Dust. Sand and dust was all they had had to
fight against. Well, that and boredom. Ever since they had shipped from Tanith
after forming the 7th Division, it had been hurry up and wait, hurry
up and wait. At last it seemed that the waiting time was over. The Tau had
landed in an attempt to take over the peace loving humans of Bannickburn.
Hartog had been to a briefing earlier by Commissar Stojkovitch where the evil
ways of the alien species was brought to light. Unusually aggressive, the Tau
had been encountered on several Imperial worlds where they had taken over the
planets. Nothing had been heard from these people after the Tau invasions.
Hartog was not about to let that happen here.
He had been drafted early into the command
squad under Lieutenant Mathison as a mortar observer, and as such he had not
seen any combat yet. The division had been involved in several skirmishes and
one major battle already, against misguided humans that apparently supported
the Tau.
Now however, it was rumoured that the Tau was
going to make a major push outside the village of Bandockbirn, and that one of
their commanders was going to be leading the push. With his Tactica Imperialis
training, it was obvious to Colonel Izbaros that to annihilate the enemy
commander would be essential for winning the whole war, and not just this
battle. Thus he had sent for help from the Emperial War Barge “Indominatable
Will of The Emperor”, and had dispatched the 3rd company of first
batalion to prepare the defences of the village.
With some help from Commisar Stojkovitch,
the defences in depth were carried out, and the soldiers were again left to
wait.
Hartog brushed some more dust from his
uniform. He noticed the small pin sized holes in the gloves and made a mental
note to self that he had to see the doctor when they were finished. It was not
as if those burrowing flies made big holes in you when they dug in, it was a
problem when they had grown inside of your skin and dug out again. This was the
fourth time he had been infected here, and he started checking the other hand
as well. Suddenly the morning calmness was split by the crack of heavy sniper
rifles nearby. Hartog hit the deck, but came back up fast with a foolish look
on his face. They were Space marine snipers, apparently sent to aid in the
combat. What they were shooting on weren’t apparent, but Hartog did not care.
At last the action was starting. One rifle had a much deeper snap than the
others, and Hartog could just see a dark shadow moving behind the Marines. He
called out to his squad commander, and he told him after consulting with the CO
that it was nothing less than an Imperial Agent from the Assasinorum Imperialis
temple of Exidus. Hartog had always thought that it was children’s tales, but
now he had seen one for sure.
No matter now, a firing solution rang out.
“04, this is 15, 3 mortars range 240
bearing 4372, fire for effect”
Hartog put his binoculars onto the spot,
and looked for the effect. Three grenades detonated and hurled shrapnel in a
deadly arc. There they were, the Tau. They did not look like anything Hartog
had ever seen, they were almost naked to start with, and very savage looking.
“Good hit on the Kroot unit”, the CO called
out
So they were not really Tau. Hartog started
scanning for the Tau main battle line, and suddenly three large, well, robot
things would best describe it, opened fire on the Marines scouts. A hover tank
shot at the scouts as well, and when the smoke cleared, the scouts were almost
annihilated.
“04 this is 06, Target, three bots, range
735 bearing 4192, fire for effect”, Hartog said into his radio, almost without
thinking.
“Roger 06, range 735, bearing 4192. On the
way”, was the reply, equally automatic.
The platoon sergeant next to Hartog punched
him and pointed some distance of. What looked like 10 Tau troopers and one
battlesuited figure appeared in the mists.
“Target”, was the only word out of his
mouth.
The mortar crew positioned their weapons,
and Hartog saw an immense vehicle move into firing position. A Basilisk, with
its immense 203 mm Earthshaker cannon, guaranteed to kill anything it hit.
Hartog keyed his radio again.
“04 this is 06, belay target. New target,
range 235, bearing 4420, fire for effect”.
“04, wilco out”
Knowing that the immense Basilisk was named
86, Hartog keyed the radio
“86, this is 06. Fire mission heavy. Range
1100, bearing 0289, one round fire”
“06, stand by”, was the reply.
Hartog looked through the binoculars and
one more saw the deadly small pieces of metal tear through the Kroot. He
smiled, this was going to be a cakewalk.
“06, 86. One round out” was immediately
accompanied by a large explosion as the 203 fired. An even larger explosion
sounded from behind, and startled, Hartog turned to look.
“Emperor wept”, he said. The Leman Russ
that was the heavy close-in support had exploded in a sea of flames, and his
mates from the mortar squad was scrambling for cover from the ammunition that
was cooking off from inside the now ruptured Leman Russ. Hartog was about to
turn around again, as a he saw a shadow descend amongst the mortar squad.
Another kind of aliens had arrived, in all it seemed like 20 of them. They
targeted the Basilisk and his teammates with some kind of exotic weapon, and to
the horror of Hartog they cut down the confused guardsmen with streams of metal
shards.
“Focus, get the damned battlesuit Hartog,
and get the blasted tanks too”, the sergeant shouted. He turned around and ran
down to join the remaining mortar crew personnel.
“Protect the Basilisk”, Hartog heard him
shout over the continuous firing from the lasguns and those awful alien
weapons.
Hartog returned to his job, looked for the
detonation from the 203, and saw it hit right on target. Unfortunately the
battlesuit was not damaged, and he repeated his fire order with a small
correction for the movement of the suit. If he was just a little bit lucky, the
tank was going to be hit too.
“One round away” was the calm voice of the
gunner in the Basilisk over the constant pinging and snapping of bullets
against the armour plates. A huge boom sounded, and Hartog focused on the
cursed enemy battlesuit. Right on target, but once more the suit succeeded in
dodging the damaging effects of the massive shell. The troopers around him were
not as fortunate however, and the tank that was trailing, had smoke coming out
where the main cannon was located. Hartog yelled a “Yes” into the mike.
“86, say again last?” was the reply
“this is 06, right on target, fire for
effect”
“rgr, two rounds out”.
Two rounds? Hartog turned around and to his
great joy he saw another Basilisk join the battle. Both vehicles fired the 203,
and the immense deafening sound almost deafened Hartog even over his ear
protection.
This time the rounds were right on target,
and Hartog could not see the battlesuit after impact. The tank was now grounded,
and Hartog was about to shout his victory into the radio as he felt something
heavy hit him in the shoulder. Looking down, he saw a grey spludge of something
metallic smeared over his flak jacket.
“I’m hit” he shouted, and started patting
himself down.
“Pipe it soldier” was the comment from
Stojkovitch, “concentrate on your job and put those three suits at the edge of
the wood out of commission”
Another three suits? Hartog ignored his own
superficial wounds and hefted the bino’s to his eyes again and scanned the wood
edge for signs of the suits. In his peripheral vision he could see the alien
known as kroot assaulting an assault squad to his left, but fortunately for the
imperial guardsmen a walker was able to put down covering fire with its heavy machine
cannon. The Kroot were cut down fast. When the smoke had cleared, the guardsmen
were only two, but the kroot were all spattered over the hillside.
A huge explosion rocked his command post,
immediately followed by an explosion even larger.
“86, this is 06, fire mission over”
“86, this is 06, fire mission over”
“86, this is 06, respond over”
“This is 99, return to own unit, out”
The Commisar on the fire net? Hartog turned
and was horrified to see two burning craters where the two Basilisks had been positioned
just seconds ago. The mortars had been abandoned, and he could see the sergeant
forming the mortar team into an assault troop, the troopers fixing bayonets.
The aliens had assaulted the regular troopers and cut them down to a single
man, and all that was between the Colonel in his command Chimera and the aliens
was the commissar and the decimated mortar squad.
Hartog hefted his lasergun and fixed the
bayonet. With a mighty roar he jumped out of his foxhole and fell directly on
his face. He had misjudged the damage that had been wrought around him; the
previously pristine meadow was now pockmarked like if the world had contracted
smallpox. He looked up and around, embarrassed, but fortunately it seemed like
nobody had seen him in the heat of battle. While looking, he saw a shimmer of
light to the west, and suddenly 11 yellow battle suits appeared. We are doomed
he thought, until he saw the newly arrived open fire at point blank upon a Tau
tank and exploding it. The only thing that fitted into Hartogs knowledge of
Imperial soldiers were those most Holy of warriors, the Terminators.
“99 this is 06, Terminators incoming from
the west”,
“this is 99, those would be the Crimson
Fists. Praise the Emperor and pass the ammunition. 06 join your unit at once,
last chance”
Hartog looked down towards the commissar
and saw the large-bore heavily decorated loyalty gun pointed directly at him.
Realising that his mouth was wide open, he closed it and ran down to his
squadies.
“Good, now we are all here, we are going to
assault those damned flying aliens and give the HQ some time to take out those
battlesuits” the sergeant said.
Hartog could see the command Chimera move
towards the battlesuits under heavy fire. Suddenly a rocket hit one track of
the Chimera, and it came to a halt. Two more rockets sheared the heavy bolters
clean of.
“Nooo, we are all going to die”, someone
shouted, and Hartog could see the lone soldier from the regular line run away
from the battle. A single shot rang out, and Stojkovitch placed one bullet in
the back of his head.
“Never retreat, Never surrender. The
Emperor”, he shouted
“The Emperor”, they all responded with a
great shout.
“CHAAAAARRGE”, he screamed and lifted his
chainsword and pistol.
“For The Emperooooor”, the sergeant
shouted, and with a horrible ripping sound, the troopers plunged the bayonets
into the alien squad. Stab, twist, pull, punch, kick, stab, shoot, twist, pull,
stab, pull, stab…. everything became a blur as thought gave way to instinct.
Kill or be killed.
At last the remaining alien had been
slaughtered, and the surviving troopers gathered in a woodline. The confusion
was immense, and there was smoke everywhere. One trooper was applying a
tourniquet on the leg of Stojkovitch who was lying limp across the bodies of several
aliens. Hartog did not really see any point in doing so, as the commissar was
missing the top of his head with the rest boiled off, as if something immensely
hot had hit him. Maybe a plasma rifle he thought. He looked after the Colonel,
and could see that the commander had succeeded in destroying the battlesuits.
The commander looked splendid in his carapace armour, with his elite troopers
around him. Hartog once more smiled, they were going to kill these aliens after
all. Bang, one missile hit the Imperial priest, bang, bang, the small missiles
kept hitting the squad, and the troopers went down slowly one by one until the
commander was the only one left. He raised his weapon high and shouted on the
radio,
“for The Emperoooooor”, only to be cut of
when something very massive took of his head.
Hartog looked around for the sergeant, but
could not see him. Neither could he see any other commanders.
“Sir, sir”, the young trooper next to
Hartog looked at him, “what do we do now Sir?”
Slowly it dawned upon Hartog that it was
him they were calling sir.
“We fight troopers, we fight. For Tanith
and The Emperor”, and with those words he hefted his laser rifle to his
shoulder and took aim at one of the approaching alien troopers.
Eventually the 1st heavy company
of the Crimson Fists reached the former Imperial Guard battleline after
annihilating the alien menace once and for all. Although they had taken heavy
casualties themselves and had probably seen more death and destruction than
many civilisations had witnessed, they were somewhat shocked when they saw the
carnage that surrounded the Imperial guardsmen. Only a single trooper was alive
with aliens scattered all over. The guardsman held the banner of the 7th
division Tanith light infantry as high as he could with his remaining arm.
As he saw Lysander, the Honourable
commander of the Terminators, he uttered one last cry and died.
That cry has been entered into the annals
of the 7th Tanith battle history and is required to be known to
heart for all troopers of this proud division.
“7th Tanith ready for combat.
One soldier left. As long as one of us live, we will never give up, Sir”
The soldiers name was private first class
Hartog.