to the immaterium.”

“Well they’d better be ours, or else we’re...ah shit!”

The latter was directed down the loading bay, where the Imperials had just breached the main cargo doors. Before a barrage of smoke grenades enveloped them, Kreoss caught a glimpse of green-armoured men with full-body boarding shields, linking up to form a phalanx.

As murder-red lasbolts pelted down from the gantries and the defenders spat back venom-green, a series of heavy thuds resonated through the deck beneath Kreoss’ feet. The arches overhead, ribbing the gallery like the bones of a great gothic whale, collapsed to the floor one after the other on a bow wave of molten shards. The thermite sparks were still writhing across the floor when the rappelling lines spooled down from the newly-cut holes and men began to descend like metal beads. Kreoss saw wild, hard-bitten men carrying short-stocks and boarding axes, but the soldier who crunched down next to him was armoured from head to toe in heavy carapace; face hidden by a black-visored helm, an oversized autogun swinging down to join the other reinforcements unloading on the Imperial armsmen.

“Clear the gantries and the main entrance.” the Nebula barked. The voice from behind their helmet was female, and the hololith flickering at her chestplate read Capt A Tarran. “We’ve got squads securing the hanger bays so our frigate can get your men out of here.”

[Atrum Daemon]

The Agglomeration
Zero Hour +8
Maniple Objective: Assist in the Barracks Defense

“Well this is a fine predicament,” Anarkos said as he approached Kreoss and Tarran, flashing his biometric identification. There was plasma weapon slung across his back and his hand gripped a bolt pistol. The maniple had been there to run drills along side the Menoth troops. He was eerily calm given the situation and his soldiers had snapped to action as best they were able. Galvanic rifles let out sharp cracks against the snaps of lasrifles as the Skitarii returned fire from relatively covered positions.

Underneath the vat-grown flesh, the Skitarii were all suitably augmented and Donovan the most out of the bunch. Though the extent of his augments was only obvious through the way his eyes shined. It was a wish of the Dominus that the Skitarii be outwardly human in appearance since they fought alongside the hulking robots of the Cybernetica. But there was little time or point in appearances as such and Donovan showed as much when a stray lasbolt glanced off near the right side of his face, charring away the cheek to reveal the bionics beneath. He identified the source of the shot and fired his pistol in return, blasting off the offending soldier’s right arm at the shoulder.

“Well the Nebulas make this feel almost like home,” the Tribune said as he looked between Kreoss and Tarran, “but that’s beside the point. This is a sub-optimal situation, certainly. My men can keep the suppression up but not too long. Close quarters are not the best for galvanic rifles in the long term.”

The Skitarii had been running long-range drills but tended to use their arc rifles for closer quarters like indoors. Anarkos knew his men could make do but it was, as he said, sub-optimal. He was not attempting to talk down to the Captain, just make her aware of how his men were able to operate as he simply did not expect non-Mechanicus to understand how Skitarii functioned.

[dakkagor]

“Well the Nebulas make this feel almost like home,” the Tribune said as he looked between Kreoss and Tarran, “but that’s beside the point. This is a sub-optimal situation, certainly. My men can keep the suppression up but not too long. Close quarters are not the best for galvanic rifles in the long term.”

"Then its a good thing we aren't relying on you toaster fondler's to actually do any work." Growled a huge, bearded slab of meat and flak that emerged from behind Tarrans armoured form. Looming behind the man was an even larger square shouldered killer carrying a vox in one hand and a las-carbine in another. Briefly, the first man turned and yelled orders in a deafening bellow at nearby special weapon troopers who had arrived with the handful of Nebulas. Grenade launchers soon joined the Skitarii counter fire, lobbing frags into the wedge of advancing boarders while accurate hails of lasfire broke up the formation and drove it back.

"Jarn Hassek, Colonel, Damned 88th, I'm your ride. So if you could kindly unscrew your thumb from out your arse, and reattach it to a tentacle or other appendage, we might get out of here alive. Once our ship swings back around we'll have minutes to get those dress wearing kiddy fondlers and your cog fuckers out via the transit ways. So have your 'men' ready to leave."

As he spoke, more teams fast roped into the cavernous training bay. Some of these carried flamers and stank of promethium, while others carefully manhandled a standard, rust red munitorum armoured container down from the roof and into the bay. The flamer troopers bulled forwards and washed several of the access points with roaring curtains of flame, while a stout woman covered in flame tattoos and stinking of promethium jelly emerged from inside the container, slamming it shut and giving Jarn a thumbs up and a manic grin.

The Colonel’s crude speech aside, the Tribune was at least pleased there was a way off the station. Magos Dominus Krypter was, as Anarkos’s interface told him, readying to depart with the five robots that made up the heart of the maniple: four Castellex and one mighty Thanatar. Binaric commands left the Tribune and the Skitarii obeyed in due haste, maneuvering from their static positions while keeping up suppressive fire to positions closer to the heart. They would be ready to depart at a moment’s notice.
“We’re ready to go as soon as your ship comes back. That’s quite the parting gift you’re leaving.”
The grin on the Tribune’s face was made more sinister since he was missing almost half the skin. He had a great appreciation for all manner of fiery destruction and it was only due to the heavy emotional suppressants in his augments that he was not more outwardly pleased about it. The sooner they could get off that deathtrap of a station and to a proper battlefield, the better.

"Oh yes, it should be an explosive parting gift!" the woman cackled as she snapped a pair of goggles onto her soot covered space, and was then handed a flamer. "Now, sirs, if you'll excuse me, I need to introduce some Imperials to the concept of irony." She took of at a jog, and a fierce cheer came up from the barbaric renegades as they surged across the hanger bay, driving back the Imperial boarders.

"We'll launch a counter attack, shake the cunts loose of the perimeter and drive them back. Once we've got some breathing space, we can pull out by the numbers." The brutish Hassek flicked a look towards the Nebula officer. "If that's alright with the hero of the Rebellion."

[Azazeal849]

Spoiler: Maniple Alpha-Rho-Phi, the Damned 88th - Baraspine 

"We'll launch a counter attack, shake the cunts loose of the perimeter and drive them back. Once we've got some breathing space, we can pull out by the numbers." The brutish Hassek flicked a look towards the Nebula officer. "If that's alright with the hero of the Rebellion."

The captain’s sleek, black-visored helmet jerked down and up, the current situation giving little time to respond to baiting. “There’ll be a Nebula platoon covering the hanger bay to make sure our escape route stays clear. Tribune, I’m going to clear that gantry so you can put your Rangers up there. First squad, with me!”

That last was evidently directed into her helmet vox, as she took off at a sprint towards the flanking wall of the cargo module.

“Holy shit.” captain Kreoss murmured.

“That was Alicia Tarran.” blurted his vox officer.

“I know it was Alicia Tarran, that’s why I just said holy shit.”

Ahead the 88th’s flamer teams had opened up with a whooshing roar, adding palls of black smoke to the white already choking the module’s air scrubbers. Despite their heavy armour, the Imperials did what every human in history had done when targeted with flame weaponry - turned and fled. Shotguns and boarding shields clattered to the ground as a few men threw them away in their haste to flee.

“What do you think she’s cooking in there, sir?” Kreoss’ plasma gunner asked, jerking his head towards the huge storage crate the barbarians had lowered into the middle of the cargo bay.

“Dunno.” Kreoss had to admit uneasily, as he waved his men forward. “But my guess is a ten megatonne nameday cake.”

+ + + + + +

Alicia Tarran sprinted towards one of the collapsed arches ribbing the module, myomer bundles whining as they took the weight of her armour, feet darting left and right as she weaved through bursts of tracer fire. Satrophene combat stimms were singing through her bloodstream, sharpening every sight and sound, and letting her draw some semblance of meaning from the multiple auspex feeds pinging in from her fellow Nebulas. It was an effective cocktail, albeit a physiologically corrosive one. Even after the post-combat antidote flush, she knew she would be puking her guts up back on the Exitos tonight.

The Tâin was silent, and for the moment she was grateful of the fact.

Alicia launched herself at the wall, and let her suit’s booster jets kick her upwards on a pillar of fire. She slapped the wall with her palm, and a mag-lock in her glove secured her to the wall. The Nebulas of Makinde’s First Squad jetted upward and thunked into the wall beside her.

“How the frak did hired killers like the 88th end up on the governor's payroll?” Makinde growled as they boosted higher, locking against the wall level with and fifty meters wide of the gantry.

“Killed the right people, I expect.” Alicia commented, unslinging her modular assault rifle. Lasbolts cracked against her contoured armour as the Imperials on the gantry realised what they were doing. There wasn’t supposed to be any killing at all.

Alicia didn’t need to see her antagonists; the Glavian-style circuitry running through her limbs and linking her to her armour also linked her to fellow Nebulas on the ground and above the breached ceiling, who still had some modicum of sightlines through the fire and smoke. Grimly she swung her right arm round and let her armour absorb the recoil as her assault rifle jackhammered. Her fire line converged with First Squad’s to sweep the Imperial armsmen clear of the gantry in a flurry of sparks and blood.

“Tribune!” she voxed, nudging her communicator onto the skitarii channel with a blink-click. “Get your men up here now!”

+ + + + + +

The rattling air circulators had all but given up, and the smoke in the cargo bay was now thick enough to choke. Fire from the Menoth infantry slackened off as men without goggles or rebreathers simply collapsed to their knees behind their barricades, coughing and retching. In contrast, the deploying Jotunhel veterans found themselves coming under punishing fire as the Imperials regrouped at the cargo handling belts, using the conveyors and the half-closed bay doors for cover. The smoke evidently wasn’t bothering the fully-enclosed armsmen as they fired back in an attempt to keep Herkja’s flamer teams out beyond their effective range.

Hassek heard the distinctive bang-whoosh-bang of a bolt shell, and surmised that someone had just paid the price for throwing away their weapon in the previous retreat. The heavy armsmen were ranking up again, this time with covering fire, and forming a steel testudo to countercharge the resurgent defenders. Hassek caught a brief glimpse of the bolt pistol wielder through the smoke, almost indistinguishable from the other diver-suit armsmen except from the sword in his other hand and the black commissar’s band on his arm. A moment later he had vanished, and another volley of skittering, smoke-spewing grenade canisters bounced across the floor as a foreign voice roared the order to attack.

[Atrum Daemon]

“High up, boys! Marksman priority, the rest of us prepare for closer engagements.”

A series of red-clad soldiers charged up the gantry, folding out into a firing line along it and picking targets at their leisure. The sharp cracks of their rifles rang out starkly as they fired upon the Imperial masses below, volleys meant to dishearten and harass at first before picking out targets of priority or opportunity such as officers or weapon specialists.

The rest on the ground formed up around the Tribune in covered positions, a few drawing side arms and arc weapons in preparation for closer quarters. Donovan slung his rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger after sighting down the advancing formation. A glaring volley of plasma fire erupted from the weapon to rake the front rows of the advance. The caliver burst was meant more as a distraction with the display of light that came with the volley as well as the destructive intent. The Tribune quickly released the trigger and ducked down behind a raised barrier, thanking Omnissiah and Machine Spirit that the weapon had been true to him yet again.

There was little for it now but to wait until the Colonel’s men were ready for their counterattack. Donovan relayed to his troops to join in at their best when it happened as he did not want them to be shown up too badly by a cadre of fleshlings. And the Tribune was taking this whole mess as a lesson in continued preparedness for engagements. The lion’s share of the Rangers were on the gantry firing down at the Imperials while a small number were with him, ready to charge. What wider surveys he could access from his position at least told him that the rest of the Maniple was active but he could not safely contact them. The Sicarians would be a wonderful asset right then.

But luck was a raging bitch more often than not for him.

[dakkagor]

"You didn't bring rebreathers! You fucking moron! Your damn whore of a mother must have been drunk when she shat you into existence! All of you child fondling church buggerers are fucking idiots!"

Jarn was yelling at the choking, blue faced menite crumpled next to him. His own tirade was muffled by the rebreather mask over his face, Kantreal MKXIII rebreather with filter, good for 2 hours of combat in low oxygen, toxic or smoke heavy environments. They had stolen these from a fat munitorum cargo hauler years ago and he had kept them for just such a smoky day.

He reached down and grabbed the menite by the ruff of his robes. The man clawed at his arm and his masked face, leaving streaky sweat marks on his plastek visor.

"Go fucking see what the imperials are doing!"

With a grunt, he hurled the man over the barricade. He listened to the man stumbled blindly forwards, and then the rattling thump of combat shotguns, and the wet sounds of flesh tearing.

The imperials were getting closer, then. Careful not to breath in the toxic smoke, he lifted his mask, spat, and pulled it securely into place.

"88 Actual to all units on the perimeter! Prepare to resist storm assault!"

Grenades clattered over the barricade. Jarn kicked one away and Ulf threw one back to detonate dully against the steel shields of the boarders. He heard screams and explosions from along the line, and yells for medics. He tuned it out, waited for the moment, watched as the enemy picked up the pace and broke into their charge, letting the fire slacken for just a second.

"Now! Now!"

Jarn leapt to his feet, Ulf a step behind him, and two squads of infantry. Meltas brought to burn through bulkheads catching men mid stride and blasting them to ash, krak grenades punching through shields in plumes of fire. There were a lot less of them than he expected, and the beams of searing white light from the gantry explained that. The hereteks were doing their job at least. Shotguns roared and lasguns spat back as Jarn and his men covered the short distance to the enemy in a mad counter charge.

The Damned hit the line like a battering ram. Jarn shouldered into the press, bolt pistol spitting death and his axe taking a kill tally. He carved through three men in as many blows, and into the breach his squad poured in, firing point blank and attacking with their own hull-axes and chainblades. A blow sent his pistol spinning away, so Jarn snatched up a shield, ramming its edge into a mans neck and stepping over his twitching corpse to tear another man down. He roared heresies at the Imperials, damning their Emperor, their priests, their officers, them. His men bayed for vengeance for their lost homes, loves, lives. The pent up fury was a physical force pushing them forwards, breaking the solid block of Imperials apart until Jarn was suddenly clear of the scrum, breathing in ragged gasps as he came face to face with the commissar.

"And fuck you especially, hangman." He snarled. He threw the battered bloodstained shield to one side and drew his second axe as the Commissar raised a chainsword and charged.

+ + + + + +

Droplaug leaned slightly to the right, and extended her right arm, locking it out with an axe braced and ready.

They said she didn't feel anything any more. That it had all been burned out of her, except for her hate. That was the barracks rumour, anyway.
That wasn't true.
She felt the impact run up her arm, the tremor of the axe carving through a Commissars yielding neck. She flicked the axe clean and re-sheathed it as she and her squad raced on.
She felt good about that as she came to a stop just behind her Colonel.

+ + + + + +

Jarn huffed as the body of the Commissar slid to a halt at his feet. He turned and stomped towards Droplaug, pressing her face mask against his.

"Took your fucking time!" He yelled.

"Sorry Sir, getting the scrambler company aboard took some doing." Droplaug pulled out a map and spread it across the grumbling engine of her bike. "We've cut into their rear here, here, here. Blown up this transit way and left some flamer teams to set fires and retreat behind them."

"Good! We'll push up to here, hold them at this throughfare. Its a market?"

"Yes. Some prime looting, women and children and the like."

"Get to it!"

Droplaug broke the hold and roared away. Jarn gestured Ulf over from where he had been stamping on the necks of downed armsmen, the remainder dead or retreating. He grabbed the vox and started issuing orders. With the charge broken and its reinforcements in disarray, they could finally push the imperials back and make some breathing room.

+ + + + + +

Starolf told his rider to bring his bike to a halt as they neared the mechanicus reactor-shrine. The double doors were clearly designed for keeping people out, and they had the mechanicus symbol, half skull, half machine, haloed by a cog, stamped in the middle in brass. Starolf had no particular love of the mechanicus. Like all of the Jotunhel natives, he held them to blame for the destruction of his homeworld. However, he had taken pains to understand them. He knew that most of them were drones, no better than ice bettles, following the orders of their queens. A squad of his hand picked scouts dismounted, leaving two dozen bikes and a pair of stripped down tauroxs ready to take on plunder.

Four skitarii emerged from alcoves on the walls leading to the door, and halted his progress with held out hands.

"STATE YOUR BUSINESS"

"Evacuation." Starolf shrugged. "If you haven't noticed, the station is about to fall. The order is to evacuate anyone we can, and your priests are high value assets."

There was a moment as the skitarii communicated with its master in the temple.

"NEGATIVE. MECHANICUS SECT PURSUES NEUTRALITY IN INTER-IMPERIAL CONFLICT. EVACUATION NOT REQUIRED. PLEASE LEAVE."

Starolf grabbed the skitarii by the shoulder, jammed a pistol under his helmet and blew its augmented head to chunks. His scouts snapped up lascarbines from ready positions and hosed down the robot-men with a blaze of fire, throwing broken bodies against the sealed portal.

"I wasn't asking."

Two of his scouts stepped forward and used the hull cutters they had brought for this purpose. The doors thundered backwards as they were cut apart, and Starolf led the advance. Another pair of skitarii ran fowards to bar their progress, and they were cut down with loose, brutal shots.

"Enough!" one of the priests yelled. "You bring violence into a holy place!" Starolf regarded the tech priest gliding towards him. He was heavily modified, with spindly arms designed for inputing data into the Imperiums cogitators, if he was any judge. Those arms were outstretched in a plea for mercy that Starolf knew all to well.

"Are you in charge here?" Starolf asked flatly.

"No. . .I speak for the magos of this reactor sector." He gestured towards a towering thing that was tottering towards them on three piston legs with a wheezing, galvanic hump and a face of waving, frond like data jacks.

"Will he issue an evacuation order for this sector of the station, under the orders of Governor Tierce?"

"He will not."

Starolf nodded. He cast an eye on the adepts around him. Data punchers, gear heads and grease jackers. Very few seemed like a threat. All seemed cowed by the display of violence that had left a handful of Skitarii smoking heaps on the floor.

"Shame that." He snapped his fingers, and his men opened fire. The lumbering tripod priest went down in a hail of lasbolts that set his oily red robes alight. The priest crumpled to the floor with a pitiful code laced squeal, where two of the scout cadre repeatedly bayoneted him until he stopped moving.

"Congratulations on the promotion, Magos." Starolf clamped a hand and a vice grip on the priests shoulder. "Now, I ask you, will you issue an evacuation order for this sector of the station, under the orders of Governor Tierce? Or do I need to promote someone else?"

The olive coloured, broad featured tech priest regarded him with very mortal fear in his eyes, before casting a glance at the ruined hulk that had been dismembered on the floor, and the two dead skitarii in the temple precinct.

"I will."

"Good man. Err. Thing. Whatever. What's your name, anyway?"

"I am Enginseer Brandt."

"Brandt. Good solid name that, Magos." He threw an arm around the priests shoulders and guided him towards the doors. The scrambler drivers were now hauling det-packs and demo charges into the reactor-temple, even as the scouts hurried the other priests out of the temple.

"We've got a lovely ship for you to visit, real killer, one of a kind. I know you'll love it aboard, and we have some positions available that would be right up your street."

[Azazeal849]

Spoiler: Maniple Alpha-Rho-Phi, the Damned 88th - Baraspine 

The claustrophobic mask amplified Jarn’s laboured breathing. The adrenaline singing through his blood almost wiped out the burning in his muscles, but sweat was pouring down his face and fogging his mask lenses. Not that he could see much through them any more.

It was a surreal, ugly scene. Thick smoke climbed like swamp fog up towards the gothic arches of the loading bay, shrouding deck plates that were slippery and stinking with red. The scrambler bikes growled through the smoke like ghostly beasts, drawing wild fire from the enemy armsmen - and even a few of the Menites who were unfamiliar with the sound and took them to be Imperial aggressors.

The melee before the barricades petered out as the attackers’ cohesion slowly disintegrated. Jarn heard a bark of pain on his left, as an armsman fled the wrong way through the dense smoke and blundered straight into a Jotunhel gun sight. A lasbolt punched him skidding onto his knees, a second took off the flak-gloved hand he was raising, and another six or seven eventually penetrated his thick armour and battered him to the blood-slick deck.

Heavy shotgun blasts up ahead told Jarn that a couple of his men had pursued too far and met the same fate, or else the Imperials pinned down by the cargo belts had accidentally shot their own retreating comrades. The only ones still retaining a modicum of effectiveness seemed to be the skitarii. Jarn heard a voice through the smoke shouting “Fulmen! Fulmen armsmen to me!”, only to be silenced by the deadly thwip of a galvanic rifle.

Donovan Anarkos would never have admitted it in front of the baselines, but even his superior optics were struggling to penetrate the blooms of hot smoke that scrambled both visible and infrared spectra. Nevertheless he knew the general situation: the loyalists were disorganised - pinned down at the doors and the conveyors just beyond, fire slackening as they tried not to shoot their retreating comrades. A heavy crash beside him announced captain Tarran dropping back down from the gantry.

“Frakking smoke.” the Nebula captain cursed. “If the rest of the men had suits we could just void the deck… They’re going to break, tribune. We’ll lead and bullet-sponge for you and the light infantry. Form up at the barricades and-”

A clunk sounded somewhere ahead of Donovan, and then a chain of others, running left to right across the gallery. It was followed by a whine of hydraulics and the ratcheting turn of cogwheels.

“Oh no…” a Menite huddled behind the barricade in front of Donovan cursed in panic. “Oh shitting frak, no!” The scarred ceramite barrier he and his comrades were sheltering behind was slowly sinking back into the floor.

Tarran had a gauntlet pressed to the side of her helmet, apparently receiving a vox update.

“Great.” the Nebula cursed through her teeth. “Their friends further in must have brought an enginseer and got into the module’s control systems. Come on, we need to move!”

The Imperial shotcannons were barking again: still blindly, but now they didn’t need accuracy to tear puffs of red through the smoke. Luck, Donovan reflected, was indeed a raging bitch.

[dakkagor]

"Oh fuck me."

Jarn watched as his cover disappeared. Some frakking loyalist cogboy no doubt.

"Everyone grab shields! Quickly!"

The deck was fairly littered with dead armsman, but no-where near enough for all his soldiers. But it would make a difference. With the skill of people who had lived through nightmare fragfests by stripping the dead and the dying, the Jotunhel renegades dug in, ripping shields and spare rebreathers from the dead and dying. Jarn quickly formed up a platoons worth with mostly intact shields, while his few heavy and special weapon teams began to haul piles of bodies, friends, enemies and allies alike, and dump them down as bleeding barricades.

"My damn ship had better get back here soon or we are dead men." Jarn growled. He gestured for Ulf who handed him the vox. "Droplaug, new orders! They've got a command post back from the bay, with a cog boy in attendance. Find them and kill them!"

There was a burp of static in reply. He thought he made out Droplaugs voice, but he couldn't be sure.

"Keep trying until you get confirmation!" He tossed the speaker unit back to Ulf and took a quick headcount. 25? 30 at a push? Visibility was frag all.

"You see something, you tap the guy on your left and right! We hold here, not a step back!"

And we hope the witch hasn't left us to hang.

[Atrum Daemon]

“Oh dammit all!” Donovan watched as their cover vanished. Loyalist enginseer for certain and now a priority target in his mind. “Boys, adapt for low visibility. Weapons close and prepare to engage in the smoke. Watch each other close and tag potential targets for focus. Marksmen above, keep the pressure on and those loyalists suppressed. Rest of you, advance up with me! Anything in the smoke gets removed.”

Side arms and deadly knives appeared in the hands of the Skitarii. They moved forward from what had been a good barricade and began their push under the cover of continued rifle fire. Their target was ultimately the same as Jarn’s: the command post with the techpriest. It had to be done and they had to gain ground one way or another. The loyalists lessening their fire could pay dividends for them as they moved into the unavoidable smoke. They came upon a few loyalists trying to retreat their way through the obscuring cover and cut them down in a brutal salvo of pistol fire before spreading their numbers out so as not to make an obvious spot as they advanced.

“Don’t waste any chances. A necessary risk is all this is, boys.”

[Azazeal849]

Spoiler: Maniple Alpha-Rho-Phi, the Damned 88th - Baraspine 

The Imperials were already trickling back into the ring-hub, their retreat covered by a thin, grim line of veterans holding behind the cargo conveyors. Gunfire ripped back and forth as they exchanged fire with the advancing skitarii, scattershot criss-crossing with the hissing glow of radium and phosphex. Donovan’s implants filtered out the sound of a sergeant screaming at his men to switch to armour-piercing slugs.

At a hand signal from Tarran, the black-armoured Nebulas shouldered forward to take the brunt of the enemy fire, returning it full-auto from their long rifles. Heavy penetrators battered into boarding shields to send the men behind them skidding and stumbling. Co-ordinated fire from each Nebula’s wingman punched through exposed helmets and torsos as the shields slipped. A Nebula near the centre of the line cursed and went down onto one knee as a shotcannon slug destroyed the myomer bundles in his right leg. He jammed his rifle back into his shoulder and fired a sawing burst before glancing back at Jarn’s men, contempt evident even through his matte-black visor.

“Are you coming or not, you mercenary fraks!?” he bawled at the Jotunhel shield line.

Donovan saw flashes of light through the smoke as the Nebulas ahead of him activated their jet packs, lowered their shoulders and boosted straight into the Imperial rearguard. The cargo conveyors and surrounding machinery disintegrated as the Nebulas bulldozed through, opening up gaping holes for the pursuing skitarii to exploit. Donovan’s soldiers set about themselves with lethal precision, and soon there were no combat-effective armsmen who were not already falling back. The rangers exchanged desultory fire with the last few armsmen leapfrogging away down the hub, who soon peeled away from the shredded walls and disappeared.

“Area secure.” the Nebula who had ended up beside Donovan reported into his helmet vox. His armour was bullet-scored and flecked with blood, but evidently none of it was his. He turned to Donovan. “Tribune, did you say it was an enemy enginseer that took down the barricades?”

“Well we can’t stay here and wait for them.” captain Tarran broke in, shrugging away a spasm in a damaged shoulder joint as she rejoined the others. “With the barriers down this loading bay is one big shooting gallery.”

+ + + + + +

Objective secured: Defend barracks module
New objective: Disrupt Imperial staging area

“They’ve got a command...ack from the bay, with a cogboy in atten...them and kill them.”

Droplaug received the scrambled vox transmission, and unfortunately understood enough of it to know that Jarn was ordering her to turn away from the market. Unfortunately, she and the first of her scrambler bikes had already just thundered down the adjoining ring module and ramped over the mezzanine deck into it.

The market had once been another cargo module. Now it was a shanty-town of prefabs and temporary structures that had grown up in this hub between the docks and the inner modules; a maze of flimsy structures pitched up with no real regard for civic planning. As Droplaug’s squadron skidded to a halt and regrouped, a few jumpsuit-clad civilians who had not had the good sense to take cover inside when the fighting started screamed and scattered, fleeing from the wild-looking Jotunhel bikers. Angrier shouts followed, and then the unwelcome crack of lasfire.

Suddenly armed men were boiling up from both ends of the street: red-robed skitarii and armsmen in their heavy void suits. Plastek walls and tottering stacks of produce exploded, causing the civilians cowering in their prefabs to scream anew. Four Jotunhel bikers were punched from their mounts in as many seconds, and the scrambler beside Droplaug roared and backflipped as a dead hand convulsed on the accelerator.

“Fuck!” one of her bikers swore vehemently as he slewed his scrambler around and gunned the engine. “The market is their command post!”