Muh Story

Landfall over Korvus Prime

	Sargent Hartnid looked around the interior of the dropship as he and his squad hurtled planetward. Packed shoulder to shoulder in the confines of the ship’s hold and illuminated by the red emergency lights, Hartnid and the 24 soldiers under his command were preparing to jump feet-first into a contested battleground with the intent of capturing an enemy-held munitions dump and refuelling base. Goddamn Croats had proven that they would rather salt and burn the fething earth than leave anything usable for the Imperial Troops. Many Imperial Army battlegroups and a few of the mighty Adeptus Astartes had been dispatched to pacify the so-called Republic of Croatan after negotiations for a peaceful integration had broken down in a spectacularly rapid manner. It was a Republic in name only, ruled by a bloody handed tyrant named Vinius Croatan. His domain stretched across 10 or so clustered systems, and contained enough manufactorums, resources and manpower to be a threat to the Great Emperor’s Crusade. Vinius answered the Imperial emissary’s request for an audience to discuss pacification terms with a salvo of proton torpedoes and a declaration of war. Apparently playing nice was not his strong suit. The primary world of the Korvus system contained several large hab-cities and manufactories, and was a major center of industry in the area. After the initial declaration of war, the pocket-empire’s ruler went into hiding in one of his strongholds. The Imperial response was to launch a simultaneous invasion of nearly all populated Croatan planets in an attempt to apprehend their leader. Reports from other regiments already engaged suggested that the Croat soldiers fought with bitter tenacity, and most often would rather see their infrastructure and war materiel razed than have it fall to enemy hands.
	That was where Hartnid and his boys came in. The inclusion of many drop troop units in Carlisian regiments made them an ideal choice for securing important infrastructure before it could be destroyed by enemy soldiers. The entire purpose of the crusade was to bring worlds back to the Imperium’s fold, and a world of rubble and ash was no use to the war effort. Hartnid was jerked from his musings by the voice of the pilot crackling over the spotty intercom.
	“120 seconds to the drop zone boys, ready the chutes and prepare for hell!”
	Hartnid grunted to no one in particular. Damn flyboys. This was always the worst part of the operation. On the ground your fate is your own to decide, your success or failure dependent on your own actions and those of your squadmates. In the air it was all up to fate, and the bastard driving the bird. One wrong turn or unlucky shell and the lot of them could be vaporised before the op had even begun. As if to drive this point home the ship shuttered and careened to the left, avoiding a burst of anti-aircraft fire from below. Hartnid gave his gear one last check, unbuckled his harness and donned his grav chute. It was go time.
	His men all followed suit, holding the railing attached to the roof for support. Hartnid stood slightly taller than most of his men, his black hair cut regulation short and tucked away below his helmet. His face was covered in ropey scars, souvenirs from his time serving in the Carlisian PDF. Systematic purging of the feral orks of Carlisar III was dangerous work, and Hartnid was lucky to have come out of the encounter with his eyes still working. Still, the greenskin paid dearly for it. Hartnid locked his respirator in place and lowered the eye-shield on his helmet. His squad was on their feet now, performing last minute weapons checks and securing their gear. The lot of them were outfitted in Carlisian standard uniform, pale blue fatigues with burnished chrome armour overtop, covering the chest and shoulders. First Corporal Donvan was to Hartnid’s left, loading his shotgun with high-powered flachette rounds. He had traded a months’ worth of lho sticks to an Aurrian weapons specialist for the rounds, and was eager to put them to use.
	“Ten seconds to the drop,” The pilot declared over the intercom. “Opening bay doors now. I’ll give you two passes for supressing fire, then you are on your own. Give em hell boys, see you on the evac.”
	With the screech of metal the rear hatch of the dropship opened, displaying the battlefield below and causing wind to howl and whip through the crew hold. It was close to midday, and the contested city could be seen below, battle in full swing. A handful of anti-aircraft guns in a battery to the east spat fire at the dropship. Multiple aircraft both Carlisian and Croatan could be seen in the skies exchanging salvoes. Far below, the rubble of several levelled hab-blocks meant to act as their landing site could be seen. It was gonna be a rough ride.
	“Listen up maggots, you know the drill,” Hartnid barked over the din of battle. “Straight down, activate chutes at 100 meters, and pray that it holds. See you all on the ground.” With that, the Sargent hurled himself out of the rear hatch of the transport, beginning a frantic freefall to the planet’s surface. Hartnid held his arms and legs close, speeding his descent. The boom of anti-aircraft shells exploded all around him. He turned his head to see his squadron freefalling behind him, and the shuttle they had just jumped from hurling multiple bursts of fire towards the gun shelling at them. Hartnid eyed the altimeter in his heads up display, waited for the readout to show 100m and thumbed the activation switch on his grav-chute. He felt a jerk as the harness began firing, counteracting the force of gravity pulling him towards the planet’s surface. He slowed until his boots hit the rubble of a ruined building with a small crunching sound. He simultaneously shrugged off the encumbering drop harness and surveyed his surroundings, his autogun held at the ready.
	To the east a handful of Croat soldiers were advancing on the drop site. They were clad in bright yellow uniforms adorned with the red insignia of the Croatan ruling class, a snake entwined around the handle of a greataxe. Hartnid was hoping for a slower enemy response, but the Croats were on the ball today. He let off a burst from his autogun and took cover behind a chuck of plascrete jutting from the rubble of the ruined building. Bullets began to fly all around, filling the air and tearing chunks out of the ruined building. The remainder of his squad landed in the rubble behind him. One unlucky bastard hit the rocks at terminal velocity, whether due to a faulty grav chute or an unlucky shell was anyone’s guess. Hartnid popped out from his cover and let off another burst of fire, dropping one of the advancing soldiers in his tracks. The rest of the squad landed all around, ducking behind the ample cover provided by the ruin. Concentrated fire poured at the advancing enemies, culminating in a blast from the squad’s grenadier. Without any cover, the Croats were cut to pieces, and Hartnid took a moment to catch his breath. The adrenaline from the aerial descent was still pumping through his veins.
	“Alright men, you know the mission,” Hartnid said, addressing the squad behind him. “We advance north to the ammo dump. Watch your corners, and above all else don’t let the damn Croats level the munitions reserve. We clear?” There was a round of nodding and yes sir’s. “There is two klicks of dense city between us and the objective. Stay low, watch for enemy ambushes and stay off the goddamn roads whenever possible. Move out.”
	Hartnid and his squad sprinted across the northern road, past the bodies of the enemy patrol. With luck they had not had time to report the drop troopers’ arrival, but relying on luck to get you through was stupid at best and outright deadly at worst. Hartnid knew that even without the enemy searching for them they were bound to run into enemy forces headed for the front, and their best bet to reach the damn objective without getting bogged down in a firefight was to move quickly and quietly as possible through the wreckage of the bombed city.
	The squad quickly filed through a hole in the side of a plascrete structure into what was likely once living quarters of some kind. There was splintered wooden furniture strewn about, and a coagulated pool of what seemed to be old blood. The entire area had been subject to sweeping bombing runs to soften up the defenders, and this particular building had started to fracture in multiple places. Hartnid signalled for Corporal Donvan to go on point. He advanced into the adjacent hallway, and signalled back an all clear. The building was apparently deserted and silent, a stark contrast to the battle raging nearby. Upon reaching the opposite side of the building, the squad saw an empty street. They advanced quickly across the next handful of city blocks, occasionally lying low to allow an enemy patrol or tank formation to move past. Enemy armour would be a real problem if an extended firefight broke out. The only anti-armour weaponry in the squad was a single grenade launcher with krak grenades, and the handful of demolition charges Donvan carried in his pack. Other than that, they were at the mercy of the Carlisian airforce for support.
	They approached the final street crossing before the munitions base. As Hartnid had hoped, there was another bombed out building in their path. If they could dig in on the opposite side it would give them an advantageous position to assault the enemy base from. Of course in order to prevent the Croats from detonating the fething place when the fight began to turn against them something would need to be done. Perhaps if a few men could sneak in during the firefight…
	Hartnid was jerked from this train of thought by the staccato blast of gunfire, high and to the left of their position. Two of his soldiers had moved into the street to cross to the next building, and on the fifth floor of a building up the street there was a Croatan gunner nest. One of the soldiers took several rounds directly to the chest, crumpling to a heap in a pool of his own blood. The other seemed to have better reflexes, and jumped back towards the rubble of the squad’s current position. He had taken a round to the arm and one in his lower torso despite the manoeuvre, and was losing blood fast. They had almost certainly been reported to the nearby base now, and they would have to move quickly to complete the objective.
	Hartnid ordered a few of his soldiers to return fire, and had the medic survey the wounded man. He was in a bad way, and bleeding profusely. The medic covered his wounds with a sealing antiseptic gel and applied a bandage, but there was no doubt he was out of the fight.
	“Alright, here is the plan,” Hartnid yelled over the din of gunfire. “I need smoke grenades pitched all over the street. We sprint across to the nest building. Donvan, you will take the majority of the squad and our heavy stubber team. Sweep the first few floors of the building, then stick in and let the Croats have it. The building should give you a pretty good vantage point. I will take a handful and move around to the side. We will get in unnoticed and stop them from destroying the damn place. Clear?”
	“Damn it sarge,” Donvan remarked, grabbing a smoke grenade from his pouch and pulling the pin. “You always take the fun part.” Smoke grenades burst all along the street. Two men hoisted the injured soldier, and the lot of them sprinted through the smoke to the cover on the other side of the street. In spite of the defensive smoke, another two Carlisian soldiers dropped in the street from random fire. Hartnid took stock of his remaining troops as the rest of them scrambled through the shattered windows. 21 men to take on however many Croats the base contained, plus any reinforcements. It was going to be a close one.
	The squad moved to the building’s opposite side, through a large ornate marble lobby of some kind. Large pillars lined the area, and several smashed windows gave view to their objective. The munitions dump was more of a storage area than a base, and as such fortifictions had been hastily raised when the imperial fleets had descended on the system. Watchtowers stood at the corners of the plascrete walls, lined with a handful of Croats and a mounted stubber.
	“Markath, Zane, Trehas, Lemmy and Singad, you are with me,” Hartnid declared. “The rest of you stick with Donvan and follow his orders. You are responsible for the primary assault, your job is to kill every son of a bitch that pokes his head over that wall not wearing our pretty blue uniforms. Am I clear soldiers?” Another hail of yes sirs responded. “Corporal, I am gonna need those demolition packs.”
“We’ll get it done hoss,” Donvan assured, removing the explosive charges from his pack. “Stubber crew, follow me to the upper floors. The rest of you stack up on those windows and give em hell. No quarter given or taken.”
	Hartnid and his followers headed to the western side of the building, hoping to circle the base through the ample wreckage of city surrounding the base. The majority of the squad took cover along the windowsills and pillars, grabbing any cover available. The Croatan soldiers began to fire back, the stubber roaring away and tearing chunks from the already ruined buildings.
	Donvan and his few followers ascended a nearby staircase to the third floor. Donvan had a feeling that the Croats would have scout units posted in the buildings near their base, and upon reaching the third floor it turned out his hunch was correct. The staircase led to an open hallway with wooden doors on either side. At the end of the hallway a plascrete doorway adorned with waving signature was seen. Donvan could hear hurried whispers in low gothic from beyond the archway. Amateurs. Given the general low skill demonstrated by the Croat soldiers thus far, Donvan was pretty sure they were facing a primarily conscript force. The Croatan elite forces were likely committed to the front, or else defending the Croat upper class.
	Donvan signalled for the gunner team to stay put, and crept up the hall toward the entryway. He pulled a fragmentation grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and released the safety lever, counted two seconds and pitched it through the open doorway. There was a moment of silence followed by a slew of panicked yelling. One Croat sprinted through the doorway just before the detonation, and Donvan fired his shotgun. A burst of ceremite flachettes roared into the unsuspecting soldier, shredding through his flak armour and tearing him to bloody chunks of shattered bone and organ meat. A moment later the grenade detonated, blowing out the remaining windows. Donvan quickly advanced into the next room, heavy weapons team tailing him. The carnage was immense. Five Croatan soldiers lay about the room, their bodies in various states of ruin from the effects of the grenade in the confined space. A voxcaster sat propped up against a wall, smashed to a near unrecognizable mass of sparking electronics. Several tables and chairs were scattered about in various states of splintered destruction. Donvan was admiring his handiwork when suddenly another Croat appeared from behind one of the tables. His face was black with soot and his arm looked a shattered mess. He was hysterical and nearly incoherent, pleading his surrender in a series of high pitched screams. Donvan did not hesitate, firing again and spraying the room with gore. He absently wiped some blood from his uniform, grinning at his macabre execution.
	“You got problems, Donvan.” One of the gunners remarked from behind him.
	“Shut the hell up and get the cannon set up,” Donvan ordered. “Our boys need support down there!” He looked out the shattered windows and his eyes widened. The ammo dump’s front gate opened, and about 30 Croat conscripts poured out towards the rest of the squad on the bottom floor, followed by two tanks.
	Around the north facing of the munitions base, Hartnid and his followers peeked out from behind the rubble of a collapsed hab block. Any sentries that would have been posted on this wall had been drawn to the firefight on the opposite side, and they easily cleared the gap to the wall without being noticed. Hartnid pulled a demolition charge from his pack and began arming it. One of these would punch a nice hole in the wall without collapsing it or destroying anything on the inside of the ammo dump. He set the timer for 20 seconds, secured it on the wall and activated it. The charge detonated with a resounding explosion, and would have been incredibly noticeable had the depot not been under assault already. Hartnid stepped over the rubble into the complex proper. Directly ahead was the rear facing of a building of some kind, likely administrative bookkeeping and the like. His men followed him in, sweeping either side for enemies. Before they could advance any further, Corporal Donvan’s voice sputtered over Hartnid’s microbead.
	“Tanks, Sarge. They sent fething tanks! If we don’t get some damned air supp-,” The transmission abruptly ended with a massive boom, and then radio silence. Hartnid’s mind began racing a mile a minute. Hatnid hoped the best for the rest of his squad, but had to assume the worst. If they hadn’t managed to call for air support those tanks were going to be a real problem.
	“Situation is FUBAR,” he remarked quietly to the men behind him. “We have to assume the success of the mission is up to us. Stay quiet and keep close.” Hartnid was not one for fatalism, but the six of them against the remaining Croats on base and possibly the tanks was not exactly a good situation to be in. Regardless, they began to inch along the wall to the depot’s courtyard.

	Donvan began to sprint to the staircase even as the tanks began shelling. Explosive rounds hit the building on the floor above him, and rubble rained from the sky as the roof began to tumble down in places. Concentrated fire from the soliders on the lower levels had taken out a portion of the Croat soldiers, but they had taken several casualties as well and the tanks were not going to let up. Donvan whirled around the bend of the staircase to see the squad vox operator lying dead in a pool of blood. Another guardsmen knelt beside him, screaming into the vox receiver about air support. Donvan ran to cover by the windowsill, and activated his microbead. “Tanks, Sarge. They sent fething tanks! If we don’t get some damned air supp-,” and with a resounding explosion a tank shell flew in the window and detonated halfway across the lobby. Donvan’s world went white.
	Hartnid turned the corner of the building they were scaling, training his weapon across the courtyard of the ammunitions dump. A few meters ahead were a haphazard stack of heavy duty ceremite crates, good for cover. Around the edges were several large buildings with wide retracting plascrete doors, likely to house the supplies. On the leftmost corner ahead of them was the watch tower, heavy stubber shelling away at what he presumed was the rest of the squad’s position. Good, meant that some of them were still alive. A handful of Croats ran hither and thither across the courtyard. There was an open-topped transport vehicle of some kind parked haphazardly in the center of the courtyard, and standing next to it was a Croat in formal regalia directing the others. Some of the supply housing doors were open, and there was steadily growing piles of what Hartnid could only assume were explosives. The Carlisian regulars must be winning the front if the Croats were preparing their worst case scenario. He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and then sprang into action.
	He ran out to behind the crates, firing in short bursts at the back of the gunner in the tower. Several bullets hit home, and the soldier slumped on his gun. The reaction from the Croats in the ammo dump was instant. The formally dressed officer dove behind the vehicle for cover. The other soldiers dropped whatever they were doing and trained their weapons on the source of the gunfire. Hartnid and his handful of men sheltered behind the stack of crates from the oncoming hail of bullets. There was about 20 Croats in the ammo dump, and more of them entering the main gates. Hartnid popped from cover to fire the last of his rounds at one unlucky bastard caught in open ground, and dropped back down to reload. They were in a bad spot and heavily outnumbered. To his left, Private Zane jumped up to fire on the enemies and caught four or five bullets, killing him almost instantly. The Croats were advancing on Hartnid and his men and the officer was joining them, flinging a bolt of searing hot plasma from a cracking energy weapon in his hand. Hartnid could feel the heat of it passing above them.
	Suddenly, a momentary reprieve. Hartnid instantly recognised the scream of Carlisian assault ships roaring towards their position. Two gunships swooped low, blue lances of lascannons stabbing down to unseen targets on the other side of the depot wall, followed by a series of rumbling explosions. A support gunner was manning one of the radial mounted heavy bolters, and fired several bursts at the Croat soliders in the courtyard. A handful of them were torn to bloody shreds by the detonating bolt shells, the rest diving for cover. Hartnid used this as an opportunity to sprint from their position to cover behind the nearest depot structure, the remaining troops following his lead. He quickly ran to the opposite side of the structure and tossed his last fragmentation grenade around the corner. By this time their gunship support had moved on, likely called to more pressing engagements. They were on their own. At the other side of the building another soldier, Private Trehas, was hit several times in the arm. He fell back screaming, and it appeared a bullet had shattered the bones. Their odds for success seemed to be dwindling fast.
	“Alright men, this is it,” Hartnid called to his remaining soldiers. “One last charge, death or glory. Do your regiment and your homeworld proud.” With a battlecry, Hartnid charged around the corner of the building and nearly crashed directly into the Croat officer who had been creeping towards them flanked by a few of his men. He fired another round from his plasma pistol at Hartnid, but it went high and punched a hole in the depot wall behind him. Without skipping a beat, Hartnid dropped his autogun and drew his combat knife, diving towards the pompous Croat. He was sporting a large moustache on his face, and his garish uniform was adorned with tassles and medals. Still, he also had the look of a hardened fighter, with several scars to match. Hartnid brought the knife arcing towards his chest, but the officer neatly sidestepped and took a viscious swing with his pistol butt to the back of Hartnid’s head. Stars burst across his vision as his helmet was torn from his head, and he struggled to not fall over. The Croat smirked, and took aim for a point blank shot with his plasma pistol. Hartnid rammed his fist as hard as he could at the officer’s elbow, and was rewarded with a sickening crunch as his arm gave. Screaming in pain, the officer dropped his advanced weapon to the dirt, where it discharged and hit one of his men in the leg, vaporising it in a stench of cooked flesh and ozone.
	As Hartnid tussled with the Croatan officer his remaining soldiers sprinted to close the gap with the other 5 or 6 Croats tailing their officer. The other remaining enemy soldiers farther back in the courtyard had their weapons trained on the melee, unwilling to fire while their allies still stood. Singad slashed one soldier’s throat before being shot down by another. Private Markath drew his stub revolver and blasted two of them down before they could return fire.

	Hartnid, unwilling to let the Croat officer off easy, began to lay into his face with a series of brutal strikes, pinning him against the wall of the depot supply building and mashing his head into an unrecognisable mass of meat. He finally finished him off by driving his combat knife deep into the Croat’s chest. Hartnid turned towards the courtyard, blood dripping from his right hand. He knew he was about to die, the Croats had no reason to hold their fire now that their officer was dead. There was about ten of them left, and bodies lay strewn around the courtyard, both from the efforts of Hartnid and his men and the strafing run from the gunships. Although regrettable that the objective was not completed, Hartnid took comfort in knowing that they had given the Croats hell and inflicted massive casualties on a much larger force, despite them being entrenched in their base. One of the Croats raised his autogun and prepared to fire on them. Only Markath and Trehas had survived the melee. Before the Croats could open fire, there was an eruption of bullets from the main gate of the base. The Croat aiming at Hartnid fell, his body pierced by 5 or 6 small calibre rounds. The Croats immediately fell to disorganised chaos. Looking to the source of the gunfire, Hartnid saw Corporal Donvan flanked by 3 other soldiers from their squad, and they looked like hell.
	Donvan’s helmet was missing, and blood was trickling from both of his ears. His left arm was leaking blood through a makeshift sling, and he limped forward on what seemed to be a badly sprained ankle. Despite this and a dozen other smaller wounds he advanced steadily, an autopistol in his still functioning right arm. There was that same slaughterhappy grin on his face as the Croats scattered under the crossfire. Hartnid scooped up the plasma pistol from the ground and fired, hitting a Croat dead in the chest and cooking him alive inside his flak, his eyes popping like overripe grapes as his flesh charred. The firefight was over in moments, the Croatan soldiers all dead, dying, or surrendered. Donvan crossed the courtyard towards Hartnid as his other followers began to sweep the depot’s remaining buildings for anyone still hiding out.
	“Looks like we saved your fething bacon there Sarge!” Donvan shouted. “Goddamn Croats tried to scrag us with the tanks. Nearly worked too.”
	“Quit shouting Corporal, I am right here,” Hartnid could not help but let a small grin peek through. Donvan was a tough son of a bitch, and Hartnid was glad he had made it. Donvan shook his head.
	“Can’t hear ya boss, Goddamn Croats done blew out my ears. Flyboys hadn’t shown up and we woulda been buried in that building. Few wounded back there still tickin, me and the medic are gonna round em up for evac.” Donvan and the squad medic left the depot to recover their comrades from the wreckage, and Hartnid began the search for a working voxcaster to inform command of their success.
	All said and done, 11 of the original 25 soldiers in Hartnid’s squad had survived the op. Shortly after the depot had been taken, squads of Carlisian infantrymen and tank formations began to file through and the Croatan defensive line had been broken. The remainder of Hartnid’s squad was granted honours for the successful operation and given a week to recuperate before their next drop. Corporal Donvan made a full recovery, although he did end up needing cochlear implants to restore his hearing. The Captial city of Korvus Prime had been secured, but the campaign against the Republic of Croatan had only just begun.