Home Fires – Chapter Thirty-Two: Carnage
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
Throughout the city, madness reigned.
Orks advanced in gigantic waves. Some were cut down by hails of lasgun fire. Others waded into unprepared civilians and slaughtered them. The streets literally ran red. Defenders laid down fields of fire and spent their last rounds cutting Orks apart. Then they drew knives, fixed bayonets, and ran in. Entire sectors were so covered with bodies that the ground was not visible.
Frantic tank battles between the newly arrived Saratogan 58th and the ramshackle Ork vehicles turned the city into a xenoscape of craters, rubble, ruins, and burning tank hulls. Smart Leman Russ battle tanks weaved through wreckage and punished any Ork foolish enough to break cover. Buildings fell like trees. Battlewagons crushed makeshift obstacles and plowed through screaming defenders. Streams of green-tinged lightning flowed from towers mounted atop rolling nightmares. Sentinel walkers took pot shots from behind burning buildings, only to be torn apart by rampaging killa kans. Citizens covered in dust threw themselves at vulnerable treads or massed Orks, detonating suicide charges. Their sacrifice buying so much more than they could have with a simple rifle.
The skies churned with contrails and explosions. What few aircraft the defenders had staged an all out assault. Ork fighta-bommaz joined them with glee, filling the air with noxious black clouds and irregular yellow lines of long uncontrolled bursts. Ground emplacements made dark blooms between them. Spiraling smoke heralded the graves of hundreds of aircraft. The last of the droppable ordnance that Altea’s defenders had made huge orange waves of fire among the invaders.
Death was everywhere.
And nowhere was death more apparent than in the wake of the Gargant.
Taller than any building around it, the Gargant left devastation in its tracks. Bombs, lascannons, and artillery barrages plowed into a shimmering green field that left the Gargant intact and unmarked. In return, it issued forth shells larger than Ogryn from its belly mounted cannon and blasted friend and foe alike with a coruscating beam of red energy from its eye. Buildings in its path ceased to exist, replaced by irregular rectangle shaped craters. Taller buildings met with the colossal chainsword on its right arm, leaving them bisected in rough lines.
Entire tank columns were swallowed by its mounted guns. Aircraft were swatted from the skies by the flak kannons on its shoulders. Lines of infantry, determined to protect their home, fled in horror.
And through this it came on.
Even the Orks gave the titanic walker a wide berth. Falling buildings, aircraft, and even spent shells were a hazard to any troops around the Gargant’s feet. It was unstoppable.
Then a miracle happened.
A Lightning fighter, trailing smoke, dove for the monster. The pilot, half delirious from blood loss, dodged and weaved through the tracer fire and planted his aircraft smack dab in the center of the Gargant’s chest.
The thing faltered. It teetered.
Then it continued through the city bearing an ugly black scar on its chest. A trail of destruction leading to its ultimate destination. There, in the distance. An off-white aggregation of rectangular buildings with grimy windows and rust stains.
The canning district.