Objective secured: Disable hive Kintora shield generators
New objective: Pending
When the missile swarm came for
Rosa, Zentarin Two Seven was on his knees, clawing through his webbing for another stimm pack while heretic fire chewed the brickwork around him to bits. It was the warning shout of Seven Seven that drew his eye upward, a shout that held a corrosive mix of defiance and despair. Reaver titans were marvels, but they were also sturdy, thunderous beasts, built for implacable step-by-step marches rather than fine manoeuvres.
And yet, Two Seven had never seen a Reaver move so fast, nor with such finesse.
Rosa’s volcano cannon swept the sky in a swift, precise arc, the beam trailing the insignificant pops of the missiles that had been detonated by its fiery kiss. Then, as the remnants of the volley roared in, the titan
dipped, like a warrior bracing behind their shield, like a cleric kneeling to pray. Half of the rockets screamed over
Rosa’s crest, wasting their fury on the hive void shield. The rest struck true, enveloping the angel construct in hungry explosions.
No, Two Seven thought, his rebreather wheezing as his breath caught in his throat.
Not after such a triumph. By the Omnissiah, no!
The smoke parted like a magician’s curtain.
Rosa crouched like a wounded animal, gun arm cradled close. For a moment, the magnificent engine seemed to teeter. But then she
rose, and her warhorn thundered defiance across the battlefield. As one the Sirenia skitarii answered, galvanic rifles and rad carbines punched towards the sky. The cheer rippled across the slush-clogged battlefield.
“Did you see that, Fourteen!” Zentarin Seven Seven yelled, and Two Seven could tell that he was grinning manically beneath his blood-streaked warmask. “
Did you see that!?”
“I saw it.” the squad Alpha confirmed, and permitted himself a predator’s smile as
Rosa bulled through the gossamer veil of the hive voids. From the other side, the shield generator’s destruction would be the work of moments. Whatever happened to the rest of them out here, they had won.
Ave Omnissiah.
+ + + + + +
Static.
White noise in her ears, and grey rain washing her vision. Vounoe was blind and deaf, but she could still feel. She could feel pain from flesh components, and worrying silence from augmetic ones. She could feel an irregular rhythm of heavy impacts vibrating through the ground under her. She could feel something weighing down on her chest, pulling at her armour with insistent fingers.
She snatched out and seized the arm, feeling cold metal beneath her gauntlet - blocky, low-priority augments. She felt servos vibrating as the owner of the hand tried to push doggedly forward. A servitor then. Anything with a modicum of human Spark would have instinctively pulled away. Before she could fight her way out from under the lobotomite and slay it, it froze. She sensed the passing of a command.
A smoother, subtler augmetic touched her face, which was open to the air where the tank commander’s lasbolt had cracked and sheared off part of her helmet. She attempted to twist her head away, but the dendrite found the inload port at her temple all the same.
+Identification confirmed: Vounoe, amazoneum two six two nine.+ The words squirted into her head with a shock like raw voltage. +My apologies. Your voxwave receiver implant appears to have been damaged, as have your primary sensors. I must resort to a more primitive method of communion.+
Primitive was the word. The comms squirt held no accompanying data stream, no identification markers - and most importantly, no IFF tag.
Who are you? Whom do you serve? She formed the words and felt them vibrate through her throat and jaw, but could only trust that they made it out into the toxic, wintery air where she couldn’t hear them. She groped around, trying to find the owner of the segmented-steel dendrite so she could pull them down and find their throat.
+I have the honour to be enginseer Corinne Glekias, in service to the legio Sirenia+
Vounoe relaxed fractionally. That meant that friendly forces were still in action - but the status of the wider battle was another question. As if on cue the ground shuddered, jarring pain through Vounoe’s spine.
What is that? she vocalised.
By way of answer, the tech-priestess formulated a data-capture from her own ocular implants, and flashed it briefly into Vounoe’s mind. The amazoneum warrior saw light and fire, the hive looming with sections of its termite-mound sprawl ablaze from orbital fire. The hive was replying with missile and lance, but stripped of its shields it was suffering terribly. The only logical move, sooner or later, would be capitulation. Strangely, Vounoe noted the pale stars of the bombarding warships were drifting perilously close to the silvery lights of what she knew to be lance satellites, but seemed to be taking no fire from them. One ship at least had been stricken, however, and was now falling in an almost graceful arc - drawing a red contrail that cut across the blue disc between the clouds, like a sword wound. Then the image dissolved, and her vision was once again the grey rain of static.
+The prophets advised that you are in possession of key intelligence, amazon Vounoe. Where is it?+
Vounoe fumbled for the leather pouch. By the Omnissiah’s providence, it was still on her webbing, and the data wafer inside remained uncracked by her fall from the tank turret.
Here.
The priestess did not immediately reply. In the brief moment of deaf-blind static, the ground shuddered again.
The legion…
+The blessed prophets have fallen back to a defensible position, and are providing overwatch. They will survive.+
Relief. And then urgency - the mission was not yet over, and she was not at her post. The Patriots were sure to mount another attack, even under the godhammer of orbital bombardment. They might send-
The Nebulas. Did they engage?
+Negative. Nebula elements are confirmed present in the system, but did not make planetfall. The latest noosphere tac-net report was that their orbital hulk is heavily engaged with Bravick’s fleet.+
I need to… The words were cut off as she tried to sit up, and pain thundered down her spine. She fell back.
+Impossible, I regret to inform you.+ Vounoe could not tell if there was genuine empathy in the priestess’ statement or not. The buzz of data-fed words into her mind did not translate such things. +Your body has been partially crushed, by what I assume to be a Leman Russ or similar pattern of treaded vehicle. I lack the Knowledge to ascertain whether your damage is terminal. However, I will tag your location to the medicae units. You are valuable.+
Vounoe nodded fractionally. Her blessed augments would have value, even if her flesh was done. An amazon’s first immortality was their deeds, etched in the minds of the angels they served; their second was the weapons, armour and augments they passed on.
Tell my… she groaned, and realised that her mouth was full of blood.
Tell my sisters…
+I will.+ Glekias promised.
The mechadendrite withdrew, leaving her blind and deaf once more.
Static.
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