Chapter Text
The earth itself shook underfoot as an armoured column rolled through the ruins. There had been a great battle here but now there was just the still-smoking wreckage of combat. Tank-Captain Lenither could feel the rumbles even deep in the citadel of her own vehicle, the command seat slung from the armoured roof swaying gently against its stabilisers. The thick hatch above her head undogged automatically at the push of a button, raising and swivelling out of the way on whirring motors. Soul-piercing sunlight shafted down into the dim interior of her tank, igniting the motes of dust that floated in the recycled air.
She knew it stank, the rank funk of a gaggle of men and women and machines cramped into a tiny box for days at a time. She knew it but she wouldn’t be able to smell it until she got access to a ‘fresher’ and a bunk that wasn’t hanging between a super-capacitor and a targeting computer.
Hands gripping the warm metal, Lenither hauled herself up into the open hatch to lean on the ring of the cupola. She looked around her massive armoured vehicle at the planet
they'd been ordered to take. Abrithax Prime, once a prized piece of real-eastate for humanity, had seen nine solar years of war and it showed. All that remained of the former capital city were a few crumbling walls and the last traces of a tarmac street now torn up still further by grinding tank tracks. The atmosphere was cloying, thick with the fumes of industry and the sunlight was just enough to remind you that it was cold every day. It was a grim place to live, the remaining loyalist population tucked up safely in sealed micro-hives where they could safely grow food to support the war effort against the heretic.
The rumbling was louder without an inch or armour plate between her and it, the roar of blessed engines and the clanking of anointed tracks apparent over the steady thrum and vibration. She watched vehicle after vehicle roll past her position, Leman Russ MBT’s, Chimera troop carriers and still other more rare designs. Banners snapped in the wind and the few visible crewmen offered a cheery wave or a dour nod in passing. She raised a hand to the few senior ranks she recognised, but so many were passing that eventually she could do no more than to simply acknowledge their presence with her own. The only exception was the dark blue vehicle with a commissar leaning almost casually against his own command hatch. This she saluted as carefully as she could, giving proper respect to a man who could end her career in an instant if he so decided. He eyed her, then her vehicle, before returning the salute. Lenither wondered if it was for her or for the tank she commanded. She guessed that it would hardly matter when they joined the fight. He would be glad of her either way.
Neither she nor those rolling by needed to speak to know what was happening. The large blue eight stencilled on the side of each battle tank let her know who they were, and they could hardly mistake her machine for another. The 8th Midosian were crossing the short few kilometres from staging point to frontline to try to punch a hole in the arch-enemies positions. They had held firmly for months now and the generals were desperate for a shift. The Midosians were the third such tank regiment she had watched make the journey and she hoped that they would be the first to come back this way with more than a tenth of their numbers remaining. The others had been so diminished, so ruined by the assaults, that their return had been a stark contrast to their advances.
She – and thus her vehicle – was present to provide heavy fire support, as a bunker buster and in case the rumours of heretic super-heavy war machines were more than just rumours. She looked along the length of the massive, multi-metre long barrel of her tank's volcano cannon. It was a beautiful piece of supreme engineering, a work of art unmatched on any traced vehicle. It would finally get to do the work it was designed for if the rumours were true. For too long she had hunted nothing more than heretical commanders, artillery and other targets. Lenither couldn’t help but look forward to the opportunity to kill a god-machine, whatever that would mean for the 8th Midosian.
As the last Leman Russ rolled past, commander waving lazily, Lenither dropped back into the armoured citadel and let the hatch swing shut behind her. Taking a deep breath she found comfort in the familiar smell even with the knowledge tickling in the back of her head that it was so foul any other would rankle at the scent. She touched the vox-dot on her ear.
“Oskar, ahead half and join the column. There’s the remains of a hab two klicks down-road which looks like a perfect spot for us.” She said, voice carried electronically around the capacious super-heavy tank to every member of the crew.
There was a clunk and whirr as the transmission switched from capacitor-charge to drive and all 316 tons of armour rocked on its suspension. The Shadowsword picked its way onto the road and slowly began to roll after the 8th Midosian armoured column and towards combat.
– – –
The ruins she’d hunted out on the orbital recon picts were more than suitable. A near empty shell once fifteen stories high, it was missing two of its massive walls and proved a perfect spot to tuck the massive Shadowsword out of sight of even the best enemy observers. It was rare to be able to hide a super-heavy from even the most cursory of observation, but it was her job – and her training – to do her very best. The remains of the hab also, in the form of a precarious staircase, provided an observation point from which she and her lead gunner, Karlson, could see all the way to the front lines and beyond. Pressed into a corner with a blanket pulled over them to disguise their shape, they hunted targets worthy of a volcano cannon shot. There was always the risk of snipers when they scouted like this, but the view from up here was truly to die for.
She chewed her lip, tracking the ‘scope back and forth across heretic trench lines. They would only get two or three or the world-splitting shots before they would have to relocate the massive tank or face retribution by missile or shell. They would have to make those shots count.
She thought of the massive tank lying silent some forty metres below them, the Solis Virga. Buried under camouflage netting to break up its shape even more than the shadows already would, she was safely hidden. The part of Lenither’s mind that wasn’t searching the enemy positions went to the three fine white titan kill rings painted around the hilt of the monstrous main gun. Only one of them could she claim as her own, the Solis having had a long and proud history with many commanders before she had come to call the beast her own.
Her ring, her victory, had been an ancient Reaver battle titan twisted and ruined by the machinations and mutations of the arch-enemy. Eventually identified as Mortis Tributum, she had taken its knee and immobilised it before a second shot punctured its plasma generators. The detonation was a bright and temporary sun which left only blasted wreckage and a stunned battlefield.
She knew the stories of the machines other two kills as well, and of many of the other battles it had taken part in and glories it had won. But those were old tales now, barely worth repeating around a table with the captains of the other titan-hunters of her company. After Finthen, Captain of the Divine Touch, had taken an Ork construct at Beyellah in a single shot, nothing the Solis had achieved really held anyone’s attention. Lenither was hungry for another true victory.
‘You see those fortifications?” Karlson growled in a half-whisper, dragging her from thoughts of future glory and back into the grim and grimy present. He raised a single finger a fraction of an inch, pointing out into the smog-distorted distance.
‘I see them.” And she did, a set of huge emplacements that made up part of a defensive line that ran the entire circumference of the enemy capitals outer suburbs. ‘Bunker’ wasn’t enough of a word to describe them, three edificial structures studded with artillery tubes, rocket launchers, auto-cannon barrels and more weapons besides. It would be murder for tanks to assault them, let alone the infantry that Lenither knew had been part of the first failed attempt. ‘That’ll be the 8th’s objective then.’
‘Five gives you ten it becomes ours when no engine makes an appearance.” He muttered.
He was voicing the same concerns she had already worried over. That their deployment here would essentially be another wasted use of their titanic weaponry and they would be reduced to cracking emplacements. It would, she consoled herself, be truly a sight to behold to watch those walls brought low.
‘I don’t gamble with my crew.’ She said, and felt him grin without even seeing it ‘especially when I know I’m going to lose.’
She took another moment to scan the horizon and the front lines with her ‘scope. The Imperial entrenchments that had been dug, out of range of the majority of the fortifications guns, were now a hive of activity as the armoured units of the 8th pulled into position for the coming assault. The fog-like haze made it difficult to see anything more than the merest hints of movement from the Imperial side of things and nothing could be seen behind the enemies walls. She was thankful for that. She'd seen enough of the archenemy for a lifetime.
‘Have you got what you need?’ she asked, eager to get back to the warm embrace of her Shadowsword’s citadel. The only reason they were up here was so that she could get the lie of the land and that Karlson, as lead gunner, could find some landmarks by which to range his gun. Even a weapon as powerful as the volcano cannon was affected by gravity and wind and at the longest ranges, the planets spin. Karlson took great pride in rarely missing a shot. He’d been aboard the Solis Virga for longer than she had. The presence of the old veteran beside her in the turret was soothing in even the most desperate of circumstances.
He chewed his bearded lip for a moment before nodding firmly once. They crawled backwards slowly, dragging the blanket with them until they could slide down the staircase enough to stand without fear of taking a bullet in the back.
– – –
‘It’s time to wake up, old girl.’ The ancient fallen princeps grumbled through the fragmentary MIU link he shared with his engine.
She growled once, low, a rumbling sound that let him know exactly what she thought of being shaken from her slumber.
‘I know, old girl, I know,’ He consoled, mentally stroking her flank. It would not do for the irascible machine to become frustrated and snap at her handler. Part daemon, part god, the warhound Vitiosus Victorix had walked a thousand battlefields in the last ten millenia and still her penchant for aggression had never cooled. He had walked with her the entire time, once on his own feet but now only on hers. He savoured every step they took together.
‘We’ll be amongst them soon. Then you can feast.’ He snarled and she finally flickered into life. An ancient powerplant flooded her systems with the energy of a star as weapons cycled through automated checklists. His moderatii were long gone, his engineseer barely a memory. He no longer needed them. It was simply him and his Hound, on the hunt once more.