The Saga of the Runt (Youjo Senki/WH30k)
- Thread starter L4oftheWEST
- Start date
yes sorta purple cloak at least,
oof fixed
AldariSiradla
Knight of the Fountain Pen
Da Purple Ork strikes!
Malcador being Malcador...
Say it without actually saying it...
Malcador being Malcador...
Say it without actually saying it...
Just a thought. Nostramo had crime so deeply ingrained into their culture that even the fear of Konrad couldn't suppress it for that long right? What if (in this AU) it was also originally a LARP thing, or perhaps something to preserve the "culture" of organised crime/mafia style stuff? It could also serve as an explanation for why they returned to crime so easily and why it was so ridden with crime despite the large amounts of adamantium and the economic benefits it brought
Last edited:
yes yes it is... now the question is did you spot pork we missed in the editing, or are you referencing pork barrel politics by which bit something snuck into pot for local businesses to get a person to do a thing... because if you read patron list you're not wrong...
a problem really
hmm that mmm on one hand i want to say not... on the other... going to give this some thought...
Just a funny shortening of purple ork
Chapter 24, Wolf games
Chapter 24, Wolf games
Tanya Russ
Looking out the window or screen… I still needed to look into the details of how they made the outside visible inside ships like these. Though asking stupid questions was not something I would want to do in my opinion. After all I'd come from a medieval-style world, start asking questions like 'is this glass or not?' could be taken as to imply you were not as intelligent as your primary brain should allow you to be. At the moment I was just betting it must be LCD screens of some type till I found some way to determine what was really going on without appearing out of sorts.
Anyways, back on the main subject, I was looking out the window at a collection of desiccated and barely functioning ships that could be best described as somehow brought to life by the will of duct tape.
The Star Hunters Pathfinders had tracked the Orks through a side passage into the Wheel of Fire and informed my fleet where this location was, from there I'd go into work moving my fleet to this location as well as elements of the auxiliary Militarum and the Squats expeditionary force.
From there we had pushed into this crack in the barrier that separated the Wheel of Fire from the rest of the galaxy and had found ourselves above one of the many fortress worlds that made up this Ork empire. A truly ugly planet, it appeared to be mostly covered in either rocky outcroppings or jungles. There were also a few of what I would have to guess were Ork cities and slaver compounds, probably just there to gather scrap considering they seemed to worship duct tape as if it was the cure to all known diseases.
We would have to fight our way through the fleet before commencing landing operations and, well, burning the planet as best we could again. There were civilians down there and, though I saw the logic in just bombarding the planet, if we could perform operations to get those civilians out we would get credit from the local civilizations. Yes most of them were feudal kingdoms that were on the level of Russ or worse, but it would do the Imperium's image very well in my opinion.
After all wars are fought on the battlefield but won at home. Being able to see that you were doing good, not only for people who could ally with you but also for your own people, improved people's morale. That improved morale meant more resources would make it to the front, which resulted in a nice little repeating cycle of 'the more resources get to the front the better operations go there, so the morale goes up'. So on and so forth until victory was claimed.
As I mused on that our fleet was already starting to move into position to begin combat with the Ork fleet. The one here wasn't as well-stocked as the one near the known entrance to the Wheel of Fire, which was good. Fewer combat vessels meant fewer casualties to be taken, I hoped. We simply needed to make sure that we had a successful fight here today and I had a feeling it would go well. The fact of the matter was that, with two-to-one odds in our favor and with us having bigger ships than them, I could relatively safely say we were going to win this.
And once we had security of space over the planet it would be easy to get to work cleaning up the planet below.
Not only that, our entrance into the Wheel of Fire here would pull ships from the 'official' entrance to try and secure their own planets from us. This would make the front weak enough that the Iron Warriors could push forward and begin sieging the fortress world next on the list of worlds that guarded the entrance to the Wheel of Fire.
Most of their ground forces were still pretty busy working by a third of my Space Wolves laying siege to the first planet we had assaulted. It was still holding out as the Orks had built a large supply network underneath their main fortress. Or they simply were eating each other, I don't know. What was important was that the planet was under siege and the Iron Warriors were in their element. I had read the reports sent my way by Legion Master Elyphis Diorius and he thanked me for a third of my army and told me that operations were well underway, he had given an outline that they'd have the fortress taken in the year. He apparently hoped that the initial bombardment would wipe the Orks out after we cleaned out the slave population but unfortunately the bombardment didn't reach deep enough and the Orks were well and truly really stocked from all appearances. However the good news was the planet had been cleansed up to that fortress. All mushrooms had apparently been tracked down and destroyed by various auxiliary Militarum forces. Once the remaining Orks were cleaned out the planet could be theoretically settled with any surviving slaves we managed to free from the other planets, if we didn't send them directly home.
Which was an intriguing thought. If we settled the gateway to this Wheel of Fire sector it could be a very useful tool in the future. The fact that we didn't have a read on this sector because the nebula hid it, and every movement inside it, meant it could be a very good redoubt for us if we could convert it to our own use. I was tempted to leave a garrison behind to watch over this sector when this conflict was over. Never knew when having a backup supply base would come in handy, especially this far out from Fenris.
Which was a line of thought all on its own. I was light-years away from Fenris at this point, I had traveled well past halfway across the galaxy. Yes, I could depend on imperial resources to keep us supplied but I liked the notion of having a backup plan a lot more than just assuming that the Imperium would always supply me. Fact of the matter was, Emperor was going to have some sort of dispute in the future with Mars and most of the resources came from Mars. Why else was he making moves to secure a secondary resource in the dwarves? Sorry, Squats. At least I didn't say that out loud.
He was already building redundancies into the system. If the empire of Mars ever tried to break away from the Imperium the Squat Leagues may be able to fill the hole that that rebellion would tear. Hmmm… if such a rebellion should ever happen, well there was a Forge World that was part of the Mars empire in this region. Having a logistical base, in case I had to be deployed in this area to deal with that, could be useful. That was thoughts for the future but I probably should look into establishing a few enclaves of soldiers on rotation, not only to maintain supply bases in case I needed to deploy to an area and didn't have supplies in the region but also to get them training on environments they wouldn't normally get the occasion to train in. After all Icrinda had been an icy alpine mountain world while the planet below me was mostly craggs and jungle. That was something we probably would come across regularly but not something we would train in often. If I were to set up some sort of training program here my wolves would have a better time when facing conflicts like this.
Not only that, it would improve our reputation in the system as well. No doubt the Space Marines would be a bit on the bored side and be willing to help the local population out in search of distractions. They would provide some good old propaganda by helping to cut down trees and such, keeping the population happy and connected to the Space Marines. Very well, something I should consider.
But these were thoughts for the future, once again. That probably would take 10 years if the Mechanicum' data was correct, an unfortunate idea. If anything I would like to cut that in half if possible but I'd also like to have fewer casualties than predicted. I would work with what I had.
To take me away from those thoughts though the battle had been joined as elements of the Imperial Navy began fighting Ork ships, the fleets engaging in broadsides and hit and run tactics. An Ork ship, not caring about what would happen, smashed into one of ours, smashing both to pieces. A one-to-one trade, it would seem, was something they were willing to take. Not good.
Sure we had the advantage of numbers for this fight and, one for one, I was willing to bet they were weaker. But more would show up and who's to say we would not meet two-to-one odds next time, maybe three-to-one. From the scout data that the Iron Warriors and Star Hunters had given me the fleet at the second stronghold into this sector was massed in heavy formations. They were unsure of the exact numbers but it was rather large, large enough that if it came here it might be a problem for my fleet.
Thankfully the nature of this sector and its strange Warp winds made it hard for them to move around to quickly assault places, just as it made it hard for us to do so. They would have to take the slow roads to fight back, giving us possibly months of time to worry about what was on the planet below. Hopefully though we have a bit longer.
Captain Nemmius Tetanus came up to where I was standing giving me a salute, which I returned before he said, "King Russ, the Star Hunter flotilla has transitioned through the crack and they wish to begin exploring as quickly as possible to find paths and ascertain our location within the sector."
I nodded, it was good to have allies who were good at their job and wanted begin working as soon as possible. So I simply said, "Give him permission and tell them good hunting. If they find out anything interesting they are to make sure to let us know, they are our eyes and ears in this sector and we're going to need to use them heavily for this."
The Captain saluted again before walking off to a panel and talking to the staff working there. Most likely finding the best way to send that message. No doubt there would be unusual radio events thanks to the strange Warp winds generated by this sector's nebula, which could block communications if not taken into account.
Turning my attention back to the screens, I saw the Orks launch a few asteroids in the general direction of our fleet. Most were destroyed by fire from friendly ships but one managed to actually make its way all the way through the fleet, smoking as much as a rock could smoke in space after taking so much fire. Only to bounce off the front of my ship. I barely felt the impact from where I was standing so obviously the amount of force they had thrown at us had either not been great enough or the shields had done a good enough work that whatever force they had was rather useless.
After about 30 minutes it looked like the enemy fleet was starting to disintegrate, either retreating or fleeing. Hard to tell as I didn't think there was really any good order to their movement. At a guess I'd go with fleeing. Which resulted in a bit of a cheer going up amongst the crew, already thinking that victory was in our grasp. I smiled as I watched this, knowing that this was only part one of what was to come. We would have to go down to the planet now and do the best we could but we would most likely end up having to burn the jungle down. The other areas of the planet had very little in the way of vegetation so searching out Ork spores would be slightly easier. I was still betting it would take a while, better just to burn it and let it regrow after a few years.
Thinking those slightly darker thoughts I was distracted from them by a beep on a comlink of sorts that I'd been given as part of my armor. Pressing that I heard the voice of Malcador.
"Good evening, Tanya. How goes the war?"
"The war goes well, we've just defeated the enemy fleet and will soon be deploying forces to the planet in order to free the slaves."
"You have a bit of a too kind heart, Tanya… or you're playing a very well thought-out game."
"I like to think it's a very well thought-out game." I mused, before saying, "Why are you calling me, Malcador?"
"Oh, nothing much, nothing much. I've been preparing a little test of your skills and I would like you to join me in my quarters for the conversation as well."
I raised an eyebrow but then I realized that he couldn't see that so I just said, "Well, I guess I can spare a few minutes. I should really be leading my men into combat."
"Your legion is well trained, Tanya, you've seen to that. Not only that, your men need to have moments of glory to themselves. Let them have their first fight without you now that you've trained them. Let them see that they can do things without you, so that they may know that they are trusted. Besides that this little game I have prepared is going to take us an hour or two, so I would prefer you to simply leave them be for now. After all I'm told there are only slaves down on that world and there will still be slaves tomorrow as well. Freeing them now versus tomorrow is really no difference to them."
I wasn't sure about that. If I was a slave I'd rather be free today than tomorrow but I would let him have his little game conversation he wanted, it would give me time to avoid Adelheid. She had taken an interest in helping my girls get me into my armor.
"Alright, Malcador. I'll be down there in a moment." I said.
Shaking my head I turned away and said to the captain, "Good work on the combat. As soon as space above the planet is cleared contact the company commanders and tell them to begin landings. They have the freedom to do as necessary while on the planet."
Nodding, the captain gave me a salute as I left the room and headed towards Malcador's chambers on the ship. Which happened to be right across from my own.
I was not wearing my typical armor today, though I should have probably gone ahead in getting ready for this battle. I had taken things a little bit easy today on that matter. Though I did wear the undersuit! I think Leave had commissioned some clothing in my size, almost normal in style. It looked very similar to the Imperial Army's uniform, besides a bit of fur here or there to show my Fenris roots.
Quickly traveling the hallways I found myself arriving at Malcador's room and, making a point of it, I rapped on the door as loudly as I could without accidentally knocking it open.
After a moment the door opened to reveal… no one standing there to beckon me to enter. Shaking my head I simply poked my head in and said, "First Lord of Terra, are you in here?"
"Yes. Of course I am!" came the old voice of the Emperor's confidant, sounding annoyed that I had not simply entered.
"Well then, Malcador, may I come in?" I asked from the doorway, really rubbing in the fact that I would prefer him to do the same when trying to get my attention.
"Yes, yes, come on in," came the old voice which I immediately responded to by walking inside, taking note of just how dark the room was. It really wasn't hard to figure out why, apparently he preferred candles for his lighting fixtures. I would have figured those were unsafe but I guess they were spiked into the wall sockets.
Looking around I quickly saw him standing at a table with a board in front of him as he looked over the pieces in interest, "I have come up with an interesting lesson plan for today, I think: Trying to help you improve your sight. Take a seat," he offered, pointing towards the seat across from me.
"Improve my sight?" I asked, walking over and quickly noting he'd apparently had one of the chairs from my room brought over. Another invasion of privacy, although maybe he'd simply had one commissioned that could fit me. Being a giant I did have to be careful not to sit on something that would result in me tumbling backwards, so it was at least nice of him to have something prepared.
Beyond that, on the table, was a chess set. It looked a lot like a chess set at least, two rows of eight pieces staying across from each other. One was black, one was white, and they seemed to be on a checkered board very similar to what a chess set would display. Beyond that there was a small device at each corner of the board that seemed to be blinking and I wasn't sure what they were for. I shrugged and walked to the seat across from him, seating myself.
It was only after I took the seat that I figured out what those devices were for, as everything in front of the white pieces except for the first space went black. I may not have been a major strategy gamer in my day but I played once or twice and I could get the concept of this right away. "Fog of war?" That got a nod of approval from the old man.
"This game is called regicide, the hooded version. If you're interested in the exact variant we start the match with 16 pieces each, one line of pawns in the front that can move forward one to two spaces. They are followed on the second line by specialty units such as-"
"Rooks, Knights, Bishops, King, and Queen," I said, trying to take a stab at speeding this idea up. We were just explaining chess might as well show that I knew something.
"Not bad. You've obviously played one of the original versions, I know that the general rules haven't changed much just the technology around it. So let's take a stab at this, what do you not know?"
"I'm going to assume that the fog of war can be lifted by our pieces to a point? That's new to me for chess though other games had similar ideas, Age of Empires and such."
"Never heard of it." He said matter of factly before getting us back on topic. "Alright. Well, yes. Pawns give you a sight of one, Knights going to give you a sight of two, the piece you referred to as a Queen also does. Bishops and Rooks though still have a sight of one."
"Makes sense, scout units have better sight while units meant for destroying formations through better movement have sight equivalent to a Pawn.
"You may move your piece first," Malcador said. "I didn't have any reason not to so I reached out and grabbed a pawn near the center, moving it out of the full two spaces and clearing the zone to my sight. I wanted to see what was in front of me.
"So, what's the objective of this little game?" I asked, vaguely feeling something prodding at my mind that I tried to block. I believe I did it? Well he seems unfazed.
"Quite simple. The objective is to win. All you have to do is to win," He said, sounding a little bit coy on that answer as he moved a piece out in the dark. I suspected I already knew what was going on so I moved this Pawn forward again. Only one spot, just to see if I was right.
As I suspected there was a Knight waiting right there; in position to take my Pawn if I moved to that one space. Looking up at Malcador I immediately said, "This is a test to see if I can penetrate your mental defenses enough to figure out what you're doing outside of my sight."
"Correct." He answered, moving his piece and taking my Pawn. "I can't see your Pawns, you can't see my Pawns but we can see each other, we can mentally reach out and try and figure out what we're each doing. Thus we have a better idea of the board than simply what's revealed to our eyes out of the shadows."
"Putting my abilities to the test, I see," I mused, before adding "Though it seems odd that you would use a game to do such a test of ability." As I said this I moved a piece near the edge of the board, trying to keep my defenses up as heavily as possible so he didn't know what I was doing.
"True, true. I will admit I haven't had anyone play regicide with me for a long time and I've needed a good opponent. Or at least a student who could learn quickly enough to be consistently good at it."
He moved a piece that I couldn't see and I moved another piece on my side of the board, a knight unit ranged to give me a better view of the board and showing me that he had in fact moved a Pawn to try and counter my Pawn.
"You do need some work on your defenses though. Anyone of lesser abilities would have plenty of trouble seeing through it but I will admit there are things with stronger abilities than myself out there. The Emperor for one, the Eldar for another."
I raised an eyebrow. I didn't know why he brought up Emperor, it seemed an odd statement considering his loyalties but maybe I was looking too deep. I doubted someone who was an ally of Emperor would attempt to plot some sort of mad overthrow with a member of his family. That would be madness and stupidity on levels I hope humanity had abandoned at some point. But then again they apparently had blasted a galactic empire back to the stone age so you never know.
But more likely this was about the Eldar. Could there be some sort of Eldar presence in the region? I had yet to see them, I only heard rumors of their existence in reality and they had apparently been one of the causes of the Long Night. Supposedly. And apparently they had some sort of empire well before humanity did, which meant they were someone that I should not take lightly and follow Malcador's beliefs. I should work on improving my mental fortitude in case we ever ran into them, that much was probably a sign that I should improve my mental fortitude. With that thought, I redoubled my efforts to try and build some sort of blocking wall to keep him out as he moved his next piece, another Pawn, to the side of my Cavalry. He was obviously trying to draw me into an outward assault, most likely so that something else could kill it.
Instead I again moved other piece, building a solid defensive line as far forward as possible without going over to his side of the board. I was trying to draw him in or find out what he was planning. For the most part the board remained quiet and my efforts to pierce his own mind were not going well. though with whatever little data he did provide me I was able to get a good estimate that he was testing to see if he could find a weakness in my line. Which could implicate that either he was having trouble seeing my plans or he wasn't sure where to go from there.
Well apparently he'd been toying with me. I made one move and then all of a sudden the game sped up as pieces began to be exchanged, before long it was obvious he would win. "Fine." I put my hand on the table reflexively, before saying, "I believe you won this game, Malcador."
He nodded, his eyes looking at my hand with interest, before saying "You did good. For the second half there I wasn't getting as clear of a view of what you were planning or what you were doing. The first half though had given away most of what your plans were so I just relied on what I had already seen from your actions and motions."
I shook my head before saying "Good is not good enough in a combat situation. Here, sure, but if someone were able to try that in the real field a lot of good men would have just died."
"A reliable point, yes." He said matter of factly, before saying "Though you're not hopeless, you'll get the hang of it soon enough I feel. Hopefully before something that requires its use happens. Now here's a question that's bugging me: Why did you put your hand on the table like that when you offered your surrender?"
Looking down I shrugged before saying, "Used to play a card game where, in order to offer surrender, you would put your hand down on your deck when you realized you were done. Old habit, hadn't played it for a good long time by the time of my death." It was only after it said that that I realized I'd screwed up. I played Yu-Gi-Oh when I was in my first life as a salaryman and it's been a very short stint because I had to go on to college rather quickly. I played only a year or two but it had been a fun game at the time in the 2000s.
Which was the problem. My first life in the 2000s. As far as Malcador knew I remembered only my second life, which had been in the 1930s give or take regarding the general period from what we had narrowed it down to at this point. As far as he was concerned I didn't have many memories of that 1930s life, I had utterly screwed up on this one.
Turning to look at Malcador I waited to see what would happen, guarding my thoughts as heavily as possible just in case he was peeking.
He seemed amused at something, before saying "Oh it seem this has had an added benefit: we've uncovered two interesting things today. One, some of your memories from your life before this can be regained by association. Two, it's very well possible that the game known as PBVFDHCSP existed 28,000 years ago. There were only rumors and theorized beliefs about the matter, no evidence though up to this day. Quite interesting."
I blinked as my good luck had just saved myself a headache. The fact that humanity had lost so much of their history had created enough wiggle room that a mistake like that could easily be overlooked. Although the idea that a card game that had existed 28,000 years ago still kicked about was a bit of a hard sell. 90% sure that a little bit of cardboard with tin foil wouldn't last that long.
"PBVFDHCSP? I've never heard of this," I said, trying to get more details.
Nodding his head in though Malcador said, "Deck of 60 to 40 cards, you draw five cards at the start of the game and you draw one each time it's your turn. You have so many life points before you lose and you summon monsters to fight each other. Sound familiar?"
"Vaguely, it sounds a bit like the card game I'm thinking about. Yet I find it hard to believe it would have existed this long."
Malcador shrugged before saying "At some points in history those cards' prices were more stable than the currency they were being bought with. As a result, a couple times they were in fact currency for a few governments. Though those were very short-term governments.
As far as they are nowadays, they're simply back to being a card game that people enjoy. Usually among the upper class since we can actually afford the cards. From what historical documents can be found it appears that large swaths of the cards that once existed have been lost to time. Not to mention some cards that do exist mention cards that don't exist now, increasing the likelihood that we don't have a full deck on what was created back then. Multiple attempts to rebuild the ancient texts of the cards have been made, which has resulted in several different leagues and styles of plays."
"Huh," I said, sitting back a bit, shocked by all this information and wondering if I could possibly profiteer off my knowledge on this lost bit of History. I didn't remember everything from back then but if there were a few cards that people were looking for that I could remember then selling the knowledge of what was there seemed to be reasonable. It would help fund my campaigns. Helping to improve Fenris was a goal after all to make my life easier on that planet so I could retire in peace and simply focus on my wolves.
I was brought back from those thoughts when Malcador said "If you want I could recommend a deck or two that I think you'd like. It will cost you a pretty penny I'm sure but I've been looking for someone to play that game with as well. It seems like you have some idea how to play it so if you're interested?"
Nodding my agreement, I said "I'd like that. I think I'll give that a try. Meanwhile I guess we'll continue to try and play the game of reading each other's minds."
"Oh, of course. That and a few other tricks that I could teach you through that game as well."
Tanya Russ
It was officially a week since we had started bombardment of the planet and rescued all the slaves we could find. In that week I believe we had destroyed over 70% of the biosphere.
On one hand that was an incredible waste of life. On the other hand it was plant life and harboring enemy soldiers. Reenacting Vietnam on a planetary scale by dumping fire and other harmful death substances all over the planet was not what I expected to be doing on this campaign but then again it was working. We were slowly digging out exactly what locations the Orks cared about and were protecting and what locations they were not. Not only that we were coming to find that even though the Orks didn't appear too far entrenched in our first few days there were areas they were further entrenched, primarily on the northern continent. We had hit things in the jungles but the Orks had fortifications of several lines around what could be best described as a castle. One that predated Ork ownership of the world by my guess.
So even though we were bombarding the planet, burning the atmosphere, killing everything that lived that could support life on that world… The Orks still held at that fortification. As long as they held that fortification there was not much we could do in the matter of rooting them out from this planet, something I would really like to do. Having full control of it would provide us a supply base inside the sector.
The captain of my battleship had recommended the use of what was called World Killer weapons to finish it off. I was actually considering it. Destroying the biosphere completely and getting rid of the Orks would be one way to settle the matter of this world quite neatly. Sure it would mean sure that any civilians we had missed were as good as dead and would be a disgusting mark in my opinion on the humanitarian image I had been cultivating for myself the last few months but acceptable losses were acceptable losses and it shouldn't be too hard to brush the whole mess under the rug.
However that would do me no good in building a strategic supply point for our forces in this sector. We could burn every planet in the sector but we would still need to be able to hold something, otherwise someone else would just move in and take it for themselves.
No we needed to take the planet, that was the simple fact of the matter. We needed to take it, crush the Orks, and cleanse the last few pieces of land they controlled of their mushroom kingdom. Problem was of course that we would need to begin another round of landings, this time with an eye on destroying their fortifications.
Sure I had ordered bombardments of the planet in the regions they held to try and soften those fortifications up but objectively we would need to land, move forward, kill anything in there, and secure the area. During that process we were going to take casualties, there were no if, ands, or buts about it. You did not run across No Man's Land without taking casualties and that was what we were facing. Granted we had plenty of armored personnel carriers and tanks to hide behind, as well as plenty of aircraft but they also had plenty of AA guns.
It would be a battle about which side could maintain air control. That would probably be the main determinant and maybe, just maybe, my Space Marines would be able to pull off a win.
Well, we would not be alone. I had asked for the Iron Warriors to send over a contingent of their troops to help teach my men how to lay siege to a fortress. And to make sure everything went well I also invited the Squats to land their armored land trains. I didn't know how well they would do but I figured having mobile fortresses and bunkers might draw some fire from my armored personnel carriers. And they might be able to push further than we could, some of those trenches looked rather deep on the map. Deep and wide, I worried that the armored personnel carriers would not be able to cross them. Instead, they might get stuck in the mud of the trench with their back exposed for any enemy to fire at.
No doubt we would need to have engineer units on standby to build a few bridges across the trench works, just to get us across in a few places. That also might mean that the infantry would need to push ahead to the next set of trenches to secure ways for the APCs, which made them almost useless for their intended purpose.
I shook my head, there was not much I could do about that now. I needed to focus on getting ready to go to the planet below, to get an idea of what we were looking at here. Already about 3/4 of my legion were deployed to the planet, building siege fortifications around their strongholds to keep the Orks hemmed in. The only reason I wasn't down there yet was because I was waiting on Miss Adelheid of Mars to finish tightening a few bolts.
The girls were helping as well but I had to admit her mechadendrites were far more successful in sealing the gaps in my armor as tight as they needed to be. Even if I had to suck in a little bit of extra air to make sure it didn't get too tight when they were tying the chest piece.
I thought we had done a pretty good job of it today and everything was handled until Robo girl spoke up, saying something in that binary language of hers before continuing in high Gothic. "When this campaign is over I'm going to need to take a look at that armor and make some more adjustments. I think you appear to have grown in a few areas since I was given the information of what your sizes would be."
I let out a sigh, nodding my agreement to that. At least I hadn't gotten taller though I seemed to be becoming more of an icon of femininity. Emperor had obviously made some massive mistake in his thinking on how he was going to design these bodies, because being a pinnacle of humanity might not mean much for a male outside strength and toughness… But for a female it meant a few other things it would seem.
Secretly I was beginning to suspect there was a bit more magic to this whole thing than he had exactly explained. Oh, sure I had some general thoughts after meeting Orks and the Emperor himself that simply implied that he had attempted to replicate the way the Orks chose a leader by providing some sort of psychic field that would cause their leader to grow. Well, that was fine and dandy for an all-male species. They would grow just taller and stronger. For a female? Well, if your existence was partially based off what other people expected and thought about you after meeting you… There were going to be some oddities mixed in with the psychic pool you were bathing in.
Shaking my head, I said, "Thank you, Adelheid. I will see to it that we have a consultation about this matter when I get back up to the ship and we can see about improving the design of it I guess."
The red robed figure nodded as her metal arms seemed to fall back into her robes. "Yes we'll have to do a better sizing, amongst other things. I'm sure there are other bits of armor that we should talk about. That reminds me, have you given any thought to the optional upgrades I pointed to in the book the last time we talked?"
I let out a deep sigh before saying, "Yeah, yeah I did. Most of my fighting seems to end up being at close quarters, though the bolt gun I have works well, but I did take note about the wrist-mounted bolter gun that was offered. It does not have a lot of shots in it, of course, but having the ability to fire off a couple shots at close range if your gun is ever knocked away is a useful trick."
She nodded before saying, "A very useful trick, my Primarch. I will see about getting together the materials right away." She started to step away before stopping and turning to the girls before asking "My Primarch, another question? As you know my field of study is in the creation of female armor… I was wondering if you'd be willing to let me have these girls here for a bit of experimentation in that field."
I raised a rather heavy eyebrow before saying "And what exactly would be happening in this experimentation?"
"Well, I would like to try and figure out a base style light power armor that could be easily reproduced for your Valkyries, as your Space Marines refer to your shield maidens."
I rubbed my armored glove on my chin, thinking. Currently my Valkyries, as apparently the people were calling them, were armored in little more than a black vest which might be a bit better than something you'd see in a terrible movie in the 90s. So getting them in a lighter version of power armor would be quite useful, though I did worry about stepping on the Auxiliary Militarums toes too much. They so far had not lodged any complaints about the fact that I had basically raised my own forces besides the Space Marines but that could always change. Maybe there was a way to avoid causing too much trouble? The Sixth legion's number of quote-unquote 'background personnel' was up to the roof in general and on the ship but I only had about 2 to 300 for personally serving me in various ways. Every other Valkyrie was basically taking up logistic roles or support roles, or maybe supporting their former husband, boyfriend, or brother who joined the legion. So, instead of possibly funding armor for that entire force, maybe I would just fund enough for those directly connected to me. At least until I knew for sure if I was pissing off someone in higher command. Also, the three girls who always helped me get into my armor were giving me puppy dog eyes over the fact that the possibility existed that they could wear armor of a similar style. I wasn't exactly going to break their little dream now, was I.
Letting out a breath, I said, "Yes, they can help you create this armor. Though do not go too wild with your ideas here. I will not be arming the entirety of the shield maidens on this ship in power armor, just those that I feel will be going into combat situations that especially require it more than others."
The red robed woman nodded and said, "Of course, Primarch! Nothing too insane, nothing too heavy. I doubt I would find any Fabricator Generals in the local Forge Worlds that would be willing to create large stockpiles of armor anyways. They are after all quite close-minded on such subjects I fear."
That raised an eyebrow but I let that one slide for now, though it reminded me of my plan to possibly sell Svellgard to Mars in order to build a Forge World inside the Fenris system to support my legion from there. I wonder how I could go about that, would it be as simple as asking the woman in front of me if she'd be interested in becoming a Fabricator General of a new colony in the Fenris system? Maybe not the wisest selection but, as far as I'd seen, she seemed like a reasonable sort.
I would have to prod her in the future, see what I could learn about this situation. But for now, I simply said, "Well, just do what you can. I need to get going," as I looked at my arm which bore a small tactical relay that told me the time and how long I had to get to the next set of ships that would be landing on the planet.
Looking up at the Mars woman, I said, "Thank you for the help and see you next time."
We exchanged cordial goodbyes and I was on my way, walking through the halls of the ship to one of the larger landing areas. Already there was a shuttle waiting for me, half full of Space Wolves that were ready to return to combat.
Popping my helmet on, I walked into the ship, grabbing onto one of the overhead bars as I really couldn't fit in the seats they provided for Space Marines very well. Better just to hold on on my way down, it was easy to lock my armor so that I could remain in the standing position and my feet would be pretty much stuck to the floor thanks to magnets.
The flight down to the planet was rather uneventful. We departed the ship, the shuttle having no real way to view it, and I had to rely on basically the movement of the shuttle to determine if we had even left. Then we started going through the atmosphere. I had been told that when the Marines had first deployed to the planet the drop had been rather nice as there hadn't been many clouds on the planet in the region we were landing and they had enjoyed smooth sailing.
The bombardment and burning of the jungles appeared to have undone that smooth sailing as the ship tended to jerk a bit more than I think it should be doing, either that or the pilot needed a lesson on how to fly but more likely it was just the smoke-filled atmosphere. Which would do the most harm I think in the coming future to the planet's biosphere. Yes, we burnt down most of the forest and killed most of everything that lived but there were areas we would miss, areas that we had determined were not necessary to destroy, areas that were salvageable.
The smoke in the atmosphere would probably kill them or at least let only the toughest variants of life on this planet survive. After all, we basically unleashed a nuclear winter on this planet. Snows would fall, plants would die, and animals would starve for probably 10 to 20 years. It would reverse after that time as the smoke and carbon that had been thrown in the air would fall back to the ground and life would pick up at some point but the planet would probably have a shape far different from the jungle mountain we had originally found when we came here.
What that shape would be was still up in the air. Hopefully it would not be too far away from its original shape but I could see having to import plant life from local systems to try and rebuild what was on this world as a possibility.
A shame really but when dealing with an infection that literally could grow in the shadows you had no other choice but to burn it all out.
Which was why we had to go into the caves and fight the Orks in their fortresses. Yes, we might be able to bombard the fortress to dust, but if they were in the caves the only other way to kill them would be to use planet-killing weapons. And, well, I'd already given my thoughts on that, not to mention the whole reason for taking on this campaign was to get my legion experience. Getting them experience on bombarding a planet from orbit was not exactly going to, well, train them on how to fight the things we'd end up fighting.
Orcs were apparently the most common Xenos in the known galaxy, only humans had more numbers. So it was most likely that we would be fighting their kind for the rest of the Great Crusade, mixed with maybe a few other xenotypes.
My thoughts on this matter were stopped as the ship came into a low fly, indicating we were about to land. A few moments later I heard the distinctive noise of landing gear coming down and then the bang of a safe landing.
After a few moments the shuttle doors opened and I stepped out into the sun, seeing a burnt-out blasted wasteland that could best be described as hell. Granted there were fewer bodies than usually seen on the Western front- Oh! That was a headache, oh that was a major headache. I did my best to hide that thought that just appeared, guess this was the first time I'd actually seen large-scale trench works in this life and it immediately brought back memories of my hidden second life. In this case, apparently, I definitely served in World War One because those trench works I'd seen in the flash of hell that I'd seen before me reminded me quite a bit of old photos from that time.
Shaking my head I stepped over the burnt and scorched landscape towards what appeared to be a bunker that was half-buried in the ground. On one side of the bunker was the symbol of the Wolves of Fenris, wolf head on the prowl. On the other was a symbol of the Iron Warriors, an Iron Skull. This was obviously the bunker where the commander I'd put in charge, the former Legion Master Rathvin, and the commander that the Iron Warriors had sent across were discussing what was to come. Also I noticed another banner which appeared to be a mining pick next to my wolf banner, which may indicate that the dwarves -sorry, the Squats- had already landed and had their commanding officer meeting with ours. Perfect place for a talk then I assumed, opening the door and stepping inside the bunker.
Thankfully whoever had been digging this bunker had been given enough information to make sure it was tall enough that I could stand without issue. So, as I stepped in, I could get a good look at everybody as they worked their various jobs relaying communications from various fronts to other commanders in the field who needed to know. As well as one black-haired officer who was one of the few who had unfortunately gained a face that remarkably resembled mine from the process and was apparently handing out large stacks of paper with information about what resources needed to go where.
I did my best not to think about those kinds of officers, soldiers who had gained my face in one semblance or another. The genetics of imprinting your own DNA on someone was weird, it felt almost like a violation of their personhood in a way and the fact that they seemed to have gained my skill with paperwork made that feeling even more so.
Granted they had all volunteered for their job, all volunteered to go through the process, and they all knew the risks. I'd made sure of that. So it was not exactly my fault they were now doomed to look a bit like me for all eternity. But I didn't feel exactly right about it on any level, like I had violated a portion of their existence. But all things considered they were the lucky ones, there were some extremely rare cases I was keeping under wraps while my people figured out what the hell was going on. The odds were around one in 100,000, supposedly, from the sample size of three times that we had. Whatever, the mishap had happened and, well… It stepped on Father's wishes about there being no female Space Marines. Oh, that one of them I think probably wouldn't count for that exact deal.
Shaking my head off of the strangeness of genetics that was Space Marines I took a look across the room again. Across from me were what I would guess for the three high officers, my former legion Master Rathvin who was having a chat with Mettiunnias Titutus of the Iron Warriors.
They were what was to be expected of Space Marines, their helmets having been taken off to sit next to them on the table or holographic table which was displaying large swaths of the battlefield for them to view and talk over. The third member though was different as was apparent, mainly because someone had to get him a stool so he could get a good view of the map. Though that was not the only difference I think, most Space Marines would not let being shorter than an average Space Marine mean he would have a harder time seeing the information.
What I noted was slightly different as what he was doing struck memories in my own brain, thankfully not of my second life. I did not need to deal with that headache as I considered what I was looking at.
The Squat was standing near the map with his own version of power armor I think. For the most part, it was not very different than what was expected. Ours tended to be of gray and blue and the Iron Warriors just gray while the one worn by the Squat was sort of a white and gold. He had a thick beard that went down well past his stomach, which did not look very combat efficient. But hey apparently the ancient colonizers, upon realizing that humanity was shrinking on their set worlds, had played well into the concept of dwarves. I could not exactly blame them. Tolkien's influences were everywhere and they already knew about what could be best described as space elves by that point, so might as well have a little fun with the whole situation of your population shrinking but not because of the birth rate.
No, what drew my notice was the fact that he had the hairstyle. The large amount of hair, seeming to brush forward and then up into a wave. The hairstyle made popular by animes in the '80s and 90s about biker delinquents.
I had to hold myself together from laughing though I was on the crux of that from the absurdity of this entire situation. That and the fact that no one else in this entire galaxy besides maybe the emperor would even get the insanity I was looking at and laugh with me.
Shaking myself into control I stepped forward and said "Good afternoon, gentlemen. How goes the war?" I figured talking would be the best way to cover up the laughter that wanted to tear its way out. Maybe they'd say something so shocking that I would forget about what I was seeing.
The Legion Master nodded and spoke first, saying "The war goes well, my Primarch. In the next few hours we're about to launch a new assault on the enemy lines, thanks to Bomen here," he said, indicating the Squat who was… smiling, I think? Somewhat hard to tell through the mass of hair over his mouth.
"Oh? What gives us the ability to launch an assault, I've been hearing reports that there is trouble with that effort."
"The land trains, oh tall one." The space dwarf said, sounding overly smug before he continued.
"We've deployed the first combat ones yesterday and they will be in position to start their assault on the enemy lines in the next few hours. The bastards won't know what hit them, we'll roll across their trenches like they're nothing and turn the ground to a flat plane that your little tankettes can fall behind. You'll be able to clear up any enemies who somehow do not die to our superior automation."
"You seem very self-assured about this," I said before saying "Do you have some sort of backup plan? In case your land trains dewheel, preventing them from moving forward."
"Of course I do! We'll deploy bikers to the area around the tanks and clear up as much as we can, give the crew time to fix the trains and then start moving again. Your tanks will probably be useful in keeping our sides clear during such operations but either way we will push forward into their lines and kill every goddamn green bastard we see."
I nodded before looking toward the leader of the Iron Warriors, saying, "Any other thoughts on the matter?"
He spoke up, saying, "You've been bombarding them for nearly a week straight. The enemy is cut off, surrounded, and has nowhere to go. Not only that you've committed several smaller assaults to waste some of their ammunition, this overwhelming assault of land trains seems reasonable enough."
Looking at all three leaders I realized they had already decided the operation would go this way, they were just waiting for my okay. I saw problems with this plan though but then again It also could work. As always, without contact with the enemy, without seeing what they had, there was no way to know if it would fail outright or work. And most of all this would give my men training on how to deal with defending armored columns which could be invaluable in coming conflicts.
Nodding my head, I said, "Alright then,. The plan seems reasonable enough, when does it begin?"
The Squat lifted his wrist and looked at a panel on his armor before saying "Two hours, my dear. 'Bout that, do you perhaps want to ride aboard the lead armored train to combat.
I shook my head at that, "My place is here with my men. I will follow along in the tankettes as you call it." That was more of a side step, the land trains were going to be the main target of any fire from the Orks. Big slow crap like that would be death traps. 50 percent chance we weren't going to be much better but at least then I would be able to pull back and give orders if things went too terribly wrong and that's what really mattered. I need to retain control of the attack at all times, otherwise why was I even here? To provide genetic material for the legion to produce super soldiers… Okay, that technically was something I could get away with but that would only be the bare minimum and would not look good on my reports to Emperor, which would probably adversely affect Fenris's updating and upgrading. So I needed to be at least near the front of the lines in most of these conflicts, just to make sure that I got enough credit that Fenris would be well looked after and improved while I was off on campaign. It was just the hard material facts.
The dwarf nodded its understanding before jumping off the stool, landing a few feet down and revealing the back of his armor had some sort of mural or something on the back. The fact that this was reminding me more and more about bikers, both American and Japanese style, told me a lot about who might have been involved in the initial minds that set up the core of what would become the Squats' home territory. Something told me that their culture was made up of Lord of the Rings memes and old biker ideas.
Either way he walked up next to me and gave a proud, for someone who barely came up to my knees, nod before walking out of the room and heading towards what I would assume be either his bike or some other transport back to wherever the Land Trains were being assembled.
Shaking my head I wondered if these were the kinds of people who had survived the Old Night then what other insanity had survived it? Before I turned to Legion Master Rathvin and said, "How are the men doing? Are they ready for a good fight?"
He nodded before continuing, "They're not just ready, they're spoiling for one. Hell, the wolves are itching forward as well, we've caught several of them trying to dig tunnels from our trench lines to theirs. 'Few cases we've actually had to follow the wolves through into little breeches and forced their line back a bit.
I chuckled and then wondered if it was just hunger driving them forward or if they really were being effective at trench warfare. I would have to take a look but I would guess any mammal that could dig through dirt fast enough could be useful in a fight. Heck in this kind of fight a giant mammal would probably be very useful in digging through the enemy trenches.
Which led me to wonder if any more variants of humans existed in this universe. Considering the craziness I'd seen so far I would not discount it. Shaking my head I simply said, "Good, good. Well then before we get off on this little war I'm going to go pay a visit to the men and see how they're doing. I assume we'll be starting with a bombardment to soften their lines up?"
"Bombardment, and then aircraft support as we go in, that's the plan. The tanks and other vehicles should be able to take any fire they can get out and we believe most of the AA has been taken out already. They still possibly have a few units left but we've had some of the ravens preparing for a similar trick to what you pulled on I, they'll search for any active AA and deploy some grenades. It will hopefully give us air superiority."
I gave a nod of agreement before saying, "Well then good luck, and here's hoping we all make it through this fight together. To see you all tomorrow." Before I turned and walked out of the bunker. I headed for the nearest trench that would take me to the front, I wanted to get a good look at the enemy lines before this all kicked off anyways.
Writers note: and this start of siege battle, which i finished next week hope you enjoy, theses two chapters should serve as good case studdy about how the majority of battles in wheel of fire go.
Edited by: Pierre, Michael Sauer, AlphaOmega
Community edited by:Ryan Pirtle, R McQ, Alexander Paulsen, Anonymous, Pudy15236
Community editable doc (Chapter) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread
Supporters: Afforess, Gremlin Jack, Weise, Xodarap4, Duncan Sproule, James Moorhouse, Dankermaler, Hats88, DrkShdow, Devilstar101, Michael, Mana Rope, Falk Hüser, Daniel Martinez, Silver Wolf, Mackenzie Buckle, Markus, Neso, Staradder, Lmc9389, Staradder, victor a lopez-barron, KrasieK, Zollus, Mintea, Jog256, Ethan Dowie, Maxim Blashkevych, The GrandMage, AwfulKnight, loyalChaos, Daryl, FreelancerD0, Europa
Tanya Russ
Looking out the window or screen… I still needed to look into the details of how they made the outside visible inside ships like these. Though asking stupid questions was not something I would want to do in my opinion. After all I'd come from a medieval-style world, start asking questions like 'is this glass or not?' could be taken as to imply you were not as intelligent as your primary brain should allow you to be. At the moment I was just betting it must be LCD screens of some type till I found some way to determine what was really going on without appearing out of sorts.
Anyways, back on the main subject, I was looking out the window at a collection of desiccated and barely functioning ships that could be best described as somehow brought to life by the will of duct tape.
The Star Hunters Pathfinders had tracked the Orks through a side passage into the Wheel of Fire and informed my fleet where this location was, from there I'd go into work moving my fleet to this location as well as elements of the auxiliary Militarum and the Squats expeditionary force.
From there we had pushed into this crack in the barrier that separated the Wheel of Fire from the rest of the galaxy and had found ourselves above one of the many fortress worlds that made up this Ork empire. A truly ugly planet, it appeared to be mostly covered in either rocky outcroppings or jungles. There were also a few of what I would have to guess were Ork cities and slaver compounds, probably just there to gather scrap considering they seemed to worship duct tape as if it was the cure to all known diseases.
We would have to fight our way through the fleet before commencing landing operations and, well, burning the planet as best we could again. There were civilians down there and, though I saw the logic in just bombarding the planet, if we could perform operations to get those civilians out we would get credit from the local civilizations. Yes most of them were feudal kingdoms that were on the level of Russ or worse, but it would do the Imperium's image very well in my opinion.
After all wars are fought on the battlefield but won at home. Being able to see that you were doing good, not only for people who could ally with you but also for your own people, improved people's morale. That improved morale meant more resources would make it to the front, which resulted in a nice little repeating cycle of 'the more resources get to the front the better operations go there, so the morale goes up'. So on and so forth until victory was claimed.
As I mused on that our fleet was already starting to move into position to begin combat with the Ork fleet. The one here wasn't as well-stocked as the one near the known entrance to the Wheel of Fire, which was good. Fewer combat vessels meant fewer casualties to be taken, I hoped. We simply needed to make sure that we had a successful fight here today and I had a feeling it would go well. The fact of the matter was that, with two-to-one odds in our favor and with us having bigger ships than them, I could relatively safely say we were going to win this.
And once we had security of space over the planet it would be easy to get to work cleaning up the planet below.
Not only that, our entrance into the Wheel of Fire here would pull ships from the 'official' entrance to try and secure their own planets from us. This would make the front weak enough that the Iron Warriors could push forward and begin sieging the fortress world next on the list of worlds that guarded the entrance to the Wheel of Fire.
Most of their ground forces were still pretty busy working by a third of my Space Wolves laying siege to the first planet we had assaulted. It was still holding out as the Orks had built a large supply network underneath their main fortress. Or they simply were eating each other, I don't know. What was important was that the planet was under siege and the Iron Warriors were in their element. I had read the reports sent my way by Legion Master Elyphis Diorius and he thanked me for a third of my army and told me that operations were well underway, he had given an outline that they'd have the fortress taken in the year. He apparently hoped that the initial bombardment would wipe the Orks out after we cleaned out the slave population but unfortunately the bombardment didn't reach deep enough and the Orks were well and truly really stocked from all appearances. However the good news was the planet had been cleansed up to that fortress. All mushrooms had apparently been tracked down and destroyed by various auxiliary Militarum forces. Once the remaining Orks were cleaned out the planet could be theoretically settled with any surviving slaves we managed to free from the other planets, if we didn't send them directly home.
Which was an intriguing thought. If we settled the gateway to this Wheel of Fire sector it could be a very useful tool in the future. The fact that we didn't have a read on this sector because the nebula hid it, and every movement inside it, meant it could be a very good redoubt for us if we could convert it to our own use. I was tempted to leave a garrison behind to watch over this sector when this conflict was over. Never knew when having a backup supply base would come in handy, especially this far out from Fenris.
Which was a line of thought all on its own. I was light-years away from Fenris at this point, I had traveled well past halfway across the galaxy. Yes, I could depend on imperial resources to keep us supplied but I liked the notion of having a backup plan a lot more than just assuming that the Imperium would always supply me. Fact of the matter was, Emperor was going to have some sort of dispute in the future with Mars and most of the resources came from Mars. Why else was he making moves to secure a secondary resource in the dwarves? Sorry, Squats. At least I didn't say that out loud.
He was already building redundancies into the system. If the empire of Mars ever tried to break away from the Imperium the Squat Leagues may be able to fill the hole that that rebellion would tear. Hmmm… if such a rebellion should ever happen, well there was a Forge World that was part of the Mars empire in this region. Having a logistical base, in case I had to be deployed in this area to deal with that, could be useful. That was thoughts for the future but I probably should look into establishing a few enclaves of soldiers on rotation, not only to maintain supply bases in case I needed to deploy to an area and didn't have supplies in the region but also to get them training on environments they wouldn't normally get the occasion to train in. After all Icrinda had been an icy alpine mountain world while the planet below me was mostly craggs and jungle. That was something we probably would come across regularly but not something we would train in often. If I were to set up some sort of training program here my wolves would have a better time when facing conflicts like this.
Not only that, it would improve our reputation in the system as well. No doubt the Space Marines would be a bit on the bored side and be willing to help the local population out in search of distractions. They would provide some good old propaganda by helping to cut down trees and such, keeping the population happy and connected to the Space Marines. Very well, something I should consider.
But these were thoughts for the future, once again. That probably would take 10 years if the Mechanicum' data was correct, an unfortunate idea. If anything I would like to cut that in half if possible but I'd also like to have fewer casualties than predicted. I would work with what I had.
To take me away from those thoughts though the battle had been joined as elements of the Imperial Navy began fighting Ork ships, the fleets engaging in broadsides and hit and run tactics. An Ork ship, not caring about what would happen, smashed into one of ours, smashing both to pieces. A one-to-one trade, it would seem, was something they were willing to take. Not good.
Sure we had the advantage of numbers for this fight and, one for one, I was willing to bet they were weaker. But more would show up and who's to say we would not meet two-to-one odds next time, maybe three-to-one. From the scout data that the Iron Warriors and Star Hunters had given me the fleet at the second stronghold into this sector was massed in heavy formations. They were unsure of the exact numbers but it was rather large, large enough that if it came here it might be a problem for my fleet.
Thankfully the nature of this sector and its strange Warp winds made it hard for them to move around to quickly assault places, just as it made it hard for us to do so. They would have to take the slow roads to fight back, giving us possibly months of time to worry about what was on the planet below. Hopefully though we have a bit longer.
Captain Nemmius Tetanus came up to where I was standing giving me a salute, which I returned before he said, "King Russ, the Star Hunter flotilla has transitioned through the crack and they wish to begin exploring as quickly as possible to find paths and ascertain our location within the sector."
I nodded, it was good to have allies who were good at their job and wanted begin working as soon as possible. So I simply said, "Give him permission and tell them good hunting. If they find out anything interesting they are to make sure to let us know, they are our eyes and ears in this sector and we're going to need to use them heavily for this."
The Captain saluted again before walking off to a panel and talking to the staff working there. Most likely finding the best way to send that message. No doubt there would be unusual radio events thanks to the strange Warp winds generated by this sector's nebula, which could block communications if not taken into account.
Turning my attention back to the screens, I saw the Orks launch a few asteroids in the general direction of our fleet. Most were destroyed by fire from friendly ships but one managed to actually make its way all the way through the fleet, smoking as much as a rock could smoke in space after taking so much fire. Only to bounce off the front of my ship. I barely felt the impact from where I was standing so obviously the amount of force they had thrown at us had either not been great enough or the shields had done a good enough work that whatever force they had was rather useless.
After about 30 minutes it looked like the enemy fleet was starting to disintegrate, either retreating or fleeing. Hard to tell as I didn't think there was really any good order to their movement. At a guess I'd go with fleeing. Which resulted in a bit of a cheer going up amongst the crew, already thinking that victory was in our grasp. I smiled as I watched this, knowing that this was only part one of what was to come. We would have to go down to the planet now and do the best we could but we would most likely end up having to burn the jungle down. The other areas of the planet had very little in the way of vegetation so searching out Ork spores would be slightly easier. I was still betting it would take a while, better just to burn it and let it regrow after a few years.
Thinking those slightly darker thoughts I was distracted from them by a beep on a comlink of sorts that I'd been given as part of my armor. Pressing that I heard the voice of Malcador.
"Good evening, Tanya. How goes the war?"
"The war goes well, we've just defeated the enemy fleet and will soon be deploying forces to the planet in order to free the slaves."
"You have a bit of a too kind heart, Tanya… or you're playing a very well thought-out game."
"I like to think it's a very well thought-out game." I mused, before saying, "Why are you calling me, Malcador?"
"Oh, nothing much, nothing much. I've been preparing a little test of your skills and I would like you to join me in my quarters for the conversation as well."
I raised an eyebrow but then I realized that he couldn't see that so I just said, "Well, I guess I can spare a few minutes. I should really be leading my men into combat."
"Your legion is well trained, Tanya, you've seen to that. Not only that, your men need to have moments of glory to themselves. Let them have their first fight without you now that you've trained them. Let them see that they can do things without you, so that they may know that they are trusted. Besides that this little game I have prepared is going to take us an hour or two, so I would prefer you to simply leave them be for now. After all I'm told there are only slaves down on that world and there will still be slaves tomorrow as well. Freeing them now versus tomorrow is really no difference to them."
I wasn't sure about that. If I was a slave I'd rather be free today than tomorrow but I would let him have his little game conversation he wanted, it would give me time to avoid Adelheid. She had taken an interest in helping my girls get me into my armor.
"Alright, Malcador. I'll be down there in a moment." I said.
Shaking my head I turned away and said to the captain, "Good work on the combat. As soon as space above the planet is cleared contact the company commanders and tell them to begin landings. They have the freedom to do as necessary while on the planet."
Nodding, the captain gave me a salute as I left the room and headed towards Malcador's chambers on the ship. Which happened to be right across from my own.
I was not wearing my typical armor today, though I should have probably gone ahead in getting ready for this battle. I had taken things a little bit easy today on that matter. Though I did wear the undersuit! I think Leave had commissioned some clothing in my size, almost normal in style. It looked very similar to the Imperial Army's uniform, besides a bit of fur here or there to show my Fenris roots.
Quickly traveling the hallways I found myself arriving at Malcador's room and, making a point of it, I rapped on the door as loudly as I could without accidentally knocking it open.
After a moment the door opened to reveal… no one standing there to beckon me to enter. Shaking my head I simply poked my head in and said, "First Lord of Terra, are you in here?"
"Yes. Of course I am!" came the old voice of the Emperor's confidant, sounding annoyed that I had not simply entered.
"Well then, Malcador, may I come in?" I asked from the doorway, really rubbing in the fact that I would prefer him to do the same when trying to get my attention.
"Yes, yes, come on in," came the old voice which I immediately responded to by walking inside, taking note of just how dark the room was. It really wasn't hard to figure out why, apparently he preferred candles for his lighting fixtures. I would have figured those were unsafe but I guess they were spiked into the wall sockets.
Looking around I quickly saw him standing at a table with a board in front of him as he looked over the pieces in interest, "I have come up with an interesting lesson plan for today, I think: Trying to help you improve your sight. Take a seat," he offered, pointing towards the seat across from me.
"Improve my sight?" I asked, walking over and quickly noting he'd apparently had one of the chairs from my room brought over. Another invasion of privacy, although maybe he'd simply had one commissioned that could fit me. Being a giant I did have to be careful not to sit on something that would result in me tumbling backwards, so it was at least nice of him to have something prepared.
Beyond that, on the table, was a chess set. It looked a lot like a chess set at least, two rows of eight pieces staying across from each other. One was black, one was white, and they seemed to be on a checkered board very similar to what a chess set would display. Beyond that there was a small device at each corner of the board that seemed to be blinking and I wasn't sure what they were for. I shrugged and walked to the seat across from him, seating myself.
It was only after I took the seat that I figured out what those devices were for, as everything in front of the white pieces except for the first space went black. I may not have been a major strategy gamer in my day but I played once or twice and I could get the concept of this right away. "Fog of war?" That got a nod of approval from the old man.
"This game is called regicide, the hooded version. If you're interested in the exact variant we start the match with 16 pieces each, one line of pawns in the front that can move forward one to two spaces. They are followed on the second line by specialty units such as-"
"Rooks, Knights, Bishops, King, and Queen," I said, trying to take a stab at speeding this idea up. We were just explaining chess might as well show that I knew something.
"Not bad. You've obviously played one of the original versions, I know that the general rules haven't changed much just the technology around it. So let's take a stab at this, what do you not know?"
"I'm going to assume that the fog of war can be lifted by our pieces to a point? That's new to me for chess though other games had similar ideas, Age of Empires and such."
"Never heard of it." He said matter of factly before getting us back on topic. "Alright. Well, yes. Pawns give you a sight of one, Knights going to give you a sight of two, the piece you referred to as a Queen also does. Bishops and Rooks though still have a sight of one."
"Makes sense, scout units have better sight while units meant for destroying formations through better movement have sight equivalent to a Pawn.
"You may move your piece first," Malcador said. "I didn't have any reason not to so I reached out and grabbed a pawn near the center, moving it out of the full two spaces and clearing the zone to my sight. I wanted to see what was in front of me.
"So, what's the objective of this little game?" I asked, vaguely feeling something prodding at my mind that I tried to block. I believe I did it? Well he seems unfazed.
"Quite simple. The objective is to win. All you have to do is to win," He said, sounding a little bit coy on that answer as he moved a piece out in the dark. I suspected I already knew what was going on so I moved this Pawn forward again. Only one spot, just to see if I was right.
As I suspected there was a Knight waiting right there; in position to take my Pawn if I moved to that one space. Looking up at Malcador I immediately said, "This is a test to see if I can penetrate your mental defenses enough to figure out what you're doing outside of my sight."
"Correct." He answered, moving his piece and taking my Pawn. "I can't see your Pawns, you can't see my Pawns but we can see each other, we can mentally reach out and try and figure out what we're each doing. Thus we have a better idea of the board than simply what's revealed to our eyes out of the shadows."
"Putting my abilities to the test, I see," I mused, before adding "Though it seems odd that you would use a game to do such a test of ability." As I said this I moved a piece near the edge of the board, trying to keep my defenses up as heavily as possible so he didn't know what I was doing.
"True, true. I will admit I haven't had anyone play regicide with me for a long time and I've needed a good opponent. Or at least a student who could learn quickly enough to be consistently good at it."
He moved a piece that I couldn't see and I moved another piece on my side of the board, a knight unit ranged to give me a better view of the board and showing me that he had in fact moved a Pawn to try and counter my Pawn.
"You do need some work on your defenses though. Anyone of lesser abilities would have plenty of trouble seeing through it but I will admit there are things with stronger abilities than myself out there. The Emperor for one, the Eldar for another."
I raised an eyebrow. I didn't know why he brought up Emperor, it seemed an odd statement considering his loyalties but maybe I was looking too deep. I doubted someone who was an ally of Emperor would attempt to plot some sort of mad overthrow with a member of his family. That would be madness and stupidity on levels I hope humanity had abandoned at some point. But then again they apparently had blasted a galactic empire back to the stone age so you never know.
But more likely this was about the Eldar. Could there be some sort of Eldar presence in the region? I had yet to see them, I only heard rumors of their existence in reality and they had apparently been one of the causes of the Long Night. Supposedly. And apparently they had some sort of empire well before humanity did, which meant they were someone that I should not take lightly and follow Malcador's beliefs. I should work on improving my mental fortitude in case we ever ran into them, that much was probably a sign that I should improve my mental fortitude. With that thought, I redoubled my efforts to try and build some sort of blocking wall to keep him out as he moved his next piece, another Pawn, to the side of my Cavalry. He was obviously trying to draw me into an outward assault, most likely so that something else could kill it.
Instead I again moved other piece, building a solid defensive line as far forward as possible without going over to his side of the board. I was trying to draw him in or find out what he was planning. For the most part the board remained quiet and my efforts to pierce his own mind were not going well. though with whatever little data he did provide me I was able to get a good estimate that he was testing to see if he could find a weakness in my line. Which could implicate that either he was having trouble seeing my plans or he wasn't sure where to go from there.
Well apparently he'd been toying with me. I made one move and then all of a sudden the game sped up as pieces began to be exchanged, before long it was obvious he would win. "Fine." I put my hand on the table reflexively, before saying, "I believe you won this game, Malcador."
He nodded, his eyes looking at my hand with interest, before saying "You did good. For the second half there I wasn't getting as clear of a view of what you were planning or what you were doing. The first half though had given away most of what your plans were so I just relied on what I had already seen from your actions and motions."
I shook my head before saying "Good is not good enough in a combat situation. Here, sure, but if someone were able to try that in the real field a lot of good men would have just died."
"A reliable point, yes." He said matter of factly, before saying "Though you're not hopeless, you'll get the hang of it soon enough I feel. Hopefully before something that requires its use happens. Now here's a question that's bugging me: Why did you put your hand on the table like that when you offered your surrender?"
Looking down I shrugged before saying, "Used to play a card game where, in order to offer surrender, you would put your hand down on your deck when you realized you were done. Old habit, hadn't played it for a good long time by the time of my death." It was only after it said that that I realized I'd screwed up. I played Yu-Gi-Oh when I was in my first life as a salaryman and it's been a very short stint because I had to go on to college rather quickly. I played only a year or two but it had been a fun game at the time in the 2000s.
Which was the problem. My first life in the 2000s. As far as Malcador knew I remembered only my second life, which had been in the 1930s give or take regarding the general period from what we had narrowed it down to at this point. As far as he was concerned I didn't have many memories of that 1930s life, I had utterly screwed up on this one.
Turning to look at Malcador I waited to see what would happen, guarding my thoughts as heavily as possible just in case he was peeking.
He seemed amused at something, before saying "Oh it seem this has had an added benefit: we've uncovered two interesting things today. One, some of your memories from your life before this can be regained by association. Two, it's very well possible that the game known as PBVFDHCSP existed 28,000 years ago. There were only rumors and theorized beliefs about the matter, no evidence though up to this day. Quite interesting."
I blinked as my good luck had just saved myself a headache. The fact that humanity had lost so much of their history had created enough wiggle room that a mistake like that could easily be overlooked. Although the idea that a card game that had existed 28,000 years ago still kicked about was a bit of a hard sell. 90% sure that a little bit of cardboard with tin foil wouldn't last that long.
"PBVFDHCSP? I've never heard of this," I said, trying to get more details.
Nodding his head in though Malcador said, "Deck of 60 to 40 cards, you draw five cards at the start of the game and you draw one each time it's your turn. You have so many life points before you lose and you summon monsters to fight each other. Sound familiar?"
"Vaguely, it sounds a bit like the card game I'm thinking about. Yet I find it hard to believe it would have existed this long."
Malcador shrugged before saying "At some points in history those cards' prices were more stable than the currency they were being bought with. As a result, a couple times they were in fact currency for a few governments. Though those were very short-term governments.
As far as they are nowadays, they're simply back to being a card game that people enjoy. Usually among the upper class since we can actually afford the cards. From what historical documents can be found it appears that large swaths of the cards that once existed have been lost to time. Not to mention some cards that do exist mention cards that don't exist now, increasing the likelihood that we don't have a full deck on what was created back then. Multiple attempts to rebuild the ancient texts of the cards have been made, which has resulted in several different leagues and styles of plays."
"Huh," I said, sitting back a bit, shocked by all this information and wondering if I could possibly profiteer off my knowledge on this lost bit of History. I didn't remember everything from back then but if there were a few cards that people were looking for that I could remember then selling the knowledge of what was there seemed to be reasonable. It would help fund my campaigns. Helping to improve Fenris was a goal after all to make my life easier on that planet so I could retire in peace and simply focus on my wolves.
I was brought back from those thoughts when Malcador said "If you want I could recommend a deck or two that I think you'd like. It will cost you a pretty penny I'm sure but I've been looking for someone to play that game with as well. It seems like you have some idea how to play it so if you're interested?"
Nodding my agreement, I said "I'd like that. I think I'll give that a try. Meanwhile I guess we'll continue to try and play the game of reading each other's minds."
"Oh, of course. That and a few other tricks that I could teach you through that game as well."
Tanya Russ
It was officially a week since we had started bombardment of the planet and rescued all the slaves we could find. In that week I believe we had destroyed over 70% of the biosphere.
On one hand that was an incredible waste of life. On the other hand it was plant life and harboring enemy soldiers. Reenacting Vietnam on a planetary scale by dumping fire and other harmful death substances all over the planet was not what I expected to be doing on this campaign but then again it was working. We were slowly digging out exactly what locations the Orks cared about and were protecting and what locations they were not. Not only that we were coming to find that even though the Orks didn't appear too far entrenched in our first few days there were areas they were further entrenched, primarily on the northern continent. We had hit things in the jungles but the Orks had fortifications of several lines around what could be best described as a castle. One that predated Ork ownership of the world by my guess.
So even though we were bombarding the planet, burning the atmosphere, killing everything that lived that could support life on that world… The Orks still held at that fortification. As long as they held that fortification there was not much we could do in the matter of rooting them out from this planet, something I would really like to do. Having full control of it would provide us a supply base inside the sector.
The captain of my battleship had recommended the use of what was called World Killer weapons to finish it off. I was actually considering it. Destroying the biosphere completely and getting rid of the Orks would be one way to settle the matter of this world quite neatly. Sure it would mean sure that any civilians we had missed were as good as dead and would be a disgusting mark in my opinion on the humanitarian image I had been cultivating for myself the last few months but acceptable losses were acceptable losses and it shouldn't be too hard to brush the whole mess under the rug.
However that would do me no good in building a strategic supply point for our forces in this sector. We could burn every planet in the sector but we would still need to be able to hold something, otherwise someone else would just move in and take it for themselves.
No we needed to take the planet, that was the simple fact of the matter. We needed to take it, crush the Orks, and cleanse the last few pieces of land they controlled of their mushroom kingdom. Problem was of course that we would need to begin another round of landings, this time with an eye on destroying their fortifications.
Sure I had ordered bombardments of the planet in the regions they held to try and soften those fortifications up but objectively we would need to land, move forward, kill anything in there, and secure the area. During that process we were going to take casualties, there were no if, ands, or buts about it. You did not run across No Man's Land without taking casualties and that was what we were facing. Granted we had plenty of armored personnel carriers and tanks to hide behind, as well as plenty of aircraft but they also had plenty of AA guns.
It would be a battle about which side could maintain air control. That would probably be the main determinant and maybe, just maybe, my Space Marines would be able to pull off a win.
Well, we would not be alone. I had asked for the Iron Warriors to send over a contingent of their troops to help teach my men how to lay siege to a fortress. And to make sure everything went well I also invited the Squats to land their armored land trains. I didn't know how well they would do but I figured having mobile fortresses and bunkers might draw some fire from my armored personnel carriers. And they might be able to push further than we could, some of those trenches looked rather deep on the map. Deep and wide, I worried that the armored personnel carriers would not be able to cross them. Instead, they might get stuck in the mud of the trench with their back exposed for any enemy to fire at.
No doubt we would need to have engineer units on standby to build a few bridges across the trench works, just to get us across in a few places. That also might mean that the infantry would need to push ahead to the next set of trenches to secure ways for the APCs, which made them almost useless for their intended purpose.
I shook my head, there was not much I could do about that now. I needed to focus on getting ready to go to the planet below, to get an idea of what we were looking at here. Already about 3/4 of my legion were deployed to the planet, building siege fortifications around their strongholds to keep the Orks hemmed in. The only reason I wasn't down there yet was because I was waiting on Miss Adelheid of Mars to finish tightening a few bolts.
The girls were helping as well but I had to admit her mechadendrites were far more successful in sealing the gaps in my armor as tight as they needed to be. Even if I had to suck in a little bit of extra air to make sure it didn't get too tight when they were tying the chest piece.
I thought we had done a pretty good job of it today and everything was handled until Robo girl spoke up, saying something in that binary language of hers before continuing in high Gothic. "When this campaign is over I'm going to need to take a look at that armor and make some more adjustments. I think you appear to have grown in a few areas since I was given the information of what your sizes would be."
I let out a sigh, nodding my agreement to that. At least I hadn't gotten taller though I seemed to be becoming more of an icon of femininity. Emperor had obviously made some massive mistake in his thinking on how he was going to design these bodies, because being a pinnacle of humanity might not mean much for a male outside strength and toughness… But for a female it meant a few other things it would seem.
Secretly I was beginning to suspect there was a bit more magic to this whole thing than he had exactly explained. Oh, sure I had some general thoughts after meeting Orks and the Emperor himself that simply implied that he had attempted to replicate the way the Orks chose a leader by providing some sort of psychic field that would cause their leader to grow. Well, that was fine and dandy for an all-male species. They would grow just taller and stronger. For a female? Well, if your existence was partially based off what other people expected and thought about you after meeting you… There were going to be some oddities mixed in with the psychic pool you were bathing in.
Shaking my head, I said, "Thank you, Adelheid. I will see to it that we have a consultation about this matter when I get back up to the ship and we can see about improving the design of it I guess."
The red robed figure nodded as her metal arms seemed to fall back into her robes. "Yes we'll have to do a better sizing, amongst other things. I'm sure there are other bits of armor that we should talk about. That reminds me, have you given any thought to the optional upgrades I pointed to in the book the last time we talked?"
I let out a deep sigh before saying, "Yeah, yeah I did. Most of my fighting seems to end up being at close quarters, though the bolt gun I have works well, but I did take note about the wrist-mounted bolter gun that was offered. It does not have a lot of shots in it, of course, but having the ability to fire off a couple shots at close range if your gun is ever knocked away is a useful trick."
She nodded before saying, "A very useful trick, my Primarch. I will see about getting together the materials right away." She started to step away before stopping and turning to the girls before asking "My Primarch, another question? As you know my field of study is in the creation of female armor… I was wondering if you'd be willing to let me have these girls here for a bit of experimentation in that field."
I raised a rather heavy eyebrow before saying "And what exactly would be happening in this experimentation?"
"Well, I would like to try and figure out a base style light power armor that could be easily reproduced for your Valkyries, as your Space Marines refer to your shield maidens."
I rubbed my armored glove on my chin, thinking. Currently my Valkyries, as apparently the people were calling them, were armored in little more than a black vest which might be a bit better than something you'd see in a terrible movie in the 90s. So getting them in a lighter version of power armor would be quite useful, though I did worry about stepping on the Auxiliary Militarums toes too much. They so far had not lodged any complaints about the fact that I had basically raised my own forces besides the Space Marines but that could always change. Maybe there was a way to avoid causing too much trouble? The Sixth legion's number of quote-unquote 'background personnel' was up to the roof in general and on the ship but I only had about 2 to 300 for personally serving me in various ways. Every other Valkyrie was basically taking up logistic roles or support roles, or maybe supporting their former husband, boyfriend, or brother who joined the legion. So, instead of possibly funding armor for that entire force, maybe I would just fund enough for those directly connected to me. At least until I knew for sure if I was pissing off someone in higher command. Also, the three girls who always helped me get into my armor were giving me puppy dog eyes over the fact that the possibility existed that they could wear armor of a similar style. I wasn't exactly going to break their little dream now, was I.
Letting out a breath, I said, "Yes, they can help you create this armor. Though do not go too wild with your ideas here. I will not be arming the entirety of the shield maidens on this ship in power armor, just those that I feel will be going into combat situations that especially require it more than others."
The red robed woman nodded and said, "Of course, Primarch! Nothing too insane, nothing too heavy. I doubt I would find any Fabricator Generals in the local Forge Worlds that would be willing to create large stockpiles of armor anyways. They are after all quite close-minded on such subjects I fear."
That raised an eyebrow but I let that one slide for now, though it reminded me of my plan to possibly sell Svellgard to Mars in order to build a Forge World inside the Fenris system to support my legion from there. I wonder how I could go about that, would it be as simple as asking the woman in front of me if she'd be interested in becoming a Fabricator General of a new colony in the Fenris system? Maybe not the wisest selection but, as far as I'd seen, she seemed like a reasonable sort.
I would have to prod her in the future, see what I could learn about this situation. But for now, I simply said, "Well, just do what you can. I need to get going," as I looked at my arm which bore a small tactical relay that told me the time and how long I had to get to the next set of ships that would be landing on the planet.
Looking up at the Mars woman, I said, "Thank you for the help and see you next time."
We exchanged cordial goodbyes and I was on my way, walking through the halls of the ship to one of the larger landing areas. Already there was a shuttle waiting for me, half full of Space Wolves that were ready to return to combat.
Popping my helmet on, I walked into the ship, grabbing onto one of the overhead bars as I really couldn't fit in the seats they provided for Space Marines very well. Better just to hold on on my way down, it was easy to lock my armor so that I could remain in the standing position and my feet would be pretty much stuck to the floor thanks to magnets.
The flight down to the planet was rather uneventful. We departed the ship, the shuttle having no real way to view it, and I had to rely on basically the movement of the shuttle to determine if we had even left. Then we started going through the atmosphere. I had been told that when the Marines had first deployed to the planet the drop had been rather nice as there hadn't been many clouds on the planet in the region we were landing and they had enjoyed smooth sailing.
The bombardment and burning of the jungles appeared to have undone that smooth sailing as the ship tended to jerk a bit more than I think it should be doing, either that or the pilot needed a lesson on how to fly but more likely it was just the smoke-filled atmosphere. Which would do the most harm I think in the coming future to the planet's biosphere. Yes, we burnt down most of the forest and killed most of everything that lived but there were areas we would miss, areas that we had determined were not necessary to destroy, areas that were salvageable.
The smoke in the atmosphere would probably kill them or at least let only the toughest variants of life on this planet survive. After all, we basically unleashed a nuclear winter on this planet. Snows would fall, plants would die, and animals would starve for probably 10 to 20 years. It would reverse after that time as the smoke and carbon that had been thrown in the air would fall back to the ground and life would pick up at some point but the planet would probably have a shape far different from the jungle mountain we had originally found when we came here.
What that shape would be was still up in the air. Hopefully it would not be too far away from its original shape but I could see having to import plant life from local systems to try and rebuild what was on this world as a possibility.
A shame really but when dealing with an infection that literally could grow in the shadows you had no other choice but to burn it all out.
Which was why we had to go into the caves and fight the Orks in their fortresses. Yes, we might be able to bombard the fortress to dust, but if they were in the caves the only other way to kill them would be to use planet-killing weapons. And, well, I'd already given my thoughts on that, not to mention the whole reason for taking on this campaign was to get my legion experience. Getting them experience on bombarding a planet from orbit was not exactly going to, well, train them on how to fight the things we'd end up fighting.
Orcs were apparently the most common Xenos in the known galaxy, only humans had more numbers. So it was most likely that we would be fighting their kind for the rest of the Great Crusade, mixed with maybe a few other xenotypes.
My thoughts on this matter were stopped as the ship came into a low fly, indicating we were about to land. A few moments later I heard the distinctive noise of landing gear coming down and then the bang of a safe landing.
After a few moments the shuttle doors opened and I stepped out into the sun, seeing a burnt-out blasted wasteland that could best be described as hell. Granted there were fewer bodies than usually seen on the Western front- Oh! That was a headache, oh that was a major headache. I did my best to hide that thought that just appeared, guess this was the first time I'd actually seen large-scale trench works in this life and it immediately brought back memories of my hidden second life. In this case, apparently, I definitely served in World War One because those trench works I'd seen in the flash of hell that I'd seen before me reminded me quite a bit of old photos from that time.
Shaking my head I stepped over the burnt and scorched landscape towards what appeared to be a bunker that was half-buried in the ground. On one side of the bunker was the symbol of the Wolves of Fenris, wolf head on the prowl. On the other was a symbol of the Iron Warriors, an Iron Skull. This was obviously the bunker where the commander I'd put in charge, the former Legion Master Rathvin, and the commander that the Iron Warriors had sent across were discussing what was to come. Also I noticed another banner which appeared to be a mining pick next to my wolf banner, which may indicate that the dwarves -sorry, the Squats- had already landed and had their commanding officer meeting with ours. Perfect place for a talk then I assumed, opening the door and stepping inside the bunker.
Thankfully whoever had been digging this bunker had been given enough information to make sure it was tall enough that I could stand without issue. So, as I stepped in, I could get a good look at everybody as they worked their various jobs relaying communications from various fronts to other commanders in the field who needed to know. As well as one black-haired officer who was one of the few who had unfortunately gained a face that remarkably resembled mine from the process and was apparently handing out large stacks of paper with information about what resources needed to go where.
I did my best not to think about those kinds of officers, soldiers who had gained my face in one semblance or another. The genetics of imprinting your own DNA on someone was weird, it felt almost like a violation of their personhood in a way and the fact that they seemed to have gained my skill with paperwork made that feeling even more so.
Granted they had all volunteered for their job, all volunteered to go through the process, and they all knew the risks. I'd made sure of that. So it was not exactly my fault they were now doomed to look a bit like me for all eternity. But I didn't feel exactly right about it on any level, like I had violated a portion of their existence. But all things considered they were the lucky ones, there were some extremely rare cases I was keeping under wraps while my people figured out what the hell was going on. The odds were around one in 100,000, supposedly, from the sample size of three times that we had. Whatever, the mishap had happened and, well… It stepped on Father's wishes about there being no female Space Marines. Oh, that one of them I think probably wouldn't count for that exact deal.
Shaking my head off of the strangeness of genetics that was Space Marines I took a look across the room again. Across from me were what I would guess for the three high officers, my former legion Master Rathvin who was having a chat with Mettiunnias Titutus of the Iron Warriors.
They were what was to be expected of Space Marines, their helmets having been taken off to sit next to them on the table or holographic table which was displaying large swaths of the battlefield for them to view and talk over. The third member though was different as was apparent, mainly because someone had to get him a stool so he could get a good view of the map. Though that was not the only difference I think, most Space Marines would not let being shorter than an average Space Marine mean he would have a harder time seeing the information.
What I noted was slightly different as what he was doing struck memories in my own brain, thankfully not of my second life. I did not need to deal with that headache as I considered what I was looking at.
The Squat was standing near the map with his own version of power armor I think. For the most part, it was not very different than what was expected. Ours tended to be of gray and blue and the Iron Warriors just gray while the one worn by the Squat was sort of a white and gold. He had a thick beard that went down well past his stomach, which did not look very combat efficient. But hey apparently the ancient colonizers, upon realizing that humanity was shrinking on their set worlds, had played well into the concept of dwarves. I could not exactly blame them. Tolkien's influences were everywhere and they already knew about what could be best described as space elves by that point, so might as well have a little fun with the whole situation of your population shrinking but not because of the birth rate.
No, what drew my notice was the fact that he had the hairstyle. The large amount of hair, seeming to brush forward and then up into a wave. The hairstyle made popular by animes in the '80s and 90s about biker delinquents.
I had to hold myself together from laughing though I was on the crux of that from the absurdity of this entire situation. That and the fact that no one else in this entire galaxy besides maybe the emperor would even get the insanity I was looking at and laugh with me.
Shaking myself into control I stepped forward and said "Good afternoon, gentlemen. How goes the war?" I figured talking would be the best way to cover up the laughter that wanted to tear its way out. Maybe they'd say something so shocking that I would forget about what I was seeing.
The Legion Master nodded and spoke first, saying "The war goes well, my Primarch. In the next few hours we're about to launch a new assault on the enemy lines, thanks to Bomen here," he said, indicating the Squat who was… smiling, I think? Somewhat hard to tell through the mass of hair over his mouth.
"Oh? What gives us the ability to launch an assault, I've been hearing reports that there is trouble with that effort."
"The land trains, oh tall one." The space dwarf said, sounding overly smug before he continued.
"We've deployed the first combat ones yesterday and they will be in position to start their assault on the enemy lines in the next few hours. The bastards won't know what hit them, we'll roll across their trenches like they're nothing and turn the ground to a flat plane that your little tankettes can fall behind. You'll be able to clear up any enemies who somehow do not die to our superior automation."
"You seem very self-assured about this," I said before saying "Do you have some sort of backup plan? In case your land trains dewheel, preventing them from moving forward."
"Of course I do! We'll deploy bikers to the area around the tanks and clear up as much as we can, give the crew time to fix the trains and then start moving again. Your tanks will probably be useful in keeping our sides clear during such operations but either way we will push forward into their lines and kill every goddamn green bastard we see."
I nodded before looking toward the leader of the Iron Warriors, saying, "Any other thoughts on the matter?"
He spoke up, saying, "You've been bombarding them for nearly a week straight. The enemy is cut off, surrounded, and has nowhere to go. Not only that you've committed several smaller assaults to waste some of their ammunition, this overwhelming assault of land trains seems reasonable enough."
Looking at all three leaders I realized they had already decided the operation would go this way, they were just waiting for my okay. I saw problems with this plan though but then again It also could work. As always, without contact with the enemy, without seeing what they had, there was no way to know if it would fail outright or work. And most of all this would give my men training on how to deal with defending armored columns which could be invaluable in coming conflicts.
Nodding my head, I said, "Alright then,. The plan seems reasonable enough, when does it begin?"
The Squat lifted his wrist and looked at a panel on his armor before saying "Two hours, my dear. 'Bout that, do you perhaps want to ride aboard the lead armored train to combat.
I shook my head at that, "My place is here with my men. I will follow along in the tankettes as you call it." That was more of a side step, the land trains were going to be the main target of any fire from the Orks. Big slow crap like that would be death traps. 50 percent chance we weren't going to be much better but at least then I would be able to pull back and give orders if things went too terribly wrong and that's what really mattered. I need to retain control of the attack at all times, otherwise why was I even here? To provide genetic material for the legion to produce super soldiers… Okay, that technically was something I could get away with but that would only be the bare minimum and would not look good on my reports to Emperor, which would probably adversely affect Fenris's updating and upgrading. So I needed to be at least near the front of the lines in most of these conflicts, just to make sure that I got enough credit that Fenris would be well looked after and improved while I was off on campaign. It was just the hard material facts.
The dwarf nodded its understanding before jumping off the stool, landing a few feet down and revealing the back of his armor had some sort of mural or something on the back. The fact that this was reminding me more and more about bikers, both American and Japanese style, told me a lot about who might have been involved in the initial minds that set up the core of what would become the Squats' home territory. Something told me that their culture was made up of Lord of the Rings memes and old biker ideas.
Either way he walked up next to me and gave a proud, for someone who barely came up to my knees, nod before walking out of the room and heading towards what I would assume be either his bike or some other transport back to wherever the Land Trains were being assembled.
Shaking my head I wondered if these were the kinds of people who had survived the Old Night then what other insanity had survived it? Before I turned to Legion Master Rathvin and said, "How are the men doing? Are they ready for a good fight?"
He nodded before continuing, "They're not just ready, they're spoiling for one. Hell, the wolves are itching forward as well, we've caught several of them trying to dig tunnels from our trench lines to theirs. 'Few cases we've actually had to follow the wolves through into little breeches and forced their line back a bit.
I chuckled and then wondered if it was just hunger driving them forward or if they really were being effective at trench warfare. I would have to take a look but I would guess any mammal that could dig through dirt fast enough could be useful in a fight. Heck in this kind of fight a giant mammal would probably be very useful in digging through the enemy trenches.
Which led me to wonder if any more variants of humans existed in this universe. Considering the craziness I'd seen so far I would not discount it. Shaking my head I simply said, "Good, good. Well then before we get off on this little war I'm going to go pay a visit to the men and see how they're doing. I assume we'll be starting with a bombardment to soften their lines up?"
"Bombardment, and then aircraft support as we go in, that's the plan. The tanks and other vehicles should be able to take any fire they can get out and we believe most of the AA has been taken out already. They still possibly have a few units left but we've had some of the ravens preparing for a similar trick to what you pulled on I, they'll search for any active AA and deploy some grenades. It will hopefully give us air superiority."
I gave a nod of agreement before saying, "Well then good luck, and here's hoping we all make it through this fight together. To see you all tomorrow." Before I turned and walked out of the bunker. I headed for the nearest trench that would take me to the front, I wanted to get a good look at the enemy lines before this all kicked off anyways.
Writers note: and this start of siege battle, which i finished next week hope you enjoy, theses two chapters should serve as good case studdy about how the majority of battles in wheel of fire go.
Edited by: Pierre, Michael Sauer, AlphaOmega
Community edited by:Ryan Pirtle, R McQ, Alexander Paulsen, Anonymous, Pudy15236
Community editable doc (Chapter) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread
Supporters: Afforess, Gremlin Jack, Weise, Xodarap4, Duncan Sproule, James Moorhouse, Dankermaler, Hats88, DrkShdow, Devilstar101, Michael, Mana Rope, Falk Hüser, Daniel Martinez, Silver Wolf, Mackenzie Buckle, Markus, Neso, Staradder, Lmc9389, Staradder, victor a lopez-barron, KrasieK, Zollus, Mintea, Jog256, Ethan Dowie, Maxim Blashkevych, The GrandMage, AwfulKnight, loyalChaos, Daryl, FreelancerD0, Europa
Last edited:
Chapter 25, Great wolf Vs the Beast.
Chapter 25, Great Wolf Vs The Beast.
Bjorn of Tra
The thunder of guns resounded across the battlefield as tons of lead were thrown across the sky, smashing into either unlucky parts of the soil and exploding or into the remnants of the cement and iron structure that had once been an Ork fortress. It was now no more than rubble that they held on to with extreme determination.
It was a wondrous sight, one that had not believed I'd see again, though probably I'd see it more than I'd like considering there were probably more fortress worlds like this scattered about the Wheel of Fire.
All around me other Wolves of Fenris stayed low in the trenches dug by our canine companions and our own hands, reinforced in a few places with bits of wood taken from what was left of the jungles that once occupied the majority of this world. We had fought long over the last 3 weeks to push this close to the fortress. The enemy had maintained a steady flow of Orks into the forward lines up till recently, either they were running low on troops or they were trying to lure us in. Hard to say, it was hard to judge the Orks as combatants.
I'd heard stories from the older Marines who fought when the legion was known as the sixth and at the time they had said that Orks were stupid and foolish creatures that could be easily defeated. Well, if that was true, there must be significant variance amongst Orks because these ones were somewhat intelligent in their tactics. At night we often had to triple security compared to what we were used to because Orks would launch raids, trying to use the night to their advantage. Granted it wasn't that successful, most Marines had thermals and night vision in their helmets that they could turn on but the Orks tried nonetheless and they denied us sleep. It may have been a problem for a normal army but for Space Marines that was not a problem at all. They also attempted to return artillery fire for the first week, quite a lot of material was destroyed on our side because of that. The Iron Warriors had pushed for an assault and our own commanders had agreed which seemed to have been a bit of a mistake as the Orks had revealed better artillery skills than we suspected to topple over a couple of the armored trains, forcing us to dig in and repair them.
There were benefits and non-benefits to the Squat trains I had seen since we started fighting and I suspected most Marines had come to this conclusion as well. The trains worked as good mobile bunker bases, allowing us to push forward while keeping us somewhat supplied as we moved . However they should never be in the front line as they were generally a good target for the enemy fire and, no matter how tough the Squats claimed they were, put anything under fire and it will have problems. I could only hope that the higher-ups in the command structure had figured that out and were now planning around those problems for the future campaigns where we would be deployed with the squats.
Not that the Squats themselves were a problem. They were good guys really, though crude with their humor sometimes. They had generally stopped after one of them had made an unwise comment about the Primarch in hearing range of some of the more vocally supportive of our leader.
Thankfully it hadn't gone too bad, just a mutual beating up of each other. It had been followed by drinking and comments about beards and the proper style and length. Which had also developed into an insult match but that was short-lived as well, the drinking had helped calm that down. That and the fact that we found out that what was left of that particular jungle's wood on this planet had certain narcotic effects. Nothing too terrible but it had calmed the situation down pretty well.
We'd simply just put up a large bonfire of some of the remaining wood and enjoyed the night.
That being said, ever since then, we've got on well with the dwarves and worked well to push the lines in. They were pretty salty about having to leave their bikes behind and I could understand why, the bikes gave them a lot of mobility and they had to give it up to move across the trenches. Now that we were finally inside of the central fortifications of this Ork world it wouldn't matter. The campaign was generally drawing to an end and we were simply waiting for them to make their final move in this war, their final charge from the wreckage of their destroyed castle as they tried to grasp whatever final victory they could against us. They had already accomplished much more than we had hoped, several hundred Marines were already dead, with many more severely injured. This campaign had been probably one of the bloodiest to this day and, supposedly, this was just a light fortification behind the lines. We were not meant to be there, they had expected us in the big places that would hold us up.
No doubt we would take similar losses when we got to those worlds that were meant to actually hold us up indeterminately.
Shrugging those thoughts off I looked to Kori Bretakollrsson as he approached up the trench with some of the others from the squad. They had been on patrol and were now getting down to take a rest.
"Any movement from the Orks?" he asked as he sat down next to me.
I shook my head before saying, "Afraid not, still held up tight in their little fortress. No idea what their plan is but it can't be good if they're willing to let us bombard them the way they have been."
"Maybe they just gave up?" Audgislisson, the radio man, asked as he pulled out his knife and began to cut back some of the hair on his head. He tended to have a mohawk-like haircut style and, for the last week, we'd been so busy he had to let his hair grow out. It figured that he would take this moment to satisfy his need to cut back his mane.
"I mean, I don't think they'd give up," Kori Bretakollrsson said as he began to check his bolter rifle. "More likely they're just waiting for the right moment to strike out at us, for us to become complacent," then he looked around and seemed to realize something. "Well I guess either that or they're just letting us get real close, aren't they?"
I chuckled at that "Yeah, I guess you're right. We are getting a bit complacent about them just staying in that fortress so they're probably getting ready to suprise us. Any moment now they're going to spring out at us. It's going to be interesting because we have more bolter guns and heavy bolters pointing at that fortress than I think most legions have Volkyte weapons.
"About that," Captain Boesson said, moving in our general direction. He wore the gray armor of someone who'd been in the legion from the days of the Route, although he had adopted a wolf pelt cape to his clothing and had painted a few streaks of light blue to represent a shared color with the newer Fenrisians to the legion. He was a tall Marine, probably one of the tallest in the legion with dark hair and a keen eye. I would rather have said keen eyes but he had lost one of them in some of the few conflicts that the Route had been in before finding its way to Fenris.
Looking us over he nodded before stepping up to look over the trench wall with me, saying "Just got back from further up the command chain, the Primarch thinks they will try and break out tonight or within the next 24 hours. Wolves have been on edge or something. Don't know how she knows these things but… Going to trust her on this she's not led us wrong so far."
"Probably whatever that ability of hers is," Kori Bretakollrsson said, standing up to stretch.
"Ability? Oh yea, right, you stuff all the psyker stuff under that title. I don't know if she can sense them coming or not but I wouldn't put it past her. This psyker stuff is not my field of expertise though."
I know I did, before asking "So, you think that most legions have more Volkyte than us? Any idea why we're having so much trouble getting some then? I heard they're great for fighting Orks."
The captain shrugged before saying "Logistic issues, I'm sure. Perhaps they're just waiting to see if we survive the Wheel of Fire? We'll get enough soon enough, the bolter gun is perfectly fine and serviceable meanwhile."
I nodded an agreement, before asking "Then any other weapons we're low on because the Imperium is waiting to see if we're a serviceable legion or not?"
He shrugged, before saying, "Going by the Mechanicum motorcycles I wouldn't be surprised if we aren't getting as many plasma weapons or Las cannons as we should have. At least they did not skimp out on the tanks, that's the important part; we'll need those to fight."
"Hopefully we've got enough of those. We've been getting a lot of niche weapons that I don't know how we're going to integrate into our forces. Like we have shields designed to be used with both weapons that were dropped off yesterday. As far as I can tell the Primarch didn't order them so no one knows why they're here, they're just here and will probably be integrated into a few forces just to find out if they're useful."
I looked over at the enemy fortress. Against artillery…I shrugged. But against their infantry? I guess it wouldn't be so bad. "Their rounds weren't that good at penetrating armor, so giving us another layer of armor to put in front of us wasn't a bad option."
"That, I can agree on," Captain Boesson said, before turning to look at the man again, "though using those shields to cross these trench lines is pretty much the dumbest idea I can come up with, if that's why they shipped them here. At least we're getting plenty of flamethrowers, we'll need that for the cleanup operations on this world to make sure we kill all the fungi."
"As well as plenty of anti-armor equipment and anti-air, so whatever attempt they make to try and push out of the rubble they now call a home… We'll be prepared and able to smack them back in quite easily, I believe."
"Yeah, here's to that," the radio man said as he finished cutting the hair from the sides of his head, with minimal bleeding I saw. He needed to work on his technique and maybe get an actual mirror, otherwise he'd end up with a scarred head and it wouldn't even be from fighting a wolf or something. I guess he could lie, the only ones who would be able to call him out would be members of the squad after all.
Shaking my head at the thought I started to get down when I heard something. It sounded like a low rumbling, not the same rumbling we'd been hearing for days from the artillery. That I was used to but this was different, how different was hard to say but it sounded like a repeated sound of moving machinery. Looking back towards the enemy line I tried to see if there were any tanks, or whatever they called tanks, moving towards us but there was nothing there. In fact, it was rather quiet in a sense. Strangely it now sort of sounded like it was directly underneath us. Getting down on one knee and then on my stomach I listened to the ground and there it was, the sound of machinery grinding as it moved forward.
Looking around I saw the others were looking at the ground, as intently as I had been listening to it, and picking up their guns as if they were worried something was going to spring forth from it.
To be fair that probably was not an unwise move. I immediately got up and aimed my bolter down, taking a few steps away from whatever was going on. Just in case.
This proved to be a wise decision as the trench in front of me exploded in a shower of dirt and fire, sending the squad into disarray as members were cut off from each other in the fire or buried under the dirt.
In the moments after the explosion of dirt, the screams of 'WAAAGH' came out of the hole, following the giant drilling device that had pushed its way to the surface. Orks came streaming out of the hole around the device, rushing into the trenches and attempting to murder us. We, of course, denied them that ability as far as I could see, at least from my angle. The captain merely went back to back, firing our bolters as the Orks rushed towards us. A couple even went running past us, probably searching for the other members of the squad who were laying into the beasts.
Our guns were turning red hot from the amount of fire we were putting out as new streams of melee-focused shorter Orks rushed past us and at us. It was about that moment we realized exactly what was going on together.
"They're trying to use up our ammunition with their untrained, the veterans will get us when they come out with the real guns!" I shouted.
"Agreed!" The Captain said, firing forward. "Everyone pull back and find a turn in the line. We cannot let ourselves be overrun."
With that our squad, which had metaphorically been split in two would now be fully split in two, though I doubted Kori Bretakollrsson would stay in the same position as we had been deployed. I figured he would do the same, as both our teams would probably start backing up in the trench and heading for redoubts that were stronger and more defendable in these particular lines.
Falling back in the trench we made our way west, our guns firmly pointed towards the Orks and trying to kill them as fast as they came out, reloading as we went and keeping them from overrunning us. We were making our way towards a trench line that connected back towards the next line of trenches which we hoped to find still secure. As we got to the cross-section we saw fellow Wolves of Fenris moving back from the other direction, telling us that well… If it was pretty bad in the direction we'd come from, it was pretty bad to the west as well.
Captain Boesson walked over to the men who were falling back and asked "Some kind of digger machine thatflooded you with Orks?"
The sergeant, who I didn't recognize, yelled back, "Yes, sir! They've overrun the trench nearly completely in this direction. How about the other way?"
"Same, son, same. We'll have to pull back into the trenches of the second line at this current rate, or hold this position and hope for reinforcements."
Turning to Audgislisson, who had managed to end up on our side, he said, "Get me communications to the next line and find out what they're planning to do about this situation."
He nodded and took a knee, starting to listen to the calls. It took him a few bits to get information before he finally yelled, "Sir, this is not just on the first line. There are breaches in the second and third line, it seems like they are trying to overwhelm all lines on this particular side of the trenches."
"How many goddamn Orks are there in that fortress?" He asked before one of the Orks, apparently deciding that running in the trench towards us that was not a smart move, jumped in from the side of the trench where we had not been looking. The captain just barely got his gun up in time to blow its brains out but it was a close-run thing.
Turning to us, he said, "Well we cannot hold this position without support from the back lines. We need to pull back now, get ourselves out of the trap and into a position with stronger support and more ammunition."
"Everyone, let's get ready to beat feet but keep your guns hot and do not let the enemy penetrate our defensive lines. Got it?"
"Of course!" "Yes, sir!" was yelled as we formed up in a basic square and started to slowly withdraw down the trench line towards the next series of trenches. The captain leading the way along with two other men watching the forward half, in case Orks started coming from that direction as well. Something I hoped wouldn't happen as we were already having enough Orks charge from behind us, dying as they were slaughtered under bolter fire and leaving a pile of bodies that the next Orks would have to climb over.
That was good for us as it gave us more room to work but if there were Orks coming from in front of us that would mean we would have to carefully navigate over the corpses while they were rushing into the midst of us. Granted they didn't survive long wielding only crudely made axes. One not fully dead Ork rose behind one of the men and slashed at his back-armor plate, only for another man to turn and shove his fist through the Ork's skull turning his brain into jelly and splattering it across the dirt of a wall.
Before anyone could throw congratulations at him another Ork jumped down and then another and the realization started to hit me that, because no one was able to keep a fire down on the Orks outside the trenches, they could literally just pull themselves up and try and come around on our sides.
Even if they weren't coming from in front of us this would be problematic.
Thankfully that proved not to be a big problem in the end as the next Ork that tried to jump down in front of us was fired upon by someone with, by the sound of it, a heavy bolter going active again. This implied that either line two or three were secure enough that they could man their machine guns again.
With crowd control weapons now securing the roof Captain Boesson said "Come on, boys, we're almost there. Let us push forward down the last few meters of the trench so we break through into friendly ground. It should make it harder for the Orks and give the wolves a chance to close range on us."
As if my thoughts had summoned something I had considered an Ork jumped down from the trench line number two to our left. Tight there was nothing but empty trenches and bodies and blood, which was not that bad a sign as most of the bodies appeared to be Orks. This meant the second line might have already started pulling back to their entrance.
Without another word, the captain started moving towards the west. Understandable, we had come from the west to the eastern part of the line which meant there was a chance that we would hook up with the lost members of our squad as they did the same from whatever trench line they took. I hoped so but it was a possibility that Kori Bretakollrsson had died in the fighting, that would be a shame.
Man was good luck and marked by the Alfather for good things, I had hoped to ride that mark all the way it would allow me to. That and he was just generally a good guy. Either way though I needed to focus on the here and now so we started pushing in the direction that would take us to the next trench line. that would take us back to the third trench which, by the sound of it, had yet more heavy bolters going online so it was probably almost secure or was going to be quite quickly.
Made sense. After all the third trench line would have access to the supplies and to troops who were still either fresh or recovering from being at the front. No doubt they were rushing into the third trench to secure it, killing the Orks as fast as they could.
Could only hope they killed the Orks quick enough that we could seal the holes in the line and start taking back the second and first trench. Then again we might not need those trenches if this was their final assault outwards as, with the amount of Orks that had just been rushing out of those tunnels, I could take a good guess that this might be the case.
We were rounding the corner when we came across a bit of a problem. Standing near the trench line and heading back to the third line was a group of Orks, ones actually armed with guns. They turned on us with abandon and sprayed wildly into the trench walls past us, shooting up a Space Marine from the other unit. He was not fast enough getting out of the way and his life ended in a series of explosions, the Ork bullets apparently being explosive in nature and finding weak points in the armor to set off internal explosions from oxygen containers and several other important key items in the power armor's equipment.
Captain Boesson just barely made it back into safety as the rounds went past him. "Shit. Shit." He muttered as I saw that he had not escaped unscathed. Several rounds had punctured through his hand, not destroying it fully by the looks of it as the armor kept it together, though I wondered if he'd be okay. Considering all the modern technology that had been brought in with the joining of Fenris to the Imperium of Man he'd probably be fine, having a robotic hand to replace a damaged one was not a bad option. He could even probably have a few more equipment and tools in it, I figured.
Either way I pointed to our medic, Sigguatr Skeggisson. "help the Captain." I ordered before moving forward to take his position.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," he said.
"Yeah, just like Captain Kollsvein Ornolfsson was when he lost his arm," I pointed out. Captain Kollsvein Ornolfsson had had his arm sheared off by an Ork and then proceeded to beat the bastard who had done it with his arm. Not the wisest move because they hadn't been able to save it, the bones having been so shattered it wasn't worth it. He was currently, as far as we knew, on a transport back to Fenris to either get a replacement arm or take up a teaching position. Either one would be fine by my point of view though I'd heard some people argue over the matter before, some saying they'd never take a teaching position. Those who were mainly from the more barbaric areas of Fenris… well, they tended to be more practical-minded and, following the logical thinking of the Primarch, tended to say a teaching position was fine. Strange reckoning but not one I should be thinking about at this moment.
Either way the Captain nodded and backed off, allowing me to take the position and look around the corner. And pull back, of course, real fast as enemy fire blasted the corner almost off and caused me to back up some more.
Grabbing a grenade from my belt I put my finger through the ring and pulled the pin before tossing it around the corner. I figured we had 5 seconds so I pointed to two men and said "when the blast goes we go in," They signaled their agreement and I grabbed a knife off my belt. Dual-wielding a knife and a bolt gun was probably not the most effective way to fight but at this range I didn't need accuracy so it might work.
4 seconds later the trench line was deafened by an explosion and I turned the corner, unleashing fire from my bolt gun, my knife hand holding the barrel against the side of the wall just for a little bit of stability. The other two Marines came around me to fire as well, saturating the area where the Orks had been standing. This sort of worked as the Orks failed to cover those who had been falling into the trench line across from us. One using his friends as flesh shields but once I realized they were not as big of a threat as I'd originally suspected I rushed into the fray, firing shots at the Orks down the trench to keep them pinned as I smacked my fist deep into the gut of the Ork who used his fellows for cover. I jammed my knife as deep as it could go before pulling up and unleashing a torrent of gore onto my arm.
The other two marines moved forward to my sides, firing on the Orks who had dug for cover though they didn't stay in cover for long. After a few moments we heard bolter fire from that direction and one came tumbling down dead. Around the corner stepped Kori Bretakollrsson, as well as a few other Marines and several of Tanya's Valkyries. They had mainly been deployed to the third line I thought, though I guessed maybe some of them were taking up position in the second? Either way they looked like they had been through hell, most of them covered in gunk
and blood that I could only hope was of xeno variety.
"Lucky bastard!" I said, looking past him at the girls. "All I found were other Space Marines."
"Hahaha." Kori Bretakollrsson fake laughed as he fired a few shots into the downed Ork to make sure he was dead. "Well, at least you found others and weren't actually found. Damn line is mingled up all over the place, Orks are everywhere and I'm not even that sure that the fire coming from the third line is friendly. One of our brothers tried to stand up to fire down into the Orks and was immediately shot from behind."
"Well, that's not great," I mentioned. "I think the ones at least on our side of the line were friendly, at least they took down Orks. So who knows what the third line looks like right now."
"Probably an Emperor damn mess," Captain Boesson said, stepping forward and holding his hand, his pulled gun having been slung over his shoulder. "This whole operation has gone to hell."
"Ain't that the truth," I muttered, before saying, "I hope we don't have to get involved in any more trench fights in the future. We should be fighting them in open fields, not in this shit."
"Open fields just means more casualties," Kori Bretakollrsson pointed out as he stepped firmly on another Ork who apparently wasn't as dead as I thought, crushing their head under his power foot.
"Either way, though," he continued, "We need to pull back into the third line. We're too separated from reinforcements here, and if they take the third line wer'e cut off."
"Agreed," The Captain said, pointing to Kori Bretakollrsson and me. He ordered "You two will lead the way down the next trench. Kill anything big green and ugly and if the third line is compromised we'll just try and figure out our move from there. Hopefully it's not too bad there, reinforcement should have moved in quite quickly thanks to our proximity to the supply lines."
"And, if not, I'm sure the Primarch is rushing to save our asses as we speak," I said, punching the shoulder of Kori Bretakollrsson.
The Captain looked at me, confused, before I explained, "Kori Bretakollrsson here is an old friend of hers, used to be the king of the other side of Fenris before she got full control of our planet."
"Really? Didn't know that. Well then maybe he should move to the center if he is that known for bringing her out to save his ass."
Kori Bretakollrsson shook his head, replying "It's just coincidence, sir, small world sort of stuff. It's not even that often."
"He's been on two deployments and both times she's shown up. Granted she's only saved his ass once of those two times but I would not put it past it happening a second time."
"Technically that would be the third time," Kori Bretakollrsson muttered. "She did save my life when I was but a child."
"Ha! Really? Now tell me, is she your unofficial godmother? This is something we should know about." I said, razzing him a bit.
Kori Bretakollrsson shook his head before walking over towards the trench, looking down it. "I would love to answer that question another time. How about we get to the third line and find out what's happening?"
"As long as you answer it, man, I'm fine getting a move on," said the radio man from the back, apparently having been interested in this conversation.
Lettingout a deep sigh the captain said "Then let's get a move on." And with that we retreated down the trench line towards the third line, moving quickly to not be caught by any more Orks pushing up from the first line as there was no doubt they would.
What we popped out to when we got to the other side was a bit of a mess all on its own. On one side there were Orks shooting past us to the other direction towards Space Marines that were shooting back at them, putting us in the center of a crossfire between friendlies and enemies. Not wanting to push too far forward I grabbed the last grenade off my belt and tried the same trick again, throwing it towards the Ork side and stepping back. There was an explosion and quickly we were able to push forward, signaling to the Space Marines that we were pushing from the Ork-controlled line.
Leonard and a few of othres moved over to join us, though most seemed to be pulling back. Most likely there was fighting going on in another direction that we couldn't see.
The third line was bigger, mainly due to the storage of tanks in the trench and added bunkers for protection of the wounded and those resting. We made our way forward and quickly found something surprising.
Laughing I said "Hey look! Your godmother is here." Primarch Russ was fighting a giant Ork with a claw for a hand that seemed to be more iron than flesh. Her sword was meeting his ax and claw in lightning strikes, several Orks were all around, rooting for their war boss I guess. Oh well, at least some of our brothers were doing the same for the Primarch.
It was a show, to say the least, and I could only wonder how it all started. Still, the fact that she happened to show up just near Bretakollrsson position in the line was absolutely a sign that she was looking out for him.
Tanya Russ
The battlefield was absolute chaos. Not only was it absolute chaos but all plans had gone to absolute shit.
Which was to be expected, really. Plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. The fact that things had gone as well as they had was simply a matter of luck but I don't think I had ever planned for the idea that the Orks would tunnel under the trenches with drilling machines to then burst forth from the ground and spill out into the lines all across the western front. If I had I probably would have reinforced those lines but I hadn't. All I had planned for was a general slow crushing job as the Orks were trapped and there was no need to rush in and get my men killed charging them with abandon as the Iron Warriors had suggested once or twice.
Well, considering they had launched this attack the way they had, perhaps the Iron Warriors had been right on that matter. I had simply been giving the Orks time to formulate a counter-attack that had created chaos and was now causing probably the same amount of deaths that would have happened if I had ordered the assault.
My mistake, I would not let it happen again in the future. I had underestimated the Orks in their ability to fight, now I would not.
But the matter was now the trenches were basically overrun and they needed to be reinforced, which was why I was forced to assemble as many Space Marines and Squats as possible to feed them into the chaos.
Normally I think I would have preferred to stay back from such a fight but… well, in conflicts like this being in control of the situation wouldn't do me any good. I couldn't order more troops down there to seal the gap, as much as much as I wanted to it wouldn't seal the gap. So I had reluctantly decided to accompany the forces into the fight, bringing with me the large chainsword I was given and getting myself dirty as well as many of my wolves.
We had been in the process of actually securing the third trench line. From what I had been able to pick up over the comms chatter a good percentage of the trenches, at least 50 to 70%, was fully in our control and we could push forward into the second trench once we got it up to 80 or 90 percent.
But that was not immediately going to happen because, as I entered what had been built as a potential artillery position, a large circular hole in the ground with cement laid for the artillery piece but still empty, I found a giant Ork surrounded by other Orks. It was standing there, yelling at some smaller creature that I guess could be considered a Gretchin.
Either way the small green thing had turned in my direction as I stepped in there, Space Marines on either side as guards and Valkyries behind them, and said "Boss man, boss man! look, big big 'umie."
The Ork, I guess the boss, was standing almost to eye level with me. It turned from yelling at the little creature, revealing that it was covered in what could be best described as a mech suit in some areas. A crude power armor from my guess. And to add to the ridiculousness of the armor in question it had been designed to replace the hand with a giant claw. Now I may not be the most military-minded person in the world but even I could think that replacing your hand with a claw seemed like a downgrade. You gave up your dexterity for fighting ability, sure, but if someone managed to damage that claw? Well then you now lost all fighting ability, didn't you?
The lord of the green Orks laughed before pointing at me, "Ya're 'da 'umie leada. Ya're da big wun, uv kourse, ya're da 'umie leada. I declare a challenge ta ya. 'n 'da name uv grarluzz uv 'da wheel uv fire empire, i challenge ya ta a fight ta 'da deth. An' if ya refuse, well, Iz still gunna fight ya."
"And what if I just shoot your brains out?" I countered, raising my hand to ask the most realistic question.
"Ya may try but ya will find 'dat difficult! vargrunak, shoot me."
"Wot? errr…" the little green creature said.
"I said shoot me or i'll stomp yer."
"right away, sir, right away!" The creature replied, grabbing an oversized gun and firing a shot at the Ork. A round bounced off what could be best described as a shield and went up into the air beyond the trench line probably going to cause some sort of mayhem somewhere but not my problem.
The Ork raised its claw hand and its ax and said, "'da shield protects me from yer weapons, 'da only fing dat will hurt me iz dat little pointy sticka on yer back dere" pointing towards the chain sword that was mounted on my back.
"Dis will be mutual kombat wun on wun, fair as it kan be, an' 'da winna takes 'da world."
I blinked, considering this. I would prefer not to engage in hand-to-hand combat with some Ork but then again I couldn't shoot his brains out and if I were to just send my wolves in that would seem a little bit unfair and unsporting. As much as I would prefer to just not get involved in this it was probably best for my reputation that I defeated him quickly and with my own two hands.
I mean I could quite easily refuse but there was the honor of the thing to consider. Really the Ork had apparently gone through all the bother to engineer a situation to directly challenge me to a fight and if I simply said no… well, it would look bad to my warriors. Not to mention that if I said no I would set a rather unfortunate standard.
What if, sometime in the future, one of my commanders is challenged to a fight by the leader of a human civilization with the promise that if they lose they will surrender without fighting. Well what If I just set the precedent that my Wolves do not accept those kinds of arrangements? This potential friend would go out of their way to simply order a full-out conflict, never regarding a deal as something worth considering.
Granted, it was very well possible that a situation like this would develop and they'd still betray us and say no after their loss. But it was better to have at least attempted a diplomatic solution than to not at all. If I went out of my way to set the standard of just murdering enemies when they offered some kind of diplomatic duels… well, that's a bad standard.
Finally, just letting out a deep and disturbed sigh, I drew the blade from my back and said, "If you want to fight, let's fight. You're not going to survive it very well but you seem to have your opinions on the matter. Any chance you would accept surrender or will you give in to your Orkiest tendencies and battle to the death?".
The Ork smashed its mechanical claw into its chest and yelled, "Godbusta will not surrender! 'dat's not a gud fight, 'dat's a waste uv time. Eitha ya die or i die an dis world's fate will be determined."
"Good enough for me," I said. I stepped towards him with one slow step before I leaped at him, bringing the blade down from the top, hoping to just cut right through his ugly green skull in a moment.
The Ork was a lot faster than I suspected, he was able to block the blade with the blunt end of his axe before trying to hook it around the the blade and rip it out of my hands.
Which did not accomplish a thing since I had a strong enough grip on my weapon, not to mention I had the handle magnetized to the gloves so that I could not actually lose grip unless I deactivated it. A little bit of forethought does us good sometimes.
The Ork, seeing we were in a bit of a stalemate, tried to chomp at me with its claw-like other hand. I simply grabbed its wrist and attempted to rip the arm off but the power armor was a lot stronger than I had suspected. How this load of scrap was able to hold itself together I did not know but it was not only managing to not break under the Primarch strength I had been granted by my biology but it also withstood the little boost that the power armor I wore gave me.
Well this wasn't very successful so I did my best to unstick my blade from his ax and stepped back, letting go of his claw as I did, and trying to get a better observation of the situation from a distance.
The Ork laughed, to the thunderous applause from its companions, and yelled, "see, yer grunts? told yer 'dat i kould fight dis 'umie WAAAGH! boss wun on wun, all i have ta do iz break dere spirits an' dere will an' dey'll die like all da rest uv da 'umiez 'oo challenge da empire uv our great WAAAGH! boss grarluzz".
"You're being a little bit too self-assured," I mentioned before taking the blade in a double grip and stepping closer.
"Self-insured, no. Ushered iz da word…" The creature said, apparently not realizing how stupid that sounded.
"No, it's not," I simply retorted before stepping closer; slashing down again. The chainsaw revved heavily along the blade as the Ork brought up its own ax, making sparks flow. But that's when I disengaged my weapon and pulled back, before giving the creature a solid kick in the side which sent it flying into the nearby dirt-retaining wall of the circular hole in the ground we were fighting in.
"Oh, an 'dat's not fair! ya're not supposed ta use yer legs."
"Why? Because yours are short and stumpy?" I asked, stepping closer towards him.
"No, 'dat's jus not how fight'n' iz done. Yer smash each otha wit' yer weapons ova da head, yer do not kick."
"You don't because you have short stumpy legs meant for waddling around. Heck do you even have the bone structure to stand at attention, or do you always stand bow-legged like that?" I pointed out before bringing the blade down on him. He managed to block it again, this time with his claw. I immediately withdrew my sword as I realized he was attempting to close the claw and cut the blade in half. Would have disarmed me rather well there, I noted. Better to not let him get a chance to try that again, I thought.
"hey! we orks are a proud people, i do not need yer xenophobic insults ova 'da way our bone structure, whateva 'dat iz, iz designed." The Ork said, pointing its ax at me.
I looked at the beast rather incredulously before asking, "Are you kidding me? You Orks literally enslaved humans and you're complaining about a comment made in the midst of combat to the death? It was not even an insult, just pointing out the realities of your own biology."
The Ork showed the biggest shit-eating grin I think I'd ever seen, implying to me that this was some sort of tactic just to screw with me, possibly to try and get me off my guard. "Yes. Yes, i am, ya hear. dese remarks are insensitive ta 'da Ork race."
I blinked several times before saying, "Noted. At the next human resource meeting I will bring up how we deal with Orks. Till then how about you just lose your head already?"
And I whipped the sword to the side, trying to slice that creature's head off from the power armor that was protecting the rest of its body. it brought up its claw hand just in time, catching the blade. Before I could do much to stop what was about to happen I heard the distinctive crunch of metal being sheared in half.
He got me, the green bastard had got under my skin. I was going to have to be better about not letting that happen in the future, I noted as I looked down at the top half of my blade laying on the ground. That and I would also need a stronger blade so that my weapons didn't break in combat.
The Ork was laughing in front of me, pointing his chain ax at me while saying "See? see? i've destroyed yer pretty blade an now yer've lost. Be gud an' yer'll work 'n 'da mines for 'da rest uv yer life without much suffer'n. Be bad an' i will-"
I didn't let him finish, instead kicking my foot up and smacking the chain ax out of his hand which went wide in the air. He looked up in surprise at seeing the blade floating there for a few seconds before, with a little nudge of help, it landed perfectly in my hand. I brought the ax down on the shoulder of his now empty hand, exploiting the weak point there, and the chain ax dug in deep enough that it cut its way all the way through. His arm toppled off his body and the Ork screamed in pain, or was it roared, something close to 'war' though with a high pitch to it.
The Ork stepped away, holding his claw hand to his now empty stump in obvious pain, yelling, "Dat's not fair! i destroyed yer weapon, ya were supposed ta surrenda like most 'umiez do."
Looking at the axe I wondered how it worked. At least the chain sword made sense since it was just a chainsaw with a proper handle but the chain ax was a bit weird and dumb. The handle was at the end of a wooden pole and the systems that ran the chain mechanism were all the way in the head of the axe.
"You set the rules quite clearly," I began, "You said we were fighting to the death so there's no surrendering. If you wanted me to surrender you should have said so in the beginning. Unless of course you only wanted me to surrender without a fight? Well I'm afraid that's not going to happen, that's actually a rather stupid take and I understand why you are not the overboss of this empire then. My forces will win this war, I'm simply fighting you to humor my bad side. Now are you going to come at me or are you going to scream and moan about it being unfair?"
Well the beast did scream as it rushed at me, its claw chomping at the air and trying to grab any bit of me in-between its pincers. I simply kept stepping back, sometimes deflecting the claw with my newly acquired ax as the fighting went on.
The creature was bleeding out profusely, its plasma spilling across the ground and painting it into a red mucky mud. That would probably need to be fried once we were done here, just to make sure no spores were left to sprout.
Even though the Ork seemed to have quite an armored carapace with that scrap armor and tough leathery skin that was about the only bonus it seemed to have as it was slow and unwieldy and, without the other hand to block my attacks, it wasn't long until I found my axe chopping at its sides.
Simple fact of the matter was my comment about their short stubby legs was not just noticeable, it was a significant advantage that I had over it. I was able to quickly maneuver around it, slicing at its sides and weak points, driving the axe into his other shoulder blade at one point.
I don't believe I was ever much of a dancer in my first life but sometimeduring my second life I had picked up an expertise for maneuver as I quickly managed to find a point behind the shoulder of his remaining arm, cutting that one off as well. It left the Ork as an armless torso with an ugly skull on top. The creature groaned in pain before falling to its knees, already on its way to death. It tried to raise its head to say something but I decided not to let it suffer anymore. I simply shoved the axe down into its skull, letting the chain bite deeply into its gray matter. I kept the ax there as the Ork slumped, dead.
I stood there for a moment, catching a few breaths before dropping the disgusting ax down to the ground. I took another look at the broken chain sword in my hand, still held there by the magnets in my glove.
It was sheared in half, the chain was thoroughly broken and it would probably never work again. I probably was going to have a very annoyed Adeptus Mechanicum girl waiting for me when I returned to Hrafnkel. But that really didn't matter. I was alive, victory was mine, and now I had to deal with the Orks who had gathered around and were looking at their dead commander, rather stunned.
Well the answer to how to deal with them was actually quite simple: train my Marines. I said, "battle's won. Continue the fight."
The howls of joy mixed with roars of the chainswords being drawn from their sides was a good sign that their blood was up and ready for this. Without much thought they just charged directly into the Orks, chopping and slicing as they went, killing them is fast as possible. They quickly secured the area with minimal casualties. So far, so good.
I nodded in approval as flamethrower troops began to cook the Ork bodies around us and waited for someone to bring me details of what was happening on the rest of the battle. I didn't have to wait long as former Legion Master Rathvin ran up, having apparently come from the supply trenches.
Giving the sign of the Aquila he bowed before saying, "My Primarch the line is stabilizing and the third trench is fully in our hands. The men are beginning to push into the second trench now, it will not be long until we reconquer everything that was nearly lost."
I nodded with approval, before saying, "Good, good. See to our wounded then, we need to make sure as many of us survive as possible. Make sure that all Orks corpses are destroyed."
Turningto look at my other Wolves of Fenris, I said, "Do not bother waiting here I have no need for guards, this area is secure. Push forward, we must retake these lines and perhaps we shall follow the tunnels these beasts have created back to their fortress. If we invade that way I wonder if they have good defenses already prepared or not. Something we must learn."
An officer I did not recognize nodded before saying, "I bet the wolves could track their way through the tunnels quiet enough that they could surprise any Orks at the other end."
I nodded my head in approval, before saying "That seems reasonable enough. Get to work on it then, I want that fortress taken by the end of the day if we can do it and they've given us a golden opportunity to do it. Let us conquer this place for the Emperor and free any slaves we find, I'm sure they still have a few that we didn't get in our first raid."
There were several cheers and then the men filed out into the general direction of the fighting. I took a moment to take a seat and a fresh breath of air. That fight had been a little bit too fun, I think. I wondered why that Ork had specifically used something that would screw with my human resources training and background… probably just random luck that he said something like that.
Either way their 'War Boss' was dead and that tended to mean Orks were not long for the world. They would start fighting against each other to make the new boss and while they were busy doing that we could easily crush them.
At least that was the hope, that they would be too busy fighting each other and wouldn't guard the tunnels. If the tunnels weren't guarded we could easily enter the fortress and take it for ourselves, from there… from there we would have control of the planet and controlling the planet meant we had a supply point inside the Wheel of Fire.
And with that supply point inside the sector we could push out and start striking further and deeper into the Wheel of Fire until we finally cleared it entirely of enemies.
Question was how was I going to do it. Should I crush small garrison worlds like this until most of them were under my control before going for the big garrison world and the boss or should I take the boss down first to start another war boss fight between all the sub-bosses of this sector?
The answer was quite simple really. Although starting fights between the other war bosses would be beneficial in cleaning this place up faster, defeat in detail was more of an assured thing. I should focus on defeating each smaller force as fast as possible and deny the enemy resources until they didn't have anything but their big stuff left. Once that was accomplished, by my estimation, there would probably only be five to seven big planets in this sector with enough resources to last on their own. Maybe it would be time to attempt to start a war boss fight by taking out their current Big Boss leader then, so that the other planets would fight each other while I sat back and just let them do that for a while before striking them and destroying this empire forever.
Nodding my agreement to this idea I leaned back against the trench wall before sliding down to sit down at a lower rate. Fierce and Cunning came up to me again, looking at my hands, and without much thinking I began to pet them, enjoying the moment of peace between the artillery and what was to come next.
The war on this planet was probably all but done and that was a good day's work in my mind. And with a good day's work came the benefits of sending the message to your boss that you had successfully defeated the enemy and a bit of rest.
Writers note: Morning, sorry this chapter took bit longer things happen, so what we got this chapter, the end of the first battle in the sector, perspectives of the fighting from Tanya and a marine who is totally not important. And the first uses of the ork translator, going to see what people think of it this time before I decided to use it again. I hope everyone having good day and let me know what you all think of the chapter.
Edited by: Pierre,
Community edited by:Ryan Pirtle, AlphaOmega
Community editable doc (Chapter) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread
Supporters: Afforess, Gremlin Jack, Weise, Xodarap4, Duncan Sproule, James Moorhouse, Dankermaler, Hats88, DrkShdow, Devilstar101, Michael, Mana Rope, Falk Hüser, Daniel Martinez, Silver Wolf, Mackenzie Buckle, Markus, Neso, Staradder, Lmc9389, Staradder, victor a lopez-barron, KrasieK, Zollus, Mintea, Jog256, Ethan Dowie, Maxim Blashkevych, The GrandMage, loyalChaos, Daryl, FreelancerD0, Zul The Lich, Flynn Pirola-Henderson,
Bjorn of Tra
The thunder of guns resounded across the battlefield as tons of lead were thrown across the sky, smashing into either unlucky parts of the soil and exploding or into the remnants of the cement and iron structure that had once been an Ork fortress. It was now no more than rubble that they held on to with extreme determination.
It was a wondrous sight, one that had not believed I'd see again, though probably I'd see it more than I'd like considering there were probably more fortress worlds like this scattered about the Wheel of Fire.
All around me other Wolves of Fenris stayed low in the trenches dug by our canine companions and our own hands, reinforced in a few places with bits of wood taken from what was left of the jungles that once occupied the majority of this world. We had fought long over the last 3 weeks to push this close to the fortress. The enemy had maintained a steady flow of Orks into the forward lines up till recently, either they were running low on troops or they were trying to lure us in. Hard to say, it was hard to judge the Orks as combatants.
I'd heard stories from the older Marines who fought when the legion was known as the sixth and at the time they had said that Orks were stupid and foolish creatures that could be easily defeated. Well, if that was true, there must be significant variance amongst Orks because these ones were somewhat intelligent in their tactics. At night we often had to triple security compared to what we were used to because Orks would launch raids, trying to use the night to their advantage. Granted it wasn't that successful, most Marines had thermals and night vision in their helmets that they could turn on but the Orks tried nonetheless and they denied us sleep. It may have been a problem for a normal army but for Space Marines that was not a problem at all. They also attempted to return artillery fire for the first week, quite a lot of material was destroyed on our side because of that. The Iron Warriors had pushed for an assault and our own commanders had agreed which seemed to have been a bit of a mistake as the Orks had revealed better artillery skills than we suspected to topple over a couple of the armored trains, forcing us to dig in and repair them.
There were benefits and non-benefits to the Squat trains I had seen since we started fighting and I suspected most Marines had come to this conclusion as well. The trains worked as good mobile bunker bases, allowing us to push forward while keeping us somewhat supplied as we moved . However they should never be in the front line as they were generally a good target for the enemy fire and, no matter how tough the Squats claimed they were, put anything under fire and it will have problems. I could only hope that the higher-ups in the command structure had figured that out and were now planning around those problems for the future campaigns where we would be deployed with the squats.
Not that the Squats themselves were a problem. They were good guys really, though crude with their humor sometimes. They had generally stopped after one of them had made an unwise comment about the Primarch in hearing range of some of the more vocally supportive of our leader.
Thankfully it hadn't gone too bad, just a mutual beating up of each other. It had been followed by drinking and comments about beards and the proper style and length. Which had also developed into an insult match but that was short-lived as well, the drinking had helped calm that down. That and the fact that we found out that what was left of that particular jungle's wood on this planet had certain narcotic effects. Nothing too terrible but it had calmed the situation down pretty well.
We'd simply just put up a large bonfire of some of the remaining wood and enjoyed the night.
That being said, ever since then, we've got on well with the dwarves and worked well to push the lines in. They were pretty salty about having to leave their bikes behind and I could understand why, the bikes gave them a lot of mobility and they had to give it up to move across the trenches. Now that we were finally inside of the central fortifications of this Ork world it wouldn't matter. The campaign was generally drawing to an end and we were simply waiting for them to make their final move in this war, their final charge from the wreckage of their destroyed castle as they tried to grasp whatever final victory they could against us. They had already accomplished much more than we had hoped, several hundred Marines were already dead, with many more severely injured. This campaign had been probably one of the bloodiest to this day and, supposedly, this was just a light fortification behind the lines. We were not meant to be there, they had expected us in the big places that would hold us up.
No doubt we would take similar losses when we got to those worlds that were meant to actually hold us up indeterminately.
Shrugging those thoughts off I looked to Kori Bretakollrsson as he approached up the trench with some of the others from the squad. They had been on patrol and were now getting down to take a rest.
"Any movement from the Orks?" he asked as he sat down next to me.
I shook my head before saying, "Afraid not, still held up tight in their little fortress. No idea what their plan is but it can't be good if they're willing to let us bombard them the way they have been."
"Maybe they just gave up?" Audgislisson, the radio man, asked as he pulled out his knife and began to cut back some of the hair on his head. He tended to have a mohawk-like haircut style and, for the last week, we'd been so busy he had to let his hair grow out. It figured that he would take this moment to satisfy his need to cut back his mane.
"I mean, I don't think they'd give up," Kori Bretakollrsson said as he began to check his bolter rifle. "More likely they're just waiting for the right moment to strike out at us, for us to become complacent," then he looked around and seemed to realize something. "Well I guess either that or they're just letting us get real close, aren't they?"
I chuckled at that "Yeah, I guess you're right. We are getting a bit complacent about them just staying in that fortress so they're probably getting ready to suprise us. Any moment now they're going to spring out at us. It's going to be interesting because we have more bolter guns and heavy bolters pointing at that fortress than I think most legions have Volkyte weapons.
"About that," Captain Boesson said, moving in our general direction. He wore the gray armor of someone who'd been in the legion from the days of the Route, although he had adopted a wolf pelt cape to his clothing and had painted a few streaks of light blue to represent a shared color with the newer Fenrisians to the legion. He was a tall Marine, probably one of the tallest in the legion with dark hair and a keen eye. I would rather have said keen eyes but he had lost one of them in some of the few conflicts that the Route had been in before finding its way to Fenris.
Looking us over he nodded before stepping up to look over the trench wall with me, saying "Just got back from further up the command chain, the Primarch thinks they will try and break out tonight or within the next 24 hours. Wolves have been on edge or something. Don't know how she knows these things but… Going to trust her on this she's not led us wrong so far."
"Probably whatever that ability of hers is," Kori Bretakollrsson said, standing up to stretch.
"Ability? Oh yea, right, you stuff all the psyker stuff under that title. I don't know if she can sense them coming or not but I wouldn't put it past her. This psyker stuff is not my field of expertise though."
I know I did, before asking "So, you think that most legions have more Volkyte than us? Any idea why we're having so much trouble getting some then? I heard they're great for fighting Orks."
The captain shrugged before saying "Logistic issues, I'm sure. Perhaps they're just waiting to see if we survive the Wheel of Fire? We'll get enough soon enough, the bolter gun is perfectly fine and serviceable meanwhile."
I nodded an agreement, before asking "Then any other weapons we're low on because the Imperium is waiting to see if we're a serviceable legion or not?"
He shrugged, before saying, "Going by the Mechanicum motorcycles I wouldn't be surprised if we aren't getting as many plasma weapons or Las cannons as we should have. At least they did not skimp out on the tanks, that's the important part; we'll need those to fight."
"Hopefully we've got enough of those. We've been getting a lot of niche weapons that I don't know how we're going to integrate into our forces. Like we have shields designed to be used with both weapons that were dropped off yesterday. As far as I can tell the Primarch didn't order them so no one knows why they're here, they're just here and will probably be integrated into a few forces just to find out if they're useful."
I looked over at the enemy fortress. Against artillery…I shrugged. But against their infantry? I guess it wouldn't be so bad. "Their rounds weren't that good at penetrating armor, so giving us another layer of armor to put in front of us wasn't a bad option."
"That, I can agree on," Captain Boesson said, before turning to look at the man again, "though using those shields to cross these trench lines is pretty much the dumbest idea I can come up with, if that's why they shipped them here. At least we're getting plenty of flamethrowers, we'll need that for the cleanup operations on this world to make sure we kill all the fungi."
"As well as plenty of anti-armor equipment and anti-air, so whatever attempt they make to try and push out of the rubble they now call a home… We'll be prepared and able to smack them back in quite easily, I believe."
"Yeah, here's to that," the radio man said as he finished cutting the hair from the sides of his head, with minimal bleeding I saw. He needed to work on his technique and maybe get an actual mirror, otherwise he'd end up with a scarred head and it wouldn't even be from fighting a wolf or something. I guess he could lie, the only ones who would be able to call him out would be members of the squad after all.
Shaking my head at the thought I started to get down when I heard something. It sounded like a low rumbling, not the same rumbling we'd been hearing for days from the artillery. That I was used to but this was different, how different was hard to say but it sounded like a repeated sound of moving machinery. Looking back towards the enemy line I tried to see if there were any tanks, or whatever they called tanks, moving towards us but there was nothing there. In fact, it was rather quiet in a sense. Strangely it now sort of sounded like it was directly underneath us. Getting down on one knee and then on my stomach I listened to the ground and there it was, the sound of machinery grinding as it moved forward.
Looking around I saw the others were looking at the ground, as intently as I had been listening to it, and picking up their guns as if they were worried something was going to spring forth from it.
To be fair that probably was not an unwise move. I immediately got up and aimed my bolter down, taking a few steps away from whatever was going on. Just in case.
This proved to be a wise decision as the trench in front of me exploded in a shower of dirt and fire, sending the squad into disarray as members were cut off from each other in the fire or buried under the dirt.
In the moments after the explosion of dirt, the screams of 'WAAAGH' came out of the hole, following the giant drilling device that had pushed its way to the surface. Orks came streaming out of the hole around the device, rushing into the trenches and attempting to murder us. We, of course, denied them that ability as far as I could see, at least from my angle. The captain merely went back to back, firing our bolters as the Orks rushed towards us. A couple even went running past us, probably searching for the other members of the squad who were laying into the beasts.
Our guns were turning red hot from the amount of fire we were putting out as new streams of melee-focused shorter Orks rushed past us and at us. It was about that moment we realized exactly what was going on together.
"They're trying to use up our ammunition with their untrained, the veterans will get us when they come out with the real guns!" I shouted.
"Agreed!" The Captain said, firing forward. "Everyone pull back and find a turn in the line. We cannot let ourselves be overrun."
With that our squad, which had metaphorically been split in two would now be fully split in two, though I doubted Kori Bretakollrsson would stay in the same position as we had been deployed. I figured he would do the same, as both our teams would probably start backing up in the trench and heading for redoubts that were stronger and more defendable in these particular lines.
Falling back in the trench we made our way west, our guns firmly pointed towards the Orks and trying to kill them as fast as they came out, reloading as we went and keeping them from overrunning us. We were making our way towards a trench line that connected back towards the next line of trenches which we hoped to find still secure. As we got to the cross-section we saw fellow Wolves of Fenris moving back from the other direction, telling us that well… If it was pretty bad in the direction we'd come from, it was pretty bad to the west as well.
Captain Boesson walked over to the men who were falling back and asked "Some kind of digger machine thatflooded you with Orks?"
The sergeant, who I didn't recognize, yelled back, "Yes, sir! They've overrun the trench nearly completely in this direction. How about the other way?"
"Same, son, same. We'll have to pull back into the trenches of the second line at this current rate, or hold this position and hope for reinforcements."
Turning to Audgislisson, who had managed to end up on our side, he said, "Get me communications to the next line and find out what they're planning to do about this situation."
He nodded and took a knee, starting to listen to the calls. It took him a few bits to get information before he finally yelled, "Sir, this is not just on the first line. There are breaches in the second and third line, it seems like they are trying to overwhelm all lines on this particular side of the trenches."
"How many goddamn Orks are there in that fortress?" He asked before one of the Orks, apparently deciding that running in the trench towards us that was not a smart move, jumped in from the side of the trench where we had not been looking. The captain just barely got his gun up in time to blow its brains out but it was a close-run thing.
Turning to us, he said, "Well we cannot hold this position without support from the back lines. We need to pull back now, get ourselves out of the trap and into a position with stronger support and more ammunition."
"Everyone, let's get ready to beat feet but keep your guns hot and do not let the enemy penetrate our defensive lines. Got it?"
"Of course!" "Yes, sir!" was yelled as we formed up in a basic square and started to slowly withdraw down the trench line towards the next series of trenches. The captain leading the way along with two other men watching the forward half, in case Orks started coming from that direction as well. Something I hoped wouldn't happen as we were already having enough Orks charge from behind us, dying as they were slaughtered under bolter fire and leaving a pile of bodies that the next Orks would have to climb over.
That was good for us as it gave us more room to work but if there were Orks coming from in front of us that would mean we would have to carefully navigate over the corpses while they were rushing into the midst of us. Granted they didn't survive long wielding only crudely made axes. One not fully dead Ork rose behind one of the men and slashed at his back-armor plate, only for another man to turn and shove his fist through the Ork's skull turning his brain into jelly and splattering it across the dirt of a wall.
Before anyone could throw congratulations at him another Ork jumped down and then another and the realization started to hit me that, because no one was able to keep a fire down on the Orks outside the trenches, they could literally just pull themselves up and try and come around on our sides.
Even if they weren't coming from in front of us this would be problematic.
Thankfully that proved not to be a big problem in the end as the next Ork that tried to jump down in front of us was fired upon by someone with, by the sound of it, a heavy bolter going active again. This implied that either line two or three were secure enough that they could man their machine guns again.
With crowd control weapons now securing the roof Captain Boesson said "Come on, boys, we're almost there. Let us push forward down the last few meters of the trench so we break through into friendly ground. It should make it harder for the Orks and give the wolves a chance to close range on us."
As if my thoughts had summoned something I had considered an Ork jumped down from the trench line number two to our left. Tight there was nothing but empty trenches and bodies and blood, which was not that bad a sign as most of the bodies appeared to be Orks. This meant the second line might have already started pulling back to their entrance.
Without another word, the captain started moving towards the west. Understandable, we had come from the west to the eastern part of the line which meant there was a chance that we would hook up with the lost members of our squad as they did the same from whatever trench line they took. I hoped so but it was a possibility that Kori Bretakollrsson had died in the fighting, that would be a shame.
Man was good luck and marked by the Alfather for good things, I had hoped to ride that mark all the way it would allow me to. That and he was just generally a good guy. Either way though I needed to focus on the here and now so we started pushing in the direction that would take us to the next trench line. that would take us back to the third trench which, by the sound of it, had yet more heavy bolters going online so it was probably almost secure or was going to be quite quickly.
Made sense. After all the third trench line would have access to the supplies and to troops who were still either fresh or recovering from being at the front. No doubt they were rushing into the third trench to secure it, killing the Orks as fast as they could.
Could only hope they killed the Orks quick enough that we could seal the holes in the line and start taking back the second and first trench. Then again we might not need those trenches if this was their final assault outwards as, with the amount of Orks that had just been rushing out of those tunnels, I could take a good guess that this might be the case.
We were rounding the corner when we came across a bit of a problem. Standing near the trench line and heading back to the third line was a group of Orks, ones actually armed with guns. They turned on us with abandon and sprayed wildly into the trench walls past us, shooting up a Space Marine from the other unit. He was not fast enough getting out of the way and his life ended in a series of explosions, the Ork bullets apparently being explosive in nature and finding weak points in the armor to set off internal explosions from oxygen containers and several other important key items in the power armor's equipment.
Captain Boesson just barely made it back into safety as the rounds went past him. "Shit. Shit." He muttered as I saw that he had not escaped unscathed. Several rounds had punctured through his hand, not destroying it fully by the looks of it as the armor kept it together, though I wondered if he'd be okay. Considering all the modern technology that had been brought in with the joining of Fenris to the Imperium of Man he'd probably be fine, having a robotic hand to replace a damaged one was not a bad option. He could even probably have a few more equipment and tools in it, I figured.
Either way I pointed to our medic, Sigguatr Skeggisson. "help the Captain." I ordered before moving forward to take his position.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," he said.
"Yeah, just like Captain Kollsvein Ornolfsson was when he lost his arm," I pointed out. Captain Kollsvein Ornolfsson had had his arm sheared off by an Ork and then proceeded to beat the bastard who had done it with his arm. Not the wisest move because they hadn't been able to save it, the bones having been so shattered it wasn't worth it. He was currently, as far as we knew, on a transport back to Fenris to either get a replacement arm or take up a teaching position. Either one would be fine by my point of view though I'd heard some people argue over the matter before, some saying they'd never take a teaching position. Those who were mainly from the more barbaric areas of Fenris… well, they tended to be more practical-minded and, following the logical thinking of the Primarch, tended to say a teaching position was fine. Strange reckoning but not one I should be thinking about at this moment.
Either way the Captain nodded and backed off, allowing me to take the position and look around the corner. And pull back, of course, real fast as enemy fire blasted the corner almost off and caused me to back up some more.
Grabbing a grenade from my belt I put my finger through the ring and pulled the pin before tossing it around the corner. I figured we had 5 seconds so I pointed to two men and said "when the blast goes we go in," They signaled their agreement and I grabbed a knife off my belt. Dual-wielding a knife and a bolt gun was probably not the most effective way to fight but at this range I didn't need accuracy so it might work.
4 seconds later the trench line was deafened by an explosion and I turned the corner, unleashing fire from my bolt gun, my knife hand holding the barrel against the side of the wall just for a little bit of stability. The other two Marines came around me to fire as well, saturating the area where the Orks had been standing. This sort of worked as the Orks failed to cover those who had been falling into the trench line across from us. One using his friends as flesh shields but once I realized they were not as big of a threat as I'd originally suspected I rushed into the fray, firing shots at the Orks down the trench to keep them pinned as I smacked my fist deep into the gut of the Ork who used his fellows for cover. I jammed my knife as deep as it could go before pulling up and unleashing a torrent of gore onto my arm.
The other two marines moved forward to my sides, firing on the Orks who had dug for cover though they didn't stay in cover for long. After a few moments we heard bolter fire from that direction and one came tumbling down dead. Around the corner stepped Kori Bretakollrsson, as well as a few other Marines and several of Tanya's Valkyries. They had mainly been deployed to the third line I thought, though I guessed maybe some of them were taking up position in the second? Either way they looked like they had been through hell, most of them covered in gunk
and blood that I could only hope was of xeno variety.
"Lucky bastard!" I said, looking past him at the girls. "All I found were other Space Marines."
"Hahaha." Kori Bretakollrsson fake laughed as he fired a few shots into the downed Ork to make sure he was dead. "Well, at least you found others and weren't actually found. Damn line is mingled up all over the place, Orks are everywhere and I'm not even that sure that the fire coming from the third line is friendly. One of our brothers tried to stand up to fire down into the Orks and was immediately shot from behind."
"Well, that's not great," I mentioned. "I think the ones at least on our side of the line were friendly, at least they took down Orks. So who knows what the third line looks like right now."
"Probably an Emperor damn mess," Captain Boesson said, stepping forward and holding his hand, his pulled gun having been slung over his shoulder. "This whole operation has gone to hell."
"Ain't that the truth," I muttered, before saying, "I hope we don't have to get involved in any more trench fights in the future. We should be fighting them in open fields, not in this shit."
"Open fields just means more casualties," Kori Bretakollrsson pointed out as he stepped firmly on another Ork who apparently wasn't as dead as I thought, crushing their head under his power foot.
"Either way, though," he continued, "We need to pull back into the third line. We're too separated from reinforcements here, and if they take the third line wer'e cut off."
"Agreed," The Captain said, pointing to Kori Bretakollrsson and me. He ordered "You two will lead the way down the next trench. Kill anything big green and ugly and if the third line is compromised we'll just try and figure out our move from there. Hopefully it's not too bad there, reinforcement should have moved in quite quickly thanks to our proximity to the supply lines."
"And, if not, I'm sure the Primarch is rushing to save our asses as we speak," I said, punching the shoulder of Kori Bretakollrsson.
The Captain looked at me, confused, before I explained, "Kori Bretakollrsson here is an old friend of hers, used to be the king of the other side of Fenris before she got full control of our planet."
"Really? Didn't know that. Well then maybe he should move to the center if he is that known for bringing her out to save his ass."
Kori Bretakollrsson shook his head, replying "It's just coincidence, sir, small world sort of stuff. It's not even that often."
"He's been on two deployments and both times she's shown up. Granted she's only saved his ass once of those two times but I would not put it past it happening a second time."
"Technically that would be the third time," Kori Bretakollrsson muttered. "She did save my life when I was but a child."
"Ha! Really? Now tell me, is she your unofficial godmother? This is something we should know about." I said, razzing him a bit.
Kori Bretakollrsson shook his head before walking over towards the trench, looking down it. "I would love to answer that question another time. How about we get to the third line and find out what's happening?"
"As long as you answer it, man, I'm fine getting a move on," said the radio man from the back, apparently having been interested in this conversation.
Lettingout a deep sigh the captain said "Then let's get a move on." And with that we retreated down the trench line towards the third line, moving quickly to not be caught by any more Orks pushing up from the first line as there was no doubt they would.
What we popped out to when we got to the other side was a bit of a mess all on its own. On one side there were Orks shooting past us to the other direction towards Space Marines that were shooting back at them, putting us in the center of a crossfire between friendlies and enemies. Not wanting to push too far forward I grabbed the last grenade off my belt and tried the same trick again, throwing it towards the Ork side and stepping back. There was an explosion and quickly we were able to push forward, signaling to the Space Marines that we were pushing from the Ork-controlled line.
Leonard and a few of othres moved over to join us, though most seemed to be pulling back. Most likely there was fighting going on in another direction that we couldn't see.
The third line was bigger, mainly due to the storage of tanks in the trench and added bunkers for protection of the wounded and those resting. We made our way forward and quickly found something surprising.
Laughing I said "Hey look! Your godmother is here." Primarch Russ was fighting a giant Ork with a claw for a hand that seemed to be more iron than flesh. Her sword was meeting his ax and claw in lightning strikes, several Orks were all around, rooting for their war boss I guess. Oh well, at least some of our brothers were doing the same for the Primarch.
It was a show, to say the least, and I could only wonder how it all started. Still, the fact that she happened to show up just near Bretakollrsson position in the line was absolutely a sign that she was looking out for him.
Tanya Russ
The battlefield was absolute chaos. Not only was it absolute chaos but all plans had gone to absolute shit.
Which was to be expected, really. Plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. The fact that things had gone as well as they had was simply a matter of luck but I don't think I had ever planned for the idea that the Orks would tunnel under the trenches with drilling machines to then burst forth from the ground and spill out into the lines all across the western front. If I had I probably would have reinforced those lines but I hadn't. All I had planned for was a general slow crushing job as the Orks were trapped and there was no need to rush in and get my men killed charging them with abandon as the Iron Warriors had suggested once or twice.
Well, considering they had launched this attack the way they had, perhaps the Iron Warriors had been right on that matter. I had simply been giving the Orks time to formulate a counter-attack that had created chaos and was now causing probably the same amount of deaths that would have happened if I had ordered the assault.
My mistake, I would not let it happen again in the future. I had underestimated the Orks in their ability to fight, now I would not.
But the matter was now the trenches were basically overrun and they needed to be reinforced, which was why I was forced to assemble as many Space Marines and Squats as possible to feed them into the chaos.
Normally I think I would have preferred to stay back from such a fight but… well, in conflicts like this being in control of the situation wouldn't do me any good. I couldn't order more troops down there to seal the gap, as much as much as I wanted to it wouldn't seal the gap. So I had reluctantly decided to accompany the forces into the fight, bringing with me the large chainsword I was given and getting myself dirty as well as many of my wolves.
We had been in the process of actually securing the third trench line. From what I had been able to pick up over the comms chatter a good percentage of the trenches, at least 50 to 70%, was fully in our control and we could push forward into the second trench once we got it up to 80 or 90 percent.
But that was not immediately going to happen because, as I entered what had been built as a potential artillery position, a large circular hole in the ground with cement laid for the artillery piece but still empty, I found a giant Ork surrounded by other Orks. It was standing there, yelling at some smaller creature that I guess could be considered a Gretchin.
Either way the small green thing had turned in my direction as I stepped in there, Space Marines on either side as guards and Valkyries behind them, and said "Boss man, boss man! look, big big 'umie."
The Ork, I guess the boss, was standing almost to eye level with me. It turned from yelling at the little creature, revealing that it was covered in what could be best described as a mech suit in some areas. A crude power armor from my guess. And to add to the ridiculousness of the armor in question it had been designed to replace the hand with a giant claw. Now I may not be the most military-minded person in the world but even I could think that replacing your hand with a claw seemed like a downgrade. You gave up your dexterity for fighting ability, sure, but if someone managed to damage that claw? Well then you now lost all fighting ability, didn't you?
The lord of the green Orks laughed before pointing at me, "Ya're 'da 'umie leada. Ya're da big wun, uv kourse, ya're da 'umie leada. I declare a challenge ta ya. 'n 'da name uv grarluzz uv 'da wheel uv fire empire, i challenge ya ta a fight ta 'da deth. An' if ya refuse, well, Iz still gunna fight ya."
"And what if I just shoot your brains out?" I countered, raising my hand to ask the most realistic question.
"Ya may try but ya will find 'dat difficult! vargrunak, shoot me."
"Wot? errr…" the little green creature said.
"I said shoot me or i'll stomp yer."
"right away, sir, right away!" The creature replied, grabbing an oversized gun and firing a shot at the Ork. A round bounced off what could be best described as a shield and went up into the air beyond the trench line probably going to cause some sort of mayhem somewhere but not my problem.
The Ork raised its claw hand and its ax and said, "'da shield protects me from yer weapons, 'da only fing dat will hurt me iz dat little pointy sticka on yer back dere" pointing towards the chain sword that was mounted on my back.
"Dis will be mutual kombat wun on wun, fair as it kan be, an' 'da winna takes 'da world."
I blinked, considering this. I would prefer not to engage in hand-to-hand combat with some Ork but then again I couldn't shoot his brains out and if I were to just send my wolves in that would seem a little bit unfair and unsporting. As much as I would prefer to just not get involved in this it was probably best for my reputation that I defeated him quickly and with my own two hands.
I mean I could quite easily refuse but there was the honor of the thing to consider. Really the Ork had apparently gone through all the bother to engineer a situation to directly challenge me to a fight and if I simply said no… well, it would look bad to my warriors. Not to mention that if I said no I would set a rather unfortunate standard.
What if, sometime in the future, one of my commanders is challenged to a fight by the leader of a human civilization with the promise that if they lose they will surrender without fighting. Well what If I just set the precedent that my Wolves do not accept those kinds of arrangements? This potential friend would go out of their way to simply order a full-out conflict, never regarding a deal as something worth considering.
Granted, it was very well possible that a situation like this would develop and they'd still betray us and say no after their loss. But it was better to have at least attempted a diplomatic solution than to not at all. If I went out of my way to set the standard of just murdering enemies when they offered some kind of diplomatic duels… well, that's a bad standard.
Finally, just letting out a deep and disturbed sigh, I drew the blade from my back and said, "If you want to fight, let's fight. You're not going to survive it very well but you seem to have your opinions on the matter. Any chance you would accept surrender or will you give in to your Orkiest tendencies and battle to the death?".
The Ork smashed its mechanical claw into its chest and yelled, "Godbusta will not surrender! 'dat's not a gud fight, 'dat's a waste uv time. Eitha ya die or i die an dis world's fate will be determined."
"Good enough for me," I said. I stepped towards him with one slow step before I leaped at him, bringing the blade down from the top, hoping to just cut right through his ugly green skull in a moment.
The Ork was a lot faster than I suspected, he was able to block the blade with the blunt end of his axe before trying to hook it around the the blade and rip it out of my hands.
Which did not accomplish a thing since I had a strong enough grip on my weapon, not to mention I had the handle magnetized to the gloves so that I could not actually lose grip unless I deactivated it. A little bit of forethought does us good sometimes.
The Ork, seeing we were in a bit of a stalemate, tried to chomp at me with its claw-like other hand. I simply grabbed its wrist and attempted to rip the arm off but the power armor was a lot stronger than I had suspected. How this load of scrap was able to hold itself together I did not know but it was not only managing to not break under the Primarch strength I had been granted by my biology but it also withstood the little boost that the power armor I wore gave me.
Well this wasn't very successful so I did my best to unstick my blade from his ax and stepped back, letting go of his claw as I did, and trying to get a better observation of the situation from a distance.
The Ork laughed, to the thunderous applause from its companions, and yelled, "see, yer grunts? told yer 'dat i kould fight dis 'umie WAAAGH! boss wun on wun, all i have ta do iz break dere spirits an' dere will an' dey'll die like all da rest uv da 'umiez 'oo challenge da empire uv our great WAAAGH! boss grarluzz".
"You're being a little bit too self-assured," I mentioned before taking the blade in a double grip and stepping closer.
"Self-insured, no. Ushered iz da word…" The creature said, apparently not realizing how stupid that sounded.
"No, it's not," I simply retorted before stepping closer; slashing down again. The chainsaw revved heavily along the blade as the Ork brought up its own ax, making sparks flow. But that's when I disengaged my weapon and pulled back, before giving the creature a solid kick in the side which sent it flying into the nearby dirt-retaining wall of the circular hole in the ground we were fighting in.
"Oh, an 'dat's not fair! ya're not supposed ta use yer legs."
"Why? Because yours are short and stumpy?" I asked, stepping closer towards him.
"No, 'dat's jus not how fight'n' iz done. Yer smash each otha wit' yer weapons ova da head, yer do not kick."
"You don't because you have short stumpy legs meant for waddling around. Heck do you even have the bone structure to stand at attention, or do you always stand bow-legged like that?" I pointed out before bringing the blade down on him. He managed to block it again, this time with his claw. I immediately withdrew my sword as I realized he was attempting to close the claw and cut the blade in half. Would have disarmed me rather well there, I noted. Better to not let him get a chance to try that again, I thought.
"hey! we orks are a proud people, i do not need yer xenophobic insults ova 'da way our bone structure, whateva 'dat iz, iz designed." The Ork said, pointing its ax at me.
I looked at the beast rather incredulously before asking, "Are you kidding me? You Orks literally enslaved humans and you're complaining about a comment made in the midst of combat to the death? It was not even an insult, just pointing out the realities of your own biology."
The Ork showed the biggest shit-eating grin I think I'd ever seen, implying to me that this was some sort of tactic just to screw with me, possibly to try and get me off my guard. "Yes. Yes, i am, ya hear. dese remarks are insensitive ta 'da Ork race."
I blinked several times before saying, "Noted. At the next human resource meeting I will bring up how we deal with Orks. Till then how about you just lose your head already?"
And I whipped the sword to the side, trying to slice that creature's head off from the power armor that was protecting the rest of its body. it brought up its claw hand just in time, catching the blade. Before I could do much to stop what was about to happen I heard the distinctive crunch of metal being sheared in half.
He got me, the green bastard had got under my skin. I was going to have to be better about not letting that happen in the future, I noted as I looked down at the top half of my blade laying on the ground. That and I would also need a stronger blade so that my weapons didn't break in combat.
The Ork was laughing in front of me, pointing his chain ax at me while saying "See? see? i've destroyed yer pretty blade an now yer've lost. Be gud an' yer'll work 'n 'da mines for 'da rest uv yer life without much suffer'n. Be bad an' i will-"
I didn't let him finish, instead kicking my foot up and smacking the chain ax out of his hand which went wide in the air. He looked up in surprise at seeing the blade floating there for a few seconds before, with a little nudge of help, it landed perfectly in my hand. I brought the ax down on the shoulder of his now empty hand, exploiting the weak point there, and the chain ax dug in deep enough that it cut its way all the way through. His arm toppled off his body and the Ork screamed in pain, or was it roared, something close to 'war' though with a high pitch to it.
The Ork stepped away, holding his claw hand to his now empty stump in obvious pain, yelling, "Dat's not fair! i destroyed yer weapon, ya were supposed ta surrenda like most 'umiez do."
Looking at the axe I wondered how it worked. At least the chain sword made sense since it was just a chainsaw with a proper handle but the chain ax was a bit weird and dumb. The handle was at the end of a wooden pole and the systems that ran the chain mechanism were all the way in the head of the axe.
"You set the rules quite clearly," I began, "You said we were fighting to the death so there's no surrendering. If you wanted me to surrender you should have said so in the beginning. Unless of course you only wanted me to surrender without a fight? Well I'm afraid that's not going to happen, that's actually a rather stupid take and I understand why you are not the overboss of this empire then. My forces will win this war, I'm simply fighting you to humor my bad side. Now are you going to come at me or are you going to scream and moan about it being unfair?"
Well the beast did scream as it rushed at me, its claw chomping at the air and trying to grab any bit of me in-between its pincers. I simply kept stepping back, sometimes deflecting the claw with my newly acquired ax as the fighting went on.
The creature was bleeding out profusely, its plasma spilling across the ground and painting it into a red mucky mud. That would probably need to be fried once we were done here, just to make sure no spores were left to sprout.
Even though the Ork seemed to have quite an armored carapace with that scrap armor and tough leathery skin that was about the only bonus it seemed to have as it was slow and unwieldy and, without the other hand to block my attacks, it wasn't long until I found my axe chopping at its sides.
Simple fact of the matter was my comment about their short stubby legs was not just noticeable, it was a significant advantage that I had over it. I was able to quickly maneuver around it, slicing at its sides and weak points, driving the axe into his other shoulder blade at one point.
I don't believe I was ever much of a dancer in my first life but sometimeduring my second life I had picked up an expertise for maneuver as I quickly managed to find a point behind the shoulder of his remaining arm, cutting that one off as well. It left the Ork as an armless torso with an ugly skull on top. The creature groaned in pain before falling to its knees, already on its way to death. It tried to raise its head to say something but I decided not to let it suffer anymore. I simply shoved the axe down into its skull, letting the chain bite deeply into its gray matter. I kept the ax there as the Ork slumped, dead.
I stood there for a moment, catching a few breaths before dropping the disgusting ax down to the ground. I took another look at the broken chain sword in my hand, still held there by the magnets in my glove.
It was sheared in half, the chain was thoroughly broken and it would probably never work again. I probably was going to have a very annoyed Adeptus Mechanicum girl waiting for me when I returned to Hrafnkel. But that really didn't matter. I was alive, victory was mine, and now I had to deal with the Orks who had gathered around and were looking at their dead commander, rather stunned.
Well the answer to how to deal with them was actually quite simple: train my Marines. I said, "battle's won. Continue the fight."
The howls of joy mixed with roars of the chainswords being drawn from their sides was a good sign that their blood was up and ready for this. Without much thought they just charged directly into the Orks, chopping and slicing as they went, killing them is fast as possible. They quickly secured the area with minimal casualties. So far, so good.
I nodded in approval as flamethrower troops began to cook the Ork bodies around us and waited for someone to bring me details of what was happening on the rest of the battle. I didn't have to wait long as former Legion Master Rathvin ran up, having apparently come from the supply trenches.
Giving the sign of the Aquila he bowed before saying, "My Primarch the line is stabilizing and the third trench is fully in our hands. The men are beginning to push into the second trench now, it will not be long until we reconquer everything that was nearly lost."
I nodded with approval, before saying, "Good, good. See to our wounded then, we need to make sure as many of us survive as possible. Make sure that all Orks corpses are destroyed."
Turningto look at my other Wolves of Fenris, I said, "Do not bother waiting here I have no need for guards, this area is secure. Push forward, we must retake these lines and perhaps we shall follow the tunnels these beasts have created back to their fortress. If we invade that way I wonder if they have good defenses already prepared or not. Something we must learn."
An officer I did not recognize nodded before saying, "I bet the wolves could track their way through the tunnels quiet enough that they could surprise any Orks at the other end."
I nodded my head in approval, before saying "That seems reasonable enough. Get to work on it then, I want that fortress taken by the end of the day if we can do it and they've given us a golden opportunity to do it. Let us conquer this place for the Emperor and free any slaves we find, I'm sure they still have a few that we didn't get in our first raid."
There were several cheers and then the men filed out into the general direction of the fighting. I took a moment to take a seat and a fresh breath of air. That fight had been a little bit too fun, I think. I wondered why that Ork had specifically used something that would screw with my human resources training and background… probably just random luck that he said something like that.
Either way their 'War Boss' was dead and that tended to mean Orks were not long for the world. They would start fighting against each other to make the new boss and while they were busy doing that we could easily crush them.
At least that was the hope, that they would be too busy fighting each other and wouldn't guard the tunnels. If the tunnels weren't guarded we could easily enter the fortress and take it for ourselves, from there… from there we would have control of the planet and controlling the planet meant we had a supply point inside the Wheel of Fire.
And with that supply point inside the sector we could push out and start striking further and deeper into the Wheel of Fire until we finally cleared it entirely of enemies.
Question was how was I going to do it. Should I crush small garrison worlds like this until most of them were under my control before going for the big garrison world and the boss or should I take the boss down first to start another war boss fight between all the sub-bosses of this sector?
The answer was quite simple really. Although starting fights between the other war bosses would be beneficial in cleaning this place up faster, defeat in detail was more of an assured thing. I should focus on defeating each smaller force as fast as possible and deny the enemy resources until they didn't have anything but their big stuff left. Once that was accomplished, by my estimation, there would probably only be five to seven big planets in this sector with enough resources to last on their own. Maybe it would be time to attempt to start a war boss fight by taking out their current Big Boss leader then, so that the other planets would fight each other while I sat back and just let them do that for a while before striking them and destroying this empire forever.
Nodding my agreement to this idea I leaned back against the trench wall before sliding down to sit down at a lower rate. Fierce and Cunning came up to me again, looking at my hands, and without much thinking I began to pet them, enjoying the moment of peace between the artillery and what was to come next.
The war on this planet was probably all but done and that was a good day's work in my mind. And with a good day's work came the benefits of sending the message to your boss that you had successfully defeated the enemy and a bit of rest.
Writers note: Morning, sorry this chapter took bit longer things happen, so what we got this chapter, the end of the first battle in the sector, perspectives of the fighting from Tanya and a marine who is totally not important. And the first uses of the ork translator, going to see what people think of it this time before I decided to use it again. I hope everyone having good day and let me know what you all think of the chapter.
Edited by: Pierre,
Community edited by:Ryan Pirtle, AlphaOmega
Community editable doc (Chapter) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread
Supporters: Afforess, Gremlin Jack, Weise, Xodarap4, Duncan Sproule, James Moorhouse, Dankermaler, Hats88, DrkShdow, Devilstar101, Michael, Mana Rope, Falk Hüser, Daniel Martinez, Silver Wolf, Mackenzie Buckle, Markus, Neso, Staradder, Lmc9389, Staradder, victor a lopez-barron, KrasieK, Zollus, Mintea, Jog256, Ethan Dowie, Maxim Blashkevych, The GrandMage, loyalChaos, Daryl, FreelancerD0, Zul The Lich, Flynn Pirola-Henderson,
Last edited:
Fellow Human
Verified Roado Rolla
Looking forward to Tanya's conversation with the Emperor and how are they gonna fix Imperium's flaws. She could give the moon and other uninhabitable planets to Squats, or maybe mix with open minded Mechancis like Adelaide. Perhaps healthy competition could work.
Somehow make a deal with one of technologically advanced factions/systems to educute Fenrisians and her sector so they can reproduce the technology and innovate themselves. Probably need to keep this a secret from the Mechanicus.
Somehow make a deal with one of technologically advanced factions/systems to educute Fenrisians and her sector so they can reproduce the technology and innovate themselves. Probably need to keep this a secret from the Mechanicus.
- Location
- Russia
Tanya: Trash-talks ork warboss.
Warboss: ...Dat's raysist.
Warboss: ...Dat's raysist.
we can only hope... i mean it likly, 200 or so years of cursade there going to talk sooner or later i would think
yeah i though i might gone to far there
Fellow Human
Verified Roado Rolla
Even if she doesn't convince him to fix the issues in time, she can do what she can for her sector. It'd be good if she had someone capable and trusted with enough privilege to handle things while she on the front.
One scenario I can see this going is Tanya ending up in Warp or something and coming out in 40k, Fenris being one of the few systems not regressing technologically and the only one with renewable Astartes, due to female population.
- Location
- California
I was laughing my ass off at it, I thought it was great.
- Location
- Places
I can't help but think of the sign of the Aquila as a t-pose considering what it looks like
intriguing idea
good
just for that i went out of my way to explain what it was in chapter 27
Wolf Party Gifts
Chapter 26, Wolf Party Gifts
Tanya Russ
Grand Hall aboard the Hrafnkel
Taking a deep sip of my drink I sat back on what would be best described as a throne, a large wooden seat made of a tree from Fenris that had been carved with wolves and a few ravens.
It was officially 48 hours since the end of the fighting on the planet below and we had confirmed every Ork had been killed, every spawning location had been burned, and the planet was clear.
As I sat in this chair, enjoying the view of the Great Hall Space Marines, Imperial army, and the League forces were hard at work building a functioning military base out of the ruins that were the Ork's main hold. I'd given a general order to build up a structure that could not only support supply redistribution for further pushing into the campaign but also to take care of any more slaves we freed from the coming fights with the Ork planets.
As much as I would like to just be able to send them out of the Wheel of Fire as quickly as possible the fact of the matter was that this would be wasted resources. Ship time would be better used to reinforce an installation inside the sector that would also serve as a drop-off point for ships here. It would allow our people to at least enjoy some freedom in the sector and then maybe we could have a freighter pick them up and take them off to friendly worlds outside the sector.
It was also possible that something else would develop, I would wait and see. But having a planet that could become a new capital for Imperial governance within the sector would be useful.
At the moment though I was enjoying what could be best described as the biggest party I think I'd ever thrown. Granted I only had this life to measure against as I had not thrown many parties in my first life and my second life's memories were still cloudy about such subjects. But either way the entire Hall was covered with tables and chairs, not only Space Marines but also Squats and my Valkyries were having a loud and lively party. Wolves were play-fighting over dropped food while birds were roosting in the top area and occasionally dived down to chomp something that had been left alone for too long.
And the alcohol flowed as barrels upon barrels were being brought in. The fighting was over after all, at least for today. We would probably be going on the assault again next week, or the week after that, but it would give them plenty of time to recover from this so I was more than willing to let everyone have the greatest party they could. Because, well, you never know… Some of these men might not make it through the next fight, the losses in the conflict below had been rather startling. The Ork surprise attack had managed to create ten percent casualties amongst my Space Marines, which was not good.
Numbers weren't better for the Squats or anyone else but it was best to focus on what was my issue:ten percent casualties in a single conflict was not something that I could afford to see repeated. Especially considering there were probably more than ten other worlds than I had to defeat. My Legion could not survive those losses on each planet, I would need to work harder to make sure that my men were as trained as I needed them to be. Otherwise we could see that 50% ratio that the Mechanidum had come up with as a possible loss rate; which was not what I wanted at all.
Yes, I understood that losses happened, but what precious Space Marines I had were human resources that could not easily be replaced, no matter how many new recruits were brought in from Fenris. Veteran soldiers were worth their weight in gold and these men were closer to veterans than anyone else at this point.
I suspected that we would see a lot of blood in the coming days as the new recruits, when they did arrive from Fenris, would probably take the bulk of the losses, having none of the experience that my current forces had. Not to mention that most of these men had already served in wars, either for the emperor when they had been under the name of the Route or when they served under me in the conquest of Fenris. Every generation that would be coming now would not have served in such conflicts, they would have grown up on a Death World but a Death World that knew the peace that I had instated.
Oh well, that was something I would have to worry about as time went on. I would have to make sure to keep my troops in top shape as much as possible as the years went on. After all this was not going the first or last conflict we would be involved in, I was sure of that. Hell, we needed to conquer an entire galaxy and even if there were twenty legions of us out there I doubted that would be done within a thousand years, let alone a hundred.
Either way though, everyone seemed to be having fun. They were drinking, eating, and even fighting a little bit. Though, thankfully, the fighting seemed more playful than actual 'I am going to kill you for insulting my mother' kind of fighting. And, at the head of this chaos, sat a few individuals. Myself on the throne that I had acquired, thanks to my Wolves of Fenris having a bit of an artistic flair. To my left was Malcador, who was enjoying his food rather quietly as he observed the chaos. To his left was General Vavem of the Leagues, who was observing with a bit of amused smile, and to my right was my, well, right hand, former Legion Master Rathvin. As well as Titutus of the Iron Warriors, though most of his legion had not come up. There were a few scattered here and there, enjoying their time by the look of it.
I had invited the captain of the vessel to join us but they had denied themselves, claiming that their place was on the bridge of the ship. I didn't push too far on the matter, if he felt that he was always needed there that was up to him. I think we were pretty much out of any danger at the moment but I could be wrong, for all I knew there was an attack being prepared to try and retake the world at this very moment.
Something I hoped was not happening as that would be a sure sign that this war would go on for much longer than the determined ten years of conflict that the Mechanidum had estimated the fighting would take.
"You may not have the biggest tanks I've ever seen but, damn it, you know how to throw the biggest parties." Came the voice of the Squat leader as he downed another large glass of ale.
I accepted mine, before responding, "It's one thing us Fenrisians are good at. Well, besides fighting monsters. We know how to drink, our planet is a snowy hellscape for eighteen months out of a 24-month long year. You got to work on a few party skills to celebrate surviving that."
"Really? Your planet is frozen for a year and a half? What are the other six months like?" The Squat sounded genuinely interested so I gave him a prompt and clear answer.
"The ocean starts boiling and the water burns. If you're too close to the coast at that time you could end up with second degree burns all across your body from the steam rising up in some areas."
"A Death World, now I get it!" The Squat said, nodding his head sagely before continuing. "Well! I say that your Death World made you an alright people because that fight down there was a hell of a thing. I'm sure we would have taken a lot more losses if your legion had not been leading that attack."
I shook my head and said, "my legion did what was necessary. If anything it was your warriors' efforts that saw us win the day. It was their general tactics for prolonged sieges, we simply implemented them across the battlefield."
"For sure! Thanks for sharing your siege tactics, Iron Warrior dude."
Malcador chuckled at that and I had to stop one myself.
The Iron Warrior, seeming to not see the hilarity in the situation, simply leaned forward and nodded. He raised his glass and said, "No problem. Good to get a little credit for what we do," before downing his glass.
Turning back to me the Squat continued, "Hey, what is the plan for this sector anyways? I heard rumors that there isn't really much of one from some of the boys who talk to your Space Marines."
I shrugged, before admitting, "Not my place to determine what happens to the sector, I simply have to deal with the threats to humanity within it. Why do you ask?"
Vavem nodded at my answer, before saying, "Well… I may have let a few of my boys wander around a bit. They took a look at the geological features of the planet, drilled for a few core samples and such, the usual. They say this planet would not be so bad for a mining world and I suspect that many of the planets in this sector are going to be the same way or probably in similar conditions. I think that, with a little bit of work, we could easily set up several mining worlds in this space. Enough to support a few of the League worlds production lines. Of course, this would be with the consent of the Imperium of Mankind Would they be willing to let us have such projects?"
I nodded my, head understanding where he was coming from, before saying, "Well, that's not within my purview but I could put in a few words with the Administratum? See what they are willing to support."
I looked at Malcador to see if he had any visible opinions going across his face but he simply was nodding along in thought. Finally, he said, "Well, as first Lord of Terra, I would say my opinion is that I do not have very much to add to this but I would agree that setting up a few mining worlds in this sector would probably be for the benefit of the Imperium. There is already a local population that probably will never find their way home once we've destroyed the Orks, so giving them a way to make wealth and improve their situation is economical in the long run."
"Haha! I knew this whole campaign would be great for my people, not only did we get to kick the asses of some of our ancient enemies, but we'll possibly grow our economy as well. Now that's a campaign worth fighting for."
I nodded along with his statement before adding, "The whole point of this campaign is to improve humanity's lot in the galaxy, I see no reason why there shouldn't be development on planets we've taken from creatures that wish us harm. It would be better to keep an eye on the planets and it will be simpler if there's a local population. There's always a chance we'll miss some of the Orks and if we can have a local population in this sector to scratch around and run into them we can probably send troops to quickly clean them up before we end up with another infestation."
"If there's a truth more true than that then, I don't know what it is! You cannot assume you've defeated the Orks just because you've destroyed their armies, there's always one or two who got lost, or buried alive, or just simply survived. That's one of the reasons that we fought so hard against the Orks when they invaded the Leagues all those years ago. Even though we defeated them they just seemed to pop out at places we thought had been cleared of them. Lessons learned…"
"Well then we better make sure to clean this system out thoroughly," I muttered. "I don't want to have to come back here in ten years to put down another Ork rebellion."
"ere's to that!" Called the Iron Warrior. Having drunk another glass, by the look of it, he seemed a bit more chill.
Nodding my agreement, I continued, "If I could I would leave a small detachment here of a hundred Marines when we leave, just to keep an eye on things and for the possible training that this region could represent. Our planet is primarily mountains and ice, we don't have access to deserts and jungles and anything else we may happen to stumble across on these worlds. If that was acceptable I would do that, leave a small garrison to train up our troops while we also look after the survivors of this slave ring, prevent any Ork rebellions, and allow you to safely work on mining things."
I glanced at Malcador again to see what he was thinking on the matter. I could attempt to try and poke at him mentally though I didn't want to piss him off, better just to see what he was willing to share.
"Hmm… The Administratum won't like the idea of your troops being scattered all over the place but I was one of the few that said we should keep garrison on a few planets. I wouldn't mind speaking up in favor of this plan. If we can get the Wheel of Fire sector producing assets for the war I'm sure the Administratum would also be willing to overlook some of their supplies being moved around. Production is what's important to them, after all.
I let out a content sigh and leaned back in my chair, that was as good as I was probably going to get for now.
The possibility of successful wolves garrisons and mining outposts was as good as I was probably going to get. Hopefully the practice would spread to the other legions, my goal being to tie them down so that they felt some sort of allegiance to the people. This did create a risk of some troops feeling left behind when they were left to help clean up and sort out the mess after the legion moved on. That feeling though could be lessened if I did proper deployments of the legion for rest and garrison duty. It should keep them moving and would keep the Administratum from thinking I was trying to build an empire in the Imperium. Bureaucrats did tend to get suspicious of those they oversaw.
Besides, I was thinking long-term compared to the Administratum that seemed to be thinking only about the current wars. I was thinking about what would happen after we were done, when this galactic conquest was over. Most likely the legions would have to be either dismissed or scaled down. It was better to get to work getting familiar with small formation operations now as that was probably what we would end up doing, hunting down Orks and any other creatures that were a problem for the Imperium. Well the issue would come after the conflict and I was probably going to take full advantage of all the work I had done to take some vacation days.
After all the whole goal was to let people sort the situation out for themselves once they were secure. That meant I would not be needed unless there was a massive war in progress. I would finally have a backline position… twinges of pain came, that was a goal I had in the last life wasn't it? Hopefully things would go better now.
Shaking the pain away I looked down the hall, enjoying the side of the revelry as I saw a group of Marines in full armor walking towards the table down the central aisle. They didn't have their weapons so I didn't feel any threat, though I noticed that the one in the lead was of the Iron Priesthood. I could tell despite the armor because he had a couple mechadendrites hanging off his power pack.
Behind him were two other Marines, neophytes I think was the correct term? They had yet to finish their training, though I'd heard that a lot of the veterans Wolves of Fenris back home were coming up with new and intriguing names for legion equipment based around our homeworld.
On one hand I should probably not be in favor of this, as it would make the Administratum's job a little bit more complicated. They would ship us a type of equipment whose name we would either have to change on our paperwork or we would have to send them basically a codebook with the explanation of what each item was.
When I got around to it I would have to look deeper into that situation. I probably would go with the option to only change the name once it was delivered though. Sending a codebook with the same equipment but different names seemed like a recipe to piss off the Mechanicum. And annoying the Mechanicum, as entertaining as it sounded, was not something I was in favor of.
Getting up from my seat I said, "give me a moment, I have to see what these gentlemen want." Malcador nodded as he enjoyed his cup of ale and the others simply went about their business, nodding to me as I passed them.
Walking down the central area I enjoyed the atmosphere of the party as I came up to the Marines, who looked like they were having a good time just carrying the boxes. Stopping in front of them I said "Good afternoon. Or is it evening at this point? The party has been going rather long. Either way, welcome aboard. What brings these boxes here?"
The Tech Marine at the front pulled off his helmet before taking a knee before me, saying "Primarch Russ! Several years ago you gave me a piece of iron to forge into a weapon for you, I come bearing that weapon."
I had to squint a bit down before I recognized the Marine and said "Ah, Fergus Forgrim! Been a long time, I thought that piece of iron was unforgeable."
He shook his head and said, "With the help of the Mechanicum I was able to create a style of forging that could only be used on this piece of metal. it took many months in a volcano but I forged two weapons for you." Standing back up he turned around and grabbed the bigger of the boxes, holding it up for me. it was a rather nice thing, obviously carved from wood from Fenris. It was covered in scenes that I recognized as battles from my campaigns to conquer the planet. It was also long half my height and then some. Carefully I reached out and opened the box, revealing a weapon I had never seen before but that rather impressed me.
"This is Mjalnar, a blade forged from the Frost Iron you acquired." I raised an eyebrow at the reference to Thor's hammer but that was a minor issue. After all, so much of Fenris's culture was based on the norseI did not find it surprising that names like that would pop up. Strange that it would be used for a sword instead of a hammer though… but, well, I guess most of the meaning behind those names had long since been lost.
Reaching into the box I pulled out the blade and was quite entranced by it. The metal seemed to shine slightly blue and looked to be forming condensation on it as I picked it up. The reason that was happening became apparent quickly as the temperature of the blade was low, unusually so.
Fergus Forgrim obviously heard of my preferences for single-bladed weapons and had created a long blade that would easily cut through most things. I think it wouldn't be called a saber as there was a bit of a blade on the back of it but it was definitely meant for slashing more than chopping, contrary to the blades most of my Marines preferred.
Running my fingers along the back I confirmed that the metal was even colder off the handle, it almost felt like it was burning the skin on the end of my fingers. Raising an eyebrow I looked at him and said, "I must say that it seems to be a magnificent work, Fergus Forgrim. What's with this frost effect?"
Fergus Forgrim ran his hand through his short beard in apparent contemplation, before saying, "Working the metal shows the true spirit of this Frost Iron. Out of the two weapons I was able to create from the material you acquired both of them have shown a capacity to make things colder as they cut them. Why this happens I'm not sure, I think the metal simply just absorbs heat at a rate that is outside usual norms".
Well, that was as good an answer as I was going to get I figured. Holding up the blade to the sky to get another look at it I saw that the scenes on it looked more like wolves and battles in general, things I had been related to over the last 40 years. I marveled a bit at the size and balance, even though it was probably half as long as me it felt rather comfortable and didn't even feel that heavy. Though then again Primarch genes were bullshit, so it may just be benefits of my biology showing through. Smiling, I carefully put the weapon back in the box, noting that there was a sheath within that appeared to include a magnetic lock that could be easily attached to my armor.
"Miraculous weapon, Fergus Forgrim! I will use this to great effect, I think, in bringing the Emperor's might to the galaxy."
"Thank you, my Primarch." He said as the other box was brought forward. Carefully I opened this box too to see what was inside of it and was surprised to see what appeared at first to be a normal chain sword. It was a bit longer than usual though not as long as the sword I had just wielded. It was definitely a one-handed affair, unlike most chainswords I had been using which could be wielded two-handedly. A closer inspection revealed that there was something different as the chain was definitely made from the same material as the frost blade I'd already seen. The blades weren't cool enough to the touch for frostbite, which was probably somehow related to the amount of material used in it. It still definitely glowed a bit of light blue, enough to be seen in the hall's light. It also had a sheath of sort underneath it that I picked up and examined.
Having a passing thought, I chuckled as I realized I had a long katana-like sword and then a short chainsword to go with it. It was almost like I was some sort of future samurai or something.
Giving the blade a few swings I felt the weight on it, chainswords often had a little bit more weight in order to help them bite into their target. I nodded my agreement that this blade was well crafted before putting it back in the box.
"Very good weapons, you've outdone my expectations."
"Thank you, my Primarch." he answered matter of factly, giving a nod in reply before continuing, "I've heard that you've had problems with the blades the Imperium have been providing breaking so I have tested these blades as heavily as possible. I don't think this one Krakenmaw will break under the abuse you can give them, they will stay strong."
I laughed at that and clapped him on the shoulder, saying "Don't make promises like that, Fergus Forgrim. Things are always unexpected out there, I hope you're right though. Ordering a new blade everytime one breaks is annoying."
Fergus Forgrim nodded his head in agreement before saying, "Of course, my Primarch! Although do not fear too greatly if it does break, I am prepared for that eventuality."
"Oh? How's that?" I asked out of curiosity.
"I was able to acquire almost every piece of Frost Iron ever found on the continent, thanks to donations from the government. I'm going to be constructing weapons of this nature for commanders of the Wolves of Fenris as soon as I get back to the planet."
I nodded my head at that, it seemed reasonable and this would help better arm my soldiers. I was all for it.
"Well, don't hunt the Krakens to extinction to get their Frost Iron. A big benefit now won't be good if we don't have a continuous source of the material." I was mainly joking, I was pretty sure it was impossible to hunt those creatures to extinction. With so much water on Fenris they could quite easily avoid humanity for generations and rebuild their entire population if we somehow did manage to actually hunt them.
Most cracking metal or Frost Iron either washed up on the shore with corpses during Summer or was acquired during fights like the one I had been through. Those encounters did not usually end in a victory for humans so such prizes were rare.
Laughing at my joke, Fergus Forgrim nodded his agreement before saying "Will do, my Primarch. I hope those blades serve you well in the coming years. I've also prepared information on how to best take care of it. You know, oiling and such. They're underneath these sheaths."
I signaled my understanding before declaring, "Well then, now that that is handled! Come join the party, we're celebrating a victory on the planet below and have plenty of drink.
"I would love to join you, my Primarch," He said as several of the Valkyrie came over to bring goblets of alcohol and hand them out to the group of three. Taking a bigger one that one of my personal Valkyries brought up, I shouted, "To a good fight! To these wonderful weapons! And to the continuation of this campaign in the Wheel of Fire!"
There was a massive cheer that went through the gathered Marines as I started to down the cup of alcohol. I smiled as I finished the cup and handed it to the valkyrie.
This wasn't exactly how I envisioned I'd spend my life all those years ago but I had to say this was a good life. Loyal underlings, seeing visions of the galaxy I'd never imagined in my previous lives and more stress-free parties than I think any of my lives had ever had.
It almost made me forget that, in order to get this life, I had to be involved in fighting monsters or participate in various other waste of human resources. Considering I was helping undo the downfall of a human civilization that once ruled the galaxy and that we were making it safe for a peaceful civilization to rise… It was well worth it. I had to say that, when this whole Wheel of Fire situation was over, I couldn't wait to meet some of the other primarchs see to find out what they thought on the whole civilization thing. I doubted many of them would have memories from their previous lives but it would be interesting to try and guess what lives they had known before then.
Planet Xyat
Kori Bretakollrsson
It had been several months since the Battle of New Vietnam and in that time the legion had now been broken into four different components.
One component was staying with the Iron Warriors as they slowly pushed in from the main entrance to the Wheel of Fire while another component was guarding the entrance that we had used to break into the back lines of the sector.
And then there was the legion under Tanya, who was pushing deeper into Ork space. They were currently besieging another planet and doing something.
I couldn't exactly say what they were doing because I was part of the last component, the force under former legion-master Rathvin, who was pushing towards the space held by the Iron Warriors. We were currently besieging the planet of Xyat, an ice mountain world. If anything it actually made me feel quite at home, hunting Orks in the snow was a good pastime for not only myself but also for the wolves we had acquired.
The Orks, for the most part, lived in fortified compounds spread out amongst the snowy mountain ranges of this world. These compounds sat on top of large cave systems which was both where the Orks were produced and the main objective area of our fighting.
From what I understood the plan was to simply take over a base and then just fill the cave system with flammable gas after sealing the entrance. Once that was completed we would set up a timer for about twenty minutes and get the hell away in aerial vehicles so we could watch the explosions from a safe distance.
It was kind of an insane plan but it had worked on at least two other compounds so we were pushing towards the third one with some speed.
The Orks had attempted to stop us by building up trench lines and simply rolling boulders down on top of us when we got too close but that hadn't worked for long, mainly because we were familiar with this type of terrain and fighting.
Whenever they built a solid line we usually just went around, as the same mountains that they hoped would funnel us into their killing fields also allowed us to go up different sides. We often went straight up a few cliffs and came up on top of them.
The mountains were a killing-field for the Orks and we were killing quite a number of them. Of course I'm sure they thought we would be the ones being killed but, well, life doesn't always go the way you think.
For our part, we simply worried about what losses we took as we pushed deeper into their territory.
Captain Boesson had been promoted as more Marines had been shiped in. We had taken some losses though and had some Marines shuffled about. We now officially had a logistics officer also under our company structure, and a Tanya at that, so that meant we didn't have near as many problems with the paperwork as we had before.
Logistics officer Buckle was a good man, dark of hair and good with numbers. He was not a fan of fighting, apparently, but he did all right. We killed quite a bit of Orks together and over the last two months he had seemed to be coming into his own as a soldier. From what I understood he had been an orphan from the Sea Peoples before joining the Wolves of Fenris so it was understandable that he didn't have much of a military understanding and preferred to use his capabilities to handle the logistics.
Fighting on a ship was not easy and even then it was easier to work on your numbers than with weapons, as far as I was aware. Quite important, too. Don't calculate your supplies correctly and you would end up starving before you reached the next port.
Besides that Bjorn had been given a promotion and was pretty much in charge of a couple squads now. He had shown himself to be quite a good leader too, in my opinion. Part of me thought that maybe I should have pushed myself a bit harder but I was all right with the promotion I got. I was now Sergeant of my squad.
As time went on I'm sure I would get up to a reasonable rank for someone who was a former King. If not… Well then I probably didn't deserve the rank to begin with.
Either way the objective of today's fight was one of the more annoying situations we had to deal with on this planet.
Several squads had climbed up the side of a cliffside and found themselves face to face with an Ork trench line that had not been there the night before. It apparently had been dug as soon as we got on cameras on the station there.
They had been pinned down for several days at this point and they dug their own trench line. Though when you only had two to three feet between you and a cliff, that wasn't much of a trench line. More you digging forward as the ground behind you gave out.
This prevented us from easily supporting the unit and we couldn't use the artillery that was in the area. It was kind of hard to get a good fireline in the place anyway, too many mountains in the way.
From what I also heard there was a problem sending air support as the Orks on this particular planet seemed to be fans of not only anti-air but anti-air fights. Whenever one of our Jets went up three of theirs would and well… Even if ours were better, numbers did tend to at least make sure the situation would go into a draw which prevented us from securing the areas we wanted.
This is where the squads under Bjorn came in, as one of those Jets of ours had actually won a fight and followed the retreating Ork home. We had taken a long hike up a canyon valley towards what was believed to be the main Ork airport for this region, a set of massive iron doors made of scrap and set in a sheer rock wall. Those doors opened and closed to release waves of jets whenever we went on attack.
How we were going to get in there was still a bit of a question, considering the sheer rock wall. The most likely answer was that we were going to have to climb up that sheer rock wall, wait for the Jets to leave, then climb in as quickly as possible. From there we'd secure the initial area, holding the doors open for the rest of our troops to come in.
It was a gamble that we were betting on but it was one that had to be risked. If we could get rid of these jets that meant ours could secure the area instead of fighting them, not only rescuing those troops that were currently pinned down to the south of where we were currently standing but also giving us the advantage in this whole region. An advantage we needed.
Real question was how long till the Orks noticed we were here.
We had been marching up this path that looked almost like it had been used by the Orks at one point, it had been traced down by someone walking this path multiple times but it seemed to have been unused for a while from the appearance of some of the plant life. No doubt the Orks had some sort of security on this path but how, what, and where.
The general hope was that the Orks would be so focused on their air combat deployment that there wouldn't be any defensive operations ongoing and we could easily break in and bust the airport up. We would burn it or, if needed, we'd set it up to explode then see what we would do from there.
A photograph had been circulating that indicated there might be a base on the other side of the mountains from this airport. If it was the case we might have actual positions overlooking the enemy's next fortifications, which could be useful in pushing through to help clear this planet out.
My thoughts were interrupted as I saw Bjorn stop at the front of the column looking a bit worried. He stood, moving his hands to signal the line should stop so I stepped forward past the other Marines to get to him and asked, "What's wrong?"
"I thought I heard something on the wind," He said, focusing on listening. He wasn't wearing his helmet, which was not necessary on this planet. The atmosphere hadn't need to be burned since the areas where plant life grew were remote enough that we could investigate each one, clear it, and either burn it or not as needed.
"What did you hear then?" I asked, reaching up to pull my helmet off so I could listen as well.
"Seemed a bit like a laughter but… it wasn't coming from an Ork."
That raised an eyebrow before I asked "What did it sound like, then?"
"Like a valkyrie having a good time… Which does not seem like something I should be hearing while in a war zone, don't you think?"
I shrugged at that, "Probably not," I admitted.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. Tell them to be ready for a counterattack, I think we're about to get ambushed here."
Nodding, I shoved my helmet on and quickly changed the channel to the one assigned to my Squad to warn, "Prepare for a possible ambush, we're possibly about to be assaulted."
The other sergeants got to work getting them into a defensive formation, quickly forming a square on the side of the road. What side of a road there was, this was after all a canyon road.
To our left was a sheer wall of rock, to our right was another sheer wall of Rock though with a little bit more of a slope. Downward, in front of us, was of course the pathway to the airfield which we could just barely see from our position. Past that airfield, which was marked by two giant scrap doors, was a waterfall that actually looked kind of pleasant. A rainbow rose in the air as the water-charged mist moved away from it. Checking my ammunition I looked around as the Squad completed the formation with the three sergeants, not counting myself, behind each line. Bjorn was in the middle, next to a bannerman.
It was a small square. There were only about a hundred of us in total but we made up two lines, the first line kneeling and the second line standing. Our guns were prepared and we were waiting.
If they were Orks they would have to come out of this now as any hope of accomplishing their surprise attack was obviously destroyed. But if there was something else… I didn't know what Bjorn hearing giggling and not screams of war could imply. Perhaps we were not dealing with Orks? Perhaps those were human slaves that had escaped and struck against the Orks on their own?
The soldiers could help, it would make our lives easier if we had support formations of auxiliary forces. The Imperial army had deployed a few troops to the planet but they were mostly centered on holding territory around our landing zones and keeping cleared bases completely unoccupied of Orks by burning them as well.
Watching the area I turned on the auspex, trying to get as much information about what was going on around as possible. I doubted the Orks could be trying to sneak up on us but then again I had doubted them being able to launch a commando raid on a Town behind our lines a few months ago so there was a chance that-
That was strange! Looking near the top of the cliff I thought I saw an Ork and a very tall female human wearing some kind of armor that I'd never seen before. The human I didn't recognize but her armor was well fitted and probably very well made. The Ork's armor looked familiar, very familiar, and I wasn't sure why at first. Either way as soon as one of them spotted me looking up at them both of them vanished, either stepping back or something else taking effect to prevent me from seeing what was going on.
A moment later I heard Ork screams of war, and then screams of another type. Thousands of red lights shot up into the air, soaring up straight into the sky before they turned down and began to fall at faster speed.
"Rocket barrage", I screamed as I took cover best I could, trying to protect vital organs and limbs from the incoming explosives.
I didn't get to see much of what happened, all I did know was that everything went white as an explosive landed only a few feet away from me.
That appeared to have been more of a flashbang than anything else but the bangs I heard indicated not every single one of them was.
Then the war screams returned and the sounds of fighting played in my ears.
Took me a moment to get a handle of where I was as I had apparently been thrown a few feet away from where I had been standing. I was half buried in rocks but otherwise rather fine, the armor having saved my life. Reaching up I pulled my helmet off as I couldn't see shit, the flash having fried the internal systems. I would need to fight without it, not a problem. Getting up I quickly saw what had happened to our formation.
The square was still around vaguely, 50 men here and there still standing as they opened fire into the Orks that were practically tumbling down the cliffside. Some of them simply jumped though they did not actually survive the landing part, thank the Emperor. For the most part they splattered against the ground and actually gave our men more cover.
But some of them were a bit smarter, using jetpacks made of rockets to slow their descent or having secured wires to the edge of the canyon wall before jumping and rappelling down the rocky wall. A few Ork used it like a bungee cord, cutting it the moment they were within range of the ground and their speed had been slowed to a safe enough descent that they wouldn't splatter like those who simply jumped.
As I watched one of the Orks came running at Bjorn, wielding a chain ax. He, though, was simply a bit faster in bringing up a bolt pistol and firing two shots into its head. I couldn't see Bjorn's bolter rifle anywhere, it looked like he'd already been in combat for a few minutes before I saw him.
The creature toppled to the side as Bjorn drew his chain sword and unleashed a volley of fire at another Ork that was charging.
Getting myself up I saw an Ork land just in front of me and turn to bring up its gun. Not really sure where my own was, I simply used my helmet as a weapon, throwing it at its head. There was a loud and dramatic clunk as the creature stumbled back and I used that time to draw a knife from my side sheath and close the distance. I slashed at the beast's center, piercing through its chest cavity and into its heart.
It fell over dead but more were coming. Thankfully there was one good thing about Ork weapons: They didn't put much in the way of safeguards to prevent you from using them.
Ripping the gun out of its hands I held down the trigger and fired several rounds into the Orks coming down the side of the mountain, causing them to die either from a lucky shot that took them somewhere vital or making them lose hold of the rope. In any case, they fell the rest of the way to the ground.
Several Marines who had been pulling themselves out of the wreckage of the explosion pulled up their guns and started laying into the Orks coming down the cliffside, trying to kill as many as possible before they made their way down to us.
Raining Orks now more dead than alive thankfully I pushed my way forward with the Squad to link up with the reforming square that had now repositioned into more of a three-man deep line. The third line was aiming up onto the cliffs while the second tried to clear up anyone who tried to make their way down.
But before that could be successfully deployed correctly several dozen Orks with rockets on their backs landed in the midst of the square, starting to fight us in close quarters combat.
I caught the blade of one Ork, an ax, and fired the Ork weapon into the beast at close range. The creature quickly tumbled over but I realized I was out of ammo so I threw it at the next Ork.
I Felt more Orks coming down though and the attempt to reform the square was quickly being dispersed by the Orks landing amongst us. Pulling my bolter pistol off my side I unleashed a few rounds into an oncoming creature, though they seemed to just bounce off without causing it issue. The man next to me happened to have a Volkyte weapon and unleashed the weapon's direct fire at the creature coming at me.
Its screaming was a good sign as it tumbled over, its body burning itself under the heat ray. And something rather round and dangerous looking rolled out of its hand towards us at that last moment.
Grabbing the Space Marine I jumped out of the way, barely surviving the explosion. It was some kind of grenade, as I had theorized, but it carried a little bit more bang than our own.
Looking up from where I had landed I saw an Ork with a purple cape land with the aid of a rocket pack, laughing as he watched the fighting unfold.
"That's it, boys! Beat the humans! This was an excellent ambush I'll have to thank that pointy ears if I get the chance." The creature monologued as it brought up a bull pistol and fired a few rounds at the fight, starting to laugh again as he did.
Pulling myself off the ground I fired a few shots at him, which he seemed to just dodge as if his instincts were that good. No, the last round he pulled out a green critter from under his cloak and used it to block my round…
Recognition crossed my face, I'm sure, as I realized who was standing across. "DrkShdow." I called in anger as I readied my knife to murder the Ork.
"Ah, what's that? You know my name, are you a fan? You've heard of me so you must be a fan. I'm afraid that if you want an autograph you'll have to wait 'till after I enslave you for the Ork empire." In a quick motion I covered the ground between us and attempted to jam my knife through his throat. He blocked, having pulled a sword from somewhere, and smiled as our blades twinged and the metals sparked off of each other.
More metal came off his as it looked like it was just several street signs that had been pounded together over the centuries and sharpened.
"Ah, you have spirits young human! But I am a feared commando leader and a simple blade like that will never pierce my defenses."
I put all my strength into pushing forward, causing him to lean back a bit.
"Well… There's a first time for everything," He mused as he brought up his pistol and fired at me at close range.
I jumped back to avoid the shots as he unleashed a hail of fire in my general direction. I was joined by several other Marines who unleashed fire in his direction, their bolters banging away.
That Ork seemed to move like water, rolling out of the way of the fire before coming up and shoving his blade directly into one of the guns which caused it to explode in the Marine's face.
That Marine had his hands thoroughly injured and the damage to his helmet indicated that he barely avoided even more serious issues.
He still ran to my other side and brought his pistol around to try and fire on the Ork but it used me as a shield and attacked me with his now shorter sword. I defended myself with my knife, wishing I knew where my bolter had ended up.
With whatever skill I could muster I managed to knock his blade away from doing serious damage, which only seemed to push the Ork to laugh more.
"Why don't you tell me about yourself, human? Why, do you want my autograph?"
"Stupid Ork, we fought before," I said, trying to drive my blade into his side. He jumped out of the way and looked at me as if confused.
"No? No, I don't think we have. I think I would remember a face that ugly." He said, tilting his head to the side as if examining me.
"The Planet, 7 months ago!" I shouted, trying to ram my blade into its chest only for the infuriating creature to continue to bounce out of my way. I found myself rather annoyed about the whole situation.
I'll give it to these commandos, they seemed to have an understanding of how to not get killed in close-quarters combat. Those Orks just took the hits and then kept on coming.
"Doesn't ring a bell," he said, still taking this way too emperor-damn lightly.
"You ambushed us and demanded that we surrender. Any of it ringing a bell?"
The creature shrugged and sighed, "Sounds like a good Tuesday to me," Before pulling out another bolt pistol of his from behind his back and firing a shot past me into a marine who was coming to help in the combat.
I tried not to turn but I did see him fall over, blood running from a wound on his side. Apparently, the Ork had found a weak spot.
"Any other details you can remember? It is kind of intriguing that you remember this and I don't."
"You fired yourself off with a damn rocket to escape!" I said, shoving my knife towards him. He blocked it again, catching it in the cross guard of his own weapon.
The Ork nodded his head in recognition as if he remembered something all of a sudden. "That's right! You're the humans I ran into on that vassal world. Oh, how are you doing? I hope the explosive I left underneath the city didn't cause too many problems?
"There were explosives under the city?" I asked.
"Yeah, I wanted to blow up the entire place. Did it go off on time, it was supposed to go off an hour after I left."
I shook my head before remembering the gas explosion that happened when a grenade fell into the sewers.
"Think we probably damaged that on accident."
"Oh, damn it. I spent so much teeth on that explosive… well, 'nother time," He sighed. "I just wanted to see a town enter orbit."
"Not going to happen," I mused, pulling my blade back and kicking at his shin in the hope that he would not see that coming.
He apparently had jetpack controls somewhere I didn't see as he simply jetpacked a few feet back to prevent the hit from connecting.
"Well, there's always next time. Anyways I just have to thank you, looks like Gork and Mork finally are looking my way. They have provided me with an enemy, a good one, one who will keep coming back. I'll have to remember this day as this is the day my legend begins in Earnest. To acquire a rival, that is the greatest Honor an Ork could ever want."
"You can continue to enjoy your honor here and now,' I said, rushing at him and slashing repeatedly as he continued to back away.
"Hmm, sounds like a nice place but I'm afraid my time for the ambush has run out," he said matter of factly. Jetpacking a few more feet away he landed at the edge of the cliff that overlooked the valley below before he said. "Remember this as the day that-" He stopped just as I started to walk towards him.
"What is your band of humies called and what is your leader's name?"
Smacking my chest I said, "We're the Wolves of Fenris, under Primarch Russ, and you will not survive this day."
"Right, right… That's a bit of a long name so I'm just going to call you space wolves. That is the day you space wolves almost got me and I gained the greatest enemy there is, Primarch Russ." at that he backed right off the edge of the cliff, falling out of sight. The only sound was his jetpack activating, indicating he probably would survive the fall though I really hoped he did not.
Sighing at the disaster that this had turned into I turned to look at the battlefield, to see how much damage he did.
The road was clogged with bodies. Hundreds of Orks and maybe dozen of our own men down, I hoped it was only that many but it could be more as I only saw around 60 Marines standing. Bjorn of Tra was sitting on a pile of corpses, catching his breath. his sword appeared to have been damaged in the combat and he had replaced his pistol with an Ork-made ax at some point. He was looking around and seemed to be in the same shape as me so I walked through the corpses of the dead toward him. Spotting a loose bolter rifle I quickly leaned over to pick it up and attach it to my armor.
Finally, I arrived by Bjorn and asked, "How bad is it, Sir?"
He shook his head before saying, "You tell me, it was a damn close thing. If they had a bit more explosives to throw over we might have ended up in worse shape. If they had been thinking they could have just pushed boulders over the side and think we'd be in an even worse shape."
I nodded my agreement. Ork bloodlust and need for actual combat probably saved us the worst of it. Had they been thinking more with their brain and less with their brawn I'm sure they would have probably caused the entire cliffside to collapse on us. Not a single one of us would have survived.
Shaking my head I looked at a few Orks who were wounded and walking away back up the road, limping towards the airfield. A few Marines moved and quickly gunned them down to prevent them from warning the Orks we were coming. I doubted it would do much good, the amount of gunfire explosions and clashing of steel we just put out probably had carried up ahead. It would make the surprise attack nearly impossible.
Turning to Bjorn I said "What do we do? We probably aren't going to be making this a surprise attack at this point."
Born shook his head before saying doesn't matter what surprise attack we have or not that airfield needs to come down into our control, they've just wasted probably the most of their forces on this surprise attack which means any defenses they can put together are probably going to be limited.
Standing up, he cracked his neck before putting the knife away on his side.
"Alright, men! Pick up every weapon that we can use, it's ours. Then reload all ammunitions and let us get moving." Pointing to Audgislisson, the radio man, he said, "Go get medic Skeggisson if he's still alive. Then you two find two other guys and dig through the bodies. Find anyone wounded and get them either in fighting shape or at least able to defend themselves."
"The rest of us will proceed on mission and push into the enemy territory. With any luck, they won't see it coming and will just assume we'll fall back."
"Yes, sir!" he said, giving a salute before Bjorn turned back to me. "How many men did you lose?"
Checking over my shoulder I counted about half my Squad missing so I reported as much.
"Damn… This is going to be a hell of a thing. At least we still have over half the men we came with."
Looking down at the bodies I said, "Think any of the Orks that have explosives on them?"
Born looked at me, confused, before nodding "Of course they've got explosives, they used grenades on us. Why?"
"Mission objective is to destroy the airfield, right? Well we don't actually need to get inside the airfield now, do we? What if we arm enough of these explosives and throw them inside the moment those doors open to let out the next Air assault? It would cause quite a bit of mayhem, maybe even start some secondary explosions. If we get it far enough in, I'm sure their fuel is just as explosive as ours."
Bjorn nodded, shaking his head in agreement, "That sounds like a damn good plan. You and you, start searching these Orks for their explosives! We'll rig something up to detonate it all. Everyone else, search for the wounded. We want to do that before we get moving with the explosives. Meanwhile, add them to the pile."
There was a chorus of 'yes, sir!' before everyone got to work.
Bjorn of Tra
Careful, careful, I mentally thought as we moved along the edges of the cliff. We were now right underneath the airfield.
Above us, the scrap gate was shut tight. While I was tired of scrap as could be I could swear there were one or two openings… But nothing we could throw grenades through right now, that was for sure.
Down below, of course, well… we only had about two or three feet of range to move in and past that was sheer cliffs for about two hundred feet, then a couple breaks where a person might be able to land before falling the rest of the way down. It was a not great situation we were in and we had to be careful or we could quite easily die for no gain.
Damn, this plan wasn't exactly helpful in that situation. Throwing a bunch of explosives into another area full of explosive materials and then running along a narrow strip of ground in the hope that no one fell to their Doom or was blasted off when the whole place went to Kingdom come…
Yeah, this was not a great plan. But it was the best plan we had and it would deal with the fortification a lot easier than trying to hold it, something I was not interested in trying to do anymore. Our objective was only to take it out, I had hoped that maybe we would be able to take it completely. Maybe even use it, I don't know… But with the Orks having the ability to pull surprise attacks out of that cliffside the way they just did I was not interested in holding this territory. We would get rid of the jets and let the friendly air support do its job, that was the new plan.
Sure the Valkyries amongst the fly boys would love that.
Either way, the objective now was to survive this close encounter of the Ork kind and bring this place down.
Holding tight to the edge of the cliff I looked up and waited for the airfield's doors to open.
Thankfully, even though we had probably made a racket, either it had not translated to a warning here or the Orks really did not give the possibility of an attack on this position much credit as there were no Orks watching the entrance. Which was good, it meant this operation had a chance.
And said Chance was happening as I thought about it. The doors began to roll open, the scrap only about a foot above my head moving till it was opened all the way to the left of the canyon wall.
"Alright boys, have fun!" I exclaimed before standing up to my full height, picking up a sack of grenades that we'd harvested from the dead Orks. I pulled on a string that was connected to hundreds of little pins, I doubted it would pull all the bands but if it pulled enough that would be fine by me. With a bit of a twist I threw it, causing the bag of grenades to spill out all over the place as it went through the air. To my left and right, seven other Marines tossed their own bags full of explosives, some of them our own but most being Ork in design.
I didn't wait to find out what happened though, I immediately ducked down and we all started crawling away from the open door.
Counting down seconds in my mind I hoped we could just get out of the way before things went to hell. As I hit the fifth-second explosions started with the telltale sounds of grenades going off, followed by what I guess were bigger explosives mixed within the grenades. Probably a few flashbangs as well.
It wasn't until the seventh second that bigger explosions started going off, big booms and the roars of fire indicating that something had been spilled and was now on fire.
This seemed to do a good job of picking up people's pace as the Marines in front of me sped up, trying to get to a safer area of the cliff, one that would not be in direct line with the inevitable explosion when this place went up sky high.
Just before I reached that position though a river of flaming fuel splashed down onto the Marine in front of me, who panicked and tumbled over the side, preventing me and two other Marines from crossing into safety.
"Shit," I muttered, before quickly grabbing my combat knife and shoving it into the wall. "Lock yourself in position and secure yourself for a blast," I called to the Marines behind me. There was nothing else we could do but hope that we weren't blasted off the side of the cliff.
A few moments later there was a boom and the world rang.
I don't know how long I was in that position but when I blinked myself back to sense I saw several Marines in front of me. They were holding on to the cliffside and looking at me with some surprise.
Not exactly sure what they were surprised about, I turned my shoulder to look and saw that the two marines behind me were gone, as well as the top of the mountain. The entire place had burst open as if it had been a carcass left out in the sun. Anything that had been in the way seemed to have either been destroyed or thrown away. Only good thing about this was the river of fuel that had been blocking my escape had stopped, allowing me to unlock my armor and cross onto the safety of the cliffside.
Taking a breath I saw Kori Bretakollrsson come up and grab my shoulder. He asked, "You okay, Bjorn?"
"Just fine. Just fine, really." It was the only thing I could say, we had accomplished our mission but as always we had taken some losses. Hopefully, it would be worth it.
Writers note: and chapter are moving again, i'm currently working on chapter 29, so not sure what there is to say on this chapter, bit fighting bit of fan services, bit slice of life party. All in good fun. Let me know what you all think
Edited by: Pierre, Michael Sauer
Community edited by:Ryan Pirtle, Pudy15236
Community editable doc (Chapter) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread
Supporters: Afforess, Gremlin Jack, Weise, Xodarap4, Duncan Sproule, James Moorhouse, Dankermaler, Hats88, DrkShdow, Devilstar101, Michael, Mana Rope, Falk Hüser, Daniel Martinez, Silver Wolf, Mackenzie Buckle, Markus, Neso, Staradder, Lmc9389, Staradder, victor a lopez-barron, KrasieK, Zollus, Mintea, Jog256, Ethan Dowie, Maxim Blashkevych, The GrandMage, loyalChaos, Daryl, FreelancerD0, Zul The Lich, Flynn Pirola-Henderson, j0ntsa, Retexks, John Norman
Tanya Russ
Grand Hall aboard the Hrafnkel
Taking a deep sip of my drink I sat back on what would be best described as a throne, a large wooden seat made of a tree from Fenris that had been carved with wolves and a few ravens.
It was officially 48 hours since the end of the fighting on the planet below and we had confirmed every Ork had been killed, every spawning location had been burned, and the planet was clear.
As I sat in this chair, enjoying the view of the Great Hall Space Marines, Imperial army, and the League forces were hard at work building a functioning military base out of the ruins that were the Ork's main hold. I'd given a general order to build up a structure that could not only support supply redistribution for further pushing into the campaign but also to take care of any more slaves we freed from the coming fights with the Ork planets.
As much as I would like to just be able to send them out of the Wheel of Fire as quickly as possible the fact of the matter was that this would be wasted resources. Ship time would be better used to reinforce an installation inside the sector that would also serve as a drop-off point for ships here. It would allow our people to at least enjoy some freedom in the sector and then maybe we could have a freighter pick them up and take them off to friendly worlds outside the sector.
It was also possible that something else would develop, I would wait and see. But having a planet that could become a new capital for Imperial governance within the sector would be useful.
At the moment though I was enjoying what could be best described as the biggest party I think I'd ever thrown. Granted I only had this life to measure against as I had not thrown many parties in my first life and my second life's memories were still cloudy about such subjects. But either way the entire Hall was covered with tables and chairs, not only Space Marines but also Squats and my Valkyries were having a loud and lively party. Wolves were play-fighting over dropped food while birds were roosting in the top area and occasionally dived down to chomp something that had been left alone for too long.
And the alcohol flowed as barrels upon barrels were being brought in. The fighting was over after all, at least for today. We would probably be going on the assault again next week, or the week after that, but it would give them plenty of time to recover from this so I was more than willing to let everyone have the greatest party they could. Because, well, you never know… Some of these men might not make it through the next fight, the losses in the conflict below had been rather startling. The Ork surprise attack had managed to create ten percent casualties amongst my Space Marines, which was not good.
Numbers weren't better for the Squats or anyone else but it was best to focus on what was my issue:ten percent casualties in a single conflict was not something that I could afford to see repeated. Especially considering there were probably more than ten other worlds than I had to defeat. My Legion could not survive those losses on each planet, I would need to work harder to make sure that my men were as trained as I needed them to be. Otherwise we could see that 50% ratio that the Mechanidum had come up with as a possible loss rate; which was not what I wanted at all.
Yes, I understood that losses happened, but what precious Space Marines I had were human resources that could not easily be replaced, no matter how many new recruits were brought in from Fenris. Veteran soldiers were worth their weight in gold and these men were closer to veterans than anyone else at this point.
I suspected that we would see a lot of blood in the coming days as the new recruits, when they did arrive from Fenris, would probably take the bulk of the losses, having none of the experience that my current forces had. Not to mention that most of these men had already served in wars, either for the emperor when they had been under the name of the Route or when they served under me in the conquest of Fenris. Every generation that would be coming now would not have served in such conflicts, they would have grown up on a Death World but a Death World that knew the peace that I had instated.
Oh well, that was something I would have to worry about as time went on. I would have to make sure to keep my troops in top shape as much as possible as the years went on. After all this was not going the first or last conflict we would be involved in, I was sure of that. Hell, we needed to conquer an entire galaxy and even if there were twenty legions of us out there I doubted that would be done within a thousand years, let alone a hundred.
Either way though, everyone seemed to be having fun. They were drinking, eating, and even fighting a little bit. Though, thankfully, the fighting seemed more playful than actual 'I am going to kill you for insulting my mother' kind of fighting. And, at the head of this chaos, sat a few individuals. Myself on the throne that I had acquired, thanks to my Wolves of Fenris having a bit of an artistic flair. To my left was Malcador, who was enjoying his food rather quietly as he observed the chaos. To his left was General Vavem of the Leagues, who was observing with a bit of amused smile, and to my right was my, well, right hand, former Legion Master Rathvin. As well as Titutus of the Iron Warriors, though most of his legion had not come up. There were a few scattered here and there, enjoying their time by the look of it.
I had invited the captain of the vessel to join us but they had denied themselves, claiming that their place was on the bridge of the ship. I didn't push too far on the matter, if he felt that he was always needed there that was up to him. I think we were pretty much out of any danger at the moment but I could be wrong, for all I knew there was an attack being prepared to try and retake the world at this very moment.
Something I hoped was not happening as that would be a sure sign that this war would go on for much longer than the determined ten years of conflict that the Mechanidum had estimated the fighting would take.
"You may not have the biggest tanks I've ever seen but, damn it, you know how to throw the biggest parties." Came the voice of the Squat leader as he downed another large glass of ale.
I accepted mine, before responding, "It's one thing us Fenrisians are good at. Well, besides fighting monsters. We know how to drink, our planet is a snowy hellscape for eighteen months out of a 24-month long year. You got to work on a few party skills to celebrate surviving that."
"Really? Your planet is frozen for a year and a half? What are the other six months like?" The Squat sounded genuinely interested so I gave him a prompt and clear answer.
"The ocean starts boiling and the water burns. If you're too close to the coast at that time you could end up with second degree burns all across your body from the steam rising up in some areas."
"A Death World, now I get it!" The Squat said, nodding his head sagely before continuing. "Well! I say that your Death World made you an alright people because that fight down there was a hell of a thing. I'm sure we would have taken a lot more losses if your legion had not been leading that attack."
I shook my head and said, "my legion did what was necessary. If anything it was your warriors' efforts that saw us win the day. It was their general tactics for prolonged sieges, we simply implemented them across the battlefield."
"For sure! Thanks for sharing your siege tactics, Iron Warrior dude."
Malcador chuckled at that and I had to stop one myself.
The Iron Warrior, seeming to not see the hilarity in the situation, simply leaned forward and nodded. He raised his glass and said, "No problem. Good to get a little credit for what we do," before downing his glass.
Turning back to me the Squat continued, "Hey, what is the plan for this sector anyways? I heard rumors that there isn't really much of one from some of the boys who talk to your Space Marines."
I shrugged, before admitting, "Not my place to determine what happens to the sector, I simply have to deal with the threats to humanity within it. Why do you ask?"
Vavem nodded at my answer, before saying, "Well… I may have let a few of my boys wander around a bit. They took a look at the geological features of the planet, drilled for a few core samples and such, the usual. They say this planet would not be so bad for a mining world and I suspect that many of the planets in this sector are going to be the same way or probably in similar conditions. I think that, with a little bit of work, we could easily set up several mining worlds in this space. Enough to support a few of the League worlds production lines. Of course, this would be with the consent of the Imperium of Mankind Would they be willing to let us have such projects?"
I nodded my, head understanding where he was coming from, before saying, "Well, that's not within my purview but I could put in a few words with the Administratum? See what they are willing to support."
I looked at Malcador to see if he had any visible opinions going across his face but he simply was nodding along in thought. Finally, he said, "Well, as first Lord of Terra, I would say my opinion is that I do not have very much to add to this but I would agree that setting up a few mining worlds in this sector would probably be for the benefit of the Imperium. There is already a local population that probably will never find their way home once we've destroyed the Orks, so giving them a way to make wealth and improve their situation is economical in the long run."
"Haha! I knew this whole campaign would be great for my people, not only did we get to kick the asses of some of our ancient enemies, but we'll possibly grow our economy as well. Now that's a campaign worth fighting for."
I nodded along with his statement before adding, "The whole point of this campaign is to improve humanity's lot in the galaxy, I see no reason why there shouldn't be development on planets we've taken from creatures that wish us harm. It would be better to keep an eye on the planets and it will be simpler if there's a local population. There's always a chance we'll miss some of the Orks and if we can have a local population in this sector to scratch around and run into them we can probably send troops to quickly clean them up before we end up with another infestation."
"If there's a truth more true than that then, I don't know what it is! You cannot assume you've defeated the Orks just because you've destroyed their armies, there's always one or two who got lost, or buried alive, or just simply survived. That's one of the reasons that we fought so hard against the Orks when they invaded the Leagues all those years ago. Even though we defeated them they just seemed to pop out at places we thought had been cleared of them. Lessons learned…"
"Well then we better make sure to clean this system out thoroughly," I muttered. "I don't want to have to come back here in ten years to put down another Ork rebellion."
"ere's to that!" Called the Iron Warrior. Having drunk another glass, by the look of it, he seemed a bit more chill.
Nodding my agreement, I continued, "If I could I would leave a small detachment here of a hundred Marines when we leave, just to keep an eye on things and for the possible training that this region could represent. Our planet is primarily mountains and ice, we don't have access to deserts and jungles and anything else we may happen to stumble across on these worlds. If that was acceptable I would do that, leave a small garrison to train up our troops while we also look after the survivors of this slave ring, prevent any Ork rebellions, and allow you to safely work on mining things."
I glanced at Malcador again to see what he was thinking on the matter. I could attempt to try and poke at him mentally though I didn't want to piss him off, better just to see what he was willing to share.
"Hmm… The Administratum won't like the idea of your troops being scattered all over the place but I was one of the few that said we should keep garrison on a few planets. I wouldn't mind speaking up in favor of this plan. If we can get the Wheel of Fire sector producing assets for the war I'm sure the Administratum would also be willing to overlook some of their supplies being moved around. Production is what's important to them, after all.
I let out a content sigh and leaned back in my chair, that was as good as I was probably going to get for now.
The possibility of successful wolves garrisons and mining outposts was as good as I was probably going to get. Hopefully the practice would spread to the other legions, my goal being to tie them down so that they felt some sort of allegiance to the people. This did create a risk of some troops feeling left behind when they were left to help clean up and sort out the mess after the legion moved on. That feeling though could be lessened if I did proper deployments of the legion for rest and garrison duty. It should keep them moving and would keep the Administratum from thinking I was trying to build an empire in the Imperium. Bureaucrats did tend to get suspicious of those they oversaw.
Besides, I was thinking long-term compared to the Administratum that seemed to be thinking only about the current wars. I was thinking about what would happen after we were done, when this galactic conquest was over. Most likely the legions would have to be either dismissed or scaled down. It was better to get to work getting familiar with small formation operations now as that was probably what we would end up doing, hunting down Orks and any other creatures that were a problem for the Imperium. Well the issue would come after the conflict and I was probably going to take full advantage of all the work I had done to take some vacation days.
After all the whole goal was to let people sort the situation out for themselves once they were secure. That meant I would not be needed unless there was a massive war in progress. I would finally have a backline position… twinges of pain came, that was a goal I had in the last life wasn't it? Hopefully things would go better now.
Shaking the pain away I looked down the hall, enjoying the side of the revelry as I saw a group of Marines in full armor walking towards the table down the central aisle. They didn't have their weapons so I didn't feel any threat, though I noticed that the one in the lead was of the Iron Priesthood. I could tell despite the armor because he had a couple mechadendrites hanging off his power pack.
Behind him were two other Marines, neophytes I think was the correct term? They had yet to finish their training, though I'd heard that a lot of the veterans Wolves of Fenris back home were coming up with new and intriguing names for legion equipment based around our homeworld.
On one hand I should probably not be in favor of this, as it would make the Administratum's job a little bit more complicated. They would ship us a type of equipment whose name we would either have to change on our paperwork or we would have to send them basically a codebook with the explanation of what each item was.
When I got around to it I would have to look deeper into that situation. I probably would go with the option to only change the name once it was delivered though. Sending a codebook with the same equipment but different names seemed like a recipe to piss off the Mechanicum. And annoying the Mechanicum, as entertaining as it sounded, was not something I was in favor of.
Getting up from my seat I said, "give me a moment, I have to see what these gentlemen want." Malcador nodded as he enjoyed his cup of ale and the others simply went about their business, nodding to me as I passed them.
Walking down the central area I enjoyed the atmosphere of the party as I came up to the Marines, who looked like they were having a good time just carrying the boxes. Stopping in front of them I said "Good afternoon. Or is it evening at this point? The party has been going rather long. Either way, welcome aboard. What brings these boxes here?"
The Tech Marine at the front pulled off his helmet before taking a knee before me, saying "Primarch Russ! Several years ago you gave me a piece of iron to forge into a weapon for you, I come bearing that weapon."
I had to squint a bit down before I recognized the Marine and said "Ah, Fergus Forgrim! Been a long time, I thought that piece of iron was unforgeable."
He shook his head and said, "With the help of the Mechanicum I was able to create a style of forging that could only be used on this piece of metal. it took many months in a volcano but I forged two weapons for you." Standing back up he turned around and grabbed the bigger of the boxes, holding it up for me. it was a rather nice thing, obviously carved from wood from Fenris. It was covered in scenes that I recognized as battles from my campaigns to conquer the planet. It was also long half my height and then some. Carefully I reached out and opened the box, revealing a weapon I had never seen before but that rather impressed me.
"This is Mjalnar, a blade forged from the Frost Iron you acquired." I raised an eyebrow at the reference to Thor's hammer but that was a minor issue. After all, so much of Fenris's culture was based on the norseI did not find it surprising that names like that would pop up. Strange that it would be used for a sword instead of a hammer though… but, well, I guess most of the meaning behind those names had long since been lost.
Reaching into the box I pulled out the blade and was quite entranced by it. The metal seemed to shine slightly blue and looked to be forming condensation on it as I picked it up. The reason that was happening became apparent quickly as the temperature of the blade was low, unusually so.
Fergus Forgrim obviously heard of my preferences for single-bladed weapons and had created a long blade that would easily cut through most things. I think it wouldn't be called a saber as there was a bit of a blade on the back of it but it was definitely meant for slashing more than chopping, contrary to the blades most of my Marines preferred.
Running my fingers along the back I confirmed that the metal was even colder off the handle, it almost felt like it was burning the skin on the end of my fingers. Raising an eyebrow I looked at him and said, "I must say that it seems to be a magnificent work, Fergus Forgrim. What's with this frost effect?"
Fergus Forgrim ran his hand through his short beard in apparent contemplation, before saying, "Working the metal shows the true spirit of this Frost Iron. Out of the two weapons I was able to create from the material you acquired both of them have shown a capacity to make things colder as they cut them. Why this happens I'm not sure, I think the metal simply just absorbs heat at a rate that is outside usual norms".
Well, that was as good an answer as I was going to get I figured. Holding up the blade to the sky to get another look at it I saw that the scenes on it looked more like wolves and battles in general, things I had been related to over the last 40 years. I marveled a bit at the size and balance, even though it was probably half as long as me it felt rather comfortable and didn't even feel that heavy. Though then again Primarch genes were bullshit, so it may just be benefits of my biology showing through. Smiling, I carefully put the weapon back in the box, noting that there was a sheath within that appeared to include a magnetic lock that could be easily attached to my armor.
"Miraculous weapon, Fergus Forgrim! I will use this to great effect, I think, in bringing the Emperor's might to the galaxy."
"Thank you, my Primarch." He said as the other box was brought forward. Carefully I opened this box too to see what was inside of it and was surprised to see what appeared at first to be a normal chain sword. It was a bit longer than usual though not as long as the sword I had just wielded. It was definitely a one-handed affair, unlike most chainswords I had been using which could be wielded two-handedly. A closer inspection revealed that there was something different as the chain was definitely made from the same material as the frost blade I'd already seen. The blades weren't cool enough to the touch for frostbite, which was probably somehow related to the amount of material used in it. It still definitely glowed a bit of light blue, enough to be seen in the hall's light. It also had a sheath of sort underneath it that I picked up and examined.
Having a passing thought, I chuckled as I realized I had a long katana-like sword and then a short chainsword to go with it. It was almost like I was some sort of future samurai or something.
Giving the blade a few swings I felt the weight on it, chainswords often had a little bit more weight in order to help them bite into their target. I nodded my agreement that this blade was well crafted before putting it back in the box.
"Very good weapons, you've outdone my expectations."
"Thank you, my Primarch." he answered matter of factly, giving a nod in reply before continuing, "I've heard that you've had problems with the blades the Imperium have been providing breaking so I have tested these blades as heavily as possible. I don't think this one Krakenmaw will break under the abuse you can give them, they will stay strong."
I laughed at that and clapped him on the shoulder, saying "Don't make promises like that, Fergus Forgrim. Things are always unexpected out there, I hope you're right though. Ordering a new blade everytime one breaks is annoying."
Fergus Forgrim nodded his head in agreement before saying, "Of course, my Primarch! Although do not fear too greatly if it does break, I am prepared for that eventuality."
"Oh? How's that?" I asked out of curiosity.
"I was able to acquire almost every piece of Frost Iron ever found on the continent, thanks to donations from the government. I'm going to be constructing weapons of this nature for commanders of the Wolves of Fenris as soon as I get back to the planet."
I nodded my head at that, it seemed reasonable and this would help better arm my soldiers. I was all for it.
"Well, don't hunt the Krakens to extinction to get their Frost Iron. A big benefit now won't be good if we don't have a continuous source of the material." I was mainly joking, I was pretty sure it was impossible to hunt those creatures to extinction. With so much water on Fenris they could quite easily avoid humanity for generations and rebuild their entire population if we somehow did manage to actually hunt them.
Most cracking metal or Frost Iron either washed up on the shore with corpses during Summer or was acquired during fights like the one I had been through. Those encounters did not usually end in a victory for humans so such prizes were rare.
Laughing at my joke, Fergus Forgrim nodded his agreement before saying "Will do, my Primarch. I hope those blades serve you well in the coming years. I've also prepared information on how to best take care of it. You know, oiling and such. They're underneath these sheaths."
I signaled my understanding before declaring, "Well then, now that that is handled! Come join the party, we're celebrating a victory on the planet below and have plenty of drink.
"I would love to join you, my Primarch," He said as several of the Valkyrie came over to bring goblets of alcohol and hand them out to the group of three. Taking a bigger one that one of my personal Valkyries brought up, I shouted, "To a good fight! To these wonderful weapons! And to the continuation of this campaign in the Wheel of Fire!"
There was a massive cheer that went through the gathered Marines as I started to down the cup of alcohol. I smiled as I finished the cup and handed it to the valkyrie.
This wasn't exactly how I envisioned I'd spend my life all those years ago but I had to say this was a good life. Loyal underlings, seeing visions of the galaxy I'd never imagined in my previous lives and more stress-free parties than I think any of my lives had ever had.
It almost made me forget that, in order to get this life, I had to be involved in fighting monsters or participate in various other waste of human resources. Considering I was helping undo the downfall of a human civilization that once ruled the galaxy and that we were making it safe for a peaceful civilization to rise… It was well worth it. I had to say that, when this whole Wheel of Fire situation was over, I couldn't wait to meet some of the other primarchs see to find out what they thought on the whole civilization thing. I doubted many of them would have memories from their previous lives but it would be interesting to try and guess what lives they had known before then.
Planet Xyat
Kori Bretakollrsson
It had been several months since the Battle of New Vietnam and in that time the legion had now been broken into four different components.
One component was staying with the Iron Warriors as they slowly pushed in from the main entrance to the Wheel of Fire while another component was guarding the entrance that we had used to break into the back lines of the sector.
And then there was the legion under Tanya, who was pushing deeper into Ork space. They were currently besieging another planet and doing something.
I couldn't exactly say what they were doing because I was part of the last component, the force under former legion-master Rathvin, who was pushing towards the space held by the Iron Warriors. We were currently besieging the planet of Xyat, an ice mountain world. If anything it actually made me feel quite at home, hunting Orks in the snow was a good pastime for not only myself but also for the wolves we had acquired.
The Orks, for the most part, lived in fortified compounds spread out amongst the snowy mountain ranges of this world. These compounds sat on top of large cave systems which was both where the Orks were produced and the main objective area of our fighting.
From what I understood the plan was to simply take over a base and then just fill the cave system with flammable gas after sealing the entrance. Once that was completed we would set up a timer for about twenty minutes and get the hell away in aerial vehicles so we could watch the explosions from a safe distance.
It was kind of an insane plan but it had worked on at least two other compounds so we were pushing towards the third one with some speed.
The Orks had attempted to stop us by building up trench lines and simply rolling boulders down on top of us when we got too close but that hadn't worked for long, mainly because we were familiar with this type of terrain and fighting.
Whenever they built a solid line we usually just went around, as the same mountains that they hoped would funnel us into their killing fields also allowed us to go up different sides. We often went straight up a few cliffs and came up on top of them.
The mountains were a killing-field for the Orks and we were killing quite a number of them. Of course I'm sure they thought we would be the ones being killed but, well, life doesn't always go the way you think.
For our part, we simply worried about what losses we took as we pushed deeper into their territory.
Captain Boesson had been promoted as more Marines had been shiped in. We had taken some losses though and had some Marines shuffled about. We now officially had a logistics officer also under our company structure, and a Tanya at that, so that meant we didn't have near as many problems with the paperwork as we had before.
Logistics officer Buckle was a good man, dark of hair and good with numbers. He was not a fan of fighting, apparently, but he did all right. We killed quite a bit of Orks together and over the last two months he had seemed to be coming into his own as a soldier. From what I understood he had been an orphan from the Sea Peoples before joining the Wolves of Fenris so it was understandable that he didn't have much of a military understanding and preferred to use his capabilities to handle the logistics.
Fighting on a ship was not easy and even then it was easier to work on your numbers than with weapons, as far as I was aware. Quite important, too. Don't calculate your supplies correctly and you would end up starving before you reached the next port.
Besides that Bjorn had been given a promotion and was pretty much in charge of a couple squads now. He had shown himself to be quite a good leader too, in my opinion. Part of me thought that maybe I should have pushed myself a bit harder but I was all right with the promotion I got. I was now Sergeant of my squad.
As time went on I'm sure I would get up to a reasonable rank for someone who was a former King. If not… Well then I probably didn't deserve the rank to begin with.
Either way the objective of today's fight was one of the more annoying situations we had to deal with on this planet.
Several squads had climbed up the side of a cliffside and found themselves face to face with an Ork trench line that had not been there the night before. It apparently had been dug as soon as we got on cameras on the station there.
They had been pinned down for several days at this point and they dug their own trench line. Though when you only had two to three feet between you and a cliff, that wasn't much of a trench line. More you digging forward as the ground behind you gave out.
This prevented us from easily supporting the unit and we couldn't use the artillery that was in the area. It was kind of hard to get a good fireline in the place anyway, too many mountains in the way.
From what I also heard there was a problem sending air support as the Orks on this particular planet seemed to be fans of not only anti-air but anti-air fights. Whenever one of our Jets went up three of theirs would and well… Even if ours were better, numbers did tend to at least make sure the situation would go into a draw which prevented us from securing the areas we wanted.
This is where the squads under Bjorn came in, as one of those Jets of ours had actually won a fight and followed the retreating Ork home. We had taken a long hike up a canyon valley towards what was believed to be the main Ork airport for this region, a set of massive iron doors made of scrap and set in a sheer rock wall. Those doors opened and closed to release waves of jets whenever we went on attack.
How we were going to get in there was still a bit of a question, considering the sheer rock wall. The most likely answer was that we were going to have to climb up that sheer rock wall, wait for the Jets to leave, then climb in as quickly as possible. From there we'd secure the initial area, holding the doors open for the rest of our troops to come in.
It was a gamble that we were betting on but it was one that had to be risked. If we could get rid of these jets that meant ours could secure the area instead of fighting them, not only rescuing those troops that were currently pinned down to the south of where we were currently standing but also giving us the advantage in this whole region. An advantage we needed.
Real question was how long till the Orks noticed we were here.
We had been marching up this path that looked almost like it had been used by the Orks at one point, it had been traced down by someone walking this path multiple times but it seemed to have been unused for a while from the appearance of some of the plant life. No doubt the Orks had some sort of security on this path but how, what, and where.
The general hope was that the Orks would be so focused on their air combat deployment that there wouldn't be any defensive operations ongoing and we could easily break in and bust the airport up. We would burn it or, if needed, we'd set it up to explode then see what we would do from there.
A photograph had been circulating that indicated there might be a base on the other side of the mountains from this airport. If it was the case we might have actual positions overlooking the enemy's next fortifications, which could be useful in pushing through to help clear this planet out.
My thoughts were interrupted as I saw Bjorn stop at the front of the column looking a bit worried. He stood, moving his hands to signal the line should stop so I stepped forward past the other Marines to get to him and asked, "What's wrong?"
"I thought I heard something on the wind," He said, focusing on listening. He wasn't wearing his helmet, which was not necessary on this planet. The atmosphere hadn't need to be burned since the areas where plant life grew were remote enough that we could investigate each one, clear it, and either burn it or not as needed.
"What did you hear then?" I asked, reaching up to pull my helmet off so I could listen as well.
"Seemed a bit like a laughter but… it wasn't coming from an Ork."
That raised an eyebrow before I asked "What did it sound like, then?"
"Like a valkyrie having a good time… Which does not seem like something I should be hearing while in a war zone, don't you think?"
I shrugged at that, "Probably not," I admitted.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. Tell them to be ready for a counterattack, I think we're about to get ambushed here."
Nodding, I shoved my helmet on and quickly changed the channel to the one assigned to my Squad to warn, "Prepare for a possible ambush, we're possibly about to be assaulted."
The other sergeants got to work getting them into a defensive formation, quickly forming a square on the side of the road. What side of a road there was, this was after all a canyon road.
To our left was a sheer wall of rock, to our right was another sheer wall of Rock though with a little bit more of a slope. Downward, in front of us, was of course the pathway to the airfield which we could just barely see from our position. Past that airfield, which was marked by two giant scrap doors, was a waterfall that actually looked kind of pleasant. A rainbow rose in the air as the water-charged mist moved away from it. Checking my ammunition I looked around as the Squad completed the formation with the three sergeants, not counting myself, behind each line. Bjorn was in the middle, next to a bannerman.
It was a small square. There were only about a hundred of us in total but we made up two lines, the first line kneeling and the second line standing. Our guns were prepared and we were waiting.
If they were Orks they would have to come out of this now as any hope of accomplishing their surprise attack was obviously destroyed. But if there was something else… I didn't know what Bjorn hearing giggling and not screams of war could imply. Perhaps we were not dealing with Orks? Perhaps those were human slaves that had escaped and struck against the Orks on their own?
The soldiers could help, it would make our lives easier if we had support formations of auxiliary forces. The Imperial army had deployed a few troops to the planet but they were mostly centered on holding territory around our landing zones and keeping cleared bases completely unoccupied of Orks by burning them as well.
Watching the area I turned on the auspex, trying to get as much information about what was going on around as possible. I doubted the Orks could be trying to sneak up on us but then again I had doubted them being able to launch a commando raid on a Town behind our lines a few months ago so there was a chance that-
That was strange! Looking near the top of the cliff I thought I saw an Ork and a very tall female human wearing some kind of armor that I'd never seen before. The human I didn't recognize but her armor was well fitted and probably very well made. The Ork's armor looked familiar, very familiar, and I wasn't sure why at first. Either way as soon as one of them spotted me looking up at them both of them vanished, either stepping back or something else taking effect to prevent me from seeing what was going on.
A moment later I heard Ork screams of war, and then screams of another type. Thousands of red lights shot up into the air, soaring up straight into the sky before they turned down and began to fall at faster speed.
"Rocket barrage", I screamed as I took cover best I could, trying to protect vital organs and limbs from the incoming explosives.
I didn't get to see much of what happened, all I did know was that everything went white as an explosive landed only a few feet away from me.
That appeared to have been more of a flashbang than anything else but the bangs I heard indicated not every single one of them was.
Then the war screams returned and the sounds of fighting played in my ears.
Took me a moment to get a handle of where I was as I had apparently been thrown a few feet away from where I had been standing. I was half buried in rocks but otherwise rather fine, the armor having saved my life. Reaching up I pulled my helmet off as I couldn't see shit, the flash having fried the internal systems. I would need to fight without it, not a problem. Getting up I quickly saw what had happened to our formation.
The square was still around vaguely, 50 men here and there still standing as they opened fire into the Orks that were practically tumbling down the cliffside. Some of them simply jumped though they did not actually survive the landing part, thank the Emperor. For the most part they splattered against the ground and actually gave our men more cover.
But some of them were a bit smarter, using jetpacks made of rockets to slow their descent or having secured wires to the edge of the canyon wall before jumping and rappelling down the rocky wall. A few Ork used it like a bungee cord, cutting it the moment they were within range of the ground and their speed had been slowed to a safe enough descent that they wouldn't splatter like those who simply jumped.
As I watched one of the Orks came running at Bjorn, wielding a chain ax. He, though, was simply a bit faster in bringing up a bolt pistol and firing two shots into its head. I couldn't see Bjorn's bolter rifle anywhere, it looked like he'd already been in combat for a few minutes before I saw him.
The creature toppled to the side as Bjorn drew his chain sword and unleashed a volley of fire at another Ork that was charging.
Getting myself up I saw an Ork land just in front of me and turn to bring up its gun. Not really sure where my own was, I simply used my helmet as a weapon, throwing it at its head. There was a loud and dramatic clunk as the creature stumbled back and I used that time to draw a knife from my side sheath and close the distance. I slashed at the beast's center, piercing through its chest cavity and into its heart.
It fell over dead but more were coming. Thankfully there was one good thing about Ork weapons: They didn't put much in the way of safeguards to prevent you from using them.
Ripping the gun out of its hands I held down the trigger and fired several rounds into the Orks coming down the side of the mountain, causing them to die either from a lucky shot that took them somewhere vital or making them lose hold of the rope. In any case, they fell the rest of the way to the ground.
Several Marines who had been pulling themselves out of the wreckage of the explosion pulled up their guns and started laying into the Orks coming down the cliffside, trying to kill as many as possible before they made their way down to us.
Raining Orks now more dead than alive thankfully I pushed my way forward with the Squad to link up with the reforming square that had now repositioned into more of a three-man deep line. The third line was aiming up onto the cliffs while the second tried to clear up anyone who tried to make their way down.
But before that could be successfully deployed correctly several dozen Orks with rockets on their backs landed in the midst of the square, starting to fight us in close quarters combat.
I caught the blade of one Ork, an ax, and fired the Ork weapon into the beast at close range. The creature quickly tumbled over but I realized I was out of ammo so I threw it at the next Ork.
I Felt more Orks coming down though and the attempt to reform the square was quickly being dispersed by the Orks landing amongst us. Pulling my bolter pistol off my side I unleashed a few rounds into an oncoming creature, though they seemed to just bounce off without causing it issue. The man next to me happened to have a Volkyte weapon and unleashed the weapon's direct fire at the creature coming at me.
Its screaming was a good sign as it tumbled over, its body burning itself under the heat ray. And something rather round and dangerous looking rolled out of its hand towards us at that last moment.
Grabbing the Space Marine I jumped out of the way, barely surviving the explosion. It was some kind of grenade, as I had theorized, but it carried a little bit more bang than our own.
Looking up from where I had landed I saw an Ork with a purple cape land with the aid of a rocket pack, laughing as he watched the fighting unfold.
"That's it, boys! Beat the humans! This was an excellent ambush I'll have to thank that pointy ears if I get the chance." The creature monologued as it brought up a bull pistol and fired a few rounds at the fight, starting to laugh again as he did.
Pulling myself off the ground I fired a few shots at him, which he seemed to just dodge as if his instincts were that good. No, the last round he pulled out a green critter from under his cloak and used it to block my round…
Recognition crossed my face, I'm sure, as I realized who was standing across. "DrkShdow." I called in anger as I readied my knife to murder the Ork.
"Ah, what's that? You know my name, are you a fan? You've heard of me so you must be a fan. I'm afraid that if you want an autograph you'll have to wait 'till after I enslave you for the Ork empire." In a quick motion I covered the ground between us and attempted to jam my knife through his throat. He blocked, having pulled a sword from somewhere, and smiled as our blades twinged and the metals sparked off of each other.
More metal came off his as it looked like it was just several street signs that had been pounded together over the centuries and sharpened.
"Ah, you have spirits young human! But I am a feared commando leader and a simple blade like that will never pierce my defenses."
I put all my strength into pushing forward, causing him to lean back a bit.
"Well… There's a first time for everything," He mused as he brought up his pistol and fired at me at close range.
I jumped back to avoid the shots as he unleashed a hail of fire in my general direction. I was joined by several other Marines who unleashed fire in his direction, their bolters banging away.
That Ork seemed to move like water, rolling out of the way of the fire before coming up and shoving his blade directly into one of the guns which caused it to explode in the Marine's face.
That Marine had his hands thoroughly injured and the damage to his helmet indicated that he barely avoided even more serious issues.
He still ran to my other side and brought his pistol around to try and fire on the Ork but it used me as a shield and attacked me with his now shorter sword. I defended myself with my knife, wishing I knew where my bolter had ended up.
With whatever skill I could muster I managed to knock his blade away from doing serious damage, which only seemed to push the Ork to laugh more.
"Why don't you tell me about yourself, human? Why, do you want my autograph?"
"Stupid Ork, we fought before," I said, trying to drive my blade into his side. He jumped out of the way and looked at me as if confused.
"No? No, I don't think we have. I think I would remember a face that ugly." He said, tilting his head to the side as if examining me.
"The Planet, 7 months ago!" I shouted, trying to ram my blade into its chest only for the infuriating creature to continue to bounce out of my way. I found myself rather annoyed about the whole situation.
I'll give it to these commandos, they seemed to have an understanding of how to not get killed in close-quarters combat. Those Orks just took the hits and then kept on coming.
"Doesn't ring a bell," he said, still taking this way too emperor-damn lightly.
"You ambushed us and demanded that we surrender. Any of it ringing a bell?"
The creature shrugged and sighed, "Sounds like a good Tuesday to me," Before pulling out another bolt pistol of his from behind his back and firing a shot past me into a marine who was coming to help in the combat.
I tried not to turn but I did see him fall over, blood running from a wound on his side. Apparently, the Ork had found a weak spot.
"Any other details you can remember? It is kind of intriguing that you remember this and I don't."
"You fired yourself off with a damn rocket to escape!" I said, shoving my knife towards him. He blocked it again, catching it in the cross guard of his own weapon.
The Ork nodded his head in recognition as if he remembered something all of a sudden. "That's right! You're the humans I ran into on that vassal world. Oh, how are you doing? I hope the explosive I left underneath the city didn't cause too many problems?
"There were explosives under the city?" I asked.
"Yeah, I wanted to blow up the entire place. Did it go off on time, it was supposed to go off an hour after I left."
I shook my head before remembering the gas explosion that happened when a grenade fell into the sewers.
"Think we probably damaged that on accident."
"Oh, damn it. I spent so much teeth on that explosive… well, 'nother time," He sighed. "I just wanted to see a town enter orbit."
"Not going to happen," I mused, pulling my blade back and kicking at his shin in the hope that he would not see that coming.
He apparently had jetpack controls somewhere I didn't see as he simply jetpacked a few feet back to prevent the hit from connecting.
"Well, there's always next time. Anyways I just have to thank you, looks like Gork and Mork finally are looking my way. They have provided me with an enemy, a good one, one who will keep coming back. I'll have to remember this day as this is the day my legend begins in Earnest. To acquire a rival, that is the greatest Honor an Ork could ever want."
"You can continue to enjoy your honor here and now,' I said, rushing at him and slashing repeatedly as he continued to back away.
"Hmm, sounds like a nice place but I'm afraid my time for the ambush has run out," he said matter of factly. Jetpacking a few more feet away he landed at the edge of the cliff that overlooked the valley below before he said. "Remember this as the day that-" He stopped just as I started to walk towards him.
"What is your band of humies called and what is your leader's name?"
Smacking my chest I said, "We're the Wolves of Fenris, under Primarch Russ, and you will not survive this day."
"Right, right… That's a bit of a long name so I'm just going to call you space wolves. That is the day you space wolves almost got me and I gained the greatest enemy there is, Primarch Russ." at that he backed right off the edge of the cliff, falling out of sight. The only sound was his jetpack activating, indicating he probably would survive the fall though I really hoped he did not.
Sighing at the disaster that this had turned into I turned to look at the battlefield, to see how much damage he did.
The road was clogged with bodies. Hundreds of Orks and maybe dozen of our own men down, I hoped it was only that many but it could be more as I only saw around 60 Marines standing. Bjorn of Tra was sitting on a pile of corpses, catching his breath. his sword appeared to have been damaged in the combat and he had replaced his pistol with an Ork-made ax at some point. He was looking around and seemed to be in the same shape as me so I walked through the corpses of the dead toward him. Spotting a loose bolter rifle I quickly leaned over to pick it up and attach it to my armor.
Finally, I arrived by Bjorn and asked, "How bad is it, Sir?"
He shook his head before saying, "You tell me, it was a damn close thing. If they had a bit more explosives to throw over we might have ended up in worse shape. If they had been thinking they could have just pushed boulders over the side and think we'd be in an even worse shape."
I nodded my agreement. Ork bloodlust and need for actual combat probably saved us the worst of it. Had they been thinking more with their brain and less with their brawn I'm sure they would have probably caused the entire cliffside to collapse on us. Not a single one of us would have survived.
Shaking my head I looked at a few Orks who were wounded and walking away back up the road, limping towards the airfield. A few Marines moved and quickly gunned them down to prevent them from warning the Orks we were coming. I doubted it would do much good, the amount of gunfire explosions and clashing of steel we just put out probably had carried up ahead. It would make the surprise attack nearly impossible.
Turning to Bjorn I said "What do we do? We probably aren't going to be making this a surprise attack at this point."
Born shook his head before saying doesn't matter what surprise attack we have or not that airfield needs to come down into our control, they've just wasted probably the most of their forces on this surprise attack which means any defenses they can put together are probably going to be limited.
Standing up, he cracked his neck before putting the knife away on his side.
"Alright, men! Pick up every weapon that we can use, it's ours. Then reload all ammunitions and let us get moving." Pointing to Audgislisson, the radio man, he said, "Go get medic Skeggisson if he's still alive. Then you two find two other guys and dig through the bodies. Find anyone wounded and get them either in fighting shape or at least able to defend themselves."
"The rest of us will proceed on mission and push into the enemy territory. With any luck, they won't see it coming and will just assume we'll fall back."
"Yes, sir!" he said, giving a salute before Bjorn turned back to me. "How many men did you lose?"
Checking over my shoulder I counted about half my Squad missing so I reported as much.
"Damn… This is going to be a hell of a thing. At least we still have over half the men we came with."
Looking down at the bodies I said, "Think any of the Orks that have explosives on them?"
Born looked at me, confused, before nodding "Of course they've got explosives, they used grenades on us. Why?"
"Mission objective is to destroy the airfield, right? Well we don't actually need to get inside the airfield now, do we? What if we arm enough of these explosives and throw them inside the moment those doors open to let out the next Air assault? It would cause quite a bit of mayhem, maybe even start some secondary explosions. If we get it far enough in, I'm sure their fuel is just as explosive as ours."
Bjorn nodded, shaking his head in agreement, "That sounds like a damn good plan. You and you, start searching these Orks for their explosives! We'll rig something up to detonate it all. Everyone else, search for the wounded. We want to do that before we get moving with the explosives. Meanwhile, add them to the pile."
There was a chorus of 'yes, sir!' before everyone got to work.
Bjorn of Tra
Careful, careful, I mentally thought as we moved along the edges of the cliff. We were now right underneath the airfield.
Above us, the scrap gate was shut tight. While I was tired of scrap as could be I could swear there were one or two openings… But nothing we could throw grenades through right now, that was for sure.
Down below, of course, well… we only had about two or three feet of range to move in and past that was sheer cliffs for about two hundred feet, then a couple breaks where a person might be able to land before falling the rest of the way down. It was a not great situation we were in and we had to be careful or we could quite easily die for no gain.
Damn, this plan wasn't exactly helpful in that situation. Throwing a bunch of explosives into another area full of explosive materials and then running along a narrow strip of ground in the hope that no one fell to their Doom or was blasted off when the whole place went to Kingdom come…
Yeah, this was not a great plan. But it was the best plan we had and it would deal with the fortification a lot easier than trying to hold it, something I was not interested in trying to do anymore. Our objective was only to take it out, I had hoped that maybe we would be able to take it completely. Maybe even use it, I don't know… But with the Orks having the ability to pull surprise attacks out of that cliffside the way they just did I was not interested in holding this territory. We would get rid of the jets and let the friendly air support do its job, that was the new plan.
Sure the Valkyries amongst the fly boys would love that.
Either way, the objective now was to survive this close encounter of the Ork kind and bring this place down.
Holding tight to the edge of the cliff I looked up and waited for the airfield's doors to open.
Thankfully, even though we had probably made a racket, either it had not translated to a warning here or the Orks really did not give the possibility of an attack on this position much credit as there were no Orks watching the entrance. Which was good, it meant this operation had a chance.
And said Chance was happening as I thought about it. The doors began to roll open, the scrap only about a foot above my head moving till it was opened all the way to the left of the canyon wall.
"Alright boys, have fun!" I exclaimed before standing up to my full height, picking up a sack of grenades that we'd harvested from the dead Orks. I pulled on a string that was connected to hundreds of little pins, I doubted it would pull all the bands but if it pulled enough that would be fine by me. With a bit of a twist I threw it, causing the bag of grenades to spill out all over the place as it went through the air. To my left and right, seven other Marines tossed their own bags full of explosives, some of them our own but most being Ork in design.
I didn't wait to find out what happened though, I immediately ducked down and we all started crawling away from the open door.
Counting down seconds in my mind I hoped we could just get out of the way before things went to hell. As I hit the fifth-second explosions started with the telltale sounds of grenades going off, followed by what I guess were bigger explosives mixed within the grenades. Probably a few flashbangs as well.
It wasn't until the seventh second that bigger explosions started going off, big booms and the roars of fire indicating that something had been spilled and was now on fire.
This seemed to do a good job of picking up people's pace as the Marines in front of me sped up, trying to get to a safer area of the cliff, one that would not be in direct line with the inevitable explosion when this place went up sky high.
Just before I reached that position though a river of flaming fuel splashed down onto the Marine in front of me, who panicked and tumbled over the side, preventing me and two other Marines from crossing into safety.
"Shit," I muttered, before quickly grabbing my combat knife and shoving it into the wall. "Lock yourself in position and secure yourself for a blast," I called to the Marines behind me. There was nothing else we could do but hope that we weren't blasted off the side of the cliff.
A few moments later there was a boom and the world rang.
I don't know how long I was in that position but when I blinked myself back to sense I saw several Marines in front of me. They were holding on to the cliffside and looking at me with some surprise.
Not exactly sure what they were surprised about, I turned my shoulder to look and saw that the two marines behind me were gone, as well as the top of the mountain. The entire place had burst open as if it had been a carcass left out in the sun. Anything that had been in the way seemed to have either been destroyed or thrown away. Only good thing about this was the river of fuel that had been blocking my escape had stopped, allowing me to unlock my armor and cross onto the safety of the cliffside.
Taking a breath I saw Kori Bretakollrsson come up and grab my shoulder. He asked, "You okay, Bjorn?"
"Just fine. Just fine, really." It was the only thing I could say, we had accomplished our mission but as always we had taken some losses. Hopefully, it would be worth it.
Writers note: and chapter are moving again, i'm currently working on chapter 29, so not sure what there is to say on this chapter, bit fighting bit of fan services, bit slice of life party. All in good fun. Let me know what you all think
Edited by: Pierre, Michael Sauer
Community edited by:Ryan Pirtle, Pudy15236
Community editable doc (Chapter) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread
Supporters: Afforess, Gremlin Jack, Weise, Xodarap4, Duncan Sproule, James Moorhouse, Dankermaler, Hats88, DrkShdow, Devilstar101, Michael, Mana Rope, Falk Hüser, Daniel Martinez, Silver Wolf, Mackenzie Buckle, Markus, Neso, Staradder, Lmc9389, Staradder, victor a lopez-barron, KrasieK, Zollus, Mintea, Jog256, Ethan Dowie, Maxim Blashkevych, The GrandMage, loyalChaos, Daryl, FreelancerD0, Zul The Lich, Flynn Pirola-Henderson, j0ntsa, Retexks, John Norman
Last edited:
Fellow Human
Verified Roado Rolla
Seems like you didn't wanna bother with Ork speak anymore? DrkShadow talked normally.
Chapter 27. Wolf Temple on a Mountain.
Chapter 27. Wolf Temple on a Mountain.
Legion Master of the Iron Warriors, Elyphis Diorius
836.M30
Xyat
Well I had had many thoughts about this campaign when it started, especially on the losses we might take and so far we were doing absolutely better than I had expected. And I had to admit I was a bit wrong about my assumptions about the Rout and their new Primarch.
Of course, the standard that Horus had set had not been great. Oh, his arrival onto the battlefield had increased the lunar wolves' numbers to the point that they were able to operate on multiple fronts and push the crusade on… But his tactical skill had been lacking in the early days. Not to mention he was not prone to giving credit which, well… It didn't settle right for me, it had quite annoyed me in fact.
But I had let that pass as best I could and I needed to focus on the Primarch in question today, Tanya Russ. When she arrived I had been more than willing to let her take her legion into the Wheel of Fire and waste it there. After all with a Primarch the sixth legion could actually replenish its losses while my legion, the fourth, could not. I was not really interested in being remembered as the first legion master who got his legion destroyed. It had not happened yet but there had been close calls.
However I will admit that this Primarch was not only good at their job and understood military matters from the get-go of this campaign, she also had a better understanding of non-military matters than… well, me. After the slaves had been rescued they had been returned home to the various systems in this sector of space. This had created an interesting situation where the local sectors were now offering the support they would have given the Orks. Granted it wasn't very advanced support but food stockpiles were now rather high and there was also a bit of mineral output being offered to the people I sent, which were being directed to the Administratum and the Mechanicus to deal with.
Those food supplies helped us support the imperial army's efforts to hold planets after we were done cleaning them up, which allowed us to proceed with the campaign against the next planet in the line. That planet had been a rather easy operation as most of the fortifications had been on the planet before that, Icrinda.
All we had had to do was destroy infrastructure, cut off the fortifications from each other, and then bomb them from orbit.
There hadn't even been large slave populations to worry about, all we had to do was kill Orks and we had killed a lot of Orks. But while we were doing that the Wolves of Fenris and their Primarch had found a crack in the Warp storms that kept this sector rather isolated from normal space and had laid siege to another Ork planet with the dwarves.
Reports from the observers I'd sent with them indicated that they were getting to understand our siege tactics and had quickly been able to defeat the Ork war base on that planet and were now beginning to spread out with the general plan to cut at the snake until it died instead of going for the head since the men needed more training.
On one hand I liked that they were already further ahead into the Wheel of Fire, on the other I had discovered the sector and they were taking up a lot of credit with their conquest.
On the other other hand the glowing reports coming from the Primarch that I had been allowed to read indicated that they were giving credit to their understanding of sieges to us and, well, I enjoyed a good ego stroking as much as most of my brothers did.
Either way with the completion of the siege of New Vietnam Russ had divided her forces in three. One was sent to open up a path to our current siege and another to push further into the cluster with the third guarding the entrance they currently held, a reasonable strategy. And I do know that thanks to taking that planet and the current evolution of events so far the Mechanicus predictions on how long this war would be were down from 10 years to seven. I will admit, though not say, that I do not trust the Mechanicus predictions as accurate. The fact that we were improving the time must say something, perhaps it would be 14 years instead of my prediction of 20?
Also I could see the benefit from this plan, splitting her forces in three and engaging smaller targets to destroy them separately would allow her to get her commanders trained up into proper officers a little bit quicker as they would have had to deal with situations that she would have handled if she was always in command. It would allow her to set up forces that could fight with less supervision and would be able to deal with multiple fronts quite well.
I was taking note of the ways she was using her force and planning to offer it to our Primarch in case he was interested in engaging in similar activities. And, as I said, it was within the sixth legion's capability to risk forces like this because they could fix their losses rather quickly compared to the 4th or any other legion except those that had found their Primarch. l however had to be careful and very thorough in our work, otherwise we could lose more people than we could actually sustain.
That being said it was not a surprise that they got themselves a little bit in over their heads.
Legion Master Enoch Rathvinof formerly the Rout had requested aid as their forces had become entangled in a bit of a quagmire on the planet Xyat.
Information wasn't exactly clear but from what I could understand when they called air support because some portions of their army had been surrounded by an Ork Force and had been cut off by Ork anti-air positions.
Seemed to be a last-ditch effort by their Warboss to pull a victory out of what was obviously a failure, it would probably have been the end of Ork offensives on the planet once the enemy's back was broken.
The problem was the Wolves of Fenris had been baited into a trap.
They had been offered an opportunity to free slaves but apparently this Ork boss had got Intel about their efforts to do that in the past. Once they had charged in to save these slaves the Orks had sprung their trap, catching a third of the army on the planet in a valley that was protected from imperial airstrikes by enemy aircraft and enemy anti-air.
Information was not at a level that we understood exactly what was happening but for all intents and purposes, for the last 3 weeks, a third of the Wolves of Fenris on the planet had been fighting a prolonged siege on the valley's floor as waves of Orks rushed their position. Their ammunition were now running out.
And, to make matters worse, the legion Master was in the third of the army that was currently trapped.
The 2/3 that were not trapped had attempted to break through but were currently being kept out by an enemy defences that was holding the line behind the attack formation that were pushing in on the entrapped fenris Force.
How many Orks were in the mountains was unknown but at this point it was quite clear that the Wolves of Fenris were encircling Orks who had encircled Wolves of Fenris, who destroyed who first would most likely determine the ultimate Victor of the campaign on this planet.
Which was where me and the Iron Warriors came in. We had landed last night on the outskirts of this battlefield, deep in the mountains and away from enemy fire as the enemy still had large artillery pieces they were using to keep the wolves in position and unable to advance.
From there we had unloaded as much of our artillery as possible and set up to counter-battery fire while we were slowly pushing ourselves into the line.
Helitin Ventassius of the Star Hunters had also come and what troops he had with him were currently scouting the bunkers and trails up the mountains, looking for a way that we could use to get in there. The Orks were however annoyingly effective in their efforts to block these paths, having dug trenches and such through every known path. In a few places they had simply set up areas where they could toss down boulders on anyone who tried to come up the road.
This was the ultimate problem that the Wolves of Fenris were dealing with, they couldn't break through the enemy lines. There was hope that my men would and generally I thought we could but, staring down at the map before me, I did see problems.
If the Wolves of Fenris abandoned their charges inside the valley they might actually be able to get that third of the army out of this trap. But what minimal communications were available indicated that legion Master Enoch Rathvin was not interested in abandoning his position. On one hand that was stupid, he was putting his men at risk for a bunch of slaves that would be forgotten in history.
On the other his reasoning was rather sound and very… Russ. They had been trying to pin the Orks in position for months and right now the Orks had shown themselves. Granted they were not in a great position but they could actually fight the Orks here.
The Orks had given the Space Marines a climactic final battle but one that favored them, the Marines simply wanted to show them that it didn't favor them as well as they thought. Which was respectable, sure there would probably be little Outpost and Orks scattered across this planet when it was all over but if we destroyed the main fighting force it would be easier for the imperial army to clean up after us.
That being said, with the situation as is. Orbital bombardments were out of the hololith as they would cause landslides that could hurt our own men, air strikes were out because the Orks had plenty of anti-air though. Enoch Rathvin had let some of his men try and do higher altitude air strikes where the Ork anti-air wasn't great.
But artillery was basically the king of the battlefield for today and even that wasn't doing very successfully as most of these trenches were dug right into the rocky sides of the mountain.
Looking at the situation I just did not see how they were going to make it out of there intact and was already considering this as a possible failed operation. A third of the army of legion Master Enoch Rathvin would probably be dead by this time next week while the little slaves they'd gone to rescue would probably be returned to slavery, if lucky, as the Orks would use paths prepared to hide in the mountains or sneak up past us if they could.
So the question was how did I prevent any of that from happening. I could possibly call on the Primarch of the Fenrisian to double our forces, though from what I understood they were currently busy dealing with their own problems. Managing fights on two different worlds in the sector where the Orks were proving themselves stubborn, though not as stubborn as here.
And this would harm my chances at getting a little glory for myself. Being known as the man who saved a portion of the Wolves of Fenris was a nice title and I disliked losing my chance at that.
So the question of how to stop the inevitable had an answer that was quite apparent.
Standing in the tent, rubbing my chin through my gloved hand, I studied the holographic map that showed the mountainous valley that the Wolves of Fenris were trapped in and our own siege lines around this valley. Looking over at the leader of the Star Hunters, I said, "Do you think your Marines can find the tunnel systems in and out of this area and block them off as much as possible?"
He looked at the map before nodding his head in agreement, "Yeah, it shouldn't be too hard. We'll need some help from the Fenris boys but we can track down all the paths and close them to make sure they can't get out. Doesn't help the Marines currently trapped though. Any plans for that?"
I nodded before saying, "A bad plan but a plan." Pulling the camera of the holograph to the front of the valley I said, "Most of the Orks are here, blocking the easy way in and out. We can't push in because they're blocking the way, they can't push out because they're blocking the way. This means the only ways they have to try and attack are physically up sheer cliffs on the right and left of the valley, which the Orks are protecting rather adequately. Or this point," I indicated the end of the valley, a large mountain that overlooked most of the valley and served as the end of it.
"As far as I can tell that is the second strongest point on the line but there's something here that I think the Orks have underestimated."
Helitin Ventassius looked at the map and nodded before asking, "What have they underestimated?"
"The range of our artillery. We could put it at the end of our current valley and be able to hit that mountain easy enough. We do that and we can suppress any enemy guns and artillery on the mountain as the Wolves of Fenris push towards the mountain. If they climb their way up and out they will be able to cross over, after all they're from a world of mountains from what their Primarch said.
Helitin Ventassius nodded, understanding my point, before adding, "What about the civilians, the former slaves they're trying to rescue?"
I placed my finger along a winding path that went up the mountain, saying "There is a path for them to cross, by the looks of it though I guess that'll be the most heavily defended point on the mountain. But if the Marines are as good as they say with crossing mountains they can probably get behind the defenses and destroy them, allowing the civilians to make their way up."
Helitin Ventassius nodded "That seems reasonable. I'm assuming that we'll have to commit to an assault on all fronts otherwise the Orks will realize what's going on and immediately try and close in on the Wolves of Fenris they currently have trapped."
"Exactly." I agreed. "If we just let them try and get up there without providing covering fire it'll just end in their destruction but if we commit to an assault at the same time they're making this move we can probably buy them time to establish themselves on the mountain. Even if they get trapped on the mountain afterward that's a better position than being at the bottom of the valley, the guns the Orks have won't be as effective shooting down as they were shooting up and they will have access to whatever defensive structures the Orks built there."
"That gets them onto the mountain," Helitin Ventassius said, "but how do we get them out of the trap?"
I smiled at that. "Though half my artillery train will remain at the end of the valley to provide the covering fire I think that most of my men will be here," I pointed to the other side of the mountain. "We will attempt to breach at the exact same time, this mountain is the most defendable position on the battlefield but they also have the least troops, that could be the way to break the Ork's formation."
Helitin Ventassius nodded slowly, before adding, "Those mountains are kind of craggy and tall. Have your men ever fought over mountains before?"
I shook my head. "Officially, no. Unofficially some of my men have been practicing mountain maneuvers ever since we entered the Wheel of Fire, part of the reason why I sent observers with the Wolves of Fenris into the attack on their back lines. It gave me a couple hundred Wolves of Fenris to help train my men in exchange. I don't know if it'll be that successful here but we at least have some idea of what we're doing. And on this side of the mountain we will be able to get air support compared to anywhere else."
"Most of the Ork guns are facing the Wolves of Fenris in the valley, placed on the cliffs to the right and left where they could easily swivel to protect themselves or on the ground oriented towards the opening of the valley where they could do the same. But here, in the North, the guns they have to protect the valley from the northern side will be at most half."
"That's a bit of a risky assumption, brother, don't you think?" Helitin Ventassius said, sounding a bit worried, but I waved him off.
"It's a calculated risk and one I'm willing to take," I explained. "Us legions without a Primarch need to have some good harass while we still can, to show we're just as good as those legions even without a Primarch to keep our morale up. It's an unfortunate thing but that's the truth of the matter. If I have to take a risk once or twice I'll do it, and this is something that needs to be done."
Helitin Ventassius nodded his agreement, "Well then when do we begin this efforts to free legion Master Enoch Rathvin from the trap the Orks have put them in?"
"Personally I don't think he's got a week in there so I'd like to get it started within the next 24 hours. The real question is how are we going to get him to agree to this operation, it's going to be a hell of a thing to March an army and a civilian population across that mountain while under fire."
"Perhaps we lie to him and say it's an order from his Primarch?"
I gave Helitin Ventassius a look before shaking my head, "No… Logically that won't work, we need to think of something that'll actually make sense to him."
My thoughts were interrupted as a wolf leader entered the room and gave us a salute. Saluting back, I said, "Good afternoon, brother."
"Good afternoon, legion Master Diorius." He answered, giving a nod, before saying, "I am Commander Boesson, I'm bringing the latest dispatches from legion master Enoch Rathvin. Some of his men managed to get through the Ork lines with information and a letter."
"Ah, well let's have it," I said, holding out my hand for the paperwork. The Young Commander handed me the work and I quickly looked it over. Then I read it again and then chuckled and then burst out a laugh.
"What's so funny, brother?" Helitin Ventassius asked as he sat up from where he'd been leaning against a tent pillar.
"I don't need to convince him, he's already got the exact same plan. And already, to some extent, in operation. He's planning to march his army up the mountain and kill anything that gets in his way. He needs us to cause as many distractions as possible." I laughed again before continuing, "Well, that makes this job 10 times easier. All we need to do now is provide him with the support he's requested and more."
Helitin Ventassius smiled before saying, "Well, that makes things easier indeed. Is an attack going to begin?'
Looking at the paperwork I checked for any information before I found it and felt my smile die. "He's going to begin the attack in 12 hours, I probably will not have an attack for the other side of the mountain ready for another 16. It might work out but it's going to be close."
"What about the artillery to support his attack?" Helitin Ventassius asked but I waved his worry off, "First thing I did when we landed here was to send most of my artillery to that end of the valley, it will be ready. Getting the Fenris wolves ready for an assault on all flanks shouldn't be that hard either, they've basically been chomping at the bit."
"Well, then," Helitin Ventassius said, "I guess it's all a matter of seeing what will happen now. Will the Wolves of Fenris rip themselves out of this trap while we successfully break the siege that Orks have laid on them or will this all go to crap?"
Smiling, I answered, "Brother, I think this is going to go to crap either way. Planning never survives actual battles but I think we might be able to pull this off. If we're lucky, with the Emperor's truth on our side, we'll break these Orks and free this planet for human use. That's all that matters."
Helitin Ventassius of the Star Hunters and Boesson of the Wolves of Fenris both nodded in agreement at that. Now that was the ultimate truth, our losses didn't matter as long as humanity was put back in its place amongst the Stars.
Former Legion master of the Rout, Enoch Rathvin
The screams of battle went on and on as we trudged up the mountain, soldiers crying in pain as rounds found their mark or screaming their war cries as artillery shells landed around us, civilians crying as they didn't know what the fuck was going on.
The world was chaos but in that chaos there was an easy-to-understand goal: take the heights. It was a simple order, it had been given down to the lowest private and everyone knew by heart at this point. Take the heights and we could push down to the other side of the mountain and get these civilians and ourselves out of this trap.
I had been observing the Orks' formations for 2 weeks and it was obvious that this was their weak point. Granted I knew that it was their weak point because it was also their strong point, these mountains were relatively large and easy to defend with minimal forces. it was possible this was another trap within the trap but I did not think the Orks were that smart. They had left this opening assuming that we wouldn't take it and would instead give them battle in the valley, which would have been even worse.
So the army marched, climbed, and crawled up the mountainside hoping, that none of the other friendly artillery would accidentally get us as we made our way up. So far nothing had but there had been a couple close calls I'd heard about.
the Orks, of course, weren't taking this lying down. As soon as they realized that we were assaulting the mountains the enemy formations had started moving on to them from the valley walls to either side.
Thankfully though the general assault by Imperial forces on the other side appeared to be drawing Orks away so they weren't able to put formations in place on the mountain strong enough to stop us as we made our climb.
And the Orks that had been guarding the way in and out of the valley were also having this problem but they had sent troops after our rear guard. Still, in an open fight, the Orks would die a lot easier and they were forced to march across the valley to attack our rear in an open fight.
Things were going relatively well and I believed we would pull this off. The Orks did not have the numbers on the mountain to stop us and we were mulching those we met. Oh, we were taking losses but losses were much lesser than expected, especially compared to assaulting their actually prepared positions instead of this one.
That being said things were getting a little bit hairy now, the road that the civilians had to take was rather unprotected and I had to dispatch troops to try and assemble some sort of wall to protect them from artillery fire from the canyon walls. We had seized a few of the Ork guns, most of them terribly constructed but I put men on the ones that could work to counterfire at the enemy cannons that were shooting at us.
This was a slog, a fight to an inevitable destruction of either the Orks on the mountain or ourselves. But I thought we could do it. The Rout's formation I had led through many battles had never been much of a mountain-dwelling Force, instead we had come from numerous barbarian tribes across Terra. We had been put together for a simple goal: be the most brutal and effective Force available, one to be called upon in certain situations.
Things were different now. The Wolves of Fenris were different from the Rout, their training was more about fighting on mountains and in the snow. To be fair this planet was just close enough that they were well at home, even during the worst of the siege we had just been through the troops had maintained high spirits and had been just waiting for the order to do something more than sit back and let the Orks fire at them.
That was what was getting us through this, our training. That and a simple dream to get back to Fenris, I imagine. Although I had to admit I had come to enjoy their cultural institution of seeing that a death in battle was the greatest honor. Many of the Rout's cultures had similar traditions but the Fenrisian one was more conclusive on what would happen.
To be taken to some great hall where we would be served by Valkyries and get to fight For eternity for fun was a good conclusion to a soldier's life. And it was that assurance of a good way to conclude one's life that allowed many of my men to push forward through some of the worst fire coming at them and to keep moving.
Slow and steady we had been moving up the mountain as the Orks filed in, ripping and tearing our way through their formations and clearing a path for the civilians. As we ascended these heights we had heard fire. The shots came not from the Ork artillery whose shells were landing around us but from friendlies firing from the other side of the mountain. Someone was trying to break through on the other side.
An explosion could be heard from the other side of the mountain and a cheer rose from the troops at the front, we knew that this meant we were steps closer to breaking out and it improved the morale.
Of course with how mobile this campaign was I couldn't exactly stand back. Instead, in an attempt to bolster my men during this fighting, I had been shifting in and out of the front for the last several hours. Sometimes serving on the line next to my soldiers, sometimes taking a break with them to recover before going back in. The front was the hardest, I think. The troops at the back, all they had to do was just find a new position every few 30 minutes, when they fell back the sidelines were relatively controlled. The real grinder was the front. As we pushed further up all they had to do was push rocks down on us and even though most of the Orks could not get into position in front of us there was a steady trickle of them doing it, possibly using mountain roads we didn't know about, possibly using tunnels. I didn't know how deep the Ork had dug their complex on this mountain but it seemed like it was pretty deep and they were coming out of every Emperor damn crack.
That being said I expected we'd break through by the end of the day, as long as nothing extremely unexpected happened. We were making good time and it didn't hurt that for the first 5 hours of this battle we had had the cover of night. The Orks on this world didn't have night vision as far as we could tell, at least not in large enough quantities that it helped them counter our initial attack.
Part of me hoped that in 7 hours, when night came again, we would be able to continue the push well into the morning and finish this fight, my men did need the rest after all. I doubted we would be that lucky, if they did have any troops with night vision they'd be brought up and moved into position by that time, and I knew they had some sort of flare system that allowed them to light up the valley. They used it a lot during the first week, second week they'd stopped because we weren't giving them battle at night something that had been unexpectedly useful thankfully.
Anyways I was taking a break between combat deployments when one of the soldiers near the front, a runner, came up to me. The Orks were using some kind of jamming equipment so we had to rely on this ancient way of communicating. It worked, though I would have preferred something a little bit faster.
The soldier ran up, a wolf at his feet. Obviously a bonded pair. He didn't give a salute and addressed me right away. "Sir! News from the front!" having to take a moment to get his breath.
Nodding my head I said, "Tell me what's up. Anything new we need to worry about on the front, brother?"
After a moment he said, "We've almost reached the apex of the current heights. There's a bit more past it but from what we can tell there's a plateau before that point, we could use it to skirt around that last peak and start making our way back down if you wanted to."
"Perfect!" I said. Side-stepping the summit would rather improve the situation in my opinion, as trying to get all the way up the summit would be… Well, a tough job to say the least.
"There's a problem, sir. A bit of a big problem."
Looking at the soldier I said, "Well? Don't keep me waiting, what's the big problem?" We had been fighting Orks all the way up this mountain, there couldn't be that many more Orks at this plateau could there?
"Sir, Commander Isulf Hakonsson bid me tell you that… There's an Ork fortification on the plateau above. A big one, couldn't exactly see it until we got right on top of it due to the little bit of a downsweep in the mountain range. Commander Isulf Hakonsson believes we've stumbled across the enemy high command."
That got me standing up in an instant, "What?", as I looked up towards the tip of the mountain.
"Enemy high command, sir! The fortifications are well stocked and there are plenty of Orks up there, as well as armored support. The commander is not sure we can break through this fortification."
"Damn it," I muttered before I grabbed my kit and started attaching pieces of equipment to my armor again. Turning to the runner, I said, "Tell the commander to start prepping for an assault on that fortification. We're going to need every trick in the book at this point."
"Sir?" he said, seeming confused, but I ignored him. I exclaimed "You have your orders." and started up the mountain towards the front line, taking it easy but yelling at commanders as I went by to start prepping their men for an assault.
There had been four shifts of soldiers every hour so they would break contact with the enemy and allow a new shift to take over and give them 3 hours of rest between assaults. That method had got us almost all the way up the mountain to this point but, by the sounds of it, I was going to need every single one of those soldiers for a grand of assault on the top of this mountain.
I could try and move my men to the side and push on along the cliff sides, maybe get around this fortification, but the fact of the matter was if this was the enemy HQ as we believed… Then the Warboss was there and if I could kill the Warboss the chaos that would be unleashed amongst the Orks would be enough that this planet would fall to our hands today rather than sometime in the future.
Sure I was putting men at risk for this operation but this is the job they were paid to do. We needed to break the Ork fortification up there and kill the Warboss, it was that simple. If we did not do that then this whole operation was for nothing, not to mention that if we did manage to take their fortification it would be a great place to store the civilians as we fought our way down to the southern side of the mountain. I'd been getting reports about unlucky civilians either getting crushed by falling rocks or exploded by artillery for the last three to four hours but that was much less likely to happen on top of the mountain if only we could consolidate up there. We had not known that there were fortifications up there, which meant that it was designed in such a way that the mountain's peak probably protected it.
All in all this was the perfect position to take and hold, so we needed everyone on the front to do it. There was no one I could spare now so, as I walked by the tent that was dedicated for runners, I yelled in orders to get every man who wasn't doing something to the front. The soldiers immediately gave the sign of the Aquila, folding two hands across each other to look like a bird over their chest, and started running about as I made my way to the top of the mountain front.
Once there I saw what Commander Isulf Hakonsson had been saying. The end of the mountain reached a plateau not too far from where we were fighting Orks that were shooting down on us, though they were slowly pulling back. As they did it became easier to see that there was a set of fortifications behind that lip of the wall on the plateau tip. Past the fortifications was… a town I would guess? At least various buildings for whatever needs the Orks had. Then, past that, was the mountain itself which I realized was only another 50 ft to the top after that. The peak was still visible from below but now I could see there was a lot more Ork iconography, including an Ork skull built out of scrap into the side of the mountain.
It was probably impossible to see from the valley where we had been forced to camp for the last 2 weeks but something told me that if you were outside the valley you probably could get a good view of it with a telescope. It wasn't that big but it was somewhat impressive
As for the armor… Yeah, there were Ork tanks moving into position around the fortifications, waiting for us to press. They were already preparing to unload their rounds into us as we tried.
This was not a good position for what we needed to do but that was the problem: we still needed to do it. So I did the best I could, reaching into a satchel I carried I pulled out a colored flare and aimed so it would go over their fortifications and onto the other side of the mountain where I knew the other force was fighting its way up. I didn't know how long it would take them to reach the point we were at but they just needed to see it and for someone to know what it meant.
I fired the flare and prayed that it would be seen, as anyone of my soldiers knew that that color was a call for an air strike at the top of the mountain.
With any luck they would have runners set up already and they would send it to someone who had radios who worked then… Well, from there we could hopefully take the top of this mountain.
Till then I turned and found several commanders already assembled, giving the sign of the Aquila as I acknowledge their presence.
"Brothers, I hate to be the one to do this to you but here's the situation as I understand it: At the top of this mountain are Ork headquarters, possibly the headquarters of the Warboss of this whole operation. We are going to need to take it but, with any luck, within the next hour that mountain will be lit up like the skies on the Imperium day."
"That will most likely clear the tanks for the most part and give us a bit of an easier time to get in there. We'll probably still have to fight the Orks who are waiting within the hidden mountain fortifications that probably exist."
"We're going to have to go in hard and fast, engage in close-quarters combat for the next step of this journey. Make sure your men are stocked up on ammo, their blades are sharp, and their chainswords are fully charged. You understand me."
There was a resounding, "Yes, brother Enoch Rathvin."
"Outstanding," I said, "I would like to give that air strike about an hour to happen but if it doesn't we're going in either way. 'till then we need to push to the lip of this plateau and secure it."
"Sir? What are we going to do if they don't get our airstrikes here on time?"
"Improvise. We have anti-tank weaponry and plenty of missiles to do the job. It's not going to be a pretty operation but hopefully, within that hour, our brothers on the other side of this mountain that are coming to break us out will be threatening them enough that they'll have divided their forces in two."
"Sir!" one of my sub-commanders said, pointing past me. Turning my shoulder a bit to look I saw that someone had fired a flare from the other side of the mountain. It seemed rather low and just barely visible, by the look of it I guess they weren't as close to the lip as we were, but it was a responding color to the one I had just fired. It indicated that the airstrike was on the way.
"Well, don't that beat all? Someone over there has got brains." I said with a smile before turning back to the men, "We have a confirmation on that airstrike, It will probably be here within an hour but if not we can now give it the time it needs because we know it's coming. Get your men ready for an assault on that fortification the moment that airstrike comes in, with any luck we'll stampede into that fort without many losses and just slaughter the Orks. For Russ and the Alfather, we will take that plateau and endure anything they send at us."
There was a chorus of "For Russ and the Alfather," showing my subcommanders agreed.
Turning back towards the plateau we must take I took a breath and readied myself before looking for a position I could take in the line.
Legion Master of the Iron Warriors, Elyphis Diorius
What a grinding fight this had been. I knew climbing and fighting our way up the mountain was not going to be easy... But this was a little bit ridiculous. The Orks were just pushing rocks down on us if we were lucky, if we were unlucky the rocks were covered in explosives.
Granted some men had figured out that if you worked together with shields you could actually cause the rocks to go flying into the air but that just sent it to be someone's problem further down the slope.
Losses were to be expected. I'd hoped to keep them minimal but the fact of the matter was this was an assault on a fortified position, even if it was not the most fortified position.
That being said we were making good time and were almost up the mountain. I could see a bit of a ledge before me, about 300 ft above us, where the Orks were trying to maneuver their artillery to point down at us. thankfully their guns didn't have great elevation systems by the fact that more than one had accidentally rolled down the mountain to us but they were doing the best they could, I could admit that.
The amount of hot lead and other explosives coming our way was rather ridiculous and I was pretty sure one report indicated they had somehow boiled the rock into lava and dumped it down the mountain which… It impressed me that they somehow had a machine that could produce lava but I was also wondering how they managed to make that actually work.
One of my sub-commanders had mentioned the possibility that perhaps they had Old Tech from before the Long Night that Drew lava up using some sort of antigravity engine. I didn't know but it was a good guess as any and if it did we would probably get the Mechanicus favor if we captured it.
Which is why I had directed orders to do such a thing but the important part was that we were within sight of the top of the mountain. Any moment now artillery would open up for a good 5 minutes, followed by several layers of airstrikes to try and clean the top of the mountain off.
When that was done we would push on and hopefully conquer this whole mountain top, allowing us to see what was going on with the wolves of Fenris as well. We would secure line of sight on the rest of the mountain ranges that had trapped them and then we could fire artillery down on the Orks still in position, hopefully flushing out their leader for a final battle.
Checking the time I quickly realized that I was a little bit off in my schedule. Any moment now the artillery would start falling on that mountain top, it probably would send shards of debris down our way but hopefully not too badly.
Turning to my commanders, I quickly said, "Get the men into cover, things are about to get a little bit hairy."
They got to work and within a few moments everyone was into whatever cover we could find and then we stopped our advance. We waited and waited and, after a few seconds, the artillery rained down.
Hundreds of blasts hit the mountainside above us and somewhat in front of us from both our positions at the base of the mountain and from across the valley. I would guess hopefully they were aiming high, we were in a bit of a crossfire situation. It was possible that a shot may go all the way over and land into us but, by my estimations, that chance was minimal.
For a full three or four minutes artillery laid into the top of the mountain. The blasts were numerous, both explosive and shrapnel. What was happening at the top end we could not say though I swore I heard several secondary blasts, which most likely meant the tanks that we had seen rolling around trying to get a better aim on us up there had probably gone up.
Hopefully that would be a good sign, I thought, as the blasts stopped and our artillery fell silent. Usually Orks would come rushing out at this moment, expecting to meet us charging up the hill, that would hopefully be their downfall. A moment later hundreds of aircraft came screaming in, unloading missiles and guns onto the top of the mountain, shredding anything that was still up there with any luck and bringing the population of Orks down to something more manageable.
After the planes passed by I didn't hear anything from the top of the mountain. I got back up, drew my sword, and tried to signal the men to get ready to March up the mountain. With any luck there wouldn't be much in the way of defenses to stop us at this point, most of the enemy Orks had probably been vaporized up top. Any remaining Orks along the roads leading to the top should be easy pickings for our formation.
But before I could give that order I heard a sound, a chilling noise that made a shiver go down my spine. The first part I was rather unable to make out, though given the context I think it was the Battle cry of the wolves 'for Russ and the Emperor' but it was hard to hear over the mountain wind.
The second part and the one that spoke deeply of a charging army on the run was a yell, not too similar to dissimilar to the howl of a wolf, as no doubt the Wolves of Fenris would commence their attack on the top already.
"Damn, they really want all the glory for all this," I muttered as I realized that we were a good 20 minutes from reaching the top and they would be in combat for that entire time. They would most likely kill whatever was up there and be able to claim they were the ones who took them out on top.
A bit annoying, considering it had been our artillery and Air Force, used to do it but oh well, whatever waited up there for them would easily be dealt with in time. For now I just had to worry about getting my men up there to secure the mountaintop so we could set up our artillery and finish the fight up there.
Former Legion master of the Rout, Enoch Rathvin
Up and over the lip of the plateau the wolves charged, a roiling massive wave of Space Marines with one goal and one goal only: kill the Orks, take the hill, and break through to the other side. And with luck kill the WarBoss and end the conflict on this planet.
And with the first dozen steps I could confirm that we were well on our way as we were halfway to their fortifications. I was in the third line of the charge, having fallen behind the younger Marines who were more used to Long-running. They were going to break through into the fortifications before I did but It would let them have the chance to show their worth. I was old and in command, I didn't need as much Glory as they did.
That said I wasn't sure there'd be much glory in their assault, considering none of the Orks seemed to have survived the initial bombardment and the air attacks. What had once been several armored vehicles in a fortification that looked a little bit troubling were now burning wrecks and a wall full of holes.
We didn't see our first Ork till we were almost through the front door of the complex and even then he looked very confused and battered, bleeding profusely from a wound on his head.
The first Marine I saw simply smacked him out of the way before driving his blade through the creature's spine, killing it, and then we were inside.
At least 20 Marines made it into the wall before I made it in and once I got inside I saw that we were well on our way to completing our tasks. There were only a few Orks still walking about in my immediate view, most of them confused.
But as my Marines broke through, very intent to get inside, the Orks began to realize what was going on and began to defend themselves, either shooting their makeshift bolters at us or charging us with various handheld weapons.
My Marines engaged them in combat, beating them back with their own swords and chainblades, cutting and ripping the creatures to pieces.
It almost looked like this was going to be an easy end to the campaign and then a pair of doors at the base of the mountain in front of me opened and all hell broke loose.
Two heavy machine guns of some type opened up, firing into my Marines, though thankfully not breaking through their armor too often. I still did see several Marines go down, the shots possibly finding weak spots in their armor.
And after that initial fire came a stream of Orks wielding various weapons, a few of them appearing to be covered in explosives.
"Form a firing line," I screamed, drawing my pistol and unloading rounds into the incoming Orks to try to drive them back. The Marines around me did the same quickly, trying to fire as much as they could, but the stream of Orks just never ended. Before I knew it one Ork with an explosive vest managed to make the distance to us and detonated.
Large portions of the line were thrown to the ground but others were just murdered by the explosion, Ork guts painting our gray and light blue armor a muddled green and red.
And more just kept coming. But even as our first line fell more Marines made their way into the complex, taking over the walls that had once been held by the Orks and firing down into the oncoming swarm, giving time for our line to rearrange itself.
However, what came next was not something our light guns could take care of. Charging now out of the mountainhold were machines, literal cans on legs with saw blades for arms. They slowly moved across the battlefield, our guns not being able to penetrate or deal enough damage to kill them. They moved and made their way toward us, the Orks who had guns using them for cover to fire at the Marines across the wall.
Behind these killer cans came an Ork, a massive Ork in a mechanized suit, that walked into the square screaming orders in its foul language. His right hand was an oversized clawhand that was clenching repeatedly and it used its left hand to wield a chain weapon of some kind. It looked like an ax but a little bit too long, perhaps a glaive.
Either way it used the Orks in the cans as cover, advancing towards our lines. Several Marines ran past me, charging this counter-charge, and were met with the buzz saws of the killer cans. The fighting was rather one-sided, even with advanced armor a repeated cutting motion will get through with enough hits. Several Marines lost their arms or were sent flying, one Marine was lucky to only lose his hand but that was simply because he tried to block an attack from the saw and lost the weapon he was using.
Finally someone with a heavier weapon entered the square of fortifications and several missiles were launched at the killer cans, destroying them.
This had left an open road for the Orks that were pushing towards us and the monstrous creature leading them, forcing them forward as living shields.
Pulling myself up I drew my blade, my chainsword, and stepped out. "For Fenris and the Wolf King," I called as a rallying cry, drawing the Marines into another charge at the Ork formation moving towards us. Perhaps it would have been better to fire into them but there seemed to just be an endless horde of Orks coming out of the breach and the shots weren't doing enough damage to bring them down. The only real option that I could see was to get there in person and start severing heads.
I didn't see how many marines followed me but I heard the battle cries and howls of Marines as they followed me in. We quickly closed the distance to the creatures and I was able to strike down the first Ork in front of me, who had attempted to block my attack with an ax made of wood and iron.
His head went flying and I drew back my blade, slashed at another one, and fired a few shots into an Ork that tried to stab me with what appeared to be a spear before moving on to another Ork. I slashed its face open then I slashed, hacked, and fired repeatedly, the sounds of battle around me telling me that every Marine who followed me was doing the same.
It took effort but we pushed and we kept pushing further and further into the Ork formation. The charge was carrying us through and, for a moment, I thought we were going to cause some sort of Rout in their lines.
Until I killed the Ork in front of me and I saw that I had made my way through their lines. I was in front of the Ork Warboss in its mech.
"Die, foul beast!" I cried, charging at him while firing a few shots.
He simply brought up his sword-wielding hand and dropped the blade, opening it to reveal that there was a nozzle inside. From the hand a jet of flame burst forth that I just barely dodged. My chain sword was completely covered in the fuel though and was burning profusely. From the corner of my eye I saw that several Marines had gone up in cinders as well as dozens of Orks, showing just how much care he had for his troops.
Not wanting to lose the momentum I attempted to slash at him, bringing my blade down on that infernal flamethrower, but he simply blocked it and did something I did not expect: he grabbed me with his open hand around the chest.
"Puny human," the creature said in the lowest of Gothic before I felt even squeezing. I could feel the air being pushed out of my chest as my armor began to crunch, the mechanical limb, not a hand but a massive claw, easily applying more and more pressure as he held me up, maybe fellow Marines could see me being crushed.
"Go splat like a can of spinach." The Ork taunted, moving me a little bit closer to its face.
I felt something more crunch inside my chest, I had no idea what that was, and pain rushed throughout my body. I coughed up some blood into the creature's face and I strengthened my grip on my still flaming chainsword.
Legion Master of the Iron Warriors Elyphis Diorius
30 emperor damn minutes, it took 30 damn minutes to reach the top of this mountain and the plateau where we had been hearing fighting going on the entire time.
The Orks on this side of the mountain had been extremely stubborn, not wishing to give up a single piece of land no matter how hard we pushed. We were able to finally exterminate every single one of them and opened a way.
And as we made our way to the top I saw the thing I was hoping not to see at the top of the fortifications, facing us was the banner of the Wolves of Fenris waving in the wind. We'd missed the fight, dammit all.
Sighing, I ordered the men to start preparations to build a pathway down the mountain for the civilians. There had been some trails but we could reinforce them and make it easier. The larger the path we made the more civilians could get to the other side, as well as any wounded Wolves of Fenris I'd need to get out.
That being said I quickly turned and jogged to the fortifications, wanting to meet with the commander of the Wolves of Fenris to get an idea of how many civilians we were going to have to get down that mountain.
Opening the door I saw that there was no one on guard, which was odd. Though then again the wolves did like to party after a victory, right? This was a hell of a victory.
But looking around I quickly realized that this was not what was going on, most of the wolves looked rather tired and beaten down. Some of them looked happy but it seemed not the general happiness that I had seen amongst them after their victories on planet Icrinda.
Spotting someone in command I walked over and asked, "Where's Enoch Rathvin? I need to talk to him."
The commander looked up to me and then shook his head before pointing in a general direction. Following the finger I quickly saw a large gathering of Marines around something that I couldn't see. I quickly moved over to find out, perhaps they had captured the Warboss? I didn't know but things seemed a little bit odd at to this point.
As I moved closer some of the Marines saw me coming and quickly opened a way, allowing me through the line of Marines guarding the path to whatever they were looking at.
What they were looking at became clear and I had to slow down in disbelief.
In front of me was the body of an Ork. It was still standing though its head had been caved in by a chainsword, a flaming chainsword at that. It was grinding away into the neck on its own power.
The rest of the body stood there motionless, having apparently ceased to function upon the destruction of the brain. One arm was lying in the dirt, the other was held up to a somewhat degree but it might have been held up by what was in it.
What was in it was Enoch Rathvinof the wolves. His body was caught in the grip-like vice of the Warboss' claw, that's what that thing was it had to be. And it had closed completely, flattening the armor's Central section and anything in between its front and back.
The only thing holding the legs to the upper torso was the metal that had once been the power armor he wore. As a result his legs dangled there uselessly.
To either side of him were apothecaries attempting to look after him. I couldn't guess though what they could do for him, I knew Space Marines could survive many things but this? I doubted that it extended to this.
One of the apothecaries saw me coming and nodded to the other before walking over to me.
He saluted me before saying, "If you have any last words for the former legion master you might want to get over there now. We can't do anything for him right now, we're just giving him enough pain medications to make it as peaceful as possible."
I nodded and moved over to get into the view of the former legion master. He was looking up at the sky his blood leaking from his lips as he occasionally wheezed. Half there he looked down and saw me. He smiled and said, "We did it then? We broke through. Good."
Nodding I moved over to clasp his hand and said, "Yes, brother, you did it. We're already making a road for your men to get out of here." Looking at the dead WarBoss I said, "And it looks like you've conquered this planet with your last act."
He coughed a bit before saying, "My last act as a member of the sixth legion is the conquest of this planet, my last act as a Terran is to thank my brothers in the 4th for breaking through for the people we fought for. Thank you, brother!" he tightened his grip before loosening completely. His eyes closed as he passed on, or possibly passed out. Either way his time amongst us was over.
Stepping back I nodded to the apothecary before heading back out to be outside of the fortifications, letting the sixth legion have time to mourn their loss whatever way they choose. The sub-commander in charge of engineering quickly came up to me as I came out.
"Any numbers on how many civilians we're going to have to escort out of this bullshit, brother? I do not relish staying here as long as we have already, and protecting these mortals is not exactly on my to-do list today."
"I don't know," I said, looking out on the horizon before saying, "Do you know how many legion Masters have died for this crusade?"
He shook his head a bit, confused. I simply said, "Neither do I. Detached a work crew to help the sixth legion build a monument to the former legion master who took this plateau today. Least I can do for their legion."
"Um… Okay, sir," he said, sounding confused, before nodding and walking off.
Bit confused myself really. I had been wholeheartedly planning to take the credit for this operation but it just… didn't feel right, now. The loyalty that the king of the wolves had inspired in her Marines to her cause was rather legendary at this point in my mind. I had to wonder if we would have a similar mindset when our Primarch was found.
I hoped so, for it seemed like it had inspired such a commitment to their cause that they were willing to think of that cause even in the last moment of one of the cruelest deaths I had seen. Though I hope I never died on campaign, if I were to die… I would like to have the same assurance legion Master Enoch Rathvin had shown.
Writers note: and there chapter folks. No tanya at all… sorta just happen, people wanted more of iron warriors so i gave you more, this idea was based on like paragraph of text at the bottom of space wolves wiki that talk about how the first legion master died in wheel of fire. So i asked quasion of that pairghapagh and thoses questions to makes this. So that is where that
comes from.
In other news were in for a bit of time skip next chapter as i think we're ready to be moving on from wheel of fire, as of last week i written chapter 31 i think or 30 one or the other.
And this week i wrote my first ever original (aka not based on any other franchise) work. It take some times to come out but first three chapter probable will end up in one shot thread eventually. So hope that be out soon .
Edited by: Pierre
Community edited by:
Community editable doc (Chapter) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread
Supporters: Afforess, Gremlin Jack, Weise, Xodarap4, Duncan Sproule, James Moorhouse, Dankermaler, Hats88, DrkShdow, Devilstar101, Michael, Mana Rope, Falk Hüser, Daniel Martinez, Silver Wolf, Mackenzie Buckle, Markus, Neso, Staradder, Lmc9389, Staradder, victor a lopez-barron, KrasieK, Zollus, Mintea, Jog256, Ethan Dowie, Maxim Blashkevych, The GrandMage, loyalChaos, Daryl, FreelancerD0, Zul The Lich, Flynn Pirola-Henderson, j0ntsa, Retexks, John Norman, Sacha Lechelon, Ian R Major
Legion Master of the Iron Warriors, Elyphis Diorius
836.M30
Xyat
Well I had had many thoughts about this campaign when it started, especially on the losses we might take and so far we were doing absolutely better than I had expected. And I had to admit I was a bit wrong about my assumptions about the Rout and their new Primarch.
Of course, the standard that Horus had set had not been great. Oh, his arrival onto the battlefield had increased the lunar wolves' numbers to the point that they were able to operate on multiple fronts and push the crusade on… But his tactical skill had been lacking in the early days. Not to mention he was not prone to giving credit which, well… It didn't settle right for me, it had quite annoyed me in fact.
But I had let that pass as best I could and I needed to focus on the Primarch in question today, Tanya Russ. When she arrived I had been more than willing to let her take her legion into the Wheel of Fire and waste it there. After all with a Primarch the sixth legion could actually replenish its losses while my legion, the fourth, could not. I was not really interested in being remembered as the first legion master who got his legion destroyed. It had not happened yet but there had been close calls.
However I will admit that this Primarch was not only good at their job and understood military matters from the get-go of this campaign, she also had a better understanding of non-military matters than… well, me. After the slaves had been rescued they had been returned home to the various systems in this sector of space. This had created an interesting situation where the local sectors were now offering the support they would have given the Orks. Granted it wasn't very advanced support but food stockpiles were now rather high and there was also a bit of mineral output being offered to the people I sent, which were being directed to the Administratum and the Mechanicus to deal with.
Those food supplies helped us support the imperial army's efforts to hold planets after we were done cleaning them up, which allowed us to proceed with the campaign against the next planet in the line. That planet had been a rather easy operation as most of the fortifications had been on the planet before that, Icrinda.
All we had had to do was destroy infrastructure, cut off the fortifications from each other, and then bomb them from orbit.
There hadn't even been large slave populations to worry about, all we had to do was kill Orks and we had killed a lot of Orks. But while we were doing that the Wolves of Fenris and their Primarch had found a crack in the Warp storms that kept this sector rather isolated from normal space and had laid siege to another Ork planet with the dwarves.
Reports from the observers I'd sent with them indicated that they were getting to understand our siege tactics and had quickly been able to defeat the Ork war base on that planet and were now beginning to spread out with the general plan to cut at the snake until it died instead of going for the head since the men needed more training.
On one hand I liked that they were already further ahead into the Wheel of Fire, on the other I had discovered the sector and they were taking up a lot of credit with their conquest.
On the other other hand the glowing reports coming from the Primarch that I had been allowed to read indicated that they were giving credit to their understanding of sieges to us and, well, I enjoyed a good ego stroking as much as most of my brothers did.
Either way with the completion of the siege of New Vietnam Russ had divided her forces in three. One was sent to open up a path to our current siege and another to push further into the cluster with the third guarding the entrance they currently held, a reasonable strategy. And I do know that thanks to taking that planet and the current evolution of events so far the Mechanicus predictions on how long this war would be were down from 10 years to seven. I will admit, though not say, that I do not trust the Mechanicus predictions as accurate. The fact that we were improving the time must say something, perhaps it would be 14 years instead of my prediction of 20?
Also I could see the benefit from this plan, splitting her forces in three and engaging smaller targets to destroy them separately would allow her to get her commanders trained up into proper officers a little bit quicker as they would have had to deal with situations that she would have handled if she was always in command. It would allow her to set up forces that could fight with less supervision and would be able to deal with multiple fronts quite well.
I was taking note of the ways she was using her force and planning to offer it to our Primarch in case he was interested in engaging in similar activities. And, as I said, it was within the sixth legion's capability to risk forces like this because they could fix their losses rather quickly compared to the 4th or any other legion except those that had found their Primarch. l however had to be careful and very thorough in our work, otherwise we could lose more people than we could actually sustain.
That being said it was not a surprise that they got themselves a little bit in over their heads.
Legion Master Enoch Rathvinof formerly the Rout had requested aid as their forces had become entangled in a bit of a quagmire on the planet Xyat.
Information wasn't exactly clear but from what I could understand when they called air support because some portions of their army had been surrounded by an Ork Force and had been cut off by Ork anti-air positions.
Seemed to be a last-ditch effort by their Warboss to pull a victory out of what was obviously a failure, it would probably have been the end of Ork offensives on the planet once the enemy's back was broken.
The problem was the Wolves of Fenris had been baited into a trap.
They had been offered an opportunity to free slaves but apparently this Ork boss had got Intel about their efforts to do that in the past. Once they had charged in to save these slaves the Orks had sprung their trap, catching a third of the army on the planet in a valley that was protected from imperial airstrikes by enemy aircraft and enemy anti-air.
Information was not at a level that we understood exactly what was happening but for all intents and purposes, for the last 3 weeks, a third of the Wolves of Fenris on the planet had been fighting a prolonged siege on the valley's floor as waves of Orks rushed their position. Their ammunition were now running out.
And, to make matters worse, the legion Master was in the third of the army that was currently trapped.
The 2/3 that were not trapped had attempted to break through but were currently being kept out by an enemy defences that was holding the line behind the attack formation that were pushing in on the entrapped fenris Force.
How many Orks were in the mountains was unknown but at this point it was quite clear that the Wolves of Fenris were encircling Orks who had encircled Wolves of Fenris, who destroyed who first would most likely determine the ultimate Victor of the campaign on this planet.
Which was where me and the Iron Warriors came in. We had landed last night on the outskirts of this battlefield, deep in the mountains and away from enemy fire as the enemy still had large artillery pieces they were using to keep the wolves in position and unable to advance.
From there we had unloaded as much of our artillery as possible and set up to counter-battery fire while we were slowly pushing ourselves into the line.
Helitin Ventassius of the Star Hunters had also come and what troops he had with him were currently scouting the bunkers and trails up the mountains, looking for a way that we could use to get in there. The Orks were however annoyingly effective in their efforts to block these paths, having dug trenches and such through every known path. In a few places they had simply set up areas where they could toss down boulders on anyone who tried to come up the road.
This was the ultimate problem that the Wolves of Fenris were dealing with, they couldn't break through the enemy lines. There was hope that my men would and generally I thought we could but, staring down at the map before me, I did see problems.
If the Wolves of Fenris abandoned their charges inside the valley they might actually be able to get that third of the army out of this trap. But what minimal communications were available indicated that legion Master Enoch Rathvin was not interested in abandoning his position. On one hand that was stupid, he was putting his men at risk for a bunch of slaves that would be forgotten in history.
On the other his reasoning was rather sound and very… Russ. They had been trying to pin the Orks in position for months and right now the Orks had shown themselves. Granted they were not in a great position but they could actually fight the Orks here.
The Orks had given the Space Marines a climactic final battle but one that favored them, the Marines simply wanted to show them that it didn't favor them as well as they thought. Which was respectable, sure there would probably be little Outpost and Orks scattered across this planet when it was all over but if we destroyed the main fighting force it would be easier for the imperial army to clean up after us.
That being said, with the situation as is. Orbital bombardments were out of the hololith as they would cause landslides that could hurt our own men, air strikes were out because the Orks had plenty of anti-air though. Enoch Rathvin had let some of his men try and do higher altitude air strikes where the Ork anti-air wasn't great.
But artillery was basically the king of the battlefield for today and even that wasn't doing very successfully as most of these trenches were dug right into the rocky sides of the mountain.
Looking at the situation I just did not see how they were going to make it out of there intact and was already considering this as a possible failed operation. A third of the army of legion Master Enoch Rathvin would probably be dead by this time next week while the little slaves they'd gone to rescue would probably be returned to slavery, if lucky, as the Orks would use paths prepared to hide in the mountains or sneak up past us if they could.
So the question was how did I prevent any of that from happening. I could possibly call on the Primarch of the Fenrisian to double our forces, though from what I understood they were currently busy dealing with their own problems. Managing fights on two different worlds in the sector where the Orks were proving themselves stubborn, though not as stubborn as here.
And this would harm my chances at getting a little glory for myself. Being known as the man who saved a portion of the Wolves of Fenris was a nice title and I disliked losing my chance at that.
So the question of how to stop the inevitable had an answer that was quite apparent.
Standing in the tent, rubbing my chin through my gloved hand, I studied the holographic map that showed the mountainous valley that the Wolves of Fenris were trapped in and our own siege lines around this valley. Looking over at the leader of the Star Hunters, I said, "Do you think your Marines can find the tunnel systems in and out of this area and block them off as much as possible?"
He looked at the map before nodding his head in agreement, "Yeah, it shouldn't be too hard. We'll need some help from the Fenris boys but we can track down all the paths and close them to make sure they can't get out. Doesn't help the Marines currently trapped though. Any plans for that?"
I nodded before saying, "A bad plan but a plan." Pulling the camera of the holograph to the front of the valley I said, "Most of the Orks are here, blocking the easy way in and out. We can't push in because they're blocking the way, they can't push out because they're blocking the way. This means the only ways they have to try and attack are physically up sheer cliffs on the right and left of the valley, which the Orks are protecting rather adequately. Or this point," I indicated the end of the valley, a large mountain that overlooked most of the valley and served as the end of it.
"As far as I can tell that is the second strongest point on the line but there's something here that I think the Orks have underestimated."
Helitin Ventassius looked at the map and nodded before asking, "What have they underestimated?"
"The range of our artillery. We could put it at the end of our current valley and be able to hit that mountain easy enough. We do that and we can suppress any enemy guns and artillery on the mountain as the Wolves of Fenris push towards the mountain. If they climb their way up and out they will be able to cross over, after all they're from a world of mountains from what their Primarch said.
Helitin Ventassius nodded, understanding my point, before adding, "What about the civilians, the former slaves they're trying to rescue?"
I placed my finger along a winding path that went up the mountain, saying "There is a path for them to cross, by the looks of it though I guess that'll be the most heavily defended point on the mountain. But if the Marines are as good as they say with crossing mountains they can probably get behind the defenses and destroy them, allowing the civilians to make their way up."
Helitin Ventassius nodded "That seems reasonable. I'm assuming that we'll have to commit to an assault on all fronts otherwise the Orks will realize what's going on and immediately try and close in on the Wolves of Fenris they currently have trapped."
"Exactly." I agreed. "If we just let them try and get up there without providing covering fire it'll just end in their destruction but if we commit to an assault at the same time they're making this move we can probably buy them time to establish themselves on the mountain. Even if they get trapped on the mountain afterward that's a better position than being at the bottom of the valley, the guns the Orks have won't be as effective shooting down as they were shooting up and they will have access to whatever defensive structures the Orks built there."
"That gets them onto the mountain," Helitin Ventassius said, "but how do we get them out of the trap?"
I smiled at that. "Though half my artillery train will remain at the end of the valley to provide the covering fire I think that most of my men will be here," I pointed to the other side of the mountain. "We will attempt to breach at the exact same time, this mountain is the most defendable position on the battlefield but they also have the least troops, that could be the way to break the Ork's formation."
Helitin Ventassius nodded slowly, before adding, "Those mountains are kind of craggy and tall. Have your men ever fought over mountains before?"
I shook my head. "Officially, no. Unofficially some of my men have been practicing mountain maneuvers ever since we entered the Wheel of Fire, part of the reason why I sent observers with the Wolves of Fenris into the attack on their back lines. It gave me a couple hundred Wolves of Fenris to help train my men in exchange. I don't know if it'll be that successful here but we at least have some idea of what we're doing. And on this side of the mountain we will be able to get air support compared to anywhere else."
"Most of the Ork guns are facing the Wolves of Fenris in the valley, placed on the cliffs to the right and left where they could easily swivel to protect themselves or on the ground oriented towards the opening of the valley where they could do the same. But here, in the North, the guns they have to protect the valley from the northern side will be at most half."
"That's a bit of a risky assumption, brother, don't you think?" Helitin Ventassius said, sounding a bit worried, but I waved him off.
"It's a calculated risk and one I'm willing to take," I explained. "Us legions without a Primarch need to have some good harass while we still can, to show we're just as good as those legions even without a Primarch to keep our morale up. It's an unfortunate thing but that's the truth of the matter. If I have to take a risk once or twice I'll do it, and this is something that needs to be done."
Helitin Ventassius nodded his agreement, "Well then when do we begin this efforts to free legion Master Enoch Rathvin from the trap the Orks have put them in?"
"Personally I don't think he's got a week in there so I'd like to get it started within the next 24 hours. The real question is how are we going to get him to agree to this operation, it's going to be a hell of a thing to March an army and a civilian population across that mountain while under fire."
"Perhaps we lie to him and say it's an order from his Primarch?"
I gave Helitin Ventassius a look before shaking my head, "No… Logically that won't work, we need to think of something that'll actually make sense to him."
My thoughts were interrupted as a wolf leader entered the room and gave us a salute. Saluting back, I said, "Good afternoon, brother."
"Good afternoon, legion Master Diorius." He answered, giving a nod, before saying, "I am Commander Boesson, I'm bringing the latest dispatches from legion master Enoch Rathvin. Some of his men managed to get through the Ork lines with information and a letter."
"Ah, well let's have it," I said, holding out my hand for the paperwork. The Young Commander handed me the work and I quickly looked it over. Then I read it again and then chuckled and then burst out a laugh.
"What's so funny, brother?" Helitin Ventassius asked as he sat up from where he'd been leaning against a tent pillar.
"I don't need to convince him, he's already got the exact same plan. And already, to some extent, in operation. He's planning to march his army up the mountain and kill anything that gets in his way. He needs us to cause as many distractions as possible." I laughed again before continuing, "Well, that makes this job 10 times easier. All we need to do now is provide him with the support he's requested and more."
Helitin Ventassius smiled before saying, "Well, that makes things easier indeed. Is an attack going to begin?'
Looking at the paperwork I checked for any information before I found it and felt my smile die. "He's going to begin the attack in 12 hours, I probably will not have an attack for the other side of the mountain ready for another 16. It might work out but it's going to be close."
"What about the artillery to support his attack?" Helitin Ventassius asked but I waved his worry off, "First thing I did when we landed here was to send most of my artillery to that end of the valley, it will be ready. Getting the Fenris wolves ready for an assault on all flanks shouldn't be that hard either, they've basically been chomping at the bit."
"Well, then," Helitin Ventassius said, "I guess it's all a matter of seeing what will happen now. Will the Wolves of Fenris rip themselves out of this trap while we successfully break the siege that Orks have laid on them or will this all go to crap?"
Smiling, I answered, "Brother, I think this is going to go to crap either way. Planning never survives actual battles but I think we might be able to pull this off. If we're lucky, with the Emperor's truth on our side, we'll break these Orks and free this planet for human use. That's all that matters."
Helitin Ventassius of the Star Hunters and Boesson of the Wolves of Fenris both nodded in agreement at that. Now that was the ultimate truth, our losses didn't matter as long as humanity was put back in its place amongst the Stars.
Former Legion master of the Rout, Enoch Rathvin
The screams of battle went on and on as we trudged up the mountain, soldiers crying in pain as rounds found their mark or screaming their war cries as artillery shells landed around us, civilians crying as they didn't know what the fuck was going on.
The world was chaos but in that chaos there was an easy-to-understand goal: take the heights. It was a simple order, it had been given down to the lowest private and everyone knew by heart at this point. Take the heights and we could push down to the other side of the mountain and get these civilians and ourselves out of this trap.
I had been observing the Orks' formations for 2 weeks and it was obvious that this was their weak point. Granted I knew that it was their weak point because it was also their strong point, these mountains were relatively large and easy to defend with minimal forces. it was possible this was another trap within the trap but I did not think the Orks were that smart. They had left this opening assuming that we wouldn't take it and would instead give them battle in the valley, which would have been even worse.
So the army marched, climbed, and crawled up the mountainside hoping, that none of the other friendly artillery would accidentally get us as we made our way up. So far nothing had but there had been a couple close calls I'd heard about.
the Orks, of course, weren't taking this lying down. As soon as they realized that we were assaulting the mountains the enemy formations had started moving on to them from the valley walls to either side.
Thankfully though the general assault by Imperial forces on the other side appeared to be drawing Orks away so they weren't able to put formations in place on the mountain strong enough to stop us as we made our climb.
And the Orks that had been guarding the way in and out of the valley were also having this problem but they had sent troops after our rear guard. Still, in an open fight, the Orks would die a lot easier and they were forced to march across the valley to attack our rear in an open fight.
Things were going relatively well and I believed we would pull this off. The Orks did not have the numbers on the mountain to stop us and we were mulching those we met. Oh, we were taking losses but losses were much lesser than expected, especially compared to assaulting their actually prepared positions instead of this one.
That being said things were getting a little bit hairy now, the road that the civilians had to take was rather unprotected and I had to dispatch troops to try and assemble some sort of wall to protect them from artillery fire from the canyon walls. We had seized a few of the Ork guns, most of them terribly constructed but I put men on the ones that could work to counterfire at the enemy cannons that were shooting at us.
This was a slog, a fight to an inevitable destruction of either the Orks on the mountain or ourselves. But I thought we could do it. The Rout's formation I had led through many battles had never been much of a mountain-dwelling Force, instead we had come from numerous barbarian tribes across Terra. We had been put together for a simple goal: be the most brutal and effective Force available, one to be called upon in certain situations.
Things were different now. The Wolves of Fenris were different from the Rout, their training was more about fighting on mountains and in the snow. To be fair this planet was just close enough that they were well at home, even during the worst of the siege we had just been through the troops had maintained high spirits and had been just waiting for the order to do something more than sit back and let the Orks fire at them.
That was what was getting us through this, our training. That and a simple dream to get back to Fenris, I imagine. Although I had to admit I had come to enjoy their cultural institution of seeing that a death in battle was the greatest honor. Many of the Rout's cultures had similar traditions but the Fenrisian one was more conclusive on what would happen.
To be taken to some great hall where we would be served by Valkyries and get to fight For eternity for fun was a good conclusion to a soldier's life. And it was that assurance of a good way to conclude one's life that allowed many of my men to push forward through some of the worst fire coming at them and to keep moving.
Slow and steady we had been moving up the mountain as the Orks filed in, ripping and tearing our way through their formations and clearing a path for the civilians. As we ascended these heights we had heard fire. The shots came not from the Ork artillery whose shells were landing around us but from friendlies firing from the other side of the mountain. Someone was trying to break through on the other side.
An explosion could be heard from the other side of the mountain and a cheer rose from the troops at the front, we knew that this meant we were steps closer to breaking out and it improved the morale.
Of course with how mobile this campaign was I couldn't exactly stand back. Instead, in an attempt to bolster my men during this fighting, I had been shifting in and out of the front for the last several hours. Sometimes serving on the line next to my soldiers, sometimes taking a break with them to recover before going back in. The front was the hardest, I think. The troops at the back, all they had to do was just find a new position every few 30 minutes, when they fell back the sidelines were relatively controlled. The real grinder was the front. As we pushed further up all they had to do was push rocks down on us and even though most of the Orks could not get into position in front of us there was a steady trickle of them doing it, possibly using mountain roads we didn't know about, possibly using tunnels. I didn't know how deep the Ork had dug their complex on this mountain but it seemed like it was pretty deep and they were coming out of every Emperor damn crack.
That being said I expected we'd break through by the end of the day, as long as nothing extremely unexpected happened. We were making good time and it didn't hurt that for the first 5 hours of this battle we had had the cover of night. The Orks on this world didn't have night vision as far as we could tell, at least not in large enough quantities that it helped them counter our initial attack.
Part of me hoped that in 7 hours, when night came again, we would be able to continue the push well into the morning and finish this fight, my men did need the rest after all. I doubted we would be that lucky, if they did have any troops with night vision they'd be brought up and moved into position by that time, and I knew they had some sort of flare system that allowed them to light up the valley. They used it a lot during the first week, second week they'd stopped because we weren't giving them battle at night something that had been unexpectedly useful thankfully.
Anyways I was taking a break between combat deployments when one of the soldiers near the front, a runner, came up to me. The Orks were using some kind of jamming equipment so we had to rely on this ancient way of communicating. It worked, though I would have preferred something a little bit faster.
The soldier ran up, a wolf at his feet. Obviously a bonded pair. He didn't give a salute and addressed me right away. "Sir! News from the front!" having to take a moment to get his breath.
Nodding my head I said, "Tell me what's up. Anything new we need to worry about on the front, brother?"
After a moment he said, "We've almost reached the apex of the current heights. There's a bit more past it but from what we can tell there's a plateau before that point, we could use it to skirt around that last peak and start making our way back down if you wanted to."
"Perfect!" I said. Side-stepping the summit would rather improve the situation in my opinion, as trying to get all the way up the summit would be… Well, a tough job to say the least.
"There's a problem, sir. A bit of a big problem."
Looking at the soldier I said, "Well? Don't keep me waiting, what's the big problem?" We had been fighting Orks all the way up this mountain, there couldn't be that many more Orks at this plateau could there?
"Sir, Commander Isulf Hakonsson bid me tell you that… There's an Ork fortification on the plateau above. A big one, couldn't exactly see it until we got right on top of it due to the little bit of a downsweep in the mountain range. Commander Isulf Hakonsson believes we've stumbled across the enemy high command."
That got me standing up in an instant, "What?", as I looked up towards the tip of the mountain.
"Enemy high command, sir! The fortifications are well stocked and there are plenty of Orks up there, as well as armored support. The commander is not sure we can break through this fortification."
"Damn it," I muttered before I grabbed my kit and started attaching pieces of equipment to my armor again. Turning to the runner, I said, "Tell the commander to start prepping for an assault on that fortification. We're going to need every trick in the book at this point."
"Sir?" he said, seeming confused, but I ignored him. I exclaimed "You have your orders." and started up the mountain towards the front line, taking it easy but yelling at commanders as I went by to start prepping their men for an assault.
There had been four shifts of soldiers every hour so they would break contact with the enemy and allow a new shift to take over and give them 3 hours of rest between assaults. That method had got us almost all the way up the mountain to this point but, by the sounds of it, I was going to need every single one of those soldiers for a grand of assault on the top of this mountain.
I could try and move my men to the side and push on along the cliff sides, maybe get around this fortification, but the fact of the matter was if this was the enemy HQ as we believed… Then the Warboss was there and if I could kill the Warboss the chaos that would be unleashed amongst the Orks would be enough that this planet would fall to our hands today rather than sometime in the future.
Sure I was putting men at risk for this operation but this is the job they were paid to do. We needed to break the Ork fortification up there and kill the Warboss, it was that simple. If we did not do that then this whole operation was for nothing, not to mention that if we did manage to take their fortification it would be a great place to store the civilians as we fought our way down to the southern side of the mountain. I'd been getting reports about unlucky civilians either getting crushed by falling rocks or exploded by artillery for the last three to four hours but that was much less likely to happen on top of the mountain if only we could consolidate up there. We had not known that there were fortifications up there, which meant that it was designed in such a way that the mountain's peak probably protected it.
All in all this was the perfect position to take and hold, so we needed everyone on the front to do it. There was no one I could spare now so, as I walked by the tent that was dedicated for runners, I yelled in orders to get every man who wasn't doing something to the front. The soldiers immediately gave the sign of the Aquila, folding two hands across each other to look like a bird over their chest, and started running about as I made my way to the top of the mountain front.
Once there I saw what Commander Isulf Hakonsson had been saying. The end of the mountain reached a plateau not too far from where we were fighting Orks that were shooting down on us, though they were slowly pulling back. As they did it became easier to see that there was a set of fortifications behind that lip of the wall on the plateau tip. Past the fortifications was… a town I would guess? At least various buildings for whatever needs the Orks had. Then, past that, was the mountain itself which I realized was only another 50 ft to the top after that. The peak was still visible from below but now I could see there was a lot more Ork iconography, including an Ork skull built out of scrap into the side of the mountain.
It was probably impossible to see from the valley where we had been forced to camp for the last 2 weeks but something told me that if you were outside the valley you probably could get a good view of it with a telescope. It wasn't that big but it was somewhat impressive
As for the armor… Yeah, there were Ork tanks moving into position around the fortifications, waiting for us to press. They were already preparing to unload their rounds into us as we tried.
This was not a good position for what we needed to do but that was the problem: we still needed to do it. So I did the best I could, reaching into a satchel I carried I pulled out a colored flare and aimed so it would go over their fortifications and onto the other side of the mountain where I knew the other force was fighting its way up. I didn't know how long it would take them to reach the point we were at but they just needed to see it and for someone to know what it meant.
I fired the flare and prayed that it would be seen, as anyone of my soldiers knew that that color was a call for an air strike at the top of the mountain.
With any luck they would have runners set up already and they would send it to someone who had radios who worked then… Well, from there we could hopefully take the top of this mountain.
Till then I turned and found several commanders already assembled, giving the sign of the Aquila as I acknowledge their presence.
"Brothers, I hate to be the one to do this to you but here's the situation as I understand it: At the top of this mountain are Ork headquarters, possibly the headquarters of the Warboss of this whole operation. We are going to need to take it but, with any luck, within the next hour that mountain will be lit up like the skies on the Imperium day."
"That will most likely clear the tanks for the most part and give us a bit of an easier time to get in there. We'll probably still have to fight the Orks who are waiting within the hidden mountain fortifications that probably exist."
"We're going to have to go in hard and fast, engage in close-quarters combat for the next step of this journey. Make sure your men are stocked up on ammo, their blades are sharp, and their chainswords are fully charged. You understand me."
There was a resounding, "Yes, brother Enoch Rathvin."
"Outstanding," I said, "I would like to give that air strike about an hour to happen but if it doesn't we're going in either way. 'till then we need to push to the lip of this plateau and secure it."
"Sir? What are we going to do if they don't get our airstrikes here on time?"
"Improvise. We have anti-tank weaponry and plenty of missiles to do the job. It's not going to be a pretty operation but hopefully, within that hour, our brothers on the other side of this mountain that are coming to break us out will be threatening them enough that they'll have divided their forces in two."
"Sir!" one of my sub-commanders said, pointing past me. Turning my shoulder a bit to look I saw that someone had fired a flare from the other side of the mountain. It seemed rather low and just barely visible, by the look of it I guess they weren't as close to the lip as we were, but it was a responding color to the one I had just fired. It indicated that the airstrike was on the way.
"Well, don't that beat all? Someone over there has got brains." I said with a smile before turning back to the men, "We have a confirmation on that airstrike, It will probably be here within an hour but if not we can now give it the time it needs because we know it's coming. Get your men ready for an assault on that fortification the moment that airstrike comes in, with any luck we'll stampede into that fort without many losses and just slaughter the Orks. For Russ and the Alfather, we will take that plateau and endure anything they send at us."
There was a chorus of "For Russ and the Alfather," showing my subcommanders agreed.
Turning back towards the plateau we must take I took a breath and readied myself before looking for a position I could take in the line.
Legion Master of the Iron Warriors, Elyphis Diorius
What a grinding fight this had been. I knew climbing and fighting our way up the mountain was not going to be easy... But this was a little bit ridiculous. The Orks were just pushing rocks down on us if we were lucky, if we were unlucky the rocks were covered in explosives.
Granted some men had figured out that if you worked together with shields you could actually cause the rocks to go flying into the air but that just sent it to be someone's problem further down the slope.
Losses were to be expected. I'd hoped to keep them minimal but the fact of the matter was this was an assault on a fortified position, even if it was not the most fortified position.
That being said we were making good time and were almost up the mountain. I could see a bit of a ledge before me, about 300 ft above us, where the Orks were trying to maneuver their artillery to point down at us. thankfully their guns didn't have great elevation systems by the fact that more than one had accidentally rolled down the mountain to us but they were doing the best they could, I could admit that.
The amount of hot lead and other explosives coming our way was rather ridiculous and I was pretty sure one report indicated they had somehow boiled the rock into lava and dumped it down the mountain which… It impressed me that they somehow had a machine that could produce lava but I was also wondering how they managed to make that actually work.
One of my sub-commanders had mentioned the possibility that perhaps they had Old Tech from before the Long Night that Drew lava up using some sort of antigravity engine. I didn't know but it was a good guess as any and if it did we would probably get the Mechanicus favor if we captured it.
Which is why I had directed orders to do such a thing but the important part was that we were within sight of the top of the mountain. Any moment now artillery would open up for a good 5 minutes, followed by several layers of airstrikes to try and clean the top of the mountain off.
When that was done we would push on and hopefully conquer this whole mountain top, allowing us to see what was going on with the wolves of Fenris as well. We would secure line of sight on the rest of the mountain ranges that had trapped them and then we could fire artillery down on the Orks still in position, hopefully flushing out their leader for a final battle.
Checking the time I quickly realized that I was a little bit off in my schedule. Any moment now the artillery would start falling on that mountain top, it probably would send shards of debris down our way but hopefully not too badly.
Turning to my commanders, I quickly said, "Get the men into cover, things are about to get a little bit hairy."
They got to work and within a few moments everyone was into whatever cover we could find and then we stopped our advance. We waited and waited and, after a few seconds, the artillery rained down.
Hundreds of blasts hit the mountainside above us and somewhat in front of us from both our positions at the base of the mountain and from across the valley. I would guess hopefully they were aiming high, we were in a bit of a crossfire situation. It was possible that a shot may go all the way over and land into us but, by my estimations, that chance was minimal.
For a full three or four minutes artillery laid into the top of the mountain. The blasts were numerous, both explosive and shrapnel. What was happening at the top end we could not say though I swore I heard several secondary blasts, which most likely meant the tanks that we had seen rolling around trying to get a better aim on us up there had probably gone up.
Hopefully that would be a good sign, I thought, as the blasts stopped and our artillery fell silent. Usually Orks would come rushing out at this moment, expecting to meet us charging up the hill, that would hopefully be their downfall. A moment later hundreds of aircraft came screaming in, unloading missiles and guns onto the top of the mountain, shredding anything that was still up there with any luck and bringing the population of Orks down to something more manageable.
After the planes passed by I didn't hear anything from the top of the mountain. I got back up, drew my sword, and tried to signal the men to get ready to March up the mountain. With any luck there wouldn't be much in the way of defenses to stop us at this point, most of the enemy Orks had probably been vaporized up top. Any remaining Orks along the roads leading to the top should be easy pickings for our formation.
But before I could give that order I heard a sound, a chilling noise that made a shiver go down my spine. The first part I was rather unable to make out, though given the context I think it was the Battle cry of the wolves 'for Russ and the Emperor' but it was hard to hear over the mountain wind.
The second part and the one that spoke deeply of a charging army on the run was a yell, not too similar to dissimilar to the howl of a wolf, as no doubt the Wolves of Fenris would commence their attack on the top already.
"Damn, they really want all the glory for all this," I muttered as I realized that we were a good 20 minutes from reaching the top and they would be in combat for that entire time. They would most likely kill whatever was up there and be able to claim they were the ones who took them out on top.
A bit annoying, considering it had been our artillery and Air Force, used to do it but oh well, whatever waited up there for them would easily be dealt with in time. For now I just had to worry about getting my men up there to secure the mountaintop so we could set up our artillery and finish the fight up there.
Former Legion master of the Rout, Enoch Rathvin
Up and over the lip of the plateau the wolves charged, a roiling massive wave of Space Marines with one goal and one goal only: kill the Orks, take the hill, and break through to the other side. And with luck kill the WarBoss and end the conflict on this planet.
And with the first dozen steps I could confirm that we were well on our way as we were halfway to their fortifications. I was in the third line of the charge, having fallen behind the younger Marines who were more used to Long-running. They were going to break through into the fortifications before I did but It would let them have the chance to show their worth. I was old and in command, I didn't need as much Glory as they did.
That said I wasn't sure there'd be much glory in their assault, considering none of the Orks seemed to have survived the initial bombardment and the air attacks. What had once been several armored vehicles in a fortification that looked a little bit troubling were now burning wrecks and a wall full of holes.
We didn't see our first Ork till we were almost through the front door of the complex and even then he looked very confused and battered, bleeding profusely from a wound on his head.
The first Marine I saw simply smacked him out of the way before driving his blade through the creature's spine, killing it, and then we were inside.
At least 20 Marines made it into the wall before I made it in and once I got inside I saw that we were well on our way to completing our tasks. There were only a few Orks still walking about in my immediate view, most of them confused.
But as my Marines broke through, very intent to get inside, the Orks began to realize what was going on and began to defend themselves, either shooting their makeshift bolters at us or charging us with various handheld weapons.
My Marines engaged them in combat, beating them back with their own swords and chainblades, cutting and ripping the creatures to pieces.
It almost looked like this was going to be an easy end to the campaign and then a pair of doors at the base of the mountain in front of me opened and all hell broke loose.
Two heavy machine guns of some type opened up, firing into my Marines, though thankfully not breaking through their armor too often. I still did see several Marines go down, the shots possibly finding weak spots in their armor.
And after that initial fire came a stream of Orks wielding various weapons, a few of them appearing to be covered in explosives.
"Form a firing line," I screamed, drawing my pistol and unloading rounds into the incoming Orks to try to drive them back. The Marines around me did the same quickly, trying to fire as much as they could, but the stream of Orks just never ended. Before I knew it one Ork with an explosive vest managed to make the distance to us and detonated.
Large portions of the line were thrown to the ground but others were just murdered by the explosion, Ork guts painting our gray and light blue armor a muddled green and red.
And more just kept coming. But even as our first line fell more Marines made their way into the complex, taking over the walls that had once been held by the Orks and firing down into the oncoming swarm, giving time for our line to rearrange itself.
However, what came next was not something our light guns could take care of. Charging now out of the mountainhold were machines, literal cans on legs with saw blades for arms. They slowly moved across the battlefield, our guns not being able to penetrate or deal enough damage to kill them. They moved and made their way toward us, the Orks who had guns using them for cover to fire at the Marines across the wall.
Behind these killer cans came an Ork, a massive Ork in a mechanized suit, that walked into the square screaming orders in its foul language. His right hand was an oversized clawhand that was clenching repeatedly and it used its left hand to wield a chain weapon of some kind. It looked like an ax but a little bit too long, perhaps a glaive.
Either way it used the Orks in the cans as cover, advancing towards our lines. Several Marines ran past me, charging this counter-charge, and were met with the buzz saws of the killer cans. The fighting was rather one-sided, even with advanced armor a repeated cutting motion will get through with enough hits. Several Marines lost their arms or were sent flying, one Marine was lucky to only lose his hand but that was simply because he tried to block an attack from the saw and lost the weapon he was using.
Finally someone with a heavier weapon entered the square of fortifications and several missiles were launched at the killer cans, destroying them.
This had left an open road for the Orks that were pushing towards us and the monstrous creature leading them, forcing them forward as living shields.
Pulling myself up I drew my blade, my chainsword, and stepped out. "For Fenris and the Wolf King," I called as a rallying cry, drawing the Marines into another charge at the Ork formation moving towards us. Perhaps it would have been better to fire into them but there seemed to just be an endless horde of Orks coming out of the breach and the shots weren't doing enough damage to bring them down. The only real option that I could see was to get there in person and start severing heads.
I didn't see how many marines followed me but I heard the battle cries and howls of Marines as they followed me in. We quickly closed the distance to the creatures and I was able to strike down the first Ork in front of me, who had attempted to block my attack with an ax made of wood and iron.
His head went flying and I drew back my blade, slashed at another one, and fired a few shots into an Ork that tried to stab me with what appeared to be a spear before moving on to another Ork. I slashed its face open then I slashed, hacked, and fired repeatedly, the sounds of battle around me telling me that every Marine who followed me was doing the same.
It took effort but we pushed and we kept pushing further and further into the Ork formation. The charge was carrying us through and, for a moment, I thought we were going to cause some sort of Rout in their lines.
Until I killed the Ork in front of me and I saw that I had made my way through their lines. I was in front of the Ork Warboss in its mech.
"Die, foul beast!" I cried, charging at him while firing a few shots.
He simply brought up his sword-wielding hand and dropped the blade, opening it to reveal that there was a nozzle inside. From the hand a jet of flame burst forth that I just barely dodged. My chain sword was completely covered in the fuel though and was burning profusely. From the corner of my eye I saw that several Marines had gone up in cinders as well as dozens of Orks, showing just how much care he had for his troops.
Not wanting to lose the momentum I attempted to slash at him, bringing my blade down on that infernal flamethrower, but he simply blocked it and did something I did not expect: he grabbed me with his open hand around the chest.
"Puny human," the creature said in the lowest of Gothic before I felt even squeezing. I could feel the air being pushed out of my chest as my armor began to crunch, the mechanical limb, not a hand but a massive claw, easily applying more and more pressure as he held me up, maybe fellow Marines could see me being crushed.
"Go splat like a can of spinach." The Ork taunted, moving me a little bit closer to its face.
I felt something more crunch inside my chest, I had no idea what that was, and pain rushed throughout my body. I coughed up some blood into the creature's face and I strengthened my grip on my still flaming chainsword.
Legion Master of the Iron Warriors Elyphis Diorius
30 emperor damn minutes, it took 30 damn minutes to reach the top of this mountain and the plateau where we had been hearing fighting going on the entire time.
The Orks on this side of the mountain had been extremely stubborn, not wishing to give up a single piece of land no matter how hard we pushed. We were able to finally exterminate every single one of them and opened a way.
And as we made our way to the top I saw the thing I was hoping not to see at the top of the fortifications, facing us was the banner of the Wolves of Fenris waving in the wind. We'd missed the fight, dammit all.
Sighing, I ordered the men to start preparations to build a pathway down the mountain for the civilians. There had been some trails but we could reinforce them and make it easier. The larger the path we made the more civilians could get to the other side, as well as any wounded Wolves of Fenris I'd need to get out.
That being said I quickly turned and jogged to the fortifications, wanting to meet with the commander of the Wolves of Fenris to get an idea of how many civilians we were going to have to get down that mountain.
Opening the door I saw that there was no one on guard, which was odd. Though then again the wolves did like to party after a victory, right? This was a hell of a victory.
But looking around I quickly realized that this was not what was going on, most of the wolves looked rather tired and beaten down. Some of them looked happy but it seemed not the general happiness that I had seen amongst them after their victories on planet Icrinda.
Spotting someone in command I walked over and asked, "Where's Enoch Rathvin? I need to talk to him."
The commander looked up to me and then shook his head before pointing in a general direction. Following the finger I quickly saw a large gathering of Marines around something that I couldn't see. I quickly moved over to find out, perhaps they had captured the Warboss? I didn't know but things seemed a little bit odd at to this point.
As I moved closer some of the Marines saw me coming and quickly opened a way, allowing me through the line of Marines guarding the path to whatever they were looking at.
What they were looking at became clear and I had to slow down in disbelief.
In front of me was the body of an Ork. It was still standing though its head had been caved in by a chainsword, a flaming chainsword at that. It was grinding away into the neck on its own power.
The rest of the body stood there motionless, having apparently ceased to function upon the destruction of the brain. One arm was lying in the dirt, the other was held up to a somewhat degree but it might have been held up by what was in it.
What was in it was Enoch Rathvinof the wolves. His body was caught in the grip-like vice of the Warboss' claw, that's what that thing was it had to be. And it had closed completely, flattening the armor's Central section and anything in between its front and back.
The only thing holding the legs to the upper torso was the metal that had once been the power armor he wore. As a result his legs dangled there uselessly.
To either side of him were apothecaries attempting to look after him. I couldn't guess though what they could do for him, I knew Space Marines could survive many things but this? I doubted that it extended to this.
One of the apothecaries saw me coming and nodded to the other before walking over to me.
He saluted me before saying, "If you have any last words for the former legion master you might want to get over there now. We can't do anything for him right now, we're just giving him enough pain medications to make it as peaceful as possible."
I nodded and moved over to get into the view of the former legion master. He was looking up at the sky his blood leaking from his lips as he occasionally wheezed. Half there he looked down and saw me. He smiled and said, "We did it then? We broke through. Good."
Nodding I moved over to clasp his hand and said, "Yes, brother, you did it. We're already making a road for your men to get out of here." Looking at the dead WarBoss I said, "And it looks like you've conquered this planet with your last act."
He coughed a bit before saying, "My last act as a member of the sixth legion is the conquest of this planet, my last act as a Terran is to thank my brothers in the 4th for breaking through for the people we fought for. Thank you, brother!" he tightened his grip before loosening completely. His eyes closed as he passed on, or possibly passed out. Either way his time amongst us was over.
Stepping back I nodded to the apothecary before heading back out to be outside of the fortifications, letting the sixth legion have time to mourn their loss whatever way they choose. The sub-commander in charge of engineering quickly came up to me as I came out.
"Any numbers on how many civilians we're going to have to escort out of this bullshit, brother? I do not relish staying here as long as we have already, and protecting these mortals is not exactly on my to-do list today."
"I don't know," I said, looking out on the horizon before saying, "Do you know how many legion Masters have died for this crusade?"
He shook his head a bit, confused. I simply said, "Neither do I. Detached a work crew to help the sixth legion build a monument to the former legion master who took this plateau today. Least I can do for their legion."
"Um… Okay, sir," he said, sounding confused, before nodding and walking off.
Bit confused myself really. I had been wholeheartedly planning to take the credit for this operation but it just… didn't feel right, now. The loyalty that the king of the wolves had inspired in her Marines to her cause was rather legendary at this point in my mind. I had to wonder if we would have a similar mindset when our Primarch was found.
I hoped so, for it seemed like it had inspired such a commitment to their cause that they were willing to think of that cause even in the last moment of one of the cruelest deaths I had seen. Though I hope I never died on campaign, if I were to die… I would like to have the same assurance legion Master Enoch Rathvin had shown.
Writers note: and there chapter folks. No tanya at all… sorta just happen, people wanted more of iron warriors so i gave you more, this idea was based on like paragraph of text at the bottom of space wolves wiki that talk about how the first legion master died in wheel of fire. So i asked quasion of that pairghapagh and thoses questions to makes this. So that is where that
comes from.
In other news were in for a bit of time skip next chapter as i think we're ready to be moving on from wheel of fire, as of last week i written chapter 31 i think or 30 one or the other.
And this week i wrote my first ever original (aka not based on any other franchise) work. It take some times to come out but first three chapter probable will end up in one shot thread eventually. So hope that be out soon .
Edited by: Pierre
Community edited by:
Community editable doc (Chapter) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread
Supporters: Afforess, Gremlin Jack, Weise, Xodarap4, Duncan Sproule, James Moorhouse, Dankermaler, Hats88, DrkShdow, Devilstar101, Michael, Mana Rope, Falk Hüser, Daniel Martinez, Silver Wolf, Mackenzie Buckle, Markus, Neso, Staradder, Lmc9389, Staradder, victor a lopez-barron, KrasieK, Zollus, Mintea, Jog256, Ethan Dowie, Maxim Blashkevych, The GrandMage, loyalChaos, Daryl, FreelancerD0, Zul The Lich, Flynn Pirola-Henderson, j0ntsa, Retexks, John Norman, Sacha Lechelon, Ian R Major
Last edited:
dark showdow is not a normal ork. though yeah i proable forgot
- Location
- Home
It took me a whole day to get around to reading this.
I loved all of it! Tanya has turned her Chapter into protectors/liberators rather than just a bunch of warriors. Rather than a bunch of meme marines that people make fun of for their wolf obsession. I swear sometimes I feel like the spacewolves were inspired by the smurfs lol... The cartoon not the ultramarines.
I loved all of it! Tanya has turned her Chapter into protectors/liberators rather than just a bunch of warriors. Rather than a bunch of meme marines that people make fun of for their wolf obsession. I swear sometimes I feel like the spacewolves were inspired by the smurfs lol... The cartoon not the ultramarines.
yeah wolf this and wolf that seemed to become more of a thing as time goes on in warhammer 40k, someone on Ao3 pointed out of the spaces marines in first three books of HH didn't have those weird talking points when came to the luna wolves, which why write them way I do. maybe in the future wolf this wolf that will become a thing that annoys Tanya... but right now that's just not a thing.
thank you!
Perhaps Tanya could stick to the Wolf theme, but use more languages Wolf-type words for more variety, or expand it into more of a Canine theme than Wolves specifically, since AFAIK whatever kind of canine was mixed in with Russ is unspecified
Last edited: