The smell of Drill Abbess Seutonia’s breath woke her. Seutonia had smoked lo sticks all her life and now had abscesses in her gums that that medicae treated with a herbal tea. The smell that came out of her pores was an odd mix of old smoke and burnt plants mixed with some faint inadequate spice. Doubtless she had discovered that Katia and Salvia had stolen a bottle of amasec from the Provosts stock and drunk it behind the arms hall after dinner. That would explain why her head hurt. She was due for a good thrashing. Or she had been thrashed? No, Seutonia had been dead for nearly a decade, killed when demonstrating how to disarm a limpet mine. Katia opened her eyes. It was dark and noisy. The air stank of hot metal, burning plastics and decades of sweat and fear. Metal groaned and popped, something hissed and boiled nearby, like hot iron in a mulling barrel. The scene was lit by sickly green emergency glow strips, though these were mostly covered by brackish water that luminesced a lurid jade under their influence. Crash webbing gripped her chest and she hung upside down, the weight of her braided and coiled blond hair hanging downwards, the leather of her great coat caught awkwardly around her backside. The dropship. Holy Throne she had been on the dropship when it had been hit. The gurgling grew more intense. Something flashed blue as power lines shorted, the purity seals overwhelmed by the inrushing fluid. They were in the water. There weren’t supposed to be any large bodies of water near the drop site but she had no idea how high they had been when they had been hit, a lucky shot might have dropped them half a continent away in the Black Ocean. She grabbed for her restraints, trying to pull herself free but the tangled canvas wouldn’t give. A cold fear knotted her gut. Katia had always known she would die for the Emperor, but to drown in an overturned dropship? She would not go before the Golden Throne that way. With a fury she tore at her straps struggling vainly to get them to buckle and…
“We got you Commissar!” a voice shouted, and a stab light beam hit her in the face, blinding her with its radiance. She cursed and tried to turn her head but hands were already grabbing her. She heard the saw of steel on canvas and a moment later she fell into waiting hands, that righted her and stood her on the deck. The water that squelched beneath her boots was only a foot deep. Two guardsman, a corporal and a private with a medicae specialty stood before her, both looking bruised and battered.
“Prax,” Katija said, her mind pulling the noncoms name from his disciplinary record. The trooper staggered back as if struck, stunned to be recognized by the regimental commissar.
“Yes Ma’am, Corpral Praxidii,” he responded attempting to come to something like attention. The medic’s eyes also widened. The idea that a commissar would be able to identify a single trooper by name was a shocking one, much less under these circumstances. By the look of awe in their eyes, her stock with the troopers had just risen. Truthfully she only knew the corporal’s name because she had been reviewing his disciplinary record. Praxidii had a long line of disciplinary issues, mostly practical jokes, which was why they shortened his name. He had the usual brushes with authority too, something she put down to him being a little on the short side, Maccarius Syndrome. All of his reprimands had been issued for activity in barracks however and not in the field. Perhaps not coincidentally he was also one of Zeb’s drinking buddies.
“What’s the situation?” she demanded looking around in vain for her commissarial cap. The damned thing must have come off her head during the crash, and was now lost beneath the muddy water.
“We seem to be fraked commissar,” Prax responded glibly.
“Succinctly put. Perhaps if you could indulge me with the specifics?” Katia responded with a touch of acid in her voice. The grin slid of Prax’ face.
“It’s pretty bad ma’am, both of the chimeras broke their brackets when we turned turtle, there are a lot of dead,” Prax responded. The blood on the medic’s face and the gore smearing the arms of his khaki fatigues spoke elequonently on the subject. On queue they pushed out of the secondary crew bay and into the primary, shoving aside a nest of fallen electrical wiring,. Sunlight shafted in from a pair of ragged holes, presumably blown by whatever had knocked the dropship out of the sky illuminating the cavernous main bay. A pair of chimeras, buckled scrap now, were against one wall having ripped free of the minimal tie downs used when expecting a quick disembarkation. Long tracks of ripped deck plating charted their final journeys where they had smashed into the wall where the troops had been strapped in. Blood oozed out from beneath the carriers to drip down a short rise into the muddy water. Fifty percent casualties without a shot being fired. The air was already beginning to stink with the smell of blood entrails.
“Who is in charge?” she asked, eyes following the bales of camo netting that had been unwound to create a make shift ladder up to the breaches which were now the only viable exits.
“That’d be me ma’am, Lieutenant Ralvo was seated starboard,” the noncom replied grimly. By the Emperor’ Mercy Prax and his men had been on the other side of the bay when they hit, the universe had really flipped a coin on them, a slight quirk in trajectory and they might have been the ones smashed to pulp. Katia had been riding along with this dropship to see if Ravalo might warrant a captaincy when the slot opened up. A waste, but when the Throne called, it called.
“Everyone is out,” he went on, “twenty survivors. Maybe a dozen who can fight, some wounded and a pair of enginseers. Somewhat belatedly she realized that they had come back for her when they noticed she was missing. Most guardsmen would be more than happy to leave a commissar to her fate, the office didn’t exactly inspire popularity. Katia knew that many commissars, particularly the more brutal stripe, often suffered convenient ‘accidents’ during their service. Perhaps her standing was higher than she realized, or perhaps Prax was looking out for his friend Zeb.
The climb out of the dropship was more awkward than it looked, the camouflage netting was, by its nature, irregular and some strands were too thin to hold the full weight of a man. Some strands parted as they climbed, making it as much an exercise in distributing weight as it was one of strength. How wounded men had climbed out Katia had no idea.
“Watch yourself Ma’am,” Prax advised as Katia reached the jagged hole. It was good that he had warned her but the smell of hot metal had already reached her nose. The hull of the dropship didn’t glow, but the heat of reentry still shimmered as a distortion above the hot plating. A bridge of half melted sets of flack armor, its woven plastic somewhat flame retardant, marked the way off. It was an ingenious if messy solution to a tricky problem. The dropship itself lay in a shallow pond filled with greenish plants that grew up through the water. To one side rose a terraced hill while on the other a bank had been raised. It was obviously artificial and intended to channel the water which might once have been a river but now ran down through a series of shallow dams to make irrigated fields for whatever the green crop was. Both banks were heavily planted with some other crop this one with broad green leaves and bright red fruit. The dropships pilot had brought them down in between the two banks and they had ripped down the artificial valley, tearing open dozens of the small damns in a gigantic muddy waterslide. Probably that was the only reason the inertia of the crash hadn’t killed them all. Now the pond was draining slowly, the sluggish trickle of water from upstream not able to cope with the sudden loss of dams. What water and mud remained hissed and gurgled around the hull of the dropship, sucking up the waste heat. Wilting of the nearby plants suggested that there had been a great cloud of steam when they had hit and gave the whole area a faintly soupy smell. The rainbow sheen of promethium products and sacred unguents spread out over the shallow pond around the dropship, like a halo guiding the gallant machine spirit home after its noble sacrifice.
Katia picked her way over the bridge of flack vests until she reached the spot where the hull began to curve downwards. A cable had been tied to some kind of antennae mount and ran across to the hillside bank. Without waiting for explanation, Katia took a step back, jumped onto the cable and took three steps before her momentum allowed her to wobble, jumping lightly onto the embankment. A score of Gudrunite troopers sat among the greenery, looking bewildered. Some were improvising slings for broken arms, others sponging at bloody head wounds. At least they were all armed, having been prepped for a combat deployment. A few even had full packs and webbing on, having had the presence of mind to unship their gear, or at least whatever gear they could find, before scrambling to safety. A pair of troopers with the scarlet band and cog wheel symbol of enginseers, were arguing over an acetate map, trying to figure out where they were. Katia touched her earbead.
“Commissar Lubedenko to any Imperial Forces, we have a shuttle crash with wounded, please respond.” There was a hiss of static. That wasn’t surprising, the comm beads only had a range of a kilometer or so if they weren’t hooked into more powerful base units or retransmitters. Normally that would be the chimeras which had been reduced to so much scrap by the crash.
“Any idea where we are?” she asked as Prax and his medicae clambered less dramatically over the rope to join her. Prax scratched his chin for a moment in consideration.
“Probably a few hundred kloms from the LZ at max, they only hit us a few seconds before we was due to hit the ground. Katia’s short term memory had been blurred by the impact but that made sense, Orks were not exactly known for their marksman ship and there had been no auspex reports of their ramshackle aircraft in the area.
“Probably in the western highlands then, these feeder rivers lead down to the plateau and join up to become the Narafi Mar,” she recalled from the briefing slate. Luckily the immediate AO had been something she’d studied. They simply had to follow the channel down to the plains and meet up with the guard or whatever locals hadn’t yet fled.
“What’s that?” the medicae asked, Katia turned to regard him quizzically but before she did so she heard the sound. The distant roar of engines. Rescue? She glanced at Prax who looked back at her in concern.
“Stand to!” she shouted and strode up the terrace, brushing through the greenish bushes and squashing fallen fruit under her boots. To her infinite relief her weapons, which she hadn’t checked, were still at her belt and she drew her bolt pistol. It was a master piece, given to her by the Governor of Pavonis, its ancient black casing re-engraved to show the mark of the Commisariat in dull silver. She racked the slide, hearing the soft click-click of the shell seating home. The roaring sound was growing louder now, growing fast, and there was an arrhythmic thump to it. It was coming on so fast, so fast and so loud almost like a jet which was just subsonic. She had just about reached the crest now but instead of continuing she crouched down and shouted into her comm as she caught a flash of movement on the other side of the ridge.
“Orks!”
The first of them burst over the ridge crest twenty meters from Katia. She had an odd impression of a combination between a cargo hauler and a motor bike as the thing roared into view, spewing oily black smoke from a pair of exhausts which looked to have been the horns of some great carnivore hollowed out for the purpose. It was going so fast that it left the ground as it cleared the ridge, flying ten meters into the air. It hung there for a moment, rear tracks still spinning out bits of grass and mud. Katia had time to catch site of ugly greenish faces, in expressions of comical shock or wild glee, before plunged downwards and planted into the ground with a shriek of tearing metal. It hit nose first, throwing green bodies in all directions as it tumbled end over end, making three complete rotations before smashing into the opposite bank and exploded in a gout of promethium flame. Bright white highlights burst through the sooty red flame as ammunition cooked off like Emperor Day fireworks. Two more of the bike things leaped over the ridge these, learning from the fate of their predecessor, managed to turn enough to stick the landing with a squeal of protesting struts and a thump that Katia felt through her spine. Both of the bikes opened up with their crude equivalent of bolters, blasting plants to fleshy pulp but coming nowhere near the Gudrenites. A fourth and fifth bike leaped over the ridge to Katia’s immediate left, their drivers breaking their suicidal rush sufficiently to manage something like a controlled landing. Every one of the vehicles was a different grotesque collection of scrap, some hand made, most looking like looted agri-equipment. They were painted in gaudy colors of no particular consistency, with bright red strips predominating. The air stank of fisolene and burning promethium as well as the odd tang of crushed crops.
“Open fire!” Katia ordered in the same heartbeat that las guns began to crack from the wrecked dropship. Most of the fire went wide, the Imperials wrongfooted by the speed and reckless haste that the greenskins displayed, though a couple of las rounds spanged off the engine cowling of the closest bike. Katia realized that she was now between her men and the Greenskins fortunately the green filth were too focused on the dropship to have noticed. As the bike things reached the muddy mire of the partially drained rice fields, they threw up twenty meter rooster tails of mud and shredded crops behind them like banners. The hoots of enjoyment from the orks was audible even over the roar of engines and crackle of weapons. One of the bikes bogged down and its occupants, a half dozen orks with big axes and brutal looking bolters leaped free and rushed towards the humans. The whole tableau had taken all of three or four seconds.
Katia had never seen a live ork before, but she had seen the preserved corpses of several at the Scholam. As an open minded citizen of the Imperium Katia knew she should despise all Xenos equally, even so she felt the ancestral Valhallan hatred of the twisted abominations fire in her breast. She ran down the hill back towards the Guard position. One of the orks who had been thrown clear of the first wreck stood up not ten paces from her, regarding her with hateful yellow eyes. It seemed impossible that anything could have survived the bone shattering impact but the thing raised its axe and opened its mouth to roar its warcry, rotted yellow fangs filling its too wide mouth. Katia’s bolt punched through the soft pallet of its mouth and burst its skull like a dropped melon. A second creature was starting to rise up but she dispatched it with a shot to the neck as she ran towards her troops, hurdling through the plants and hoping no one fired in her direction. The three surviving bike things were back under what passed for control, their crews, if such a term could be applied, bailing out into the mud and crops like green bowling balls, paying no heed to personal safety. The vehicles themselves roared on, guns firing on fall auto without the pretense of aiming. Two of the bikes whipped around the rear of the dropship, bolters ringing sun bright ricochets from the hull. One of the bikes slewed violently as it was caught by its own reflected ordnance, it mounted the half buried hull and sailed into the air, turning over and smashing into the ground twenty feet from where the Gudrunites hunkered. Incredibly the driver was still alive, attempting to pull itself from the wreck as dozens of las bolts blew it apart. That left two bikes, one shouldering its way up the rise to try to get a line on the Imperials and the other sweeping around in a broad arc, spraying mud as it turned in a power slide. Katia, realizing almost two late, flung herself down as the twin stream of orkish bolts ripped across above her, showering her in the shattered stems of crop plants and the sour smelling fruit pulp.
“Commissar!” Prax shouted in her earpiece, assuming she had been cut down, but she was already pushing herself to her feet.
“The Emperor…” The bike was racing right towards her at staggering speed. Katia leveled her pistol and fired with a rapid snap snap snap. Bright bolter casings burst around the nose of the thing and ripped into the drivers shoulders. The bike hurtled towards her, filling her vision with its snarling intakes and the drivers insane grin. It wasn’t going to… One of the shells blew the things right arm off and it swerved aside at the last moment, rapidly losing momentum as it turned up hill and into the thick crop growth. The driver stared down in shock at its severed arm, grabbing at the controls with its left hand. Katia’s bolt pistol clicked empty as she aimed for the head shot.
“Frak!” she yelped and sprang towards the bike, reaching it just as the one armed driver gripped the throttle lever. Her powersword came out of her belt and ignited with a gout of smoke as sap and mud burned on the blade. It came down in a glittering arc and severed the orks other arm at mid elbow, killing the throttle for the second time. With an irate scream it lunged for her with its mouth, and she ducked back, evading by millimeters the bone crunching bite which echoed like a gunshot. The blade whipped the things head off neatly and the ork slid from the saddle.
“…Protects,” she said with a gasp, finishing the adage she had begun a subjective lifetime before. Unfortunately the rest of the battle was not progressing so well. More by luck than good judgement the orks had managed to deploy themselves in an almost perfect ninety degree arch with the crew of one bike at each end and the Imperial position at the apex. The final bike appeared to have bogged to the axles in the mud at the rear of the dropship and the driver had leapt free to join his fellows. Prax and his men didn’t have the firepower to deal with a dozen orcs, and certainly not when they had to split their fire between the two groups. As she watched las bolts cut into the onrushing foe in an increasingly panicky rapid fire. Shots which would have killed or incapacitated a human were ignored and even guaranteed kill shots were uncertain. A las bolt tore of an orks jaw but the beast just screamed its weird WAAAAAGH cry and charged onwards. Unless she did something, and soon, they were going to be over run. Once the orks closed the distance and could employ those axes it would all be over. It would all be over already if they used their guns, but they appeared to have forgotten them in the excitement.
“Prax, concentrate on the uphill group,” she called over the comm.
“But…” the noncom objected, justly concerned that the other group could sweep in unopposed. Katia climbed up into the saddle of the bike thing, ignoring the way ork ichor soaked her trousers and grabbed for the controls.
“Just do it!” she snapped and pulled the throttle open. She almost lost control immediately. The ork bike had nothing in the way of throttle control, it was essentially max or nothing. The bike lurched forward at a prodigious rate and Katia had to use all her strength to cling on. To add to her woes, suspension or power assisted steering evidently didn’t exist in the diseased minds that had designed this thing. The sheer power of it tried to drive the spine of it up through her tailbone and without the body weight or muscle mass of an ork she was nearly thrown from the saddle with each rev of the engine. Grimly she wrestled with the wheel, turning it downhill by force of will alone. Desperately she gripped with her thighs as it picked up speed at an alarming rate, racing down towards the second group of orks. She realized that if she let go of the throttle to pull the trigger she would be thrown clear.
“Well, there is more than one way to skin a grox….”
The bike hit the orks at nearly 60 kph. Katia made a wrenching turn at the last moment, flinging the rear of the thing out like a scythe. It would have overturned if not for the sheen of mud under the tracks and the meaty impacts of the orks against the side hull. Tough they might be, but she felt bones shatter like clay pots as she swept over them in a vast bow wake of mud. Katia let go of the throttle at the last moment and merely focused on hanging on, the wrenching twist of the turn all but dislocating her arm, commissarial great coat fluttering around her like a black banner. The abused engine finally stalled out and the las fire she could hear in place of it sounded shockingly quiet. She saw the last of the orks fall, mere meters from the Gudrunite position as the bike finally came to a halt and she stood up in the saddle on unsteady legs as gobbets of mud pattered down around her. Wild cheering erupted from the guardsman, a mix of ‘Commissar and Katia’. She should put a stop to it she thought, and then slumped back into the seat, feeling the abuses of the last few endless minutes in every muscle in her body. And she would. In just a minute. When she could stand again.
