[Imperial Guard 01] - Fifteen Hours

by Mitchel Scanlon - (ebook by Undead)

  “It is a bad thing, new fish,” Bulaven said. “A story you could call it, I suppose. Or a myth. You know when the preachers talk in church of the Last Judgement when the Emperor will finally step forward from His throne once more and judge humanity for its sins? The Big Push is like that.”

  “It is something in the manner of a folktale,” Scholar said, standing next to him. “The Big Push is the mythic apocalypse that every Guardsman in this city dreads. A Day of Judgement, as Bulaven puts it, when the orks will at last mount their long-expected final assault and the city of Broucheroc will fall. It is a nightmare, new fish. The one thing that the defenders of this city fear more than anything else. And, as such, I am not surprised you heard it mentioned. For the orks to launch so many assaults across different sectors at once and coordinate them with artillery bombardment is highly unusual. So unusual in fact that it is easy to see in it the portent of something larger.”

  “The Big Push is bullshit, new fish,” Davir said. “A story that the mothers of this city scare their children to sleep with, nothing more. Put it from your mind.”

  At that, they became silent and, looking at the faces of his companions, Larn saw the same thing there as had been hidden in the whispers of the men he had heard discussing The Big Push to begin with.

  He saw fear.

  And he was not reassured.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  21:15 hours Central Broucheroc Time

  Bookkeeping and the Tragedy of War — Matters of Tactics while Waiting for an Eternity to Pass — Preparations and Preludes in the Trenches — Holding the Line — Shot in the Head and Saved by Davir — Last Stand by the Dugouts — The Sound of Salvation

  For Captain Arnol Yaab it had been a long and tiring day. A day spent like every other day of the last ten years in a cramped windowless office in the lower levels of the General Headquarters building in the centre of Broucheroc, ceaselessly compiling the twice-daily Imperial Guard casualty statistics from the reports and logs of the various Sectors Command throughout the city.

  Sector 1-11, he wrote in a neat and ordered hand in the pages of the ledger before him. 12th Coloradin Rifle Corps. Commanding Officer: Colonel Wyland Alman. Previous Strength: 638 men. Total Casualties in Last Twelve Hour Period: 35 men. Current Adjusted Strength: 603 men. Percentage Loss: 5.49%.

  Sector 1-12, he continued, carefully allowing the ink time to dry so as not to risk smudging the previous entry. 35th Zuvenian Light Foot. Commanding Officer: Captain Yiroslan Dacimol (Deceased). Previous Strength: 499 men. Total Casualties in Last Twelve Hour Period: 43 men. Adjusted Strength: 456 men. Percentage Loss: 8.62%.

  Sector 1-13. 902nd Vardan Rifles. Commanding Officer: Sergeant Eugin Chelkar (Temporary Appointment). Previous Strength: 244 men. Total Casualties in Last Twelve Hour Period: 247 men. Current Adjusted Strength: -3. Percentage Loss: 101.23%.

  Abruptly, gazing down at the entry he had just written, Yaab became aware that there seemed to be some problem with his figures. 101.23%? That cannot be right, he thought. How can a unit have lost more than one hundred per cent of its original strength and be reduced to a current adjusted strength of minus three? It is an impossibility. How can you have minus three men?

  Pursing his lips in annoyance, Captain Yaab re-checked the figures in the Sector Command Beta casualty log. There, in black and white, the same statistic was confirmed. Out of a total strength of 244 men, the 902nd Vardan had somehow conspired to lose no less than 247 of their number in the last twelve hours. Then, just as deep in his pen-pusher’s soul he began to fear he had made an error that would see him reprimanded — or worse — posted to the frontlines, Yaab noticed a sheet of paper clipped to the back of the log and realised he had perhaps found the source of the mistake.

  It was a supplementary report, recording that a lander had crash-landed in Sector 1-13 at around midday and deposited an additional 235 Guardsmen into the sector. Ah, now that would account for the discrepancy, Yaab thought, making a quick series of mental calculations. An extra 235 men would put the total strength of the sector at 479. Then, the loss of 247 men would leave us with a current adjusted strength of 232, constituting a percentage loss of 51.57%. All in all, a much more acceptable figure.

  Happy again, Captain Yaab adjusted his ledger in line with the new calculations only to find himself aggravated once more as he noticed the unsightly mess the alterations had made to the clean, well-ordered columns of his figures. Sighing as he returned to compiling his statistics, Yaab tried to take comfort from the thought that it could not be helped. It was the tragedy of his life that certain amount of unsightliness was to be expected.

  War, after all, could be a messy business.

  “Switch your comm-bead to our command net on frequency five,” Bulaven told Larn through the roar of shellfire shaking the ground above them. “You will know we are about to go when the shelling stops. Then, when we get the order, we run back to our firing trench. No crouching or trying to stay in cover this time, new fish. You just sprint there as fast as you can. We have to be back in the trench and ready to shoot before the orks reach the kill zone at the three hundred metre mark.”

  They were standing with the rest of the Vardans next to the steps leading from the dugout up to the surface. As his fingers fiddled to change the frequency of the comm-bead in his ear, Larn’s mind turned to a lesson he had learned in his last battle. This is the worst time, he thought. While you are waiting for the attack to start, before the battle even begins. Once the fighting is underway you are still afraid. But it is having time to think about what is coming that makes the fear worse. And the orks would seem to know it. They are giving us plenty of time to dwell on our fears. Right now, it feels like waiting for an eternity to pass.

  “All right, new fish,” Bulaven said. “Now, I have told you everything you need to know about what we are going to do after that. I want you to tell it back to me now so I can be sure you have understood it.”

  Can he see that I am afraid, Larn thought. Is that it? Is he trying to keep me busy and take my mind off the fact we could all he dead in a matter of minutes? And if Bulaven can see it what about the rest of them? Are they all standing here watching me wondering if I am going to turn and run? Do they think I am a coward?

  “Our tactics, new fish?” Bulaven prodded. “What are they?”

  “Once we reach the firing trench we will hold it as long as we can,” Larn said, silently praying to the Emperor his voice did not sound as frightened and nervous as he suspected. “Then, if it looks like we are going to be overrun, Scholar will set the demolition charge to buy us enough time to fall back. You will be carrying the flamer, I will be carrying a spare fuel canister for you, Davir and Zeebers will give us covering fire with their lasguns.”

  “And if any of us are dead by then?” Bulaven asked. “Or too badly wounded to move on their own? What then, new fish?”

  “Then the three most important things are the demolition charge, the flamer, and the spare fuel canister, in that order. Other than that we will help the wounded if we can. If not, we will leave them behind.”

  “Remember that one, new fish. It is important. Now, where will we fall back to?”

  “To the sandbag emplacement above this dugout,” Larn said, repeating everything Bulaven had drilled into him while they waited for the shelling to stop. “After that, it is like Sergeant Chelkar was saying. We do not fall back any farther. Once we are at the emplacements, we stand or die.”

  “Very good, new fish,” Davir said sarcastically from the side of them. “It sounds like you have got it.”

  Abruptly, the shellfire stopped. The brief silence that followed it felt strange and eerie after so long a bombardment.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Sergeant Chelkar yelled, as beside him Vladek threw open the door to the dugout and the assembled Vardans ran pell-mell up the steps toward the surface. “Get to your trenches!”

  Before he even knew it Larn was above ground, emerging blinking into the cold grey light of th
e sun outside to turn and sprint towards the firing trench with Bulaven and the others beside him as the rest of the Vardans spread out to run for their own positions. Then, with barely a few metres gone, he heard Corporal Grishen’s voice in his ear through his comm-bead.

  “Auspex reports activity in the enemy lines,” Grishen said, frantic through a squall of static. “The orks are moving.”

  Larn could already see them. On the other side of no-man’s land, a horde of orks had risen up and were now charging screaming towards them. For a moment Larn heard a still small voice in his head questioning what he was doing, running towards the orks when every fibre of his being told him he should be running away from them as fast as his legs could take him but he ignored it. Ignored it and raced instead towards the trench to take his place with the other members of the fireteam as they made ready to repel the assault.

  “Five hundred metres,” Scholar said, already squinting at the oncoming orks through a targeter by the time Larn threw himself into the trench and took his place on the firing step beside Bulaven.

  “Remember, new fish,” Bulaven said. “When you hear the order to fall back, you grab a spare fuel canister and stay close to me.”

  “Yes, new fish,” Davir said from across him. “And while you’re at it, don’t go losing your lasgun again. I will let you into a secret: your helmet is for protecting your head, not for the hitting of gretchin. Now, get ready, puppy. Time to show the orks your claws.”

  “Four hundred metres,” Scholar said.

  Remembering this time to click off the safety catch, Larn hurriedly ran through his pre-battle ritual, silently reciting the Litany of the Lasgun in his mind before adding a quick prayer to the Emperor for good measure. Beside him he saw Davir, Scholar and Zeebers sighting in on the orks, while to the side of them Bulaven checked the pump pressure on his flamer. Then, from behind him, he heard the sound of mortars being fired and knew the battle was about to begin in earnest.

  “Three hundred metres,” Scholar yelled. “On my mark… fire!”

  Lasbeams. Mortars. Auto-cannon rounds. Frag missiles. From all across the line the Vardans opened up with everything they had. All the while, as Davir, Scholar and Zeebers fired their lasguns from the side of him Larn fired with them, remembering to aim high for the orks as Repzik had once told him. And through it all, the orks kept coming.

  There are more of them this time, Larn thought. Ten times more at least than when I was in the trench with Repzik. Sweet Emperor! And we barely managed to hold out then!

  “One hundred and twenty metres,” Scholar said, the orks having seemed to cover the intervening distance between them with impossible swiftness. “Change magazines and switch to rapid fire.”

  The orks came closer. Some of them were already gruesomely wounded by the Vardans’ remorseless hail of fire, all of them were red-eyed and eager in an apparently endless barbaric tide.

  “Fifty metres,” Scholar’s voice counted down calmly. “Forty metres. Thirty.”

  “Any time now would be good, fatman,” Davir said to Bulaven. “Are you actually going to use that damn flamer, or just wait until the orks get close enough for you to try and fart them to death instead?”

  In response, Bulaven lifted the nozzle of the flamer, extending himself to his full height to point the barrel over the trench parapet and unleash an expanding cone of yellow-black fire towards the closest enemy group. Screaming, the orks disappeared in a burning agonised haze while Bulaven sprayed bright fire at their comrades around them. Soon, all Larn could see directly ahead of him was a rising curtain of flame while the air grew thick with smoke and the sickly odour of burning Xenos flesh.

  “Shoot to the sides, new fish!” Davir yelled. “Bulaven can deal with the orks ahead of us — it’s our job to stop the others flanking round them!”

  Following Davir’s lead, Larn began to shoot at the orks charging towards them from the right of the curtain of fire created by the flamer while Scholar and Zeebers shot at those on the left. For an instant, seeing the carnage inflicted on the orks, Larn thought he could see the beginnings of the greenskins’ charge starting to falter. We are winning, he thought, exultant. We have beaten them. There is no way for the orks to get past the flamer.

  And then, abruptly, the tongue of fire jetting from the flamer spluttered and died.

  “Canister’s empty,” Bulaven said, hands already at the fuel line. “Reloading.”

  “Grenades,” Davir yelled, his own hands at the grenades on his belt.

  While Bulaven transferred the fuel line from one canister to another, the others threw two grenades each towards the orks. By the time the last of the grenades had exploded, the line was attached and Bulaven’s flamer was once more spewing fire. More orks died but it seemed to make no difference. As though they had been given fresh impetus by the brief cessation in the flamer’s attentions, the horde of orks crashed relentlessly nearer, some enveloped from head-to-toe in flame and yet still they kept coming. Thirty metres became twenty-five. Twenty-five became twenty. Twenty…

  “Fall back!” Davir yelled. “The bastards are right on top of us. Scholar, arm the demolition charge. The rest of you fall back.”

  The retreat began.

  Scrambling over the rear trench wall with his lasgun slung across his shoulder and dragging the heavy weight of a spare flamer canister behind him, Larn began to run for the dugout emplacement while Scholar threw the demolition charge at the advancing orks.

  “Faster, new fish.” Scholar ran past Larn, his long legs eating up the distance. “It’s only a four second delay!”

  Suddenly, Larn heard a tremendous explosion behind him as clods of earth flew past his head. For a moment, caught at the furthest edge of the blast, he stumbled and almost fell forward, only to be saved as the weight of the canister served as an accidental counterweight behind him. Then, as he tried to heft the canister on to his shoulder and pick up pace, he felt a painful blow at the back of his head, the jarring force of it sending him spinning towards the ground.

  Landing in the frozen mud, Larn felt a warm wetness spreading across his scalp. Putting his hand to his head, when he brought it away again he saw red blood staining his fingers. He saw his helmet lying upside down on the ground before him — a large dent left in its side by whatever unknown missile had knocked it from his head. Incongruously, as he rose shakily to his feet, he wondered what would have happened to him if he had fastened his helmet strap instead of leaving it loose. Then, the guttural bellow of an alien war cry behind him put the thought abruptly from his mind.

  Whirling to look, Larn saw an ork charging towards him with an enormous pistol in one hand and a broad-bladed cleaver in the other. The creature was huge: its body inhumanly and disproportionately muscled. Larn saw a jutting jaw, yellowed, sickle-shaped tusks, a line of three severed human heads hanging like grotesque spectators from a trophy harness above the monster’s shoulders. He heard a bullet scream past him as the pistol fired. As though of its own volition his lasgun responded, the first lasblast flying wide over the ork’s shoulder to hit one of the trophies.

  Steadying himself, Larn fired again, hitting his enemy in the chest. Unfazed, the ork did not miss a step. Larn shot at it again, firing off a rapid series of blasts that hit the creature in the neck, the shoulder, the chest again, then the face. Until finally, just as Larn began to fear coming within reach of its jagged blade, the ork gave a last enraged bellow, collapsed, and died. Though whatever brief sense of elation Larn felt at his victory quickly evaporated as he saw more greenskins come charging towards him in the dead ork’s wake.

  “Get a move on, new fish!” he heard a voice yell behind him as a hand grabbed his shoulder. “Damnation! Are you trying to take on the whole damn ork mob on your own?”

  It was Davir. Firing his lasgun one-handed towards the approaching orks, Davir began to tug Larn in the direction of the dugouts. Realising he had dropped the flamer canister when he had fallen, his head still groggy from the blow, for a
moment Larn tried to resist as his eyes scanned around in search of the canister.

  “It is too late for that, new fish.” Davir shouted, pulling hard now at his shoulder. “Leave it. I need that canister right where it is.”

  Giving in, Larn turned to flee with Davir at his side, catching a last sight of the fallen canister lost among the legs of the screaming phalanx of oncoming orks. Then, turning briefly back as they ran towards the emplacements, Davir fired a snap shot toward it — the lasbeam ruptured the canister’s body and it exploded in a plume of orange flame, incinerating the orks around it and buying him and Larn time enough to reach their destination.

  “You see there, new fish?” Davir said as the outstretched hands of eager Guardsmen helped them to safety. “I told you I wanted the canister right where it was. Oh, and I saw you feeling at your head earlier? You needn’t worry in that regard: it is still attached. Though for all that you seem to use it, you might as well have left it with the orks.”

  “You came back for me…” Larn said incredulously. “Even after what Bulaven said about leaving the wounded, you came back and saved me…”

  “I wouldn’t get too starry-eyed about it, new fish,” Davir said. “What I really wanted to save was the flamer canister — events just got ahead of me, is all. Now, shut up and start shooting. You have killed one ork. Only another twenty or so thousand to go.”

  They were out of grenades. They had used the last of the flamer fuel. The auto-cannons, missile launchers and lascannons had fallen silent. Even the las-packs were running short. And still, no matter how many screaming greenskins died, the ork assault refused to falter.

  Standing on the firing step along one wall of the emplacement, the barrel of his lasgun so hot in his hand now it burnt his fingers, Larn fired a lasbeam into the face of an ork as it tried to climb over the bodies of the dead towards him. Then another, and another. Firing without thought or pause, barely even needing to aim so thick was the press of alien bodies charging towards him in wave after screaming wave. They were surrounded now, cut off from the other emplacements by vast throngs of orks, each emplacement a besieged and lonely outcrop amid an endless churning sea of savage green flesh.