@#@#@# Amos's POV @#@#@#
I'm not quite sure how the orks managed to infiltrate Crius's capital city, but I certainly wasn't going to ask them how they did it at the time. Two things happened in that moment, and both surprised me. Taylor plucked a flask from Commissar Cain's jacket, and Cain himself looked, in my honest opinion, a little scared of the hulking mass of orks bearing down on us.
“I'm a better shot drunk,” Taylor said, breaking the top off the flask while he fired three rounds from his pistol into the greenskins. Apparently, the weapon wasn't a slug-thrower like I'd first believed; it fired explosive rounds that detonated on impact. It wasn't a bolt by any means, but it did enough to alert the xenos to our location. “But we don't have time or the liquor for that.” That didn't stop him from taking a swig to steady his aim, only for him to turn nearly as green as the orks and spit it out. “Ugh! I hate tea.”
“Tanna is an amazing drink,” Commissar Cain replied tersely as he fired a few lasbolts and ducked behind cover just as the orks opened fire. Their aim was amazingly poor, owing, I suppose, to their laughably-broken equipment and their bloodthirsty dispositions. However, Taylor, being in incredibly dark armor that stood out against the bright storefronts, was the most obvious target, and he took more than a few shots from their crude sluggas, which plinked off his armor as though they were tossing pebbles at him. He fired a fourth shot with his own pistol before speaking.
“Commissar, Inquisitor Vail is more needed elsewhere, so I would appreciate it if you got her to safety.”
@#@#@# Taylor's POV @#@#@#
I'm not sure why I was surprised when Cain actually took Amberley away, but it opened up a chance to do some rather heretical things. I looked to Lyra, who had just gunned down one of the smaller slugga boyz charging us, and she nodded. “Reinforcements are inbound, Taylor,” she said in English, shouting over the din of the slugs ricocheting off my armor. I opened my suit's radio and shouted into it, broadcasting on the PDF's and Inquisition’s frequencies.
“The drop pod is with me! Hold your fire! I repeated: hold your fire!” Even then, the pod was a bright dot in the sky, burning in the atmosphere as it headed for its intended target: me. I switched to my bolter and walked towards the lead storm the orks were firing at us, still just barely out of range for them to charge right in, and opened up on full auto. Sixteen shots, each more of a grenade than a typical round, ripped into the green tide, felling no less than six, but a few more were contested between the others and myself.
I didn't have time to reload, so I did the next best thing. I tossed the remained magazine and the bolter to Amos, who caught it nervously, and drew my sabre and pistol once more. Only then did I notice they had a nob with them, a large ork who towered over the rest of the boyz, and he sported a rather hefty power klaw. With half his boyz dead, the other were sure to fall back once the big motherfucker was down, so I knew my target. I charged in as Amos and Lyra fired into the weaker mob, leaving me a clear path straight to their leader.
The nob opened his mouth and bellowed the Waagh! characteristic of his race, and rushed at me. He didn't even bother to shoot, and with our favored weapons being in the same hand, it would be easy to block each other. We swung at the same time, our aura-wreathed blades slamming into one another and holding for a brief moment, before my arm buckled and I was forced to pull back. On momentum, the nob's klaw stuck into the paved street, and right as he wrenched it loose, the drop pod slammed into a nearby residential building. The sound was enough to distract him so I could get in a clean shot at the control mechanism, which was thankfully unprotected by glimmering energy.
I sliced through the housing and into a meaty, green arm just as a shadow burst from the dust cloud as the building collapsed. Jacques, and I recognized him only by his hairstyle and cybernetic augments, stuck his claws through two boyz as he ran into the fray, slicing up as many greenskins as he could. Just as my reinforcements arrived, so too did more orks, who seemed none too pleased to see a nob missing an arm.
The air turned chilly as Radiant Unity did what she did best, proving once more than unicorns who maintain the use of their magic in human form are made stronger for it.
@#@#@# Cain's POV @#@#@#
The run back to Inquisitional headquarters was a fast one, if only because I could plainly feel the orks breathing down my neck the entire way. Even resting in the lobby, people looked worried, and I saw more than a few officers of the local PDF running into a conference room to coordinate the defense. The Deathwatch Marines must have already left for the field by the time we arrived, because I couldn't find them anywhere.
“Inquisitor Vail,” Lord Inquisitor Dorosa called from one of the conferences rooms, waving the both of us in. she, as before, was clad in her power armor, and her deamonhammer was snugly secured to her back. Inside were the remaining inquisitors and their top men, including a full combat squad of Adepta Sororitas wielding meltaguns and flamers. “The situation is most dire.”
“That is putting it lightly, my lord,” the planetary governor, Dufton Feders, said through a hololith unit in the room's center. Unlike most of the inbred imbeciles who passed themselves off as governors, this man was once the colonel of his own regiment, and given governorship of Crius after wrenching three worlds from tau control. What I liked most about him was his continued use of his rank rather than new title, not to mention his PDF was top-notch for the sector. “There are numerous confirmed engagements in the underhive, and we've lost contact with at least three settlements in as many minutes.”
“I trust you have the situation under control, colonel?” Dorosa asked, and for once I assumed she was genuine. The governor's face was replaced by a three-dimensional map of the capital, with numerous red and green markers clashing at various levels across the hive's massive structure. There were a handful of civilian markers, which shifted to denote status across the levels, fighting the orks. Some of them even survived.
“As best as anyone can under the circumstances,” he replied, the hololith changing to display casualty reports in real time. “The greenies have the advantage, but we're holding them off here,” the screen changed to highlight a section of the underhive, “here,” this time highlighting a portion on the surface, “and here,” now a near-ring around the hive. “What we don't know about is this avenue,” he said, showing the very same street Amberley and I had barely escaped the orkish hordes on.
The screen shifted to a view from numerous street-level pict-recorders, and what they showed left many in the room breathless. In the center of the road were a number of back-clad men and women, firing in such precision that I first assumed they were of the Inquisition's own stormtroopers, but their white hoods told me otherwise. The odd one out was clad in orange and red camouflage, sporting a gas mask and flamer, and sprayed the greenskins in fire every few seconds. In the center of the mob, untouched by the flames, stood the Burned Man and two others I did not recognize.
One was a man sporting a pair of lightning claws, and seemed to be reveling in the chance to tear into the greenies. The other, a fiery redheaded woman, brandished dual powerswords, and cut an equally impressive swathe through the brutes. A large, bluish explosion rocked the street, and a woman wreathed in purplish lightning floated into view. Members of the Ordo Hereticus and Ordo Malleus clenched their collective teeth at the sight, and Dorosa herself seemed rather impressed.
The Burned Man had a rogue psyker amongst his allies, and she seemed to be doing more damage than most sanctioned by the Imperial Guard.