Dead Men Walking: The Varincian Campaign

Into Reality -pt.2-

     The man colapsed as a slick of blood spilled from his neck. His grounded body writhered and convulsed as more warm blood spilled forth from his grievous wound. Drayon quickly dashed to the guardsman's side, detirmened to save his life. With one hand he opended the man's pierced neck and pushed his thumb and index finger in searching for the guardsman's bane. He found his prize, a three inch fragment of shrapnel lodged deep into the soldier's larynx.  Carefully but quickly he pulled the fragment from the guardsman's neck.

     Cautiously trying not to further damage any tissue that hasn't already been previously abused by the fragment's entry. Drayon quickly refocused his attention on the guardsman but his window of time had closed. With a sickening gurgling noise the light died out in the guardsman's eyes. Disbelief and anger suddenly filled the field surgeon's being. The sat back against the tree the young guardsman died under, awe and disbelief consuming him. The throes of failure soon entangled, he pulled the dead trooper's tags. A new addition to his ever expanding collection.

     " Damn the throne!" Drayon roared as he threw the metal fragment out of frustraition.

     " Incoming! Move it, run!" Donell warned as they dashed through the field of tall grass,

     He leapt forward as an explosive shell from an enemy tank struck the ground behind them, now on his stomach he quickly crawled forward taking refuge behind the abandoned hulk of a leman russ battle tank. 

     " Enemy armor is taking a toll on our advance Captain." Commissar Dynello plainly stated as he ejected an empty magizine from his pistol.

     " You dont say," Donell said as he tapped Jaymar on the shoulder.

     The shaken communications officer turned hesitantly, " Yes sir?" he asked fear prominent in his voice.

     " Open me a link with Knight Commander Tybalt." Donell ordered sternly undaunted by yet another explosion close by.

     The communications officer jerked as the rippling sound waves of the explosion shook his very core, hot tears rolled down his face as the realisation of death suddenly became apparent. He became unresponsive, as his sanity was being consumed with fear. Dynello turned his head to see Donell struggling to keep the boy from going into shock, irritation saturated his being.

     " Move, let me try my hand." The hardened commissar yelled as he stood and turned his pistol on the nerveless guardsman, " If one of you must die to push the rest of you then so be it!" Dynello bellowed as he tightened the grip on his pistol.

     The stony commissar raised his arm but before he could level his sights, a hand took hold of his forearm and a soothing voice entered the air, " Be at peace Commissar, peace," Chaplain Jordanus assauged " Far too much blood is being shed currently, let me see if I can calm the young boy."

     Dynello lowered his pistol and and tunred his sights onto Donell who gave a authoritive nod back to him. The decision was made and Dynello had to follow it, silently raging he stepped aside and allowed Jordanus to procceed. The Chaplain fell to one knee square with Jaymar, he raised Jaymar's head so that their eyes met. The warm glow being emitted off of Jordanus consoled the guardsman's breathing and he spoke, " The Immortal God Emperor watches over you today, He will protect you from any harm." 

     Jordanus's words unburdened Jaymar and he followed through with Donell's orders.

     Drayon rose to the battlefiled around him the shade of the tree he was under allowed him a good veiw of the battlefield, the companie's advance into the Spire Selanous was quickly grinding down into a battle of armor and atrition. He lost track of Donell and the rest of the command squad, eager to rejoin the assault he adorned his helmet once more and dashed into the high grass. He could hear the random undiciplined sprays of bullets above his head, the high grass did well to conceal Drayons aproach as he got closer to the fighting. He could hear yells for reinforcements ahead of him and knew that he was needed, he sprinted throught the remander of the high grass and stumbled on a group of guardsmen attempting to dig in. They stacked the dead corpses of heretics upon one another and began to dig, the twelve would would dig one or two stopping to drop their e-tool and fire back at the traitors.

     " Tank! right side, right side!" one guardsman cautioned as he continued to dig furiously.

     The leader of the group hefted a rocket launcher onto his left right shoulder dropped to one knee and glared down the sight. He braced and squeezed the trigger, the missile screamed as it left the breach of the launcher. The thick slabs of antimantium attached to the side of the heretic tank availed it's occupents nothing as the missile punched through it with ease. Moments later the fused warhead of the missile detonated causing a reaction in the tank's fuel reserves that resulted in a massive explosion. The cupola of the turret openned as one of the heretics desperately tried to escape the inferno inside the tank, he pulled his upper body from within the furnece and began to claw his way out but the fires from within were quick to claim their vicitms as they seared his flesh and broiled his now lifeless carcass. The nightmarish sight horrified Drayon, The group hollered and raved as the fires within the tank began to cook off remnants of the vehical's ammunition cache.

     " You idiot! Get down!" A guardsman yelled as tackled Drayon to the ground, the tank exploded it's volalite ammunition finally being reached by the fires, sending chunks of antimantium and plasteel composits in every direction. " You idiot, don't you understand if you go down we're all screwed?" The Sargent questioned to the dazed medical officer.

     The medic shook himself from his momentary confusion, " I understand Sargent." 

     The victory was short lived though as a well hidden gun nest openned fire on the group of loyalist guardsmen, he heavy caliber rounds of an unknown machine gun made a nasty mess of the group, two guardsmen were torn to ribbons almost instantly, four others were put down by some sort of grievous wound. A stray round smacked off of the sargents's plasteel shoulder guard, he fell to his side clutching his bicep and cursing wildly. Drayon rushed over to the leader of the group and fell to his knees.

     " Where are you hit?" He demanded as he pushed the guardsman onto his side in the trench, clumps of dirt and cold misted blood filling the air as the heretics continued to tear apart what cover Drayon and the guardsman clinged to.

     " Nowhere! it bounced off my shoulder guard!" the trooper howl as he tried to sit up.

     " Emperor's Throne! Stay down!" Drayon barked pinning the trooper with one hand and gunning down a charging heretic with his pistol in the other. 

     Drayon examined the guardsman's foreamr coming to the conclusion that the concussive impact of the bullet splintered it. " Your shoulder has been severlly broken you wont be able lift your combat rifle, take my pistol." Drayon stated as he handed the guardsman his pistol and a few frag grenades in exchange for the las-rifle, " There are wounded all over this field I gotta go, cover my exit will you?"

     " Aye sir," The guardsman gruffed wincing at the pain drumming from his detroyed shoulder, " The Emperor protects sir." He forced managing the aquilla with his good arm.

     " The Emperor protects." Drayon muttered as examined the bloodied dog-tags he pulled from the  now dead members of the group.

     Donell took a glance at his chronometer " Damn. This battle is beginning to drag out" he thought flipping through vox-comm channels and listening to situatioal reports.

     " Captain! Commander Tybalt on your channel." Jaymar reported as he patched the signal through.

     " This is Knight Commander Tybalt," He announced through Donell's vox-beed headset.

     " Tybalt, this is Captain Donell,"

     " What can I do you for Captain?" Tybalt asked.

     " We must capture the outskirts of Spire Selanous before sundown," The Captain stated plainly. " Heretic armor is chewing up my guardsmen and now we're stuck digging into this blasted field. I need your armor to roll up and punch a bloody hole into these turncoat bastard's line, do you copy?" Donell questioned

     " Ordered confirmed, copy out Captain. Armored units rolling forward." Tybalt stated " The Emperor protects."