Bolt-shells hammered into the side of the armored traincar - not to really kill anyone, but to force the genestealer cultists inside to keep their heads down. Despite them, lasguns cracked and snapped, beams biting into the ground and dirt around the PDF infantry advancing in good order using rock cover and blooming chaff clouds. The tight confines of the canyon and the low ceiling of the peller fields worked together to reduce the fight into a scramble, a struggle, a brutal melee. Grapnels were shot up and clacked onto the roof of the train as PDF breach troopers swarmed up the lines, only for the lines to be sliced off by genestealer claws - claws that were shot off by hails of precision lasgun fire from the ground.
The train was running out of time.
And screaming down the narrow canyon, their wheels kicking up dust, were the first attempts by the Sisterhood of the Levithan to try and match, in some fashion, the mobility and armored warfare of the Mathics and the Thedesians.
It was, like many things within the cult, a combination of genius, twisted inhuman science, and sheer desperation. Armor plating bolted onto power lifters, with ashcan engines and wheels planted on the heels and feet to add to mobility. Ramsackle missile pods, their high explosives replaced with acids and binary propellants harvested from the Child that remained the cult's deepest buried secret and more precious treasure. Lascutters turned into melee weapons mounted along arms usually meant for loading and unloading cargo. But the true power was the pilots. Kissed to bring them into the cult, then implanted with genestealer organs to enhance reflexes and balanced, they made up for their lack of augmetics and neurokinesthetic sympathetic technomagic through sheer focused will.
The lead of the three Ashrunners - as they were called - was Raven: A skinny, malnourished girl, her body covered with tattoos and scars from the mining. The breather mask bolted to where her jaw had been hissed and churred softly, while the grainy green hud threw up a wireframe of the canyon she was hurtling past. She leaned with her runner, the skidding wheels under her feet kicking up plumes of dust that reached up to the humming peller fields overhead.
The bend came again.
And there were the Chimeras and PDF. Her rocket pod thumped against her shoulder - the runner's shoulder, her attuned mind simply felt it as if it was her own flesh and blood through nothing but training and instinct. Two rockets shot in a straight, flat trajectory, and bloomed with greenish flame against a Chimera. Men scrambled from the hatches and threw themselves flat before the Chimera exploded. Lasguns started to wash her armor, but her comrade to the left skidded to a stop and laid around with a heavy stubber mounted on the chin of her Ashwalker.
"Supressing!"
"I got the tram!"
The third of their number had the grapnel. The massive hook slammed into the back of the train and the Ashrunner's wheels squealed as she started to drive backwards, kicking up yet more sand.
"Look out, Raven!"
Three men were rushing forward under the cloud cover. One of them threw a krak grenade, which rattled and almost fell onto the niche of her Runner's knee. Raven jerked and twisted on the controls, knocking the grenade off and skimming away. The harsh snap of the grenade's explosion ripped a chunk out of the ground as Raven thumbed down the lascutter. Two men fell, burning - but the Chimeras were already beginning to withdraw in good order, their multilas peppering the ground and wall around her runner. Raven grunted as one of the multilas impacts slammed into the center armor of her Ashrunner and she drove left, then pressed her shoulder and back into the narrow sliver of cover provided by the rock. The Chimeras had pulled back, formed a line, and were hosing down everything with bolt-shells and multilas beams, while their infantry pulled back.
This would be so much easier if they were bad at their jobs, Raven thought, mildly gloomily.
She leaned around the corner, fired two rockets, then ducked back as a hail of bolt shells started to explode around her. The train, by now, was pulling back faster and faster, it's frictionless travel making it easy to tow. Then, to her surprise, explosions started to bloom ahead of and behind the Chimera - then she saw through one of her rear optics: The train passengers, no longer under direct threat, had risked their lives and chitin to get up onto the roof and plant mortars. They were lobbing shell after shell even as they were dragged away.
Under their cover, Raven started to skate back and away, chased by lasfire and bolt rounds, swinging around to drive backwards as she fired round after round from her las-cutter and stubbers.
The two forces seperated.
But the fight was not over.
***
The landcrawler 621 - a massive beast of force screens, armored plating, and Adeptus Mechanicus secrets - had been as part of the big push that had taken the laboratory and a good chunk of the Pits. It being in the cult's hands was one of the main reasons why the Adeptus Mechanicus were on the back foot.
It parked above the canyon, now, it's massive bulk able to span the entire bredth. From the belly of the crawler dropped crane hooks and winches, and tech-priests whose robes had been hastily dyed a lurid purple. Wrenches, cutters, and burners started to hiss and spark along the train's engine, while Raven remained in the bottom of the canyon, her optics fixed on where the PDF might chase after them. The hum and chatter of the vox was warm in her ears as the converted tech-priests worked on repairing the engine, and reports flowed from the crawler back to the cultic bases.
Then...she heard it.
A fierce, harsh scream, and a shriek of splitting air. She didn't see what transpired - only the consequences. A shadow whipped by over the canyon so fast that it could barely be seen, and flames and melting plasteel exploded around the left read of the immense landcrawler. THe whole vehicle strained against the impact, and the people dangling from its belly cried out in a chorus of fear.
Raven frowned.
The vox crackled. "This is 621-Actual, report, we have a blown left actuator. PDF airwing harassment, over."
The low
crump crump of exploding bombs vibrated through Raven's cockpit.
"Repeat, two trains are coming, two trains are coming, fully armed, armored and supported by drop-forces from a skyhook servitor. All hands, make ready, we are under attack."
***
The PDF had always prepared for the eventuality of planetary war. One of those preparations had been the siege trains. One was under cultic control. Two had been captured by the Adeptus Mechanicus. But the remaining three had been secured by the PDF and noble militia. One had been rerouted, and was now hurtling towards the stalled cult supply train and the new, even more tempting target. The landcrawlers were few in number and ever precious - taking one would be a coup worth of the risk.
And so,
Invictus picked up speed by the moment. The PDF crew aboard stood in their positions, while the main siege gun mounted on the back was loaded with armor piercing shells. Overhead, the skyhook servitor bloomed like a seedling flower, casting off drop pods that were far less makeshift than the Sisterhoods. They plunged down towards the landcrawler, their engines kicking in as they carved through the force screens with ripples of red light, punching into the armored hide. Several met messy ends, their bodies intersecting with beams and bolt shells blooming from the landcrawler's defense weaponry.
The battle had shifted.
This wasn't for treasure and supply anymore.
This was to the
death.
---
The PDF are pressing their attack and they're pushing HARD. They're throwing it all in, and they're aiming at your Might and Territory with a DOUBLE ATTACK!!!! Your base roll is 7d!
[ ] Defend Proactively (write in how)
[ ] Withdraw (Write In How)
THE SISTERHOOD OF THE LEVITHAN
(Cycle 1, Month 5 - the Month of Gnashing Teeth)
MIGHT: 6(3) | TREASURE: 5(4) | INFLUENCE: 4 | TERRITORY: 3(2) | SOVEREIGNTY: 6
