A Bridge Too Far
As predicted, a fairly heavy fog descended across the valley as the night wore on. By morning, it was thick, limiting visibility to a few hundred feet in places. The assault was to continue nonetheless; the orders came down from Commissar Birbeck. The 2nd Stourmont Armoured mounted up, engines revving and kicking out smoke from the exhaust stacks. The crews prepared for action; helmets and headsets went on, hatches were closed and sealed, guns loaded, sights activated. The mechanised would be following on behind, as was standard practice.
Captain Mayner and his crew were ready, focused. Big Beautiful Doll was prepared for battle, all systems go. The orders came down. Advance.
Advance they did, into the fog. Out of the viewports, very little could be seen, but Mayner had a much better view thanks to his thermoscope. However, there was nothing to see. The plains ahead appeared to be empty. The city was out there somewhere, in the distance, still miles away, but getting closer. Their tracks cut up the grass as they sped onward, followed by the Chimeras of the mechanised infantry, supported on the flanks by other units. This time, the Stourmont were not in the vanguard, but were instead out on the left flank of the assault, part of the encircling movement that would secure the city and, hopefully, link up with the other Imperial forces coming up from the south. It was a relatively rare thing for the Regiment not to be somewhere in the leading line, charging straight into the midst of the fray. something that was both welcomed and frowned upon by the men and women of the 2nd Armoured in equal measure. Had their performance in previous battles not been up to scratch, or were they merely being given a rest, moved to a less demanding sector as a reward for good and loyal service?
The vagaries of those in command could only be guessed at. Perhaps the Regiment, having taken heavy losses while approaching Manehattan, was being replaced in the vanguard role by a fresher unit with more tanks and more personnel. That would be entirely reasonable. But then again, would the commanders want a vastly experienced unit with combat experience at each major battle of this counter-invasion to be sidelined and not lending their full weight to the assault? Perhaps they hoped to take the city more easily than those on the frontline imagined. Experiences in Manehattan showed that would not necessarily be the case, no matter how confident their leaders might be to the contrary.
Above the soupy fog lurked a swarm of Imperial aircraft, Lightning fighters and Marauder bombers, ready to swoop in to assist the ground forces, weather permitting. A pinpoint bomb drop was tricky when the target could not be seen, difficult when it could not be detected easily on thermal scans either, such as a gun position inside a bunker, and almost impossible when there was no other way to communicate the target's location, such as smoke or a flare, with any realistic level of accuracy. A stray bomb could easily do more harm than good and kill a platoon of friendly infantry instead of the enemy. It would certainly not be the first time, and while collateral damage and friendly fire was accepted as a part of life in the Imperium, it was still something to be avoided at all reasonable cost, especially with limited resources far from home and with no prospect of the fleet's stores being resupplied any time soon.
With dawn fast approaching, the sun would be rising soon, and the fog would start to burn off, improving visibility, but for now, the ground units were operating in the mist. Not only did it cut viewing distance, it also made things dark and gloomy for the infantry operating without thermal or night-vision equipment. The advance was slow and tedious, moving over open ground, wave after wave of fog banks preventing any kind of real situational awareness from developing. The rank and file were reliant upon their officers and their support vehicles to alert them to any threats up ahead; only they had access to any kind of scopes that could penetrate the murk.
Captain Mayner's eyes remained glued to his thermal imager. Staring at it for too long would cause eye stain and severe headaches, but most veteran tankers had adapted somewhat to that problem and were used to dealing with the side effects. If it was a choice between strained eyes and being dead, then there was only one realistic option to be taken. Big Beautiful Doll ground along, churning up dirt and grass in its wake, the other tanks of 1st Company spread out to her left and right. Most of Equestria, or at least the parts they had seen, had proven to be perfect tank country, and the area around Baltimare was no different. The gently rolling hillocks and plains gave a smooth ride, even in a tank, and, if there was no fog, would have offered excellent visibility while also providing the opportunity for cover behind defiles and small draws in the terrain.
His crew were ready for action, ready to engage the enemy once more and drive them from this place, this alien city, as strange as it sounded to say so. They were all willing participants in the struggle for this planet, both because their commanders ordered it, but also because it seemed like something that had to be done. Many guardsmen felt some strange attraction to the planet, even if not necessarily to its strange inhabitants. It reminded them of home, its capital city reminded them of images of Holy Terra. Its inhabitants...? Did not really reminded anyone of anything good, other than standard Terran horses. Yet there was something else about the place that kept the men and women of the guard muttering and talking to each other in their barracks and bunk rooms, whispers in the night about whether the planet was wondrous or deeply heretical. Opinion was divided, and the fact that their leaders had offered no official statements on such things did nothing to quell such speculation.
'Cobalt One Actual to Cobalt Alpha One Actual, sitrep, over.'
The vox call from the Regimental commander alerted Mayner, who picked up the handset and replied. 'Cobalt Alpha One Actual, sitrep normal. No enemy contacts. Visibility negligible. All vehicles functional, over.'
'Cobalt One Actual copies all,' came the response. 'Continue advance. Cobalt One Actual out.'
The tanks rolled on as the dawn broke, bringing them closer to the city, though there was no visual evidence to support that fact. The fog was still thick and hanging all around them, but it was not stopping them from moving. The rest of the company was with them as they pressed on into the gloom.
Contact reports started coming in from other units. Minor skirmishes were breaking out along the central sector, where the enemy resistance was expected to be strongest and where the troops were advancing straight into the teeth of the hostile guns. Out on the flanks, however, there was still a clear run. Nothing slowed them down, and they encountered to enemies out on the plains.
Mayner kept watching the scope, but it remained blank. It was unlikely they would run into any enemies outside of the city. There had been no evidence of large enemy armoured forces being present, and even if there had been, they would not risk sallying forth into the fog when they could not even know where the Imperial forces were. Far better to hold their line and try to defend the city, which was what they seemed to be doing, judging by the vox reports, although most units were reporting excellent progress through weak defences.
The objective of the 1st Battalion and the rest of the Stourmont 2nd Armoured was to link up with other Imperial forces who were expected to be advancing from the south, to complete both the encirclement of the city and the complete capture of the entire valley. The linkup was expected to be made at a bridge, a strategic river crossing some eight miles south of the city itself. The enemy was entrenched around it, and their positions had been hit from the air the previous day. Theoretically they were being pounded again right now, but the fog may have had something to say about that.
Mayner and the rest of 1st Company were making good progress over the sweeping plains. If his estimates were correct, they should be just about abeam the city itself now, where fighting was rumbling on through the outskirts. The sun was finally starting to show its worth and the fog was thinning somewhat, with shafts of golden light beaming down from above, shining through gaps in the clouds. Soon, visibility was returned to them, the landscape being visible from the viewports instead of just walls of grey.
Mayner ordered the formation tightened up as they cleared the fog. Now they were vulnerable, not just to those with thermal sensors but to any enemy soldier with a missile launcher, lascannon, or plasma weapon. There could be foxholes ahead, or trenches, or mines, that the aerial and orbital scans had somehow missed. Or, there could be nothing but several miles of deserted grassland until they reached the river, and the bridge that was their target.
Mayner hoped it was the latter. The tanks rolled on, listening to the litany of brief and terse combat reports coming over the vox. Everything was still going smoothly. As the regiment continued on over the gently undulating hillocks and ridges, the bridge came into view ahead.
Located on a straight section of the Mane river, the bridge, oriented north to south, was not like the smaller, older, stone examples of the engineering artform that had been dotted around Ponyville. This was a grand and modern structure, a sweeping steel construction that had to straddle not a narrow stream, but a broad and fast-flowing river, a good few hundred feet in width. The bridge was twice as long as that, including its approaches. It was a cantilever style structure, with two big, diamond-shaped metal latticework sections rising above the roadway, one at each end, with no girders or supports above the middle third of the bridge. As well as a wide road, it also carried two railroad lines, one on each side of the outer edges. Though there was not much directly south of Baltimare, the rail lines connected the valley heartland of Equestria with the coastal plains to the southeast, as well as, via a rather circuitous route thanks to the mountains, bringing traffic to Las Pegasus out to the west. There were no other crossings over the river for many miles in either direction, making the bridge, as far as the ponies would be concerned, a vital strategic location. To the Imperials, with their dropships, shuttles and orbital capability, it was merely an aesthetically pleasing landmark that the pony princess wanted captured, intact if at all possible.
It was possible that, upon the first approach of the Imperial tanks, the Chaos forces defending the bridge would simply blow it up, as they had done with the dam outside of Ponyville, merely to deny its usefulness to their foes. But on the other hand, they would likely realise that its strategic value to the Imperium was relatively negligible, and not bother with wasting the explosives that it would take to rig the bridge for demolition. They could be put to entirely more practical use, such as mining the roadway approaches. The bridge was, hopefully, to come under attack from both ends, as close to simultaneously as could be reasonably managed by the advancing tanks and their counterparts from the southern bank of the river.
'Cobalt Alpha One Actual to Cobalt One. Target in sight. Cleared to proceed?' Mayner asked over the vox. A crackly reply came a moment later.
'Cobalt One Actual to Cobalt Alpha One Actual. Affirmative. Proceed to target. Cleared to engage all targets. The Emperor protects. Cobalt One Actual out.'
'In we go, boys and girls!' Mayner announced to his crew. 'Keep your wits about you, remember your training. Remember Barnes.' There was a murmur of approval at his mention of their departed brother. 'Driver, ahead, full speed,' Mayner ordered, and Dinnis complied. Though he had not known Barnes personally, he was determined to make ther tank's former driver proud, gunning the engine and heading straight for the bridge. The tanks of the 1st Company were alongside them, ready for anything the enemy might throw at them.
'Cobalt Alpha One Actual to all Cobalt Alpha One vehicles. Full speed, combat spacing. Cleared to engage all hostile targets,' Mayner advised the tanks under his command. A rapid chorus of replies came by way of response and acknowledgement. He glued his eyes to the thermoscope once more. With the fog almost gone, he had no need for the thermal vision, and instead switched to normal viewing mode, scanning for any contacts, looking for anything unusual. A glint from a rifle scope, a burst of movement from a soldier hurrying to cover, the puff of smoke from a missile being launched.
He knew the enemy must be out there. Despite the previous air raid, which had left craters marring the landscape around the bridge approach, where the roadway rose above the surrounding terrain atop a base of concrete and clay, there was no doubt that Chaos troops were still entrenched. The raid had not been intense enough to have killed them all. If centuries of experience had taught mankind two things, they were that humans were impossibly tenacious, and that a hellish bombardment by artillery or bombs that surely must eradicate every living specimen within the target area would fail to kill at least half of any humans located therein. These conditions applied as much to the Archenemy as to the forces of the Imperium, and only a fool would approach the bridge with the assumption of the area having been cleansed.
Mayner ordered a reduction in speed for just such a reason. They had been exposed to view for long enough since the fog dissipated that the advantage speed might have brought them would be negated. There would be no shock value to the tanks simply charging in at maximum velocity if the enemy were already long aware of their presence and ready to meet them with fire and fury. Instead, they advanced at a more measured pace, rapid, but measured. Gunners and commanders scanned for targets. They found them. There were trenches and bunkers dug in along the approaches, pillboxes built upon the roadway, and even men up in the girders of the bridge structure itself.
Mayner scanned across the area. 'Looks like we've got company,' he muttered. 'Load HE!' Janssen opened the breech, slid the armour piercing round that was pre-loaded out of the weapon, and replaced it with a high-explosive shell.
'Up!' he called. Mayner picked out a target.
'Gunner, target is bunker, eleven o'lock, fifteen hundred.'
'Identified!' Cheyne confirmed.
'Fire!'
The tank bucked as the shell hurtled on its way. Along the line, the rest of the company started to engage as well, shells whistling across the terrain. The enemy lines had been pummelled by bombs, but they were still intact in a number of places, and capable of offering resistance as the Imperial tanks and carriers closed in. The 2nd Armoured formed a combat line, protecting the mechanised units following on behind. It was the men and women of the infantry that would have to actually occupy the ground. It was the job of the tanks to both keep them safe and to punch a hole in the Chaos line.
The shell from Big Beautiful Doll smashed into the heavy ferrocrete bunker, blowing a chunk from its exterior but doing no major structural damage to the well-built edifice, as indeed the bombing had not either. No fire came from the bunker in reply; were the crew dead? Had it already been abandoned? Or were they simply holding fire, waiting for a clearer shot or for the range to close?
There were other targets to be engaged either way, and Mayner ordered another high-explosive round loaded. The plasma cannons were ordered to target pillboxes out on both flanks, while the lascannon in the hull was to hold fire in case of the appearance of enemy armour which had somehow been missed. It seemed an unlikely possibility, but experience had taught the crew of the Big Beautiful Doll to be prepared for anything, especially where the forces of Chaos were concerned.
Mayner let the other tanks take the lead, as the Vanquisher was not designed to be a breakthrough tank in the same way that the basic Leman Russ patterns were. Their battle cannons and heavy bolters were far more suited to blasting their way through fortified lines and engaging enemy infantry. The vehicles of the 1st Company pressed on. An enemy trench line, almost entirely abandoned and suffering bomb damage, was crossed with ease. Las-fire flashed over on the left flank, not just small arms but something heavier, a lascannon dug into one of the pillboxes. Welks' plasma cannon in the port sponson blazed in reply, scoring a deep gash in the earth that had been piled atop the structure. The lascannon fired again, but several battle cannon shells from other tanks smashed the front of the bunker and stove it in, an explosion of pinkish-red fire bursting through the roof as the spare lascannon power cells detonated.
Now the bunker ahead of them was firing too, another lascannon that had been waiting for the right moment to strike. Its shot found another tank, one of the 2nd Company, which came to an immediate halt, the driver dead or engine disabled.
'Gunner, target, bunker, eleven o'clock!' Mayner shouted into the intercom.
'Identified!' Cheyne replied.
'Fire!' he ordered.
The shell struck the top of the bunker's ferrocrete roof overhanging the firing slit. A torrent of rock and dust cascaded down its frontage, at the very least obscuring the gunner's view of further targets. Other tanks had spotted the danger, and together, shells pounded the bunker until this time it was well and truly out of action. They moved on, bypassing the smouldering remains of the bunker line. Missile launcher perched on the bridge struts began to open up on them as they approached. Third Company drove straight up the middle, onto the bridge ramp itself, criss-crossed with barbed wire and a couple of train cars pulled across the road as a futile attempt to barricade the bridge. There were no mines; the concrete roadway meant that they could not be buried into the surface as they would be in earth or sand, and thus would be completely visible to the Imperials unless somehow disguised. But there had evidently been nothing to disguise them with.
The mechanised were now dismounting, and the advancing guardsmen began to pick off the missile crews up on the bridge superstructure, though not before two tanks had been lost to the plunging fire of missiles striking their vulnerable top armour. The lead tank of Third Company rotated its turret so the barrel was facing to the rear, and used its dozer blade to start shoving the end of one of the rail cars out of its path, pushing it to the side and exposing a way through. Ineffectual gunfire pattered off of its armour as it did so, a petulant and futile attempt to stop its passage by the few men guarding the actual bridge deck itself.
'Poison Alpha Actual to any Cobalt Alpha unit receiving on this frequency, over.' Mayner's vox crackled. Poison was the callsign of the armoured battalion pushing up from the south to cut off the other end of the bridge.
'Cobalt Alpha One Actual, go ahead Poison Alpha Actual. I read you in the clear,' Mayner replied.
'Poison Alpha is moving into position, approxmately three miles south of target. Commencing attack now,' the battalion commander informed him. 'Watch for friendly fire, over.'
'Cobalt Alpha One copies,' Mayner replied. 'Be advised, Cobalt Alpha units are moving onto the bridge from the north now, over.'
'Posion Alpha Actual copies all. The Emperor protects. Poison Alpha Actual out.' The battalion commander signed off. Mayner watched the lead tanks of 3rd Company climbing up the sloping roadway onto the bridge. More train cars had been moved from the tracks onto the roadway, and were being used as strongpoints, with infantry firing from within, including another missile launcher. The width of the roadway was designed only for pony-drawn carts and carriages, not for tanks and other human vehicles, and thus was only wide enough for a single Leman Russ to drive along.
Mayner ordered Dinnis to take up a position near to the bridge approach to cover the leading units. There were still some enemy positions on the river bank that were holding out, but the main enemy line had been easily broken by the armoured thrust. It was quickly turning into a mopping up operation, as trenches and pillboxes fell, overrun by the tanks and the infantry who were following in behind, moving in to clear the enemy positions more thoroughly on foot.
Mayner ordered the tank to halt once they had maneuvered into a position from where they could observe most of the bridge. The lead tank was waiting at the edge of the bridge for the enemy soldiers up in the girders to be cleared away, lest they drop grenades and explosives down onto it from above. The mechanised infantry were moving onto the bridge approach to do just that, though climbing the narrow and rickety metal ladders to the highest spots and clearing every inch of the structure that was not visible from the ground would take some time.
'Poison Alpha Actual to Cobalt Alpha One Actual. we have reached the bridge approaches. Enemy resistance light,' the vox message from the other end of the span informed him. 'Launching our attack now.'
'Cobalt Alpha One Actual copies,' Mayner replied. The linkup would soon be completed, and Baltimare well and truly surrounded. Mayner scanned the horizon for any sign of the tanks across the river, but his attention was drawn to something closer at hand. He reduced the zoom and saw movement.
Out of a trench which lay directly ahead of Big Beautiful Doll, there came a man, a survivor both of the bombing and of the overwhelming armoured assault. He wore the dark, blood stained uniform of a Chaos fanatic, and in his left hand he clutched a canvas bag by its handle. A satchel charge. He clambered out of the trench and began to run towards the tank ahead of them, which had crossed the trench to approach the water's edge trenchline where the final enemy resistance was dug in.
There was no time to think. The main cannon was out of position, aiming up at the bridge to support the push of 3rd Company. The infantry were still behind them, with another trench between them. The man was charging towards the rear of the tank ahead of them. If his satchel charge came into contact and detonated against the rear armour, it would likely be more than enough to rip through it and destroy the tank.
'Driver, lascannon!' Mayner ordered. 'Target enemy infantry, twelve o'clock! Make it count!'
Dinnis only had a couple of seconds in which to target the man and fire before he covered enough ground that the lascannon shot would have struck the rear of the tank they were trying to protect. He had a small window, but he took it admirably, with no hesitation. The barrel of the lascannon swung just slightly, followed the target, and flashed. A bolt of light leaped instantly across the trench, and the man no longer existed, vaporised in a heartbeat. His improvised bomb detonated with a loud crack and a ball of flame, safely clear of the tank he had been targeting.
'Good shooting...' Mayner grunted and nodded in appreciation of DInnis and his quick reactions. A tank and its crew had most likely been saved as a result, and with the bridge being taken from both sides, it was not long until the last enemy resistance died out, a few scattered fanatics in the high girders tying up the attentions of the mechanised infantry as the lead tanks of both Cobalt and Poison met halfway. The bridge was in their hands.
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Seems like an easy mop up mission here for the Imperials, but as history has shown I kinda doubt its going to be all sunshine and rainbows. Something is going to rain on their parade.
Now comes the time consuming task of checking for demolition charges that could be there to drop the heaviest weapons into the river?
9966599
If its anything like Vraaks, it'll be the amount of carnage bringing in demons or heretic astartes.
I remember in the tabletop firing my russ's lascannon at 2 plague bearers as it's only viable targets the whole game and killing them both
9966747
The death korps of krieg rather enjoyed vraks most of the time
9972235
Thanks, I hope you enjoy the rest of it!
9973920
Nope, it's just another day in the Warhammer 40k universe!
9974227
As far as I was aware, I WAS sticking to how the canon was when I started writing (which was most likely before the publishing date- I really don't remember, it's been a long, long time since then). I guess I made an error mentioning Tirek and Twilight together, so just ignore that part. It's very hard to match up what was canon when and what only became canon after, what was retroactively made canon, what was removed from canon, what was broken by later canon, etc etc, especially after taking a five year gap from writing it. Like you said, much more stuff has come out since, which I've ignored as far as I'm aware. I've tried to stick to how it was around about season 2/3/4 (whatever it was when I was writing the first chapters).
Mentioning the Idol of Boreas I don't consider to be a problem- just because it was never mentioned in the earlier seasons doesn't mean it didn't exist. It stands to reason that it did, since it's an ancient relic- and its presence in a passing mention makes no difference to this story anyway.
I'm not going to introduce any characters that entered the show since season 3/4, so no, no Starlight, Sunset or anyone like that.
9974381
A battle did happen between the Griffons and the Imperial Guard- just off screen, so to speak. The pace will settle down somewhat as you read more. I thought it was a good idea to introduce the antagonists early, as it represents the shock the ponies must be feeling from the double invasion of their territory.
The initial goal of this story when I started writing it six/seven years ago was a bit more limited, but I've introduced more new ideas since resuming it. I have an end goal and a finale in mind, just slightly different from the initial ending I had envisaged.
I'm surprised that Big Beautiful Doll didn't come armed with a compliment of frag or canister shells or have a storm bolter mounted in the cupola for dealing with infantry.