"The Devil's Wall" | Fan Fiction

**Nabterayl** · 08-16-2013, 03:22 PM

In 996.M41 the First Kherian Infantry, the first Imperial Guard regiment raised from the planet Kheria in the Orpheus sub-sector, saw action for the first time. This is the story of the regiment's blooding, and their introduction to the space marines of the Justice Hammers, the Fourth Battle Company of the Violet Avatars. It isn't done, but there's enough here for people to enjoy, I hope. We've had several threads recently that touch on the different tones you can take in 40K, in terms of how much "realism" the fiction incorporates, how space marines are portrayed, and so forth. This is my take on 40K tone in a number of areas, including technology-as-religion and what space marines can and cannot do militarily.

Purely literary comments are welcome if you have them, but I'd enjoy more hearing your reactions to the overall tone of the piece as one person's version of 40K.

Part 1 - Prelude

The space marine was huge. That was General Tomas Gherlin’s first thought. Tomas had thought he was prepared for that. It was one thing to know that the space marine had a good 60 centimeters on him, though, and another to appreciate the sheer bulk that went with all that height.

Tomas’ second thought was annoyance that the marine was in armor. Kherian custom demanded that foreign allies be greeted in full dress uniform even on the battlefield, a legacy of the Endless War. A society that had been on a war footing for eight generations acquired a certain indifference to the exigencies of any given battle. Not that that makes it any easier to scratch together an honor guard in the middle of a field camp. He could have at least returned the favor.

The marine wore deep purple full body armor trimmed in green and gray. The suit was decorated with streamers of parchment, affixed with what appeared to be crimson wax. An iron starburst device rose above his head. A golden aiguillette was draped across his plastron. He carried a full-face helmet under one arm, sufficiently sculpted to give the vague impression of a snarling heraldic beast, and an elaborately tooled warhammer rested on the opposite shoulder. He should have looked like a heraldic clown in a farce about bygone chivalry—but he was built like a brick sh*thouse, and moved like he knew it. The general’s amusement faded. Absurd as full-body armor seemed on a modern battlefield, this was no costume to the space marine. In fact, on second thought, the obvious pageantry was distinctly at odds with no-nonsense way that the giant carried himself. Realization struck him in time to keep his annoyance from showing on his face. The space marine was wearing full dress. The seals, the warhammer, the iron starburst—they were all decorations of some sort. Tomas wished he could remember what they signified, but there had been time for only a cursory look at the dataslate, and he had not had time to absorb the details of foreign military honors.

Tomas saluted. “Captain Phyrius,” he said. “Welcome, on behalf of the First Kherian Infantry.”

Phyrius touched two fingers to the Imperial eagle on his chestplate, which Tomas took as a returned salute. “My brothers and I have been made most welcome, General,” he replied. “Allow me to introduce Brother-Chaplain Crucis and Brother-Sergeant Justus, my first sergeant.”

Justus wore the same green-on-purple armor as the captain, his face hidden behind a white helmet. Chaplain Crucis was an altogether more startling figure, dressed in stern black armor adorned with skulls, wearing a death’s-head helmet and carrying a mace whose head was fashioned into an Imperial eagle. Tomas found himself grateful that Captain Phyrius carried his helmet. His plain, battered features were a relief next to the grinning avatar of death who stood at his flank.

The chaplain of the Violet Avatars’ Fourth Company stood still as a statue, behind and to the left of his captain. Padrig Crucis was not a man known for stillness, but cultivating the habit of standing unmoving in power armor had its advantages when one was helmeted—as were one’s brothers.

“Poor jumped-up b*stard looks like he’s trying not to piss himself,” Sergeant Justus remarked over the vox link. To an outsider he and Padrig would appear to be standing at attention, mutely observing the goings-on.

“You did the same the first time you saw a space marine, as I recall,” Padrig replied.

“I was five.”

Padrig chuckled. Not for the first time he reflected that Blessed Guilliman had shown great wisdom in decreeing that a company’s chaplain should be present when recruits were selected. It was much easier to look after the spiritual health of a man like Valerius Justus when one could remember him not only as the hero of the Sublicius Bridge but also as a wide-eyed boy with a dark stain spreading on his trousers.

General Gherlin was introducing the other members of his delegation. Confessor Cornelius San-Rhys, the head of the regiment’s attached Ministorum priests, bowed and smiled beatifically but said nothing. Padrig liked that. There was a time for a pastor to preach fire and brimstone and a time to let the troops get on with it, and as one professional to another he approved of one who knew the difference. Magos Balan Abscientus, the regiment’s senior tech-priest, greeted the space marines with a stony silence.

“Abscientus,” Padrig said. “Sh*t.”

“Sh*t,” Justus agreed. “I don’t suppose he’s forgiven us for—”

“No, I don’t suppose he has.”

“And this is Commissar-General Moira Grey,” Gherlin finished. The commissar-general had gray hair and a deeply lined face, but she stood strongly erect. Commissar-General Grey looked not so much like an old woman as a punch in the mouth waiting to happen.

“Commissar-General, eh?” Padrig murmured. “Pulled out the big guns, didn’t they?”

Captain Phyrius greeted the heads of the First’s attached detachments cordially. “I understand time is short, General,” he said. “I had hoped to discuss the best ways to deploy my battle-brothers to assist your men.”

Gherlin smiled. “Good man,” he said. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

The general turned to a wooden table spread with a large paper map. The table was not a folding design and looked both heavy and well-used, no doubt a favorite item of the general’s. Padrig wondered briefly how many battlefields it had seen.

The map was a copy of a standard Administratum survey, a hundred and fifty years out of date according to the stamp. Somebody had made topographical additions and corrections in grease pencil.

“These Kherians have conducted their own recon,” Padrig said.

Justus caught the surprise in his voice. “I’ve always been inspired by your faith in your fellow men, Brother-Chaplain,” he said.

Padrig grunted, the invisible power-armored equivalent of a shrug. “Maybe,” he said. “But these particular fellow men are the first of their kind off-world, let alone serving in the Guard. Guardsmen sh*t themselves enough even when they aren’t in diapers.”

“Whereas space marines know no fear,” Justus said sardonically.

“We can be right thick b*stards that way,” Padrig agreed, deadpan.

Justus laughed. “Still,” he said. “All of Kheria’s major nations have been at war in their primitive way for over two hundred years. These men may be barbarians, but they’re not raw recruits.”

Padrig grunted.

The First’s bivouac was carefully marked. To the north, the ground gave way to heavily wooded foothills strewn with boulders, the legacy of some ancient volcanic eruption on its way to the sea. To the south ran the River Parr, cold and fast and deep. The Parr’s annual floods had worn smooth a plain that ran east-west over the eons, a natural corridor of easy terrain upon which the First was camped. Sixteen kilometers to the west, a long ridge that ran north-south rose sharply out of the surrounding plain. It was the perfect position from which to bottle up a force traveling the Parr floodplain. But it wasn’t supposed to be there. The entire ridge had been added in grease pencil by a Kherian cartographer.

“We’re calling this the Devil’s Wall,” Gherlin said, pointing to the ridge. “As you’ll know, Captain, the First has been ordered to take and fortify it in the next thirty-six hours.”

Phyrius nodded without taking his eyes off the map. “We were briefed on your mission objective when we arrived in orbit. What we were not told was why.”

Gherlin grunted and tugged at his short mustache. “Why us, you mean,” he said. His mouth twitched sideways. He paused, then spoke again. He had a curious rapid fire speech pattern, which seemed at odds with the gentle lilt of his accent. “The First is an untested regiment,” he said. “This was supposed to be a rear area—no action was anticipated, as the main enemy force was known to be east of us.”

Padrig noted the use of the dispassionate term “enemy.” There was no indication in the general’s voice that he was speaking of traitors and heretics who had knowingly forsaken the Emperor’s light to pollute themselves before the Ruinous Powers.

“Marshal Kharim and the rest of Twelfth Corps were to engage the heretics,” Commissar-General Grey added. “If the Emperor was with them, it was expected that the Chaos scum would attempt to flee south, towards their major supply dump at Arlinghast.”

General Gherlin resumed the narrative. “Expected, that is, until we discovered the Devil’s Wall shortly after arriving. Its value as a defensive position is obvious, to us as well as to the foe. Unfortunately, the enemy was already heavily entrenched upon the ridge when our scouts discovered it.”

“A fall-back position for the main army,” Justus said. His voice was distorted by his helmet’s vox, and Confessor San-Rhys started at the noise.

“Indeed, Sergeant,” Gherlin said. He picked up a brass-framed magnifier and held it over the precisely drawn pencil lines of the Devil’s Wall so they could see the detail. Working at a miniscule scale, the cartographer had even marked the enemy’s trenches and strong points.

“The enemy has three trench lines on the eastern slopes, facing us, with two more on the reverse. We estimate his numbers at five thousand men, and they appear to be well supplied with trench artillery, crew-served support weapons, and supplies.”

“So far we have avoided pitched battle,” Gherlin went on, “but Marshal Kharim’s victory at Gestonburg leaves us no choice.”

Phyrius stood up from studying the map and tapped his thunder hammer thoughtfully against his free hand. “I’m afraid we haven’t had an opportunity to become familiar with recent events in the campaign, General,” he said. “I take it that Twelfth Corps accomplished its mission, though?”

“Not entirely.” Commissar-General Grey stepped forward. “Gestonburg effectively halted the rebel advance in this theater,” she said. “The rebels dispersed their force into several columns to ease their supply lines. It seems they intended to concentrate at Gestonburg before launching their attack, which makes their probable target the rail hub at Soukkerol.” She pointed to the cities on the map, east of the Kherian position. Soukkerol lay just twenty kilometers from Gestonburg.

Gherlin smiled humorlessly. “Of course, coordinating the timing of four different columns is no easy matter. Twelfth Corps under Marshal Kharim engaged the first enemy force to arrive, and over the past three days has engaged and defeated the entire enemy host.

“Twelfth Corps is in pursuit, but they are weary from the battle and disordered. So far they have managed to keep up the pressure, but the enemy must not be given an opportunity to regroup. Several fresh regiments of Brimlock mechanized cavalry are en route from Seventh Corps to finish the job, but they will not arrive for another four days. And in the meantime, virtually every enemy trooper in this theater is fleeing westward toward the Devil’s Wall, where they undoubtedly intend to reform and turn the tables on their pursuers.”

The general fixed the space marines with his humorless smile. “We must be on that ridge when they arrive, gentlemen.”

Tomas watched Captain Phyrius’ face closely. Despite possessing strong numerical superiority, the attackers would have to approach the Wall over the featureless floodplain and then face a sustained close-quarters fight through multiple trenches—uphill. It would be the sort of bloodbath he abhorred, and every professional instinct cried out to do anything but attack the ridge directly. But it had to be taken, and fast, or his men would be overrun on the plain by the retreating rebel army.

The captain’s face betrayed no dismay at the task before them. He merely leaned closer to the map, studying its merciless topography. “The Fourth Company will assist,” he said. “We will take the ridge in the Emperor’s name.”

“The Emperor protects,” intoned Confessor San-Rhys.

“Yes, he does,” Phyrius said. “We are here.”

An awkward silence ensued while Phyrius continued to study the map. Then he straightened. “The terrain is unfavorable, but time is of the essence. My company is at full strength. We will land eight squads and force a breach by mechanized assault that your Kherians, General, can exploit.”

Grey nodded thoughtfully. “A generous offer, Captain. As always we are grateful for the assistance of the Astartes.”

Tomas did a quick mental calculation. “You cannot seriously intend to assault the Devil’s Wall with eighty men,” he said. “You’ll never reach the first trench.”

Phyrius did not meet Tomas’ eyes. “We go where the chapter wills,” he said. “As I said, we will be mechanized. Our mechanical brothers are very fast, General, and I intend to use our Thunderhawk transporters to land the attack force in the enemy’s very teeth. When forced to fight on unfavorable terms, the Codex Astartes dictates the maximum use of shock. Correct me if I am wrong, but you have never seen an armored assault—still less one by space marines.”

That was a low blow, but he was right. As Tomas was constantly being reminded, Kheria was a primitive world by wider Imperial standards. Most of his men had never even fired a las-lock before basic training. None had fought a real battle with automatic weapons, let alone tanks.

“I know war,” Gherlin insisted. “What you propose is foolhardy, a waste of men.”

“And sacrilege,” squealed an electronic voice. Magos Abscientus, so heavily augmented he looked like a machine himself, was shaking with fury. A mechadendrite stabbed itself accusingly over his shoulder at Phyrius.

“What the Captain is not telling you is that the machines who serve his company are lightly armored.” The scorn Abscientus heaped on the word serve came through even his electronic voicebox. “They are built for speed, yes—but above all, surprise. To throw such machines into the teeth of heretic guns, even by holy Thunderhawk, is to throw them away!” Gherlin had never heard such emotion from the tech-priest before—equal parts screeching rage and visceral horror.

“Yes, the risks are great,” Phyrius shot back. “That is why my Justice Hammers will bear the greatest share.

“Do with your space marines as you will,” Abscientus replied. “I will not countenance the wanton destruction of war machines from Astor IV—”

“—whose machine spirits have chosen to serve the chapter—” Phyrius broke in.

“Enslaved!” Abscientus screeched. “Coerced! You callous, overbearing—”

“Gentlemen!”

Moira Grey slapped an open hand against the campaign table. “We are all servants of the Emperor,” the commissar said. “We dishonor his trust by bickering in the face of the enemy.”

“The disposition of the Emperor’s war machines is a matter of the gravest—” Abscientus began.

“My lord magos,” Tomas interrupted with a raised hand. His voice was level, but the tech-priest stopped talking. Tomas turned to Phyrius. “Captain,” he said, “the gallantry of your offer is not lost on me, but it is one I cannot accept.”

Phyrius’ nostrils flared. “I am stating our plan of attack,” he said. “We are space marines. No offer is involved.”

There was a tense moment of silence. Chaplain Crucis was the first to speak, the first time Tomas had heard him. His voice was surprisingly mild behind the grinning skull helmet. “Our charge is to support the First Kherian Infantry however they may require it,” the chaplain observed.

Captain Phyrius nodded almost imperceptibly. “I take it you have a plan, General?”

Tomas went back to the map, tracing the length of Devil’s Wall. The ridge stretched nearly a full kilometer north to south. “The enemy’s fortifications are too broad, and too extensive, for an attack against any single point to succeed. The trench lines will be connected; it will be too easy for reinforcements to counter the point of attack. We must engage the enemy along a broad front to pin him in place before attempting a breakthrough.”

“Casualties will be high in the open,” Sergeant Justus observed.

“Speed and coordination will be of the utmost importance,” Gherlin conceded. “But we Kherians have done this before, gentlemen.” Not against modern weapons, of course. Dear God-Emperor, let the men hold.

Phyrius frowned. “We had been told that your regiment included a company of Leman Russ,” he said. “I suggest that you employ them to support the infantry attack at close range.”

There was another uncomfortable silence. “Captain Stuart’s armored cavalry is … unavailable,” the general said.

“Unavailable?” Chaplain Crucis echoed.

“The First is composed of the best warriors Kheria had to offer,” Moira said in a voice that made it clear she disagreed with that assessment as to some of those warriors. “Of the seventy-two men in Captain Stuart’s ‘armored cavalry’ there are no less than two former chiefs of staff, four former generals, fifty-three regimental commanders, and one deputy secretary of war. These worthies have so far found the transition from horse to armored warfare beyond their skills, and I refused to certify the unit as combat-ready when we deployed.”

“Quite a change from the war department to Leman Russ commander, I take it?” Crucis asked dryly.

“Left sponson gunner,” Moira replied, but could not entirely keep the smile from her face.

Phyrius cleared his throat with a look over his shoulder at the chaplain. “In that case, my battle-brothers and I will take their place. Some armor is better than none.”

“Again, Captain, I must disagree.” Tomas throttled his temper. Sweet Emperor, are they all like this? “We must preserve your force as much as possible. Once the enemy is firmly engaged, your space marines must use your armored personnel carriers to hit the first trench line and establish a breach.”

“We will not entirely lack support,” Moira added before the captain could object again. “We believe the traitors are lacking in true long-range weaponry. Our own artillery battalion should be able to bombard the ridge and suppress them while the general’s men come to grips with the foe.”

Tomas was less sanguine about the suppressive effects of Major Baldwell’s big guns, but he understood that Moira was backing him up, and kept his peace. Eight years ago he had seen over two hundred artillery pieces fail to suppress earthworks much like these at the Second Battle of Union. The new Earthshaker cannon supplied by the Departmento Munitorum were impressive, but the entire artillery battalion had only eighty-four of them. Still, it’s what we’ve got, God-Emperor help us.

Moira was still speaking. “Captain … you arrived by strike cruiser, did you not? A full-scale planetary bombardment would go a long way toward keeping the heretics’ heads down.”

Phyrius shook his head. “You are not a naval officer, Commissar,” he said. When confused silence greeted him, he elaborated, “All planetary bombardment must be carried out from low orbit. Achieving a firing solution with the requisite accuracy is simply impractical otherwise. In low orbit, War Angel will be traveling at eight kilometers per second, and orbit the planet roughly every hour and a half. The window for bombardment is extremely small, which further degrades the accuracy possible.”

Tomas frowned. “I was given to understand by the commissar, Captain, that the Imperium’s ships could level even the greatest fortresses from orbit.”

The space marine looked at him as if he were a small child. “War Angel does command that kind of firepower, General. Were she to use it, however, traveling at orbital speeds, she could well obliterate us as well as the enemy. After all, we are only sixteen kilometers distant from the theoretical target point. Besides, as you have pointed out, we must occupy the ridge, not level it.”

“I see,” Tomas said. “Well—the Emperor provides. We will attack without your ship’s guns, then.”

“I did not say that,” Phyrius said. Tomas’ jaw tightened. God, but the man was infuriating.

“A full-scale orbital bombardment is impractical,” the captain continued. “However, War Angel can conduct a pass with her small guns as the infantry approach. It will be little more effective than conventional artillery, but it will add to the overall weight of fire.”

Tomas forced his voice to stay level. “Thank you, Captain. That will do.”

Angels of Death indeed. I hope they make better soldiers than planners.

“Commissar … may I have a moment?”

Padrig stopped Grey from returning to her tent with a hand on her shoulder. He felt her muscles tighten for an instant and laughed aloud within the privacy of his helmet. She had been about to throw him! Well, that told him plenty about this overly-senior commissar. No mere political officer she.

She turned and favored Padrig with a smile. “Of course, Chaplain,” she said. “The Imperial Guard always has time for the Emperor’s space marines.”

“The commissariat is not part of the Imperial Guard,” Padrig pointed out. “And right now General Gherlin seems like he has more time for a hole in the head than for us.”

That got her. Grey’s mouth opened, then closed. The smile turned quizzical.

Padrig removed his helmet, freeing a bushy mustache and sideburns, and roared with laughter again. “Come, Commissar! I am neither blind nor deaf. The dear general is afraid that we’re a bunch of oversold muscle-bound cretins who are going to f uck his battle plan and his men in our thirst for glory.”

“Something of the sort,” Grey said dryly. “You must appreciate that the general has never served with Astartes before.”

Padrig dismissed this with a wave. “First Founding regiment fresh from boot, how could he? But that means he doesn’t understand what he just heard, either.”

“Oh, he understands. Kheria’s battle rolls are full of units who volunteered for the ‘honor’ of leading the charge against an impregnable position.”

Padrig’s tone became serious and his smile vanished. “No, Commissar, he doesn’t. Left to his own devices, Captain Phyrius would pull out the company and leave you to your fate. The captain knows better than to throw away his company on a minor action such as this.”

She bristled at that, he could see, but kept her temper. “And yet,” Grey pointed out, “he seemed quite determined to do just that.”

“Yes, he did. And why is that?”

“There is no need to lecture, Chaplain. Unlike the general, I have served alongside space marines before, and I fully understand that you go where your wish. Is it not because you have chosen this as the site where you can most make your presence felt?”

Padrig snorted. “I assure you, commissar, there are other targets on this world much better suited to my company’s brand of armored warfare. As I said in the headquarters tent, we have specific orders to support your regiment. Captain Phyrius felt that cowering behind the First while they absorbed heavy casualties was incompatible with the spirit of those orders.”

Grey’s hard face softened a little at that. “I shall make that clear to the general,” she said. “I cannot imagine your company would be able to shield many Kherians from harm, though.”

“Perhaps not, but the captain felt that the effort must be made.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Because, as you say, you have served with space marines before.” Padrig toyed with the skull-shaped rosarius around his neck. “Our offices are much alike, Commissar-General. In a few moments you will turn to bolstering the morale of the First, to steel them against the coming bloodbath. You will tell them to take heart that the Emperor’s space marines fight alongside them—but you will wonder, though you will say nothing, whether we will complete our part of the battle plan and withdraw. When you speak to your regiment, I want you to understand that the Violet Avatars have offered to die for you and your men. The Emperor protects: we are here.”

The battalion foundry was sanctuary to the most peculiar smells. Oils, unguents, and incense mixed with the bitter tang of brass, smoky-hot iron, and other metals no son of Kheria had ever had to name before.

Private Aloysius Carver breathed in this heady mixture with a smile. Despite the bewildering array of cogs, glass tubes, and doodads on display, if he closed his eyes his nose told him that he was on sacred ground. Some of the smells were foreign, true, but that was only to be expected out here. Among the stars.

He found Father Excoris—that is, Enginseer Binaspid Excoris, the battalion’s senior tech-priest—bent over a workbench in another part of the foundry. Two of his acolytes were chanting in the squealing language they called the techna-lingua, while the father himself manipulated something on the workbench with the delicate waldoes that replaced his fingers. Aloysius stood to one side while the father worked, burning with curiosity but with no desire to interfere with the ritual.

At length the priest straightened and flexed his metal digits in satisfaction. He squealed something to his acolytes, who ceased their chanting and stood to one side. Only one of them had human eyes, but Aloysius realized that the junior tech-priest was staring at him. Doubtless Excoris was too, through the photoreceptor in the back of his head.

Excoris turned, though, and switched to Gothic. “Ah, Young Carver!” he exclaimed. Despite his considerable augmetics, Aloysius had always found Excoris to be an approachable, almost fatherly figure. He smiled with genuine warmth and returned the tech-priest’s greeting.

“I … have a problem, Father,” he said when the formalities were over. Excoris stood expectantly. “It’s my lasgun,” Aloysius said in a rush. “I’m afraid it won’t fire.”

“Indeed?” Excoris said with the faintest trace of skepticism. “And do you know why that might be?”

Aloysius blushed furiously. “I … I’m not sure. It was working fine yesterday.”

“Mmmm. Attend,” Excoris said to the acolytes. “Let us begin the Catechism of Repair.”

Had he performed the Ritual of Reloading? With a power cell known to work? The Shorter and Longer Cleaning Services? The Anointing with Gun Oil? The Liturgies of Fixing, Re-Seating, Barrel Replacement, and/or Disassembly? Had this latter been performed in the prescribed thirty seconds or less?

“Yes, yes, twice!” Aloysius cried.

“Of course. Otherwise you would not be here.” Excoris’ voice was still faintly skeptical. “You are a good lad, Young Carver, so I am going to initiate you into one of the further mysteries of the machine. Prepare yourself for the Catechism of Diagnosis.”

He wasn’t sure how to prepare himself for something so formidable sounding, but Aloysius braced to attention. “I am ready, Father,” he said.

“Good. Answer me truthfully, lad. The life of your weapon—indeed, your life—may depend upon it. Now:

“When did you last fire your weapon?”

“Yesterday evening, at the target range.”

“Did you perform a Cleaning Service afterward?”

“Yes—the Shorter.”

“Did you anoint your weapon with oil?”

“Yes.”

“Did you deviate from these liturgies in any respect while performing them?”

“No, of course not.”

“After you had performed these liturgies, did your weapon’s diagnostic light burn green when you pressed the Rune of Approbation?”

“Yes.”

“When did you first notice your weapon would not fire?”

“Half an hour ago, at the target range.”

“Did you attempt to fire your weapon?”

“No. I pressed the Rune of Approbation, and the diagnostic light burned red.”

“Had you touched your weapon since last evening, other than to carry it?”

“Er … yes.”

“In what way did you touch it?”

Aloysius blushed furiously again, feeling trapped. “I … er … buried it in mud,” he mumbled.

“You buried it in mud.” Excoris did not raise his voice, which made Aloysius feel worse. “Why would you do that?”

“I—er … well, at morning orders, Father Sivan said that a lasgun could be buried in mud and it would still fire when dug out. I wanted to see if that was true.”

“I see. Sit down, Young Carver.” Aloysius did so on a nearby stool. Excoris pulled up another stool, and when he spoke again his tone was kindly.

“Young Carver, how long have you been a soldier?”

“I—why, since I was fourteen, Father. Near ten years. That was why I buried my gun, you see—it’s new, and I needed to be sure I could trust it.”

Excoris actually smiled. “There may be a place in the priesthood for a mind like yours,” he said. “Tell me, lad, as a soldier of ten years: if you were told to run fifty kilometers before mess, could you do so?”

Aloysius considered before answering, which made Excoris smile again. “I suppose that would depend on why I had to do so,” he said.

“Precisely! Now, attend: suppose your sergeant ordered to do so for no reason at all?”

“Why … I’d give it my best shot, Father.”

“And how would you feel towards Sergeant Blaskowicz?”

Aloysius chuckled. “I’d curse him like to rot his dick off.”

“Very concise,” Excoris said dryly. “What you have just done, Young Carver, is ask your lasgun to run fifty kilometers before mess for no reason at all.”

“But I did have a reason!” Aloysius protested. “A soldier’s got to trust his gun, doesn’t he? Suppose it is covered in mud—I’ve got to know whether I can trust it to keep firing, don’t I?”

The tech-priest laughed at that. “Ah, Carver, you missed your calling! Yes, you had a reason. And did you explain this to your weapon’s gun-spirit before you conducted your impromptu experiment?”

“Ah … well, no, Father,” Aloysius admitted.

“I thought not. As you say, you and your weapon are but newly acquainted. Perhaps you did have a purpose in burying it in mud—but it did not understand, because you treated it like a thing, Young Carver, instead of a machine, with a machine-spirit to be respected and partnered with.”

“I see,” Aloysius said, shamefaced. “I performed all the cleaning rituals, though, and it still won’t fire? What should I do?”

“Penance,” the priest said briskly. “Take your weapon, Young Carver, and hit it against your head.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Hit your lasgun against your head, lad,” Excoris said. “Five times should do.”

Feeling somewhat foolish, Aloysius hit his weapon against his head five times, then depressed the Rune of Approbation. The diagnostic light burned green, and he gaped.

“I—I’ll remember that,” he said. “Thank you, Father!”

“Omnissiah bless you, lad,” Excoris said with another fond smile. “Now, why don’t you take your partner there to the firing range to get better acquainted”

Aloysius smiled. “I’ll do that, Father. I saw some space marines there earlier.” He hesitated, then decided he might as well ask. “Father? When I fire my lasgun, it kicks in the shoulder, just like my old musket used to do back home. But the space marines’ weapons hardly seem to kick at all. Why is that?”

Excoris’ mouth tightened. “Space marines,” he said to himself. “Tread carefully around the Emperor’s Angels of Death, Young Carver. Their motives are their own—Captain Phyrius’ men may turn on you when you least expect it.

“But to answer your question. You recall that the firing of a weapon is the manifestation of its gun-spirit’s rage, do you? Good. Different gun-spirits give voice to their fury in different ways. A lasgun’s is silent, but manifests as recoil. A boltgun’s gun-spirit howls, but does not physically agitate the weapon. Does this make sense?”

Aloysius felt foolish. “Oh,” he said. “Of course. Thank you Father. And—I’ll be careful.”

Night was falling, but Tomas felt no stirrings of fatigue. Neither was he agitated, though Throne knew that would be justified, on the eve of his regiment’s first action. He had passed into a calm, detached state of mind, focused on the mission.

The First Kherian Infantry was divided into three battalions, each containing over 6,000 troopers. Back home, this single regiment would have constituted a small army group. Out here amongst the stars, it was less than a third of Twelfth Corps’ fighting strength.

His three battalion colonels were gathered now in his command tent, together with their aides-de-camp. The First had been recruited from across Kheria, and many of the men in the tent had been bitter enemies a year ago. Tomas hoped that would not be a liability in tomorrow’s battle. He and his officers—together with Moira’s commissars—had trained the men hard to foster regimental spirit, but one never could tell for sure until blood had been spilt. Still, he had a good feeling about his unit. New though they were to the Imperial Guard, they were the best fighting men that Kheria had to offer, and eager to show their fellow Guardsmen what they could do. And here, amongst the stars, national differences seemed to fade into the vastness of space. Here, they were no Amalandians, Juysczians, Rellikans—only sons of Kheria.

Tomas had shed his dress uniform for more comfortable working rig, though he kept his uniform frock coat buttoned against the coming night chill. Many of the officers cupped their hands around steaming mugs of bacca-leaf tea. He was among friends here, he could sense it.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “thank you for coming. We have a lot of work to do, so I’ll be brief. As you no doubt know, we have been ordered to take and fortify the Devil’s Wall with all possible speed. In approximately thirty-six hours, Marshal Kharim expects the rebel remnant, under General Redstone, to arrive at our present location.”

Moira Grey, ever present, stiffened at that. Tomas’ aversion to the more excessive Imperial polemic was a warning sign in her eyes, he knew. “General Redstone” was not how most Imperial officers referred to the Arch-Traitor Henriek Redstone the Red-Handed, the Butcher of Arliel. Well, the commissar would have to deal for now. This was no time to be changing a lifetime’s habit of clinging to civility on the battlefield.

“Given that at least sixty thousand rebels are estimated to have survived Gestonburg, I need not add that I agree wholeheartedly with our orders,” he added. “Unfortunately.”

“Well damn me for a witch’s b*stard,” Colonel Lewis said mildly. “They drag us all the way out here in their fancy-*ss starships, give us all death rays, and then tell us to take a fortified ridge over open ground with an infantry assault? Talk about ironic.”

The table laughed at that, and Tomas smiled. Bobby Lewis had been his right-hand man back in Amaland. He was also A Character, with a fulsome beard, genial manner, and a hard-charging tactical style that didn’t flinch at casualties to accomplish a mission. The newspapers called him a butcher, but Tomas knew better. Bobby didn’t throw his men away needlessly, but that didn’t mean he was afraid to spend them. Sometimes even Kherians had trouble accepting the difference.

“That’s about the size of it,” Tomas said. “At least they picked a regiment that knows what it’s doing in that regard.” Another chuckle. “Needless to say, we are going to get hurt, and we only get one shot at this. Everything will depend upon timing. Jeff—you’re first to go in.”

Colonel Jeffrey Andreson nodded. “How far in?” he asked.

“Not all the way. Fix the enemy, make them commit their reserves. Your job is to make sure Bobby’s boys make it to the trenches intact.”

Tomas had just ordered most of Andreson’s Gold Battalion to their deaths, but Andreson simply nodded and whispered something to his aide. Good man.

“Once Jeff’s boys are in place, our space marine allies will hit the trenches. Bobby, you’ll need to be right on their heels. The space marines will open a foothold for you in the first trench, but it’s your boys who will have to clear it—and the next ones. Jeff’s battalion will give you what cover it can as you advance up the slope.”

Lewis chewed contemplatively on a lho-stick—a new addition to his persona, courtesy of the Departmento Munitorum’s standard-issue ration packs. To judge by the quantities the Munitorum shipped them in, most Guardsmen swore by the foul-tasting things. Most Kherians preferred a hot cup of bacca, but you couldn’t stick a hot cup of bacca between your teeth at a jaunty angle.

“Will do, Tom. Any idea how big a foothold we can expect from the boys in purple?”

“They’ll do what they can. For the benefit of those in this room, though, I think it wisest to proceed on the assumption that they’ll be able to open a space for no more than a platoon or two.

“That leaves Green Battalion in reserve, Julius,” Tomas said, turning to Colonel vul Singt. “I want you drawn up no more than a kilometer from the base of the ridge. If you have to go in, you’ll have to go in fast.”

“Understood, General.” Julius vul Singt was a thin, dark-skinned man from Volscio, on the other side of the world from Amaland. Tomas had neither served with nor fought him before, which made him less confident of what his battalion could do. Still, there was a practical reason to hope that vul Singt’s Green Battalion could be kept out of the fighting. After all, somebody had to man the trenches once they were taken. Tomas was grimly certain that Gold and Red Battalions would be in no shape to do so.

“That’s the outline,” Tomas said. “I’ll turn things over to Captain Rosciuk to go over the details. Captain?”

Continued in Part 2

**Nabterayl** · 08-16-2013, 03:34 PM

Part 2 - To the Wall

The morning of the attack dawned cold. A thick mist from the Parr blanketed the floodplain so that men were obliged to muster by the light of lamp packs, glowing in the gloom like navigational beacons.

Amidst the crush and bustle of an Imperial Guard camp preparing to march, the dark purple forms of the Violet Avatars moved like shadows. The low growls of thermic combustion reactors contrasted with the merely human clatters and shouts of men moving in the mist. The marines were drawn up in the space between Gold and Red Battalions, ready to rush forward once Colonel Andreson’s men had performed their part in the attack.

In the end, six squads of battle-brothers had been committed to the ground attack: tactical squads Justus, Typhon, and Raszius, assault squads Hestus and Caro, and devastator squad Gordian. To this force was added Captain Phyrius’ command squad and six scouts from Scout Squad Polemagos. Sixty-six battle-brothers knelt in the grass beside their armored vehicles, Land Speeders, or bikes, as Brother-Techmarine Tethius blessed each machine and communed with it before battle. Behind him walked Chaplain Crucis, pausing to have a word with each squad or the scouts who would pilot the Razorbacks in battle.

Padrig carried his helmet in his hand. By chapter tradition a company’s chaplain was always the last to fully don his power armor. Here, in the peace before battle, a chaplain was still his battle-brothers’ friend and confidant. Only later would he cover his face, ignite the power field of his crozius arcanum, and assume his role as death incarnate, the Emperor made destroyer on the battlefield. Neither did he pray. Adherents of the Amaranthine Cult did not pray except in battle. Now was the time for talk.

“Are you afraid?” he asked Scout Nestus. Jaereth Nestus was the pilot of Wisdom of Hate, the Razorback carrying Sergeant Typhon’s assault demi-squad.

Nestus grinned. “Scared sh*tless, Lord.”

Padrig grinned back. “If you think you’re scared, be glad you aren’t going into the trenches with us. We’ll be wading through heretic sh*t over there.” Nestus laughed and sketched a salute.

And so it went, down the line, until Padrig had given his blessing to the last brother. He caressed his motorbike briefly, then mounted and flexed the throttle. Its machine spirit growled gratifyingly.

With deliberate care, Padrig donned the death’s head helm and locked its seals in place. He drew his crozius arcanum from its ring at his belt and flourished it once, experimentally. “Brother-Captain,” he said formally, “your company is ready for battle.”

It was odd, Lieutenant Yu-Tien Vulast reflected, how six thousand men could disappear on the field of battle. Even on a clear day, what could seem like an overpowering mass of soldiery on the parade ground was but a thin, wavering line on the battlefield. In this mist, the disappearing act was complete. He could barely see the closest squads of his command—delta platoon, third company, Gold Battalion—marching through the gloom. The sounds of the battalion on the march reached him muffled, ghostlike, the platoon sergeants’ lamp packs bobbing like will-o-wisps lashed atop their standards.

A ghost army. It was a macabre thought, given what they were marching towards. But that was hours away. Besides, they were the Kherian First. Yu-Tien had once stood Andrian cannon at two hundred meters for two hours at the head of his own regiment, at the Third Battle of Valtinspire. They would show these star-men what veterans of the Endless War could do.

Orange Battalion had not yet started its bombardment. The Earthshaker guns were probably still moving into position, but they would not open fire until Gold Battalion’s vanguard companies were five kilometers from the Devil’s Wall in any case. The big guns would be critical to holding the ridge tomorrow, and Major Baldwell had reluctantly concluded that his ammunition stores were insufficient for a full-scale preliminary bombardment.

The mist seemed to forbid idle chatter. They marched on.

“Colonel Andreson is making good progress, sir,” Tomas’ communications officer reported from the Chimera’s troop bay.

“Very good, Julio,” Tomas said. “My compliments to Major Baldwell, and he may begin his bombardment.”

“Yes sir.”

Tomas sighed as he trained his magnoculars on Gold Battalion. The command Chimera offered mobility, protection, and more vox channels than a portable unit could handle—all necessary to manage this monster regiment, which would have been an entire army group back home. It also clanked loudly and smelled of promethium. Tomas missed his old faithful dhren, Traveler.

Andreson had deployed his ten companies in two lines, six and four, providing a ready reserve to plug the gaps in the line that were sure to come. The heavy weapons company was in the second line, ready to be deployed once the front lines had taken the brunt of the attack. Tomas approved.

The dark blue of Kherian frock coats drew a surprisingly solid line against the green of the floodplain. Their cohesion and rate of advance spoke well of the men’s training and fighting spirit. They would need all of it in a few hours. To his right, Orange Battalion’s guns boomed the first salvo of the Battle of the Devil’s Wall.

“Krator to Phyrius. Our targeting solution is finalized and firing pattern locked in. War Angel beginning attack run. Time on target ten minutes from … mark.”

“Roger,” Phyrius said. “Brother Chaplain, battle is joined. Lead us in prayer, if you will.”

Padrig smiled grimly. “Gladly. Strike force, report for prayer.”

There was a moment while the sergeants of the strike force received their commands’ ready reports. Then the ritual litany ticked off as each element of the strike force declared itself spiritually present:

“Squad Justus, Lex Irae and Implacable Fury, ready.”

“Squad Typhon, Wisdom of Hate and Sublime Destruction, ready.”

“Squad Raszius, Lash of the Penitent and Deliverance, ready.”

“Squad Hestus, ready.”

“Squad Caro, ready.”

“Squad Gordian, Steadfast Intolerance, Relentless, Traitor’s Doom, Power of Faith, and Eradicator, ready.”

“Squad Krator, War Angel at battle stations.”

“Squad Kantus, Sarissa at battle stations.”

“Squad Vespan, Thunderhawks Gamma One and Gamma Two on station.”

“Squad Zaphan, Thunderhawks Theta One, Two, Three, Four, and Five on station.”

“Scout Squad Polemagos, ready for battle.”

“Techmarine Tethius, present.”

“Codicier Alexander, attending.”

“Squad Phyrius, ready.”

The strike force’s voices rose in the private world of their vox links, strong and sure. Padrig could feel their fighting spirit begin to coalesce, swirling about him like a tangible thing to be shaped. “Very well, brothers,” he said. “Let us pray the Third Liturgy of Battle:

“We are the hand of the one true Emperor of Mankind, eternal, enduring. By His righteousness, we live. By our will, whilst we live, we fight. By our fury, whilst we fight, we prevail. By the unending design of the Father, by the wisdom of the Primarch, we claim this battlefield in the name of the Imperium. The Emperor protects: we are here!”

“There they go.” Sergeant Blaskowicz gestured with his bolt pistol at the advancing lines of Gold Battalion. A scant two hundred meters behind the rear companies, Aloysius could already see the muzzle flashes of heavy weapons and the dirt-fountains of mortar bombs as the First Kherian Infantry came under hostile fire for the first time. It was eerie to still be able to see the Wall. Other than from Orange Battalion’s bombardment, which had to play up and down the ridge for lack of guns, there was virtually no gunsmoke at all.

Aloysius could see men fall as the rebel gunners found their range, but Gold Battalion’s advance did not falter. He nodded in approval. Aloysius had never been anything but a private soldier, but he knew that to falter now would be fatal to the attack’s momentum. Everything depended on the will of the vanguard to prosecute their attack resolutely, until they were close enough to bring their lasguns into play and make their numerical superiority felt.

Blaskowicz shook his head. “Poor b*stards.”

“You want me to what?” Yu-Tien blurted into the vox phone.

“Hold position,” Captain Chiel repeated. “The orbital bombardment is late, and we need to stay in the safe zone.”

A burst from a heavy bolter winged overhead, buzzing like bumblebees from hell. Two men from the nearest squad exploded. Guess the tech-priests were right about this armor not being proof against bolt fire.

“This is about as far from a safe zone as we can get, sir,” Yu-Tien said. Dammit. Chiel out-ranked him now, but Yu-Tien had served with him before, and the man had made his reputation as a colonel of skirmishers. Yu-Tien had more experience in this kind of fight. “We can’t stop now. Get the colonel to call off the rotten bombardment; we’ll go in without it.”

“Get off the damn line, Lieutenant. I’m a little busy here. Chiel out.”

Yu-Tien hung up the phone and turned to his platoon sergeant. “Halt and engage, Sarge,” he said. “Get that lascannon firing!”

Sergeant Grace gave him a heartbeat to decide that he had gone mad and correct himself, then started barking orders into the vox phone. Private Mercero unclipped the lascannon harness from his carapace webbing as Grace did the same for his ammo carrier, bawling orders all the while.

“What the hell, sir?” Mercero said as he wriggled madly on his belly towards the gun.

Yu-Tien hit the dirt as a heavy stubber rent the air with a sound like tearing canvas. He unslung his bolter, but it was a vain gesture. They had stopped about four hundred meters from the Wall—too far for small arms against such a well-entrenched target, but well within the range of the rebels’ crew-served weapons.

***-filthy, pus-rotten space marines. He could only hope that somebody up the chain of command had the wit to get the battalion moving again before the attack foundered.

“I do not care what the original timetable was. The battle is changing. Adapt, sir.” Tomas struggled to hold on to his temper.

“One cannot adapt a warship’s bombardment during its attack run, General. If War Angel accelerates at this point it will almost certainly hit your men.”

“Then abort the attack run,” Tomas seethed. “We cannot allow Colonel Andreson to become bogged down.”

“Negative. The colonel has already bogged down, General. War Angel will provide the impetus to get the advance moving again. Time on target seven minutes. Phyrius clear.”

Damn the man. Tomas switched channels. “Command Lead to Gold Lead. You’re going to have to hold for ten more minutes, Jeff. Do not give ground under any circumstances, sir. You must hold.”

The symphony of battle was increasing. Yu-Tien could make out the sounds of individual weapons: the tearing of heavy stubbers, the chuff-buzz of heavy bolters, the deceptively soft krump of mortar bombs, and the metallic bang-bang-bang of Kherian autocannon. Delta Platoon had gone to ground, the heavy weapons squads engaged in a lopsided duel with the gunners on the Wall, while the line squads brought their squad autocannons into play.

Despite the Kherians’ preponderance of numbers, casualties were mounting quickly. Colonel Andreson had already brought up the reserve companies. The rebels’ trenches gave them good cover even from the continuing Earthshaker bombardment. If they had been able to engage further out the Kherians could have brought the superior range of their autocannon to play, but to withdraw now was to invite a rout. It was forward or nothing.

Through the cacophony of battle Yu-Tien could hear a voice bellowing to his right. He spared a glance. It was Commissar Volk, in Yu-Tien’s opinion the least useful of Commissar-General Grey’s cadre. Volk was a fine soldier, but he could not seem to shake his mental image of the Kherians as barbarous primitives, and his ideas on how to stiffen morale suffered as a result. Presently he was charging towards Yu-Tien’s position, waving his chainsword in what he no doubt imagined was an inspiring manner. It was amazing that nobody had shot the man yet—or perhaps the rebels realized how little he was contributing to the battle. Yu-Tien turned back to the ammunition carrier. Sergeant Grace was dead, leaving him to feed the lascannon.

“Lieutenant Vulast!” Volk cried as he neared. “Hold the line, Lieutenant! You must hold!”

“Get down!” Yu-Tien barked irritably. Volk crouched to one knee. “What does it look like we’re doing? Spirit-of-power-flow-strong-and-true-I-do-beseech-thee-clear!” Yu-Tien connected the lascannon to a fresh charge pack and it roared its thunderclap fury.

“Keep faith, sons of the Imperium!” Volk bellowed, apparently oblivious to the fact that he could only be heard by four men. “A strike cruiser of the holy Astartes, the God-Emperor’s own space marines, will soon bring these heretic scum the very wrath of Terra!”

“The space marines can suck the Emperor’s putrescent left testicle!” Yu-Tien shot back as he tried to press himself further into the earth. “They’re the ones who got us into this rotting mess to begin with!”

Volk looked scandalized, but before he could formulate a suitably censorious reply, the sky seemed to fall. The atmospheric pressure rose abruptly, muffling all sound, and then the entire length of the Devil’s Wall—and a considerable portion of the surrounding floodplain, a shocked portion of Yu-Tien’s mind noted—erupted in fire and smoke in the blink of an eye.

Yu-Tien shot to his feet and seized the handles of the ammunition carrier before the dust front had even reached them. “Delta Platoon, advance!” he screamed, though he could not even hear himself, and dashed into the roiling cloud, leaving Commissar Volk in his wake.

“Negative, sir. We’ve seen no movement from the second trench, nor has resistance intensified.”

Tomas cursed mentally. Through his magnoculars he could see that the momentum from the orbital bombardment was spent, the advance bogging down again as it came within range of the enemy’s lasguns and autoguns. Through the lingering dust of the bombardment he could actually see the bright sparkles of las fire sleeting down upon Gold Battalion. It was an unnerving sight.

“Roger that, Gold Lead,” he said. “You will have to press them harder.”

There was a momentary pause before Andreson responded. “Acknowledged, Command.”

“Squad, halt!”

Aloysius halted with a mixture of relief and impatience. He could tell from the las fire that showed through the dust of the orbital bombardment that Gold Battalion had come to grips with the rebels in earnest. Part of him was relieved to halt at the edge of the Wall’s longest-ranged weapons—not that any rebel weapons were paying the least attention to Red Battalion at the moment. Yet part of him chafed to stand idle while his regiment was murdered. How about that. My regiment. The commissar would be so proud.

Sergeant Blaskowicz made a disapproving sound in the back of his throat. “Look at that,” he said. “Gone to ground already. That’s no way to run an infantry attack. Well, we’ll show ’em how it’s done, eh boys?”

Aloysius joined in the chorus of, “Yes, Sergeant,” but it looked to him like Gold Battalion was doing everything right. He could see the dark blue of Kherian frock coats making short rushes in small groups, then halting to cover each other. Despite the hellish fire coming from the ridge, they were advancing. Blaskowicz had never thought much of the modern fighting methods taught during basic training. It wouldn’t matter much in the trenches—trench fighting was much the same anywhere—but …

Aloysius was suddenly glad to have halted.

The sounds of battle had changed once again. Yu-Tien could no longer make out individual weapons. The snap of lasgun fire and crackle of rebel autoguns ran together with the roars of the crew-served weapons until the very air seemed to thrum with murder. Orange Battalion’s bombardment had stopped, the risk of hitting their own men too great.

Yu-Tien was well within range of his bolter now. He had already run through three of his ten clips. He couldn’t remember reloading. The orbital bombardment had smashed some craters into the floodplain, and Gold Battalion’s companies clung to this scant cover as they advanced. Men were firing madly, desperate to keep the rebels’ heads down. The bright sapphire of Astor-pattern lasguns sliced through the dust. Fire, fire, move—bit by bit they clawed their way forward under a curtain of suppressive fire, against a current of death.

His command squad was down to Yu-Tien, Mercero, and his vox operator, Colper. The lascannon was long abandoned. He knew that Delta Platoon had followed him in after the bombardment, but he had no idea how much of his command was left or what was its disposition. There was not enough cover, not enough time, to check in with Colper’s vox-caster. Every hand was needed on a gun.

Mercero lit off several bursts from his lasgun and Yu-Tien rushed forward, hurling himself prone behind a wrinkle of earth that didn’t even cover his head. He sighted up on a rebel helmet and fired, his bolter’s bark lost against the din. Colper started his rush.

Just a bit farther and they’d be in hand grenade range of the first trench. Yu-Tien had no idea what the rest of the battalion was experiencing, but it was clear to him that the original plan to suppress the enemy through weight of fire from the open was untenable. They could go forward or die.

Under cover from Mercero and Yu-Tien, Colper reached his objective and blazed away. Mercero rose into a crouch and sprinted forward.

Just a bit farther.

Padrig flexed his hands impatiently on his motorbike’s handlebars. The Justice Hammers were situated between Gold and Red Battalions, just inside the range of the heretics’ trench mortars. If there were any cannon still functioning on the ridge they would be in range as well, but the Kherians’ bombardment and a few well-placed lascannon shots had silenced anything that had the range to truly threaten the strike force.

The plan called for the marines to make their breakthrough after Gold Battalion had depleted the first trench sufficiently to draw the heretic reserves into battle. So far, neither the Kherians on the front line nor the Thunderhawks loitering overhead had seen any evidence of movement between trench lines.

A chaplain’s vox link could com any member of the strike force individually. He tied in to Phyrius’ channel. “Brother Captain, it appears our valued allies are faltering. May I suggest that we make our attack before they are wiped out?”

“Ever patient, Padrig,” Phyrius reproved. “This is the Kherians’ show. Let them run it.”

“Red Battalion is going to get savaged if we wait until Gold has been routed,” Padrig warned.

“I agree. But I believe we can salvage this without throwing ourselves headlong into a counter-charge waiting to happen. A moment, Brother-Chaplain. Phyrius clear.”

Yu-Tien lobbed a grenade into the trench. “Bomb out!” he shouted, though he doubted anybody could hear him but Colper and Mercero, tied into the command section’s vox channel via their combeads.

They had fought their way through almost half a kilometer of hell to get here, and still Colper had received no orders from company command. Yu-Tien had to assume that the battalion’s objective was still incomplete, but there was only one way to press the enemy harder than they were already doing.

“Colper, get a marker in there!” he shouted. Bolts from the second trench screamed down on him. Yu-Tien rolled to the side and fired frantically at the pintle-mounted storm bolter, one, two, three, four quick bursts and he managed to hit the weapon, which exploded with a puff of black smoke.

Purple smoke was rising from a marker grenade just upslope of the first trench; Colper’s throw had been long. Close enough. Yu-Tien willed himself to sink into the earth as he reloaded; there was no way he would be able to reach the vox man to pass his orders in person.

“Platoon to make for purple smoke,” he said instead. “We’re going in!”

They were taking lasgun fire from the second trench now, angry red bolts that flickered into existence in the dust. Mercero raked the trench with fire, but they had drawn the attention of too many to suppress—

Somebody screamed to Yu-Tien’s right, loud enough to hear distinctly, and a coruscating red beam swept the second trench. Yu-Tien dared a look. One of the space marines’ boxy purple transports was rumbling towards them from the north, faster than he would have believed a vehicle could move. The red beam was not a las weapon at all but the stream of tracers from its twin rotary cannon. Well, it was about crusty time.

“First and fourth squads on their way, Sir,” Colper reported. “Couldn’t raise anybody else.”

“How long?” Yu-Tien asked. Every moment spent out in the open increased the chance that somebody would pay attention to their tiny salient, but the space marines were attracting a disproportionate amount of attention. Las bolts, tracers, and the smoky trails of bolt shells rained down on its hull to no discernible effect. If they could hold the rebels’ attention a bit longer, Moria’s and Drezha’s squads could link up and—

A rebel popped up from the first trench, shouldering a missile launcher. A streak of fire shot from the tube and speared the space marine vehicle squarely over the rear smoke stack and out the other side. The vehicle shuddered to a halt, and an awful crackling sound issued from within. The hatches clanged down, and purple-armored figures stumbled clear in a billow of smoke and flames.

“Oh, filthy rotten hell,” Yu-Tien swore. He yanked the pin from another grenade and lobbed it into the trench. “Bomb out!”

The storm of fire now swept over the space marines. So much for buying us time. “Into the trench!” he shouted. Yu-Tien rose to his feet and sprinted the last distance to the first trench and threw himself over the parapet.

“Wisdom of Hate is hit. Demi-squad Typhon disembarking.”

“Roger that, Typhon,” Phyrius replied. “Report situation.”

“Wisdom of Hate is whiskey delta, Captain. Request immediate techevac.”

Sergeant Typhon’s voice was calm, but Padrig’s blood ran cold at the report. Wisdom of Hate had been with the company since the purging of Astor IV. Whiskey delta meant that the vehicle was completely out of the fight, a wreck. That couldn’t be right. To die here, before this ridge of ignominious rebels … Tethius had a jump pack, he could—

“This is Tethius,” the techmarine broke in. “Confirm whiskey delta.”

“Confirmed, Brother,” Typhon said. His voice had a slightly abstracted tone that indicated he was fighting. “Nestus is wounded, tango three.”

Tango three was the most serious of the four levels of triage—tango four indicating that a soldier was in pieces, definitively beyond medical help. Sh*t. Padrig’s hands tensed in impotent frustration. Nestus was only sixteen, not yet fully a space marine—and without the emergency first aid systems of power armor.

“Theta Four has techevac and medevac,” broke in Brother Memnon from one of the loitering Thunderhawk transporters. “We are en route; ETA two minutes. Gamma Flight, some mayhem would not go amiss.”

“This is Gamma One, we’re on our way. Follow us in, Theta Four.”

Phyrius cut back in. “Phyrius to Caro and Gordian. Give Typhon some cover while Theta Four conducts the evac.”

The three Land Speeder Typhoons of Caro One, Two, and Three raced towards the ridge while Squad Gordian’s three Whirlwinds reoriented their missile launchers. Padrig cut into Nestus’ vox channel. The scout’s breathing was harsh in Padrig’s helmet.

“Nestus, this is the chaplain,” he said. “Pray with me …”

Tomas’ communications officer leaned back in his chair to meet the general’s eye. “Sir? Colonel Andreson’s compliments, and he reports that his battalion is in the first trench.”

The general didn’t raise his voice, but the communications man flinched from his gaze. “Is he sure about that, Julio?” Tomas asked. “I believe my orders were clear.”

Julio grimaced. “Positive, sir. The colonel’s fit to be tied, but he’s sure.”

“I see. Inform Colonel Lewis and Captain Phyrius immediately. They are to press their assault at once.”

“Yes, goddammit, in the trench!” Yu-Tien shouted into the vox phone. The spiral cord stretched as Colper wriggled forward to squeeze off a burst as a rebel bayonet poked around the corner. Bullets whined overhead and Yu-Tien pressed himself closer against the far trench wall. The rebels had dug their works so that those upslope could fire into the lower trenches. The natural slope of the ridge provided some cover, but the eastern edge of the trenches was quickly becoming a beaten zone as more and more rebels upslope realized that the first trench had been penetrated.

“More company back here, sir!” Mercero shouted. “Bomb out!”

Yu-Tien dropped the phone and it fell squawking into the mud. Captain Chiel was dead, and it had taken precious moments to get a direct line to battalion HQ. He couldn’t afford to waste any more time on the vox. “Head right!” he shouted.

The trenches had been dug in a zig-zag pattern, giving the defenders plenty of blind corners to defend. Keeping low in an awkward crouch, Mercero spun around the corner on the heels of his grenade blast, but the next section of trench was empty. Yu-Tien gestured for Colper to grenade the next corner. The section only had eight more grenades among the three of them, but this was no time to be thrifty. By heading right they were headed towards what seemed to be the major source of resistance, but if any space marines had survived, they would hit the trench in this direction. At the moment Yu-Tien would be glad of any friendly body.

Colper lobbed his grenade in silence. There was a staccato series of explosions, followed by the furious snap-snap-snap of lasguns. Yu-Tien trained his bolter on the corner and shouted, “Vanatir Islands rule the waves!”

“Not since last century,” came the reply.

Yu-Tien relaxed. “Coming around!” he shouted, and darted around the corner. Six men in torn and muddy frock coats over heavy carapace armor crouched against the western ridge wall among the bodies of over a dozen rebels. The heretics wore everyday clothes, mostly sturdy work pants and warm jackets, soaked with blood. Yu-Tien had seen self-cauterized las wounds on occasion, but more often las fire cut into a body like a razor and the heat of the bolt ruptured the surrounding flesh in a bloody fountain.

Sergeant Drezha smiled grimly. “Bit late for anti-colonial sentiment, isn’t it sir? Glad to see you.”

“You too, you imperialist b*stard. Any sign of the space marines?”

Drezha shook his head. “Still fighting around the wreck of their tank when we went in,” he said. “Crazy, sir, but it kept the heat off of us long enough to get here.”

A mortar bomb burst on that far side of the trench, and shrapnel whickered overhead. A few meters shorter—longer? Oh, hell, what if that was one of ours?—and it would have landed directly in the trench.

“Got to keep moving,” Yu-Tien said. “Have you heard from Moria’s squad?”

“Moria’s dead,” Drezha said. “His squad was north of us when we went over the parapet; we didn’t see if they made it.”

“North it is then. Move them out, Sergeant.”

The platoon—all of nine men—headed back the way Drezha’s squad had come, hugging the trench wall.

Red Battalion advanced towards the Devil’s Wall at a brisk walk. Aloysius gripped his lasgun nervously. The Astor-M pattern lasgun was a short weapon, even with the chain bayonet fixed. Somehow this made him feel naked, even as his flak armor seemed to oppress him with its weight. He suspect it was the fact that Sergeant Blaskowicz had insisted on advancing in close order. They were well within the range of the rebels’ crew-served weapons now. The thought of what a heavy bolter burst could do to the squad was not encouraging.

The space marines had launched their attack, though it did not look anything like what Aloysius had imagined from the platoon briefing. Their tracked vehicles had scattered north and south, and their rocket artillery was bombarding a single spot of the wall with some kind of missile that exploded in mid-air to rain liquid fire on the trenches. Their firepower contribution appeared pitifully small, but they were attracting a disproportionate amount of return fire. The dark purple hulls were easy to pick out against the verdant green of the floodplain.

Three of the space marines’ small flying gunships made a low pass over the second trench. A burst of auto fire spattered uselessly off their armored bellies. Long tongues of flame fell from the gunships for an instant before they jinked away at high speed. One was too slow, and armored plating shattered as a lascannon slammed into it like a fist. The gunship yawed violently left, trailing smoke, and slammed into the upper trench. One of the tracked gun carriers was already a smoking wreck in on the floodplain.

Aloysius gripped his lasgun tighter. He was no expert, but the space marines’ attack did not seem to be progressing well.

The battalion’s tread consumed the meters to the first trench.

They found Sergeant Moria’s squad around the fifth bend of the trench. They had moved as fast as they dared, expending ammunition with wild abandon, to keep the enemy off balance. Drezha’s squad was already down two men despite their carapace armor, lost clearing a dugout.

From the looks of it, five of Moria’s men had made it over the parapet into the trench. None had made it further. A dugout had sheltered the enemy from their grenades, and mangled pieces of Kherian and rebel gave testament to bloody hand-to-hand fighting.

Las- and tracer fire rent the air overhead, but it wasn’t directed towards them. Planted in the mud of the trench, its fabric holed from numerous hits, impossibly, improbably, stood Delta’s platoon standard. Beside it, propped against the corner where a communications trench intersected this one, lay Commissar Volk in a pool of blood. He had dismounted a rebel storm bolter from its parapet pintle mount, and the heavy weapon lay cradled on his lap. His peaked commissar’s cap was nowhere to be seen. Mud matted his short blond hair.

Volk waved a hand at the standard. “Forgot your platoon standard, Lieutenant,” he said. “Didn’t want a valued relic to be lost on that murder-field.”

The idea of individual platoon standards had always struck Yu-Tien as rather ridiculous. Regimental colors were one thing, but the First had enough standards to man a dozen semaphore stations. “Pull that thing down before somebody uses it for mortar bomb practice!” he yelled.

Volk grinned and patted his carapace armor. “Already did,” he said. “The Emperor protects, eh? Now they’re just using it for rifle practice every now and then. Sloppy fire discipline.”

Mercero giggled. Nerves. If the enemy believed this section of trench cleared, why hadn’t it been re-occupied? Had they thinned the first trench’s numbers that badly after all? “Where are the space marines?” Yu-Tien shouted.

Volk opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by an ear-splitting roar from overhead. Three of the space marines’ rectangular dropships screamed overhead, dropping ripples of bombs and blasting the upper trenches with lascannon fire so intense it gouged great charred craters out of the earth. The third dropship heeled over with astonishing agility and settled just outside the trench to Yu-Tien’s right.

“Ah,” Volk said, a beatific smile spreading over his face. “That would be them, I expect.”

Padrig reconstructed the action from eavesdropping on the vox chatter in the wake of Gamma One and Gamma Two’s attack run. Theta Four, heavy bolters blazing, settled over the stricken Wisdom of Hate. Nestus was still alive.

“Deinon, get him out of here. We’ll cover you.”

“Sideros leaving cockpit. Meet you at the port door.”

“Theta Four, a little help with that heavy bolter?”

“Taking missile fire. Suppressing.”

“Sideros here, I have Nestus aboard.”

“Sh*t—negative seal on the second clamp. We don’t have the Razorback.”

“This is Deinon. I’m at the clamp. Wisdom’s plating is buckled at the contact point. We need to move it back about a meter.”

“Typhon, that missile launcher is still out there. We’ll have to lift off soon if we can’t shut it up.”

“Squad, back to Wisdom. Thirty seconds, Theta Four.”

“Thirty seconds, copy.”

“We’re at Wisdom. Put your backs into it, space marines!”

“Hell of a shot on that missile launcher, Typhon.”

“Wasn’t us. We’re all—got it. Should be good for lift.”

“Good seal on both clamps. Lifting off.”

Padrig breathed a sigh of relief as Theta Four rose into the air, the stricken Wisdom of Hate held securely by its belly clamps.

“Good work,” Phyrius said. “Tactical squads, rendezvous at Point Two. Hestus, lead us in.”

Finally. “Roger that,” Sergeant Hestus said. “Brother-Chaplain, the honor is yours.”

Padrig grinned inside his helmet. “Wouldn’t want Red Battalion to get there without us,” he said. He hefted his crozius arcanum and lit its power field, sending crackling white-blue fire dancing across its golden head. “Brothers, war amaranthine awaits the wrath of the space marines!”

Five purple-armored warriors thudded into the trench under the cover of a barrage of incendiary rockets as the dropship lifted clear. One of them wore a crimson helmet and a scabbard; Yu-Tien took him for the leader.

“Vulast,” Yu-Tien shouted by way of introduction, crouched against the trench wall. “Glad to see you. We heard the firing from this section of trench and cleared it as fast as we could. Looks like we were a bit late.”

The space marine’s voice had an eerie mechanical quality filtered through his vox speaker. It was unnervingly like speaking to a machine. “You did well, Lieutenant,” he said. “We suffered no casualties.”

“You landed a dropship to deliver five men?” Yu-Tien asked.

“Negative. That was a techevac. I am Sergeant Typhon.”

Typhon’s tone indicated that he thought he had explained something. Evidently he found it perfectly natural that five soldiers should risk their lives—and quite possibly get Moria’s squad killed by their delay—in order to remove a wrecked conveyance from the field. Yu-Tien swallowed a retort; bodies were bodies, right now, and he didn’t have enough of them.

“We need to keep moving,” he shouted. “If we—”

It was surprisingly hard to read the body language of a man in power armor, but Yu-Tien got the distinct impression that Typhon shifted threateningly towards him. The sergeant was cut off, though, by the crackle of autogun fire from behind them—and the distinctive rapid-fire bark of a storm bolter.

Typhon and his space marines made no sound, but rose smoothly from their crouches into a run towards the trench junction where Yu-Tien had left Commissar Volk. In an instant they had disappeared around the bend in the trench. Drezha gave Yu-Tien a questioning look. The lieutenant nodded.

“Let’s go, back to the commissar!” Drezha shouted.

The platoon retraced its steps again, Yu-Tien and Mercero covering the rear. It felt incredible that they hadn’t encountered more resistance, or at least more dead bodies. Then again, how far had they actually moved? Fifty meters? Less? It was impossible to tell. Yu-Tien’s world was compressed between two bends of the trench.

They had reached the last bend before the commissar’s position when Private Kha, on point, jerked back from the bend in the trench. “Bomb!” he shouted.

The platoon took cover and opened their mouths against overpressure. One, two, three grenades went off just around the bend. Yu-Tien could hear a furious firefight taking place just meters away. The commissar’s storm bolter was silent, but in its place was a new sound, a staccato baowl sound that crawled under Yu-Tien’s skin like the cry of a mechanical werewolf. Space marine bolters.

On Drezha’s count the platoon surged around the corner, lasguns at the ready. Typhon’s space marines crouched on either side of the trench junction, apparently unconcerned by the fragmentation grenades that had just exploded in their midst.

For a few tense moments it was silent. Then, with an unearthly howl, rebels surged down the last bend in the communications trench, screaming battle cries and firing weapons in wild, uncontrolled bursts. The two space marines nearest the trench each fired a single burst into the mob, and then one of their fellows swung into the open with a flamer. For an instant las bolts and bullets sparked off his armor, and then he triggered his weapon. A gout of blue flame rushed down the trench like a hungry beast, and the rebels’ battle cries turned to agonized wails that were suddenly silenced as their hand grenades exploded in the intense heat. The space marines never uttered a sound.

“Holy blood,” Colper said.

Commissar Volk dragged himself from the dugout. “Lieutenant Vulast!” he said. “Now we will show these Chaos scum the true wrath of the Imperium!” The commissar looked the worse for wear, but he was smiling broadly.

A single shot sounded from one of the space marines. “More of them,” he said.

“Dispose of your men, Lieutenant!” Volk said. “The enemy will not claim this junction while the sacred standard of Delta Platoon stands upon it!”

The platoon standard still stood in the dirt, where Volk had placed it. Its fabric was tattered, the pole chipped, and it leaned somewhat to the left, but somehow it had survived the firefight intact. Yu-Tien shook his head.

Continued in Part 3

**Nabterayl** · 08-16-2013, 03:47 PM

Part 3 - Taking the Wall

“This is Command Lead. Go ahead, Gold Lead.” The battlefield was changing again. Red Battalion was on the move. The space marines, evidently satisfied with their diversionary maneuver, were regrouping to launch their own attack. Tomas sincerely hoped Jeff Andreson had good news.

“General, I’ve had word from my salient in the trench. They report a strong rebel counterattack from the communications trenches, estimated at company strength or greater.” Andreson hesitated. “I believe the enemy has committed his reserves, sir.”

Tomas heard the undertone of hope in Andreson’s voice. Gold Battalion had been shredded; he would have been superhuman not to hope that his boys had accomplished their objective at last. It was impossible to tell from a single company-strength counterattack, of course—but it didn’t matter. Bobby Lewis was already on the move; Gold Battalion didn’t have the strength to carry the fight any longer.

“Understood, Colonel,” Tomas said. “Maintain your attack until Red Battalion is in the trenches, but prepare to reform your remaining forces to support the attack up the ridge.”

“Yes, sir. Tell Lewis not to dawdle.”

An Astartes motorbike could reach speeds of up to 110 kph, but at well over half a ton with an armored space marine astride, it offered a surprisingly stable ride. Padrig screamed across the floodplain at top speed at the head of Squad Hestus. Taken aback by the assault squad’s sudden burst of speed, the upper trenches’ support fire overshot. An autocannon shell exploded on the front glacis of Padrig’s bike, juddering the yoke in his hands. He jinked out of the line of fire as the Devil’s Wall rushed to meet him.

He shot between two squads of Kherians and settled more securely into the saddle. The ground dipped as his objective loomed before him: a stretch of trench that the heretics had fortified with a deep ditch in front of the trench parapet. This was a strong point of the first trench, intended to prevent an attacker from assaulting the first trench across an unbroken front. The heretic side of the ditch rose sheer to the trench parapet, unscalable. Padrig put on an extra burst of speed.

Ten motorbikes of the Adeptus Astartes slammed into the ditch wall at high speed. Earth was driven into the lenses of Padrig’s helmet and threatened to drag him from the saddle, wooden trench siding splintered and cracked, and then he was through and slammed into the opposite side of the trench with a bone-crunching bang. Brother Tharsaleus’ attack bike lost control as it burst through the ditch wall into the trench and upended, trapping both marines beneath its bulk, but the squad was through, and his helmet’s autosenses showed him what his eyes could not.

Padrig vaulted from the saddle and drew both bolt pistol and crozius arcanum in one motion. An entire squad of traitors was manning the parapet in the bend of trench he had emerged in. They were still facing the wrong way as he shot the first two in the back. He walked his fire left as the heretics turned, one, two, three, four, then fell upon the remainder with his crozius.

The approach of Red Battalion seemed to draw the enemy’s fire like a magnet. Though Gold Battalion’s exhausted troops renewed their fusillade in punishment and some of the upper guns fired into the trench sections penetrated by the space marines, six thousand Kherian shock troopers was a threat that could not be ignored.

The enemy’s big guns had by now been knocked out, whether by preliminary bombardment or the more precise hammer-blows of the anti-tank squads’ lascannon. Still, a shocking number of mortars and grenade launchers survived amongst the defenders, particularly in the upper trenches, and these rained destruction on Colonel Lewis’ men as they advanced at a brisk walk, standards high.

There was no stopping to return fire; that was Gold Battalion’s job. Still, most of the men had at least spread out, Aloysius noted nervously. Sergeant Blaskowicz had threatened to shoot the first man in the squad who showed “cowardice” in the face of the enemy by breaking ranks. Or rank, in this particular case.

There was nothing for it but to advance like a soldier. Aloysius put the exploding earth out of his mind with some difficulty. It was easier to be fatalistic about the undiscriminating nature of ordnance, he had discovered, when one had faith in one’s tactics. The Departmento Munitorum had not managed to drag Sergeant Blaskowicz out of the age of musketry, but Aloysius Carver was keenly aware of the sheer firepower he held in his hands, and also aware that his beautiful Astor-M was among the least deadly weapons on the battlefield.

He bit back a cry as the automatic weapons tore into the battalion. The dust of the orbital bombardment had largely settled now, but the bright red bolts of tracer fire was still terrifyingly visible. Aloysius watched in mute horror as red fingers quested amongst the Kherians, felling men at their touch.

Limbs flew as a heavy bolter found his platoon. Aloysius went weak in the knees, and he stumbled. This was insane; they had to stop, had to return fire, had to find cover—great God-Emperor, what was he doing here?

“Forward!” a voice roared from the heavens. “Forward for Kheria, boys! Forward for the Imperium! Forward for your wives, your girls, your pus-ridden mothers, but for God’s sake, forward!”

Aloysius jerked out of his reverie. The voice was Colonel Lewis’; declining the safety of his command Chimera, “Butcher Bobby” had declared that he would lead the assault in person. His voice now roared from every vox caster in the battalion. Aloysius had a sudden image of the colonel, hat on his chainsword, lho-stick gripped firmly between his teeth, daring the men to follow him. In spite of himself, he smiled.

Something hit him in the chest and knocked him askew. For a moment he couldn’t hear anything. Dimly he realized that he had been hit. Get up, get up, get up, his mind demanded. Get up? He was lying in the grass. Was he dying? He couldn’t even remember being hit. Aloysius had been shot before, but he realized he had no idea what a modern wound would feel like. He breathed gingerly. It didn’t feel like his ribs were broken. “Thank you,” he said to his breastplate. He had no idea if flak armor had a machine spirit or not, but it seemed wise to err on the side of caution under the circumstances.

His body stubbornly rose to its feet. The squad had been hit—not by mortar fire, the men were laid out in a neat row. Were they dead? Did it matter? There was no way to tend the wounded, and did not occur to him to call for help. Nursing was a matter for after the battle.

Aloysius realized that whatever machine gunner had laid out his squad might waste the ammunition on him to finish the job. He turned to the front and jogged on.

Lewis was late. Tomas cursed himself for a fool. The enemy had been thinned, to be sure, but Gold Battalion had been decimated. Andreson reported an almost total breakdown of command and control. The remnants of his troops clung doggedly to the thin blue line they had seized at the foot of the Devil’s Wall, pouring fire into the trenches with heartbreaking courage, but the battalion as a whole was no longer combat effective—and Bob Lewis’ boys were paying the price.

On they marched, at a disciplined brisk walk, formation open but not disordered, into the teeth of the enemy fire. At last report Lewis himself was still alive, literally leading the charge. Commissar-General Grey and most of her cadre were also dispersed among the troops, urging them onward by sheer bloody-minded example.

On the positive side, the enemy had at last committed reserves to the first trench. The space marines reported heavy resistance as new troops filtered down the wall. Red Battalion was now balanced precariously between two extremes. If it arrived too late, the new troops would be able to add their fire to oppose the charge. If it arrived too early, it would still be fighting to clear the trenches when the enemy reserves hit. With luck, though, and the blessing of the Emperor, Lewis’ battalion would hit the first trench after the reserves had deployed but before they were fully prepared, eliminating a sizable portion of the rebel force at once.

Now the battalion was in range for its final push. The enemy intensified its fire, but, depleted by Gold Battalion’s sacrifice, it was insufficient to stop the Kherian charge.

The platoon standard still stood.

Yu-Tien had lost track of how many waves had attacked the junction. Commissar Volk was unconscious from blood loss in the dugout. Colper, wounded in the second assault, had been moved to the dugout to take over the stolen storm bolter. Its ammunition was exhausted by now, though, and Colper was reduced to giving periodic vox updates to battalion HQ. Yu-Tien was in no doubt now that they were facing not a specific counterattack but merely part of a larger counter-push. They were facing attacks on three sides; Drezha’s squad and one space marine held the northern end of the junction, with two space marines each covering the western and southern ends. Yu-Tien and Mercero were held in “reserve,” since the fighting often fell back to the junction itself before an enemy push could be repulsed.

He was out of grenades, except for the smooth-skinned krak grenades, useless for trench fighting, and was down to only three magazines. Mercero, blessed with a lasgun’s greater ammunition capacity, still had half his rounds left. Yu-Tien had no idea how the space marines fared. They had their own vox net, which nobody had thought to tie into the regiment’s. Yu-Tien had asked Colper in a breathless moment, but the vox man didn’t know what the proper ritual was called, let alone how to perform it.

“Here they come again,” Mercero said. Typhon’s squad had moved forward several bends, to give themselves room to fall back. The howl of bolt pistols from the west drew nearer. Mercero and Yu-Tien hunched on either side of the trench junction and sighted up.

Sergeant Typhon and his companion appeared without warning around the bend, and Yu-Tien stifled the reflexive urge to shoot. If they were going to fight with space marines, he decided, they would have to establish better communications. Typhon covered the bend with his pistol while his companion reloaded. The enemy had learned to be wary of pursuing the marines around corners. The last two times they had hesitated, the marines had pitched melon-sized frag bombs around the corner—but now the marines, too, were out of grenades.

It was Mercero who spotted the reason for the delay. “Up top!” he shouted.

The enemy appeared above the communications trench on both sides. The first to show their heads pitched backward in surprise as Mercero and Yu-Tien opened fire. The others, nothing daunted by the Kherians’ covering fire, plunged back into the trench as their compatriots surged around the corner.

Yu-Tien was beginning to see why the longer-serving Guard officers he had encountered always spoke of Chaos rebels as warranting the attention of professional soldiers even when the rebel “troops” were untrained militia, as these were. Ragtag the enemy might be, but they possessed the berserk courage of true believers. Mercero and Yu-Tien maintained their covering fire until one of the rebels hurled a grenade into the junction. Both men dove forward into the communications trench and were immediately swamped by the melee.

The space marines towered above the fray, purple-armored monsters that demanded the enemy’s focus. Yu-Tien bayoneted the first rebel in the back, and then the enemy was upon them as well. His Astor-pattern Type III boltgun and sword bayonet were clumsy in the melee, and his next cut glanced off his enemy. Heart in his throat, Yu-Tien fired at point-blank range, showering him with gobbets of flesh. His mind was blank with terror, relying on the muscle memory of training. He cut, thrust, fired until his magazine ran dry.

He saw the rebel with the sword too late. His face was filthy behind his spectacles, and he wore a civilian city coat. In another life, he might have been a professor. Now, face contorted with hatred, he thrust an old-fashioned straight sword through Yu-Tien’s abdomen.

Aloysius knew that things were bad when Commissar-General Grey arrived. The commissar-general wore a scarlet cloak to make her easier to pick out in the chaos of battle, so he had no trouble noting her arrival at his platoon.

The lieutenant had just sounded the charge. As the battalion surged forward, he could see the enemy reinforcements rushing to repel them. Some had climbed out of the communication trenches and were running pell-mell down the Devil’s Wall, firing wildly. Some were picked off by the survivors of Gold Battalion, but it seemed as if the entire ridge was suddenly crawling with rebels, like ants boiling out of a hill.

He was sure they would be shot in the final few meters, but Aloysius reached the parapet unscathed and flung himself into the trench. Aloysius landed badly and fell headlong in the mud. He narrowly missed a rebel on the way down, who jerked back with a curse and fired into Aloysius’ back. He felt the impacts, but his flak armor held, and he rolled onto his back in time to put a burst through the surprised rebel trooper.

He could hear the sounds of the platoon engaged in close combat. All was confusion. Another rebel leaped into the trench. Aloysius saw the man’s eyes fill with terror as the rebel realized he was going to land atop him. He reacted instinctively, revving his chain bayonet and thrusting it upwards into the man’s stomach as he came down with a crash. Mud and blood flew in all directions as the rebel screamed and Aloysius pushed upward with all his might, lest the bayonet hit bone and rebound.

It seemed to take hours before the rebel was dead and Aloysius got to his feet, but it could not have been more than a few seconds. He pushed the broken corpse off of him and struggled to his feet.

Aloysius suddenly felt invincible. He had been shot twice, killed a rebel in hand to hand combat. His platoon was around one of these bends. Without the squad’s vox-caster he had no way of knowing which way to go, but he didn’t care.

“Let’s go, Trooper,” he said to himself. “The Emperor’s work is never done.”

Padrig was in fine form.

There was scarcely room for two battle-brothers to fight abreast, so Phyrius had deliberately spread out his squads over as wide an area as possible. Once in the trench, each squad broke into demi-squads and split north and south. Once the strike force met with its own, it was to push north and south in support of the Kherian’s assault, rolling up the enemy from their own center.

Bullets, bolts, and las fire rained down on the trench as the Violet Avatars cleared bend after bend. It impossible to make progress with any kind of speed without exposing oneself to fire from the upper trenches, so Padrig and Demi-Squad Tharsytes charged down the trench, relying on shock to protect them from the trench defenders and their proximity to enemy troops to protect them from the upper trenches.

Ordinarily the Justice Hammers fought in silence, at least to outside observers. Now, though, Padrig had his exterior vox set on maximum volume as he gave the battle-sermon, a roaring death-masked apparition in blood-blasted ebonite armor.

“Rejoice in the coming of bloody battle, brothers!” he bellowed. Strike with his crozius, severing a man’s arm at the shoulder. “To cower from death: this is the mark of the heretic!” Strike again. More blood. A shot from Brother Tharsytes’ bolt pistol finished his victim. “To shrink from the Emperor’s justice made flesh: this is the desire of the heretic. To die in ignominy: this is the fate of the heretic!”

He saw the missile launcher an instant too late to gun down its crew. They fired as he rounded the bend, the back-blast immolating half a squad of their fellows, and the warhead detonated with a blinding flash and roar that his helmet’s autosenses dutifully dimmed to tolerable levels.

Padrig’s hearts thudded in his ears. If his rosarius’ conversion field hadn’t stopped that missile, he would have been blasted in pieces across the trench. He seized the fear and twisted it into fury, propelling him forward as the flash-blinded missile crew scrabbled to reload. He struck once, twice, with his crozius, then put his booted foot through the chest of one of the fallen rebels.

“To grind you motherf*ckers into the mud and your own sh*t: this is the right of the space marines!” Several chuckles answered that over the vox net; Padrig was well known for his earthy improvisations when preaching. The battle sermon always overlaid the background susurrus of dry tactical reports. The Lyman’s Ear made it trivial to attend to multiple conversations at once.

The same facility at multitasking let him consider the tactical situation as he continued to preach doom to the Emperor’s foes. The Chaos soldiers had little in the way of weaponry that could threaten power armor, but they had not yet broken before the space marines’ furious shock assault. It seemed that the Kherians would have to finish the job.

“This is Squad Typhon. Resistance is intensifying. Request support.”

Either the platoon had been in the other direction, or they were all dead. Neither was an appealing prospect to consider.

Aloysius rounded the corner at the same time as the rebels. There was fighting in virtually every trench bend, and both sides had slackened in their use of grenades for fear of hitting their own. Aloysius literally collided with the rebel point man; he was so surprised he forgot to even rev the chain bayonet. Instead he fell back into the mud with a soundless cry. The rebels, apparently as surprised as he, hesitated for a fatal instant.

Aloysius reacted instinctively, jamming his fire selector to full auto and squeezing the trigger. His mud-caked lasgun emptied itself of forty rounds in a heartbeat, and, to his utter amazement, the entire enemy squad dropped as if unstrung. Aloysius wondered what was the equivalent of buying his weapon’s gun spirit a beer. He’d have to ask Father Excoris.

A moment later he discovered the source of the rebels’ abstraction. A giant in purple armor rounded the bend, evidently in hot pursuit. He bore no weapons but a pair of enormous gauntlets, from which protruded four crackling power field-sheathed claws. The claws were smoking, and a patina of what Aloysius took to be cooked blood stained the blades. Three more space marines followed, these bearing conventional bolters.

The lead space marine took a knee to examine the dead rebels as rounds rained overhead. “Where is your platoon?” he asked without preamble.

“I’m not sure, sir,” Aloysius said. He was surprised to hear that his voice was not shaking. “Private Carver, Foxtrot Platoon, Red Battalion Second Company.”

The space marine rose. “I am Sergeant Raszius,” he said. “Fall in, Private.”

Yu-Tien woke in the dugout being tended by a man with a medic’s armband. “Who are you?” he asked. Stupid question. He gave himself a mental shake. “What’s going on?”

The medic grinned. “We’re moving up,” he said. “The trench is ours.”

A dull pain in his abdomen reminded Yu-Tien that he had been run through. The medic must have already dosed him with pain killers. “What about the rest of my platoon?”

“Still holding the junction with the space marines. Wouldn’t hand it over until I’d seen to you and your vox man. He’s out there too,” the medic added. “Would’ve sent him to the rear area, but …” He didn’t need to finish the thought. With the entire regiment on the move, there was no rear area.

“The commissar?”

“Dead.”

Yu-Tien nodded. He closed his eyes as the other man packed up his medikit. The sounds of the battle washed over him, battering at his ears with the constant crackle and crump of weapons fire. His eyes snapped open.

“You’re with Red Battalion, yes?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” the medic said.

“Then why are you still here, if we’ve taken the trench?”

The medic’s good cheer seemed to fade. He looked over his shoulder, beyond the dugout, where fire rained down on the Kherians as hard as ever. “Never mind that, sir. You’ve done your part.”

“The hell I have,” Yu-Tien growled, and forced himself to his feet.

“Sir? You’re not in any shape for trench fighting.”

Yu-Tien limped towards the dugout exit. “I’m not suicidal, son,” he said. “But something tells me you boys are going to need all the fire support you can get.”

“Hotter than a witch’s tit in here, Tom,” Lewis said. “I’ll say this for the pus-draining b*stards, they’ve got heart.”

“The faithful know the difference between courage and heart, Colonel,” Tomas reproved, but it was mostly for the vox recorders. Tomas had always considered himself a pious man, but he had seen none of the Warp-spawned horrors that Chaos troops were rumored to have at their command. So far, the rebels were an enemy like any other, and he found it hard to despise them as Commissar-General Grey so clearly did.

“Do you have the strength to push on?” he asked.

Lewis’ reply was drowned out by an explosion and sudden shouting. “I said, I’ve got the strength, but the boys are pinned down,” he shouted into the vox. “We’re having a rotten time getting them over the top. Feels isolated in this damn trench, Tom—no sense of support.”

“Understood, Bobby,” Tomas said quietly. “Make it happen.”

“You know I will. Red Lead clear.”

Aloysius wondered how much ammunition the rebels had. It felt as if they had kept up a constant stream of fire for ages. How many rounds had they fired? It had to number in the tens of thousands.

Sergeant Raszius risked a look over the lip of the trench, ducking back as las bolts kicked up sparks from the dirt.

“Did you just take cover?” Aloysius asked. He regretted it the instant the words were out of his mouth, but Raszius’ did not seem offended.

“This armor is eight hundred years old,” he observed. “It did not reach that age by unnecessarily placing itself in the line of fire.”

The sergeant fell silent. Space marines, Aloysius was quickly learning, had an unnerving habit of doing that. He had thought they were simply taciturn until he missed an order that Raszius had thought he had given to his whole fireteam.

In his bend of the trench he could see only the purple-armored warriors of Raszius’ fireteam. Though utterly still and silent, Aloysius found their mien oddly comforting. The super-warriors of the stars were taking cover from enemy fire, just like him. Like soldiers.

Around him he could hear the all-too familiar sounds of the battalion going to ground. The rebel fire slackened—not so much that it could be called sporadic, but the rhythm changed in a way he could not describe, the blending together of hundreds of small units holding fire until a Kherian target presented itself, repeated over the length of the Devil’s Wall. Sergeants, officers, and commissars bawled at the men to find their courage. Aloysius patted his armor self-consciously. It had already saved him twice in one day. He didn’t care to think how many times it would be tested if—no, when—the battalion went over the top.

Raszius’ men stirred from their silent crouches, two men each splitting left and right. They didn’t say a word. Aloysius didn’t ask.

The strike force vox net was alive with disciplined chatter as battle-brothers reported to their sergeants and sergeants reported to Captain Phyrius. Padrig, safely outside the strike force’s primary chain of command, let it all wash over him in a comforting litany of sound.

The strike force’s infantry component was dispersing further, into single-man units. Padrig approved. Phyrius had a reputation for preferring concentrated hammer-blows, but a space marine force commander had to know when his paltry force of battle-brothers could not achieve the objective by direct action. Many books of the Codex were devoted to commentaries on how a space marine could aid the mission through indirect action. Phyrius, with his usual swiftness, had decided on a course that Padrig approved of.

He jogged past a trench section alone, now, en route to his appointed place in the battle line. A Kherian sharpshooter fell into the trench, half his head blown apart by a Chaos heavy bolter.

“… Tranton, at my assigned sh*t-hole, Brother Sergeant.”

“Dammit, Tranton, Justus assigned the sh*t-hole to me.”

“That’s your sh*t-hole, Bias. Do you see me anywhere near you?”

“My mistake. I could have sworn this guardsman here pissing himself was you, Brother.”

Padrig smiled. The squad-channel jokes were a large reason he made it a habit to listen in on the vox net. Humor was the heartbeat of a space marine strike force.

He found Moira Grey shortly afterward with two squads. She paused mid-harangue and saluted.

“Chaplain Crucis,” she called. “Dismal weather we’re having—won’t you join us?”

He hurried to the modest shelter afforded by the trench wall, aware of the Kherians’ stares on his mud-caked ebonite armor. “Commissar-General,” he said. “The Justice Hammers will be going over the top shortly. I’d be obliged if you could provide me an escort.”

Grey grinned at him. “Of course, Chaplain,” she said, a wicked glint in her eye. “Gentlemen, I leave the chaplain in your capable hands.”

With that she was gone, leaving twelve gape-mouthed Kherians in her wake.

“Still no return fire?” Colper asked. The wounded vox-man set down a partially expended ammunition box and hit the dirt with a weary sound somewhere between a grunt and a sigh.

“They’ve got better things to do,” Mercero growled. Delta Platoon had returned to the floodplain to find what support weapons and ammo they could. They did not have far to look. Yet, though Yu-Tien now had two autocannon and a mortar in play, the platoon had attracted no enemy attention. Less than a hundred yards away, Red Battalion hunkered desperately in the first trench, but on the floodplain, Gold Battalion’s gunners were free to work. Mercero was relishing the chance to get back some of the battalion’s own.

Yu-Tien fed a new belt into Mercero’s autocannon and slapped the cover closed. “Make the most of it,” he said. “They’re only ignoring us because they can’t let Lewis’ boys out of the trench.”

“Butcher Bobby’ll set ’em straight, all right,” Mercero said.

“Assuming they get over the top in the first place,” Colper said. He pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll go find some more shells.”

“Rest thou,” Aloysius whispered to the partially spent power cell as he slipped it into a pocket. “Grant thy animating fury to this my weapon that I may smite the enemies of Mankind,” he added in a louder voice as he completed the Ritual of Reloading with a fresh power cell. He had no qualms about speaking to his equipment now.

Aloysius paused. “Here we go, boys,” he added.

Sergeant Raszius laid a heavy robotic hand on his shoulder, lightning claws retracted. “It won’t be long, Carver,” he said. “I’ll stay on the speaker so we can communicate. When we go, stay close to me, and don’t stop for anything. Trust me, they won’t be shooting at you.”

He never heard the mortar bomb. Raszius simply flung his armored bulk against Aloysius, pinning him to the trench wall, and lethal fragments whined off his armor. Raszius stepped back before Aloysius had fully processed what had just happened.

He gulped. “Ready to get the hell out of this trench, Sergeant.”

Padrig swept his gaze over the Kherians beside him. Some of them looked like they wanted to say something, but they quailed before his death’s-head glare.

“Justice Hammers, we have the go from Red Lead,” Phyrius said. “Over the top on my mark. Know no fear, brothers.”

“Soldiers of the Imperium!” Padrig boomed. “Are you ready to die for your Emperor?”

A subdued chorus of “Sir, yes sir!” answered him. It wasn’t proper address to a space marine, but that wasn’t important now. Padrig rolled on.

“Bullsh*t!” he said. “I can see the fear in your hearts.” He swept his crozius arcanum, its golden head pure of mud thanks to its disruptor field, across the assembled squads. “I feel it in my heart. I am not here to die for the Emperor.

“Soldiers of the Imperium! Are you ready to kill for your Emperor?”

“Sir, yes sir!” Stronger this time, but still hesitant.

“We’ll see,” Padrig growled. “I’m going over that trench to kill, not to die, Sons of Kheria,” he said. “Any of you who came here for the same reason can come with me.”

“Phyrius to all units. Mark, mark, mark.”

Raszius exploded over the lip of the trench as though he were a sprinter at the starting block, not a heavily armed soldier vaulting over a meter and a half of flakboard obstacle. Aloysius pulled himself up after him and risked a glance around.

He could see a scattering of space marines, the scarlet cape and peaked cap of the commissar-general, and a handful of Kherians. The colonel himself would be out there too, he was somehow certain, but he could still see far fewer than fifty bodies.

For an instant he considered dropping back. But Raszius was already moving, and Aloysius felt obscurely horrified at the thought of crouching in the trench section without him. He rolled over the top of the trench, got to his feet, and ran for all he was worth.

The slope was steep, and Aloysius had to scramble on all fours until he angled his body at precisely the right angle. He had to stay close to Raszius. That thought crowded out the torrent of fire that erupted from the second trench, thoughts of the God-Emperor, of his own mortality, of incredulity that he had survived even seconds. There was only heart-stopping terror, and the need to stay close to the space marine.

Raszius was shockingly fast, even up the steep slope. His lightning claws were still sheathed, and he held a grenade in each hand. A krak grenade fired from a drum-fed launcher struck him in the ribs and he staggered, then hurled his grenades in savage flat throws left and right. His lightning claws sprang from their houses lit with argent fire, and the sergeant charged forward into the trench.

Aloysius followed blindly out of the murderous air. Raszius had entered the second trench at one end of a bend. Aloysius fired a burst to the right and followed with a grenade of his own before following the sergeant to the left.

There was literally nothing for him to do. Aloysius had never seen lightning claws in action; he had assumed they would be used to rake and sweep, like a wild animal. Instead Raszius fought like a boxer, throwing quick straight arm punches that plunged all four power blades straight through rebel soldiers. The sergeant’s own forward motion dragged the blades free, leaving eviscerated men who sagged like broken dolls. Three men fell in quick succession, and the remainder fled.

“Come on!” Raszius boomed, followed by a lilting cadence in a language that Aloysius didn’t understand.

He sprinted after the space marine as his brain belatedly registered the language as High Gothic. Another second and he realized that the words had a tune.

Raszius was singing.

“Two more left,” Yu-Tien said as he fed the ammunition belt home. “Make them count.”

“Don’t look at me,” Mercero said. “Sir.”

Yu-Tien shook his head but didn’t say anything. Colper had received word nearly ten minutes ago that Red Battalion was about to make its push, to warn the support gunners that friendlies would soon be in their fire zones. And then they had waited, expending ammunition in the hope of suppressing the second and third trenches. Drezha had taken his autocannon off the line to free more bodies for scavenging ammunition, and still they were running low.

A purple-armored figure wearing a steel-woven cape vaulted out of the trench, then another with a green velvet standard attached to its power backpack. More, a few Kherian blue coats. The great battalion banner was raised, with its crimson saltire—Butcher Bobby himself went over the top at the head of a few squads. And that was that. Not even space marines could storm the second trench with impunity; Yu-Tien saw five go down in the first few seconds.

“Sir?” Drezha shouted. “Cease fire?”

Yu-Tien’s voice caught in his throat. This wasn’t exactly the saturation of friendly targets they had been warned about, but—

Mercero let out an explosive breath. “God on Terra,” he said, and took his hands from the autocannon’s grips.

Red Battalion of the First Kherian Infantry surged up the hill with a roar.

Mercero was on his feet with his fists in the air. “Go!” he shouted. “Go, go you magnificent b*stards!” He attracted not so much as a single shot.

The men swarmed over the top in a dark blue wave, reversing the rebels’ earlier reinforcement maneuver to avoid the choke points of the communication trenches. But they were charging uphill, not down, and the Devil’s Wall had been aptly named. Men stumbled, in places scrambling on all fours to make progress. Kherians tumbled down the hill, impeding the progress of their comrades, as the rebel troops let loose with everything they had.

Meter by agonizing meter the men of Red Battalion ascended. They followed a space marine, a commissar, a standard, or simply those guardsmen brave or lucky enough to be a few meters ahead of the rest, but they followed. At a hundred meters, Yu-Tien was close enough to see the struggles of individual men. Several wounded who tumbled downhill struggled to climb again, seizing handfuls of grass to pull themselves towards the second trench.

Yu-Tien was on his feet now too, cheering until he was hoarse. The space marines still standing gained the second trench. The advancing Kherians roared again, and Red Battalion surged forward into the enemy fire with renewed vigor even as the rebel troopers poured on every ounce of fire left on the ridge.

It wasn’t enough. The Kherians were exposed, but they outnumbered the rebels too heavily to be stopped entirely. Red Battalion crashed into the trench like a breaking wave, leaving the space between the first and second trenches littered with blue-coated bodies.

But they had made it.

The martial howls of charging men gave way to the less glorious grinding rumble of men fighting for their lives at the point of a bayonet. Yu-Tien realized that he was making a fool of himself. The fight for the second trench was out of his hands, but Gold Battalion’s job was not done yet.

“Switch targets,” he shouted to Drezha. “Target the third trench.”

The fight for the second trench took longer than the first. Aloysius fired, reloaded, hacked his bayonet into an enemy like an axe belly-to-belly, bearing down on the chain blade as it ate into the man’s collar bone and through the major blood vessels of the trunk, while blood coated his uniform and bits of bone and gristle bounced off his armor. He met other Kherians, fought beside them, passed them. He had no idea how long it took.

Through it all he followed Sergeant Raszius through the melee. The space marine wasn’t even breathing hard—he couldn’t be, because he was still singing that High Gothic hymn. His endurance was incredible. The krak grenade blast had torn open his power armor and laid his flesh open to the bone; Aloysius had seen it when the sergeant paused to hurl a grenade. The wound was now a mass of clotted blood, and though Raszius was careful to keep Aloysius on his weak side, it hadn’t slowed his rate of advance.

He and Raszius cleared a section of trench with a squad of Kherians, and the hymn stopped. The Kherian sergeant called to his vox-man for a status report, but before the man could reply, Raszius had sheathed his lightning claws and grasped the flakboard trench wall.

“Over the top!” Raszius bellowed. “We have them on the run, brothers!”

Aloysius wasn’t sure if it was a slip of the tongue, or if Raszius had meant to call them brothers. It didn’t matter. They vaulted over the top.

The Kherian corporal in command of Padrig’s two squads stared at him blankly for a moment, then nodded grimly.

“Just so you know, sir, we’re about down to our last power cells,” he said. He drew a spare from his pocket, glanced at the charge indicator, then put it back with a grimace.

Padrig grinned broadly, though he knew the Kherians couldn’t see it. “I ran out of ammunition in the first trench,” he said. “Over the top, Kherians! Keep the pressure on!”

He paused for an instant. The look on the corporal’s face was worth it. When he vaulted over the top of the trench the Kherians were with him.

In truth, the entire strike force was likely out of ammunition by now, or nearly so. Gordian’s Whirlwinds and Caro’s Land Speeders had expended 90% of their ammunition complements in close fire support missions that Padrig had never even seen. The ferocious point-blank nature of the trench fighting meant that the space marines were forced to expend ammunition liberally. There was no time for their preferred single-shot targeting protocols; everybody had been firing bursts from the instant they hit the trench. Even carrying a double load, Padrig had entered the trench with less than half the ammunition a Kherian trooper carried in a single ammunition load. The tactical squads, carrying bolters in addition to their pistols, might be better off—but Padrig doubted it, since they lacked either chainswords or his own crozius arcanum to compensate.

But there was no time to resupply. Tethius didn’t have enough servitors to resupply each squad individually; he’d have to establish supply dumps in the second trench. By the time ammunition could be brought up through the communication trenches—under fire from the third trench the whole way—the moment would be lost. Justus had been the first to report the enemy breaking, and his report had spread to the rest of the strike force far sooner than it could have been disseminated through the Kherians’ more cumbersome vox protocols. Captain Phyrius had issued no orders. He didn’t have to.

Across the Devil’s Wall, space marines charged up the ridge yet again, and Red Battalion followed them up.

Bob Lewis’ war whoop blared into Tomas’ ear, and the general flinched.

“Anything further to report?” he asked drily.

“Sorry about that, Tom—it’s confused as an old wound up here, but we’ve got the sons of witches on the run. Ammo’s just about dry, but the bayonets are still working.”

Tomas shook his head. Bayonets. They had come here in starships of unimaginable size, across the stars, through another dimension, and they were reduced to fighting with bayonets.

“Then you must continue to push,” he said. “I’m ordering Green Battalion forward, but you must keep the pressure on.”

“Don’t have to tell the boys that,” he said. “They’re already on the move. *******, but these are good men, Tom. Gotta go, or they won’t leave any for me.”

The channel went dead, and Tomas ducked his head into the troop compartment. “Get me a link to Colonel Andreson,” he ordered.

“Sir, you’re not gonna believe this,” Colper said. “Captain Ciello wants us to advance to the third trench to support the push over the top.”

Yu-Tien let his head hang. After a scramble to impose some kind of order on the remnants of Gold Battalion, Ciello had ended up in command of the disparate heavy weapons elements. Over half the heavy weapons troopers had been put to scavenging ammunition—casualties among Ninth Company had been high enough that there was no shortage, but it was scattered across the beaten zone. As Red Battalion had taken the fight to the trenches Ciello had ordered the support weapons’ fire to slacken, and Yu-Tien’s ad hoc section finally had a respectable stockpile of autocannon shells built up.

He looked at the assembled ammunition cases. The Emperor clearly had a sense of humor.

“Pack it up!” he shouted. “All of it.”

When Sergeant Raszius finally stopped, Aloysius collapsed into the mud of the third trench. He briefly wondered if he was going to suffocate here. It didn’t seem to matter. His ribcage and throat felt filled with fire, and he could barely move. He couldn’t remember anything of the fight for the third trench. He wasn’t even sure he had fought, though somehow he had run out of ammunition. Even his bayonet was inoperable now, its reserve power supply run dry.

At some point he realized that Raszius had stopped singing again. Aloysius managed to lever his head out of the muck. He tried to speak, and barely managed a croak. “Are we … going over again?” he whispered.

The space marine extended a huge robotic hand and propped Aloysius into a sitting position. The lightning claw gauntlets were surprising gentle.

“Negative,” he said. “We hold here.”

Something about that seemed odd, but Aloysius was too tired to puzzle it out. “Oh,” he said instead. “Good.”

When the first Kherian appeared, hitched to a heavy bolter harness, Aloysius Carver was already asleep.

After a brief lull at the top of the eastern-facing trenches, the remnants of Gold Battalion’s heavy weapons squads—the only soldiers in either Gold or Red Battalions with ammunition to speak of—had arrived. Scouting forays by Sergeant Caro’s Land Speeders had shown that the heretics were beaten, for the moment. Yet Colonel Lewis’ men were spent. Commissar-General Grey’s corps had been unable to move the exhausted troopers another step, and after three summary executions had produced no reaction whatsoever, the Commissar-General had declared it a lost cause. Both sides had huddled, exhausted, on opposite sides of the crest. And all the while, Captain Ciello’s heavy weapons troopers had lugged their burden up the Devil’s Wall.

The western trenches had been dug with greater haste than the eastern, and provided virtually no cover against fire from upslope. Padrig watched, dispassionately, as dozens of squad support weapons were wrestled into position atop the ridge. Heretic fire was virtually nonexistent, their ammunition as spent as the Kherians’.

Loaders connected power cables and fed shells into chambers. Gunners sighted downslope. Fresh waves of terror sent the heretic remnants scrabbling over the fourth trench wall.

And the First Kherian Infantry’s massed squad support weapons opened fire.

Continued in Part 4

**The Last Lamenter** · 08-17-2013, 08:38 AM

Hey Nab,

I'll have some feedback for you tonight, going to light up a cigar and read parts 2 and 3. keep them coming.

**Nabterayl** · 08-18-2013, 11:40 AM

Part 4 - Interlude

Tomas gazed silently at the Devil’s Wall as his command Chimera idled behind him. The grass of the floodplain was ruined and torn, churned by auto fire, bolt shells, mortar bombs, and thousands of hobnailed Kherian boots. The dead and wounded lay to hand on every side. Captain Jessiczk’s White Company was equipped with tracked armored ambulances—an unthinkable luxury to the Kherian mind—but the Samaritans were hopelessly overtaxed, and there simply weren’t enough stretcher crews to gather the wounded. Hell, there weren’t enough stretchers. And even if there had been, they had a captured position to fortify.

Not for the first time that day, Tomas was struck by the familiarity of it all. When the First had been raised, it had been hard not to imagine how warfare amongst the stars would be different. Machine guns, las weapons, tanks—and medicae facilities and expertise that even the best Kherian hospitals could only dream of. Yet here he was, at the foot of a ridge that had been taken at the point of a bayonet in a frontal infantry assault. His tanks were in another star system. His doctors would be lucky to save a tenth of the wounded.

And a phenomenal enemy force was bearing down upon them. If the First was to survive the morrow, he had to get his men on that ridge.

Tomas Gherlin finished surveying the Devil’s Wall and trudged back to his command Chimera without a word.

Father Excoris smiled when Aloysius ducked under the hastily erected tent that sheltered his foundry, but the smile felt the tiniest bit forced. “Young Carver!” he said, and hurried forward to clasp Aloysius’ hands. “I am … very pleased to see you intact. Alive, I mean. Very pleased.”

Aloysius grunted and set his kit bag down on a table. Everything since he awoke from his nap at the top of the Wall was a blur. He vaguely remembered stumbling down the steep-sided ridge, being assigned to a new squad—one full of orphans like him whose squads were out of action—and being told to report to the foundry. That and the bodies. The stench of blood and sh*t choked the trenches.

“My sergeant said that I should get a new set of plates,” he said at last.

The tech-priest gestured to the kit bag, and when Aloysius nodded, he unzipped it. “Were you hit more than three times in the battle?” he asked.

Aloysius paused. “Probably,” he said. “I don’t really remember.”

Excoris sucked in his breath when he saw the flak armor in the bag. “I daresay you did,” he said. “Were you injured?”

Aloysius shook his head, and Excoris reached his hand in to caress the battered armor.

“That is a miracle,” he said. “Praise the Machine God.”

“My plates,” Aloysius said. “Do I have to replace them, Father? We’ve … been through a lot together.”

“Many troopers feel that way when their armor has served them well,” Excoris said. “However, the scriptures admonish us that armor that has turned aside more than three blows be refurbished. This worthy set has earned its rest. As have you,” he added with a sad smile.

Aloysius shrugged again. “Do you have a spare set offloaded from the trailers yet?”

“I mean it,” Excoris went on. “I have served with six different regiments, young Carver, but I have never seen a Guard unit hold its morale in the face of such appalling casualties—and a green regiment, at that! Given what we face tomorrow, I am personally grateful—”

“I’ve seen worse,” Aloysius interrupted. “At Seventh Wolpine. Fifty thousand men dead in a single day. On our side.” His eyes met the tech-priest’s, and somehow Aloysius no longer seemed tired.

Excoris took a careful step back. “For you, Private, I believe I can find a fresh suit of flak armor. I’ll go and fetch it.”

“The good news is that the trenches are mostly intact,” said Adam Baldwell. As commander of Orange Battalion, the First’s artillery detachment, Major Baldwell had taken over the task of surveying the state of the defensive works along with Colonel vul Singt. His Earthshaker cannon were a marvel of the artillerist’s art, with an effective range well in excess of ten kilometers, but there were only eighty-four of them. Tomas reminded himself that, as an infantry regiment, the First was lucky to have even that much organic artillery. Still, he knew that Twelfth Corps included artillery regiments with hundreds of such guns, and he would have dearly loved to have one at his disposal now.

“My men are digging in now,” Colonel vul Singt added. “We do not have enough flakboard to fully repair the damaged sections, but we are doing what we can with picks and d-tools.”

“Thank you, Julius,” Tomas said, and he meant it. Vul Singt’s accent still sounded foreign to him, as did some of his diction—calling shovels “defensive tools” instead of “entrenching tools,” for instance—but he had put Green Battalion to work efficiently as soon as they arrived, detailing platoons to assist Captain Jessiczk, Major Baldwell, and Magos Abscientus’ tech-priests without Tomas needing to order him to do so.

The space marines had been less helpful. They led butcher teams through the western trenches, finishing the wounded enemy with bayonets and their sword-sized combat knives, and then immediately retired to perform some sort of ceremony with their dead (including in that number, for some reason, one of their anti-grav gunships that had crashed into the third trench and a sidecar motorbike). Then they had taken off in their dropships. Phyrius had only returned planetside twenty minutes ago, stomping into the command tent with his first sergeant and a newcomer in rust-red armor.

“What is the state of your guns, Major?” Tomas asked. “The sooner we can get them onto the Wall, the sooner we can begin digging them in. I want you to be sure that your ammunition stores are close at hand when the enemy arrives tomorrow. We cannot afford for your fire to slacken because we are bringing fresh shells from the far side of the ridge.”

Baldwell looked uncomfortable at that. “Yes, General,” he said. “I’m afraid that will be less difficult than you might think. Ammunition for my battalion is … less plentiful than anticipated.”

Tomas steepled his fingers and regarded the major levelly. “Whatever do you mean, sir?” he asked.

“When Gold Battalion’s advance faltered,” Baldwell said, with a sidelong glance at the space marines, “I ordered my guns to intensify their fire. For a good fifteen minutes, every gun in the battalion was firing as fast as we could load. I’m afraid that my reserves are a third less than originally projected.”

“The corps supply depot at Soukkerol is still intact,” Commissar-General Grey pointed out. “Captain Phyrius, perhaps your Thunderhawks could fly supply runs around the heretic host to resupply our artillery?”

Phyrius looked at the red-armored marine. “Brother Tethius?” he asked.

Tethius stood motionless and unreadable in the maddening way that all space marines seemed to have. When he spoke, his voice was even more heavily distorted by his helmet vox than usual. I am afraid that will not be possible, Commissar,” he said. “Our Thunderhawk Transporters brought fresh resupply pods from War Angel, but they are not configured to safely transport Earthshaker shells—nor do we have any in orbit that are.”

“They could be converted,” Magos Abscientus said. Tomas looked at him in surprise; whatever lay between them, Abscientus clearly had no love for the Violet Avatars.

Tethius somehow managed to convey the impression of even greater stiffness. “That is true, Father,” he grated. “Unfortunately, I am not versed in the required rituals.”

Abscientus actually smiled. “No, Brother Techmarine. But I am. My brothers and I will assist you in converting your supply pods if you and yours will risk the flight.”

Phyrius inclined his head. “We will, my lord, if you can convert the pods in time.” Abscientus sniffed.

“Very good, gentlemen,” Tomas said before the civil interlude could expire. “And the guns themselves, Major?”

“The last of the tractors should be arriving at the Wall now,” Baldwell said, “and I have sites selected for each of them. We’re going to have to disassemble the guns to lug them up the Wall, though.”

Sergeant Justus spoke for the first time. “Could we speed the process by lifting the guns by Land Speeder?” he asked. “We could use the tow cables from the Razorbacks.”

“Possible,” Tethius mused. “We would need to rig some way to lift them without interfering with the anti-grav plates, though; we couldn’t attach the cables to their bellies.”

“I believe we could mount the cables at the gunner’s cupola,” Abscientus said. “I will have Enginseer Wasterman consult the databanks. We can have an answer for you within the hour, Major.”

“That will do,” Tomas said. “Now, as to the disposition of the infantry …”

“Let me help you with that, Sir.”

Yu-tien relinquished the handles of the lascannon carrier as Mercero picked it up. The miniature wheeled carriage was awkward to navigate in the confines of the trenches, but it was better than disassembling the weapon, or—God-Emperor forbid—carrying the whole thing intact by hand.

“You really should get to the hospital,” Mercero said, looking at Yu-tien and Colper. Both men still had field dressings on their wounds. Now that the adrenaline had ebbed, the sword wound was a constant burn in Yu-tien’s side.

He snorted. “So we can stand in line until the battle’s over? If we could walk all the way to the hospital, they’d just send us back here anyway.”

“Yes, sir,” Mercero said, though he didn’t look convinced. As far as lascannon gunner was concerned, the Departmento Munitorum’s medicae equipment could fix anything short of literally being blown apart. Maybe that was even true, but if it was, Yu-tien decided, there were others who needed it more than he did.

The three trudged along the trench until they found Drezha’s squad at the platoon’s assigned trench sector.

“What the hell is this?” Yu-tien asked, gesturing. The trench was gouged open, widened upslope and down.

Drezha leaned on his pickaxe. “Space marine gunship was shot down here before we made it into the trench,” he said. “Made sort of a mess.”

“I remember,” Yu-tien said. “Figures we’d get stuck with it.”

“Gives us more room to set up the guns,” Drezha said, gesturing to the collection of pilfered autocannon in the center of the scar. “Word is, the gunship’s crew survived the crash, and the battle. Guy in Red Battalion said when they finally got to this part of the trench, they were still fighting back to back with an autogun in each hand. Bleedin’ space marines, huh?”

Yu-tien grunted. “Well, they left us a good gun nest, if we can get the downslope properly shored. Let’s get back to it.”

The sound of something being driven into the mud made him turn. Private Kha was adjusting the platoon standard.

“Take that down!” Yu-tien barked. Kha blinked.

“Sorry, sir,” he said. “Just seemed … well, I thought Commissar Volk might appreciate it, as it were.”

Yu-tien unfolded his e-tool and headed to the trench wall with a sigh. “Just take it down, son.”

Padrig throttled down his motorbike in the shadow of the Thunderhawk Transporter Homeward Bound, designated Theta Four. The transporter was hunched over the oval shape of its supply pod like an insect guarding an egg case as Magos Abscientus tinkered inside it. He walked over, idly combing his sideburns with armored fingers.

“Magos,” he said. “The chapter appreciates your efforts.”

Abscientus squealed something in techna lengua, and Tethius handed him a part whose function Padrig couldn’t begin to guess. “The chapter, Chaplain?” he asked. “Not you?”

“I as well,” he conceded. “I have to admit that your assistance comes as a surprise.”

Abscientus took a thurible from his belt and sprinkled oil over whatever he was adjusting. “Why is that?” he asked. “Because you kidnapped holy war machines from my homeworld, or because your company killed tens of thousands of faithful servants of the Machine God in your pursuit of the Flawless Legion?”

Padrig swallowed the objection that tens of thousands was an exaggeration. The last, desperate push during the purge of Astor IV had smashed left hablocks in ruins for several kilometers along the path of the company’s advance, in a densely populated area of the underhive. A great many people were likely left without water or power in the aftermath. The total death toll might well have reached into the tens of thousands.

“That was about what I had in mind,” he said instead.

Abscientus straightened, leaning heavily on his Omnissian axe. “Chaplain Crucis,” he said, “Your chapter and my forge world are bound by ancient vows of friendship and mutual support. To be frank, I consider your entire company a stain on your chapter’s honor. However,” he said, holding up a hand, “Today your brothers risked their lives to evacuate Wisdom of Hate from the field, at great personal risk.”

“No one is left behind,” Tethius said automatically from behind the tech-priest.

Padrig frowned reprovingly at Abscientus. “You cannot expect me to believe that one techevac has changed your mind about us,” he said.

“Of course not,” Abscientus agreed. “I do appreciate what your chapter is doing here, of course.”

Padrig quirked an eyebrow at him. “Oh?” he asked. “What are we doing?”

“Come, come, Chaplain!” Abscientus clucked. “The First Kherian Infantry is a first founding regiment. It is Astor IV’s holy duty to supply it, and all the Kherian regiments to come. The lords of Astor IV have a vested interest in seeing the regiment succeed. You must have noticed that the First is unusually well supplied.”

Padrig nodded, and Abscientus continued. “Be that as it may, no single regiment warrants the support of an entire space marine company—and yet as you yourself said, Chapter Master Porphyrus specifically ordered you to support this regiment, not the war effort as a whole. No, Chaplain, I understand why you are here, and why it is your company in particular that Porphyrus sent. He is extending an olive branch to Astor IV by supporting one of our pet regiments. No doubt Captain Phyrius was made to swear some sort of ridiculous oath before undertaking this mission.”

Padrig smiled broadly. “If he had, I am certain he would not mention it to General Gherlin, or to you.”

“No need. I understand the sacrifice you are offering all the same.”

“And thus the change of heart?” Padrig inquired.

Abscientus turned to the supply pod again. “No,” he said. “Sacrifice or not, you are self-important jackasses with delusions of military significance, whose congenital inability to see beyond your cloistered little world gets good men and women killed. But if we lose tomorrow’s battle due to lack of ammunition, I doubt you will be evacuating me aboard one of these Thunderhawks.”

“You should get some sleep, Tom.”

Tomas nodded absently. Bobby Lewis took a seat across the campaign table from him with two steaming mugs of bacca. He slid one to Gherlin, who wrapped his hands around it gratefully.

“No lho stick?” Tomas asked.

Lewis grunted. “Not tonight.” Tomas nodded again. At last report, Lewis’ battalion had suffered seventy percent casualties—and he had gotten off lightly compared to Andreson. Gold Battalion was barely fifteen percent combat effective, essentially reduced to a heavy weapons reserve in the third trench.

That thought brought Tomas’ attention back to the map on the campaign table. Though the men continued to dig even at this hour, and Baldwell’s Earthshakers were in position, tomorrow was going to be bloody. Yes, they had the ridge, and yes, they had more artillery than the rebels had had. But the remnants of Redstone’s force outnumbered the First three to one even at full strength; the odds facing them tomorrow were closer to ten to one. And the rebels would have tanks. Tomas had never fought armor before; no Kherian had. He could only trust that vul Singt’s Green Battalion would hold in the face of this terrifying new threat. Captain Phyrius had promised two squads to support the effort at the Wall itself: Sergeant Zaphan’s Predator light tanks and tank destroyers, and Sergeant Caro’s Land Speeder gunships. Phyrius assured him that this sort of armored warfare was his company’s true specialty, but Tomas was darkly certain that it would matter little in the end. The space marines would have to stay close to the north end of the wall for cover against the superior rebel armor, which would limit their effectiveness. In any case, at the end of the day it was only nine vehicles. Nobody had a firm count on how many rebel vehicles had survived the Battle of Gestonburg, but the space marines were guaranteed to be hideously outnumbered.

Then there was the problem of the badlands north of the Wall. With such a numerical advantage to work with, there was every reason to believe that Redstone would send troops through the broken terrain in an attempt to flank the Wall from the left, or even envelope it completely. It might be slow going, and with Marshal Kharim on his heels, he could ill afford to wait until his flanking maneuver was in place to begin the attack, but it could well spell the end of any defense even if Green and Orange Battalions were able to stop the frontal attack. Blunting that attack would fall to the remnants of Red Battalion, supported by the remainder of the space marine strike force.

He tapped the badlands on the map. “Do you think I made a mistake, not insisting that Phyrius keep his men in the trenches?” he asked.

Lewis sipped his bacca contemplatively. “Don’t know how much good it would have done if you had,” he observed. “They clearly don’t take orders from us.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Lewis said finally. Tomas gestured for him to go on, and he sighed. “I don’t know if we would have taken the Wall without them, at least not without throwing Julius’ boys in too,” he admitted. “Oh, they’re stone-cold killers,” he said with a wave of his hand, “but there are just too few of them to do a job like this. Their real contribution was in getting the men up the slope. With their painted clown armor and those absurd weapons, you just have to believe that they know something you don’t. Confidence. Inspiration. I don’t mean to downplay the men’s spirit—my God, Tom, how they fought!—but there was a moment where I thought we were done for, and the space marines snapped the boys out of it just by going over the top first.”

Tomas smiled gently. “You aren’t filling me with confidence,” he said.

“I’m getting there,” Lewis said with an answering grin. He sipped his tea again. “Here’s the but: tomorrow, we aren’t going over the top. Phyrius is only keeping, what, about sixty men on the ground? Less than that, given the casualties they suffered? Suppose you split those men up like he did today. Maybe they do put some more steel into the spines of those who are close enough to see them, but in the trenches, that won’t be many. If they engaged the rebels directly, they’d be wiped out in an instant.”

“It was not lost on me that Captain Phyrius did not offer to charge into the enemy’s teeth this time,” Tomas said, and Lewis laughed.

“I don’t know what that man’s problem is, but he isn’t stupid,” he said. “The truth is, Tom, tomorrow is a job for the infantry and the artillery, and space marines are neither. They’re … hell, I don’t know what. Some combination of cavalry, raiders, and terror weapon, I guess. Let them loose in the badlands where they can get up close and personal, and they’ll probably do some good. My boys will be glad to have them, I’ll tell you that. But holding the Wall is up to us.”

Tomas nodded, leaving the obvious question unspoken. “You should join your men, Colonel,” he said. “I think I should get some sleep.”

Continued in Part 5

**Nabterayl** · 08-18-2013, 11:44 AM

Reserved for part 5.

**Nabterayl** · 08-18-2013, 11:57 AM

Reserved, just in case.

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