Herald of the Stars: Chapter Eighty-One (Patreon)

Many thanks to Chris, Stx66, and zamir islahi for donating ammunition to the the current conflict.

Six armoured companies of leman russ tanks and mechanised infantry patrol between the sixteen forward bases and two armoured companies are close enough to respond. They start to converge on Dôl East Prime within a minute of the orks dashing past the barely functional first line of floating concrete bunkers.

Being three times faster than the tanks, the mechanised infantry sweep behind the orks as they reach the one kilometre line around Dôl East Prime. The orks whoop and holler, and a third of their remaining vehicles turn around and circle the approaching mechanised infantry, while the remaining one hundred and six vehicles continue their assault on Dôl East Prime.

Both sides quickly rack up casualties, the orks much faster than the heralds, as their open topped hover-trukks offer little defence against multi-lasers and lasguns.

The four flamer chimera variants mixed among the two armoured companies’ mechanised infantry are particularly effective, setting the orks within alight and sending the hover trukks ploughing into the dirt when the skirting ignites, then explodes, in a great billow of flame from all the extra air.

I quickly shelve any thoughts of replicating a hover-craft tank.

Distracted by chimeras and crassus armoured transports, the circling orks’ movement becomes more predictable, creating an opportunity for the cumbersome leman russ tanks. The tanks fire on the move, as they pootle along at a disappointing twenty kilometres per hour. They’re at maximum range and only a quarter of the shots hit. I frown at the inadequate accuracy, then add hunter shells, a self-targeting shell for smoothbore guns, to my growing list of research projects.

I can understand why the tank commander is hanging on to his hunter-killer missiles as they don’t know if the orks might swoop in with strike craft or have a missile barrage of their own on the way. Supply of hunter-killer missiles is limited too and the storm bolter on the tank turret is more for close-in defence, than trying to gun down flying targets. The commander’s caution will cost us a lot of casualties though and they are within the support range of Dôl East Prime, even if all it’s guns are currently tasked on the ork assault.

It’s a good choice if they were facing tau or eldar, but I do not know if they made the right call here and have a thought stream to set up a discussion of the after action review for this current assault to examine our engagement protocol for orks and its relation to our current munitions logistics and manufacturing.

Between the near misses and direct hits, eighteen hover-trukks are destroyed and eleven are disabled. The orks enthusiasm increases and they pick up speed and jink their hover-trukks as much as they can, throwing off their already terrible aim and reducing the number of hits the mechanised infantry are taking to near zero.

My infantry fighting vehicles are much more steady and the heralds are all well trained. They are not too hampered by the orks erratic manoeuvres and destroy another thirty one vehicles in five minutes at the cost of six chimeras and a crassus.

Finally, the leman russ get close enough for a volley at half range and the orks attempt to flee back to their base, but it’s too late and they are completely obliterated in under twenty seconds beneath the might of two volleys.

The remaining chimeras and crassus deploy their infantry, who sweep through the wrecked vehicles, executing any surviving orks and the leman russ move on to support Dôl East Prime.

During the armoured companies’ engagement, the fire from the Dôl East Prime focuses on the incoming vehicles. The four companies of infantry within the trenches start picking off the dismounted orks and targeting the trukk drivers with moderate success. Basilisks continue to fire, though they don’t have much luck hitting the fast moving vehicles and the order comes through to swap to a retreating fire screen that will pin down disembarked orks.

Up to fourteen orks crawl and leap from each wrecked hover-truck, depending on how many of their crew and passengers survive the crash. Upon disembarking, the orks in the back of the trukk immediately charge, while most of the surviving gunners and drivers take a moment to grab the big shoota, or other gunz, mounted on their vehicles.

As the orks get closer, such is the absurd weight of fire coming from their direction that they start picking off the chimeras parked in front of the berm, even though they can’t see where they are through the smoke. The heralds are forced to keep their heads down in the trenches, lest they lose them, and the heavy weapon teams are suppressed.

With the infantry and chimeras suppressed and the orks reaching the five hundred metre mark, Dôl East Prime command orders the basilisks and hydra anti-air to fire their hunter-killer missiles. Thirty-two missiles, two from each vehicle, zoom over the berm almost tickling the churned earth, then, right before they hit the trucks, the hunter killer missiles rapidly ascend, before turning and plummeting towards the ork trukks, striking the top of the vehicles and annihilating them utterly.

Fifty three hover-trukks make it through the final barrage to the trench line and start disgorging their violent passengers. The leman russ, having finished off the orks rear guard are finally ready to fire on them, but the orks are almost on top of the trenches and the tanks can’t risk friendly fire.

Just when I think the stellar corps is about to take a horrendous beating, the three surviving flamer chimeras burst over the narrow trenches and sweep through the ork vehicles showering a hearty chunk of them in burning promethium.

The retaliation is brutal, with the orks chucking dozens of stikk bombs and firing an absurd seventeen rockets at three vehicles. The fuel within the chimera’s ignites and the multiple explosions scatter it absolutely everywhere. All three chimeras and their crews are obliterated.

Bulky orks try, then fail, to stuff their muscular forms into the trenches, held back by the infantry jamming their MOA shields into the gap above their heads. Unable to take cover from the scattered, burning promethium, the orks start to panic as their numbers drop rapidly.

At last, the hydra anti-air vehicles finish exiting Dôl East Prime's east gate and circle around the berm to the west side. Within the sights of their large guns are forty-one surviving trukks and about eight hundred greenskins, now outnumbered by approximately four hundred individuals, as they desperately strike at the four companies of heavy line infantry sheltering in the trenches and their special weapon teams hidden within nests of earth filled bags.

All eight hydras open up with their quad-linked auto-cannons and heavy bolters, sweeping a line of fire across the disorganised orks from two sides. I thought I had witnessed enough brutality to stomach anti-air guns being used on infantry, but I was wrong.

My hands shake and my skin pales as the quad-linked auto-cannons rip through the orks, sawing most of the orks and their hover-trukks in half over a fifteen second burst. Shrapnel, fuel, and minced green flesh scatter into the air and smear across the ground in a thunderous display of absolute carnage.

A final few orks stumble around the mess and are picked off by the special weapon teams. The line infantry are too close to the action and, even in their trenches with their MOA shields and void carapace armour, many are injured and stunned by the noise of the guns and the pressure of all the exploding fuel, leaving them unable to respond once the hydra’s stop firing.

I exhale a breath I didn’t notice I was holding as silence smothers the air. After a minute of no sound or movement, half a company climbs out their trench and moves through the ork dead, shooting every xeno in the head and collecting all the shootas and explosives they can find.

Next, the special weapon teams move in with their flamers and burn every uncooked corpse they can find.

Ten minutes later, three class one D-POT’s approach Dôl East Prime and take away the casualties, followed by a single class two that takes an hour to recover the disabled vehicles before returning to Drumbledrone.

Meanwhile, the surviving chimeras from the armoured companies tow the ork wrecks behind Dôl East Prime so that the engineering companies can salvage them and reinforce the burgeoning fortifications. A final sweep for ork chunks is made and they are piled up and burned. Once the battlefield is tidied up, the two armoured companies resume their patrols.

I bring my consciousness out of the recordings and examine the bridge. It is almost silent here as over four hundred crew lie in their chairs, or stand at their stations, poking at cogitators and flipping switches.

The extreme contrast unsettles me and it takes me a few minutes to settle my mind.

Next, I read through the after action report and contemplate the casualty list: two hundred and eighty-two casualties, ninety four of whom are dead. Thirteen chimeras and one crassus were also destroyed, of which four chimeras are unrepairable.

This is just the opening salvo and we haven’t finished counting dead for the orbital conflict yet either.

I am not looking forward to writing the letters for those directly under my command. It is a personal tragedy for those who survive them, and thus I believe I should make each letter unique and written by hand on high quality paper.

There are, however, only so many ways you can tell someone their friends and family are dead. How long will it be before I am forced to recycle my words and associate loss with a randomised pick from a set of bereavement letter templates, rather than the person they were in life?

Fortunately, I am not the direct superior for most of the groundside crew, even if I lose all three fortress commanders, it should be many more years before I get to that point, and I shall fight the inevitable every step of the way.

A week after the chaos avatar first descended, while waiting for Envoy Lynu beneath the observation dome, I receive the first recordings of the ork crash site.

The dome remains much the same as when I first found it, with its stone urns, gravel gardens, and hand carved benches. The ferns, moss, and other subtle greenery, have been replaced by new, identical specimens, and the calming water features flow once again. The chamber has been sound proofed too, all I hear is the gentle murmur of quiet voices, soft water, and crunching steps. It is one of the few places on Distant Sun wholly free from the eternal hum and clank of ancient machinery.

Beyond the dome lies Marwolv and a small, bright blip where the shipyard glides through the void. The yard is under repair and the Green Tick is steadily being fed into its refineries. Erudition’s Howl hunted down Solid Slug earlier in the week and pounded it into scrap. The void ship is currently towing pieces back to the yard.

Between the two ork roks we have more than enough material to complete Iron Crane and four more moth class vessels, which will take us up to ten of the small resource vessels, five fuel processors and five material synthesisers. They’ll be finished around the time the Iron Crane launches.

Erudition’s Howl will continue to scour the system for resources as I want to start a void habitat before I go, integrate the shipyard into it, and drag it out to the Kuiper belt.

While a Kuiper belt is much lower in metals than an asteroid belt, Marwolv doesn’t have an asteroid belt, only scattered asteroids. There are four dwarf planets and their moons out in the Kuiper belt that can be mined for minerals though.

Where the location really shadows other options, however, is its proximity to one of the system’s two mandeville points as well as the vast amount of frozen water and hydrocarbons that can be processed into reaction mass, fuel, and lubricants.

Collecting resources from comets is a much easier task than diving into a gas giant, or even the local star. It does not require the specialised, moth class vessels that I use and can be undertaken by D-POTs with relative ease.

The new station will enable Marwolv to build monitor vessels, system defence vessels usually built without a warp drive, and any other industry they care to imagine. I’ll be leaving them with all my imperial STCs, a few designs from my cargo container STC, and a detailed plan.

If I ever make it back to Marwolv to collect on their debt, there will be plenty of resources to resupply and expand my fleet. If I don’t make it, I will have to hope that what I’ve left behind will be used responsibly.