As Shai and The Mongrel closed in on each other, the battle raged on around them. The airborne units held their ground at the ruined Chiss structure, firing out from amid the rubble even as Mawite berserkers threw themselves into the fray, seeking to dislodge them. Coming up to support them were the brave men of Second Battalion, picking their way across the hostile snows. The frigid wind and uncertain footing were the least of their worries; the Raider Walkers were coming straight for them, running them down across open ground.
Anti-infantry chainguns roared, spitting an endless stream of dart-like laserfire at the oncoming NIO soldiers, and snow flashed to steam around them with each impact. Entire drifts were carved away by the heat of the barrage, melting to slush like some child's discarded ice cream on a summer day, except near-instantly. They re-froze as the warmth of incoming fire dissipated, becoming ugly piles of ice and slush, difficult ground for men on the move to cross. Let them slip and slide and founder across the stretch of rough terrain.
The walkers kept on sprinting in to intercept them.
"PERISH, FAITHLESS ONES!" screamed the Warpriest in the Rally Walker, his amplified voice booming out even above the chatter of the chainguns and the steady
thump - boom - thump - boom of grenade launchers fired at will.
"YOU SHALL HAVE NO RELEASE FROM THIS CYCLE OF TORMENT! THE AVATARS FEAST ON YOUR SOULS, AND THE MAW'S CHOSEN PASS ON TO GLORY!" Searchlights mounted on the walkers did their best to cut through the gloom, finding new targets for the guns amid the shadows and chaos.
As the NIO troopers - those not left facedown in the snowdrifts, anyway - began to reach the safety of the Chiss compound, the chainguns slowly whirred to a halt. The walkers turned instead to their grenade launchers, along with the missile launchers and laser cannons of the heavier anti-vehicle walkers, seeking to wear away at the cover where the brave soldiers were taking shelter.
"NO MORTAL BARRIER CAN HOLD BACK THE BROTHERHOOD!" the Warpriest thundered.
"YOU HIDE BEHIND THE WALLS OF YOUR TOMB!"
Such attacks would not go unanswered for long... and indeed
did not, for the deadly Cataphract tanks of the NIO were unleashed at last. The long-range smoothbore fire of Third Platoon, a rain of massive incendiary shells, streaked across the battlefield, burning angels descending to avenge the men left sprawled in the snow. The first trio of shots slammed into one of the anti-infantry walkers mid-stride, throwing the Raider Walker from its sprinting feet and plowing it into the ground. It skidded several meters through the snow, then burst.
The fireball rising from it made the night bright as day.
Darkness descended again, leaving dancing afterimages in the eyes of those who'd been looking in the direction of the explosion, and another rain of shells fell. Glancing hits threw shrapnel and flame across more of the walkers... and the screaming prisoners chained to their hulls began to burn alive, thrashing in vain, the razorwire wrapped around them digging into their rapidly-charring flesh.
"BEHOLD THE TORMENT THAT AWAITS YOU!" the Warpriest bellowed, amplifying their howls of agony with his speakers.
"BEHOLD HELL ITSELF!"
Then the rain of incendiary shells broke through the ice right in front of the Rally Walker, and it pitched forward, into the darkness of the frozen lake. From the ruined compound, which sat on the icy shore of that long-frosted body of water, the last cries of the Warpriest could be heard just before he sank (vehicle and all) into the frigid depths.
"DIE FOR THE AVATARS! DIE TO OPEN THE GATES OF PARADISE! DIE TO KILL, AND KILL, AND KILL, AND..." Then the water closed over the walker, swallowing it and silencing the sermon.
If the loss of the Rally Walker disheartened the Mawites, they didn't show it. Indeed, the clear example of faithful martyrdom only appeared to inspire the madmen and fanatics. On the decks of the War Skiffs, marauders belted out dark chants of praise to their bloodthirsty gods, eager for their chance at death and eternal glory. As tank platoons One and Two advanced, firing on the Mawite defensive line, the Skiffs cut in front of them like a line of naval battleships lining up a broadside. They were no faster than the incoming tanks...
... but they
were more maneuverable.
Steering vanes strained as the ramshackle vehicles turned their flanks to face the oncoming XT-62s, racing across the front of their advance and firing a full, relatively close-range barrage with their colossal MetaCannons. These highly modular weapons had been kitted out specifically to punch through tank armor, with explosive, armor-piercing shells and high-velocity barrels to launch them from. Gunners, spotters, and loaders worked in tandem as they made their attack, firing the huge guns several times as they passed.
At the same time, deck gunners opened up as well. Their mounted
E-WEB Missile Launchers and Heavy Repeaters were smaller guns, to be sure, but the former in particular could still punch through armor... especially armor already weakened or breached by MetaCannon shots. The entire attack lasted perhaps thirty seconds before the War Skiffs turned back to the north, cutting across the frozen lake back toward the Mawite defensive line. They fired behind them as they went, opening up on the pursuing tanks, still harassing them.
This was the Maw's answer to a tank charge.
----------------------------------
As the enemy armor closed in toward the Mawite lines, most of the warriors there hunkered down, preparing for a hard fight to withstand the enemy onslaught. But not all kept looking southward. In the far northwest, not far from the citadel gates, plumes of smoke rose from where the NIO aircraft had gone down. For all the other things they were - soldiers, fanatics, madmen, plunderers, cannibals, barbarians - the Mawites of the marauder tribes were scavengers perhaps first and foremost. It was how they survived all this brutal attrition.
And scavengers would not pass up this feast.
Even as Kovacs and his scant allies took up their position on Hill 121, trying to hold out until Sabertooth could get them out from behind enemy lines, the bone-pickers began to descend. They came north from the defensive line, from the area where the bulge and the conflict around the ruined compound had made them almost extraneous until that fight changed direction. They were the
Tarar Warbands, wielding their iconic plasma guns and lightning cannons, eager to strip the wrecks of tech and scrap... and to kill anyone still alive amid them.
The Tarar weren't
disciplined, exactly, but they weren't fools either. They picked their way carefully toward the hill, taking cover amid snowdrifts and rubble. They used a simple but effective strategy. One group would open fire, trying to keep down the heads of those holding the hilltop, while the others moved up, then did the same so that their allies could also move up. It was a deadly game of leapfrog, one designed to keep them from being easily eliminated when forced to cross open ground, and they executed it well.
But they were not the only ones closing on the hill.
Out of the mouth of Citadel Caelitus came The Perished. These were the deathless minions of this unholy place's dark master, the ruined, broken corpses forced to dance to the will of their Sith puppeteer. They came on in a great mass of dead flesh, fearless,
hungry, a black boil of dried blood and rent flesh charging over the white snow. They were darker than night, a stain on this planet and on reality itself, bursting with the vile energy of the Dark Side. They came from the east, and they closed fast, despite their rubbery, loose gait.
The living and the dead sought blood on Hill 121.
Julian Qar
|
DECEASED Erskine Barran
|
Vladimir Kovačić
