ONLY WAR

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Deimos was still providing cover-fire where it was needed, but that need was drawing to an end for this encounter it seemed. The civilians were rushing off in every direction and she heard the sounds of lives ending here and there. Probably none of the guys she worked with- none of those death-rattles sounded right, and besides, she doubted any of them, herself included, could even manage to stay down without a damned good reason. Unless their spines were severed or they were blown to bits, they were to fight to the end and, Emperor will it- they were going to take a sizable number of enemies with them when they made their final toll.

Dying any other way seemed like an affront to everything they stood for anyways- and even in her own damned family line, it wasn't like growing old was held with much reverence. Though waiting around to see if your family came home or if you'd be greeted with a much more unpleasant experience of finding out there was a death...if you even got that privilege, was rather humbling. Sheep to a slaughter at times- that's what it felt like. But it was a duty, and it was expected in her family. Besides, she tinkered with machinery, and dealt with the problems from as far back from the situation as she could- one, because she'd prefer to keep tinkering with machinery... and two? She had a still on her back. Filled with a substance she was fairly certain was flammable to a point that she'd rather stay back and keep alive and able to drink, than her dead and her brew gone in a flash of fire.

Though, come to think of it, would the still on her back provide a quicker more merciful death when her time came? Gone in an explosion of booze wasn't a damned bad way to go...

Not much use in worrying on it.

Her eyes on the unfolding scene- the truck that had been scurrying away was now approaching Kross. Great. Hopefully that autocannon was enough stopping power for that damned food truck. She was firing off at it, but damned if she knew her shots were doing anything to help- she sure as hell wasn't getting to the wheels.
 
As the air comes alive with stubber fire and las-shot, I snap my helmet's visor down before leaning out of cover. The night's gloom comes alive in alarming contrast; shadows accented, light saturated, the disturbing colours of arms fire making it seem as though I'm viewing it all through a madman's eyes.

Damned photo-visors have never agreed with me. But at least they show me where I need to aim.

Vesperin tears apart an enemy weapons team as I unload at the treeline. Fire superiority is the only thing that will keep us alive in a situation like this.
"Vesperin, don't let up!" I bark over the micro-bead, "Bauer, use that rifle of yours and pick them off! Don't give them a chance to shoot back, dammit!" Nearby, Private Aiar is returning fire from behind tree cover. "Janna!" I call over to her, "You're with me! We're gonna move up and around to hit these bastards from the side!"

I don't wait for a response. All I can do is wait for a lull in the las-shot and for the thrumming sound of our stubber before bolting from cover and out to the left. Don't overthink it. Don't ponder what could happen to you out in the open. You've seen it all before; men blasted into bloody chunks by bolter fire, the smell of cooked flesh from guardsmen caught in a salvo of las-fire.

Don't think about that. All you can do is move as fast as your legs can carry you, and pray to the Emperor that now is not your time to go.

I will not die in a bastard forest. Not without knowing that my men are getting out of this in one piece.
 


The firefight had well and truly begun with both sides trying to get the advantage. "Janna! You're with me! We're gonna move up and around to hit these bastards from the side!" The message came right as she was ducking her head, enemy fire ripping the air apart around her. She rolled to the side and popped up to fire a few rounds before standing and moving to another tree. Kores was already moving and she cursed. At least he had a plan.

"Emperor protect me."

She broke cover and made a mad dash, head down, irregular steps over roots. Small target... unpredictable target... the emperor is on our side." Yes, she was scared, this was her first fight. She was terrified but the Aquila bouncing against her chest plate had kept her family safe so far...

Luck it seemed was with her...

They weren't the only ones trying to flank but the enemy, and one of the separatists had decided to be sneaky about it. Janna didn't so much find him so much as trip over him, landing heavily on the ground, a yell of surprise and pain coming from the undergrowth alerting her it hadn't been a root or rock.

Panic...

Her heart pounded, her head was suddenly filled with conflicting thoughts. This wasn't some shape in her sights but a man within feet of her, ready to kill.

Kill... or be killed.

She kicked wildly, a lucky shot connecting with the man's nose as he turned on the ground, then she twisted and the air between them burned. The firs las shot missed, but the second ripped into the prone shape at point blank range, so did the third, and the fourth, and the fifth.

Heart still pounding she waited... the figure didn't move... but she had most track of Kores. Scrambling to her feet she took a moment to look around then with one last look at the body behind her she moved forwards, spotting someone in Elysian armor and taking cover next to them.

"I though you'd forgotten about me." humor... her eternal fallback. "Sorry about taking so long, I ran into someone."

Someone she realized, who would now have the perfect shot on the, them if they were alive.

 
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Peter was hiding behind his tree, the firefight seemed heavily lopsided and the chances of them winning were slim. Peter couldn't accept a death like this, in a forest so far away from where he lives. He was pulled from his thoughts when Kores yelled out for him to actually use his rifle, nodding without answering back into the microbead. He felt like he was about to pass out, or hyperventilate, but he had to lay down some covering fire and stop them from being shot at. If he didn't, then he would die along with his squad, or his squad would kill him for doing nothing.

"Fuck...I don't wanna die..." he whimpered and complained to himself before moving around his cover, firing a few more shots at the enemy. Of course, almost every shot landed. He was making his shots count, even as he could feel his rifle shaking, he wasn't being steady so they weren't clean shots.

Kores had a plan it seemed, so he better hurry up before Peter dies, shakes himself to death, or drops his rifle and surrenders because right now he was on the bridge of breaking down or going crazy and shooting everyone in sight.
 


The plan didn't seem to be going as Kross had envisioned it. The initial chaos caused before the smoke could incapacitate both the traitors and the civvies had basically rendered his plan useless to contain any civvies. They would be running like chicken without heads. That was the worst case scenario for an USAR task, as it rendered everything much harder… But this wasn't his USAR team or mission. This was a military task for trained soldiers to eliminate the enemy lines in the name of the Emperor. All his former notions were just kitty training compared to this.

A few shots after the Autocannon, he saw the lights of the food truck simply ripping through the road and in his direction. Who the hell was in there? A traitor or a civvie? That was a crucial question that would have made the difference between just letting it go or try to kill the driver… But there was no question to be asked. He couldn't afford to take the chance that this man was a traitor going to report on them. And so, he let the last rounds of the Autocannon shred through the steel of the truck, not hitting anyone, but creating a shattered window on the passenger side. Kross took off a frag from his belt, pulled the pin and tossed it as fast as he could… He didn't/t know if the thing actually DID get inside the window, but he didn't care to see if it did. Instead, he ran off from the main road, towards their mission objective. He wasn't going to stand it its way.
 
Four Traitors left.


Kross found the first. As the frag grenade tore through the hood of the food truck, shredding the engine chamber and skewing the vehicle across the road, a piece of debris struck his back. No match for his armour, but the force was enough to stagger him as he entered the treeline. Then a second collision, this time from the side. A Secessionist, coughing for air, eyes red from streaming, had had the same idea of bailing eastward.

Both men hit the ground.

A second of shock. A second of recovery. Then a sound.-


Whhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhmmmmppppphhhhhmmmmm!


The Traitor Sergeant still had hold of his chainsword. Soil and wood chips filled the air as he swung it up and reeled backwards onto his feet.


* * * * *​


Back on the road, Corporal Grazer rolled as lasfire tore up the asphalt. The second Traitor was still in the choke cloud, abandoned by his sergeant and firing wildly. Every other shot ripped a hole in the trash vehicle at the convoy's center. And it was here that Grazer took cover, tucking himself beneath the compactor assembly.

"Deimos!" His shout barely made it above the din. Coughing, lasfire, civilian cries. He was pinned down.

And from the side, Deimos could scarcely see the silhouette of the gunman in the choke cloud, slumped against the ganger car.


* * * * *​


In the treeline to the north, Aperion and Straun both found their marks on the third sentry. He was caught head on, blown back in a mist of gore.

But his fumbling, in those precious seconds as his comrades died, was not for nothing. The man had half-raised his weapon - a heavy metal piece, almost as sleek as a lasgun.

But the hollow, whooping sound that followed his death-scream made it clear that this was no simple rifle.

The third man was the special weapon user.

The grenade launcher went off in his hand, slamming its projectile into the asphalt. The grenade bounced, skipped upwards....

...and like a mortar round fell straight towards the two Elysians.
 
The last traitor wasn't getting out of this alive. His firing tore into the enemy like a fork through mashed potatoes. Too bad their weren't any real potatoes around. Just war. Then Straun started into him, tearing his ass into a new one and ripping that apart as well. Aperion stopped firing as some as it was obvious that all the Emperor's Horses and All the Emperor's men couldn't put this heretic bastard together again. But it seems they both didn't take into account, that the last guy had a boomstick of his own.

The round had went off, and his popped out of his head. "MOVE!" Private Xander Aperion moved his goofy ass faster than ever before. It least, it felt like it with the adrenaline. If Straun didn't see it, hopefully he was smart enough to try and get as far away from any blast radius. Still, he tried to yank him enough to try help but Aperion had a duty. He had to eliminate threats and without his explosive, things would be a lot harder with the mission being at risk. So his pull wasn't exactly strong, but Straun was a big boy, he can run from the scary boom-boom on his own.

So that is what Aperion tried to do, get away and be as small of a target for shrapnel as possible. The irony if he was blown up...
 
​
"For fucks sake.." Straun didn't entertain any notions of shooting the grenade in mid-air or batting it away. Instead he followed Aperion's tug and sprinted as fast as he could. He knew that a standard issue Frag had between a three and four metre blast radius, and like Aperion he couldn't afford to get killed. Between Aperions explosives and his meltagun they represented the large majority of people able to deal with the enemy emplacements.

One one thousand.

Straun had crossed a full metre.

Two one thousand.

Another two metres. He guessed it was only a second or so until the grenade touched down.

Three one thousand.

Another metres step and diving forwards bringing up his meltagun to his chest to protect it. "God-Emperor save me." Straun said as he watched the dirt getting closer.

He prayed and prayed to the God-Emperor in his mind that he'd cleared the blast.

With a deep thundering boom and a flash of light the grenade went off. Now it was time to find out.​
 

Deimos's head swung back towards Corporal Grazer as her name was shouted out, eyes scanning the area as she started providing more cover-fire as she looked to see where the enemy was located, the choke smoke was making it hard to properly identify what was going on for a few moments, then her eyes singled out the gunman and the muzzle of her gun was moved towards him quickly and she was eager to take him down.

She advanced towards the scene to be able to get some better shots off as she went. Visibility was improved slightly as she moved- and she fired off a few more shots, though she had yet to hear anything in response to suggest that her shots were connecting. Emperor protect her, she was doing her damnedest to do her part and add to their tally of kills.

Finally she manged to get three shots off that received a guttural yell of pain and she exhaled slightly, still providing cover fire for Grazer. Gotta keep alive for a little longer, keep her her comrades alive, and drink later. There was work yet to be done, this was just one of the many encounters to look forward to for this whole mess. Hopefully it would lead to nothing but a few eventful stories to tell to her eventual kids one day if she got that far.

She din't have any doubts on the skills of the people she worked alongside, but there was going to be the inevitable death or two. Hopefully not today, or tomorrow either- but it was a risk you had to be willing to take.
 


There was a moment of panic when the debris had hit Kross on the back, as if he knew it would shred through his body. Though, it never happened that way. Instead, he was just pushed further into the treeline and stumbled across the soil, almost going down into it. His balance came back just in time for him to feel something knocking into him, sending him right to the ground. That wasn't a piece of debris… It was too big, too mush. It took him a second to realize what happened, and then the Chainsword went off. No time to think about it, just to act upon it.

He moved to the side to allow himself to have his shotgun front and ready, just in time to see the man rise to his feet. With the stock dug into his shoulder, he aimed towards the sound of the ripping blade, firing off one, two, three shots in its direction. Overkill, but it would make sure that whatever was held that weapon would fall to the spread of steel pellets.
 
The Traitor Sergeant dropped and the chainsword spun up and backwards, landing in the mud like a tombstone. With the trigger released the motor fell silent.

Across the skirmish zone all weapons were quiet. Only crackling fire and the cries of fleeing civvies broke the gloom.

Corporal Grazer wiped his knife on the jacket of a dead man. Gore sloughed from the cross-guard, mixing red with the pauldrons of the Traitor. He was almost hypnotized by it. Let the civvies run, his instincts told him. They would throw off the hunter teams, divide the Secessionist efforts, maybe even draw artillery fire. A noble duty, should they live or die. The Emperor would thank them.

His head bucked up as he saw Deimos crossing to the roadside. Her target was down. He nodded to her then tongued his micro-bead. "Aperion; Straun: regroup on my position. Strip the Traitors for grenades and special weapons. We move in 2."

He rose and slung his lasrifle, before joining Deimos. "Two minutes, Deimos. Check the trucks for fuel cans. We'll put them to use on the hilltop."

Then he was moving uphill, into the treeline where Kross had advanced. He paused beside the tree where the Traitor Sergeant had fallen, looking to the corpse and then its killer. The chainsword stuck in the ground between them.

"A good trophy. Take it."

Grazer's eyes settled on the slope before them, haloed by the yellow glow of the gun position.

They were halfway there... and the Emperor still smiled.
 

Straun picked himself up off the ground with a grunt and checked his boots. Sighing with relief as he pulled a piece of shrapnel from one that failed to penetrate the thick soles. "The Emperor protects. And a set of good boots helps too." He muttered as he picked up the order from Grazer. Heading over to the three traitors they'd downed Straun looked at the Grenade launcher and shrugged. "Aperion, if you want it you got it, it'd just weigh me down." He was already carrying his Melta and a Lasgun, weight enough, as it was. But still he rifled through the pockets of the first one he put down and pocketed a couple grenades, one of them even a krak grenade.

Another pocket revealed a deck of cards, slightly banged up, faced by scantily clad women, at least if one defined scantily clad as strategically placed hands. Straun pocketed them before the smell of the dead traitors soiled trousers and that faint pork-like smell of roasting human flesh from his lasbolts made him move on.

"Ready Corporal." He said heading over to the man.
 
"Don't mind, if I do, Straun."

The civilians were scattered, but at least they were more safe than sitting in the ass crack of a firefight. Kross's plan was a success, but that shell going off put him back into a more tense state of mind. This is for real. Get your head out of your ass and try to make it to tomorrow. His heart was beating fast, and his breathing was slow and deep. THIS close to being Tropeum paste. Death was just breathing love nothings into his ear and walked away, for now.

Blocking it out, Aperion reached down blindly and stuck his hand into some spilled blood. The warmth surprised him, and he just looked at it. Dripping. As if running from him to get back where it came. Then came the smell. Smelly corpses. He would remember this moment forever.

Wiping it off, he grabbed the launcher and some more grenades. Now he had enough to where it would be imperative for him to just start throwing them whenever possible.

Silently, he followed the superior up the hill. The image of the bloody hand still fresh in his mind. This wasn't a game before, but now it had cracked his mold of the situation. He may have not lost and died but he did win and murdered. Soon, he would murder again. Hopefully, his new toy will snap him out of it. Xander was sure that it would.
 

Deimos was quick to nod at Corporal Grazer and follow orders without a question, moving quickly to the furthest vehicle from her, the torn up food truck. Her boots crunched as she stepped through the scattered glass and around the mechanical parts on the ground, finally arriving at it. She let the sling take the weight of the lasgun out her hands and searched it over for the requested fuel cans. She found two and carried it with her as she hustled to the Ganger car. A search on that one had yielded another fuel can. It was a bit of a handful, but she could manage it. Hell, if that's all that was all she could really carry, it would have been a lot harder to heft this damned still around on her back.

Ok, get the last vehicle searched and get the hell back to her people.

As she got to the Fifteen tonner and looked around for another- pausing when her thoughts had gone over the details that she hadn't been wanting to think on. Though it was necessary, the fact that they had gotten into that battle.... the smell of freshly-killed people... that warm rancid smell... Nope, don't think on that. Hold off on those thoughts. Drink first, then process troubling shit like that. This is was necessary to this work. Disgusting? Yes, but she had signed up for it. She knew what she was getting into. Just that smell was making itself very known to her sinuses, and she was not pleased about it.

One more fuel can was found and she confident in her spoils as she traveled after the Corporal, following behind the rest.

Soon, they'd be fighting again. That was as sure as her beating heart. Hopefully they would continue to come away from these encounters unscathed- hopefully the rest of their team was faring well and they would regroup...
 
I can hear them even before they show up in the unnatural illumination of the photo-visor. Calling out the positions of Vesperin and Baeur, shouting for covering fire, screaming as our heavy stubber cuts them apart.

Human voices. Not something I'm used to. Too much familiarity in those shouts, those cries.

Can't believe I might actually miss fighting the Tau. Vicious bastards, but at least I know whose side I'm on.

Aiar and I steal through the undergrowth, keeping low and out of sight. They won't see us coming, not until it's too late. Not until we're right on top of them. Further down the hill, the other two members of my team are keeping their attention firmly held. Hard to ignore something like that stubber, and even if Baeur is greener than the foliage around us he's keeping a steady trigger finger and making his shots hit home.

As I round another tree, I find myself staring down at the prone form of one of the secessionist soldiers, his lasgun pointed down the hill. Training and instinct kick in simultaneously; my combat knife is out of it's sheath and I'm leaping down on top of him. As I pull him about, ready to bring the blade down, I see a young man's face.

For a second that stretches on in my mind, he stares up at me. Too stunned for fear to have even registered on his face yet. This could be Baeur looking back at me right now, just some kid who's signed up to protect his homeworld from invaders, no choice in being in this field tonight, no choice but to return fire against us.

He didn't have any part in Duke Severan's decision to betray the Imperium, any more than I did in the Guard being sent in response.

A second later, I plunge the knife down into his stomach, clamping a hand over his mouth to muffle his death throes. I leave him in the dirt, bleeding out into the earth. Just another casualty in this conflict. Aiar and I are almost on top of them now. We can see the panic on their faces, the muzzle flashes of their weapons as they fire. From our position, they've got no cover. Textbook flanking manoeuvre.

I set my sights on them and raise my weapon.
"Kill 'em all," I mutter to Janna, squeezing the trigger.
 
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Kross took a moment to realize what had just happened… The chainsword had now been silenced and the Traitor turned into a corpse filled with led. Had it not been for the fact he carried a combat shotgun, he would have perished under the teeth of the weapon. Gruesome death… Fortunately enough, he was quite used to these encounters and was why he preferred carrying a shotgun. He wished he would have brought slugs with him, just in case, but he had pellet-filled shells instead.

Kross got back on his feet just in time to see the Corporal arrive on site. He eyed him a moment as the memory of how this whole combat started. Someone had not followed the plan, although it seemed to have turned out well. He looked down at the chainsword and picked it up. "A fine tool of war you mean, Coporal." He simply replied, placing it on his belt. He had wondered if he should pick up a Lasgun from the traitors, but thought it was best if he was ready for anyone coming too close.

"I'm ready to move on, Corporal."
 
They had made it.

An uphill sprint through foliage and mudslides, falling on their bellies at the tree line's edge. Now their thighs burned, sweat dripped inside their helmets, and all their panting brought was a musk of soil and blood.

For a few moments they were as drowning men - focussed only on the regulation of their breaths. Then their senses settled, and they rolled into vantage points, spreading out on the hillside to observe a fresh hell.

The gun emplacement was home to a half-platoon. Fifteen to twenty Traitor Guard, at rough count. Perhaps half that number were gun crew, crawling like ants around the massive behemoth of the flak battery. Its thunderous ejections shook the sandbags that encircled it, and tracer light illuminated the hilltop in strobe.

The visors in the Elysian helmets struggled to compensate, always a half-second behind.

The hilltop had been stripped bare, felled trees dragged into a second ring around the trenches. There were also two Chimera transports, burnt out and left as husks. They served as barricades and little more. The corporal spied a heavy stubber nest at the end of the trench, and at least two Flamer carriers on patrol.

But worst of all... he saw the truth of the situation. There was only one way in. The hilltop to either side was a sharp incline, impossible to scale and stripped of all foliage. There would be no flanking tonight. The Traitors were dug in, with only one approach.

The Secessionists had numbers, cover and firepower. Their only disadvantage was the light flare... the masking roar of the battery...

.... and the enemies they had made.

gun.jpg
 

He watched the treeline, taking a shot at everything that moved and didn't have Elysian colors. With every shot, he gained a small amount of confidence that he would survive and not die on this traitorous and heretical world. He took cover once more, letting the enemy shoot at his cover for a few moments. His eyes glanced over to Vesperin who wasn't letting up on the stubber, which was a good thing as it provided nice suppressing fire and whoever was dumb enough to walk in front of it was shredded to death. The enemy outnumbered them, but what Peter hoped was that they were winning, and over a gun fight.

As he was preparing to turn and take a few shots again, he watched something come from behind him, a small object bouncing along the ground. He squinted his eyes to get a better look at it, before they widened. The traitors, with horribly aim, tried to throw a grenade in hopes to silence the stubber. He didn't have time to think about the grenade on the ground. Vesperin would be fine, maybe. "Grenade!" He yelled out to Vesperin, just to give a heads up before Peter lunged to the left and hit the ground, covering his head as he heard the grenade explode, dirt raining down on his back and head.

His eyes blinking as the fight was still going on, he felt fine. A little shaken up, but fine, and laying in a bunch of dirt. He began to crawl to the next tree, and when he was behind it, slowly pushed himself against the tree to get in a crouched position. There were so many traitors, it was a surprise that they weren't just bombarding Vesperin and him with grenades to get them out of cover or to just kill them.
 


Hearing the fighting around them Aiar's teeth were clenched, even with the heavy Vox strapped to her back she moved with as little noise as possible... until the word was given and rising to a crouch she brought her gun up..

"For the Emperor!"

They had the perfect position and soon hot death was raining down upon the traitors. Three were cut down buy their combined fire before the others even knew what has happening, that two crack troopers has managed to get behind them. A fourth man was hit as he tried to vault over cove and his body fell upon the log before slipping to the forest floor leaving a trail that shimmered in the scant light. Finally a traitor managed to get away, only to be hit by one of the members of Tropeum who had stayed behind to act as the anvil to the hammer Aiar and Jeremia formed. It was no longer a firefight, the maneuver has turned it into butchery.

Her gun fell silent, steam rising from the end of the barrel as she relaxed the shoulder the stock had been braced against, gun and eyes swiveling as one as she made a visual sweep of her surroundings and deciding it was prudent to drop back down into a prone position... just in case. "I don't see any more..."

 
Pfc. Vesperin grunted as he swung the stubber widely to his left, catching more of the figures make their way past the edge of the tree line. The enemy was just too many to count. There was easily a platoon out there, maybe even two platoons. Could there even be a company?! It was too wild to think of four men standing against 100, but considering the odds... Considering all the variables in which they were dropped and forced into this particular combat scenario...

Yup. They were looking at some serious numbers.

"Enemy sighted at ten o'clock!" Vesperin shouted over the constant -CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK-ing of his heavy stubber. He had reloaded it again since he had displaced just moments before, and he knew he was coming up on needing to reload again.

"Grenade!" came the warning, almost too late. Vesperin rolled and tucked his helmeted head. The blast was, thankfully, too far away to cause him any harm, but he felt the debris rain down on him. Grunting, he looked back up and re-situated the stubber to find more enemy.

They were being flanked once more, this time on both sides, while the Sergeant was working on his maneuver. They didn't have time to move; hell, moving was sure death. Vesperin slapped another heavy box of ammunition and he started taking sight once more. He didn't think he'd get many more now.

Suddenly, las-fire came raining like hell on the manuevering Seperatists. He could make it out sure as sure in his night vision sights; he could see men collapse forward, las bolts tearing them down like lambs to the butcher. The Sergeant and Aiar had found superior firing positions, and they were taking severe advantage. The Seps that turned to address them were in-turn cut down by Vesperin and the forged-under-fire Bauer.

And suddenly, the enemy Seperatists were all cut-down to the man.

"For the Emperor," Vesperin muttered, grinning as he turned to find Bauer, hopefully, somewhere close-by.

 
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