The Commissar’s foot jolted away from the crunching of the icon. These people had been devout once. This city was the religious epicentre of What amounted to a shrine world. The commissar stared down at the tiny hand carved bone effigy of a man on a high backed chair, cracked where it had been stood on. He made the sign of the aqilla and said a silent ‘Ave Imperator’ under his breath. Hopefully his service to the Departmento Munitorium might be enough to absolve him of this new blasphemy.
If he hadn’t been wearing a re-breather, his breath would have been clearly visible in clouds in the cold morning air. The sun, Devos, was rising over a devastated city sector. This area had been residential. Not affluent, quite densely populated. It had suffered four years of systematic bombing by the Imperial Navy’s aerospace superiority Devastator squadrons. Then, as they surrounded the city, near around the clock bombardment by the 72 Army Groups Artillery. Endless sporadic harassing fire and the obligatory ‘daily hate’ where at a random time every local day, the whole duty bombardment group pounded an area to dust.
There wasn’t much of the city left, really. The artillery’s Forward Observers, for want of anything better to shoot at, had spent the build up months flattening each remaining tallest structure in turn. The commissar watched the sun rise over dust, broken bricks and the last remnants of what had once been people’s homes. The whole of human life had taken place here, births, deaths, marriages, joy, sorrow, boredom, excitement and fear. A lot of fear. There had been nothing left alive here for a long time.
He knew without checking that the white flecks glinting in the dust and the rubble was smashed human bone.
But there was still risk of the enemy infiltrating back into these areas. He reflexively checked the cell on his las-pistol. He re-holstered it and his off hand moved to the hilt of his power sword. Muscle memory is a wonderful thing. W Company was on the right of the Valhallan line. They were the southern most sub-unit and to the immediate right of their TAOR were Death Korps of 902 Div. W Coy had been issued re=breathers and told to wear them as the Death Korps made no distinction between what the Valhallans viewed as conventional and forbidden weaponry. There was clearly a likelihood of pockets of gas or radiation.
W company’s officers felt that the Death Korps provided a secure rail for the company’s flank. If the Death Korps wanted to burn the air and salt the earth, W Company just had to make sure that they were adequately protected. The Death Korps were supported by their own sappers, griffons and tanks. W Company were not un-supported, but on call artillery and fast air were never quite as responsive as on the ground support who were sharing the same battle. Nonetheless, they had achieved their objective in Operation Redrake.
W Company had gone firm at the pre-planned 3km line at D+18 during Operation Redrake. Y Company had made the target much sooner due to having a Ozark Mountain Combat Engineers detachment and then a fully loaded bomber crashing directly in their line of advance with a full load of over thirty tonnes of HE on board. There was a certain amount of pressure to keep up with better supported units on each flank.
There had been a pause of eight hours. Not a pause for the soldiers of 17 Korps, all along the front they had been digging in, preparing trenches, leaving range cards showing distances and arcs of fire for their positions. Others would follow on and improve these positions with sandbags and flakboards. Aegis lines would be moved up to key locations. But it was now D hour for Redrake 2. In another 3km, 17 Korps would dig in again and then rotate it’s front line units to the rear to be the reserve and todays reserve units would take over.
But for now, through what used to be people’s homes, the men of W Company would again rise up from their recently dug positions and advance across a flattened suburb towards the ruined city in front of them.
The Commissar stood alone, a stone’s throw in front of the waiting Valhallans. They watched as he hopped and paused, expecting some sort of bomb or mine. The Commissar checked his weapons and they watched as he drew his sword and keyed the power, so the dust in the air crackled as the Kopp Etchells effect charged the dust particles in the air. He raised the sword up and waved them forward.
Officers shouted their orders and men began to clamber out of their positions, some with less enthusiasm than others. With an eye to the officers their sergeants encouraged the men forward. They would move as they practiced, two squads knelt in overwatch and two moving a few meters forwards, in theory rippling evenly all along the line of their advance. In reality, due to different speeds of movement over the broken ground the leaders would need stop every forty minutes or so to let the rest catch up. This would take tens of minutes and then there would be another pause whilst the order to move again was shared. At this point, orders like this are shared by runner or signal flag, due to concern over electronic listening devices left behind by retreating rebels.
The flattened houses and hab blocks were a forbidding place to move across: largely apparently featureless, with little cover to move from or to. There was relief in the landscape, where larger hab blocks had been, there would be larger piles of rubble. Some of these had been pounded by artillery and spread out further, but all of these could still potentially hide bunkers or other positions for infiltrating heretics. A gun group of a handful of intelligently placed heavy stubbers could inflict a huge amount of damage on the advancing Valhallan infantry.
Starshy-Corporal Ganna hefted his shoulders. As his platoon’s vox-op his place was at the back of the platoon command squad. His V-800 set lacked the range of the sets worn by the Cadian and Cadian supplied units, but was significantly lighter and had a much longer battery life. The communications plan for the operation was based around runners and signal flags. His semaphore had improved with practice and the flags were now in a sleeve strapped to the side of the vox set. He was monitoring. The Division’s grey slime had given out a number of frequencies which they said the heretics could be using. So he was switching between these every few minutes. The Grey Slime had briefed all of the vox-ops before Operation Redrake began, they would not be able to understand the language of any enemy signals they picked up, but had been taught to listen for words which sounded like ‘Be-a be-a bo.’ This was an order for an immediate attack. His hand strayed to the rattle tucked into his waistbelt. This was the signal – if he heard the words, he shook the rattle. ‘Be-a be-a bo’ was an indication of a major counter attack and their orders were then to fall back to their previous start line, breaking radio silence to alert the units either side, so that the enemy could be enveloped.
Ganna moved the dial slowly through the bands, the rise and fall of the static his practiced ear listening out for the squish of a carrier signal. He moved over something and then, he wouldn’t ever know why, just rolled the dial back to a quieter bit where the static subsided. And then he heard it. Quite clearly, “Ba de gah”. Another key phrase the vox ops had been taught to look out for. He shouted at the top of his voice “Incoming !” even as he heard the dully ringing ‘doink’ which always preceded the fall of the mortar bombs. Everywhere, Valhallans threw themselves flat.
Out in front the Commissar heard the shouted warning, but the stress of providing the exemplary bravery required meant that unexpected shouted warnings in a thick Valhallan accent didn’t process. Heightened sensory overload can produce temporary paralysis even in highly trained humans; with utter unflinching concentration on hidden ambushers trying to shoot him, the commissar was the last to hit the deck, seeming to the Valhallans to do so in a relaxed, desultory manner, contemptuous of the mortar barrage; Assuming a prone position in the open, still well ahead of the Valhallen intrusion into the ruins ahead. The barrage lifted, bonesaws advanced from the rear to tend to casualties and bag up the dead.
The commissar did not feel any braver. It was one thing accepting that one’s place is to lead from the front, to lead the charge and potentially to plunge into the melee, to lose one’s life for the emperor. But the strain of advancing time and time again through a blasted and ruined city, being the first to step time and time again into ambush zones and now to be mortared in the open, he more or less thought that he was almost through his stoicism. He breathed another silent ‘Ave Imperator’ into his mask and mentally assessed whether he’d been wounded or not. ‘Not’, as it happened. He took a while to compose himself, before rising to his feet and dusting himself off, flexing his sword arm and looking at the power field before swishing it about two or three times, just to make sure that it was still working. It was very old, after all.
The men of W company looked up. Guardsmen Iend rose to the ‘firing position, self supported’ the first man scanning his arcs down his lasgun. Out in front their commissar laconically rose, brushing off the dust and small amount of rubble showered over him by the mortar fire. As they also rose to follow this invincible man who was clearly untroubled by any bombardment, who walked nonchalantly into obvious ambush sites. Again the commissar brandished the power sword, leaving a scintillating trail of charged particles in the dusty air.
Guardsmen didn’t take to commissars, as a rule. But this man, who had not been with the Valhallans for very long, was inspiring when it counted, And he was clearly living a charmed life. Lucky leaders are popular with soldiers. Iend lifted his lasgun clearly above his head and gave a throaty cheer “Urrah !”. Along the line, even in the other platoons out of sight of the commissar took up the cry. “Urrah !” rolled out across the rubble. The long-trained pepper pot tactical advance went out of the window as the Valhallans reverted to type and a brown coated human wave surged forward.
Four hundred meters to the north, another platoon would catch the four mortars in the process of being broken down to be carried away and be set up again. W Company was encouraged and now in a good mood. Half an hour later, the advance had slowed back to a steady walk. They would regroup and prepare to move off again, order restored and reverting to the more tactically sound advance with half of their number covering the others as they advanced.
Even further away, Y Company advanced through a recently vacated first aid post. Bandages, syringes and even an amputated lower leg all lay around, blood soaking into the rubble and dust. Old cupboards of toy musical instruments had been used as tables. Tiny chairs for very small children were pushed out of the way to allow the medicae to do their job. The Valhallans did not linger, the enemy would have this location mined or marked as an artillery target.
The orders group had just closed. The commissar gratified but somewhat surprised by the gushing praise of the Valhallan officers. He was actually feeling a little vulnerable. He looked down and saw another one of the little bone throne carvings in the dust. He crouched down to pick it up.
The long las bolt missed the back of his head as he stooped and hit Starshy Lieutenant Helluk squarely in the chest, burning through his greatcoat and flak armour and killing him instantly. The Emperor protects. The group scattered into the rubble. They would spend the next few hours hunting the sniper. This would slow their advance until they could ‘borrow’ a Leman Russ Punisher from the Death Korps to the south.