Part Three of Stories of the 42nd

Continued from Part Two

Lt. Revkin peered over the lip of the trench in a vain search for the hidden snipers. He'd heard of them before from his men. "Always deadly, never seen," had been the words of the Angel Company quartermaster he had been grifting over a game of tarok. The fat bastard was right. I can't get a bead on them. How do you kill an enemy you can't tell apart from the trees... Then it hit him. Ducking down into the trench, he tapped his combead to link him to his driver.

"Chimera 1, Chimera 1, come in! We need those woods torched. Enemy snipers ahead. Repeat, Enemy snipers ahead. Relay word to the 57th, and tell them we need Colossus fire 50 yards forward of your position". The driver's acknowledgment was almost drowned out by the roar of promethium from the Chimera's flamer. "Dyalov, we're moving out to rejoin the others. Keep to the trench." Out of the corner of his eye, Revkin though he caught movement, but when he turned, all he saw was more mud and brambles, lit by the purifying light of the flamer. Making the sign of the Aquila as a protection against evil, he moved on.

************

Precious good that's gonna do you here, iceboy, thought the collection of brambles. Of course, it's just that kind of blasphemy that got me here in the first place. The smoke from the forest fire began to itch his throat as much as the explosive collar he wore itched his neck. The voice of Penal Sgt. Killgore called out over the combeads he and his fellow Legionnaires wore. "Time to earn your penance, squad. Rejoice in His Mercy. Let's move up and find those snipers." The blasphemer knew that to remind the Sgt. that there was artillery fire coming in would be meaningless. The Sgt. was as dedicated as any Commissar, and merciless as an Ork warboss. Just about as bright, too. Whoever assigned a Catachan Penal Sgt. to a Valhallan regiment must have been one cruel son of a bitch.

The eight of them, the ones that survived the infiltration into the woods, moved cautiously forward. As they advnaced, they gave each other mutual cover, leap-frogging between whatever pieces of rock and stump the forest provided. Their orange jumpsuits and ill-fitting flack vests were covered in mud, giving lifesaving concealment to those that deserved none. They moved with collar-enforced discipline through the undergrowth, seeking out the xenos who might stall the 42nd's advance. The woman ahead of him, charged with murdering a superior officer over a card game, scanned the forest from behind a tree stump. Not well enough. he thought, as the rapist behind him was taken down. Just as well, no one liked him anyway. The murderer popped off a few shots at random, and was just as surprised as anyone was when she heard an answering scream. Killgore pointed unerringly in its direction. "Maybe 20 yards ahead! GO! GO! GO!"

And there was no argument. The seven sprinted forward, firing at random, hoping to hit another ghost hiding in front of them. Grenades, why don't they give us grenades! Killgore, the murderer and he were the first to break their way into the clearing. The sudden brightness and stillness stunned them all. After months in on this gray sump of a planet, the sudden riot of color they saw was almost too much to take. An arch of bleach white bone dominated the clearing, glowing and pulsing. Surrounding that were a council of the xenos witches, their attentions focused on the arch. Eldar troops walked beneath the arch, only to disappear. The murderer broke the silence. "They're retreating." Killgore tapped his combead, relaying their position to command.

Killgore turned to the seven penitents. "We have a clear duty. We must kill the witches before they all can escape. For the Emperor..." was all he could get out before a trickle of blood appeared on his lips. The trickle became a torrent, as an Eldar they had not seen appeared behind him. Clad in a riot of color, shifting and whirling, the Eldar disposed of Killgore's corpse in the manner reminiscent of a dance step, that is if your partner was a broken doll. The dancing Eldar turned to the shocked penitents just as they had begun to raise their weapons. A quartet of Eldar, similarly clad and masked, appeared around the six remaining humans. The dancers slapped the weapons from human's hands, and as they did, the penitents heard a familiar sound echo from the leader's mask. It was the scream that lead them into the trap. It ended in a mocking note as the five xenos fell upon them. It was the last sound they ever heard.

The Stories of the 42nd, Part Two

When we last left Captain Sorin, his assault on the Eldar stronghold in the woods was at a critical point. Angel Company had been mauled on the left, but Chain Company was gaining ground on the right flank. It was up to Faith Company to hold the center, and support Chain's assault.

Lt. Revnik's heart sank as he watched the xenos beam carve its way through Katya's hull. The jouncing of his Chimera's hull made it hard to focus his periscope on the stricken vehicle, a Chimera that had been with the regiment since it's inception. There is no way that anyone could have survived that! Then, he saw the Company's banner unfurl. Though, all things are possible through Faith! Heartened, he turned to his men. "Boys, get your flamers ready! We have xenos to burn!" The red light of the cabin washed over the mud-streaked faces of his squad. The pilot lights of their flamers flickered as they bounced their way across the rutted no-man's land, tiny devotional candles to the Emperor.

The xenos weapons tried to make their mark in the Chimera's hull, but found no purchase. The tank's gunner fired its weapons haphazardly, doing little more than keeping the Eldar heads down. Revnik ordered the driver to press into the woods. The driver's reply was terse. Revnik heard the questioning and fearful tone even through his combead, but knew that his order would be followed. The beast was likely to be bogged down inside the tree line, but it would bring the squad's flamers to bear that much sooner. Anything to confound the enemy and take pressure off the assault. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a fist sized hole being bored into the turret. The gunner (or what was left of him) fell back down into the hull. Cauterized, he though dully. No, cooked. Putting his flamer aside, Pvt. Dyalov alone had the presence of mind to quickly get a blanket to cover the tanker's body. With the boy covered, Revnik snapped out of his shock.He was from the motor pool. I didn't even know his name.

The driver, ever professional, warned the squad that they had ten seconds to the tree line, and that they should brace themselves. The Chimera roared over the embankment that hid the Eldar, and pressed into the woods. Its heavy flamer was a font of vengeance for the fallen men of Valhalla, its flames a benediction for the men behind the Revnik's squad advancing into the Eldar guns. The rear gate slammed down, and Revnik's men poured forth. The xenos, armored blue and yellow, turned their strange weaponry toward the squad, but the Emperor's wrath would have its say. A fan of flame poured forth from the squad. Revnik added his laspistol to the assault. They even die gracefully. Aiming for one alien's chest, he watched as it danced its way out of fatal wound, the lasbolt hitting it in the arm. It was spun, a dervish now sans an arm. You can't outrun light, though. He put an other lasbolt right in the thing's chest for good measure. By now, the Eldar's infernal disc throwers were sending stray shots the squad's way.

Heedless of the danger, Revnik charged the line of Xenos in the trenches. Gurov took an unlucky hit to the fuel line. His promethium tank went next, and the spark from the Eldar weapons ignited the remaining gel and Gurov with it. His screams did not slow the remaining men. Wielding their flamers like clubs, they savaged the remaining xenos near them. The Eldar seemed frail, but proved quick and strong enough to leave Kozmin lying on the forest floor, his large frame bleeding from a dozen delicate cuts. What Revkin and his men lacked in finesse, they more than made up for with their zeal. The Lieutenant's chainsword carved into the peaked helmet of one of the Eldar citizen-soldiers. A foe had stabbed through Dyalov's greatcoat, only to have his alien blade turned aside by the hidden flack vest. Dyalov responded in kind, but with better luck. Maisky overbore his opponent, toppling the alien, and made he short work of it. The remaining Eldar seemed hesitant to engage such savages, and that hesitation cost them their lives. The Demolisher shell hit the far end of the trench, followed quickly by the atomic bright flash of plasma. The alien menace had been vanquished by the superior fire power of the Imperial Guard. Not a single enemy stood in sight. Ears ringing, Revkin was shocked into speechlessness for the second time in five minutes. And then he began to laugh. It was the laughter of a man who assumed himself dead a second earlier, and found himself given a reprieve. Dyalov and Maisky soon joined him, the laughter sounding madly through the smoke and flame of the wood. They laughed till it hurt.

That was, until Maisky's head took a round and exploded. "SNIPERS!" shouted Dyalov, as he tackled his Lieutenant into the trench...

The stories of the 42nd

Katya’s hull rang with the impact of energy bolts that clawed at the outer hull, desperate to pierce it. Sorin’s face was lit a garish green in the light of the tactical display. He could feel the sightless eyes of Walker boring into him, and it was disturbing him. He didn’t even know Walker’s first name yet, as the Astropath had been assigned to them just this morning. He was another of Commissar Price’s “suggested” innovations, and as disturbing as Walker was, he was already proving his worth.

“Are the penal legions in position?”

“Yes, Captain. They have advanced past the broken lines of Angel Company. It seems either that they have not been spotted, or that they have been dismissed as a minor threat by the Eldar in comparison.”

“More likely the second. Still, have them proceed with their mission. Forgiveness is theirs to be had, even if it’s found while wearing a martyr’s collar.” More impacts hit the hull, one of them causing the hull to glow an intriguing cherry red to the captain’s right. “And see if we can have the 57th do something about this insistent knocking.”

“Ave, Captain.”

Seconds later, a roar that was felt as much as heard filled the cabin with insistent drum beats. The artillery pieces had been concealed in the hills behind the battle-lines of the 42nd Valhallans. The patter of the Eldar’s energy weapons stopped. “Finally! I can get some Mark 1’s on this situation! Pop the top.”

Katya’s top hatches were thrown back. Grabbing his field glasses, Captain Sorin cautiously raised his helmeted head into the grey light of Quentin III. The sight of a war-torn charnel house was his reward. High command had triangulated this area as the center of the Eldar raids, and had postulated that this heavily wooded area was either their base camp or an area of interest to them. Resistance had been heavy in their push to take the woods. Sorin saw the smooth hulls of multiple Eldar tanks burning in the killing fields between the rocky hills they were trapped in and the woods the enemy held. Sorin saw his men, the men of Faith Company, were huddled behind the rocky outcroppings approaching their objective. Borisova’s Angel Company had been mauled on the left, but at least Katzev’s Chain Company was pressing on the right. No matter how well Katzev's boys are doing now, they will falter without support. Faith Company had to press or else the assault would stall and fail. He could hear Commissar Price’s voice exhorting the men to advance, but if the men advanced now, they'd be cut down. It was reaching a point of no return.

“Vox a message to the 57th. Let them fire danger close on those wooded positions ahead of us. Dead of our own shells or dead of xenos weaponry… It makes no difference if we can’t advance. Vox the sergeants leading the assault as well. Tell them they better be 30 seconds behind the shells, or Price will be the least of their worries. And bring those ipaccing Demolishers forward. We need their hulls to cover the assault!”

Captain Sorin, paused, weighing the odds. It was now or never.

"And we need to button up. Order Lt. Revnik to bring his Chimera up to support the Demolishers. We need his flamers to burn the those bastard Eldar out. We're going, too."

That last bit of news made the vox operator look stricken. Sorin resisted the urge to slap him. Corporal Nikitin was new to the 42nd, brought to the front to replace his his old vox-op who had taken a sniper round in the shoulder. His hands were more used to grinding coffee than digging fox-holes, and the fear showed in his eyes. "Pull yourself together, Miska! Did you think you'd see war from a comfy seat here in Katya's hull? You're a son of Valhalla, boy! Time to earn that greatcoat!" Nitkin didn't seem so sure, but prepped his lasgun anyway.

Katya rumbled forward, progressing slowly over the rocks ahead of them. The roar of the 57th's guns firing was eclipsed by the sound of their shells hitting home 100 yards ahead of them. The demolisher's cannons added their shells to the roar, and their heavy bolters spat death into the half-seen Eldar holding in the woods. Sorin checked the workings of his chainsword, pushing down the fear he felt with practiced ease. The eyes of the company would be on him, and he had to keep their fighting spirits high.

Suddenly, Katya lurched to a halt. The cabin's heat rose perceptibly. Sorin sensed danger, yelling "Hit the deck!" not a moment too soon. A beam of pure light cut through the transport compartment at gut height. Petrachkov grabbed the company standard and threw it to the deck, and was caught by the beam. It cut into him, the heat from the beam caused him to explode. Nitkin wretched, but had the common courtesy not to soil the company banner any further than Petrachkov had. "It looks like we need a new banner bearer, Nitkin, and it looks like you've just volunteered. Get that banner unfurled! Hold it high, for the Company's sake! Walker, stay here and hide. Katya's down, but she will protect you from stray shots. Men of the 42nd, we go the rest of the way on foot!" With that, Sorin kicked the broken ramp down. He drew his chainsword and strode forth, touching Katya's aquilla icon for luck. He hoped to the Emperor his men were following him.

To be continued...