Home Fires – Chapter Twenty-Three: Losses
Chapter Selection
Intro 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Epilogue
Ory-Hara entered the warchamber where Antonius was hard at work. He thought this duty was morose and unnecessary, but orders were orders, and Antonius was insistent. He opened the panel on his gauntlet and exposed his bare palm to the air.
***
Hulking green orks were obscured by screaming, flailing figures as they approached the lines.
Kheniam’s bolter coughed once.
An Ork was blown off of his feet as the smoke of the bolter’s exhaust zipped past the terrified man’s face. The civilian, stunned by the near miss, faltered but somehow managed to keep running. Kheniam fired again, and once more the bolt round barely missed the man and connected with an ork that was moments away from cleaving the man’s skull.
Kheniam chuckled to himself. This is just like the firing range with the bottles and the fruit. He thought.
Seconds later a bolt of green energy vaporized most of Kheniam’s lower half.
***
Azavaren emptied another clip into the fleeing gretchin. They fell like scythed grain.
His Heavy Intercessors advanced. Taking the ground that they had ceded for what felt like the fifth time today. The Orks pressed them, again and again. Azavaren would not let them have one millimeter.
An empty clip from his heavy bolt rifle hit the ground with a thud. All around him, his brothers reloaded as if on cue. Once more the orks came on.
There were too many.
Azavaren didn’t care. He continued to fire. Bullets fell on him like rain. His visor notified him of damage and he ignored it. He kept firing and reloading. Over and over. Until the greenskins cut him to pieces.
***
Once more Zorathus descended, this time with his familiar plasma weaponry. Firing before the Greenskins knew what was happening, his heavy pistols put glowing holes into the rear of an Ork battlewagon. Zorathus and his brothers went back-to-back-to-back. Spinning, jumping, and firing. The greenskin tanks were messes of smoking holes within a minutes time.
One of the large scrap walkers unleashed a torrent of fire at his squad. Zorathus’ armor absorbed it as he blazed away at the huge slab of death. The face of the thing was a fanged monstrosity with eyes that issued forth beams of energy. Zorathus put two shots right into its face. The thing’s head became an inferno. Seconds later, its bloated gut issued forth a gigantic fireball as the scrap walker came apart. A piece of armour the size of a Land Speeder flew through the air and crushed Zorathus beneath it.
***
The warning readouts on Jarius’ helmet fleshed crimson. His plasma coils were overheating.
He didn’t care. His Plasma Incinerator swatted the Ork Deffkoptas out of the air. Each shot hit home. Rotors flew across the battlefield and chassis crashed in flaming wreckage. There was only one more. Jarius fired at it.
His plasma coil breached.
The world went white.
***
Dariel unloaded his Flamestorm Gauntlets into the charging Nobs. Many fell, but most kept on, screaming through the fire. Dariel instinctively set for a charge. A Nob’s choppa swung at him.
He caught the haft with his gauntlet.
With precision like the Orks had never seen, Dariel stepped into their charge. He deflected blows with the same motions he used to knock offending greenskins into the air. His fists broke armour, flesh, and bones in a whirlwind of almost choreographed violence.
As the blows rained on him, he fought on, until he had nothing left.
***
Domithos raised his Auspex scanner. The oncoming Ork tanks were scanned, and their position relayed to the global datastream. Wordlessly, he motioned, and his squad abandoned the wrecked restaurant that they had been in. As they fell back into the city, the dull thumps of bombs shook the entire block as an airstrike flattened the targeted tanks.
Domithos’ scanners picked up lifeforms ahead. Human life signs and… others. One of Domithos’ brothers used hand signals to relay what he had seen: Two orks and several gretchin holding hostages. Orks only took prisoners for two reasons: slavery or preserving meat.
It didn’t matter which. Those greenskins would die.
Domithos’ squad of Infiltrators swept into the storefront, laying down suppressing bolter fire. Screams filled the air as debris rained through the enclosed space. Domithos took careful aim and slew a grot near a hostage. He tossed a krak grenade at a nearby wall; blowing open a hole big enough to creawl through. Other Infiltrators grabbed civilians and shoved them out. Domithos provided cover. He fired at an Ork priming a stikkbomb.
An instant too late, the ork fell. His live grenade tumbling awkwardly through the air as if suspended in jelly.
Domithos acted without hesitation. Just as the stikkbomb bounced to a stop at the foot of the hostages, he was there. His body absorbed all of the blast.
***
Jolann fled.
Sergeant Oberdaes had ordered a fallback deeper into the habs. As the Infernus squad ran faster than any unaided human could, Jolann watched his Sergeant fall behind, lighting key structures on fire. As the Orks pursued, they had to push through ever intensifying flames.
Then Oberdaes ordered the squad to double back.
A huge crush of Orks wedged themselves into an alley. Some fired wildly into the air, others chopped at their brethren to make room.
“Give them a full tank, brothers.” Oberdaes ordered.
Jolann and all of the rest did.
Flames washed over the orks. They died screaming.
Jolann gaped at his sergeant in awe. This man had baked the Orks just like the mice on the farm.
The walls of the hab block, still aflame, burst open.
A huge smoking Killa Kan, itself on fire, trundled towards Jolann. Without thinking, Jolann threw himself at it. He bought his squad thirteen seconds to reload their Pyreblasters as the buzzsaw-tipped claw tore Jolann to pieces.
***
The mountain fell.
This mountain, however, was made of plascrete.
Xandi’s visor lit up with targets as screaming Orks fled the collapsing hab complex. He and his brothers readied another round of Superkrak missiles. This time, a rolling monstrosity with a ramshackle tower exploded into a greasy yellow fireball, sending a shocked Ork psyker tumbling through the air and landing with a sickening squelch.
Xandi loaded his next round and looked down the barrel of an Ork Flyer, strafing his squad. He didn’t even have time to shoulder his missile launcher.
***
Venavar forced his knife into the ribcage of the Mek. Wicked arcs of electricity went haywire as the Mek screamed. This cry was the first noise that the Orks had heard of the Reivers. Venavar withdrew his knife and brought it around the Mek’s throat, grabbing the Mek’s jaw with his free hand. A quick sawing motion took the Mek’s head off; Venavar’s signature move. He flung the head at the Orks who were only now reacting to the Reivers that had somehow penetrated the workshop. Venavar and his brothers fell upon them.
One let out a bellowed WAAAAAAGH as he charged.
Orks flooded into the workshop from every direction.
Venavar’s body never hit the floor. There were too many Ork corpses around.
***
“Like we practiced, brothers.” Nephraym said. Belnius could barely hear him over the vox as the huge Ork Battlewagon trundled toward them. Its forward mounted roller made an unspeakable grinding sound as it churned the plascrete before it.
Belnius’ Melta Rifle seared through the left strut of the roller. Simultaneously, his squadmates fired. Another blast severed the rightmost strut, and two more bisected the roller in a “V” shape, causing the irregular halves to roll to either side and foul the Ork tank’s treads. On cue, the Multi-Meltas let loose, searing a white-hot pit into the middle of the hull.
The wagon came apart in a greasy yellow fireball. Belnius never saw the chunky armoured turret fly through the air before it crushed him.
***
Conathio felt his teeth bump into each other again and again as he ran down a hoard of gretchin. A Runtherd with a clawed polearm reached for Conathio, but his chainsword bisected the primitive stick. With the same wrist action he learned throwing lassos, Conathio swung the chainsword in a circular arc, ripping open the Runtherd’s neck.
Orks were converging on his Outriders, but Conathio swung his chainsword in that same arc again and again, tearing the uncoordinated mob to pieces. His mounted Bolt Rifles sang out a tune, with his engine roaring in backup.
A crackling indigo swirl of energy appeared to his left. Conathio didn’t have time to respond as his bike was hit head on by an Ork buggy that careened into him from nowhere. As he tumbled through the air, Conathio managed to draw his pistol and fire once, killing one last Ork before the bike landed and crushed his neck.
***
Antonius violently jerked in his command throne as he coughed up bright crimson blood. Ory-Hara pulled his hand away. The last of the memories of the fallen brothers had been shared. Antonius had felt the last moments of the casualties the Azure Flames had suffered.
“Thank you, old friend.” Antonius rasped.
Ory-Hara glared.
“I know. You disapprove.”
One quick nod shook Ory-Hara’s hood in a ripple.
“Warmasters and Admirals send their subjects in to die. Sometimes in the billions. However, none of them risk themselves except in the extreme end of need.” Antonius’ voice calmed as he spoke. “I cannot see them that way. These numbers on my cogitator. These symbols on a map. They’re people, Ory-Hara. Heroes. Martyrs. Their sacrifice must be honored. If I can share in their pain, it will prevent me from treating them like pawns on a regicide board.”
Ory-Hara looked around the war room. With a motion, he dismissed the guards. The unaugmented soldiers fell out, pulling the thick wooden doors shut behind them, leaving Antonius and Ory-Hara alone. He turned back to Antonius and lowered his rebreather.
“…and if their sacrifice is the price required for victory?” Ory-Hara said in dark accented tones.
Antonius returned his glare. “Then I will find a way without paying the price.”
“You are quite sure of your abilities.”
“…no.”
Ory-Hara’s eyes, narrowed with disapproval, popped with shock. “No?”
“I’m not going to lie to you, Ory-Hara. We have a few months. I can’t say we will win. But we will do our best and die trying if that is what must happen. For Altea. For my father’s memory.”
“…and for the Emperor?” Ory-Hara needled.
Antonius nodded solemnly. “Yes. May he see fit to give me a thousandth of the guidance he gave Atrus.”