It was the second night, and the gentle rolling hills around them were scattered with the burning hulks of vehicles. The air was filled with the smell of burnt metal and oil, the wind rustled the leaves of the stand of trees that the Malcadors were parked in. The enemy armoured corp had been haulted in that sector. That was what the vox had said when they put it over to the Ardus defence forces channel. No word about the enemy super heavy tank unit. The enemy macharius tanks.

It had hit C company that day. The bastards had waited in ambush. They’d taken out five malcadors. Three tanks in flames in nearly as many moments, the other two in another location an hour later. The infantry that C company had been supporting had lost two armoured personnel carriers, hit directly by large calibre shot, in that earlier episode indicated that the enemy must have had a squadron’s worth of the vehicles in firing positions. It had not been the case of the apparent lone tank that she and her troop had encountered.

Her troop didn’t have a cruster’s chance in the depth when it came to dealing with the things with their firepower. They could from the sides but if the vehicle was in a firing position, the malcadors had no chance. The malcadors were also high to the point that it was difficult to find cover.

Lieutenant Langthorn looked to the sky to try to rid herself of the feeling and the ever present show of lights up there caught her sight. The fighting up there had not shown signs of lessening. Word was some reinforcements had cut their way through, but the platform and the space around it was still hotly contested.
Ysamy wondered again about her kin fighting up above on the platforms. It seemed a miracle that they were holding under such punishment. The enemy fleet was pressing it hard, had troops boarding it. They could not press the capitol, and they had to keep landing troops and supplies half a continent away because of that platform’s weaponry. Even then their army was giving ground. The reason it held at all was because of her kin. The Thyrnn marines, the voidborn.

She was too fatigued to feel much of guilt now, not like that opening morning, which felt like a lifetime ago.
Ysamy ground her teeth as she looked up at the flashing lights of the Kai orbital platforms. The thought of the killing void and it’s cold grip had her lowering herself into her hatch. Into it’s armour, it’s security and away from the cold grip of the night, colder than the void for the dampness in the air the mist that gave that extra bite of cold.
‘Lieutenant,’ Tungst said beside her, ‘Kir, and Lors have finished the work on the damaged suspension.’
‘Have them get some food and rest.’
She thought through her crew, down a member even after replacements as one of the sponsons had been put out of commission. The opening was temporarily plated over courtesy of the lads from the workshop who’d whipped around shortly after nightfall. They’d cleaned the guns and restocked.

There wasn’t much more they could do tonight.
As she entered into the turret the weak interior light served to remind her that half of her sight was gone. It had been all so easy to forget in the darkness of the night. It wasn’t a nice fact to be reminded of.
She pressed her hand up to the hardened plaster in her eye socket. The plaster was less malleable than it had been, but it wasn’t rock solid.
She felt her back arching in agony as jagged steel pushed and tore at her eye. Lieutenant Langthorn took a deep breath and calmed herself. She put a hand against the firm reassurance of Scourage’s armour.
‘Sir.’ Tungst said after a moment, and she turned towards him.
‘This might help you get some rest.’ He said and she had to turn her head to see the bottle he held out.
She bit her lip and mulled it over. Before she took it and took a deep swig of the burning spirits before handing it back.
‘We gave them it pretty good today sir.’ Scourage’s butcher’s bill had been high. She’d seen three Russes go up, another one they hadn’t had the opportunity to finish off and another carnodon, and a pair of chimeras.
It was not enough to pay for the crew of Silthere or Chattan and the others. But it was enough for now. Tungst took a mouthful of spirit and handed the bottle back to her.
They drained half the bottle, and it was hitting her pretty well. After a little while she asked.
‘How does an oceankborn find themself serving on in the cataphractii?’
‘I would ask the same of a voidborn, lieutenant.’ The gunner said with a grin and a mouthful of the spirits. ‘We had a blockage in a pump valve, I went to clear it, just a routine thing. A crodean, a reef dwelling reptile, they love hanging around the upper levels of the stations, even in the open sea. It came at me, I managed to evade it. The thing’s tail cracked my head against a pipe as it passed. Must have swallowed half of the blue when the thing came back around and clamped onto my arm. I don’t envy having to breathe through water again.’ He passed the bottle.
‘It made me look like a real cruster.’ He smiled good naturedly as she took a mouthful.
‘May I ask how come you found yourself in a cruster unit?’
Langthorn bit her lip. She touched the plaster of her eye socket. That was her decision, this was her home. Her crew was her kin now. ‘I lost a friend. Someone on the maintenance run had decided the seal did not need replacement.’ Anger was hot and thick in her throat like the burning hot spirits. She chugged down a mouthful and then another at the memory. You didn’t need to explain the consequences to an oceankin.
The gunner nodded solemnly.
Coming to the door to see that red lighted sign and that dreaded word. DECOMPRESSION. She’d unlocked the privacy cover from the porthole with her key and saw the slumped bodies.
‘A voidkin afraid of the vacuum, an oceankin afraid of drowning.’ He noted dryly. ‘Next thing and it’ll turn out that Lors is agoraphobic.’ He gave a sour smile.
She chuckled.
Lors the driver of Scourage was a cruster. One of those born on the crust of Thrynn, rather than in the void above or under it’s seas. Born on the thin stretch of a continent. The man was curled up in a blanket on the vehicle’s floor beneath them and had not opted to sleep outside the vehicle like the rest of the crew when they had been able to snatch a break.
The drink was roaring in the back of her skull and she felt herself slipping in her seat.
Curling up in a blanket didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
‘I think you’ve had enough sir.’ He said taking the bottle and stowing it. She didn’t care. She was half slipping out of the seat half slipping out of consciousness. The drink had certainly done it’s trick.

‘Lieutenant.’ It was Tungst’s voice. Her mind was foggy with drink, she found the edge of the blanket. ‘Lieutnenant, we have orders.’ Her head cleared in moments, she threw the blanket off, before she climbed back to her seat and stepped out onto the top of the turret. Parked down next to the tank was the major’s scout car.
She climbed down from the tank, leaving behind the security of Scourage and saluted. The major briefed her with a map and a blackout light. She took careful note of the tracks and roads to the destination. A cool breeze blew through the trees, pulling at her uniform, reminding her how exposed they were.
She woke the crew who were sleeping nearby and they mounted up. She sent runners over to the other tanks to mount up and fall into line and took up her position in the turret, where she could easily duck down into the protection of the tank.

Scourage rumbled to life. She didn’t think she’d ever heard the machine start so eagerly. Moments later the engines of Griffin and Syracuse joined the chorus. Yasmy checked the map in the interior light of Scourage’s turret. Most of the crew were wrapped up at stations trying to get some rest where they could snatch it. She took a blackout lamp from one of the stowage boxes as the tank rumbled out onto the track. She waited till she could see Syracuse behind them, and Griffin behind that.
The destination was simply called hill 135. She checked her watch by the light of the blackout lamp. It was around midnight. They would hopefully be in position before dawn. They were to link up with the 223rd Ardus Infantry Battalion, and elements of some imperial guard light infantry force which had arrived the previous night.
They drove through the night, through lanes and tracks, through treed avenues and past patches of woodland. They moved slowly, to not make overmuch engine or track noise. A few vehicles passed them in the darkness. A few motorised companies in armoured transports. A company towing anti tank weapons to the front.
Right around one thirty there came a storm of cannon fire behind their lines. Yasmy double checked her map and they continued on into the darkness. There wasn’t to be any more sleep tonight. Just the clatter of tracks and the low rumble of engines as the vehicles rolled on, and the increasing worry that maybe she had the directions wrong. Langthorn checked and double checked. She told herself the tank’s compass had been checked and double checked. That it had been calibrated, that they could not have missed a turn.
Her eyes were aching with fatigue, with the effort of picking out details of the track around them, of guiding Lors along the dark lane. Langthorn yawned and the her eye was watery with fatigue.
A figure moved in the shadows in front of the tank, between a hedge and the drain. She thought it must just be some infantrymen in the area. But she saw the second flitting shadow, hunched over, trying to keep unseen. Suspicious.
She cursed the fact that she didn’t have one of the carbines close to hand, that she didn’t have grenades close to hand.
She was about to shout a challenge when one of the figures screamed something, not in any imperial dialect and a bright flash of light and flame lit up the night, a rocket roaring past the side of Scourage’s turret.
‘Ambush front, gunners fire, driver forwards!’
It was a painful long moments as they ran the gauntlet. Another rocket slammed into the side of the turret but did not penetrate another few flashed towards them lighting up the night. A second rocket slammed into the tank but did not penetrate. She kept herself low in the turret and guided Lors forwards. Bullets whizzed around her and cracked into the armour of the turret. She could see them dark figures, with flashing flashes of gunfire. Ay moment she knew a round would hit her, or one of those rockets was going to bring Scourage to a halt, or it would catch the tank on fire. It was a terror, a nightmare.
Then the night was filled with the heavy drumming of the guns. The sponson guns of all of the three tanks raked the sides of the tracks overlapping their fire. The heavy bolter on the front covered the narrow arc that the sponsons could not. And then they were past the ambush.

Fire coursed through Lieutenant Langthorn’s blood as she took the report from the other two tanks. She was shaking as she checked and double checked their location, As she ducked down to use the interior light of the tank she noticed the crew were no longer trying to rest. Kir, the sponson gunner was moving his weapon in an arc scanning the darkness outside.