Glory Imperialis: An Astra Militarum Omnibus (Warhammer 40,000) by Mark Clapham & Chris Dows & Andy Hoare & Richard Williams

Author:Mark Clapham & Chris Dows & Andy Hoare & Richard Williams [Clapham, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Games Workshop
Published: 2017-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

Twelve

Rearguard

For three gruelling hours, Flint led a tense rearguard action against the pursuing rebels, rallying troops verging on panic but stopping the retreat turning into a full-scale rout on several occasions. Flint saw no choice but to lead his force back through the carceri chamber, which seemed somehow twice the size it had on the way in, towards the insertion point. If he couldn’t call in the location of the rebels’ stronghold, there was no point in doing anything other than fight back to the regiment, but the commissar raged inside that the mission was unravelling with each passing minute.

Though the retreat was conducted with commendable discipline, Flint knew from experience that many of his troops were on the verge of collapse. Most had been fatigued even before battle had erupted and the pace of the retreat had been necessarily relentless. To slow up for just a moment would have invited disaster and Flint and the provosts had been forced to motivate the troops to keep moving and fighting by every means at their disposal.

Thirty minutes into the retreat, Flint’s force had taken its first casualty. A blunderbuss had been fired from a gantry high above and by sheer fluke found a target. One of Stank’s troopers, a man by the name of Skelt, stumbled and fell, his companions assuming he’d tripped over some piece of the debris scattered across the rockcrete floor. Turning back to aid his companion, Stank had cursed loudly when he saw the wound torn in Skelt’s neck. The man had died before Stank could help him, the blood washed away across the ground in the torrential downpour.

Less than five minutes later a dozen rebels leaped down from a gantry that Vahn’s squad had been passing under, swarming down the heavy chains hanging from the walkway to splash heavily to the wet ground. Without even breaking stride, Vahn opened fire as he charged the enemy, unleashing a burst of semi-automatic lascarbine fire that cut down three of the snarling rebels before a brutal melee erupted. As the last of the rebels fell dead to the floor, Vahn saw that two of his own squad had fallen too and three more had sustained wounds that would slow them all down as they pressed back towards the extraction point. Vahn and the unwounded members of his squad helped their fellows on, refusing to abandon them to the murderous attentions of the pursuing rebels.

Flint himself had been forced to draw his sword on several occasions, and each time he had used the opportunity to provide an example to the men and women under his command. It was a commissar’s duty to lead from the front, to do exactly what the troops were being asked to do, and to watch for signs of doubt or cowardice. On one occasion a group of rebel convicts had emerged from an oily sump Flint’s force had been dashing past, one of them catching hold of a penal trooper’s ankle and pulling the man down into the black depths.

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