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| Natalestra Aspais crew member | Patricia Laserian crew member | Dolgoth Sepk of the Death Guard | Volusad Thassius of the Ultramarines | Kroglin da Facegrinda of the Evil Sunz Orks |
- Lieutenant Volusad Thassius
- Primaris Techmarine Vitarian
- Ultramarines Sergeant Goran
- Death Guard Champion Dolgoth Sepk
- Death Guard Chaos Lord Fecrustus Spute
Intelligence Report
Ready To Move Out
The lander dropped them more than five kilometres from their objective but only three from their enemies. Techmarine Vitarian raced to unshackle the machine spirit of the Fortitudinis Caerulus, an unbelievably powerful Ultramarines Repulsor Executioner main battle tank. Lieutenant Volusad Thassius monitored through helmet displays as all systems changed from orange to green and the weapon safeties disengaged.
The indicators showed the tank’s bristling weapons--the main Heavy Laser Destroyer, the Onslaught Gatling Cannon, the myriad Heavy Bolters, Storm Bolters, and Stubbers—all executed their self-test protocols and signalled their readiness. This took a matter of seconds.
The Vanguard Advances
‘Sergeant Goran,’ Lieutenant Thassius addressed the tank's driver. ‘We are the vanguard. Onwards.’ The Executioner shot forward, which momentarily sent Thassius rocking on his heels and almost crushing the red-robed Adeptus Mechanicus Magus Dominus Nozick Beta-12. The Magus happened to be a renowned techno-archaeologist whose speciality regarded exotic power sources.
Thassius needed him aboard the Fortitudinis Caerulus like the tank needed a gaping hole in its side. But when the Magus had overheard the words ‘Standard Template Construct’, he’d invited himself as part of the operation.
Their squad leader nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. Their gear and plasma incinerators were stowed. When the time came, the Executioner's rear hatch would spring open and the Hellblasters would dismount and purge any enemies in their path. Then, if necessary, they would deploy the teleport homer to allow the First Company to deploy veterans in tactical dreadnought ‘Terminator’ armour with terrifying precision.
Racing Forward
Thassius continued to face forward and opened the commander's hatch above him. ‘I know my duty,’ he muttered, then stood on the access steps which raised him from the commander's seat and elevated his torso above the tank's turret.
Columns of black smoke rose ahead and populated the horizon, fuelled by thousands of fires as Xenos and Heretic vehicles burned.
Incoming!
‘Weapons free,’ Thassius announced. The other tank commanders acknowledged. ‘Incoming Xenos fighters at zero-three-zero,’ one of the Gladiators reported.
Thassius swung the stubber around in the cupola of the tank. He spotted the target almost instantly--a group of swirling blobs in the distance, scarcely visible against the roiling polluted grey sky. His helmet's autosenses singled out each target. Marking them with a superimposed diamond designator with the range and closing velocity. An instant later, it identified them as Ork fighter-bombers.
He gripped the handles of the pintle-mounted heavy stubber before him and snapped the bolt back. Sergeant Goran called up a warning from below. ‘Orks and Daemons up ahead. I’d warrant our traitor brethren are nearby as well.’
‘How far?’ Thassius asked. ‘Roughly sixty seconds,’ the sergeant responded.
A Disturbing Battle Scene
Thassius pulled up the Executioner's sensor feed in a sub-compartment of his helmet display. Ahead, through the cloud of disturbed dust and belching ebon smoke pouring from a various assortment of rickety Greenskin vehicles, he could just barely make out a swirling morass of Daemons and Xenos bodies interspersed with a seemingly random assortment of vehicles. Among the scores of smaller explosions and muzzle flashes, the occasional retina-searing beam lines of Heretic Entropy Cannons or Ork Zzap guns blazed ahead, silhouetting the battle scene.
Preparing For Further Onslaught
He divided his attention between the incoming fighter-bombers and the battle, increasing the magnification and enhancing the image of the onslaught. Smaller black clouds, which at first appeared like smoke, moved of their own volition, swirling to and fro against Xenos targets with a clearly intelligent purpose.
The infernal plague flies accompanied the Death Guard heretics everywhere they went. ‘Heretic Astartes confirmed. Death Guard,’ Thassius announced. ‘Secure all hatches. Switch to internal life support.’ Thassius ducked back inside the Executioner and closed the hatch.
He watched as the greenskin aircraft approached, apparently with no discernible formation. Their haphazard manoeuvring doing the job of evading or minimising the scattered fire still going their way.
A Method To Their Madness
The Orks were hitting the formation directly in the flank. Thassius hadn't thought to give the Xenos that much credit. It appeared there was a method to their madness.
The heavy bolters to the fore of the tank burst into life. Thassius checked Sergeant Goran's targets. He was shooting at the weapon's extreme limits, but he was blasting into the general melee ahead and not aiming for a single target.
The outgoing fire attracted the attention of one of the Death Guard's daemon engines, a Plagueburst Crawler, an insidious tank said to have been created by the daemon primarch Mortarion himself. Thassius could sense the malign intelligence within as it brought its weapons to bear. He swung the Executioner's turret in its direction.
The tank's machine spirit considered velocity and closing distance, fixing the enemy vehicle in its targeting reticle as the main gun charged. ‘Six, break right!’ a voice cut through, addressing Thassius' Executioner. He couldn't identify whose it was.
Sergeant Goran reacted, jinking the tank to the right violently just as Thassius squeezed of a destructor blast at the Crawler he had sighted. The abrupt motion spoiled his shot and though it flew wide of its target, it was impossible to completely miss a mark in the morass of fighting.
In The Thick Of It
Almost simultaneously, a horrific blast lifted the left side of the Executioner so high Thaddeus was sure they would overturn. Somehow, Goran righted the tank. Then power flickered across the displays and the front dipped as the gravitic plates failed.
The Executioner struck the ground with an impact so severe it might have pulped a non-Astartes crew. Thassius gave Nozick Beta-12 a quick glance. The techpriest had deployed two additional mechanical arms from beneath his crimson robes. They gripped the sides of the compartment and helped the techpriest brace himself. The Magus stared at Thassius with unblinking artificial glowing eye lenses as if daring him to find something wrong. It appeared the Magus would be fine. But he had to be feeling it and maybe even second-guessing his decision to accompany the Space Marines.
A Sit Rep
No casualties yet. It could only be a matter of time. They'd been struck by either a mortar from the Crawler or one of the aircraft's bombs. Perhaps both. How soon until one or the other realized they hadn't achieved a clean kill and concentrated their attentions to finish them off?
The Executioner rocked and the power flickered again. Thassius felt the impacts as a string of explosions peppered the tank and its surroundings. ‘Vitarian?’ He asked the techmarine.
‘Just a glancing hit. Working to restore functionality,’ Vitarian sounded untroubled, as if this setback was a mere minor annoyance. ‘Six, this is two. Are you still with us?’ Thassius answered, ‘Indomitable as always, brother. Those blasts stunned our systems’ machine spirits. They are reawakening. Proceed to objective. Maximum speed. We will join you presently.’
‘Understood.’ They released their bombs at the whim of each individual pilot.
Air Support Unknown
The lumens and displays inside the Executioner's cupola flickered back to life.
Another massive explosion sent the tank skittering sideways and the power winked out again, plunging them back into darkness. ‘Guilliman's Oath,’ Goran shouted. ‘Where is our air support?’
‘Unknown,’ Vitarian answered, unperturbed. ‘Near miss. Or we wouldn't still be here to hold this debate. There is a problem, brothers. The last impact caused significant damage. I am unable to restore power.’ ‘At all?’ Thassius asked. If so, they would need to dismount immediately or be picked apart by subsequent strafing runs.
‘One moment,’ Vitarian said as he took stock of the damage. ‘Several minutes at the earliest.’ ‘We don’t have minutes.’ Thassius made his decision. ‘Prepare to abandon and dismount. We will disburse among the other vehicles and continue.’
Back Online
Nozick Beta-12’s high-pitched mechanical voice squeezed its way into the interaction. ‘This unit will correct deficiencies. Stand aside.’
Vitarian tried his best to manoeuvre his bulk out of the Magus’ way as the techpriest dislodged himself from the makeshift jump seat and extended mechadendrites fitted with hardware plugs and jacked them into receptors tied directly to the tank’s machine spirit. Other mechanisms extended and flashed as they welded conduit open and soldered and rewired the cabling within.
‘Progress.’ Nozick Beta-12 said. ‘Progress. Progress.’ All the while, his limbs flashing this way and that like so many mechanical tentacles. The displays flared back to life. ‘Partial functionality restored,’ the Magus continued.
An instant later, Thassius felt the hum of the plates thrumming through the tank's surfaces and through his armour. The Executioner bobbed as it rose from the churned soil as it regained its stability. ‘I'm afraid the Machine Spirit is still dormant,’ Vitarian said. ‘We have no cogitator assistance to fire control. Magus Dominus? Any additional assistance would be appreciated.’
‘Negative. Unable. The spirit is displeased and must be placated. Time increment equals decrease. Mission success correlates. Must proceed.’ Thassius nodded in acknowledgment. ‘Then we do it manually. Get us moving, Sergeant.’
An Unidentified Voice
A distorted voice crackled over the vox, ‘Still with us, brother?’ The tone was mocking and derisive. ‘It would have been a shame to have lost you to the Xenos.’
‘Identify yourself,’ Thassius demanded. ‘Of course. You have the honour of speaking with Champion Dolgoth Sepk of the Death Guard. Know that it was I who killed you.’
A Hasty Engagement
They were just over a kilometre away from their objective now. Mere moments at the speed they were travelling. Ahead, the battling Daemons and Orks parted to allow two Plagueburst Crawlers to squeeze through the melee. They fired their Plagueburst mortars.
Sergeant Goran jinked. The blasts missed the Executioner only to catch a nearby Gladiator Lancer almost directly. The Lancer managed to get a shot off and punched a neat hole in one of the Crawlers. Then the mortar's corrosive plague spores pitted and dissolved the hardened adamantium and ceramite armour on the Gladiator tank.
Large bits of the hull rotted and flaked away leaving nothing more than a gravitic sled. An instant later, the Gladiator slammed into the ground and tumbled end over end.
Thassius sighted in the injured Crawler through the viewfinder slaved to his helmet's display—the wound the Lancer had inflicted slowly closed, already healing. He squeezed off a blast with the Heavy Laser Destructor and scored a direct hit, but it seemed to have little effect.
Power Issues
‘Vitarian, I need more power to the main,’ Thassius called out. ‘One moment,’ the techmarine said. The engines changed in pitch accompanied by a hum of redirected power. ‘Try now.’
Thassius sighted again, in time to see the Crawler tracking its sponson-mounted weapons at him. He lined up his shot and tried to match it directly to the hole where the Crawler was already wounded.
He fired a millisecond before the Crawler did. The impact of the Executioner's laser destructor spoiled the Crawler's shot and bored a hole clear through the daemon engine.
No Hesitations
Thassius sighted the second Crawler and lined up a shot. Before he could fire, a gargantuan Ork Gunwagon careened into view. It smashed into the remaining Crawler with a massive front-mounted roller, crushing a portion of the vehicle before upending the daemon engine and causing a fatal amount of damage.
Thassius adjusted his fire and sent a blast from the Laser Destructor straight through the side of the Gunwagon and into its ammunition stores. He was rewarded with a truly impressive explosion which shot starbursts of debris and Xenos bodies across the battlefield in blobs of fire, metal, and gore.
As Goran ploughed the tank forward through the remains of mingled Gunwagon and Crawler, Vitarian adjusted the gravitic forces coming from the plates, creating a bow wave that pinned anything ahead of them to the earth and reduced combatants to gory splotches as the tank swept over them.
‘Fury of Descent, this is Lieutenant Thassius. You may drop now. Teleport homer will be deployed momentarily.’ He didn't wait for an acknowledgment. Sergeant Goran brought the tank to a halt and spun it one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, so the rear hatch faced the objective. Thassius vacated his place in the turret. ‘Vitarian, get up here.’ They exchanged places and Vitarian cleared the space around the tank with the Onslaught Gatling Cannon. The rear hatch dropped.
‘Stay behind me, Magus, and we’ll get you to your STC.’ Thassius shouted. He was rewarded with a burst of binaric in the form of a response as the techpriest allowed the marines to dismount.
A Final Burst
A horde of Orks faced them, charging the last few meters toward the Executioner. The Hellblasters cut them down with superheated plasma as they disembarked. Some of the Greenskins burst in mid-step as the beams struck them. Thassius activated his Astartes chainsword and swept out of the Executioner with it in his right hand and the teleport homer in his left. He noted motion between him and the ruin.
A colossal Ork Mekboy rose from a ground hollow. Thassius presumed the Ork had been thrown clear of the gunwagon as he couldn’t fathom where else it had come from. The creature was torn and bloody, bits of its own flesh hung from it in tatters. One of its tusks had snapped off at the base. Still the creature screamed a guttural war cry and charged Thassius.
Supersonic cracks from the sky above drew the combatants’ attentions away from each other. Drop pods punched through the cloud cover and hurtled toward the planet below. In the next minute, the objective would be saturated with Ultramarines.
Thassius turned his attention back to the hulking Ork Mekboy and smiled. Though it could not see his expression as he charged it, he swore the Xenos was smiling back.
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