Mimic sees all

	Mimic watched a tactical display on the commandeered dataslate he had propped on the bench beside him.  He was flat on his stomach on a calcicrete balcony, two miles away from where Lord General Halwart was busily reversing from the Orks.  He had brought some simple camping equipment, like a foam mat to lie on so his elbow didn’t cramp.

	The Orks were coming for the capital now.  They had already steamrolled their way out of the vast section of Oglith where they had forced landings, thanks to their reinforcements literally coming up out of the ground.  Mimic was still keeping vigil for Squiggothrider.  He had heard reports from the Sororitas units that an Ork matching Squiggothrider’s description had been seen leading a herd of massive Squigs into battle nearby just hours ago.  Now, he was perched under a solar panel on a balcony on the highest apartment tower in the city, waiting for his chance.

	*Click*  Several seconds passed, and then an Ork war-buggy rolled sideways as the shot blew the driver’s head off.  Mimic sighted on a Nob leading a pack of battle squigs towards the front, then paused.  The tac-map on the slate was changing.  He glanced over.  Normally, it took him under a second to read the map on the screen and return to his scope, but this time it took longer.  The slate was showing the presence of forty five Ork vehicles coming up the far side of the ridge that Halwart’s Leviathan was backing down.

	Mimic ejected his magazine and cartridge, then slid the cartridge into the mag and set it aside.  He slapped an armor piercing magazine in and loaded a round for the Exitus, then settled back down to wait.

	An orange streak of flame smeared over the void shields that protected the capital.  It threw a shaky shadow over Mimic’s perch for a moment.  His mask filtered it out; he barely noticed.

	A visible shockwave spread over the ground outside the shield.  Mimic didn’t need to look to know that it came from the main cannon on the Leviathan, firing at the ridge.  It blasted a crater in the ridge line.  Mimic saw a vehicle disappear on the far side as the explosion of stone and earth threw it back down the other side aflame.

	Eight other vehicles crested the hill.  They were an eclectic mix of Ork crafting, from little buggies to a rolling slab the size of a Stormhammer.  Mimic instantly disregarded the largest and smallest vehicles from his target prioritization.  The smaller ones were impossible to hit at this range, even for him, and the biggest were too heavily armored.  He sighted a looted Salamander instead and squeezed the trigger.  Four seconds later, the self-accelerating slug punched through the hood.  He clicked his tongue in self-recrimination; he had been aiming for the driver.  Still, judging by the sudden burst of flame from the undercarriage, he had hit something valuable.  It skewed out of formation as boyz started piling out.

	He swung the rifle right and fired, blowing a block of metal out of the center of a top-heavy Wartrakk.  It had been laden with extra bitz that it had been visibly wobbling as it drove down the ridge.  A few boyz spilled out of the tower as it teetered and fell.

	The black dust of Oglith looked like smoke.  It blended with the exhaust from the primitive Ork engines.  At this range, Mimic’s optics weren’t much use.  He held his fire as the other vehicles retreating in step with Halwart’s Leviathan opened up with their own cannons.  Puffs of black and grey erupted all over the ridge as a dozen tanks and five Chimaeras opened fire.

	Mimic was no Guardsman, but he knew an Astra Militarum column suppression maneuver when he saw it.  He watched dispassionately as the Ork vehicles in the front crumpled under the hammering lascannon fire from the three Leman Russ Annihilators in the flanks.  They were Cognomen-built tank destroyers, the best in the Sector for what they did, with their three lascannons, two multi-meltas, and missile launcher a piece.  The Orks on either side of the big Deff Rolla just flew apart as the hyper-heated blasts of particles and energy from the Imperial tanks tore through them, punishing the greenskins that had forced their way to the fore.

	Mimic’s helmet chime sounded.  The sound of the battle suddenly lessened as the machine spirit in his mask clamped his earholes shut.  A moment later, dust shook off of the tower as the battery of forty artillery pieces behind him fired.  Mimic frowned.  That was ludicrous overkill for the thirty Ork vehicles that were left.  Had a Guard spotter seen something he couldn’t from his vantage?

	A moment later, he had his answer.  Behind the cloud of dank smoke and dust that hung over the ridge, Mimic saw the entire ridgeline start moving.  His throat tightened as he realized what he was seeing.  Infantry, thousands of them, all of them charging the city.  They weren’t on the tac map because they didn’t have heat emissions for the sensorium webs to catch like engines.

	Mimic may have been the best shot in the Galactic North, but even he couldn’t kill that many Orks.  He tapped a button on the tiny slip of plastic beside his air mattress.  Nine colored shapes, each indicative of one of the ammo types he was carrying, appeared in the air above it, next to a number that indicated how many shells he had left.  Not even remotely close to enough.

	Still, in an Ork charge that big, there was a good chance that Squiggothrider was leading the pack.  Mimic switched to his Soul-Seeker scope with a tap of a key on the side of his rifle and quickly scanned.

	The whole Ork pack was an amorphous blob that surged over the hill like water from a shaking mug.  The artillery was now firing non-stop, shelling the vast horde at random, blowing holes that filled with green.  The Orks were still a mile from the city, and Mimic knew better than to think they’d be tired from the running.  If anything, getting to stare at a nice big city to loot with lots of Imperial weapons to steal would get them more fired up.

	The other Imperial vehicles were firing non-stop now too.  Pintle guns, hull guns, sponson guns, turret guns, launchers, everything and anything they had.  The Leviathan was cycling its weapons so quickly that the smoke from the triggering bolts was forming expanding rings next to the turrets.

	The Soul-Seeker had spotted a dozen Orks physically large enough to be Squiggothrider when Mimic looked again.  He sighted one big Ork riding a gangly squig with huge tusks.  Was that him?  He couldn’t tell.  He fired anyway, and watched as the slug arrived several seconds later to send the Ork off to the Warp.  The other Orks nearby laughed.  Not the Big Chief.

	Mimic twitched the scope to the left and fired at another.  He couldn’t see if that one hit, though.  As the bullet was traveling, a 181mm shell from the artillery park behind him arrived nearby and cast a pall of smoke over the target.

	Mimic flinched as a colossal, roiling fireball appeared in the center of the Ork mass.  The Leviathan shook on its tracks.  The blastwave nearly flipped one of the Chimaeras.  The other two were already burning, hulled by the charging Ork tanks.  Mimic looked up and saw the distant black seven-pointed arrow of a strategic bomber.  A saturation carpet bombing by one of the Mechanicus’ modified Starhawks, probably.

	The Vindicare stared through the smoke.  The Ork horde had a thick line burned down the middle, now.  The front masses of boyz were still running, firing their guns in the air, while the ones behind the line of fireballs had slowed.  They were dazed.  There was a line of roasted Orks down the middle of the near side of the ridgeline.

	Mimic saw the Leviathan and the other vehicles successfully retreat behind the city void shield and halt.  The tanks that had them fired their remaining Hunter-killer missiles and splashed the Deff Rolla.  Mimic allowed a faint grin of satisfaction as the machine rolled to a crumbled halt, aflame from back to front.

	The other boyz were still charging.  At least that confirmed Squiggothrider was still alive, somewhere.  Mimic settled in to watch.  After a bloodying like that, Squiggothrider just might show his face.