Death or Glory, page 26
‘And the greenskins leave us alone,’ I added. The young captain nodded.
‘Perhaps we should send the scouts out first. If there’s no enemy activity we can move on at once. If they’re all over the place we can lie low here and assess our options.’
‘Cornered like rats in a waste pipe.’ I didn’t like the thought of that one little bit. Trapped down here we’d be slaughtered if the orks discovered us. Our only chance if it came to combat would be to spread out, where we could bring the full force of our combined firepower to bear.
Piers nodded. ‘I appreciate the point you’re making, but if they don’t know we’re here in the first place…’
‘If they spot the scouts they’ll know someone’s about,’ I pointed out. ‘I think we should be prepared to move out as soon as they report. If it’s clear, we’ll head for the supplies. If not…’ I shrugged. ‘We’ll just have to make it up as we go along.’
‘Well, that seems to have worked so far,’ Piers conceded.
In the event, it didn’t take Felicia as long as I’d feared to get the gates open. After half an hour or so, they slid smoothly back, opening the way to the surface, and our trio of Salamanders shot up the exit ramp like sump rats up an outfall. Thin yellow sunshine leaked into the tunnel as they cleared it, raising everyone’s spirits, and I began to feel an unfamiliar sense of claustrophobia. With Jurgen at my shoulder, his lasgun held ready for use as usual, I walked up the slope, blinking as I finally emerged into the open air. Since we hadn’t heard any firing as the scouts set off, I assumed it was safe, an impression confirmed a moment later by their leader.
‘Outrider one,’ my commbead said crisply. ‘No enemy contact. Heading on to the objective.’ I let Piers deal with the message, listening to the brisk exchange with half my mind, while the rest of it savoured the sensation of warmth and clean air. Down on the fringes of the coastal plain, the temperature was appreciably warmer, no doubt to Jurgen’s well-concealed distaste, and the contrast to the dankness of the tunnel was invigorating.
‘Bring them on out,’ I ordered, standing aside to let the steady stream of vehicles rumble up out of the bowels of the mountain, fully taking stock of my surroundings for the first time.
We’d emerged onto the roof of a huge building, the size of a modest cathedral, from which a road, uncannily similar to the one by which we’d reached the reservoir, descended, cut into the flanks of the mountain itself until it reached the wider highway leading up to the main entrance dozens of metres below. This in turn led off from a well-paved dual carriageway, clearly a major transport artery in happier times. After a moment’s thought, I was able to identify it as one of the main overland routes converging on the peninsular, along which commerce had formerly flowed between the two continents.
Instead of the valleys and surrounding peaks which had encircled us before, we’d begun our descent through the bowels of the earth, the landscape fell away below us in a vista of low, rolling hills, which gave way in turn to the flat, coastal plain. Raising the amplivisor my aide had thoughtfully handed to me, I found I could see beyond even that, to a flat, sparkling expanse of water.
‘We’ve reached the sea,’ I said, scarcely able to believe it.
Of course there were a few score kilometres still to go before we actually got our feet wet, not to mention the peninsular to get across, but I’d never really expected to get this far at all, and the sight of open water left me feeling vaguely disorientated. Jurgen nodded, evidently as pleased as I was to be getting close to our goal.
‘We’ll be there in no time,’ he agreed.
Well that was something of an underestimate, but by the time our scouts reported in we’d formed up the column again, and Norbert had dispatched a few of the civilians to replenish our water supplies from the pool below the outfall from the turbines. In deference to the fact that we were now in even more hostile territory than before, we’d adopted a defensive formation, but for all the activity we saw we might just as well not have bothered. I briefly considered ordering Tayber to set some demo charges and collapse the tunnel behind us, just to make sure we were safe, but the chances of any greenskins following us seemed as remote as ever, and an explosion that large might have attracted precisely the sort of attention we were hoping to avoid. Besides, I didn’t see anything to be gained from hacking Felicia off again. I was standing outside the command Chimera, enjoying another recaff and a hot grox bun Jurgen had somehow been able to find for me, when the call came through.
‘Outrider one,’ their leader reported. ‘We have a visual on the target. Enemy is holding, but it seems lightly defended from this direction.’
‘Can you be a bit more specific?’ I asked, hurrying inside and across to the tactical display, where Orilly was already busy overlaying the positions of the enemy on the largest scale map of the site we could project.
The scout commander cleared his throat.
‘We’re transmitting co-ordinates of all the enemy units we can see. They’re dug in towards the west, facing outwards.’ In other words, they were facing the Imperial lines, evidently braced for a full-scale offensive over the peninsular. No doubt our own forces were mirroring this disposition on the other side; attempting to assault in force across that narrow land bridge would just result in a traki shoot[98]. Since neither side could reasonably expect to get enough troops through that gauntlet of death to fight effectively, both armies had been stalemated there ever since the defenders had pulled back across it[99]. (Although orks being orks they’d tried it a couple of times before getting the message, and were biding their time until they could build up their forces enough to absorb the losses on their next attempt.) How we were going to manage the trick for ourselves was an issue I preferred to think about later. Perhaps by that time we’d be close enough to the Imperial lines to vox a warning of our approach. Marquony was listening out on all the usual frequencies, but so far hadn’t been able to pick up anything intelligible, and none of us felt like chancing a long-range transmission of our own so deep inside enemy held territory. ‘In this direction there are only a few outlying pickets.’
‘We could take those easily,’ Piers said speculatively, and looking at the display, I had to agree. They could hardly have made it any easier for us if they’d tried. The supply dump itself was set back from the road, in a minor depression in the wall of the last valley we’d have to traverse to reach the coastal plain. The mouth of the valley had been closed off by dug in defenders, all their heavy ordnance obligingly pointing in the other direction, out towards the west, while only a few scattered sentry posts held the line in the direction we’d be attacking from. Clearly, the notion that any Imperial units might get behind them, and strike from the east, simply hadn’t occurred to the orks. (To be fair, there was no reason why it should: so far as they knew the entire continent was completely under their control.)
‘We could.’ I followed the line of the highway with my eye. If we moved fast enough we’d be through those flimsy defences and in amongst them before they even knew we were there. Assuming the supplies hadn’t been cleaned out already, we could detach a portion of our force to take the compound, while the main body of the formation punched on through to hit the main body of the defenders from behind. With them gone, we might just be able to make it to the land bridge without too much harrying fire from our rear. It was an intoxicating prospect, and I forced myself to remain calm, looking for any obvious flaws in the plan. I pointed to the chain of fortifications cutting off the mouth of the valley. ‘These might be a bit harder to crack than they look.’
‘Nothing Sautine and the mortar teams can’t take care of,’ Piers said cheerfully. ‘They’ve enough ammo left for that. And if the greenies aren’t still sitting on the stash, why go to so much trouble to guard it?’ The palms of my hands tingled a little as I considered that. It seemed an awful lot of trouble to go to just to protect a few huts full of ammunition.
‘It looks to me as if they’re fortifying the valley mouth for its own sake,’ Tayber volunteered. He shrank the scale of the map. ‘If a counter-attack from the Westernlands made it across the plain, they could sweep up here towards the pass, flanking the defences they’re bound to have in place along the primary routes.’
‘Makes sense to me,’ I conceded with relief, my doubts receding. It certainly looked plausible on the map, and just how catastrophically wrong he was, we had yet to discover. I stilled my breathing, trying to project an air of calm deliberation. ‘Well then, gentlemen, I think we have a plan.’
It wasn’t quite as straightforward as that, of course, the process of ordering our column and hammering out the details taking some time, but the Emperor seemed to be with us for once. Greenskin traffic on the highway below seemed light, even compared to what we’d encountered in the desert (which I suppose should have forewarned me of what we were about to get into, or at least dropped a little hint, but I was so keyed up that it never occurred to me to question our apparent good fortune), and the few ork aircraft which flew over us were either too high to distinguish our true nature or otherwise engaged in dogfights with our own pilots.
The first time we saw a squadron of Thunderbolts in the skies above our heads, a spontaneous cheer erupted, the conviction that we were almost home sweeping the length of the convoy, and buoying our spirits even more than the prospect of victory. No one was taking our success for granted, of course, least of all me, but the sense was growing within us that the battle we were about to join would be, if not the last we’d have to face, the single most decisive encounter of our long trek to safety. In this we were, of course, entirely correct, but in a fashion none of us could possibly have predicted.
Despite all the delays, we were finally ready to pull out just before noon, the armoured spearhead of our advance leading the way, our mechanised infantry following up, and the motley collection of ork scrap crewed by the whooping irregulars buttressing our rear and flanks, forming as much of a protective screen as they could around Kaeti, the supply wagons, and the other non-combatants. After some thought, I’d abandoned the command Chimera, leaving it to Piers to lead the assault on the main defences, and hitched a lift with Tayber and the remains of Bravo squad in a standard pattern vehicle. The supply dump was bound to be more lightly defended, or so I thought, and I’d elected to lead the raid on it in person.
‘You don’t need me holding your hand,’ I told the young captain, who visibly swelled with pride at this expression of confidence (and to tell the truth he wasn’t a bad commander for PDF). ‘You’ve been doing this sort of thing since before I got here, and the supply post might yield some useful intelligence.’
Piers nodded. ‘Then that’s where you should be,’ he agreed, with almost indecent haste, clearly relishing the prospect of hogging all the glory. So far as I was concerned, he was welcome to it too. Give me a nice quiet little sideshow where I can keep my head down any time.
I’d begun our journey with my head out of the top hatch, relishing the fresh air (even more so given that Jurgen was riding along with us as usual), only ducking below to finalise things with Tayber as we approached our target. The rest of our ad hoc raiding party was clustered around us: one of the ork trucks, almost empty apart from its driver and heavy weapons crew (who to my distinct lack of surprise turned out to be Demara and Tamworth, eager as ever to volunteer for a chance to play with their favourite toy), a buggy containing the rest of Team Grenbow[100], and Felicia’s power lifter, which trotted along next to us like a faithful hound, its white-robed pilot waving cheerfully whenever she caught my eye. I’d tried to dissuade her from joining us, feeling that this was a matter for experienced fighters, but she’d been as adamantly stubborn as before, insisting that she would be more likely to locate the supplies we needed than anyone else, and that loading them once she’d done so would go a great deal faster with the aid of the lifter. Not being able to muster a counter-argument to either point, which convinced even me, I’d eventually acquiesced with as much good grace as I could summon up.
‘Everyone clear on the plan?’ I asked, glancing around the tense faces in the Chimera’s passenger compartment.
Tayber nodded. ‘We go in as soon as the shooting starts, suppress all resistance, and grab what we can before they regroup,’ he said.
‘Sounds good to me,’ Felicia’s voice over the vox sounded as cheerful as ever. Grenbow chimed in with an acknowledgement too, on behalf of his split forces, and I took a deep breath, despite Jurgen’s close proximity.
‘Right then,’ I said. ‘Let’s do this.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
At first, our plan worked like a charm, the ork picket lines swept away by the speed and ferocity of our advance with almost as much gratifying suddenness as the ones we’d given a swimming lesson to the previous day. As we passed the burned-out hulk of a greenskin battlewagon, the irregulars in the vehicles surrounding us cheered loudly enough to be heard even over the racket of the ill-tuned engines, which drowned out virtually everything else[101].
‘Raiding party stand by,’ I ordered over the commbead, my head back out of the top hatch again. I’d grown used to following our engagements on the C3[102] systems in the command vehicle, and felt cut off without them; so despite the marginally greater risk of stopping a stray round, I’d been unable to resist the urge to supplement the clipped reports I’d been getting through the tiny transceiver in my ear with my own eyes. Our driver throttled back, ready to peel off as we approached our objective, and Felicia grinned at me, keeping pace easily aboard her mechanical steed.
‘After you, oh fearless leader,’ she said cheerfully, with the complete disregard for proper vox protocol I’d come to expect, and demonstrating beyond all possible doubt that tech-priests are lousy judges of character.
‘Acknowledged,’ Grenbow said, his clipped tones holding more than a hint of reproof.
‘Peeling off,’ I reported to Piers, or to his vox man at any rate, and Marquony acknowledged at once.
‘Confirm that, commissar.’ He switched frequencies, co-ordinating the main attack on the defensive positions with Sautine and some of the other unit commanders. The Basilisk had pulled over, ready to drop some long-range ordnance on the targets to divert their attention just before the main armoured wedge started taking them apart, and the mortar teams had hitched a lift in the no doubt uncomfortably overcrowded Salamanders to flank them and start picking off the infantry from the neighbouring high ground[103].
A moment or two later, the main engagement began, and the walls of the compound were looming up ahead of us. The rest of our ragtag convoy surged past the fortifications, startled greenskin faces appearing over the ramparts as they went by, and I gave the order to go in. As I did so, I noticed a column of greasy black smoke rising in the distance. It seemed our first blow had been successfully struck.
Like the desert installation we’d first discovered, the supply dump had been constructed with local conditions in mind. Instead of a collection of prefabricated huts, we found ourselves facing a compound walled in some locally quarried stone, to a height of around two metres. This alone would have seemed intimidating enough, but the greenskins had reinforced it, piling up an untidy collection of scrap and detritus on top of the solid construction, much of it carved into barbarous totems reminiscent of the glyphs on the map I’d found shortly after crashing in the desert. I suppose Jurgen might have been able to hazard a guess at their meaning if he’d had a chance to see them, and save us no end of trouble as a result, but of course there was only room for me in the top hatch. The original gates had been patched with chunks of scrap metal, no doubt repairing damage wrought in the ork assault to take the place, but that wasn’t going to slow us down much either.
‘Take the gates,’ I ordered our gunner, and the multi-laser in the turret crackled furiously, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as it ionised the air around itself. They blew apart in a gratifying display of pyrotechnics, the heavy bolter in the hull mount opening up as well, sending molten fragments spinning away as the explosive projectiles chewed apart the greenskins gathered behind it.
‘Sweep the walls!’ I commanded, and Demara opened up with her beloved autocannon, scything down the orks trying desperately to bring their own weapons to bear. Some managed it, a ragged volley pinging from our armour plate and making me duck reflexively below the level of the hatch, but they didn’t have time to improve their aim. With a roar like a carnifex clearing its throat, Felicia discharged her flamer, sweeping the battlements from end to end with a gout of burning promethium. Much of the makeshift crenellation had apparently been carried out in wood, which continued to burn merrily along with its would-be defenders as we surged on past them to carry the fight to the enemy.
With a crash that reverberated through the sturdy armoured frame of our vehicle, we rammed the remains of the gates off their hinges, and slewed around looking for targets. The hull-mounted lasguns began to crackle too now, echoing the pop and snap of the blaze above, but without the accompanying screams, Tayber and his men evidently feeling that just because they were stuck inside they needn’t miss out on all the fun. I looked round, trying to orientate myself, and as I did so the breath left my body in a single horrified gasp. Something had clearly gone very badly wrong.
The layout of the compound was just as Tayber’s data-slate had described it: parallel rows of low, slate-roofed buildings constructed of the same grey stone as the walls, ranged about a central quadrangle. There had been nothing in the documentation about the open space being stuffed with ork buggies, however, a couple of dozen of them at least, not to mention the scores of greenskins swarming out to meet our unexpected attack.
‘Oh frak,’ I said. Felicia bought us a little more time by sweeping another dragonsbreath along the front rank of bawling barbarians, laying down a barrier of burning fuel which even the most aggressive of them would balk at attempting to cross, but there seemed no end to them, and even as she did so, another mob was swarming into our rear. ‘Get clear! Get us out!’ Our driver attempted to comply, but even as he did so a crude rocket impacted against our right track, shredding it. With a thrill of horror, I heard the grinding of metal as the guide wheels ran free of it, bedding down in the hard-packed dirt as we slewed to a halt.
