And the Sons of Horus were here to plunder the planet.
Ikeda could guess why. In addition to medicine, the vegetation in Roseville could be harvested for narcotics and stimms, much of which was supplied to the berserk Cthonian Headhunters. Already he could see a colossal contingent of Traitor Auxilia accompanying the Sons of Horus, formations of infantry marching alongside tanks. Peering out from his cupola, Ikeda could count at least two Baneblades, two Malcador tanks, and four Leman Russ Vanquishers. Almost a mirror of his own armored cohort, except that he had Malcador Valdor tank-hunters instead of the usual Malcador Vanquisher tanks.
But more intimidating were the Legiones Astartes company, with tactical squads striding beside two Sicarian Omegas and four Contemptor Dreadnoughts. Yet, the most terrifying component of their force was the single Warlord Titan that lumbered toward them, its armor painted in the colors of Legio Mortis. The colonel felt a chill run down his spine.
"What do we do?"
"We fight," I replied from my Throne Mechanicum in my Cerastus Knight Lancer. "The Lord Praetorian has charged us with the defense of Roseville, and so we shall protect this world with all our might."
Honestly, I wasn't a fan of fighting in a death world, but Lord Rogal Dorn had issued his orders, and so we obeyed. The honor of House Yato and our chivalric code demanded nothing less. After the massacre at the hands of the Emperor's Children and their gunships, I was reluctant to charge into the teeth of another Traitor Legion again, but the Emperor and his Loyal son called upon our aid.
"Everyone, direct fire on the Warlord Titan," Ikeda ordered, sliding into his Baneblade. He thumbed the vox. "Lightning squadron, provide air cover. Valdors and Vanquishers, first fire! Everyone, advance!"
Only the Knights didn't follow his orders, for we followed our own chain of command. I transmitted a message to my fellow scion, Sato, and the two of us guided our steeds forward at full stride, weaving through the titanic trees and hab-blocks that made up the half-biological, half-concrete jungle.
Neutron lasers hammered the Warlord Titan, the shock pulses from the exotic beams bursting several layers of void shields, but the mammoth engine's defenses held. Lascannons from both the Valdors and Vanquishers continued to pummel it, and eventually, the void shields gave out, exposing the immense walker to the open.
That was when the Vanquisher cannons boomed, armor piercing shells shrieking as they crossed the distance between us and our foes and punching through armor plating. The head crumpled, but the Warlord Titan shrugged off most of them, weathering the anti-armor barrage.
However, that wasn't all.
The Lightnings swooped, their twin lascannons and hellstrike missiles searing through air. The latter left fiery contrails in the air before they slammed into the Warlord Titan's core in blazing detonations, engulfing its head violently. The Warlord Titan slumped, decapitated by the aerial strike, smoke fuming from where the cockpit had been.
"Engine kill!" One of the pilots, Aozaki, whooped.
Unfortunately for his squadron, the enemy Baneblades opened fire. Though the Lightnings jinked and soared through the air at supersonic speed, one of them was clipped by the powerful anti-armor shell and exploded, its wreckage crashing into a hab-block and demolishing it. Ikeda's Baneblades retaliated, taking out another Baneblade, while the Vanquishers responded by taking out one Baneblade in his squadron. The Sicarian Omegas mirrored the Baneblades, the Sons of Horus targeting the aircraft with pinpoint accuracy. The plasma melted the wing of a second Lightning, causing it to spin into an uncontrollable dive before it plummeted.
Holy Terra...how did the Sons of Horus and Cthonian Headhunters take out two aircrafts?!
On the other side of the battlefield, I realized that my Knight banner wasn't faring as well. The Aethon Heavy Sentinels bombarded us with multilasers and missiles, but our ion shields held. However, the Malcador tanks had more success, their armor piercing rounds smashing past our ion shields and causing Sato's Knight to stagger from the immense impacts. His steed limped now, smoking, but fortunately, he hadn't gone down.
Yet.
The Dracosans had zoomed out to disgorge their passengers, with Major Murakami's command squad, the two lasrifle tercios and their flamer support section jumping out to garrison two hab-blocks. The Veletaris Storm Section did the same thing, disembarking from their Dracosans to garrison a hab-block behind my Knight banner. In contrast, the hab-blocks directly opposite were being garrisoned by two tactical squads and a single large lasrifle tercio, complete with flamers.
I frowned, wondering if there were Terminators in one of those hab-blocks. There were definitely Ogryns, though. The abhumans were barreling toward my and Sato's Knights. We ignored them for now, especially when they chose to garrison a hab-block of all things, and instead charged the Aethon Heavy Sentinels, smashing them apart with our lances. While we did so, the Vanquishers and Valdors fired again, destroying the final Baneblade and two Vanquishers. The enemy Vanquishers retaliated, taking out three Vanquishers in return. Ouch. Meanwhile, the Malcadors fired at our Knight Lancers, but our ion shields deflected the powerful shells.
"Having a 3+ ion shield save is immense," I muttered. Even with the AP -2 on the Malcador's Vanquisher's shells, we still had a 4+ save - and we didn't need to reroll successful saves from their armorbane because they counted as invulnerable saves and not armor saves. Hah!
The Lightnings swooped down once more, their twin lascannons and hellstrike missiles destroying the Contemptor Dreadnoughts, bathing the smaller walkers in explosions. The Sicarian Omega damaged Ikeda's Baneblade with plasma, rocking it, but Ikeda instead targeted the huge tactical squad that was double timing (or triple timing) toward the hab-block where the lasrifle plus flamer tercio was garrisoned in. The Baneblade cannon completely missed, but at least the autocannons and lascannon sponsons took out a couple of squads.
The Dracosans fared better, their gravis lascannons accurately singling out the Sicarian Omegas and puncturing their hulls, blowing them up spectacularly.
We continued to push our advantage, and the Dracosans killed three pairs of Ogryns with their demolisher cannons, the shells so powerful that they ignored whatever cover the structure provided. One of the drivers cheered. "Hell, yeah! Take that, you filthy abhumans!"
"Bro," Murakami said with a sigh. "Vox discipline."
"Sorry, sir."
The Vanquishers continued to push their advantage, taking out our final Vanquisher, but the Valdors succeeded in eliminated one of them. Phew. The Baneblade and Dracosans continued to bombard the swiftly approaching tactical squads, but the Legiones Astartes - famed for their transhuman resilience - shrugged off plenty of the exploding shells and lascannon shots. Still, several squads continued to go down, blasted apart by weaponry meant for anti-tank purposes.
I couldn't help but be amazed by the legionnaires, but I had concerns of my own. Sato and I charged the Malcador tanks, taking them out. Meanwhile, the Cthonian Headhunters lasrifle tercio had spilled out of their barracks, but their lasrifles and flamers did nothing against our Knights. Out in cover, they were pulverized by demolisher shells from the advancing Dracosans. The lasrifle and flamer tercio hunkered down and took potshots at the sprinting legionaries, but no less than a couple went down, their power armor prove against light arms.
At this point, there wasn't much left of the Sons of Horus, to my surprise. Their Terminators appeared to still be in reserve, or they didn't have any of their famed Justineran for some reason. Perhaps this was an Inductii force? I had heard that the Sons of Horus were desperately accelerating the Astartes training and surgical process, and many of the Legionaries facing us were newly-spawned warriors without any actual experience, press-ganged into battles with little more training other than hypno-indoctrination.
Was that why they were falling so easily to our guns, or was this whole thing a trap? To lure us into complacency?
Ikeda was having none of it, though.
"Fire!" He yelled, still directing the Baneblade fire at the advancing tactical squad. The survivors dodged most of the Baneblade cannons and lascannons, though several of the autocannon shells hit home. Even so, a significant number of them were left, and they finally made their stand, planting a standard in front of the hab-block where the lasrifle tercio nervously waited. Instead of assaulting the infantry, they spun around and charged straight into the Dracosans, only to be run over by the armored personnel carriers.
The Ogryns finally stumbled out of the crumbling hab-block. Driven into a frenzy, the surviving pair aggressively charged the Dracosans in revenge, and tore apart three of them before the final Dracosan ran over him. Meanwhile, Sato and I proceeded to massacre the survivors of the lasrifle tercio, stomping on them with our titanic feet and disintegrating the rest with swift sweeps of our shock lances. The Vanquisher damaged one of the Valdors, only to be obliterated in the return fire, the neutron lasers punching through its hull.
With that, we stood defiant in the face of the Sons of Horus onslaught - the enemy only having two tactical squads (or perhaps one of them being Terminators) garrisoned in hab-blocks far away. Upon annihilating the Cthonian Headhunters in our side of the battlefield, Sato and I had claimed the Traitor barracks and leveled it to deny them training facilities. Even if the Solar Auxilia weren't Legiones Astartes, they were still a deadly enemy. One that we sought to reduce the numbers of as much as possible.
"Phew," I muttered, realizing that I had survived a battle for the first time. Most of the foe's firepower had been directed at the Baneblades, Vanquishers and Lightnings. The enemy was in full retreat - apparently, they had achieved their objective by planting a standard in front of our hab-block. I had no idea what the significance of that was, but I contacted Ikeda over the vox. "Colonel, perhaps we should do something about that standard."
"Yeah...we'll destroy it. Flamer section!"
I watched as the flamer section incinerated the Sons of Horus standard, even as I prayed to the Emperor that it wasn't some sort of foul ritual by the Traitors. We had heard increasing reports of Traitors conducting what appeared to be superstitious rites, only to result in catastrophic emergences of exodimensional xenos.
Were they trying to achieve the same thing here?
Well, we've stopped them...for now. I studied the holo-screen in my Throne Mechanicum and inclined in my seat with a sigh. I pray to the Emperor that they don't have anything else up their sleeves.
Even if they did, the Knights of House Yato and our Ryuusei Katanas auxiliaries will stand up to defy them again. I hope, anyway.
Love your battle report!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
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