Blessings of uncertainty

Chapter 3: The treads of Vilvex

The ground shakes as the first salvo of traitor shells land on our position, all across the vox are voices of different units and troopers scream into it asking for support or declaring their final stand. I quickly switch the vox to my unit's vox frequency, immediately I am at attention at the mention of my name. "Captain Reeves, do you copy? This is the Mauler, requesting orders, over" I reach for the transceiver switch on my neck "Mauler, stand by for company wide orders, over", she responds in kind "Yes, sir. Awaiting orders" Bit too eager, aren't ya Mauler? I think to myself.

I pop out the hatch of my Russ to take in the state of the unit once more, three Chimeras, two Devil Dogs, and the four Leman Russ tanks are all we have left after the depot was attacked. To be honest, out of the rest of the units, we were the lucky ones, well if you could even call us lucky. Looking past my unit I could see just a frakk ton of guard digging trenches and foxholes, and approaching from behind a few Rhinos transports from the Sisters of Battle troops that came to aid the planet a while back. I re-enter my tank and shut the hatch on the way in, I checked the time, and I held the transceiver button once more "Guard, we have been given a task that I wouldn't ask lightly of you if I wasn't sure we could win" I take a deep breathe before continuing "our orders are to blunt the incoming assault by these traitor forces" explosions outside rock the defenders, even from within the tank I could hear the panic and disarray happening, yet I continue "the likelihood of us dying, is quite bloody high. Regardless, let's give these traitor bastards a black eye they won't frakkin' forget!" the vox is suddenly filled with the cheers and jeers of my unit. I'm going to miss you frakkin bastards I thought to myself.

Shells continued to rattle the ground in front of us, even with the many vision slits and periscopes I had access to I couldn't make out a single thing more than beyond the ridge line ahead, but our time was up, we had our orders and we would fulfill them. "All tanks of the company," I said into my transceiver, took a glance at my crew once more, then continued "advance into the enemy line" a short pause as I took a deep breath "FOR THE EMPEROR!" I shout and my tank jolts forward with the fervor of a predator at the scent of blood. The rest of the company rumbled forth, I took a look through my periscope to see a line of tanks rumbling forward towards the enemy. We had moved about a hundred meters before the rain started falling, a hail of lasgun, autogun, and in some cases bolter fire rattled our company. The ringing from the rounds became such an annoyance I decided to just peek my head out, Can't see a frakkin' thing I thought to myself as I opened my hatch to see the ongoing battle.

I could see ahead several vehicles of different make and model, some I could recognize as former guard apc's, tanks, and other vehicles. "Gunner, fire the main cannon twelve o'clock, distance is about two-thousand meters" I say to my crew "Driver keep up the push and don't stop until I say so, as for the rest of you gunners, fire at will" the gunners don't waste time with a response, they fire everything we have onboard. I look to my left and see Mauler, a Devil Dog tank, its heavy meltas aim at an approaching enemy Chimera and open up, the offending Chimera is engulfed by molten plasma, even from more than a grenade's throw away I see the traitors crawling out of the burning hulk only to be blasted by nearby explosions or covered by the meltas again. I take a look behind me to see the status of the dismounted infantry in their trenches, to my surprise quite a few are coming up from the rear, the Rhinos from the sisters are also here and I find myself listening to hymns and litanies booming from them. I look ahead and I see that we're approaching the enemy lines now, five hundred meters, four hundred, then three. I quickly re-enter and close the hatch as I hail the vox again and say "All tanks, button up if you haven't already. Traitors are close by"

Hatches are then promptly shut and the tenser fighting begins, more shots rattle the tank and the visibility up close offered by my viewing devices are bad to say the least, despite this however I can already tell that we're coming up on the enemy defensive line due to the thick treeline ahead. We were already really close to the enemy as now the entire trenchline in front of us opened up with every manner of small arms imaginable, from large autocannons to small las pistols, they tried everything to desperately pierce the armor. However nothing gets through and when we start firing back everything gets quieter, to add the Chimeras dismounted their troops and started clearing the trench lines in front. All was going according to plan and behind us, troopers were following across no-mans-land on foot or in troop transports.