[M] War in the Dirt - Imperials IC

[dakkagor]

“Come on!” Danilovich urged as he snapped a new cell into his las-carbine, and offered a hand to the Amazoneum warrior climbing up behind him. The hand convulsed as another arc bolt tagged him in the side, and he slumped in smoking ruin on top of the manhole.

"Danilovich!" Harmothoe grabbed the officer and hauled him back into the hatch, yelling for a medic. A white clad vostroyan, spattered in red, hustled over and two of the young Lieutenants men pulled him clear. Harmothoe watched the man work for a moment, but knew already that Danilovich was dead. She ground out a vile curse under her breath before turning to the Vostroyans clustered behind her, looking at their leader as the medic tried to restart his heart.

"Listen to me!" she roared, and the men turned to look at her. "We finish these traitor bastards for the lieutenant! We make them pay for every bloody step we have won today! Are you with me?"

There was a throaty roar and a weapons and fists punched into the air. With battlecry she had learnt in the creches of the Amazoneum, she plunged out of the hatch with an augmented leap, Vounoe a step behind her. Both women leveled their las blasters as they charged, sawing a hail of fire down as they plunged headlong into the hail of fire. Lasbolts spat past them in response to hails of carbine fire as both women made the first barricade, mostly thanks to their fine armour and Harmothoe's refractor field. In close combat, the two women carved down the last few defenders.

"Bomb it out!" She yelled, and frag grenades tumbled into the command deck. Armaglass shattered and rattled, smoke boiled from the deck, and with a feral cry the Vostroyans and Amazoneum breached. Bayonets flashed and punched into servitors and the last few Skitarii, as Vounoe and Harmothoe's spears carved down a pair of lumbering cybernetica constructs held back for close protection. The carnage came to and end as the smoking bodies of the crawlers crew were tossed from their lasbolt holed chairs.

"Crawler secure!" Harmothoe canted, wrenching her spear from the destroyed torso of the crawlers commander. Surrender had never been an option.

++++++

“You should take your men back.” Cuilope told Petrovich. The skitarii rad-counters were already clicking dangerously from the number of irradiated bullets embedded in the walls and the bobbing corpses.

Petrovich nodded, and gestured for his men to fall back. Cuilope turned to Hector Rho as behind him Skitarii began to draw heavy trench knives, and safe their carbines.

"I was hoping to not die wet and miserable today, Hector."

Hector would have smiled, if he still had lips. Instead he nodded.

"I'll do my best to keep you safe, then." With a haptic gesture, his Skitarii moved forwards and into the murk. Cuilope, and two other Amazoneum, moved in with them, their sonic spears silent for now.

Visibility dropped immediately, but the Skitarii churned forwards, using their maglocks to cling to the deck and make good progress. A pair of flooded Cybernetica hulls barred one accessway, and acetylene torches were brought forwards to cut them apart.

Truly, the unalloyed metal is as weak as the unimproved flesh.

As the robots collapsed, and the path forwards opened again, the ambush came.

The fighting was immediately confused and chaotic. Blood and oil polluted the already filthy water. Skitarii grappled hand to hand with knives at each others throat. Hector slashed left and right, punching his blade into sternum armour and joints with brute force. Suddenly, Cuilope was next to him, spearing enemies like fish on a harpoon. Her lasblaster pulsed darting beams of red into the murk, and bodyparts bobbed past Rho's helmet as he pushed forwards. Sensor scatter told him they had made the main command centre. He hooked left and Cuilope hooked right, individual skitarii making their own entrances. It was a fight without form or logic, a brutal melee in the worst conditions. Hector felt a tingle across his sensorium, and glanced up.

Staring down at him was the shrivelled, emaciated body of his opponent. He drew his augmetic fist back and punched it into the glass, once, twice, three times until it cracked and the pure amniotic mix inside mixed with the toxic river. The tribune inside began to thrash and burn, until Hector wrapped his metal fingers around her neck and squeezed until the Tribunes head came away, disintegrating in the toxic water.

+Crawler secure.+ He canted. +We must move quickly if we wish to salvage anything from this+

[Cfavano]

"WHAT THE DROKK ARE YOU ALL DOING?!" Barked an old, yet commanding voice. The Militia who heard it, turned, and Janie saw what looked to be another militiaman barking orders, though he didn't give off the same vibe s one of the combat novices. While she had seen the eagerness in all of the militia, everything from the way they spoke, the way they ran, and the way they carried their weapons showed how green they were. Not so with this figure.

"I guess the battle's over then, since you all have enough time to stare at a lass who just nearly died. Oh wait, is that enemy lasfire? It looks like there are still enemies left alive." A militiaman was about to say something when the commanding fired barked; "Get moving or so help me I will flog the skin off your bones with a bunch of baling twine, you Drokking rookies!" He emphasis this with a quick burst of lasfire from his Lasgun, which compared to the other militiamen, is a completely different pattern. They waste no time and rush forward.

The man makes his way over to Janie, holding out a hand to help her up. "Here, girl, on your feet. Today is not the day you meet The God-Emperor. She also noticed that his robe was not closed like all the others, it was worn more like a cloak, and underneath...he had a dress uniform on. Khaki-colored pants and a deep blue shirt, with many ribbons...and even gold-colored fiber epaulets. On his lapel was printed the Imperial Guard standard Sergeant's Chevrons. "The name's Jurgen."

[Derpnaster]

Jens and first platoon:
"Haven fall in, escort pattern Mike Lima get let's get this oddball back to the Red!"
Jens shouted over the Vox, he then flipped a switch on his weapon and let out a fusillade of shots alongside some others to let his men surround the mutant. Satisfied when the Kaki and Ocher clad guardsmen and formed up Jens turned his attention to the militiaman who was left over.
"Get moving soldier, we'll handle this, you got your runts to keep in line anyway."
Turning to Janie.
"You're lucky we're the ones who saw that and not some Cadian born zealot bastards, we'll get you back to your Red Cap, after that we need to have a talk. For now let's push these rebels out and clear some space."

3rd Platoon Kill Team:

Gauthier acted, no thought, only instinct he pulled the pin on a flash grenade and tossed it at the prisoners then rushed the grapple. He pulled his knife and fell upon his teammate's assailant and plunged his blade in the cracks of the Patriot's flak armor, then again, then trice, regaining his awareness Gauthier then swiveled around and leveled his weapon at the two prisoners.
"If you don't want to end up like him drop your weapons and fall in. I can point you to safe lines. Haven won't harm you, but cross us and you will die."

[Azazeal849]

Spoiler: Haven 14th, Cam’s Lot Militia, Cadian 2451st - Baraspine 

Cam’s Lot militia, Haven 14th 1st platoon

"The name's Jurgen."

“Er...thanks.” the adjutant replied as he hauled her up. She massaged the rubber seal of her facemask, where one of Aquilon’s overzealous militiaman had lamped her in the jaw and knocked her down.

"Get moving soldier,” Jens broke in. “We'll handle this, you got your runts to keep in line anyway." He turned to Janie. "You're lucky we're the ones who saw that and not some Cadian-born zealot bastards. We'll get you back to your Red Cap, after that we need to have a talk. For now let's push these rebels out and clear some space."

Janie nodded, curling her tail away underneath her coat and pulling it straight.

The frateris militia to their right had overrun the barricades, and were now crawling up the steps to the main station entrance, bunching up near the top steps while fire from inside screamed over their heads into the forecourt. One Chimera was stopped and smoking, and Imperial infantry were using the disabled vehicle as cover to scramble towards the dead ground.

Commissar Schenke was conspicuous, standing calmly upright and reloading his auto-shotgun amid the prone frateris, although Jens noted that he had judiciously picked a step halfway down the stairway to avoid the gunfire raging back and forth a metre over his head.

“Hold here just a moment, brothers.” the commissar was shouting, raising his voice to be heard as he slotted the new magazine into his shotcannon. “Give the flanking units a chance to catch up. We’ll hit them from three directions at once.”

He glanced towards the approaching escort formation.

“Ah! Sergeant Jens. If you have a flamer team that would be good. If you have any more demo charges to breach an extra entrance that would be even better.”

Janie pushed her way to the front. “Erm...Schenke, sir, I need to report an incident.”

Schenke racked the bolt of his shotgun. “Providing me with a better description than ‘an incident’ is part of your job, Janie.”

“The incident involved my tail, a not-quite-dead Patriot and several witnesses, sir.”

“Ah.” the commissar nodded. “Failure to declare a category two mutation to supporting forces. Put yourself on a charge, adjutor.”

Janie adjusted her helmet. “Yes sir.”

“Charge dismissed.” The commissar dropped one hand from his shotgun butt to clap the smaller woman’s shoulder, and turned to Jens. “For the record, sergeant, she has spines for hair as well. But she’ll outfight half the pure-gene men in your platoon if you don’t watch her.”

+ + + + + +

Haven 14th, 3rd platoon kill team

"If you don't want to end up like him drop your weapons and fall in. I can point you to safe lines. Haven won't harm you, but cross us and you will die."

Neither of the Baraspini responded, and the reason was evident in the blood trickling from one man’s ear. Both men were still down on the ground, with hands over their masked faces and visible burns from the flashbang on their arms and shins.

There were shouts from the street below, indicating that the enemy infantry covering the Vanquisher had heard the explosion. If the kill team still wanted to get the drop on the defenders, they would have to move quickly.

Spoiler: Legio Sirenia - Perinetus 

Objective secured: Storm the crawlers and retrieve data cores
New objective: Pending

At Rho’s order, the skitarii waded through the floating bodies and clouds of blood towards the submerged command terminals. Steel panels around the cogitators were ripped back by augmetic hands. A still-powered cable flashed, earthing itself in one of the skitarii in a last act of defiance.

+We have it, tribune.+ one of his squadmates reported, unfazed. He pulled back a bionic hand, clutching a glassy icicle shape which glowed briefly through the murky water before fading clear.

+ + + + + +

Down on the ground the enginseers had formed a prayer circle, focusing the mind of the lexmechanic who was drawing the data out of the recovered crystals and feeding them through the noosphere back to Hange and Ankari. The data unfolded and diverged into fractal patterns, but the patterns were ugly; the code within disjointed and meaningless.

“Corrupted.” magos Ankari surmised as her looming presence withdrew from the datascape. “And not by damage or immersion in the river either. It seems that the heretek tribune spent her last moments disseminating fatal scrambler code through the data stacks.”

You will not have my temple. Hange remembered, from her own tribune’s report of his brief exchange with the enemy commander.

“Fortunately the Knowledge from the other crawler’s tactical net is still usable. We have what we need. You have my permission to invoke the rites of ending and release the machine spirits from their current torment. May they find rebirth in more worthy vessels.”

A low drone of sombre binary began to filter up from the ground below, and a chain of rumbling explosions enveloped the distant crawler wrecks. Even from a kilometre away, Hange felt the detonation rumble through her titan’s battered frame.

The vox link between Ankari and Hange clicked and fizzed, adjusting to additional connections.

“I have shared your recovered Knowledge with the commanders of Ragnarov’s defence and added them to this communion.” Ankari explained. “Honoured brothers, I present princeps Hange Zoerrin, whose legio bought the necessary time to regroup our forces. Princeps, may I introduce magos reductor Milosz and princeps Phenro of the legio Scythia.”

“Princeps Phenro of the Aeterna Victrix.” a basso voice corrected, with wry but jovial irony. “I’m afraid that one surviving titan hardly constitutes a legion.”

An oscillating wave of static cut across the vox line, which Hange presumed to be reductor Milosz. Rosa’s bonded systems compiled the binharic code and translated it into a stream of ghostly runes across her vision.

+Destruction of the enemy siege maniple has greatly reduced their combat-ready strength. The intelligence from the enemy siege crawlers also indicates significant, unexpected disruption among their forces occupying the Ankylon line. A number of their support elements are exposed, with insufficient cover to repel titan-class units.+

“Then they are ripe for a counterattack.” princeps Phenro stated triumphantly. “The Ankylon line was built to repel attacks from the south, not the north. If we retake it then we push the frontline away from Ragnarov and cripple what’s left of their offensive strength.”

The whale-song of static chorused again as Milosz replied.

+Negative. The enemy have only two options: throw what they have left against our prepared defences, or fall back towards their own orbital silos before our void support enters the equation. Should they choose the former, the honoured princeps would be advised to retreat to Ragnarov where she can take full advantage of our artillery and anti-air cover.+

“Or,” princeps Phenro interjected pointedly, “We could go forward and smash them once and for all. If we let them retreat to their own lines then it will take months and more force than we have left to dig them out. We will win a stalemate instead of a victory.”

Ankari was silent for a significant moment. “Princeps Zoerrin. Your units have already fought well; I will leave the decision to you. If you choose to advance, the artillery cover I can offer will be limited, but you stand a good chance of disrupting the Patriot assault. Perhaps we can even find and kill that heretek Delzharian while he is still at the front lines.”

[dakkagor]

+Princeps, a moment? I have something critical for our future planning.+

Hange frowned at the intrusion. Harmothoe had pinged her with a high priority pulse. She was tempted to ignore it, but the Amazoneum commander would not intrude on a clearly code-marked high level strategy meeting unless it was urgent.

+Glorious? What has come up?+

Harmothoe slid her a dense data packet over the noosphere. It was. . . a vid capture, taken from high grade ocular augmetics.

The arm, an integrated gamma cleanser of sublime design, was carved clean off in a shower of sparks and thrown clear. As the other arm on the target deployed a short, powered punch blade, it too was hacked away, and the blade then speared into the target’s torso, slamming him into a wall.

"If you expect me-"

And then his neck was cut, and the head of Delzharian fell into a plastic bag.


+Where in the Cog did you get that from?!+ she exclaimed. +And can you verify it?+

There was a pause +My princeps, the Inquisitorial agent released this to me because I questioned her about the bag on her hip. Which contains, as best as I can tell, the mortal remains of Magos Delzharian+

Hange pulled up an external view, a gunbox picter that she focused on Harmothoe at her feet. She was standing with four other Amazoneum, spears levelled at the slim, black clad form of a young woman holding aloft the plastic bag in question. Disconcertingly, the woman was staring directly up at the Reaver, up at her.

+Red sands of Mars.+ she breathed over the link. +Can you patch her in?+

+++++

She gave them all time to process the data. Ankari took the longest, almost certainly evaluating it every which way for signs of tampering.

This was fine. Three Legio bulk landers had made planetfall from the Shepherd. One was currently taking on damaged and dead Skitarii. Her infantry forces had been ravaged, with casualties close to 2000 dead or combat ineffective. Her heavy assets, the bulk grade combat servitors and the mule-based stalk tanks, had taken a severe beating. 3000 medium weight infantry remained, and Hector Rho was now marshalling them for the expected push.

Because she was going to push. And push hard. Push the frakkers to breaking point.

The other lander had brought parts, spares and repair crews. Tech priests were stripping and replacing the popped void shield generator, filling the carapace cracks with quick-sealing ceramite foam, and removing the carapace launcher for a paired turbo laser mount, as the launcher was hopelessly fouled. Her Knights were making similar quick repairs, while her Warhounds, eager for the hunt and undamaged so far, prowled on her perimeter.

The final lander was engaging in salvage. It had landed in the quarry zone and the massive, crab like automata it carried had moved to start recovering the downed Titan claimed by Levvi. The other one claimed by her warhounds had been sighted being recovered by forces loyal to Delzharian. The final one, pulled down by the Vostroyans. . . It wasn't going anywhere, and its fate was most likely politically contentious. After all, there was. . .

“Damn his hubris.” Princeps Phenro cursed as he observed the grisly image that Hange was disseminating. “We’ve been hunting him for six months and now he lets himself get killed by an Imperial?”

+You do not consider this to be good news?+ reductor Milosz’ code ticker-taped across Hange’s vision.

The Scythia princeps laughed without malice. “Magos, if you had told me in advance I would have betrayed this woman to Delzharian purely so I could have the satisfaction of killing him myself. But yes, I consider this to be good news.”

Phenro was a lone princeps from a crippled legion - an errant. Hange wondered if recovering the enemy warhound wreck, and rebuilding his dead legio on Perinetus from battlefield scraps and salvage, might be something he was considering.

“It is suspiciously good fortune.” Ankari pitched in with her own analysis. “Even after the fall of the Ankylon defence line, the balance of power was too fine for victory to be certain. And Delzharian always made a habit of being where the god-machines weren’t.”

+Even if Delzharian hasn't been killed, he is likely no longer in direct command of the front.+ Hange pulsed. +That gives us a significant tactical and strategic edge. We complete our makeshift repairs, and we advance. We punch down the centre of the Ankylon line, and cut their support elements to pieces. With four titans, and six knights, we can cut apart even an armoured brigade if we fight intelligently. And with orbital overwatch from the Shepherd of Light for at least part of our attack, we will have the ability to call in orbital strikes.+

“Four titans.” Ankari commented. “I see you are assuming the deployment of the Aeterna Victrix.”

+I was hoping that Princeps Phenro would join us for some bullying.+ Hange admitted. +It is, after all, his plan.+

“It is indeed.” Phenro agreed. “I will second myself to your command, princeps Zoerrin. It may wound Aeterna’s pride, but a Nemesis is a poor combatant without Warhound support, and mine were all put out of action in the fighting around Alpha One. Moreover your legion is still a cohesive unit, and will perform better as such under a commander they know.”

+Do not rely too heavily on your tender’s orbital support.+ Milosz canted. +The hereteks have ground silos to the south and possible sea-based weapons they can utilise.+

“I would also,” Ankari put in sternly. “Request that orbital artillery be used sparingly in the locality of the Ankylon line. We will need some measure of intact fortifications to reoccupy.”

+I will use restraint, Magos+ Hange replied testily. +I will use the Shepherd to cover a retreat if we should find ourselves over-extended, nothing more.+

She sighed in her cockpit, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Pressing into the back of her mind was Rosa, a feral desire to kill rising at the prospect of fighting soft armour. It was shortening her temper and souring her mood.

+You do me great honour, Phenro. I will assign our House Calyx allies to your close protection. Six Knights should be more than enough to drive off an opportunistic snap attack.+

There was runes of assent and confirmation. Rosa rocked gently as repair gantries disengaged and the techpriests canted their final blessings. She waited until they had moved clear.

"Test light shields"

The voids snapped up, crisp and clean and strong. Henge rolled her shoulders and the servos of the gun-limbs growled in a throaty chorus.

"We hit first, we hit hard, and we keep on hitting. Battlegroup, move out"

+++++

"You heard the lady, give me escort spacing."

Levvi thumped the stirrups of his suit forwards, his Cerastus breaking into an easy loping run as he fell into formation. The Nemesis Warbringer towered over him to his rear, casting a long cold shadow.

The Legio Sirena, as far as he knew, did not have any machines as specialised as a warbringer in their ranks. It was slower than the Reaver of Zoerrin, and heavier on his sensors. Its vast carapace mounted gun alone was the size of one of his households warsuits. He watched its doom-step carefully, and slowed himself a fraction to keep proper pace and spacing. The rest of his banner fell in on his ident, matching speed and forming an arrow shape around the titan, with the twins acting as a rearguard in the Warbringers rear blind spot.

+Its a funny looking thing, isn't it?+

This was from May, direct las line, loping alongside him, on his right. Sinister Intents armoured face had tilted to look at his machine.

"That it is. Top heavy and ungainly, especially compared to a Reaver"

He watched as the allied engine stomped down the highway, its face like a castle head swinging left and right. This would be interesting.

[Azazeal849]

Spoiler: Legio Sirenia - Perinetus 

New objective: Reclaim the Ankylon line

Somewhere behind the clouds the sun was going down, dimming the sky to a heavy grey. The earth below was little better: the landscape around the advancing legion was dead in every direction, reduced to ash and rubble. In the far distance, a bloom of smoke rising from the defence line divided the horizon in two.

“Holy Cog.” the sensori officer below Phenro muttered, his eyes pressed to the auspex periscope. "What happened?"

"The hereteks happened." the steersman replied, as he plotted Aeterna Victrix’s route through the zagging trench lines and the ruins of tank traps. Even with the grav-plates in the titan’s legs alleviating its mass, the ground underfoot was treacherous; artillery had reduced the ground to loose, scree-sloped craters, and most of the areas that were still even were lousy with mines.

"They're still happening, if you hadn't noticed.” princeps Phenro stated cheerfully, leaning slightly in his command throne as Aeterna swayed right with another thundering step. He was a small man, tawny-skinned, hook-nosed and with a tangle of black beard that had seen little taming since he had bonded with the Nemesis Warbringer. Aeterna’s eager spirit coursed through him from the data cables dreadlocked into his bald scalp.

The princeps’ fingers twitched fractionally as he nudged auspex captures from the sensori into the tactical data net.

“Mistress Zoerrin.” he voxed into the secure command channel. “I am tagging three targets of opportunity for your consideration. That plume on the horizon appears to be the Delta Sector Six command complex, which means the enemy artillery bastion is just behind. To the southeast is the salvage yard where the Patriots are no doubt rearming their damaged skitarii units. Further south is Complex Seven-Three, which was a supply dump before the line fell, and intelligence from orbital surveillance sat is that the Patriots are now using it as a staging point. Just mark me a target and clear a path for the quake cannon.”

+ + + + + +

The bass rumble of the titans’ warhorns ululated across the battlefield, shuddering through ribcages and causing the muddy puddles underfoot to tremble.

Artillery tribune Secundus Theta-Two de-synced his implants from his magnoculars and lowered the device with a jerk. Even with his relatively unaugmented eyes, he could still see the titans on the horizon: grim shadows wreathed in smoke and wind-blown dust as they advanced. They moved with the ponderous inexorability of death itself, each step eating up the ground far faster than any man could flee.

The skitarii would not flee. Their faith in the prophets was absolute, even though the tribune’s internal data stacks calculated that his chances of surviving the imminent engagement stood at a paltry 20%.

+All Basilisk units.+ Secundus canted. +New fire mission. Designate target: enemy titan group, bearing zero one zero, range five kilometers. Destroy the enemy blasphemies and slay their saints, so that the hereteks will know the futile error of their cause.+

His vox receiver was flooded with mindless blip-acknowledgements and automatic battle-prayers as the rows of gun-vehicles behind him ratcheted their cannons downward for direct fire. Secundus thanked the prophets of the machine god who had overseen his transformation. In their wisdom, they had rendered his binaric casters incapable of transmitting the organic impulses now quaking through his body. His bionic eyes could not weep, and his bionic legs locking into position ensured that he would not tremble and fall to his knees. His maniple would die hearing their commander spit binary defiance at the oncoming monsters. Not hearing the sobs of a man deserted by his prophets and his god, staring down the four harbingers of an inescapable death.

Secundus laced his mechanical fingers into the Cog sign, and crossed them over his chest. Behind him the artillery boomed, smoke-wreathed and thunder-loud.

+ + + + + +

The horizon suddenly lit up with a ripple of white flashes, as the line of self-propelled guns near the destroyed bunker thundered their defiance. Heavy shells screamed across audio pickups before shattering in a wash of fire against the titans’ void shields.

“We are receiving hostile fire, princeps.” the tech-priestess working deep within Aeterna’s torso voxed up unnecessarily as the voids screeched, flickered and recycled.

“Maintain full stride.” Phenro ordered, a tight smile on his face as he gripped the arms of his throne. The curtain of fire parted and Aeterna lurched clear, one foot crashing down to shake the cratered earth. “Princeps Zoerrin, Aeterna Victrix awaiting fire command.”

[dakkagor]

+Return fire at your discretion, Phenro. Priority is elimination of the enemy artillery battery at Delta Sector Six command+

Hange could feel the shells falling around her. Her voids rippled and popped as the shelling intensified. She was missing her shoulder launcher now. Is munitions would have been a solid counter to these soft-skinned mobile guns.

"Weapons."

She seized control of the Volcano cannon, and it fired at full power and burn, a line of neon fire that rippled through the chem-laden air as she micro twitched the limb from left to right. The forward trench works sheltering Artillery tribune Secundus Theta-Two vanished in an explosion that sent clods of tainted earth and shattered polycrete berms into the air. The soil had been water logged, and that water had been blasted into steam. The explosive expansion had turned the trench works into deadly bombs.

Fire from a flakk battery blitzed up at her as she approached the line. Autocannon shells knocked down her left side voids and blitzed against her scuffed up armour belt. She swung and brought the carapace turbo-lasers to bear, and fired a three second pulse fed direct from the reactor. The pair of Onagers detonated in greasy fireballs, scattering armour plate and torn limbs. Secondary ammunition detonations reached down the trench as the heat bleed touched bunkered ammunition.

+Ladies, get in there.+

The two warhounds cut in from the flanks, and the killing began in earnest.

+++++

Rosen and Lenz slashed at the rear of the formation, guns spitting death. Basilisks and medusa were slow, had a narrow forward arc for their main gun, and only a heavy bolter for a secondary weapon.

Rosen racked up an impressive ten kills in less than five minutes, her paired turbolasers spearing open topped artillery platforms and either melting them, or more commonly, blasting them apart from ammunition explosions. She spared time for the infantry, skitarii squads and desperate, mad with panic second line forge guard who died to shredding volleys of her vulcan mega bolter. Half-second and second bursts could stitch clouds of explosive death down trench lines, erasing entire infantry sections in a blizzard of shrapnel and bursts of explosive overpressure. It would rain bodyparts and shattered cybernetics in a bloody rain outside the trench, drawing in scavenging servitor clades to die under her stamping feet.

Lenz had massed double the armoured kills in the same time, her plasma blastguns shrieking like the tortured dead as she pushed her engine with a maniacal fervour. Bolts of plasma hulled tanks and onagers alike, flash cooking skitarii support elements that milled in confusion as conflicting orders washed across the tacticae net. Lenz was ignoring the infantry, however, focusing intently on shepherding the armour. As the warhounds tore into the rear and Hange pressed from the front, the artillery abandoned dug scrapes that had kept them hull down and safe from Imperial counter battery fire, but now served only as death traps. The battlefield became a confused mass of promethium smoke, roaring combat engines and deafening fire. Infantry cowered in trenches as the doom-step of the titans passed overhead or panicking armour slammed across the revetments to get away from murderous killing machines. Those pillboxes and bunkers that resisted, died to the sun-hot touch of Rosa's volcano cannon, the laser boring through plascrete and ceramite shielding with deadly ease. The bunkers melted like wax models, spitting fire and molten rock like the angry wounds in the earth for which the weapon was named.

+Maximum density achieved, you may fire when ready+ Rosen canted.

Two kilometres back, Aeterna Victrix braced, and returned fire at its tormentors. Two shots from the six round chamber of its quake cannon, fused for airburst. Each shell landed in a confused group of artillery hiding from its warhound tormentors, snapping of shots at passing shadows and the ominous rumble of titanic footfalls. Both groups ceased to exist in a heartbeat, replaced by searing balls of fire rising into the air. The ground bucked and shook like a wounded animal, collapsing trenches and bunkers in roaring cascades of flame and toxic soil.

+++++

Hange nodded at the fearsome destruction she had orchestrated. Sicut Sanguis Rosa was lurking at the back of her mind, sated for the moment at the carnage she had unleashed. Her gatling cannon and turbolaser had racked up over twenty kills apiece from fleeing artillery.

+Sinae and Maria, break of your attack and pursue an assault on the skitarii fallback point. Don't take risks, just keep them harassed and suppressed.+

There was an almost disappointed blurt of confirmation code, along with a compressed record of gunbox feeds that Hange began to exload to the waiting Shepherd of Light.

+And us, Princeps?+ Phenro questioned. He was eager for more, clearly. Hange would give him as much as he could stomach.

+We bear for that depot and smash it wide open. We'll soon see how badly decapitated the hereteks are. An area like that will be rich in targets we can pound to bloody pieces from a distance+

+You sound practically feral, Princeps. Very well.+

Hange couldn't help but smile on her throne. Rosa was rewarding her with a wash of hormones that made her alchemical blood sing. But something tickled at the back of her mind.

A surviving reaver and a warhound.

She shot an order to Chao in orbit, requesting a full work up of the region. A snap attack by those two could be devastating. But she also trusted Lenz and Rosen. Both would back down if caught out, she knew.

She hoped.

[Azazeal849]

Spoiler: Legio Sirenia - Perinetus 

“Channel receiving, princeps.” Hange’s moderati reported. The titan commander’s temples buzzed as information from the orbiting Shepherd split and spread in fractal patterns. Wireframe topography overlaid her spatial awareness, pulsing with hot-spots. The Shepherd was currently hanging in high orbit, where it could still easily burn away into deep space if the enemy ground batteries bared their teeth. As such the telemetry was not as precise as Hange would have liked - though it told her enough. The two hulking titan haulers that had landed under Lenz’ flag of truce were now retiring ponderously south towards the Patriot-held Verlin starport, carrying the enemy legion and its fallen Warhound with them. Unless they planned to redeploy right under the Sirenia’s guns, they were not going to interfere. The Delta Six hub and artillery bastion were a ruinous hell of firestorms and interference, while the salvage yard and supply dump were seething hives of enemy contacts.

Rosa’s hunting sensors provided keener definition to the latter. Having bought time to prepare with their compatriots’ blood, the Patriot second-line units had mobilised from the vulnerable supply dump, shaking off loaders and spitting out fuel lines to race forward and meet the coming attack. Hange saw the formations of sable-hulled Onagers unfolding for battle: a black rose with iron thorns, overlapping their refractor shields and fields of fire. The nearest were already stabbing erad beams in her direction, pricking Rosa and Aeterna’s shields with angry fireballs. The flashing lights of the Onagers competed with the fiery glow of Delta Six, a hell-red artificial sunset backlighting Sicut Sanguis Rosa as it stalked through the gathering dusk.

“Heretek machines approaching, princeps Zoerrin.” Phenro voxed out to Hange, amusement filtering through his deadpan delivery. “We are targeting the supply dump.”

Aeterna bulldozed forward with its awkward, lumbering stride, washed in flames and impacts as it drew fire for the smaller Knights screening it. The hydraulics of its quake cannon snarled angrily as they elevated the gun into firing position.

“New contact.” Phenro’s sensori officer warned, torquing a dial on his periscope handle. “Sector zero seven gamma."

Phenro’s head automatically switched to the right as he focused on the auspex inputs from Aeterna’s starboard quarter. “Too fast for ground units.” he cursed inwardly. “Get me a lock for the Anvilus cannons!”

“Identifying.” the sensori officer acknowledged. “Four flyers, peeling away!”

“Peeling aw-” Phenro realised that there was no time to complete the thought. “Brace for impact!”

The enemy squadron had been flying low, weaving through the scarred terrain only to rise and release a swarm of comet-tailed missiles as they banked away. The automated quad-guns in Aeterna’s shoulder batteries sparked defiance, and two of the incoming metal darts tumbled and exploded. The others shrieked on, three striking Aeterna, and three hitting Rosa. Boiling, billowing hurricanes of fire rolled off both titans, rocking the smaller Knights attending them.

Both engines’ shields collapsed with a heavy whoompf, vibrating the ground and chasing circular ripples of dust out across the landscape. Aeterna reeled like a drunken giant, and Phenro had to seize direct control of the left leg, planting it down hard to arrest the titan’s dangerous sideways skid.

“What in the Deus’ name was that?” the tech-priestess down below voxed angrily.

"Just a few flies, magos.” Phenro replied, gritting his teeth against the angry barks of pain feeding back to him through the Warbringer’s spirit link. “You should have seen them at Alpha One! Their bloody air support used to come over the same time every day, you could set your wrist-chron by them! The locals called them the traffic police because they could clear all the jams on the roads like no-one else.” He shook his head, fighting Aeterna’s urge to spray shells into the sky in futile pursuit of the vanished enemy fighters. “Damage report!"

“Shield generator is non-responsive.” the priestess responded. “Mauler turret 1 is destroyed, and I’ve lost fire control to 2.”

“This fight just got interesting, princeps Zoerrin!” Phenro transmitted to the staggering Rosa. Static arcs were leaping across the Reaver’s hull, soon joined by explosive blasts of yellow light as the enemy Onagers resumed their fire.

“Sector two five alpha.” the sensori officer warned.

From behind a gouged ridge topped with the smoking ruin of an Aegis wall, a snub-nosed gunship came hacking up. Five hundred metres to the right a second appeared, dipping its tilt-rotor wings. Both were wreathed in smoke as they sent a volley of rockets hurtling towards the engaged titans.

“Back half stride!” Phenro ordered, wrenching Aeterna’s torso around to present its heavy frontal armour at the expense of pulling its charging quake cannon off target.

“Contacts, contacts, contacts!” the sensori shouted.

The squadron of enemy gunships engaged, one after the other. They rose and then hooked away, a constant, whizzing stream of missiles thumping from their launchers. Missile after missile, burning darts against the dusk. Aeterna spat back ineffectually with its one remaining Mauler cannon.

“Knight commander Straub, I’m going to have to trouble you for a little protective fire!” Phenro sent, before switching to Aeterna’s internal vox with a mental nudge. “Give me full power for the Reaver cannons, magos!”

Down in the furnace-hot reactor chamber, Phenro’s faithful enginseer shielded her head as a chain of bolts blew out of their housings overhead and began to vomit greasy weapons coolant down onto the grated deck.

“Oh Omnissiah!” she wailed, scrambling for the isolator valves. “Princeps! She’s bleeding!”

“Don’t worry, magos.” Phenro hissed, feeling the rupture as a persistent jag in the crook of his right elbow. “She’s not leaking oil, she’s just sweating power! Cannons, now!”

+ + + + + +

Sinae dragged its foot forward across the earth, ploughing away the men below it with one contemptuous kick. The roads had been torn apart by tank-treads and shellfire, and now the two Warhounds were slashing them into further ruin with their mighty footsteps. Their ammunition and power cells were already running low from sheer target saturation.

Plasma bolts hissed back and forth, trailing streamers of blue fire as heavy kataphrons on the ground shot back at the titans. Maria’s much larger blastguns returned their fury with incinerating fireballs, within which men turned to dark shadows and then to plumes of ash in the space of an eyeblink. A few Onagers appeared, clanking, smoke-dark and vengeful, but not enough to give the Warhounds pause as they advanced. Sinae and Maria bolted over trench lines, strafed around hardpoints, and unleashed hell on the prefab field camp.

Abattoir workshops where damaged skitarii hung twitching under sparking welder arms went up in flames, taking the wounded and their mindless repair servitors with them. Buildings, bunkers and watchtowers all went up, picked off methodically by the circling titans. Infantry boiled from the underground bunker network like ants from a kicked nest.

It was easy to tell the menial forge-guard apart from the skitarii. The forge-guard dug like grubs into the deepest trenches they could find, dragging wounded comrades after them. The skitarii stood or knelt behind burning barricades, calmly snapping harmless radium rounds into the Warhounds’ shields. When they ran out of ammunition, they stood defiant and hurled binary curses instead. It was not in their stimm-saturated minds to surrender, not so long as the visions of the tech-priest prophets beamed into their minds ordered them to fight.

Princeps Rosen, whose titan’s shields had already taken a battering, turned her attention sharply down as a new series of impacts screamed around Sinae’s feet. Through the hull cameras she saw enemy skitarii - unarmed, some of them missing cybernetic limbs which the workshops had not yet replaced - running headlong at her titan’s feet only to vanish in pink clouds as they struck the voids. Off to Historia’s left, Krista and Maria were trying to backstride away from the same suicidal attack.

Sinae pulsed an angry hiss through Historia’s head as the shields faltered.

“Grappling lines!” the steersman warned, unnecessarily. Historia could also feel the stigmatic impacts needling her shins like wasp stings.

Down on the toxic, smoke-choked ground, skitarii with mag-lures and grapnel guns had scrambled their way through the trenches to the front. They raised their weapon arms and shot out spiralling black ropes that hooked and clamped against the Warhound’s leg armour. Sicarian units barged their way forwards, long-limbed and ghoulish, cackling with static and resonant sonics as they skittered up the ropes.

The titan heeled round, snapping boarding lines and dragging the unlucky skitarii who remained attached across the ground. But the Ruststalkers and their screeching Infiltrator brethren clung on like spiders. They leapt onto Sinae’s hull and set to work with powered blades and transonic claws, searching for access hatches.

[Jarms48]

Peter, 3rd Platoon, 2nd Company:

The explosion came sooner than expected, as what could only be another Vanquisher shell burst through the church wall and rocked the wreckage of Midnight. As the church groaned and collapsed, flame squirted from the Russ’ open cupula. Dark smoke billowed, mixing with brick dust and the choking clouds from the phosphor shells. The two orphaned tank crew pulled on their rebreathers and shielded their eyes as they stumbled back alongside the retreating Moxie and Matchlock.

They stumbled to their feet, their fatigues covered in dust and dirt. Their obscured faces were one of shock. Midnight was gone, their tank, their colleagues, their friends. Their home. They'd been together since training, they fought together and now they were only memories. Taken in a heartbeat without a chance to react.

There was no time to think of that now. If they didn't act they'd buy the agri-zone next. Peter brought his hand to his rebreather and brushed some of the dust from his visor.

"What do we do now!?" Dieter yelled.

"Fight. Foot mobile." Peter returned. "I have a plan, follow me."

Peter took off towards Moxie, a confused Dieter following close behind him. Peter threw open the rear stowage box and clasped the infantry phone.

"Midnight remnants to Moxie, Midnight remnants to Moxie. We're commandeering some of your shit, over." Peter said, as he tilted his head and rested the receiver between cheek and shoulder. His free hands went for the personal weapons.

"Peter is that you? Status?" Ordered Lieutenant Wilhelm.

"3 KIA. It's just Dieter and me now. We're going foot mobile with the PBG's and call targets as we go." Peter said, as he handed a lasgun to Dieter.

"Rodger. Poor bloody guardsmen." The Lieutenant's voice was one of approval.

Corporal Muller threw back the phone receiver and he grasped the strap of Moxie's spare binoculars. Peter put the rope around his shoulder and turned to Dieter before slamming the stowage door closed.

"Are we mingling with allied infantry?" Dieter joked, training and adrenaline had taken over. The events just past already becoming a distant memory.

"That's right, time to get friendly." Peter bantered back.

The tanker duo moved into the advancing infantry. Who were hugging the walls and storming hab buildings one-by-one. There were echos of gunfire and the distinctive cracks of lasfire. They kept their heads down and tried to find anyone that could help them. Their eyes full of determination.

"I see something, heavy weapons element." Dieter called, before raising and pointing a hand in their direction. The trio of missile launchers held tight in the hands of their operators was unmistakable.

"No time like the present, the expanse waits for no-one." Said Peter, as they began moving towards them. From what he could make out their were 10 of them. 3 operators, 3 loaders, 3 guardsmen and their NCO. The corporal caught their NCO's eye with a wave of the hand.

"Guardsmen. Peter, Cadian 2451st, Royal Tank Regiment, 2nd Company. We need your help to advance on the rail head. We've got enemy heavy armour." Stated Peter, in his best local Gothic.

"We're aware, we saw your purple eyed lot get frakked earlier. You should thank the Emperor that you're still alive. We've got our orders, why should we help you?" The NCO challenged.

"We're Cadian." Peter stated, frankly.

The NCO sighed. "Come on then, show me your Cadian furiousity."

Lieutenant Ennius, 2nd Platoon, 2nd Company:

“Triple-A!” lieutenant Ennius’ gunner called out aboard Maximum Precision. 2nd platoon’s lead tank had already been battered once by autocannon fire from a different Hydra, but was still in the fight. He snatched at the focusing dial on his scope as he zeroed in on the burning ribbons of hellfire shells. “Ten o’clock, range six hundred - target obscured by rubble!”



Sergeant Helen, 1st Platoon, 2nd Company:

Inside Manifesto, the section commander heard the turret hydraulics groaning as a film of ice began to spread across the inside of her vehicle. Next to her there was a cough, and she saw her gunner pawing at trails of blood that were suddenly leaking from his tear ducts.

"Sergeant, I don't feel so good." Manifesto's gunner cried, their voice weak. "I'm cold. I can't see."

"Sergeant! Engine's running cold! Temperatures dropping!" Called Helen's driver through the internal vox.

"Witch..." Helen spat, her head was spinning. She felt sick and lightheaded.

Manifesto's engine spluttered and their tank lurched forward. Her machine spirit wounded and crying out in pain. Films of ice were developing all around them, droplets of water and moister falling onto their controls.

"Loader... Smoke... We're not fit... to fight... She'll be the end... of us." Helen rasped. It was beginning to feel as if there was a ball of ice stuck in her throat.

This wasn't it, this wasn't going to be the end for them. The Sergeant unholstered her laspistol and reached for the cupola hatch. Her vision was getting cloudy and red, she was certain she was suffering the same fate as her gunner. Who had now coughed blood all over their station.

She was close, she unlocked the hatch and her hand moved to wrap around the spring-loaded release. She closed her eyes. The headache was becoming unbearable. Manifesto lurched again, her engine whining and wincing like a wounded beast. The jolt forced her hand away and she had to brace on the turret wall.

Helen closed her eyes, she heard the audible thumps of their smoke dischargers and the groans of her tanks engine. Manfesto spluttered for a final time, until her revs grew fainter and fainter. Her engine seized.

Captain Antheia, HQ Section, 2nd Company:



Manfesto spluttered for a final time, until her revs grew fainter and fainter. Her engine seized.



Lieutenant Linus, 1st Platoon, 2nd Company:

(Placeholder)

Sergeant Mia, 3rd Platoon, 2nd Company:

“Two tanks plus troops, twelve o’clock, range four hundred!” the gunner snapped, as if Drass hadn’t already seen them.

Mask pressed to the optics visor, Drass had less than a second to make the decision. The right tank was a standard Russ, tooled up with hull and turret bolters. The left was a less-lethal Exterminator, but with the unmistakable long barrel of a lascannon jutting from its hull, and two hunter-killers bulging from its turret.

“Gunner, left tank!”

The gunner locked in his target with a snap of gears. “Identified!”

“Fire!”

(Placeholder)

Lieutenant Wilhelm, 3rd Platoon, 2nd Company:

There was a metallic crunch, and Matchlock’s cupula burst off on a trail of fire, ejecting what looked like the legless torso of the tank commander along with it. Several men near the tank were knocked flat by shrapnel and overpressure.

“Eleven o’clock!” Wilhelm’s gunner screamed. “Muzzle flash, eleven o’clock!”

[dakkagor]

+Lenz, I'm snared!+

+Join the club!+

Furvus Maria snarled its gears as it stamped over the boiling lines of infantry, shaking its carapace like a dog with ticks. One skitarii assassin wedged his arms into a joint just as it scissored shut with all the force of an industrial press, stamping his augmetics and weapons flat with barely a tremor of feedback to Krista. When it opened again, the Ruststalker fell clear into the seething press below. Three more scrambled up the rear of the Titan, making its broad carapace.

One clamped to the titans squared off snout. Lenz had a vertigo inducing moment of horror, sensing it crawling across her face like a spider, and seeing its domed, featureless head out the grimy window of her Titan. It drew back a chordclaw and punched, the blow skittering from the reinforced armourplas with a sonic squeal that set her teeth on edge. With a sneer of contemptuous disgust, Lenz slammed the shutters closed.

"Left left full stride!" She yelled. Furvus lunged forwards, accelerating in a moment. The rain of hard rounds had stopped, clearly fearful of shooting their compatriots off her hull.

"Princeps, that's a wall!" Kaldon yelled.

"I know!" she yelled back.

"We're going to hit it!"

"I KNOW!"

Four hundred and twelve tonnes of armour, fusion reactor, warload and motive systems hit the wall just shy of sixty kilometres per hour. The storage barn, re-purposed for part reclamation, slumped and collapsed in a shower of brick, metal and dust. The sicarian scrambling on her nose was flattened, the three scrambling on her carapace swept away by a tide of brick and shattered roofing beams, buried under a tide of debris.

Furvus Maria powered through the deluge, charging through the other wall and collapsing it outwards onto a sheltering squad of forge guard. Once clear, the titan turned, creaking and groaning.

"We've taken damage to forward optics, upper carapace. Cockpit is locked with debris."

Lenz hopped the titan from foot to foot, dislodging shattered stonework and tangled metal girders. Its head rocked back and forth, dropping the tangled corpse of the sicarian to wetly slap on the concrete below.

"Lets circle back round." She muttered as she watched the tacticae feeds fill up with determined, pursuing infantry. "And keep our fragging distance this time"

++++++

+Join the club!+

Rosen swore as she felt the unpleasant tingle of swarming infantry. She stepped backwards, snaring the lines, and a dozen sicarians were hauled along the ground, hanging on for grim death. Pivoting at the waist and dropping elevation on the vulcan, she gave them a one-point-five second burst that tore them to pieces and threw up a wall of fumes and dirt.

"Two seconds remaining on the Vulcan!"

Rosen cursed again in fluent binharic, and turned the Warhound on its heels. She could feel six, at least, joy-riders on her legs and carapace. She could feel chordclaws and transonic sabres grind against hull metal and her carapace armour belt. Two had found the reactor accessway. Two had found the bridge hatch.

But she had prepared for this. Being overrun by xeno-forms was a risk for titans when fighting the more animalistic of the xeno breeds. She reached out and grabbed a knife switch on the cockpit wall.

"NBC prep, now!"

++++++

The warhounds sensors retracted behind the armour belt. Vents shut and recessed. The warhound was blind to the world, and functioning on its own environment, rather than filtered air from around it.

Then the hull was charged with over 20,000 volts of electricity.

Sicarians exploded. Two platoons of skitarii had grabbed the trailing cables, and for their hubris were transformed into paralysed torches, their robes bursting into flame as their ocular augmetics melted in their heads. One by one, the dead sicarians fell away.

++++++

The cockpit of Moerus Sinae had transformed into a red lit hot box of sweat and ozone. Rosen was still walking the titan backwards, feeling the occasional crunch underfoot, as blind, she stepped on something that wasn't ground and had probably been an enemy combatant. She held the switch for a count of five, then threw it back up. The reactor coughed and the lights flickered once, then returned to normal yellow.

"Capacitor drained. We won't have the turbo laser for a minute."

Rosen nodded and swept the hair plastered to her forehead away. Sweat, not just from the heat, had ran down her back and was stinging her implants.

"Take us out. We'll link up with Maria."

++++++

Tech Priestess Olenta sighed in relief as the Titans reactor resumed normal operations. That had been the first combat test of the electrification system and it had proved a serious drain on the reactors power. She lit a fresh stick of incense and wafted it over the reactors housing even as she sung binharic hymns of thanks and soothing.

Those hymns were interrupted by a loud bang on the access hatch. Olenta paused, and put the incense stick into a holder as she retrieved a short pattern kantrael lascarbine from under her work station. She checked its power pack was charged, and moved its spirit from 'safe' to 'armed'.

Another bang sounded on the hatch.

She hustled across the small workspace and braced at the bottom of the ladder shaft, sighting up the iron rungs set into a hull stanchion that led from the reactor shrine to the hull.

Another bang.

With a muttered prayer, a mechandrite snaked out and pulled the release lever. The hatch above thumped open on quick release hydraulics, and the stinking air of the battlefield. With a final breathed prayer, she moved the weapons setting to 'high'.

A domed, charred head appeared in the box of sky above her. Even as its ear splitting song began to drill into her skull, Olenta pulled the trigger and emptied the magazine in a blaze of high powered las bolts.

With a clatter, the top half of the sicarian tumbled down the ladder shaft. She stepped back, reloaded swiftly, and pumped a brace of shots into its head and heart as her mechandrite re-sealed the hatch. Sure it was finally dead, she safed the weapon and placed it back into its crate, with a benediction of thanks.

+Olenta, did a hatch just open?+

+Yes Princeps. One last straggler. I dealt with it.+

+Oh. . . good job+

Olenta nodded, letting a small smile cross her lips. She relit the incense and returned to administering to Moerus Sinae blazing heart.

++++++

Hange strode through the tatters of her fields and screamed in frustration as the fliers peeled away. Her Turbolaser pumped a useless pair of shots into the sky. Its beams may have moved at the speed of light, but its turret traverse was painfully slow.

+WHERE IN THE NAME OF THE DEUS IS OUR GAKKING AIR COVER?!+ She canted to no-one in particular.

"Aeterna is taking a beating Princeps!" her moderati yelled, snapping her back to the moment. Her own hull was rippling with explosions under fire as the gunships crested the ridgeline. They were no pattern she was aware off, super-heavies loaded down with automatic rocket pods and las-blisters. She caught one with the gatling cannon and blew its spindly rotors away in a storm of shrapnel, a satisfied snarl escaping her throat as it spun out and slammed into a gutted building, tearing it the rest of the way down. She pushed Sicut Sanguis Rosa foward at full stride, moving between Aeterna and the enemy.

+Give me my fields now! Come on we just had them fixed!+

She could feel her tech priest trying, feel her fighting against the fire spreading across her hull, against two blown out projectors and the moonscape that was her forward armour plates. Her forwards re-cohered just long enough to be knocked down again over her torso and left arm, but she had everything just below her hips at least, and the carapace shields had come back at full strength.

She held position, pouring it on, shielding Aeterna as the Knights charged past her.

++++++

Levvi yelled the battlecry of his house as he raced past the lumbering Titans and slammed into the advancing line of box-hulled Onagers. He racked up three kills almost immediately, laser-lance spitting death, grav cannon twisting hulls into pretzels of toxic wreckage. May was on his right, her Questoris Errant blasting Onagers back with its huge fusion cannon, the reaper chainsword finishing off anything that got too close. The two moved up and down the line, at close range overwhelming the networked refractor fields, or finishing stubborn engines in close combat.

+Princeps, marked point!+

A knot of advancing onagers vanished in a fireball as Rosa turned her fire on them. Two staggered clear, only for Erin to slam into them at full tilt, his chainfist sending one rolling away legless, his stamping feet driving the other into the tortured ground. A push by skitarii on foot was sent stumbling back in sheets of flame.

+Princeps, marked point!+

A group of Onagers that had broken past the three reaving knights died in atomic fire.

A pair of gunships swung back around. This time, Hinzer was ready for them. Honest Mistake turned its carapace launcher and gatling cannon on one. It stood up to a disturbing quantity of fire, soaking damage like a pugnacious version of an eldar grav tank, jinking and weaving, but if it could not get clear, trusting to redundant systems and thick armour to allow it to deliver its payload. Missiles and lasbolts filled the air and drove Honest Mistake back with shredded armour and moderate damage, but not before he had blown one of the gunships to shreds. The second one juked left to avoid the battlecannon fire of Pietr, only to met the chainblade of Anna, who fell upon it with furious glee, carving a wing clear away, then hulling it with sustained battlecannon fire as it spun.

+Princeps, marked point!+

A pulse of turbolasers fell just before Levvi. His cockpit alarms shrilled out radiation poisoning warnings as he thundered over fused glass ground, laser lance snapping. His ionic flare shield shunted fire away from his hull, but he was still seeing damage alarms, especially on the right side and his lower legs. He bladed his knight right, showing his left, and strafed along the line, Onagers scrambling back. May had swung around to show her undamaged left, and Erin punched up the middle, his long limbed Cerastus sending bright streams of heavy bolter fire into any dragoons that tried to support the attack.

Levvi didn't bother trying to direct the fight. He knew his Knights knew their business. He kept calling out targets for Rosa who was standing protectively in front of Aeterna like an angry little sister. He watched the kill-count rise, and knew that something would have to give. Either the entire depot would fall on them before they could break through this ready force. . .or. . .

He felt his blood run cold as he slammed his lance into another onager, withdrew the weapon, and pulsed a hail of shots into another.

+Princeps!+

++++++

Hange Zoerrin had seen it too. She was busy running math.

+Shipmistress Chao! I need orbital support. Fireplan attached+

There was a half second that stretched to eternity.

+Chao!+ Hange yelled as her titan shook under a salvo.

+Target confirmed!+

++++++

"Gunnery!" Chao yelled over the frantic bridge. "Prepare the nose bombardment cannon. Magna-melta on an impact fuse."

"Descending to firing position, shields lit at full strength!"

"Take the shot, then pull us back up, I don't want to get any closer to those anti-orbital weapons!" Chao was eyeing the ground warily. She had tracks that looked like submersible mobile units breaching off the coast and lining up to launch.

"Target in range! Ready to fire!" Gunnery yelled.

"Fire!"

++++++

Hange pulsed a pull back order, and the Knights fell back. Their goal was the ridgeline the gunships had crested.
Aeterna had stepped back and was effecting frantic field repairs, its reactor venting in a disturbing display. Hange couldn't go. Her knights were still extracting. She fired another brace of shots and manoeuvred for best cover, even as the front line came up the ridge line.

+5 seconds!+

May turned and fired a long blast at something over the ridge, and autocannons and missiles thundered back. Her shield caught those in a flare of light, but not the neutron beam that tore through her Questoris hip actuator and dropped her knight onto the ridge.

Hange didn't even hesitate. She fed all power into shields, closed up for NBC, and charged up the ridge. She thought she heard Levvi yell her name as she planted a foot in front of Mays downed knight and pushed her shields as hard as they could, while locking her titan into position.

The rest was heat, brilliant heat, and light, searing light.

++++++

The magna-melta warhead dumps fusing plasma into the atmosphere, at nearly five thousand five hundred kelvin, ever so slightly cooler than sol itself. The effect is localised, but still deadly. The onagers, the depot, and any supporting arms, felt the full force, and vanished into an eye searing ball of fire that swallowed everything before it.

++++++

"Blastwave is clear."

"Kill NBC prep and get us moving, quickly" Hange gasped.

With a groan, Sicut Sanguis Rosa stepped backwards. Its armour was blackened, its proud heraldry seared away.

"Shields won't relight."

"Damn the shields. Vent heat, emergency cooling, quickly before we cook! Get me sensorium!"

Sensors came back slowly, revealing a cracked and blackened wasteland. A hole had been punched in the cloud cover and stolen sunlight, reflected from the orbital yards, fell in erratic rays over a vision of hell.

With surprising care, Sicut Sanguis Rosa bent down and nudged Sinister Intent. The Knight was scorched and smoking, but no-where near as cooked as the Reaver. It rolled down the ridgeline with a clatter of armoured limbs. Even at the bottom of the ridge, the heat and radiation was much less, and both machines began to cool and vent heat.

"Is she. . .?"

"I have no idea." Sighed Hange. "Let the reactor breathe for now, and work on getting me some damn shields, even if its just a wisp." She looked out over the blasted landscape, and thought her titans sensors could catch the distant columns of launch plumes.

"Though I hope we won't need them just now."