36 Chapter 5 Part 2

Chapter 5: The Battle of Victory Bay

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Part 2

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Victory Bay

Kronus

It was one thing to hear the stories about the pointy-eared xenos, it was something else entirely to face them in combat. Sergeant Gabriel Forkas learned that lesson the hard way. One moment he was hiding within the interior of a living room on the tenth floor of a residential complex, taking care to keep himself away from the windows. He was with a heavy weapons section, who had a multi-laser deployed and ready to be pushed to the balcony overlooking the avenue below so it could do its lethal work. The place was very pleasant, much better furnished than anything someone from his family could even dream of back on his home hive, at least before he made the cut and not only joined the Imperial Guard but qualified for the commandos. Nowadays, he sent a large portion of his salary their way and it might have improved his family's fortunes. However, he was unlikely to see it for himself barring a disaster at home calling for the deployment of the Guard there or Gabriel having the good fortune of living to retirement.

All things considered, if he lived long enough to retire, he would have much preferred to do it on a nice civilized world like Kronus, instead of a bloody hive. That of course was before Forkas knew that a veritable list of who's who of the Imperium's enemies would descend upon this poor worlds while his regiment was stationed there.

"Crown Actual to all elements, we have hard contact. Follow contingency alpha." The General's voice cracked over the vox built in Gabriel's sealed helmet. Moments later, a commotion happened outside and he heard the Inquisitor ordering them to execute the ambush.

Immediately it became painfully obvious that their portion of overall plan had already went to hell. Before any of the commandos could reach the windows, a lithe armoured figure materialized in front of them. Forkas didn't think, he simply acted, countless hours of training kicking in, and dove for the ground while triggering his hellgun. The only reason he survived the initial onslaught was because the xeno concentrated on the larger threat. It used dual pistols to literally shred Gabriel's buddies and paint the room read with their blood, then it simply vanished again, before the Sergeant could avenge his comrades. The commando didn't waste any time on curses or regrets, instead he rolled around, retrieved a grenade from his harness and threw it in the middle of the room, before dashing for the door. After what just happened, going to the balcony was going to be suicide for no good gain. With his back covered for a moment, he had a choice to make – go low, and either cover left or right if the damn xeno waited for him in the corridor.

Gabriel chose right, and rolled through the door spraying laser fire. No alien materialized to turn him into ribbons, which was a small blessing. His comrades outside and in the rest of the building weren't so lucky – the Seargeant could clearly hear human and alien screams that were almost lost under the thunder of weapons fire.

Forkas got away from the door just in time to avoid being perforated by shrapnel from his own grenade and sprinted to the closest friendly position to reinforce it. After what he just saw, he had no illusions about trying to face the aliens one on one.

Unfortunately, the xeno had other ideas. Gabriel sensed something and ducked, somehow managing to avoid a kick aimed at his head. The alien made an impossible twist in the air and landed on the wall. It leered at him through the glowing eyes of its helmet and aimed its pistols at him. Forkas knew it was futile, yet he tried to bring his hellgun up to spray the bastard. Instead of meeting an inglorious death then and there, the Sergeant had the privilege of seeing the ceiling going down and at least a ton of Astartes land upon the fucking xeno. The floor didn't appreciate the abuse and collapsed under the impact with almighty crash, thus leaving Gabriel to stare at the resulting hole like a drooling imbecile.

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I was going to be perfectly content to keep to the high ground and take pot-shots at the Eldar with a borrowed hellgun, while the Astartes, Necrons and the Guard overwhelmed the Eldar. It was a good plan, it was safe plan, it was the sane thing to do too. Said plan went out of the shattered window shortly after Anteas jumped through surrounded by a halo of psychic power so he could get close and personal with the Eldar. From the kitchen we hid in, I had a front row seat of the aliens in action and after seeing them, I had no intention of going anywhere near the bastards.

One of the shrieking female ones, a Banshee blurred straight into a third room apartment across the street and in the time it took me to raise my weapon and aim, while still trying to enhance myself with Warp energy, she butchered a whole squad of veteran soldiers, made it look pathetically easy even. She danced almost faster than the eye could track, practically leaving an afterimage, which was the only thing the quickest Guardsman managed to hit before she took his head off with a swipe of her curved blade. I just managed to take aim, when a burning sphere barely missed my head, making me flinch and ruining the shot. Without thinking I dove through the window, hoping beyond hope that the arcane energies running through me would be enough to keep me alive upon hitting the ground. That was the prudent thing to do too, because a moment later, my hiding hole transformed into an inferno thanks to the plasma grenade.

I landed hard on my feet and felt my bones protest the impact, however I didn't think I managed to broke anything. At any rate, I didn't have time for such trivial concerns like shattered bones. Another of the Banshees was nearby, busying herself with dismantling a pair of Ogryn. She had one of the poor bastards hamstrung, his arms hung limply to his side and he stared dumbly at his opened belly. The crazy bitch was busy repeating the performance with his friend, when I sent a burst of hellgun fire at her back. She sensed something, because she twisted even as I was pressing the trigger and actually managed to throw off my aim just enough so two of the three shots missed. The last one caught her in the shoulder-blade, it boiled a chunk of her armour and by the way she shrieked, that had to sting.

However, the wound didn't slow her down much and she headed my way, well tried anyway. A paw of a hand grabbed her knee and she stumbled, managing to drag the second Ogryn with her. She screamed pure murder and twisted around, severing the arm at the wrist and slammed her blade in the trooper's throat. That gave me more that enough time to sent two bursts in her back and this time there was no avoiding them. Her armour ablated and boiled away from the first three shots, and the second burst struck unprotected flesh. The Eldar bitch collapsed, however I shot her two more times just to make sure before sprinting to the nearest available cover.

That was when my personal plans about this battle went totally off the rails. I managed to get behind an abandoned ground car without anyone else trying to murder me, and saw and felt the Farseer unleash a storm of psychic energy at the command center and the Necron who had came out to face her. I also saw a small, thin figure run out of a building down-street followed by alien fire that shredded the ground just behind its heels. It took me a moment to wrap my head around what I was seeing – that was the same lass we recovered when we went to save Requista. She was supposed to be safe under guard, not anywhere near the fighting!

One of the Banshees jumped through a window to land in front of the girl and I was sure I would see the child die before I could shoot the alien bitch. Instead, the Eldar stumbled as if she was drunk and her well aimed strike turned into a crude swing that missed by miles. I shot the Banshee in the back before she could recover and was glad to see her go down like my first target.

"Over here!" I shouted at the girl, who continued to run, her wide terrified eyes darting every which way, though I wasn't sure she was seeing anything in her panic, nor caring about a thing besides getting as far away from the fighting as she could. An Eldar teleported behind her, and he stumbled too before he could aim his two pistols at her. I shot him in the chest for his trouble, however his heavier armour absorbed the las-bolts merely causing him to stagger as parts of the chest plate ablated away. Seeing no other good option, I continued to shoot at the bastard, who vanished after I hit him a second time.

I felt a presence materializing behind me and knew that there was no way I could turn around fast enough to matter. All I had was the Warp energy I was using to bring my body's performance closer to the capabilities of the Aliens and what I did, was a damn foolish idea under the best of circumstances. I released all the psychic energy I was channeling as a crude blast-wave behind me. Just the backslash brought me to my knees and felt like someone just took a warhammer to my brain. As if that wasn't enough, with my concentration gone to hell, I could feel something clawing at my mind, trying to find purchase. Something laughed and hissed at me in a language that wasn't just wrong, but it hurt to hear. Itt felt as if the daemon pressed clawed fingers at my skull and began slowly pushing them in, savoring every moment of it. I tried to slap it away, pushed at it with everything I had, and it only laughed harder, amused by my feeble efforts.

Then it was suddenly gone, and the Warp with it. I was on my back, starring at smoke-chocked skies and I could hear someone wailing nearby. Small, cold fingers touched my face, bringing my attention to a slim figure kneeling at my side. The girl was beside me, she was babbling something I couldn't hear and trying to get my attention. The hell just happened and what was that infernal sound?! I managed to turn my head to the right and saw that teleporting bastard of an Eldar curled in a fetal position, wailing as if a horde of daemons were having their wicked way with him.