With men pouring out, racing to the relative safety behind the tanks, it wasn’t long before only
the Kasrkin storm troopers were left, holding the line until the last man was clear. The orks vented
their full fury and rage on them, and some inevitably went down, though they fought to the bitter
end through wounds that would have killed lesser men outright.
Sword Squadron gave them all the fire support they could manage. Most of the Kasrkin made it
out, but not by much. As they raced towards the cover of the tanks, Wulfe ordered his squadron to
keep the fire up but prepare to fall back. Then he contacted Colonel Stromm.
“You have wounded men in your group, sir. Get them up onto the tanks. Use the track-guards
and the rear decking, but stay clear of the engine louvres and the radiator. We can carry them out of
here and still cover the retreat. Those on foot will have to run. What do you say?”
Stromm began barking out orders immediately, and the track-guards of the three tanks were
soon crowded with men in blood-soaked Guard-issue fatigues. Wulfe would have helped them up,
but his continued fire was needed to keep the orks at bay.
“Sword One, Sword Two,” he voxed to Siemens and Lenck, “fall back to Hammer’s position.
Keep your fire up as we move, but no main guns until van Droi gives the word. We don’t want to
scatter them.”
A short series of acknowledgements followed and, slowly, steadily, Sword Squadron began to
roll backwards. It was then that Frontline Crusader’s engine sputtered and died. Wulfe could hear
Corporal Siemens swearing over the vox. The panic in his voice was all too clear. “Oh, Throne!
We’ve stalled. Come in, Sword Leader. Frontline Crusader is in big trouble!”
From his cupola, Wulfe saw Siemens slamming his fists on the top of his turret. The wounded
men perched on the Frontline Crusader’s track guards were looking agitated. The orks coming
forward immediately angled straight towards the crippled tank.
Some of the wounded leapt off and started limping through the sand, clearly unwilling to gamble
on the engine restarting. Others stayed put, bravely pouring las-fire down at the oncoming enemy.
That didn’t last long. Wulfe saw them struck by wild sprays of enemy fire. The wounded Cadians
fell from the sides of the tank, as lifeless as rag dolls.
Wulfe barked orders over to Lenck, and both the New Champion and Last Rites II turned their
weapons left, desperate to buy Corporal Siemens some time.
Wulfe knew Siemens needed more than time. He needed a bloody miracle.
None was forthcoming.
While the stubbers and bolters were busy raking the charging greenskins, three orks with rockets
strapped to their backs suddenly careened upwards on trails of blue fire, landing just metres away
from the Frontline Crusader’s armoured flanks.
Wulfe barely had time to register the thick, cylindrical weapons the orks were carrying, before
they were put to murderous use. The moment they landed, each of the orks raised its tube to its
shoulder, took aim at the sides of the crippled tank, and fired.
Three explosions sounded in rapid succession, and a cloud of dust and fire erupted into the air,
cloaking the Frontline Crusader from view.
“Siemens!” shouted Wulfe over the vox. There was no answer. He immediately turned his
stubber on the orks responsible, turning two of them into hunks of dead meat where they stood.
Aiming at the third, his shells struck the red rocket on its back, and it detonated, scattering tiny burnt
pieces of the ork in every direction.
As the cloak of dust and sand around the Frontline Crusader showered back down to the
ground, Wulfe saw Siemens’ body. It was still in the cupola, slumped forward. His flesh was black.
51
His clothes, hair and skin were still burning. One charred and lifeless arm was draped over the barrel
of his heavy stubber.
There were holes in the tank’s armour, too. Wulfe could see twin gaping wounds where the
plating looked like it had melted straight through. Red flames were boiling up out of them, and out
of the hatches the crew had tried frantically to open in their last moments.
Four men, men Wulfe had known, dead. Rage lit inside him like dry tinder. He turned his
stubber back on the advancing horde with a vengeance.
“Throne curse you and your entire stinking race,” he yelled at them.
“What are you doing, Wulfe?” a gruff voice demanded over the vox-link. It was Lieutenant van
Droi speaking on the company command channel.
“It’s the Frontline Crusader, sir,” replied Wulfe, breaking only momentarily from his revenge.
“She’s been brewed up.”
“I can see that, damn it,” growled van Droi. “Keep falling back. Spear Squadron is in position.
It’s time we put a lid on this.”
Wulfe gritted his teeth. Siemens had been all right, not a friend exactly, but a fellow tanker, a
Cadian brother. He was one of the few left who had been with the company since before Palmeros.
He didn’t deserve to be cooked in his crate like that. Wulfe didn’t want to think about what it had
been like for the crew inside, struggling to free themselves while the flames devoured them. It
seemed like every time Wulfe faced the orks, he came away mourning lost men.
He ordered Metzger to keep them rolling backwards, and Holtz to keep the autocannon firing.
Moments later, they were back in line with van Droi’s Foe-Breaker and the tanks of Sergeant
Richter’s Hammer Squadron. The New Champion had beaten them to it. Lenck hadn’t wasted time
venting anger on the orks. Maybe Siemens’ death didn’t really bother the cold-hearted son-of-abitch.
With the tanks pulling up into a horizontal firing line, Colonel Stromm ordered his able-bodied
men to help their wounded brothers down from the track-guards and lead them back to cover behind
the vehicles. There was little left for them to do, and it was better for them to stay well back from
the main guns if they didn’t want their eardrums ruptured.
Rhaimes and the rest of Spear Squadron were visible on the left, pressing the orks into a
crossfire. Last Rites II and the New Champion were ordered to edge right, the better to cover any
attempt by the orks to break and run in that direction. The greenskins seemed emboldened by their
tank-kill and eagerly charged straight on, a mad howling mass of flesh and metal. Soon, they were
exactly where van Droi wanted them. He gave the order.
“Fire main guns!”
What followed was no battle. It was the grisliest sort of massacre.
Against the full, unrestrained fury of the Gunheads, the mindless greenskins never stood a
chance.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
Gossefried van Droi stood looking up at the ruin of the naval drop-ship, chewing on the end of a
damp cigar while, all around him, Colonel Stromm’s infantry went about the business of identifying
their dead, stripping the bodies of anything that could still be put to use. Grim work, yes, but van
Droi knew that it was essential. Out here in the desert, the supplies they had brought with them were
all the supplies they would be getting. Speaking over the vox, Stromm had already confirmed van
Droi’s worst fears: no, there had not been word from anyone else. Exolon’s status remained a
bloody mystery.
Dark days, these, thought van Droi, and darker ones ahead. Saints guide you, Siemens. You
were a good man. I hope you find peace with the Emperor.
The drop-ship that had carried six companies of The Fighting 98th to Golgotha was in a sorry
state, even worse than the one that had carried van Droi’s Gunheads. It looked like a carcass, the
decaying body of a giant beast, huge and grey, landing legs twisted and bent, the bones of its
titanium superstructure shining through where the hull had been ripped or blasted away. It was a
wonder that any of Stromm’s men had survived the crash. It was another wonder they’d lasted out
the ork assaults as long as they had. Van Droi wondered how many men and machines he would
have lost if he had ordered his Gunheads to dig in back at their own crash site? Might an Exolon
reconnaissance patrol have found them? Or would the orks have got there first?
He chided himself. There was nothing to be gained by such speculation. He had made the
decision to move out, and he stood by it. Throne above, if he hadn’t, the infantrymen scurrying
busily back and forth all around him would be corpses, probably headless ones, given the
greenskins’ propensity for taking grisly trophies.
Siemens’ death weighed heavy on him. Ten tanks had become nine. A full crew had been lost.
Morale had taken a beating, too, though his tankers were understandably glad to have found others
who had made planetfall more or less intact.
Van Droi was still looking up at the ruined ship when he heard boot heels grinding the sand just
behind him. He turned and found himself looking into the scarred and weathered face of a man he
judged to be about twenty years older than himself. He was wrong. There was barely ten years
between them. Even covered in blood and dust, though, Colonel Stromm somehow managed to look
dignified.
“Colonel,” said van Droi.
The colonel was a little shorter than van Droi. He filled his uniform well — muscular — fit to
fight, and van Droi found himself nursing a hunch that Stromm had once been Kasrkin. That seemed
to fit, but he wasn’t about to ask. None of his business. Instead, he gave a sharp salute and received
one back.
Formalities over, the colonel’s face immediately broke into a wide grin.
“You know, van Droi, I’d shake your hand if my right arm wasn’t in pieces,” he said, glancing
down at the limb in question. It was cradled in a white sling stained with dust. “Bloody orks.
Damned good to see you and your boys come out of the desert like that. Like Saint Ignatius riding
into Persipe. I thought I was dreaming.”
Van Droi grinned back. “You won’t find any saints among my lot, sir, but I’ll bet we were as
glad to find you as you were to be found. Five days without a trace of anyone, and we only came
across you by sheer luck.”
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“Luck or the Emperor’s hand,” said Stromm. Gesturing up at the wrecked ship, he continued, “A
proper mess, this. The cogboys should have warned us it would be so rough coming down. I know
they mentioned the storms, but they didn’t say anything about them knocking our ships out of the
sky. And why the hell weren’t we told about vox-range limitations? I’d love some bloody answers.”
“I wish I had some for you, sir. Hundreds of drop-ships launched. Where the others ended up is
anyone’s guess, but some of them must have touched down safely at Hadron. If we could just see
the damned stars clearly for one night, we might be able to navigate our way there.”
Stromm nodded gravely, and then gestured for van Droi to walk with him. Together, they moved
off towards a large tent that was doubling as a temporary command centre. Stromm’s adjutant,
Lieutenant Kassel, was inside. When the colonel and van Droi entered, he turned and saluted.
“Good to meet you, lieutenant,” said van Droi after a brief introduction. The two men, equal in
rank, shook hands while Stromm walked over to a munitions crate and sat down.
“Damned heroes, those tankers. Eh, Kassel?”
“Heroes, sir,” answered Kassel with a smile. He produced two glasses of water and set them
down on a large crate that was doubling as a table.
“That’s the next big problem,” said Stromm, looking down at the glasses before glancing up at
van Droi. “How are you fixed for water, lieutenant?”
Van Droi frowned. “Not good, colonel. Not good at all. Fuel is another thing we’ll have to worry
about soon. Food, not so much. I’ve had my lads on half rations since the crash. But we’ll be dead
men before long if we don’t get water and fuel.”
Stromm nodded. “You’ve done a hell of a job keeping your boys alive and on the move. Throne
knows, if it weren’t for you, my men would be dead. I’d be dead. So, I don’t want you to think of
me as pulling rank—”
“But you want to fold us into your unit,” said van Droi, finishing the thought. He had anticipated
this. It made sense.
“Just for the time being, and for the sake of having a clear command structure more than
anything else.”
“No complaints here. Tanks and infantry work a lot better together than they do apart.”
“My thoughts exactly. I’m not a tyrant, van Droi. I’ll consult you at every turn. You’ll be kept in
the loop.”
“You have a plan, sir?”
“It’s not much of one, but it’s clear that staying here is out of the question. If Army Group
Command hasn’t found us by now, odds are they aren’t going to. It’s high time we moved on. The
day we came down, I sent a number of scouting parties out. Most never returned, but one of the
recon squads that did make it back reported seeing rocky uplands about two hundred clicks
eastwards. The orks started hitting us before we could follow up on it, but I’m sure we’ll have a
better chance of establishing vox-contact with someone if we can get to higher ground. Thoughts?”
“It could be the feet of the Ishawar Mountains, sir, which would suggest that we came down
much further to the south-east than I originally estimated. If it is the Ishawar range, following the
foothills north-east should take us within a few days’ travel of Balkar. Sooner or later, if Operation
Thunderstorm is still rolling, the rest of Exolon will deploy near there. The Fortress of Arrogance
was lost in the north-east Hadar region. So yes, sir. I’d say that’s about the best plan we’ve got.”
“Knew you’d see it my way,” said Stromm. “Let’s talk about numbers. What exactly are you
fielding?”
“Nine tanks, all Leman Russ variants, all crewed, plus four Heracles halftracks and eight trucks.
Five of those are packed with ammunition and supplies. Most of our personnel are crammed into the
halftracks.”
“How many personnel?” asked Stromm.
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“One hundred and twenty-nine, sir. Forty of those are tank crew. The rest are reserve crews and
battlefield support. Half a dozen are wounded men, two of which are critical.”
Stromm turned to Kassel and said, “There go our worries about transportation then, Hans.”
Kassel nodded.
“Sir?” said van Droi.
Stromm sat forward and lifted one of the glasses from the top of the crate in front of him. “We
have a few Chimeras, mostly machines from the Kasrkin Armoured Fist squads, and a couple of
halftracks and trucks. Seventy per cent of our vehicles were wrecked in the crash.” Stromm looked
