overbox | For the Emperor

For the Emperor

-1-

[In the 40th millenium, there is only war. So the fighting prompt is the FIRST prompt instead of the last one.

The enemy artillery has moved on, finally, past the trench the remains of the 203rd Cadian were hiding in, only to be replaced by the quieter but still alarming rumble of the enemy ground forces incoming. As soon as she was reasonable confident they weren't about to be shelled into goo, though, Mira sprang out of the dirt and shouted.]

Don't sleep all day! Up and at them, lads, before they get bored and go home!

[The Imperial Guardsmen that still could sprouted up from the ruins of the trench and charged, lasguns sending cracks of deadly light across the battlefield and into the oncoming enemy force.

Are you charging along side her? Are you charging AT her? Either way, prepare for a whole lot of people to die horribly.]

-2-

[After a battle, in the mess hall of the 203rd Cadian regiment's transport ship. Losses were over 40%, but the Imperial Guard are still in high spirits, somehow. Mira raises a toast to the survivors.]

Here's to the best damn regiment this side of Terra itself! Ten million orks, traitor legions, and we sent 'em both packing with sweat and blood and lasguns! You do the impossible every damn day so that humanity is still around tomorrow to look death in the face and spit in its eye!

[A hearty cheer comes back.]

-3-

[In some hypothetical RP. Mira is looking at something utterly mundane, let's say a park, in confusion.]

Who designed this? The sight lines are all blocked off by those trees! A whole Leman Russ could hide in there and we wouldn't be able to get a clear shot at it until it was driving right down our throats.

[She dragged both hands down her face before looking over at you.]

I've always wanted peace, but now that I have it I find it to be a very strange thing indeed.

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[Imperial guard, even Cadians, can't be allowed to reach the enemies first. Not when the Sisters of Battle have taken the field. The fact that the artillery barrage that just ended was a Tau missile battery ceasing fire so their own Kroot allies could advance, is immaterial. So is the fact that hovertanks are forming the spearhead, moving far faster than any imperial armor could hope to keep up with. (not that there are any tanks here, they're all at least a kilometer behind the trenches in vehicle parks.) That is what the Emperor provided melta weapons for, so charge in and use them! And if the Tau themselves use their heretical plasma guns to rip everyone apart from long range, then the Sisters will give them bolter fire and....probably die bravely.

One sister Superior however is leading her sisters in a way that shows that she had tactical acumen as well as faith in the Emperor's protection. Even as Tau plasma and railguns answer the Imperium's weapons, she holds the vital hinge between the Sister's charge and Mira's unit, preventing the two lines from becoming uncoupled as the power armor of the sisters allows them to outperform mortal men. In fact, it might be starting to look as though the main body of the Sisters is dangerously far forward.]

Conserve your ammunition! Take aimed shots, and let the Emperor guide them, do not make him grant each of you a miracle!

[Holy shit those are some tanks.

Doesn't matter. It's either charge them or sit in the trench until they roll over you. A Guardswoman's life is never easy, and at least they have some Sisters covering their flank. Or maybe the Cadians are covering the Sister's flank. It's hard to tell when you can only keep track of your tiny portion of the battle. Mira urged her troops on.]

See? The Emperor even sent us his own Sisters of Battle to watch our backs! The first trooper I see lagging behind I will feed to those xenos myself!

[Look. Sometimes you have to take liberties when a lucky shot took out the unit's commissar that morning.

At the appropriate distance, the Cadians fell into a firing line and the air filled with cracking sound of lasguns firing. They were short on heavy weapons, but they could at least blunt the charge of the Kroot. No one this side of a space marine would willingly engage those particular aliens in melee range if they could avoid it.

Eventually, the swirl of combat brought Mira shoulder to shoulder with Nelia de Crécy. She shouted over the roar of battle.]

Well this is a fine mess, isn't it? I don't suppose you have artillery of our own that you're just waiting for the right moment to pull out, do you? Because I think now is the right moment.

The Emperor sends us where we are needed most-and that is never a place that is dull or unexciting-

[ A roar as a Kroot straggler leaps forward towards the two women, but Nelia had a hand flamer at hand as it were, and gives it just enough of a puff in the face to disorient it before cutting the thing in half with the chainsword in her other hand. As easy as if she were on a drill ground instead of a battlefield. But the Kroot, dying though it might be, isn't dead and it tries to drag itself towards Mira and sink it's beak into some flesh.]

I must report that the Emperor's light has not shone upon my sisters in the artillery park as brightly as we might hope. The barrage of enemy fire has already shifted to them and they are taking heavy losses. They report only one in three Exorcists ready to fire, and have accordingly restricted requests for fire support to a higher level of command.

[She sounds...embarrassed about that. Then she shifts position as if distracted by her vox and then slumps slightly, in either relief or...]

Our forward sisters report advancing battle-suits and heavy armor. They estimate twenty dreadnought equivalents and at least two regiments of tanks. The main Xeno push has arrived. We are-We are ordered by the Cannoness to hold, but to be prepared to retire if the line is breached to avoid encirclement.

[Shame. Shame at the order-even the conditional order to retreat, to give up ground in the face of an unstoppable onslaught of heavy forces.]

Figures.

[No artillery, then. Mira took a moment to blast the Kroot's head in. At this close range, a lasgun was more than powerful enough to turn the creature's skull into a bloody mist. Then she listened to Nelia's bad news.]

Twenty dreadnoughts and two battalions of tanks? I'm down to two lascannon teams for anti-armor-

[There was an explosion.]

-ONE lascannon team for anti-armor weapons. If those things get near us we're going to get annihilated!

[Death was something she was prepared for. Even the tough Cadians knew the life expectancy of a Guardsman on the battlefield, and it wasn't long. But there was a difference between dying in a battle, and dying in a massacre.]

There is little I can do to replace your heavy weapons lieutenant. Even the Emperor's miracles seldom come in the form of a Banblade company being dropped from orbit.

But I do not believe we are their targets in any case. The Xenos pride themselves on their blasphemous tactics. That armor will attempt to strike deep, punching through all our lines before they are ready. They will push through the line, but not bother to slow themselves to destroy those who remain behind on foot. Listen!

[And there it is, over the battlefield. The high pitched drone of Devilfish infantry carriers. The mopping-up teams. Fire-Warrior squads with every single one of them equipped with plasma weapons that will cut through Sisters and Guardsmen with equal ease.]

... I believe my sisters will need me to help close up ranks and hold their current position. Contracting our lines from this point will leave a hole in our formation. The Xenos will exploit it ruthlessly, but if we time it right, we may turn it into a trap. I will prevail upon my superiors to release the Exorcists at the moment of maximum concentration. You may wish to re-orient your remaining lascanon and have them hold fire until they can fire upon the enemy's rear armor.

[She stares at Nelia for a heartbeat, thinking over the plan. Another explosion sounded in the distance.

Finally she put a hand on the Sister's shoulder and nodded once, then turned back to her own troops, shouting into her vox.]

Corporal Dantius! Reposition your team to the western embankment, then keep your head down and wait for my order to fire. You'll know what to do when the time comes! Everyone else, form a fighting square. We need to keep order more than we need to cling to the Sister's coattails!

And may the Emperor save me if this goes wrong...

[Nelia grabs one of her wounded and lifts the woman in one arm, grabbing her bolter with the other hand.]

If we are wrong...we will explain it before the Throne together.

[The sister is away before Mira can respond to that, and then the Tau armor force starts to appear. Sixteen Crisis suits and four Riptides form the van, followed by wave after wave of tanks, moving in a formation almost as dense as a parade column. An artilleryman's dream. And as they move forward, one of them turns and opens fire on the sisters' main formation, firepower washing over them and doubtless casting a pall over their survival.

But Mira should really look to her own well being-the Tau's armor might be ignoring her, but those infantry look like they're getting ready to give her remaining forces a Bad Time.

[Guardsmen and women died. It was awful, but there wasn't really anything she could do about it. And just look at those smug xenos driving by without a care in the world beyond killing as many humans as they could.

Really at this point, all the 203rd had to do was to keep their heads down, shoot when they could, and survive. Mira didn't have much she could do to add to that, so she got in among her own men and took potshots at the Tau along with the rest of them. She found herself muttering under her breath, though, urging the artillery to start firing.]

C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon....

[Nothing to be done but wait...and pray. As Nelia dragged half a woman behind cover and cursed the passing Xenos, she too bent her will towards the Exorcist battery. Those anti-vehicle rockets were the best artillery on the planet in her opinion, and if they weren't used soon...

She turned back to staunching the Cannoness' wounds even as the woman switched channel to yet another commander in the rear, calling for all the support that the forces of the Echlisiarchy could call for.

And then, with the slightest of hisses, the missiles sleeted down from the heavens onto the packed vehicles. Hammerheads had weak top armor, and they popped like firecrackers, turrets pinwheeling into the air, the formation breaking up, snarling in a confused traffic jam. The air overhead was suddenly filled with explosions as squadrons fo fighters and CAS lighters tore into their Tau counterparts, contending for control of the airspace, drawing the attention of the Battlesuits upwards at a crucial moment...

But for those on the ground, just living through the day was going to be a battle to remember. There were still Tau and Kroot and...traitors on the ground. That squad there was humans in the wrong colors, the wrong style of armor, and certainly the wrong place to be Guardsmen. THEY had earned a special hate from the Imperiums soldiers, and scarcely had that squad dismounted before they flashed into vapor from a hundred lasguns, beating out the bolters by a fraction of a second.]

[Mira allowed herself a second or two to crow in triumph, even though realistically she had had very little to do with it.]

HA! TAKE THAT YOU BLUE BASTARDS!

[Now to deal with those traitors. Not having a dying soldier in her arms, Mira shouted commands a split second before Nelia could give the order to fire.]

[The battle was far from over-but the 203rd's Dantius had popped the leading tanks, blocking the further advance of the Tau's armor. As they broke up and scattered to avoid the artillery strikes, some of the Tau vehicles rammed each other, bumping onto one another and sheering off anti-infantry guns and markerlights from their bumpers. Others tried to turn to blast the hole wider, but they only served to further snarl the growing traffic jam as the forces to the rear kept pressing forward into the still open gap. If Mira didn't have enough weapons to exploit this as she might hope, then at least the Tau were failing to get their attack rolling again as they reeled from the damage.

Up on their position, the sisters were having no easy time of it, going to the flamers as the Kroot urged their degenerate beasts forward and shapers lead the charge into their ranks. A few Sisters Repentia broke from the ranks and charged forward, tearing a choice few to shreds before they were themselves ripped apart, their huge weapons and lack of armor leaving them little chance to respond to attacks that they might have easily dodged in battle armor or parried with a lighter and shorter blade. They bought precious time however. Nelia helped wrestle a heavy flamer into position to roast a pack of Kroot hounds, then turned it on the leader who might have though himself safe fifty yards back.]

Burn for the Emperor, Xenos! It is the greatest service you can do for him!

[One of the Riptides turned it's attention to the 203rd and gave Mira a good look up the barrel of it's burst-cannon...and then in an ear-shattering explosion, a rocket-propelled shell tore that arm from the huge battlesuit. A cry went up from the guardsmen-a cry of relief, of salvation. The tanks had come-and tanks such that the 203rd might not have seen since they left Cadia. Tanks that guardsmen dream of seeing on battlefields like this.]

[Guardsmen who minutes ago had been staring death in the face now cheered openly as the Imperial tanks finally arrived and the Kroot advanced burned under the Sister's loving attention. At Mira's shouted orders, most of her men remembered enough discipline during the moment of levity to fire into the Kroot's flank, picking off those they were hanging back far enough to not get incinerated. Mira herself blasted the legs off of three Kroot carnivores in a row, leaving them easy pickings for the Sisters or the Guardsmen to finish off.

With the new Imperial reinforcements, improved morale of their foes, and annihilation of half their armor column in thirty seconds, the Tau were rapidly re-evaluating their chances, and all along the line, there were signs that they were starting to withdraw.]

[That was a pair of Baneblades back there, so Mira might have to shout a bit more than ususal to jostle her troops from their joyous cheers. Still, with the cream of Imperial Tankers so near at hand, there were all kinds of opportunities for a lasgun or a bolter to have an effect.

Morale was high, but the Sisters were paying the price for their heroic stand. Bolter fire from their little redoubt was slackening off, and when a squad of Seraphim took wing to plant melta-bombs on a pair of battlesuits, only three made it back to their lines intact. Many of them put more faith in the Emperor than in cover, and while their armor was fantastically tough, it was not Space Marine grade. Worse, if the battle continued much longer unabated, it would become a death trap for them, the suits of beautiful armor rendered inert and immobile when their power cells depleted.

So instead of rallying her sisters to charge after the Tau, Nelia charged the survivors with administering to their fallen sisters. She had to check for wounds on her walking Sisters as well, for many of them would remain stoic and silent rather than report injury. To lead Sororitas in battle successfully, one had to be mindful of their little quirks, like their inability to admit weakness. And as much as Nelia wanted to charge after the Tau...to do so with the wounds she herself had taken might be unwise. A mono-blade had slipped between her armor at the hip, and her little adventure with the flamer had not been without a few burns on her own flesh and armor.]

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