Kabanov felt sick, almost dizzy. “Ivanenko,” he voxed. “Get to cover, damn you. We’ll work something else out.”
The last of the Ivanenko’s men screamed and spun, his face a bloodied mess, and only Ivanenko himself was left.
“Did you hear me sergeant?” shouted Kabanov.
“No time, sir!” replied the sapper-team leader. He stood alone at the base of the wall, hands working frantically. Above him, a score of mutant guns zeroed in. His time had run out. There was only one option left.
“Good luck, you men,” he voxed. “Keep your heads down, won’t you?” With that, he stepped back from the wall, raised his lasgun and fired into the central mass of the high-explosives.
“Ivanenko!”
Kabanov was thrown onto his back by the blast. Utterly deafened, the breath ripped from his lungs, he felt as if the universe itself might be ending.
Stone blocks rolled down the slopes in a great, dust-trailing torrent, and only good hard cover prevented more Firstborn from being killed.
The dust, thought Kabanov as he coughed and spluttered. Don’t let the dust settle.
Sergiev was standing over him, hauling him up by the edges of his breastplate. “He did it, lieutenant!” he gasped. “The damned citadel is wide open!”
In Kabanov’s mind, he saw Ivanenko’s face staring back at him with a sardonic smile. There was grief, like a lead weight in his belly, but he knew he had to put it aside, at least for now.
“Firstborn,” he voxed determinedly. “You know what to do!”
With a booming battle cry, the men of Sixth Platoon surged forward towards the breach.
Megiddzar (West Wall)
Vlastan snarled as another of his men fell screaming from the face of the western wall. “Keep climbing, you dogs,” he yelled over the vox. “Mortars, keep them covered, damn you!”
Only moments ago, he had seen groups of defenders running southwards along the parapet. It was exactly what he’d been waiting for. Sure that Kabanov’s efforts in the south-east had secured the mutants’ attention, he had ordered his men to scale the walls using the grapnels they carried. RHQ had issued the grapnels for the mountain ascent, not for the citadel walls, but to Vlastan, that mattered little. It only mattered that his plan was working.
Even with the distraction of Kabanov’s assault on the far side, however, Vlastan’s men still had to climb under enemy fire.
His mortar-teams launched shell after shell onto the parapet with worthy accuracy and, slowly, the Vostroyans charged with being the first up the ropes made progress towards the top.
There was a rattle of gunfire and one fell screaming to his death, followed all too quickly by another. Hard contact with the ground cut their screams off sharply.
“Heavy covering fire, ground-teams,” demanded Vlastan. “They’re almost at the top. Damn your eyes, give them cover!”
Three of his troopers were within centimetres of the parapet now. Then, as Vlastan watched with growing excitement, the first crested the wall. There was a shout and the glare of raking las-fire. The mutant defenders turned to return fire on the Vostroyan intruder, but Vlastan’s mortars spat at same moment, and the mutants were blown from their roosts in a shower of rock and ruined bodies.
The second climber hauled himself over the wall, ably covered by the las-fire of the first. Then the third scrambled over. At the bottom of the ropes, others began their climb.
“That’s it, Firstborn,” voxed Vlastan excitedly. “Keep moving!”
With ropes secured and an increasing section of the wall being taken and held, more and more of Vlastan’s men were able to clamber up and over. Soon, it was the turn of Vlastan, his vox-man, Korgin, and the mortar teams.
Vlastan—young, fit and long-limbed—climbed the rope with impressive speed. Korgin was slower, but managed despite the weight of his back-mounted vox-caster. The mortar-teams followed, tying their heavy firing-tubes to the ends of two lines, and hauling them up after themselves once they’d reached the top.
The rest of Vlastan’s platoon had deployed in textbook defensive patterns, pressing back the waves of mutants that raced towards them from other sections of the wall.
We made it, thought Vlastan. I knew it could be done. Diversion, my eye! Just wait till Maksim hears about this.
The citadel’s interior lay before him, its low, square buildings whipped by sheets of driving rain.
He scanned the flat rooftops for a moment, noting those that vented smoke. One building boasted a long-range communications antenna. Still, these things were of secondary importance. There, on a series of broad platforms built atop the southernmost section of the wall, Vlastan’s eyes found what they were looking for—the enemy’s devastating long-range artillery pieces. And there, flanking them on either side, were the deadly anti-air batteries—the ultimate target of this entire operation.
I take those down, thought Vlastan, and I’ll have my first damned medal at the age of eighteen.
“Push south along the wall,” he ordered his men. “Our victory is close at hand. Press those damned freaks back!”
Megiddzar (South-east Quarter)
Having penetrated the citadel’s south-eastern extent via Ivanenko’s breach, Kabanov’s men soon found themselves fighting desperately through the dark, cobbled streets that criss-crossed the interior. Wind gusted between the buildings, stinging their faces with battering rain, but the Firstborn were hardy, had trained since childhood in far worse conditions than these, and didn’t stop to notice. They were far too busy strafing the insane enemies that poured through the streets towards them.
The Chaos-crazed mutants displayed an almost suicidal eagerness to engage. They were utterly insane and, despite superior numbers, seemed unable to exploit the tenuous position of the attacking Vostroyans. It occurred to Kabanov that these freaks had never been drilled for this. Valis II had never raised Imperial Guard regiments and had maintained only a small PDF force before the coup.
More likely than not, these sickly, long-armed aberrations were the mutated offspring of simple farmers who had laboured far too long in the corrupting radiation of the system’s twin suns.
“We should press west, sir,” offered Sergiev. He had remained close to Kabanov’s side throughout, almost as if he’d charged himself with personally protecting the young, inexperienced lieutenant. “The anti-air defences will be clustered close to the main artillery.”
“Agreed, sergeant. All squads, cut us a path west. We can’t afford to get pinned down here. I don’t want to be here any longer than necessary.”
Of course, it wasn’t as easy as that. Even as his platoon poured blazing las-fire on another wave of charging foes, Kabanov wondered just how many of the defenders Vlastan had actually drawn away. There seemed to be an awful damned lot of them where there shouldn’t have been.
Megiddzar (South-west Wall)
Vlastan fired shot after shot into the enemy ranks as they charged desperately along the wall towards his men, ready to die to save their precious artillery from the Vostroyan assault.
The parapet was becoming littered with smoking, twitching mutant corpses. Without the advantage of high ground, the enemy was taking tremendous losses now, and Vlastan was losing very few of his own. The tide had turned. His men, he knew, had the treacherous twists completely outclassed. He stepped over another pale body, noting with distaste the ugly Chaotic sigils branded on its cooling, naked flesh.
The sickening fools, he thought, grinning as his pistol carved a smoking black crater in the body of another on the wall ahead. They race towards us as if they’re invincible, and we slaughter them like grox before a feast.
His men were gaining ground quickly. The proximity of their objective had re-energised them. The artillery platforms were only metres away, and many of the mutant gunnery crews now broke from their duties to engage. As his men slaughtered them, Vlastan ordered his sergeants to organise two-man demolition teams. They were to knock out the anti-aircraft batteries at
once.
The massive, devastating artillery pieces could wait. His first priority was to make the skies safe for a subsequent aerial assault.
Unlike Lieutenant Kabanov’s platoon, Vlastan’s men hadn’t been issued with satchel charges. They were meant to provide a mere diversion, after all. They would have to make do with grenades. Still, Vlastan thought, five or six detonated in the firing mechanisms of each quad-barrelled anti-aircraft gun will render them just as useless.
“Korgin,” he shouted. His vox-man trotted over, pistol in hand, firing at anything that moved.
“Sir?”
“You and I will have the personal honour of destroying that battery there.”
Vlastan nodded towards the battery on the farthest platform.
“I’m with you, sir.”
Vlastan turned to the nearest troopers and barked, “Give us good, solid cover all the way, you lot.” Then he and Korgin broke into a crouching run while stubber-shells whizzed and whined over their heads.
Loping mutants raced to intercept them, but both men fired their pistols with deadly accuracy, and the troopers behind them laid down good cover as they’d been told to. A dozen mutants fell by the time Vlastan reached his objective.
Over the din of gunfire and incomprehensible battle-cries, Vlastan shouted, “Hurry now! Give me your grenades.”
Korgin stepped over a scarred, smoking body and handed his commander a bandolier with four “fraggers” fixed to it.
Vlastan snatched it from the young trooper’s hands. As he did so, he saw movement on the floor of the platform. “Watch out!”
The warning came too late. One of the downed mutants was only wounded. He sprang up, whipped his long arms out towards Korgin, and caught him by the belt and breastplate. Then, holding the young trooper in an iron grip, the mutant plunged them both over the parapet wall.
Korgin’s chilling scream stopped abruptly on hard contact with the rocks below.
Vlastan cursed angrily as he fixed Korgin’s bandolier to the anti-aircraft gun, pulled one grenade pin after another, and ran like hell towards the protection of his men.
Twice he staggered as enemy rounds struck his carapace armour with frightening force, but he ran on in adrenaline-fuelled desperation. He’d gone about thirty metres when the grenades went off with a deafening crack. Sharp metal fragments whipped through the air, wounding a dozen nearby mutants. Vlastan threw himself to the ground.
He looked back towards the gun and saw only a twisted metal ruin shrouded in black smoke.
Pushing himself up quickly, he continued his stooping run, skidding to a stop when he reached the relative security of his troops.
“Sergeant Gurelov bit one, sir,” reported Sergeant Niriev immediately. “But all anti-air batteries have been destroyed. Permission to pull out?”
Vlastan shook his head. “Permission denied, sergeant.” He turned his eyes to the citadel’s interior once again. Among the buildings in the streets below, he found what he was looking for. The comms antenna he’d noticed earlier was much closer now.
“Sir?” queried Niriev.
“We just lost our vox-caster, sergeant,” said Vlastan stiffly. “But, if I’m not mistaken, that building by the fountain down there is a communications bunker. RHQ must be informed of our success immediately. Move out, gentlemen!”
Megiddzar (Southern Quarter)
Corporal Pitkin threw himself into cover behind the thick stone wall of the hab that shielded Kabanov and gushed, “Just had the damnedest transmission from RHQ, sir. I can’t get my head around it.”
Stubber-shells spanged off the stonework all around them.
“Well, don’t keep it a secret, corporal,” said Kabanov.
“Well, it seems, sir… it seems that Lieutenant Vlastan and his men have successfully managed to destroy all of the citadel’s anti-air defences.”
“They what?” exploded Kabanov.
“My reaction exactly, sir, but RHQ are adamant about it.”
“The enemy must have compromised our communications network, Pitkin,” said Kabanov, but he already suspected the message was genuine. It had Vogor’s ambition written all over it.
“I double-checked, sir. The broadcast codes were spot on, verified by the Officio Communicatus and everything. It’s definitely legitimate.”
“What the hell happened?” asked Sergeant Sergiev. “Wasn’t he supposed to lead a diversion?”
“That would explain the massive opposition we’ve faced so far. Damn him. What does RHQ advise?”
The diminutive Pitkin blew a breath out between his teeth. “We’ve been ordered to pull out, sir. A naval assault wing is inbound from Fortune Bay. Marauder bombers, sir. Sixteen minutes out. They’re going to level the place. And if we’re still here…”
“And Lieutenant Vlastan’s platoon?”
Pitkin looked deeply uncomfortable now. He wouldn’t meet Kabanov stare. “They’re pinned down in a comms tower west of here. Completely surrounded, sir. RHQ says they won’t make it out.”
Vlastan, you bloody fool, thought Kabanov. Damn your ego to the warp, look what you’ve done to yourself! Am I supposed to just walk away?
“Pitkin, contact RHQ. Tell them we’re close to Lieutenant Vlastan’s position and believe we have a solid shot at opening a corridor of escape.”
“Sir?”
“Sixteen minutes, you said, until those Marauders level the citadel. That leaves no time for argument, corporal. Do it. If RHQ objects, I want you to fake a vox-caster malfunction.”
Pitkin reddened and seemed about to argue, but Sergiev preempted him. “Listen to your lieutenant, corporal,” he said. He gestured at the rest of the platoon. They hugged the corners of the ancient stone habs, poking out to fire back at a gradually thinning enemy force. “If these men walk away from their brothers now, it’ll weigh heavy on them for the rest of their lives.”
Something in Sergiev’s voice told Kabanov the man was speaking from bitter experience. “We’re talking about other Firstborn here, corporal.”
Sergiev didn’t need to say any more. Pitkin had heard enough. He set his jaw and nodded. “Firstborn, sergeant. You’re absolutely right, sir. I hope you don’t think me a coward.”
“There are no cowards among the Firstborn, Pitkin,” said Kabanov with a grin. “Least of all in my platoon.”
In his mind, however, he was praying feverishly to the Emperor and the Grey Lady, patron saint of Vostroyan, for the protection of his men. He’d already suffered more than enough losses for one day.
Megiddzar (Communications Bunker)
“All sides, sir,” reported Sergeant Niriev. “If there’s a way out of this, I can’t bloody well see it.”
Vlastan stood with Sergeants Niriev and Borgoff in a small room dominated by a communications console and several low-grade cogitator units. The concrete walls were covered in bizarre, blood-painted glyphs that hurt to look at, and the floor was strewn with bodies—mutants in strange, ribbed uniforms of black metal and leather.
These freaks—Vlastan guessed they represented some kind of officer class—had been caught off-guard when his men had stormed the building.
He cursed under his breath. “Then you’re not looking hard enough, Sergeant Niriev. If you think I conquered Megiddzar only to be flattened when the place gets bombed, you’re out of your mind.”
The sergeant looked angry, but he said, “The men will fight on, of course, sir, but the enemy has us locked in tight. We lost a lot taking this place. I understand that you had to get a message out, sir, but unless we get external help, we won’t survive this.”
Damn and blast, thought Vlastan. To have come so far, to have achieved so much, only to be trapped here at the very end. I won’t have it. A posthumous decoration doesn’t appeal to me at all.
“Have the men hold firm, sergeant. Tell them that the honour and reputation of all Vostroya is at stake here.”
Sergeant Borgoff cleared his throat and said, “Sir, we’ve barely ten minu
tes left until the bombers arrive and we’re running low on powercells for the lasguns. We should lock ourselves in and meet our deaths honourably in prayer to the Emperor as Omnissiah.”
“Bloody fool! I have no intention of meeting my death here. This is a comms tower. I’ll petition RHQ to delay the bombardment. I’ll request assistance from Sixth Platoon if I have to. We will not fall!”
“Be serious, sir! Sixth Platoon must be halfway down the mountain by now.”
Vlastan almost cuffed the young sergeant for his tone, but he struggled to rein in his temper. No, he thought. Kabanov will come. He would no more leave me here than he would renounce his beloved ossbohk-vyar. I’m sure of it.
Unsettled by the faraway look in their commander’s eyes, the sergeants backed away, returning to their men to fight, and most probably die, alongside them.
Kabanov and his platoon found Vlastan’s position all too easily. The sounds of stubber-fire and las-fire, and the smell of ozone, led them there like shift-workers to a fresh pot of ohx . They could see a veritable army of mutants firing at shuttered windows and gun-ports in the thick walls of a two-storey comms bunker. The mutants were using stacks of supply crates and water barrels as cover, but their backs were wide open.
“All sergeants,” voxed Kabanov quietly, “have your men take up assault positions now.”
“Aye, sir,” came the response.
“There won’t be time to set up mortars,” voxed Sergiev. He stood only a metre from Kabanov, but spoke low over the vox rather than give their presence away.
“We still have grenades and satchel charges. It might be enough to drive a wedge in their forces.”
Kabanov wasn’t wrong. On his command, Sixth Platoon hit the mutants from the rear with everything they had. Fragmentation grenades wreaked terrible damage on the unwitting freaks. The satchel charges blew their cover positions to pieces, killing dozens in a hail of flying debris. The mutants turned to defend themselves far too late, with predictably grisly results.
Inside, Vlastan’s men didn’t hesitate to exploit the change in the situation. They saved their cheers and shouts of joy for later. Instead, with the mutants forced to fight on two fronts, they launched a concentrated attack on those whose backs were now turned towards them. Searing volleys of las-fire blazed out from the comms bunker.
03.1 - The Citadel Page 3
