Hold the Line! (40K, IG/Chaos/SM)

[loomer]

In a war, silence is a true rarity. Somewhere, someone is always doing something, making some noise.


But each night, there is that one, perfect moment. That one time when silence drowns out everything, before a rifle's crack or a radio's harsh transmission shatters it.



It was in such a moment that I awoke, blinking, and fumbled for my lasrifle. Sound returned to the world as a missile slammed into the dirt before my trench, sending a spray of dust and deadly fragments high into the air. Flares seared into being high above, bathing the field in their hellish glow.



The Cardinal's forces were making another push forward, and by the Emperor they would not succeed. I bellowed out a command to the rest of the trench to take stances, and then looked around at the strange silence. Only one other had stepped up to the firing line, the rest lying dead. Fifty men, reduced to two.



There was no time to mourn. I too stepped up and took my place, shouldering my lasrifle, a reliable piece of equipment for sure, and taking my aim. From the smoke and dust figures began to emerge, brandishing rifles with bayonets fixed, adorned with heretical symbols that made my eyes water.



With another roar, I opened fire. Each pull of the trigger sent a blindingly bright beam out, blowing holes in the advancing men. My sole companion began to fire as well, with a discipline that would have been unusual even on the range. The traitors kept coming. An eight foot tall figure emerged from behind them, clad in midnight black armour, a dread figure. Our shots impacted on his armour, and where they had blown fist sized holes in the regular men, they did nothing but scorch the plating.



Our end was come, in this grim figure. Raising his pistol, he snapped off a shot, the bolt igniting with a roar and slamming into my companion. For a moment, he swayed and stared dumbly at the large hole in his chest. And then the round went off, blowing his chest apart. The next shot came for me, but I ducked, the round sending a spray of dirt around me, shrouding me from the advancing figures.



The impact of the soil had shattered my leg, and I could not get up to retake my place. All I could do now was wait for them to breach the trench. From the corpses around me, I gathered grenades and then carefully tied them together with wire. And I began to chant.



'Our end is come! But what an end! We have been given the most precious gift; a chance to roar our defiance into the foe that overwhelms us with their numbers! Let the Emperor Himself hear our final battle cry! Forward warriors of the Guard, and die like the heroes you are!'



The fell traitor in the black armour stepped into the trench as I yanked the rings from all of the grenades. Did recognition grow in his eyes? I could not tell. All I could see was the Angels of the Imperium descending from the sky in their gunships, and then all turned to black with one final, resounding roar of defiance.

[loomer]

The two gunships roared down through the planet's smog choked sky, trailing fire as the heat of re-entry friction ignited the air around them. Ground batteries turned upwards to begin a punishing hail of fire, las beams scorching the paint and blasting away chunks of ceramite, flak shells leaving deep gouges in the plating.

The Thunderhawk gunships were not silent. In return, their turbolasers seared into brilliant life, the midnight sky momentarily lit as if by lightning as the beams gouged great holes in the ground and shattered entire enemy bunkers. Their heavy bolters barked out a vicious cascade of fire along the enemy's advancing line, scything men down in explosions of crimson viscera.

And then the bombs were released, eighteen from the Pale Hawk and eighteen from her sister, the Emperor's Glory. In their slow arc towards the ground, time seemed to slow until suddenly they impacted in one moment of resounding thudding. All thirty six went off in sequence, levelling the entire area of its trenches and fieldworks. Five square miles had been reduced to little more than fire and smoke in less than two minutes.

With the landing area cleared by the saturation bombing, both transports set down and disgorged their cargo, the Imperium's greatest heroes given new form. Sixty men stood in disciplined formation as the engines reignited, the sky seemingly aflame with stars as drop pods launched from the orbiting battle barge.

All sixty of the power armoured troops scrambled for cover as a pair of missiles found the Pale Hawk and slammed deep into its ammunition storage compartment, igniting in a catastrophic explosions that ripped the mighty Thunderhawk apart. The Emperor's Fist rose up from the ground like a riled beast and rose up to the sky with blinding speed, engaging in a fierce dogfight with a pair of Hell Talons.

The fight for Ruhm II had just begun in full.