Phoenix Bladesinger- AoS 12
Eight bombers with their guts ripped out flew over a Pit stronghold. Their interiors were crammed with an entire regiment of the Red Company. In addition to their rifles and backpacks they wore parachutes. They flew at night, navigating by map and compass. They arrived at the drop site eight hours before dawn. At eight hours before dawn the doors opened and the regiment began jumping out of the planes. The paratroopers popped chutes at eleven hundred feet and landed in the woods close to their targets. After cutting themselves down from the trees they began organizing themselves.
Veteran Gavin held onto the roof handhold. The voice of mission command crackled in his ear, “Time to drop T-minus sixty seconds, the light is red.” The white lights flickered red. Gavin waved the first man of his bomber’s twenty five forward, half his banner in this bomber, the other half in another. The man moved to the door installed in the wall. Gavin clapped him on the shoulder and nodded. The soldier snapped a nod back and placed his hands on either side of the door. The command channel crackled again, “Alright, time to drop. Best of luck to you.” The lights flashed from red to white to green. The jump doors opened. The first soldier took a firm hold of his ripcord shouted over the wind, “ELEVEN HUNDRED FEET!” and threw himself out of the plane. The next two stepped forward and Gavin slapped their shoulders, they shouted the altitude they would pop their chutes and jumped. Each pair repeated the ritual and jumped. After the last man jumped Gavin followed him out. He held himself wide, feet wide apart, arms out stretched, ripcord in his right hand. His visor fed him his altitude, the faint red glow of the characters illuminated the inside of his helmet. He ripped past ten thousand feet, eight thousand, five, four, three, two, as he passed eleven hundred feet he jerked the ripcord, and the parachute deployed. It jolted him and he changed his position to feet together and arms crossed across his chest.
The remainder of the fall passed quickly. He had been trained mainly to land in open areas, to hit and fold as you fall so as to not break your knees, perhaps a little short sighted given that almost all of the Pit’s controlled territory was covered in forests but they had also trained for water and forest landings. His chute got hung up in the trees so he was left maybe thirty feet off the ground. They had given him equipment to deal with that though. Gavin unhooked a grapple and line from his belt and threw it around the nearest large branch. He secured the rope to his belt and ran it through a descender. He then closed his eyes, muttered a prayer, and cut the straps of the parachute. As he fell and swung he let out more of the line letting the extra slack arrest his momentum. The slack brought Gavin close to the forest floor and when he was just scraping the ground he released the rope. Gavin tumbled through the under growth before fetching up against a tree.
Gavin picked himself up and began preparing for combat. He looked at the inside of his wrist where a screen and keypad were integrated into the vambrace. A few key presses and his visor came alive. The light reactive crystals in the glass became opaque and then began to glow. The world around him was lit by a reddish light as the night vision systems activated. A few more taps brought small green triangles onto the display. A small number came into being in the bottom left corner of his field of view, the display counted forty eight, his whole banner minus two. He continued to work the keypad, selecting and reading the name of each man, his number, and his vitals. Two of the triangles displayed flatlines. He started moving towards the largest group of triangles.
As he moved he unpacked his war gear. He already wore his armor, pistol, and blades. He slung his knapsack onto his front. He took out a half dozen grenades and slipped them into pouches on his belt, twelve more remained in the sack as well as two days rations. They were a Red company regiment, they wouldn’t need more. He reached behind him and grabbed his rifle while slinging the knapsack onto his back. The rifle was a newer design, made to fold and break apart. He slid the pieces together and set two pins into slots in the rifle. He loaded the rifle and opened his comms. The whisperer channels were filled with chatter. A few touches to the keypad informed him that the regiment had yet to make contact.
He strode into a small clearing. Thirty four of his surviving forty eight were gathered, and two body bags lay next to rapidly deepening holes. Using his keypad he set a rally point on his position and began ordering his squad leaders. Twenty of the men arranged themselves in a circle, prone, rifles facing outwards. The other fourteen began laying out maps on the forest floor. The four maps they rolled out showed rough twenty miles in every direction for about forty miles square. The maps had been made using air reconnaissance. A plane would do as fast a flyover as possible taking maybe fifty or so pictures. After doing that a few times they could get as reliable a map as you could make of the Pit’s territories. At least as reliable as it could get given how the woods tend to shift on the wrong side of the Wall. The red illumination of his night vision made the maps all but unreadable but turning it off and using mundane lights in the open would be all but a guaranteed death. The soldiers quickly set up a blackout tent and Gavin’s squad commanders moved the maps inside. Gavin squeezed in and after carefully closing the flap he turned on a small lamp and set it on the ground next to the maps.
The map makers had edited the raw photos into a comprehensive piece of information. Green lines circled the drop zones of the other banners and when he looked up from the map larger blue circles on his helmet display showed him the rough heading and distance of the other three banners in the regiment. On the map four zones were outlined in red. The largest of these was an entire sector designated only as the Graveyard. Gavin began to brief his squad leaders, “This sector is suspected by Imperial Intel to be a revenant spawning site, dead biogenic material goes in, Pit creatures come out. Our job is to go in, find out everything we can, get that info to command, and destroy the facility if at all possible. It will likely be heavily guarded and any newly created Pit creatures are also expected to be on station. As such we will work in concert with banners two and three. They will assault from the north and we will hit them from the east. Their job is pull off the main of the Pit’s forces, our job is to complete the primary objectives. As always once contact is made we’ll improvise. These three are secondary objectives.” Gavin said this while gesturing to the other zones outlined in red. He pointed to the one about a mile north of the main objective and continued the briefing, “This is a Strixe roosting and nesting ground. We’re supposed to kill everything inside and destroy anything that looks important.” Gavin moved his hand to the last two zones outlined in red. Both were north and west of the other two, much closer to the blue arrow that denoted the direction of friendly lines, “These two are Pit fortresses, bunker complexes, and hard points. They are the least important objectives, only to be attempted if we think we have enough men left to take them out. And only after the other objectives are taken care of.”
“While we’re taking care of the Graveyard, banner four will take down the Strixe nest. Once all of us are finished we’ll head for the rendezvous and move together to the last objectives. Remember, we have no air support, no behemoths or tanks, and our only artillery are the light mortars we brought with us. For this operation we are on our own. As befits our status as a suicide regiment I think I can say with confidence that we’ll do the best job we can under the circumstance. Am I right?” His officers saluted, left fist to right breast and whispered a firm, “Yes, sir.” Gavin turned off the lamp they were using and his turned his night vision back on. The inside of the tent returned tinted red and he led the way out. “Tell your men to get some rest, we have thirty minutes till we move. I need to contact our captain and the other banners.” The squad leaders nodded and began moving among their men, tapping shoulders, spreading the time till move, and the parts of the briefing they thought their squads should know.
As his banner settled down for a short break Gavin opened a comm channel to the captain and the other banners. In the channel there was an ongoing conversation. Waiting for a break in the talk he spoke, “This is Veteran Gavin, first banner.” There was a pause in the channel. “Carson, we’ll pick this back up later. Gavin, report. Over.” “Sir, we have mobilized and will move to phase line one in twenty minutes. We suffered two causalities on landing, no contact yet. Over.” “Alright, proceed as planned, over, out.” Gavin closed out the channel and sat down against a tree.
As the time came to move the banner’s squad leaders tapped and shook shoulders until every man was awake and standing, a dozen still stood in their watch positions. Gavin waved to his squad and the soldiers arrayed themselves in a single file line behind him. He scanned the five lines of his assembled squads. Two of them were missing one man from the line of ten. He waved two of his riflemen to fill the vacant spaces and led the banner into the woods.
They moved through the woods spread out. Each line marched twenty meters apart and each man five meters behind the next. They moved quietly in the heavy woods and undergrowth, all had been selected for their woodcraft. An hour after they left their drop site they came upon two dozen crates carefully arranged under camouflaged tarps. Four soldiers that had dropped with the crates joined up with Gavin’s banner bringing the number up to fifty two. Gavin watched as his banner unpacked the equipment. As they took out the valuable supplies Gavin kept a tally. Three flame throwers came out of the box with thirty-five second tanks, with two refills each. A powerful long range whisperer to send their findings back to command. Two crates were filled entirely with crystal explosive bricks, the detonators already attached. Every man got a clacker, the charges would go off… even if the one who pulled the trigger was the last man alive. Two more crates held ten MPAA, anti-armor weapons fired from over the shoulder, brand new straight from the factories. Hopefully they had enough to deal with anything big that they ran into. Six light, fifty millimeter mortars were also collected, the last of the lot. Gavin opened the channel to the captain, “Banner One, Veteran Gavin, Phase one complete, over.” The channel was silent for a count of ten, “Banner One, we read you, proceed to phase two. Over, out.”
The markers for banners two and three hovered three hundred meters forward and to the right. Gavin knelt and looked out between a pair of bushes. For a ring about two hundred meters across all the undergrowth was cleared out. The trees were also much taller, fewer, and their canopies larger. Between the trees obsidian obelisks stood. The black stone glowed with violet light, swirling in dark and evil runic patterns. Thirty two obelisks were spaced evenly across the clearing and exactly every twenty five seconds a revenant would step out of an obelisk in sequence. Each would march to a clearing off to the side and join one of three blocks of revenants. Probably four hundred of them stood there. There were also two pits in the center, the pits were filled with black slime and objects were rising out of the muck. One of the shapes was smaller, probably an envoy, the larger was almost definitely a hunter. The hunter was rising much faster than the envoy. Gavin opened the channel to the captain, “Banner one in position, Phase two complete, over.” The captains voice was hard and tense, “All Banners, begin Phase three, over, out.”
Gavin looked over his shoulder and nodded. The squad leader behind him raised his open hand and made a fist. *Thump,Thump,Thump* The mortars began their fire missions, twelve rounds each. Banners two and three also began firing, their mortars were soft, muffled by the deep forests. *Thump,Thump,Thump* The light machine guns began their steady fire. The mortar rounds began to impact. The hollow booms sounded. The neat blocks of revenants were torn apart. For a few moments the revenants stood still, unmoving, unthinking, empty shells waiting for the Pit’s will to fill them. Then they sprang into motion. The revenants moved for cover behind the pillars and trees. The last rounds of the mortar barrage landed and Gavin stood. “FORWARD!” He leaped through the last of the undergrowth into the circle of cleared ground. He ran hard coming to the first obelisk in moments. He pulled an crystal block of explosive out of a pouch, ripped the waxed paper off the glue side, slapped the charge onto the obelisk, and primed the detonator.
Gavin’s banner flowed through the pillars placing and priming charges at speed. As they flowed into the clearing their line merged with the other banners and their charge slowed from a run to a walk, firing steadily. The revenants returned fire. Then the flamethrowers were ordered to the fore. Fire blazed, the alchemical agents burning the revenants despite the stone like skin of the creatures. Gavin walked a little behind the front line, placing charges on every obelisk.
As Gavin stepped up to the next pillar but as he took out the charge a revenant stepped out of rock. It raised its rifle and Gavin had no time to bring his own to bear. So he charged the revenant. He knocked the revenants rifle away and slammed it into the obelisk, the revenant rebounded and lunged at Gavin’s throat. He hit it hard in the face knocking it away and drew his short sword. The revenant watched him with hollowed eyes, the colorless grey of its uniform stained by black blood dripping from its cracked face. It opened its mouth as if to speak and Gavin stepped forward and rammed his blade through the revenant’s face. He then reached for the charge he had dropped. A roar made him drop the charge again. He resisted the temptation to turn and look in the direction of the front before picking up the charge and setting it. Only then did he straighten and turn.
The hunter had risen from its pool and was rampaging through their lines! The scaly monster had already smashed half a dozen of his men and another half dozen were flying through the air. Their cries and shouts rang in his ears but he had already slipped away into the void. He began to run towards the hunter. One of his soldiers landed in front of him, the man had a MPAA slung over his shoulder. Gavin skidded to his knees next to the soldier and wrestled the MPAA of his shoulder. The Gavin’s banner had spread out, trying to stay out of reach of the hunter. All of the other men with MPAAs were down. Gavin moved towards the hunter, he was calm in the void. The hunter turned towards him. Gavin went to one knee as the hunter charged him and rested the long tube on his shoulder. The hunter came within a stones throw before Gavin pulled the trigger. The MPAA gave off a soft thump then the rocket screamed away. The warhead impacted the hunter at point blank range and exploded. The hunter stumbled through the smoke, wavering, a hole the size of a fist had been bored through its armor and out the other side of its body. It crashed to its side and lay still. The void drained away from Gavin and he saw that the battle still raged around him, Imperial infantry against the revenants.
“All units clear of blast zone, clear to detonate.” Gavin took the detonator in his hands and pulled the lever twice. *Clack, clack, BOOM* The obsidian obelisks disintegrated in the explosion and fire as the charges went off. “This is Gavin, Phase three complete, we have lost twenty seven out of fifty two, ready to proceed to Phase four, over.” “This is Banner four, squad leader three, Taron, acting captain, say again, did you say twenty seven out of fifty two? Over.” “Affirm, twenty seven out of fifty two killed in action, how are the other banners faring? Over.” “Gavin, we’re all down to half strength… meet us at the rally point. Over, out.”
Gavin clasped forearms with Taron, acting captain. Gavin slapped Taron on the shoulder, “Congratulations on the field promotion and I’m sorry.” Taron shrugged, “We’re a Red Company regiment. Every inch taken, every victory, every price paid forward in the blood of the Red company. Losses are not likely, they are guaranteed.” “Every life, every sacrifice, every battle, worth it for the ones we left at home.” The banner picked up and everyone finished the litany with the same breath, “Our lives for theirs, our pain for their peace, our sin of violence so that they never need raise arms.” The silence stretched for two dozen heart beats. Then Taron waved for Gavin to follow him. The other two banner leaders crouched, examining the map of the final objectives. Two Pit fortresses. Taron sat down and opened the conversation, “All your intel has been sent to command?” Gavin and the other two banner leaders nodded affirmation. “Great. With the losses we’ve sustained I don’t think we have enough fire power to take out both Pit strong points. As such we will assault this point.” He pointed to the northern strong point, “And try to break out towards friendly lines. We’ll try to bring down the strong point on the way out. This will ensure that our intel gets to command, whisperer comms are spotty enough under the eaves of the Pit’s woods, this deep there is a good chance our comms were caught in the Pit’s interference. We only have a hundred men left between the four of us. I reckon the best course of action would be to try and take the strong point by stealth and then move towards friendly lines from there.”
Gavin lay in the mud twenty meters from the revenant lines. It was twilight under the canopy of the trees, meaning that on the outside world it was probably high noon. The man to his left shouldered a MPAA. The captain spoke in their ear, “Execute.” The remains of the regiment stood silently. They remained unnoticed for a moment, the revenants on this side of the stronghold were lax, the Pit’s control over them barely enough to animate them. But they took notice when four rockets impacted into the trenches. A dozen revenants were ripped apart as the fragment jackets shredded. The soldiers screamed as they charged, they ran forward, bayonets fixed. Every man had a belt of grenades. They flowed into trenches, their bayonets flashing in and out, strike, twist, withdraw, strike.
Gavin pulled the pin out of his last grenade and tossed it into the dug out. The boom and the flash signaled Gavin and two others with him into the dugout. They stormed through the door and down the passage way attached to the room full of sprawled revenants. Their rifles snapped downing three revenants, they ran their bolts and dropped another three. They ran to the end of the passage and flooded the room, it was empty. Gavin lowered his rifle with a deep breath. “Returning to the surface, the under fortress is clear, over.” The whisperer stayed silent, Gavin repeated the transmission, “I say again, the under fortress is clear, over.” The channel yielded two seconds of static, then cut out. Gavin looked at the other two, “I can’t contact the captain.” The other two raised their hands to the side of their heads, the room was silent as they tried to use their whisperers. They glanced at Gavin, shrugged, and shook their heads. They all left the room at a steady jog.
They met a team of three jogging towards them, they joined together and the three soldiers led them to the operations center that had just been set up. As they walked the leader of the three gave a sit rep, “All comms went dead two minutes ago, we’re trying to figure out what’s up, Taron thinks that the Pit is focusing on us. We’ve already set pickets and we’re digging an operations center. Things are going slow, since comms are down we have to use runners.” They strode into the center chamber of the strong hold and were caught up in a flurry of activity. A couple of tables were covered in weapons scavenged from revenants, for rearming since most of the ammunition they had brought with them had already been expended. Another table had a long range whisperer with the guts ripped out as two technicians argued over whether or not they could boost the strength enough to get a transmission out to Imperial lines.
They reached the very center of the room and Taron turned towards them, “Gavin, do you have any experts in woodcraft in your unit? We need to get a party together and send them on their way.” “I have a few. But I thought the plan was for everybody to leave as one.” Taron looked at his feet and then back at Gavin, “Yeah, I plan on getting as many of us home as possible but it is more important that the intel gets to command. I’m going make a dozen copies of a letter, pick two or three of your guys to carry them out.”
Gavin walked to where the remains of his banner lounged, there were eighteen of them left. He gestured for two of them to rise, “Adrian, Lizzie, get your gear together. Your going to get out of here and take letters to command. Your going because you best woods men… and woods woman I have.” This last was said as both looked up with objections. Adrian was the youngest of the lot, seventeen, and Lizzie was the only woman in the entire regiment, her brothers in arms would shoot themselves in the foot before they let anything happen to her. Maybe their woodcraft wasn’t the only reason he was sending them out, but it was the foremost one. As he finished speaking a distant boom rang through the corridors and the concrete strong point shook slightly. The two soldiers tasked with running looked at each other and then at Gavin. He raised his hand to fore stall their arguments, “The decision is final, come with me to get those letters, the rest of you, if you already know were you need to be get to, go, if not head to the perimeter and get orders on the way.” A second explosion shook the fortress again.
Taron handed the two their letters and set his hands on their shoulders, “Creator shelter you and guide you home. Good luck.” The two took off jogging in the direction of friendly lines. Taron turned to Gavin as one of the pickets ran into the chamber. Another explosion roared and the sentinel stumbled in the rumblings. The man clutched his left side and blood ran from hole torn in his breastplate. Dozens of other holes and burns marked the left side of his armor. The man wavered then shouted, “Envoys! Two dozen at least and tanks!” The mans legs folded and fell over backwards. Silence reigned for three and a half seconds then pandemonium broke. Every man snatched a rifle and as much ammunition as they could bear. Taron roared, “HOLD!” Calm settled over the room. Then the men began organizing themselves into squads. Taron yelled into the silence, “Everyman with explosives, prime your charges. Your objective, get close as possible and detonate. Everyman without charges get the rest to their targets.” In the silence that followed the clicks of detonators being primed were loud.
A man near Gavin exploded as an Envoy focused on him. The shredded remains of the soldier tumbled off the lip of the trench and dropped one of the few remaining MPAAs. Gavin wormed his way across the bottom of the trench to seize the MPAA. The Envoys were knocking down any heads that poked above the trench ramparts for more than few breaths, that wasn’t even counting the mimic tanks that were bombarding the stronghold. He set his hands on the MPAA then changed his mind and stood peeking over the edge of the trench. Three Envoys stood eighty meters away in a cluster, they were scanning the trenches and dozens of revenants waited behind them, waiting for the signal to attack. He ducked, moved twenty paces to the right, and peeked again, judging the range and angle from his chosen firing position. He ran crouched over, picked up the MPAA and ran another twenty paces. He took the launcher and shouldered it, he straightened, aimed, held his breath for two heartbeats, and squeezed the trigger. The rocket streaked away, shrieking, and impacted with a deafening explosion. Gavin ducked back into the trench and ran twenty paces before peeking again. Only one of the Envoys had been downed by the missile, the other two had raised shields before the explosion could rip them apart.
Both the remaining Envoys looked at him and he threw himself flat to the ground and put his hands over his head as the Envoys began blasting the ground around him. Dirt sprayed around him as the Envoys flayed the concrete into dust. Gavin held onto his calm by a thread, counting under his breath until the bombardment ended. It went on for twenty seconds and when it finally stopped the world around him was silent. He moved into a crouch and began running along the trench. He saw explosions and soldiers firing but there was no sound. His ears began to ring but he still couldn’t hear. He saw a group of five vault over the edge of the trench and run towards two mimic tanks. Only the bombardier made it but the explosion ripped apart the tanks as the man detonated.
His hearing had mostly recovered by the time they were forced to retreat, they didn’t even try to hold the trenches. The flood of revenants combined with the constant bombardment had devastated their lines and shattered their unit cohesion. Gavin ran with a man slung across his shoulders towards the central chamber of the stronghold. He vaulted over the barricade and set the man down. Gavin knelt to render aid but the man brushed his hands away and slapped a detonator into his hand. The soldier gripped Gavin’s wrist, then the soldier went lax. Gavin held the detonator tight and began moving towards the center of the room.
Gavin couldn’t hear, again. The world was silent and it spun around him as he lifted himself on his right elbow. He turned and shoved himself up on his left side. He lay twenty feet from the man he had tried to help, the explosion had lifted and thrown him hard. He twisted and looked at where the remains of the regiment had been taking cover. The barricades and makeshift covers had been rent apart and the soldiers inside weren’t moving. He turned back to the door, four Envoys stood in the doorway, hands held out stretched as if casting something into the room. Gavin looked at his left hand, the detonator the soldier had given him was still clutched in it. He switched the detonator mode from synchronized to all and pressed his thumb to the red button, the dead man’s switch. He drew his pistol with his right hand and aimed it at the four Envoys. The first one stepped into the room, it was an unbelievably casual step. They were all but ignoring Gavin, he was no longer a threat. Gavin depressed the lever on the detonator, when he released it every primed charge in the room would go off. The Envoys had now taken several steps into the room. Gavin fired his pistol. He could hear again. The leading Envoy’s hand snapped up and a shield caught the round, it hung there for a moment, then fell to the floor with a quiet ping. Gavin fired again, then emptied the gun, with each shot the Envoys took another step. When the gun was empty Gavin threw it at them, it caught on the shield and fell to the floor.
“Your defiance is pointless now, you have already lost.” The Pit speaking through the Envoys sounded like snake skin sliding over stone. “No.” Gavin’s voice sound flat even to his own ears. “No? Your comrades are dead, mission over, you are going to die, you have lost.” Gavin lifted his hand and peeled his helmet off, “Survival was never a victory condition, it was never a requirement. I will not waste words on you. Kill me if you dare.” The lead Envoy cocked its head as if not comprehending, it stepped forward and loomed over him. Gavin looked up and smiled. “Humans. They have always fascinated me, since the days I rebelled against the Creator I have studied your kind. You have developed faster then I expected. You have achieved powered flight in a tenth of the time it took the elves. Yet for your intelligence you have done truly foolish things, you have broken open my prison twice and have tried to seal it with spells so weak it took barely two hundred years for we to work free. One day I am going to eradicate humanity if it takes me twenty thousand years and I have to chase you across the stars.” The Pit piloted the Envoy as it reached down to Gavin, the Envoy lifted him by the throat and began to squeeze. “I was once a being of great power but now I am greater, a force of nature. So often I find my mind slipping away, becoming little more than a beast waging war.” Gavin spoke with the last of his breath, “Burn you.” Gavin dropped the detonator. The Envoy’s magic caught it before it hit the floor, “What was that supposed to accomplish?” Every explosive block in the room exploded and the world burned.
“HEY! Unit and Serial!” Adrian came out of his stupor, he was out of the woods, the undergrowth no longer tugging on his legs. Lizzie groaned and he looked back at her. He had been dragging her for maybe two hours, they had gotten into a scrap four kilometers back and Liz had taken a bullet through the thigh, lost to much blood, hopefully the alchemists would be able to heal her. “Hey, you good?” Adrian looked at the source of the voice, two soldiers with the twin headed raven of the forty second legion stood in front of him. Adrian knelt and set down Lizzie, “We’re a Red Company, fifteenth company, fourth regiment, first banner. Has anyone else made it out?” “Creators breath, you’re one of the ones we’re supposed to watch for. Common, we need to get you out of here, we’ve lost one in ten patrols just this last week.” The soldier slung his rifle over his shoulder and helped Adrian lift Lizzie while the other soldier watched the wood line. “She needs a medic. And I have a letter for command, mission critical intel.” Adrian’s voice was weary. The soldier nodded as they walked steadily to friendly lines, “She’ll get the best we got and I’ll call a medevac asap. They’ll get you to where you need to go.” They handed Lizzie down into the trench where she was received by the two squads shadowing the patrol inside the trenches. They set her on a stretcher and began moving her up the trench. “Where is the rest of your unit?” The Veterans red arm band marked him out in the crowd. “Walk with me while you talk. Transport for you two is on the way.” Adrian stepped beside him and they began walking towards the second line. “They’re all back in there,” There was no need to say were there was, “A dozen others were sent out, if none of them have arrived…” “Understood. Any plans for what’s next? Your mission is complete, if you want out you’re free to go.” “Maybe, maybe.”