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***
Melchoir frowned. He didn't like this one bit.
He had engaged in many a daring attack and surprise raid in his day, but it was always in his terms. It was always because it was the RIGHT thing to do. Instead, they had abandoned a great defensive position so that they could attack. They were going in at night, but because there wasn't near enough optics for the entire army, they would attack under flarelight. Hardly a night assault, and hardly a surprise action. To make it just that little bit much worse, they'd lost their air cover - the entire aerial force sent off to blow up supplies when they COULD have been used as close air support.
To make it worse, Druxus had treated him like a common footsoldier - a thoughtless grunt that existed only to follow orders, and to the letter. It's not like he was a decorated Imperial Guard officer or anything.
Melchoir sulked and seethed as the forces prepared themselves in the darkness of night. He was placed with the inquisitors at the point of the van. They were going to attack the weakest spot with the strongest troops. If everything went according to plan, the planetary defense forces would hold the enemy down while they were swept on one side, followed by an envelopment from the other.
The officer felt reluctantly compelled to fish into his gear and pull out his firefly grenade launcher. He loaded it with a feeling of venomous foreboding. He waited silently in the darkness.
The vox clicked slightly, before releasing the voice of inquisitor Druxus.
"Attack!"
Melchoir's arm jerked up, and his hand squeezed the trigger. With a sighing sizzling sound, the firefly grenade leapt up high into the air. A moment later, the grenade lit up, casting its pale green glow over the battlefield. Everywhere to the left and right of him, more fireflies did the same.
And with that, the engines of vehicles up and down the line began to rev up. The surprise night attack was now neither.
Melchoir wobbled slightly as his transport began to move out from underneath him. He could hear the sounds of artillery far away beginning to start up. The armored column began to move forward into the glow.
The strage zipping of overflying artillery floated down on them, followed a few seconds later by the dull crashes of them hitting targets far ahead. Otherwise, the air was rather silent. The grumbling of the engines droning on, uninterrupted by the staccato flashes of gunfire.
The moments dragged on as the armor ground forward. Surely the enemy knew that they were there. Where were they? Was Druxus wrong? Panic began to grip the officer on the fringes of his mind at the thought.
As the flares winked brightly in the air, Melchoir still couldn't see anything but abandoned defenseworks. Hastily, he prepared a second firefly grenade and shot it up into the air.
Where were they?
He debated with himself whether he should get on the vox and start asking for clarification. That somehow seemed like the wrong thing to do, though, despite the fact that he wanted to wash his hands of this whole operation in its entirety. If he didn't want to be responsible, then he'd make the one who was to be so. No, though, that would be childish.
The vehicles began to fan out into a broader attack formation. Still there was no sign of the enemy.
Melchoir desperately searched around.
His eye caught on the glint of an enemy vehicle lying inert. Were they abandoned, or were they just waiting? Waiting for Melchoir to fall right into their trap?
Either way, he'd sort it out.
"This is Melchoir," he said into the vox, "Enemy units at one, behind the ruins. Fire as able."
The armored formation began to wheel around slightly. It wasn't long before they began to acquire their targets. First one chimera and then another began to fire into the enemy transports, shortly joined by the melta cannons looking for targets in the dim light.
One of the shots connected from something, and an enemy transport began to break apart. Suddenly, the two nearby started up. Their engines engaged and they started to move out.
They weren't abandoned, the enemy was right there, waiting for them.
"Lord Druxus," Melchoir all but shouted into the vox, "There are enemy ahead, but this doesn't seem to be a main force."
The smaller number of enemy vehicles tried its best to counterattack against the superior Foleran force arrayed in front of it. Melchoir got no response over the vox.
"Lord Druxus," Melchoir repeated again.
"Stay, Marshal," came the reply, "Fear is unsightly."
FEAR? Melchoir seethed with anger. It was a fine line between bravery and stupidity. Just because he didn't want to fall straight into an ambush and suffer 100% casualties didn't mean he was some sort of coward.
The nerve of the inquisitor, belittling him like that, and over the vox. He'd finally had it. Melchoir was going to give him a piece of his mind.
The officer scowled as he pushed the button on the vox.
Then he heard it. That familiar wailing noise from up above.
The officer left his finger on the vox button as he searched the green skies above him.
"Enemy aircraft!" he shouted.
From out of the darkness, shapes began to descend upon them from all directions.
Suddenly, the entire battlefield lit up. For miles in every direction, the enemy began to counterattack. The strobed brightly from the gunfire of heavy weapons in a cataclysmic explosion of violence.
In the sudden blast of light and noise, the fliers swooped down on them. Lightning arced through the air as the fliers unleashed energy weapons into the metal boxes below.
Melchoir ducked as a searing beam of light sliced through the air in front of him, churning up a spray of dirt with its incredible power. He darted his finger towards the vox set. He paused.
Complete chaos swirled around him as he hesitated with his finger pointed at the button.
Behind him, a sheet of flame rolled out from a nearby chimera as one of its engines burst out a fiery spray onto the grass. Guardsmen began to frantically pile out as another wave of enemy fighters came down on them from the sky.
No.
He was going to handle this himself.
He tapped his micro-bead. "This is Melchoir, everybody form up around me. Target enemy aircraft."
Slowly the vehicles around him began to form up in a rough circle around the command tank. Armor all but bumped into each other in the flickering green darkness as they were shot at from above. Meltaguns poked out of hatches, desperate for targets to get into range.
"Come on, form up!" Melchoir shouted to the gathering vehicles.
The officer looked up into the skies, trying to find a target as they careened over his head.
"That one!" he finally shouted, pointing up at an enemy aircraft. "Focus fire! Bring it down!"
The guardsmen took his cue, preparing melta broadsides from their chimera transports, and forming up on the ground to present their anti-tank weapons into the skies.
They quickly began to open fire on the officer's command, sending searing bolts of melta fire upwards.
"Give it more lead!" Melchoir shouted to the guardsmen below him, "Aim higher!"
A meltagun from below hit the flier and caused it to wobble. Melchoir fired his own plasma pistol up at it, adding tiny points of light up into the cone of destruction. Another melta shot hit it and caused it to bank, exposing the whole profile of the vehicle in silhouette.
The bigger target brought on more hits. The vehicle bucked wildly as it began to disintegrate against the power of the guardsmen on the ground. With a final shot, one of the wings burst off, and the flier erupted into a fireball, casting a meteor streak across the sky before it crashed far off to the right.
Melchoir turned and looked. Another wave of fliers was cascading down onto the Guard forces.
"Reset!" the officer shouted, "Prepare for another wave. Prepare to fire on my next target!"
The black shapes broke in amongst them.
Immediately the sky began to flash angrily against the guns of the aircraft. One of the fire tanks in front of them took the brunt of the blast, its reinforced chassis unable to withstand the aerial bombardment. The massive fuel tank on the back suddenly detonated, sending up a roiling holocaust of fire up into the air, and then cascading sheets of flame back down onto those below.
Melchoir recoiled as another fire tank started to shake violently against the beams of energy, preparing itself to meet the same fate. He watched as the transports of both inquisitors were ripped to shreds from above. Gunfire rained down all around him, smashing into his own chimeras as well. The officer could scarcely breathe. It was like being swarmed by hornets. Hornets with the power to blow his armored vehicles to flying bits and pieces.
"Come on!" he tried to shout over the maddening storm of firepower. "Come on!" he shouted again.
The guardsmen around him desperately huddled around their commander, hunched over as if caught by a hailstorm, leaning away from the carnage around them.
Melchoir stood up, revealing himself out of the hatch for all to see. He thrust his powerfist into the sky against the crackling lightning and explosions all around him. He angrily jabbed a gauntleted finger upward into the flashing darkness.
"That one!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Come on, men, bring it down! Keep firing!"
The guardsmen bristled their guns out from their tiny knot of defense. Meltaguns blazed through the air as the guardsmen crouched together. Even lasguns were shot up, so desperate was everybody to do SOMETHING.
One of the engines of one of the fliers burst into flame, showering debris down onto the guardsmen below, pattering off of the sandbags and chimera armor.
"That one! Come on!"
As the debris bounced around him in the flickering light, Melchoir pointed at another and then at another as the first flew overhead. "Fire on my target!"
Another aircraft veered sharply as its cockpit was blown away by the hedge of meltaguns on the ground. The fighter tumbled in a growing fireball, crashing into another aircraft. The entire flaming mess crashed towards the ground, thundering a fireball over the ruins as it spectacularly exploded.
Melchoir looked around him. There was little left to him now. He and his command squad were the only ones still mounted. A rock amidst the crashing waves. Surrounded by flaming wrecks. He took a quick scan from his position of height as the guardsmen below continued to fire and reload as fast as they could against the aircraft strafing down around them.
His heart sank. The fighters weren't his only problem. They weren't even his biggest.
From every direction, the enemy ground forces began their counterattack.
His mind raced. Plans whirred within plans. Maybe they could still hold out. Maybe they could... dammit, what was Druxus' plans in the first place?
"Keep firing on the fliers!" Melchoir shouted, "But form up lines around me, prepare for enemy ground forces!"
The guardsmen looked around confused. They were getting shot at from everywhere. In the violent nonsense, they tried to obey orders as much as possible, getting ready for something. Anything.
In the green haze around them, they could see the enemy begin to charge in. Transports rolled forwards, laying down a blanket of fire on the desperate guardsmen. Their fire came in horizontally against the driving attacks from above. Shots bounced off the surviving chimera and smashed wrecks, and caused the barbed wire to dance frantically in the darkness.
More strafing came in against them as infantry began to appear around them. Gunfire suddenly came in from the right. They were being completely overrun.
Melchoir was thrown into the side of his hatch as anti-tank weapons slammed into the front of his chimera. He stumbled onto uneven footing, and grabbed the top of the chimera for support.
No, he hadn't survived everything just to end it like this. Pointlessly.
He let go of the armored plate he was grasping and let himself fall back down into his transport. His few hand-picked meltagunners looked at him as he entered the cabin.
The officer looked at them in the darkness.
"Follow me," he said sternly.
"Where are we going?" one of them asked as the air outside of the transport exploded with a blinding spray of weapons fire.
"Somewhere not here."
Melchoir turned and opened the door. He and his command staff picked over the ruins of his strike force. In front of him were a few desperate survivors firing their lasguns at unknown targets far away over the wrecked vehicles.
"Come on!" the officer shouted, "Everybody follow me!"
In a panicked rush, the guardsmen began to join up with their commander, fleeing into the night.
***
8th Grand Company (Iron Warriors 8,000pts): 36-11-2
Heavy Rain Cadre (Tau 4,000pts): 9-3-0
Hive Fleet Lunulata (Tyranids 2,000pts): 6-4-0
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