//------------------------------//
// Baltimare 
// Story: Strange Bedfellows 
// by BRBrony9 
//------------------------------//

With the city of Baltimare surrounded, the push deep into its interior could take place, safe in the knowledge that the Chaos forces trapped within would not be receiving any reinforcements, at least not from the physical plane. Once more, the 40th Parvian Lancers were in the line, carried into the attack aboard Chimera fighting vehicles. Major, formerly Captain, Halix, the new commanding officer of the 2nd Brigade, led his men into the outskirts of the city. Halix had been Major Harding's deputy during the siege of Griffonstone, and the apparent death of the commander, along with his evident replacement by the vile Changelings, who had used his likeness to murder the Lord-General, came as a great shock to the unit. None of them had expected that anything had happened to the Major, but it seemed that he had been killed during the fighting for Manehattan, and replaced, almost immediately, by a Changeling- though whether by chance or convenience, or because they had a plan to kill Lord-General Galen all along, could not be known, especially since the drone in question was dead and their Queen was still at large. As Harding's deputy, Halix had been the obvious choice to replace him as commanding officer of the 2nd Brigade.

Having helped direct the defence of Griffonstone, Halix was now directing the attack on Baltimare. A pony city rather than a Griffon one, to be sure, but still alien enough, though notably more advanced than the mountainside settlement. Where Griffonstone was a city of shanty huts and simple structures, Baltimare, like Manehattan, was reminiscent of countless Imperial cities across the galaxy. It was not a towering Hive, but rather a complex industrial city, with scattered outskirts that gave way to a wide ring of large accommodation blocks and apartment buildings, designed to house the workers at the many factories that made up much of the city. At the centre was a business and recreation district, the homes of the fashionable and rich, and the civic buildings which breathed life into every pony settlement; the town hall, the rail transit station, the museums, the theatres, bars and restaurants.

There were enemies here, to be sure; so the orbital scans had indicated. The city could not be bombarded due to the agreement with the Xenos princess, which meant that, yet again, men and women of the Imperial Guard would have to put their lives on the line to try and clear and capture the place instead. Halix was growing tired of it, but then he was growing tired of serving his Emperor in general. The Crusade alone had been long enough for any man, to say nothing of his decade of service before that, year after year spent away from his family, from his wife and his two children. Each day when he awoke, he thought of them all, and each night before he slept, he feared that he would never see them again, for life in the Emperor's service was never certain.

Nevertheless, he had a job to do, and he would carry it out as he did every day. The infantry had dismounted from their carriers, but Major Halix remained in his Salamander command vehicle; a  necessity, given its vox capabilities. As Brigade commander he needed to keep in touch with each unit under his remit, to hear their reports and to issue orders. The 2nd Brigade, along with the rest of the Parvian Lancers, and several other Regiments, were pushing into the northern outskirts of Baltimare, moving through the houses and streets. While the city was smaller than Manehattan, it was still a sizeable settlement, and it would be no simple matter to wrest it from enemy hands. 

There had been initial resistance, an outer ring of trenches dug by the Chaos forces around the perimeter of Baltimare. The armour at the head of the assault had overcome the obstacle easily, pushing through and into the streets. The infantry following on had cleared the trenches and dugouts of the first line, suffering only minor casualties in the process as they pushed through to support the tanks. The armour would need close escort as they entered the city itself, being a prime setup for ambushes from high buildings or sewer grates. 

The Brigade, and the rest of the Parvian Lancers, were somewhat understrength, as many members of the Regiment, including Sergeant Argan, were still recuperating from their injuries sustained during the flooding of Ponyville; immersion and exposure, broken bones and internal injuries from being bashed against buildings and street furniture as they were swept away. But there were more than enough to form an efficient fighting force, and with other infantry units in support and the tanks leading the way, the 2nd Brigade made their advance into the city outskirts. 

Low buildings, houses, reminded many of the men of the similar landscape at the edge of Manehattan. They also keenly remembered what they had run into in just such a neighbourhood; a torrent of Daemons, charging ravenously at them through the street. Nobody was in a hurry to suffer from a repeat of that experience, and every head was on a swivel, looking for the first signs and symptoms of a possible Daemonic infestation that might rise to greet them at every turn.

There was gunfire ahead, as the lead units ran into more enemy resistance. Las-fire flashed from both sides, as the tanks engaged the Chaos positions. The Parvians' 2nd Brigade moved up. Captain Halix and his scout car command vehicle hung back, monitoring, observing, not getting too close to the frontline itself. The Salamander was not a combat vehicle, armed only with a heavy bolter on a pintle mount for self defence. It had thin armour and would not stand up to a concerted attack, nor was it designed to. The command variant especially was meant to stay clear of the heavy fighting and direct others to do its bidding instead. That was exactly what Captain Halix was making sure to do. Only a foolish Brigade commander would seek to lead from the very front. That was the job of the platoon and company officers, to stick their necks out, the lead the charge and set the example. Senior staff had the broader picture to consider and could not simply throw themselves into the fray blindly.

Contact reports came in through the vox network and data links in the Salamander. There was a lot to process, and the command staff laboured to interpret it. The upside of the Salamander was that it was fast, maneuverable, and offered protection from small arms fire that would not be the case for a command squad on foot. The downside was that it only had room for a couple of men, not the whole platoon that would normally accompany a Brigade commander. They were following on in other, similar vehicles, with the protection unit attached to them mounted in a Chimera as escort. It was inconvenient, but necessary, as it precluded Halix and his staff from having to find a protected building away from the fighting to use as a command centre, which, while good for defence, was not good during a mobile assault operation. They needed to keep up with the advance, which was where the Salamander excelled in its role.

Keep up they did, staying behind the fighting front but well within vox range, and visual range too, at least while in the outskirts. As the advance continued they would enter the terrain of five and six-storey accommodation buildings and large, cavernous factories and warehouses, and then beyond that there would be the tall buildings of the city centre. Vox communication was likely to be disrupted somewhat with his frontline units by the buildings, which would distort or block the signal. Strategic communication with other Regiments and with high command would not suffer in the same way, however, as those signals were either bounced off of relays on the fleet in orbit, or transmitted directly to the ships themselves. Halix would at least be able to receive orders, even if not necessarily transmit them to his subordinate units so easily.

Up ahead was a rail yard, as the suburbs gave way to more industrialised districts. Fighting was already breaking out there, as reports reached Halix of enemies using freight railcars as pillboxes, laden with sandbags and barbed wire. The tanks could not advance cleanly through such a location, as it was littered with train cars, buffers, switching gear and small outbuildings from which an enemy with a melta bomb or missile launcher could appear at any moment to spring an ambush on them. The tank's company commander informed Halix over the vox that he was halting his vehicles at the edge of the yard and awaiting the infantry to push up and begin the advance.

Halix ordered two companies forward to support the tanks, and to leapfrog then into the attack. The rail yard was not overly large, but it was an obstacle that had to be overcome before they could advance any further. With the tanks keeping up a pounding hail of supporting fire, the men moved into position and into the railyard. There was ample cover, with plenty of large goods wagons and coal hoppers parked about. The few fortified enemy positions closest to their advance were pummeled by heavy bolter rounds, shredding the wooden sides of the railcars and those occupying them. A large engine shed at one end of the yard was another strongpoint, with a hail of las-fire and stubber rounds coming from it. There were men up on overhead gantries, too, and service cranes were perches for snipers. The tanks could not engage every target at once, meaning the men of the 2nd Brigade would have to deal with many of the threats themselves. They proved themselves up to the challenge, with pinpoint return fire cutting down enemy soldiers both high and low. 

The tanks turned their focus onto the engine shed and the enemies defending it, suppressing their fire while the Parvians moved up, getting amongst the railcars, using them for cover and pushing forward slowly, picking off enemies as they showed their heads. There was no sign of any enemy reinforcements coming in to aid their brothers in the defence of the railyard. Halix ordered a third company into the fray for support, and with the aid of concentrated tank fire that shattered most of the structure, the engine shed was cleared. The men entering had been expecting hand to hand fighting, but most of the Chaos troops inside were already dead or dying. They finished off the living and put the wounded out of their misery before continuing on across the tracks. With the fog finally clearing up, visibility improved far enough to see beyond the rail yard.

There was a small rise to climb at the other side, an earthen embankment that proved momentarily tricky to scale, but no hazard to the tanks which followed, climbing up like a mountain goat, sure footed. Beyond the railyard lay a deserted road and then an eclectic collection of industrial facilities. There was a lumber yard, some kind of dye works, a warehouse and a distillery. There was also no sign of enemy activity within any of them.

A cautious advance was initiated, with the infantry companies working in close cooperation with the tanks. Both relied on each other in urban combat, and that remained the same whether fighting on Armageddon, on Cadia, or here, on this strange Xenos planet with disturbingly familiar architecture and infrastructure. There were cities like this on Parvia; there were cities like this on a million Imperial worlds, a mixture of light and heavy industry with residential buildings and an inner core of commerce and leisure. Some guardsmen, from less or more developed worlds, would never have seen anything quite like it; a Hive city dweller or a resident of an ecumenopolis, one of those worlds where the entire surface was covered by buildings, would marvel at the open space and air, at the wide streets and big skies overhead. On the other hand, someone from a feudal or garden world would balk at being subject to the relatively strict confines of a city of such size, bigger than anything they had seen on their homeworld.

Regardless of how they may have felt about the city, however, the guardsmen continued to advance through Baltimare. The warehouse was cleared; it was full of mattresses, with a notable number missing, presumably used by the occupation forces for bedding. The lumber yard was empty, and the dye works was abandoned. The distillery, however, was not. 

The first man through the door received a las-round straight through his forehead. The enemy within had not revealed their presence, either through cunning strategy designed to lure the Imperials into an ambush, or, a distinct possibility, because they had been mostly too drunk to even notice the attack unfolding. Despite the early hour, most, if not all, of the building's garrison, those lucky few chosen to guard the one building of interest to a soldier, had been partaking in whatever could be found around the place after previous occupants had had their way with it. Roused perhaps by the cajoling of their officers, the sounds of gunfire and explosions from the railyard, or the kicking in of the front door of the building, they were now ready to fight, if perhaps still a little unsteady on their feet.

The distillery was a five-storey structure, at least on the outside. Inside, much of the space was taken up by two large rooms, one for storage, and the other containing the vats and other equipment needed to produce whatever alien liquor the ponies churned out to give themselves a legal high. Evidently it was just as effective and non-lethal to humans, judging by the state of the enemy who occupied it and the number of empty bottles and containers left scattered around. The Parvians pushed in through the front entrance, the side entrance and the rear loading dock, tackling the problem from three sides. The interior was a mass of crates, barrels, walkways and great metal cylinders and vats, used for the distillation of the substance, obviously a favourite of Equestrian society given the size of the operation and the number of vats. The enemy were occuping the upper floors and the catwalks in the main rooms, giving them an advantage of height. But the Imperials had the advantage in both firepower and numbers, with more men pouring into the brewery, intent on clearing it of every last vestige of Chaos presence.

It would not be so simple, however. Grenades rained down from above, killing several men with their blasts and smashing open many bottles of the liquor. Incendiary grenades from above then ignited the alcohol, sending men running screaming from the building, their uniforms ablaze. Gunfire brought down the grenade throwers in short order, but they had already done plenty of damage. The flames blocked the advance of men coming from the side door. Those from the loading bay found themselves in the storage room, where crates were stacked high and barrels sat in racks. Many had been tapped and drained by the occupying forces for their own enjoyment. The heavy oak casks also provided good cover, with men firing from behind them, from around the stacks and over the crates. The guardsmen took cover as well, returning fire as a fierce gun battle developed inside the store room.

Meanwhile out at the front entrance, more guardsmen were forcing an entry to support their fellows, taking several casualties but making it inside. The tanks could not aid them; firing at the structure would inevitable result in friendly losses, as the gunners had no way of knowing where friendly and enemy lay within. They had to sit and wait while the battle was fought inside, at close range, hand to hand. The windows of the distillery were lit up by the flashes of lasfire from within as the guardsmen struggled with their opposite numbers, their traitors and deserters, their very antithesis writ large. No disciplined, well trained body of men were these, rather a disorganised, drunken rabble, everything that the Imperial Guard, in most cases, was not. 

Their training told true. Floor by floor and room by room, the enemy were cleared from the distillery, ruthlessly cut down by the discipline and good aim of the Parvian Lancers. The last holdouts retreated to the attic of the structure, hiding up in the cockloft and in the rafters. Rather than waste lives going after them, the guard evacuated the building. Now the tank gunners got a chance to shine. Only one section of the building rose up to the sloping roof that contained the attic; the majority of the structure was the equivalent of three stories high. That marked the target clearly for the tanks and their eager gunners. Within a few moments, the entire top floor of the distillery had been erased, and with it, the last resistance therein. The drunken, half dazed mob within had stood no chance against the onslaught of the guardsmen and their fire support. What tiny pockets of resistance remained elsewhere along the line occupied by the distillery and the other buildings were soon quashed as well, and peace descended, at least temporarily, over that sector of the city.

There was still conflict elsewhere, however, with crackling gunfire and the rumble of explosions audible from both the left and right flanks of the 2nd Brigade's position. They, and the attack as a whole, were making good progress into Baltimare, perhaps suspiciously so. The men well remembered the ease of their push into Ponyville, where they had been caught cold by the destruction of the dam, and of the emptiness of the outskirts of Manehattan, where Daemons had been the source of their problems, not once, but twice. 

As if to immediately disabuse them of the possibility of an easy ride this time, shouts came up from the forward positions of enemy movement ahead, not just infantry, but also armour. Very few Chaos vehicle had been identified on the orbital scans, which was hardly surprising, given the number of warehouses, storage sheds, garages and other hiding places into which they could have been secreted. There were three tanks heading their way, Leman Russes to be precise, albeit daubed with nauseating sigils and defaced with the runes and warpaint of Chaos. An empty, abandoned lot gave them an easy route through toward the Imperial lines. They pushed in towards the distillery, crushing wooden fences under their treads. 

The infantry now occupying the distillery were alerted by the sound of grinding tank treads. Some rushed to the windows on the south side of the building, and were able to spot the tanks moving in. They shouted the alarm, even as the alert was transmitted over the vox net. Lacking sufficient anti-tank weaponry, the infantry would have to wait for their own armour to move up in support. The enemy tanks were evidently unaware that the distillery was now in Imperial hands. Two of them headed to the left, with the other moving right, heading around the distillery, but coming face to face with Imperial armour as a result.

Well-aimed lascannon and battle cannon rounds came from several of the Imperial tanks, waiting in ambush thanks to the alert transmitted and the precise locations of the enemy relayed by the forces in the distillery. One of the Chaos vehicles was knocked out immediately, smoke billowing from its turret as one or two of the crew tried to bail out. The other tank following along behind it drove forward, either oblivious to them or deliberately ignoring them, as it simply ran them over in the narrow street. There was little room for it to move out of the way even if the crew had the desire to do so. Its main gun roared, a shot bouncing off of the glacis plate of one of the Imperial tanks. Several rounds came right back at it, and stopped it cold, its left track clanking as it was severed by shrapnel and dropped unceremoniously off of the bearings. The tank slewed to a halt, but its gun fired again, this time driving home into the armour of one of the Imperial tanks, slicing right through its gunner and spraying his guts all over the rear turret wall.

In response, a lascannon shot punched through the turret of the Chaos tank, and smoke began to pour from every hatch and opening as it began to burn inside. The tank on the other side of the distillery building cut down a few unfortunate guardsmen with its heavy bolters, speakers mounted to its turret blaring with Chaos chants as it rolled into battle. The Imperial tanks were ready for it, and almost as soon as it appeared in the street it was destroyed by a pair of pinpoint cannon shells that smashed the turret and the driver's position. It rolled slowly to a stop, the foul chants still looping on repetition until some enterprising guardsmen destroyed the speakers with lasfire. 

With the enemy tanks gone, nothing more came their way. The Imperial armour, supported by the Parvians, began to move again, deeper into the city. They moved through the streets of Baltimare. Some were cobbled, like those in Canterlot, and some were wider, like the roads in Manehattan. It was a curious and somewhat eclectic mixture of two or more cities in one, in terms of architecture too. Some of the factory buildings shared their aesthetic with the more rustic designs of Ponyville, some with the rough and ready Manehattan industrial style. All the buildings had one thing in common; they were empty.

Street after street was passed and cleared, with no sign of the enemy. Apart from the outer ring of defences around the city in the outskirts and the fringes of the industrial area, there was nothing to be seen. While this greatly pleased the men on the ground, it was concerning to their commanders. The orbital scans and aerial imagery had indicated a significant, though not vast, enemy force present in Baltimare. There were not as many as had been in Manehattan, but a goodly number nevertheless judging by the intelligence reports. So where were they?

As more and more units broke through the outer crust of defences and pushed into different sectors of the city, they all reported the same conditions. Empty streets, empty buildings. No contacts, no civilians, no enemies, nothing. No life, save a few stray dogs wandering about looking for sustenance. The absence of the enemy was perplexing. The city was surrounded, and had been since the last recon images were taken. There was no way the Chaos forces could have slipped through the net. There was no road or rail line that was unobserved, no sector of countryside unguarded by the blocking forces. The maps and plans provided by the pony government in Canterlot had not shown any underground tunnels that led outside of the city limits. So where were they?

To Commissar Birbeck, in command of the ground operation, the answer seemed clear; it did not matter where they were. Pressing on was the obvious, and only, course of action. If the enemy had gone, then the city was theirs, and if they remained, then it would be as expected. A fight would ensue, they would win the day, and take the city anyway. But to high command, something did not sit right. If the enemy were still present, as would have to be assumed, then they could well be setting up a large scale ambush, into which the men were walking, in the city centre and the inner sections of town. The nature of the urban landscape meant it was almost impossible to get a clear idea of where exactly the enemy was located. But the fear of an ambush from human forces was not what concerned the high command the most. A repetition of the Daemonic incursion that had occured in Manehattan might prove devastating, to morale if nothing else. There was debate over the correct course of action, but as the units advanced deeper in, still with no enemy contact, suspicions grew; fraught nerves toyed with the choices at hand.  

Major Halix received a message over the vox, being broadcast net-wide. 'All units, all units, by orders of High Command, execute general retreat to Phase Line Alpha. I say again, execute general retreat to Phase Line Alpha, over.' Halix frowned. A retreat? Now? Why? His advance units had reported no enemy contacts, and they had pushed a good couple of miles into the city's industrial districts. Phase Line Alpha was the initial jump-off point for the attack, just outside of the city limits, and turning tail now would leave a disquieting taste in everybody's mouths. Nevertheless, an order was an order, and Halix relayed it to the men under his command. 

From the back of his open-topped Salamander, he could see them trudging back toward the outskirts, confused and questioning. As far as they were concerned, the attack had been going smoothly. As far as Halix was concerned, that had been the case, too. He had no idea why High Command had ordered them to pull back, but he commanded his driver to turn and head back down the street toward the outskirts. He peered back at the skyline of the central business district, the tall towers and high-rise buildings. That was their target, and yet they were going the other way, when they had been getting so close. He busied himself with monitoring the vox and checking the map as the Salamander rumbled back through the industrial district. A repeated call for a general retreat was broadcast over the vox, and Halix took another glance back over his shoulder, observing the string of infantry leaving the city. He turned back to the map.

That was when a brilliant blaze of light illuminated everything inside the Salamander, throwing every contour and line into stark relief. He felt a great heat upon his back, but before he could turn or react, the Salamander bucked and heaved, shaking violently. A roar filled his ears as the scout car tumbled end over end, and everything went black.