"The ammo dump is alight! We will not escape the blast radius in time," the holograph raised his elbow in salute, "We will use these last moments to fire our final shells. Long live the Warmaster! Blessed by our cause! Death to the heretic and the infide-"
The entire command bunker rumbled. Silt and dust fell from the ceiling. By the time Ennenhim-General Thuen Neraddur looked back at the holo table the image of his artillery colonel had disappeared.
"Sir, we've lost contact with battery 288," one of the officers stated the obvious, "Observers and scanners report heavy counter-battery fire originating from turbo lasers. Forty of them at least. Firing solutions are in the process of being calculated to annihilate this insolence with an expected accuracy radius of one kilometer. Should I order them to open fire until enemy destruction?"
"No," Neraddur's expression was hidden behind his leather gas mask, data from the holo table reflected off eyepieces.
"Do not waste shells. Their artillery will have already shifted positions. Furthermore, give the order to cease the barrage until this incursion is dealt with. I do not want to give them a longer list of targets."
"Cease fire? The situation will be contained quickly," another officer spoke up, "These Mirialans make for poor warriors. Give me a battalion of men and I will make them pay for their audacity."
Neraddur resisted the urge to put a blaster bolt into his subordinate. The Pact had long moved on from their tribal and cultist ways under the guidance of the Warmaster into a professional and disciplined military force. He wasn't in the mood anyway to file the paperwork for summary execution.
Neraddur waved his hand to shift the holo table to display the updated terrain map battlefield. Red skulls denoting Pact platoons in the front trenches were rapidly disappearing in the face of unknown blue icons. Anytime a reinforcing Pact unit came into contact with one of these icons theirs flickered and then disappeared in a matter of minutes.
"Do not observe just their heavy walkers, note the troop displacement, aggression, and mobility. Constant mutual support across all branches. None of them are overextending beyond the support of the other. Where they come into contact with our isolated elements their units co-ordinate to outflank and encircle. These are not the actions of an exhausted undisciplined militia, these are the actions of an elite and capable armored force. Underestimate them at your peril."
The room fell silent for a moment. The Ennenhim-General stared at the progressing battle map, watching more and more of his units disintegrate under the assault.
"They cannot hope to hold the ground they have taken with such an armored-centric force. This is merely a raiding force. the only thing worth this risk is the heavy guns..." he squinted before using his fingers to drag the icon denoting his artillery units,
"Keep the tactical guns in place but order all superheavy pieces to be withdrawn back to the depot. Make it obvious. Use the railways we've constructed to transport them. Infantry elements in front of the enemy incursion are to retreat at once and regroup. Archcommanderim Sidrel?"
"Yessir," the woman saluted. Her peaked cap was tucked under her arm to expose her deformed scalp and hundreds of battle scars littered across every inch. Every single one was a battle honor, denoting the many battles she had survived and claimed victory in.
"Sidrel, I want you to take the 80th Tank Regiment and place yourselves as a blocking detachment in front of the enemy armor. You are to counter-attack and pin them in place until I can bring up regiments to cut off their rear. Hold until relief. I will leave the details to you."
"Your will be done, my Lord. We shall fight to the last tank." The Archcommanderim nodded, fully knowing this would likely be her final battle.
The ground shook, and mechanical thunder rolled through the air.
The tank formation, made up of one hundred
Mors Ferro Heavy Battle Tanks, erupted over the ridge line. For breath-seizing moments their crawling tracks were airborne before they came slamming down into the packed earth, kicking rock chips and dry soil up as they found traction. Behind them came an additional one hundred
Loculus Armoured Personnel Carriers carrying a thousand and a half dismount infantry in total.
In the command seat of his Mors Ferro, Sidrel stared through her view scope at the battlefield. It was like hell. There were fires and bellowing everywhere as the front trenches were disappearing under the enemy's turbo laser fire. Bunkers had been busted open. Trenches had been filled in, burying the defenders alive. Pact troopers fled in the wake of the hell stompers' wrath in headlong retreat following the Ennenhim-General's order to withdraw. Even if the Chaos Pact did not fear death for paradise awaited them in the afterlife, there was little point wasting their lives when they were still needed on this mortal plain. But they were being slaughtered by GADF assault walkers and infantry in the open. A squad of infantrymen was struck directly by the Barrel Hammer Turbolaser of a Cougar Tank and burst like a bunch of balloons filled with gore and viscera.
"Khaos damn these bastards." Sidrel swore and flicked down the wire stalk of the voice mic,
"We've got to cover our retreating men. Get up close below their firing arcs. Concentrate fire on the weak points in the legs and neck areas. Full throttle. I'll shoot the first tank that flees behind myself!"
Their turbine engines roared a deep guttural howl as drivers injected accelerants directly into powerplants. The phalanx of armor lurched forward.
A Mors Ferro to her right sustained multiple direct hits from a Sphinx's turbolaser before its shield overloaded and one blast penetrated the turret. The entire tank vanished in a ball of flame and shrapnel, its ammo detonating tossing its turret a hundred meters in the air. Two more were crippled and foundered, beginning to burn. A Loculus APC lurched lengthways as a missile from a GARP-34 Tusk Missile Pod punched through its crew bay and shredded the fifteen troopers within like a mess tin hit by a shotgun. The turret of another Mors Ferro was ripped clean off but remarkably the chassis itself kept on charging, the driver somehow still alive.
"Lay on and fire at will!" she ordered. Bright balls of gas flame flashed from their 240mm cannons and discharge smoke streamed back from their muzzle brakes, fuming in long white trails of slipstream over their hulls. Inertial dampers worked overtime to keep the howitzers stabilized through the bouncing and lurching. Shells weighing two hundred kilograms soared through the air with their high-ex
Detonite payloads.
At the same time reinforcing Pact infantry began to dismount off their APCs, breaking off into two groups to engage the Hellstomper's marines in the trenches with blaster rifles and bayonets. They may be facing elite infantry with superior equipment but the Pact had numbers and zealotry on theirs.
The others charged alongside their heavy tanks at the walkers, carrying rocket launchers, anti-tank thermal detonators, and satchel charges. Teams began to set up ATGM launchers and light anti-tank mass-driver cannons to cover the advance. Entire platoons were slaughtered on approach. For every rifleman who fell, another took his place. Corpses were run over by their tanks. Losses were horrific. Blood churned in the mud.
But the Chaos Pact had blood to spare.
