Chapter XVI: Urban Hell
Jim slept peacefully. His dreams were mingled, dreams of love, of the future, of the past. In none of them did he envision any kind of war going on. His dreams knew no angry actions.
Until the last dream. In the midst of a wonderful, bright, sunny day, with a picnic laid out before him and Sara, the sky suddenly darkened, lightning began to fall from the skies and thunder echoed in the valley in which they sat. Tanks rolled up on either side, and began blasting away at each other. Sirens, from nowhere, began bleating out their warnings, and orders were screamed at startled men.
Jim jumped up in the bed, disturbed by the dream.
Then he realized why he'd had it. Sirens were blaring throughout the hotel-barracks. The intercom was alive with the sounds of officers shouting orders to al soldiers to wake up. Outside, laser cannons and battlecannons punctuated an ever growing symphony of destruction, rocking the building.
Sara stirred, too, then suddenly awoke, startled, once she realized what was going on.
Jim leapt out of bed, grabbing his clothes and yanking them on. He tossed Sara's flak jacket to her, and they both quickly dressed and grabbed their weapons, running into the hall.
Most of the One Platoon soldiers had already assembled there, and others were clambering out of their rooms. Within minutes, the soldiers were all assembled, a little
disheveled and some looking quite tired.
Becker ran out of the elevator once the doors were halfway open, already in his full gear. He shouted so all the soldiers could hear him.
"Listen up! The Eldar are right outside this building. Emperor knows how, but they somehow managed to make their way all the way through the city to strike at us where we sleep.
"They have caught us unaware, but not entirely. We had a company already on watch, and they're doing their best to hold the Eldar back.
"As I'm sure you've guessed by now, we're going to go and try to give them some relief. Alpha and Bravo Companies are already outside, and Delta should be
joining us soon. Easy Company was on a patrol of the area, and should be back here to hopefully do a flank attack within half an hour. Until then, it's the Median IV, the Cadelan II, and two armoured companies out there
trying to hold this part of the city.
"Now get out there, and bust some Eldar ass!"
The soldiers all began running forward, crowding into elevators as they opened on the second floor, carrying the soldiers down to the first floor. Dozens of troops were assembled in the lobby, and more came every minute.
Jim looked over at Sara, worried. She weakly smiled, trying to reassure him. Neither spoke. They were both afraid of what they were about to step out into.
The lobby glass was shattered by a nearby explosion, and shortly afterwards, they were given the order to go.
The soldiers of Charlie Company, all of them, ran out into the streets to face their foe.
* * *
Mack ran out of the hotel, and immediately crouched low. Bullets and shuriken mingled with heavy
shells and lasers criss-crossing the streets.
He followed the rest of his squad, and most of the platoon, to a position around a pile of broken asphalt and concrete, flanked by the burning hulks of two Leman Russ battle tanks. The position gave them a good amount of cover to hide behind, as well as a good field of fire.
Ahead, the smoking wreckage of a wrecked Falcon obscured much of the view. But Mack could still make out several Eldar warriors advancing toward their position, with towering walkers in the midst of their ranks.
Above, fighters dueled with bombers. A pair of Lightning Strikes flew low over the platoon, strafing the advancing Eldar and unloading some Hellstrikes into them. Many Eldar were cut down by the attack, but still they kept coming.
Mack turned to look at Joe and Ian. "You got the Big Boy up yet?"
They gave a thumbs up, indicating the heavy bolter was ready to go. Ian grabbed a belt of ammunition and slid it into the side of the gun, until it locked in with a chink. Then Joe grabbed the weapon's dual grips, aimed it into the middle of the Eldar lines, and pulled back on the triggers.
A spray of bullets flew into the Eldar, joined by many other heavy bolters, and some autocannons. Frag missiles spiraled in.
Eldar began to scatter, but in an organized fashion. The towering walkers began spraying out fire from multi-barreled lasers. Floating guns fired at the Imperial Guard, a mixture of heavy lasers, multi-barreled lasers, plasma weapons, and missiles.
The return fire hit the Imperial Guard lines hard. Dozens of soldiers fell. The Leman Russ hulk to the soldiers' left was hit with multiple heavy weapon shots. It rocked with the repeated explosions, then finally fell on its side, great chunks of its front armour missing.
Mack held his rifle, but had to work to steady his hands. The Eldar were still not in optimal range, so it was up to the heavy weapons of both sides to do the fighting.
* * *
Bill glanced around the battlefield, looking for any opportune targets for his rifle. None presented themselves.
Movement caught his eye, from an alley to the platoon's side. He squinted his
eyes, trying to see what was in the alley. To his surprise, and horror, he saw a group of armoured Eldar warriors moving quietly through the shadows, ready to pounce upon the Imperial troops from their flank.
Bill made his way over to Bob, then tugged on his sleeve.
"What?" Bob asked, looking over at him.
Bill pointed to the alley. "Look."
Bob looked over at the alley, scanning it. "I don't see
anyth-... Shit!"
Bob turned to his squad and shouted out, "Infiltrators, alley at four'o'clock!" Then he turned to Bill again. "Good work spotting them, Bill."
The squad turned their weapons to the alley, and began firing into it. Bill picked his targets carefully, firing only when he was sure of a kill shot. It was hard to make out much in the hail of bullets and fragmentation explosions within the alley, but he was able to pick off at least four of the Eldar.
A few made their way through the storm of fire, and leapt at the squad with swords and pistols drawn. A spray of shuriken embedded in Bob's armour, then he drew his twin knives and slashed across his assailant's neck, dropping the warrior. Bill was surprised at how adept Bob had become with what he'd taken from the Tau.
He pulled out his own alien souvenir, an Eldar sword taken from warriors in the same armour as these. He had taken it to one of the armourers in Bravo Company, who'd had experience in reworking Eldar weapons. The sword was not genetically tuned to Bill. When he pressed the activation button on it and the sword came to life, a pair of Eldar that had been moving toward him stopped, surprised to see it working.
Bill thrust his arm out and brought it around in an arc, slicing through the two warriors with ease. Their armour melted where it was contacted by the sword's energy field. They both dropped without uttering a sound.
The attack of the green armoured Eldar was quickly repulsed, though the squad had lost John in the process. A shame, because he had taken to using the squad's missile launcher himself after Alan's death, and now the squad was without a missile launcher gunner or loader.
* * *
Mack waited, impatient. The Eldar should have moved into range by now. What were they waiting for?
His answer came with the scream of engines that were all too familiarly un-Imperial.
He peeked his head up for a quick glance and saw a flight of dozens of Eldar grav-tanks swooping down into the streets and racing toward the Imperial lines, firing their weapons.
Tanks rumbled forward, firing their weapons at the Eldar vehicles. Missile launcher teams were also order to switch to krak missiles.
Heavy weaponry fired in even more brilliant and terrifying patterns over the heads of the Imperial riflemen. Mack felt horrible. There was nothing he could do to fight this battle as it was.
Eldar tanks flying into the hail of Imperial fire were hit by many krak missiles and battlecannons. Lightning fighters of both sorts came out of the sky to blast the grav-tanks. Several crashed. Others came on, implacably.
Imperial tanks also fell victim to the exchange of fire. A squad of Leman Russ Vanquishers was stiched with fire from several rapid laser cannons. The resultant explosions
littered the streets with burning debris. One piece of debris, very ragged and red hot, fell on Ian's leg, slicing it off halfway up the thigh. Ian clutched the bloody, torn remains of his leg, screaming in agony.
A soldier from another company, apparently frightened by this new twist, jumped to his feet and turned to run. He was hit by a multi-fire laser, his body burned through by over a dozen shots. He fell to the ground in a smoking heap.
More tanks were wrecked, and more Eldar vehicles fell.
And through it all, Mack could do nothing.
* * *
Jim huddled up next to a large pile of broken roadwork, his left arm holding Sara close, his right holding his rifle at the ready.
He felt so helpless, knowing the Eldar were inflicting casualties on the Imperial Guardsmen, while he couldn't return fire.
He heard a particularly loud explosion nearby, then the loud
whistling of something falling quickly from the sky. Sara, by his side, looked up and past his shoulder, and her eyes widened with fear. She watched something as it came closer and closer, till it was right above them.
An Eldar Wave Serpent, smoking heavily and trailing debris, swooped low overhead, rapidly descending. The tank plowed into a nearby building, erupting in a giant fireball that engulfed the building's first three stories and shot flaming chunks of debris out the other side.
The building, its first three levels demolished, its support beams heavily damaged or totally obliterated by the wrecking grav-tank, teetered dangerously. There was no way it could hold its own weight.
With a heavy groan, the
building's north half gave in on itself, sliding downward as if sliding off of a cliff into the ocean. The masonry and metal crumpled in on itself, throwing out huge pieces of concrete and buckled steel beams. Following its collapse the south end also came crashing down.
A dozen nearby soldiers from Alpha Company looked up in surprise and cried out as the building came crashing down on them. A tank's turret gunner tried
unsuccessfully to escape the avalanche that was falling down on his vehicle. He scrambled out of his turret, but was only halfway when a mangled beam hit the turret, crushing it and dropping the man's top half to the ground. For an
awful few seconds, he cried out in tremendous pain, then the shock to his system silenced him for good.
The rest of the building covered him up, along with the tank he had tried so vainly to escape.
And somewhere, amidst the sound of tortured metal and crumbling concrete, Jim was
certain he'd heard the cries of people who were not soldiers. Civilians, buried in that building forever.
The call came out that the Eldar had closed to within range. With a great deal of rage fresh in his mind, Jim leapt up, spun to face the Eldar, and began firing, not waiting even for Sara to stand up as well.
* * *
Bob stood up quickly, hearing the engines of the Eldar tacks come to a flat whine. He saw them hovering in the air, disgorging troops close to the Imperial lines.
"Open fire! Hit the tanks while they're vulnerable!" he called out. Even as he did, he dimly recalled the fact that his missile launcher team, which had become only one man, was now dead, and couldn't hit the tanks. He hoped that someone else would hear and do so.
His hopes were answered, as missiles and other weapons hit the tanks, dropping over a dozen of them rapidly. Rifles began firing, their chatter sounding like some wonderful music to Bob.
Eldar dropped by the dozens, but they came upon the Imperials quickly. Hundreds of rifles fired at hundreds of Eldar, dropping more and more. The Eldar closed to shuriken catapult range, opening fire on the Imperial Guard. Hundreds of soldiers from both sides fell to the ground, savagely maimed by the other side's weapons.
A squadron of Marauder destroyers flew overhead, dropping dozens of bombs on the Eldar, then turning and swooping down to fire autocannon, heavy bolters, assault cannon, and Hellstrike missiles into their ranks.
Chaos reigned in the street, now broken to the point where it was of little use to vehicles but provided plenty of cover for troops on the ground. Bob chose his targets for their importance, ignoring the little soldiers who were being fired upon by his fellow Guardsmen in order to nail the big fish.
He caught sight of an Eldar Warlock dressed in ornate blue and white armour. He brought his rifle up, aimed it at the advancing figure, then let loose a heavy burst of fire.
The Eldar's
chest and head were hit multiple times, his armour saving him from most of the shots. But that was not enough. He fell to the ground, the shots that had gotten through riddling his chest and face.
Bob picked off another warlock, and another, then turned his attention to the heavier armoured warriors.
And then the Eldar were upon the Guardsmen, and a swirling melee began. Bob dropped his rifle on its sling and pulled his Talisserra blades. This was the moment he'd waited for.
* * *
Mel fired his rifle into the face of an Eldar, then another, and another. They kept coming over the rubble, like an unstoppable tide. All across the Imperial line, Eldar swarmed into them, firing at close range and killing dozens of soldiers. But the Imperial troopers had been taught well, and held their ground, firing into the advancing Eldar.
The Eldar push could not be supported, as the Imperial tanks and flyers
poured fire into the rear of the enemy lines.
Within seconds, the savage assault was over. The Eldar, unable to support their drive, and losing more of their number with every passing minute, broke off their attack.
Several of the Imperial Guardsmen, elated with their sudden success, began chasing the Eldar, running after them. They fired into the Eldar, dropping more of them. The Eldar quickly jumped into their vehicles, huddling in as quickly as they could.
More Eldar tanks were brought down, and the covering fire killed more Imperial soldiers and destroyed another pair of tanks.
The pursuit was called off, and Mel gladly complied with the order. He stopped and almost fell to his knees, exhausted. The fight was over, but it had been tough.
* * *
Sara wandered around in the rubble, dazed and feeling somewhat confused.
In the soft light of dawn, she could see dead bodies strewn about the streets, hundreds of them. Many more soldiers, both human and Eldar, cried out in pain, their wounds too grievous to allow them to move.
The Imperial wounded were rounded up and put on stretchers, to be taken to a makeshift field hospital. The wounded Eldar were met with no more mercy than a rifle shot to the head.
Dozens of vehicles, bother Imperial and Eldar, littered the streets, broken and burning. Some were so heavily damaged it was hard to tell what they had previously been. Thos with recoverable parts, such as weapons, were being stripped by Imperial recovery crews.
Rubble was thrown to the side as crews moved to uncover buried
Imperial soldiers and citizens. Almost all of them were dead, but a precious few were still alive.
A small child caught her eye, and she looked at her. The little girl was covered in dust and cut badly, but she kept wandering around a pile of rubble. A pair of nurses came up to her and began asking her questions, then led her off and directed a team to search the rubble.
Jim came up behind Sara and put his arms around her waist.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said, softly.
"I was worried. I couldn't find you."
"I'm sorry. I began drifting around. I was a little bit dazed, I guess."
"I understand."
"I know you do." Sara turned around. "Thank you."
Jim nodded, then leaned down and kissed Sara. Then he took her hand and began leading her back toward the hotel-barracks. "Come on, let's get some rest."
Sara gave no protest, all too happy to have this latest fight over.
But the sight of the little girl, searching for a lost someone, probably her parents, never left her mind.
* * *
Janet stepped over the broken glass and wood, trough a thick layer of concrete dust, and walked back through the lobby of the hotel-barracks. It was no longer pristine and sparkling. Instead, it was dull and grey, almost everything covered with the dust that covered the streets following the collapse of a few
buildings and the pummeling of walls on others.
She rode the elevator up to the second floor, the only other passenger being Mel, who had a bandaged on his hand. She turned to him and asked, "Have you seen Bob?"
Mel looked down at her and shrugged. "I don't know what happened to him. As soon as the fight was over, and all the action died down, I looked around and didn't see him anywhere. I figured he either took a walk, or came back here."
"Thanks anyway," Janet said, stepping off the elevator as its doors opened, depositing them on the second floor.
She walked to her room, opened the door, and keyed on the main lights. "Bob?" she called out, but she quickly realized no one was in the room. She dropped her rifle to the side, unslung her pack, removed her ammo belt, and took all of her other combat gear off, then pulled off her flak jacket and threw it to the side.
She then left the room and went to Bob's, keying in the code she'd been given by Bill. The door opened, and she stepped inside.
The room was very dim, the sun's first light not yet having crept high enough into the sky to shine over the tops of nearby buildings and past the heavy clouds of smoke. In the dim light, she saw a chair near the room's wide windows, and someone sitting in it.
She slowly walked up to the chair, then past it when she got no reaction from its inhabitant. "Bob?"
He sat in the chair, staring blankly forward, his eyes occasionally darting around, as if searching for something. Other than the movement of his eyes, he was perfectly still.
Janet walked up and said again, more firmly, "Bob?"
Bob half-jumped, startled. He looked up at her, and relief washed over his features. He sagged in the chair. "Hello."
Janet could see, in the light that did come through the windows, that Bob was still wearing his full combat fatigues. His fatigues were covered in dried blood and dust, as were his face, hair, and hands. His left arm appeared to be torn open, but wasn't bleeding. He didn't even seem to notice it.
"You look..." she began.
"Like hell?" Bob asked. "I know."
"Where... where did all that blood come from?" As she asked, she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.
Bob looked down, then seemed surprised to find his fatigues had been drenched with blood. "I, uh, don't know. I remember a swirling melee, dozens of Eldar throwing themselves at me, and being very, very angry."
Janet shivered. She'd heard of his tendency to lay into the enemy with two blades he'd taken from dead Tau, but she'd never expected to find him this way. Unsure what else to say, she simply asked, "Are you okay?"
Bob looked to the side, as if considering something. "That, of course, depends on what you mean by okay. I feel drained, certainly. I don't remember much of what happened. I don't remember making it to my room. But I don't feel any pain, and I can't say that I'm terribly sad or angry right now. So, I suppose, I am okay."
"You should get washed, and get those clothes taken care of too."
Bob grinned, but it faded quickly. "So should you."
"I plan on it. But if you don't get in that bathroom and get yourself refreshed, I'm telling Dennis."
"You don't play fair." Bob stood up and stretched, then took his flak jacket off, heading toward his bathroom. He stopped and turned to look at Janet. "What are you going to be doing?"
"Going back to my room and taking a shower. I can come back later, if you don't want to be alone."
"That's okay, I'll just go over to your room if I need someone to be around."
Janet decided to leave it at that, and left the room, closing the door behind her.
She couldn't tell what it was, but something in the way Bob had just acted scared her.
* * *
"Lieutenant?"
Becker turned and saw a man wearing the green and blue uniform of an Imperial Guard courier. The man was holding out a
half-dozen envelopes.
"Yes?"
"These arrived on the courier ship. They're for you, sir." The courier handed him the envelopes, then turned to find the recipients of the rest of the mail he was carrying.
Becker sifted through the envelopes, then found one from his wife. He walked over to a bench, dusted it off with his hand, and sat down. As he opened the letter and read it, he became oblivious to the clean up work around him.
It read:
"My Darling Dennis,
I've missed you so much these past months. It's hard for me, not knowing where you are, or how you're doing. I had to drop this letter off at the courier post, and they wouldn't tell me where it would be sent, or even how it would reach you.
Melissa's schooling has gone well. She's learning a lot, and her ability to read so well has really surprised her teachers. So has her knowledge of the Imperial Creed. You can be very proud of her, Dennis.
Last night we both sat on our porch and stared at the sky. Melissa was very thrilled with seeing the stars. She asked me which one you were at, but I couldn't tell her. She told me she decided she wants to call her first daughter 'Star', for whatever Star it is you're conquering in the Emperor's name. The innocence of youth is so wonderful.
I hope you will be allowed to send a letter back home. I wish you could return to me, but I know your duty is to the Guard right now. May all your wars among the stars be successful, and may the Emperor speed you on your return to me.
I love you with all my heart and soul.
Holly"
Becker folded up the letter, put it back in its envelope, then stuffed all of his mail in his jacket pocket.
He looked around, and was once again drawn into the here and now. The smell of dead bodies, concrete dust, oil, and burned hulks mingled to create an awful scent. The sight of so many dead, of buildings crumbled and ruined, of husks that were once mighty engines of war, made him feel a terrible dread in his heart.
Silently, he placed his face in his hands and began to cry.
END OF CHAPTER XVI
Continued in Chapter
XVII: Street Engagement
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