All around the buildings burned. Ragnar strode through the maelstrom of battle,
shouting commands to his men.
'Brother Hrolf - I want two krak missiles into that forward emplacement now! The rest
of you form up and prepare to storm in as soon as the door is blown.'
Acknowledgements filled the earbead linking him to the comm-net. He raced from the
doorway where he'd been sheltering to a huge block of fallen masonry some twenty
metres closer to his objective. Enemy laser blasts melted the concrete behind his heels
but, even in his powered armour, he moved too quickly for the heretics to get a bead on
him. He threw himself into a crouch behind the rubble and waited for a moment.
The thunder of heavy ordnance filled the air. Somewhere off in the distance he could
hear the howl of Thunderhawk engines and the multiple sonic booms as they slowed
their speed down from the sub-orbital. Even as he watched, bright yellow contrails
pierced the leaden clouds and the gunships hove into view. Missile clusters detached
themselves from their wings and hurtled groundwards to smash into the heretics'
positions. He checked his weapons with the precision born of a century of experience,
took a deep breath, intoned a prayer to the Emperor and waited.
He was aware of everything. The beat of his primary heart was regular. His body was
already healing the minor cuts and grazes he had taken from shrapnel. He could feel a
slight nick on his face closing itself. His senses, far sharper than those of the human he
had once been, kept up a steady flow of information on the battlefield around him. From
nearby he could smell the comforting presence of his battle-brothers, a compound of
hardened ceramite, oil, the flesh of Fenris and the subtle markers which told they were
not quite human. More than that, he could pick out the faint pheromone traces of anger,
pain and well-controlled fear.
He checked his armour to ensure the integrity had not been breached. Here and there
were a few scuffs where shrapnel had bounced from the hardened ceramite of the
carapace. In two spots he found blisters on the paintwork that told of the fleeting kiss of
a lasgun beam. In one spot there was a distinct chip on the shoulder pad where a bolt
pistol shell had torn through the raised rim. Nothing serious. The servo-motors that
powered the mighty combat suit were currently operating at 75% efficiency, idling on
most systems to save power. The suit's built-in auto-sensors informed him of faint traces
of pollutants, contaminants and a residue of the neurotoxins that the heretics had used in
their surprise attack on the loyalist forces when they began their rebellion.
Nothing much to worry about, praise Russ. His body's ability to metabolise poison was
barely needed to deal with them. He had known poisons strong enough to give him
headaches and muscle spasms and dizziness while his body adapted to their presence.
These ones were nowhere close to that potency. All in all then, things did not look too
bad. If truth be told, he was enjoying the situation. After a month of meditation in his
cell back in the Fang and a week cooped up onboard one of the great Imperium
starcruisers en route to this minor war, he relished the action.
1 comment