When it came, the Ork attack made the ancient saying of 'shock and awe' seem like the understatement of creation. It was also surprisingly sophisticated for Orks.
Nuclear missiles detonated high in the air sending out electro-magnetic pulses that rendered all but the most hardened or basic technology obsolete.
Kinetic strikes punched hundreds of metres into the ground, often followed by biological and chemical attacks, destroying or damaging deep set bunkers and rendering them inoperative either way.
Finally, tactical nukes started to blossom into life on military bases and cities.
Despite all of this, the Imperials resisted. Finally, after a cataclysmic thirty minutes, the enemy troops started to land.
Shots hammered into the ferrocrete bunker and the men inside took cover behind its thick walls. To an outsider it would resemble cowering in abject fear rather than ‘taking cover’ but Private Tommas Raglon of the Winchester Dragoons quite frankly couldn’t give a shit what any man thought. This was mainly because he’d already crapped his pants earlier in the day.
‘Stand up and fight you cowardly bastards!’ Commissar Colm emphasised his words of encouragement by pointing the business end of his bolt pistol at Raglon and his squad-mates. He certainly cut a dashing figure as he strode up to the firing step, levelled his pistol and fired a short burst out of the casemate.
‘Stand. Up. Now!’ he snarled as he turned to face the still cowering guardsmen.
‘Get up or I will shoot every last one you!’ he smiled as he extended his hand ‘after all, you only have one life!’
This last point was emphasised exceedingly well by a solid round that punched its way through his forehead. Brains and brain case showered over the guards. Raglon screamed in horror, piss gushing into his trousers and running onto the floor as the body slumped to the floor in an ungainly and messy heap.
A stick-grenade sailed through the slit and he frantically kicked it into the gutter in front of the casemate.
“Grenade! Get down!” This action saved the lives of his squad-mates, just not their hearing. The blast blew their eardrums with contemptuous ease, the pain making their eyes stream with tears.
Sobbing and shaking his head, Raglon crawled on all fours desperately trying to find his rifle.
‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.’ Private Smith, the squad’s joker was curled up into a ball, sucking on his thumb and crying.
Raglon shook him.
‘Look at me! Look at me!’ Smith pushed him away and started to scream time and time again.
Smith’s panic was infectious and Raglon realised that it was down to him to set an example. He grabbed a discarded rifle and ran over to the casemate.
‘UP!’ he screamed at the top of his lungs and fired a short burst, ‘UP!’ he screamed again. Desperately blinking his eyes he could see the enemy forces struggling through razor wire. Ignoring the chunks of skin they lost as they did so, the first rank threw themselves onto the coils of wire so that the Orks and beasts behind them could have a clear path towards the bunker.
He felt a bump against his shoulder and smiled at Smith as, still screaming hysterically, he opened fire.
Together they poured fire into the enemy, cutting them down as the wire continued to hamper their advance.
‘Reloading!’ Raglon popped the empty cell from his las gun and slammed a fresh into the chamber, barely pausing to aim he squeezed off a three round burst at a stormboy grenadier. He watched as the first round slammed into his target’s kneecap blowing it clean off in a burst of bright blood and yellow bone. The second round slammed into the Ork’s groin, forcing his hips back, its mouth opening in an anguished scream. The third round blew the hand holding the grenade clean off. There was barely time for the Orks’s body to hit the ground before the grenade detonated. Bits of equipment and bodies flew in all directions and a hole briefly opened in the packed mass of Ork troops.
Inch-by-inch the enemy advanced, dozens falling to the hail of fire coming from the bunker. Gretchins were forced forward by the packed mass of their colleagues. Squigs came bounding over the bodies of their masters, the smell of blood was too much for some of them and they couldn’t resist stopping to feed. Others were too far gone in their blood lust and turned on the Gretchin, tearing their throats out, ripping their faces off and slowing the advance as confusion spread.
For a brief moment the Imperial Troopers were able to take advantage of the confusion. Corporal Dux manned the bunker’s heavy stubber raking the front ranks of the enemy. The mixed load of rounds was devastating for the un-armoured Gretchin as explosive, tracer and ball rounds cut them down in mid-charge. Then they were pushed aside by the Orks behind them. Dux was forced to concentrate his fire on Orks one at a time, prolonged bursts being required to stop them.
‘It’s no good! We can’t stop them! We have to get to back to the second-line’, Raglon pulled his friends bodily back from the edge and slammed his hand onto the rear door release, pushing them through whilst still shouting at the top of his voice.
They hurried along the cramped and darkened tunnel and emerged into the subdued daylight outside. Running through the communications trench behind the bunker they were met with a hail of las fire and solid rounds. The sandbags on the top of the trench were being torn to shreds as Ork troops in captured bunkers tried to stop the retreating guardsmen from reaching the second line fortifications two hundred metres to the rear.
A squad barrelled into them from a side trench and Raglon was knocked flying by a particularly burly guardsman.
‘You stupid wanker!’ he scrambled around for his rifle, cursing as his fellow guardsmen knocked him to the ground once again.
‘They’ always say that you never hear the shell that kills you. Raglon, thanks to his perforated eardrums, would never have heard such a thing in the first place. What he did see was the running guards ahead of him turn their heads up and to the right.
The shell slammed into to the top of the trench and exploded as if it was releasing a thousand storms. One second the burly guardsman was there, the next a shard of red-hot shrapnel took the top half of his skull off. His corpse took one further step before pitching to the ground. Other shards of shrapnel, some no larger than a splinter, scythed their way through flesh, not like a hot knife through butter, but like red-hot shrapnel cutting through flesh. The blast itself blew limbs through the air and naked corpses tumbled their way through the air like drunken acrobats. Guts and gore flew through the air, one guard’s stomachs spilling out like an acrobat’s ribbon as he gracefully cart-wheeled through the air.
Covered in mud, gore and excrement Raglon rocked back onto his heels, wiping at his rifle to get the worst of the mess off it. He spotted movement out of corner of his left eye and realised that something or someone was coming down the branch trench. Carefully he lay on his stomach and crawled to the corner. Trying desperately to control his breathing he bobbed his head out and in. He repeated the action to double-check what he’d managed to see.
‘Shit, shit, shit’, he rolled onto his side and clawed at his chest for a grenade. Not even in the most fanciful Xeno-pict fantasy had he seen anything so heart-stopping scary. The ‘Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer’ had utterly failed in preparing him for the sight of a Death Skull Nob. At least eight foot tall the Ork was covered in rough-looking green skin, tusks curled out of its bottom lip jutting two or three inches up. Spikes jutted from the blue patches of armour it wore at various points on its body. A roar erupted from its throat as raised the automatic shotgun it carried and poured shot down the length of the trench.
Raglon quickly twisted; just in time to see another squad of guardsmen attempt to run past the entrance to the side trench. It was as if they had run smack into a brick wall. They were stopped mid-stride by the hail of flechettes that screamed into them. Chunks of flesh, whole limbs, gore and bone flew off them as they were chewed to pieces. Wounded guardsmen dropped screaming to the floor, clawing their way along the floor, ignoring the pain as their nails were ripped out of their grasping fingers in their desperate attempt to reach cover.
It was then that Raglon had an epiphany. He was going to die. Every one that he loved and cared for was going to die. Even that bastard Drill Sergeant O’Leary was going to die. Winchester didn’t stand a chance if help didn’t arrive in the next few days. Strangely he realised that he no longer felt fear. His heart beat slowed and his hands stopped shaking as he started to recite his favourite verse of the Libation to the Emperor.
‘And in the dark when the shadows threaten , the Emperor is with us, in spirit and fact.’
With a quick tug he pulled the pin from the grenade, gently kissed it and bowled it along the floor. He watched as it bounced and plinked its way along the floor of the trench, silently counting the seconds down in head. The Nob roared again as it started to stride down the trench, pouring more fire into the humans, licking its lips with an impossibly long tongue. Deep-set, red piggy eyes glinted with malicious glee and it roared out a challenge.
‘Light of the Emperor, shine from my eyes, ensure the alien surely dies.’ The familiar words of the Litany to smite aliens brought some comfort and he knew, just knew that the Emperor was watching him.
One, two, three, four. On four Raglon pulled his head back behind the corner. This meant that he didn’t get to see the grenade being mashed into the ground as the Nob stepped on it. The blast was therefore somewhat muffled. The roar of astonished agony was anything but as the Nob’s leg was turned into mincemeat. The Nob crashed to the floor, dropping its gun and clutching at the ruined stump. Another roar of sheer, unadulterated fury quickly followed.
As soon as the remains of the blast gusted past him, Raglon came to his knee, flipped his las gun to fully automatic and raked the screaming animal from crotch to skull. He stared in disbelief as the Nob tried to crawl its way towards him, smoke curling out of various hole that had been punched into his body.
‘Would you just fugging die you fug-ugly, stinking bastard!’ he emptied the rest of the cell into it. The las fire chewed its way through his target’s flesh and he screamed in triumph as its skull disintegrated, just as the cell ran dry.
‘Shit. Tough bug-ugly coddes head’. He fumbled for another cell looking down at his load-bearing vest as he did so. It was because of this that when a stormboy came round the corner that he was completely caught unawares, it was only due to a background flash outlining the Ork that he saw it at all. Quicker than he ever thought possible he slammed the cell into its housing, bringing the rifle up to aim.
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The Ork was already on him however and it roared in perverse glee as it punched its bayonet-tipped weapon forward. The term bayonet seemed ridiculously inapt. The blade was huge. Axe was probably a better term for it, and it was the first time that Raglon had ever seen an axe attached to a firearm.
Desperately he swept the barrel of his rifle to the right, diverting the Ork’s downward bayonet thrust. Still kneeling, Raglon brought his arms up and snarled as he thrust overhead, driving his bayonet deep into the Ork’s lower abdomen. He struggled to his feet, deaf to the Ork’s angry screaming and slammed it back and off his bayonet with a huge rear leg front kick. A three round burst severed the creature’s spine, practically cutting it in two.
The Ork span away, bumping into another Ork, behind that was yet another. Because of the narrowness of the trench exit, Raglon could face his opponents without fear of being out-flanked.
‘Ooomey! Foooood!’ The Ork trooper snarled at Raglon as he threw a massive downward strike of his battle-axe at Raglon’s face.
‘I’m deaf you fugging piece of filth!’ Raglon again parried to the outside, keeping the butt of his rifle low and using the tip of his barrel to slam into the side of the battle-axe. There was a sharp pinging sound, and the stormboy cursed as the head of his battle-axe sailed off into the night.
There was not a chance in hell that Raglon was going to give him a moment to recover. Still keeping his butt low, he stepped forward and thrust upwards at a forty-five degree angle. The bayonet punched through the bottom of his enemy’s jaw, and up through the roof of his mouth. His thrust finished with terminal finality as the twenty centimetre blade burst out of the top of the Ork’s skull, only stopping when it hit the top of its spiked helmet. He fired a quick burst.
Blood gushed out of its open mouth and bulging eyes. With a sickening squelch, the bayonet was withdrawn and Raglon barged his shoulder into the dead Ork, knocking its body aside so that he could deal with final stormboy in front of him.
Panicked his opponent snapped off a shot as soon as its comrade’s body was out of the way. As any Imperial Guard Instructor will tell you, usually as he beats you with his pace stick, snatching at the trigger of any weapon (otherwise known as ‘cap-gunning’) pulls the weapon off aim. And that is exactly what happened to the stormboy’s shot.
Screaming in fear and anger Raglon was emphatically not going to give him another chance. He slammed into the Ork, fury allowing him to knock to the floor. As the stormboy tried to climb up, a mental switch flicked in Raglon’s head.
With startling clarity Raglon was able to pick out every bead of sweat on the Ork’s face. Time slowed as he slammed the butt of his rifle into the side of his opponent’s head. The shock of the impact ran up the rifle and he watched in fascination as the cheekbone gave way. Another blow smashed into the Ork’s jaw sending blood and teeth flying.
Despite the blows that Raglon was raining down, the stormboy was still trying to stand up. Raglon was conscious that he was screaming, what he was screaming he didn’t know, but his face was screwed up in a bestial roar.
He rained the blows down. One, two, three blows crashed into the Ork’s face. Another blow and the face caved in. Finally the Ork stopped struggling to stand and sagged into the ground. Its brains were open to the elements and Raglon’s final blow had practically emptied the brain pain of its contents. Raglon slumped to his knees, breathing hard, totally chin-strapped.
He raised a shaking hand to his face and felt the Ork’s blood and brains smear across his skin as he wiped at the stinging sweat that was running into his eyes. I hope that’s sweat!
Leaning forward, he rummaged through the Ork’s webbing, hunting for anything he could use, especially any las rifle cells. He found three that looked as though they had been looted and shoved two into his own load-bearing vest.
Barely pausing for breath he ejected his empty cell, reloaded and started running back up the trench as fast as he could. Barely two minutes had passed since the shell first landed and he quickly caught up with the tail-end-charlies covering the approach and dove through into the second line of defences.
Five hours later and the second-line still held. Wave after wave of Orks had broken on the defences and the bodies were piled high. Raglon took advantage of a lull to jump over the lip and started to pull at the bodies.
A Corporal poked his head over the edge and hoarsely whispered ‘In the Emperor’s name, what are you doing?’
‘They’re in the way, we can’t kill them if we don’t have a clear line of sight’, he continued to tug at them until he was satisfied and then jumped back down. Leaning against the rear wall he looked up into the darkening sky and prayed with his very soul for deliverance.
II
At that same moment Junior Midshipman Cullum Irvine was doing exactly the same on the frigate Emperor’s Blade. Kneeling, he lead his men in one of Saint Michael’s most famous prayers. Nervous at first, his voice became stronger as the familiar words drew him closer to the Emperor.
‘Divine Emperor, grant me strength in the test you have decided to give me. Strengthen my heart against fear, and turn my love for the Imperium into a shield for my soul. Bless me and with your Will turn me into a weapon of righteousness against the creatures of Darkness. To your guiding light I trust my soul.’ In the silence that followed they made the sign of the Aquila, some of them kissing charms, some even kissing the shotguns they all held.
‘Make ready!’ he ordered and the corridor was filled with the sound of cocking handles being pulled back and then being released to push a shell into the weapons’ chambers. With practiced ease they took cover in the various alcoves, nooks and crannies and aimed their weapons down the length of the corridor.
Irvine pressed his finger to his ear, pushing the micro bead into it and trying to hear the message being passed to him. Closing his eyes he strained to hear through all of the static. What he did hear was broken up by squeals, hisses and pops. He couldn’t make out full sentences but picked out keywords. Enemy troops. Boarding Action. Decks three to one-ninety. Stand to.
That was all the warning he had. Shapes appeared at the end of the corridor and he squinted to see who they were.
“Supremacy!” He shouted out the challenge of the day. There was no counter-challenge. Instead burna flames roared towards them and solid rounds whipped down the corridor, followed by charging shadows.
“Fire!” He screamed at his men and obeyed his own order; snatching at the trigger of his shotgun and feeling it slam into his shoulder with every shell it fired. A rating just behind him let rip with a grenade launcher. Phosphorous filled the corridor with white-hot light and turned the enemy boarders into living torches. The rating continued to fire. Stun grenades followed gas grenades which were followed by yet more phosphorous. The narrow confines of the corridor concentrated the effects and the enemy troops were left burning, concussed and choking.
Irvine lead his men down the corridor pepper-pot fashion. The ratings worked together as smooth team, breaking down into buddy pairs. One would cover his partner as they ran forward a few paces. As soon as they were set behind suitable cover, the other would dash forward and past their buddy to the next bit of cover. They picked their shots as carefully as they picked their cover. The enemy bodies littered the ground, their blood making the corridor slick, and the smell of burnt meat, piss and shit filled the air and joined the smell of phosphorous, gas and gunpowder.
Throughout the ship the Imperial Navy pushed the boarders back from their beloved ship. Little did they realise that their efforts were worth nothing. They died giving their lives for a ship and a battle that was already lost.
Twenty thousand miles away the ironically named Holy Redemption, a former Imperial cruiser that had been captured by the Orks previously, gave a belch and launched over a thousand torpedoes at the Emperor’s Blade. Already being hammered by at least three other ships, the Blade’s defence systems were unable to destroy enough of the torpedoes. Her shields were stretched to the maximum and failed as the first of the torpedoes detonated. The rest of the salvo rushed in and the Blade silently blew apart, disappearing in a short but searing bright burst of light, her reactors turning into mini-suns.
Other ships blossomed as the massed fire of the enemy fleet blew them apart. The light from the explosions was visible on the planet below and everyone who saw them knew that hope was a thing of the past.
III
One of the people who had the time to look up and see the new stars blooming in to life was Raglon. Enemy fire had clipped his helmet and sent him sprawling onto his back. Taking advantage of the brief lull it gave him, he lay on his back and stared up into the night sky. No matter how horrific and destructive war was, it was also beautiful. Tracer rounds and las bolts criss-crossed the sky, flares drifted slowly down and explosions shot into the sky. The colours were glorious.
Slowly he rolled over onto his knees and shuffled back to his position, ‘Come on ladies and gentlemen! Keep your heads down and your eyes peeled! Just because you’re tired, just because you’re scared and just because you’ve been fighting for two days solid, there’s no excuse to wish you were anywhere but here, in the mud with good-looking me!’
The lads and lasses of Scratch Company Five Bravo around him chuckled. With no officers or platoon leaders left alive in their unit it had been down to Raglon and others like him to not only organise the defence but to keep the morale of men up. Orders had ceased coming over the vox and micro beads over two hours ago and so scratch companies had been put together to hold their positions for as long as possible. Guard units and Planetary Defence Force units had merged as losses mounted.
Historically the Imperial Guard had looked down on the men and women of the Planetary Defence Force. It was hard not to. Whilst the Guard fought glorious battles and claimed planets in the name of the Emperor, Planetary Defence Forces were planet-bound.
After two days of fighting, there wasn’t one Guard-member that would ever say a bad word about the Planetary Defence Force again. There wasn’t a man or woman who believed that they could win the fight for Winchester, and there wasn’t a man or woman who was prepared to give up. Even without the encouragement of a commissar’s bolt pistol surrender wasn’t an option.
Earlier that day they had watched the 5th Wessex Volunteers, a part-time Planetary Defence Force regiment, try to surrender. They’d then had to watch and listen as the Volunteers were massacred, the more unfortunate being roasted alive in order to feed the teeming masses of Ork infantry. Imperium snipers had sobbed as they tried their best to end the suffering of their comrades and in the end it was decided they should save their ammunition.
Raglon knew that in the more built-up areas, Planetary Defence Force and Guard units had gone to ground. Acting upon orders they had hidden their weapons, ditched their uniforms and joined the masses of refugees. The battle might be lost, but the war would continue. Unfortunately for Raglon and his unit their role was to kill as many enemy troops and war machines before they died.
‘Hey Raglon, I’m so desperate for a bit of company I might have to ask for a cuddle once we’re out of all of this.’ Corporal Edgeston was a big, burly bruiser of a man and laughed as he made kissy-kissy faces at him.
‘Unfortunately for you Corporal, I have much higher standards, and deep protein therapy is not on my bucket list.’
A runner suddenly dove into their trench, making them jump and scrabble for their weapons. Raglon was faster than them all and the man squealed in fear as he felt the business-end of a bayonet pressing into his throat. He winced as Raglon put forward his views on the man’s mental capacity, his paternity and his mother’s origins.
‘You dumb fugger! Don’t you think we’re shit-scared enough?’ Edgeston joined in and kicked the man in the ribs, making him cry out and curl into the foetal position. Feebly he waved the message wafer he had been ordered to deliver.
Raglon reached out and snatched it from him before he could drop it, ‘Scratch Company Two Alpha cordially invites us to join them in a break-out attempt at oh two hundred hours. We’re to pool all of our ammunition.’ He looked carefully at their faces, ‘all those in favour, don’t bother saying “aye”, just raise your hands.’
He lifted his own hand and did a quick count. Runners were sent to the other positions the company held. Ten minutes later and the count was done. He took the wafers with the scores from the runners and quickly tallied them.
‘It looks like we get to try to run away to fight another day folks. This will be a case of every one for themselves. Try to stick together in squads even after you have got clear. As soon as you can, head for a city and join the civvies. Keep the fight going, but do it smart. Do not waste your efforts in suicidal attacks. If you have to comply with the enemy in order to get into a position to hurt them, do so. Pride does not exist. Honour does not exist. The only thing that is important is your love for the Emperor and your duty to fight on his behalf. We have thirty minutes. Prepare yourselves and say your good byes.’